From the outset of Putin's crassly conceived invasion of Ukraine, this blog has consistently criticised the sheer military and strategic incompetence of it. We can hardly forbear to do the same for Trump.
The Donald's theory of victory appears to be this:
- prolonged, well-telegraphed buildup of forces
- decapitate[1] the leadership
- tell Iran to install new leader acceptable to Trump
- new leader to hand over lots of oil via some splendid "deal"
- walk away after a couple of weeks, handsomely in profit
- not crow too openly about having tweaked Xi's nose
- approach the mid-term elections as the Man Who Brought The Mullahs To Heel
We needn't dwell on how the reality is best described as Netanyahu coopting[3] the military might of the USA to make real Bibi's longstanding wet dream: it's how the whole world openly discusses it including, belatedly, 99% of the American public, which until now had been either (a) hoping Trump might somehow work out for the best (Maga Republicans) or (b) not daring to oppose Trump openly, for fear of some vaguely defined domestic retribution (Democrats plus liberal elites of all colours[4]).
If you want to lose sleep seriously this weekend, have a read of this. Small-boat crossings on the increase? We haven't seen a tenth of it.
ND
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[1] Well, tag along with Netanyahu's decapitation plan & pretend to be in control - read this, too.
[2] Funnily enough, the Venezuela gambit was working quite well, and Cuba was being lined up for a "quick deal" too, which could have played very nicely for the mid-terms[5]. Not any more.
[3] Did I say "coopting"? How about "hijacking and expending"? All Hesgeth's blather about "effectively unlimited magazine depth" was always, even a week ago, absolute nonsense. Stocks are already being drawn down from US forces in S.Korea. Taiwan looks increasingly like a lost cause, and S.Korea will presumably be readying its own nuclear programme. Indeed, probably the only reason L'il Kim doesn't chance his arm right now is the recognition that DJT is capable of anything.
[4] It was really noticeable how The US Establishment (media, judiciary, academia, NGOs, think tanks, institutes etc - even those that are essentially on the right) - initially went completely silent after November '24, and withheld much-needed criticism all through last year. Presumably they all feared for their funding (or worse) - and rightly so in many cases. That winter of silence has been thawing of late.
[5] The Dems had better not be complacent in their approach to the mid-terms: conventional wisdom of the "don't worry, it'll all be over soon" kind has been the downfall of many a lazy politician. The whole of the British left thought that about Thatcher in 1981. And we must be very cautious before assuming the US military will "refuse to obey illegal orders", as some spineless Dems have been urging.
15 comments:
"It was really noticeable how The US Establishment (media, judiciary, academia, NGOs, think tanks, institutes etc - even those that are essentially on the right) - initially went completely silent after November '24, and withheld much-needed criticism all through last year."
Yes because that lot were paragons of balanced and fair criticism of Trump Mk1............
I've taken to calling it Operation Epic Fubar.
On a different point: your ref (1) says
"Within weeks, Germany was at war with France, Russia, and Britain. Not because any of them threatened Berlin, but because an unconditional commitment to a smaller ally with a regional obsession had eliminated every reason for that ally to show restraint."
That's balls. The whole point of the blank cheque was that Kaiser Bill and his circle wanted a casus belli to let them fight a war with Russia, because Russia was industrialising so successfully that they felt that if they didn't fight her soon she'd be too strong to attack.
Professor Fischer explained this at the end of the fifties.
An alternative worst case scenario is that Usrael goes for the Serbia/Gaza option of destroying power supplies in Iran, and Iran responds by demolishing as many Gulf desalination plants as it can. Nasty.
And another thing: your link says "Secretary of State Marco Rubio ... was not whether to fight but whether to strike alongside Israel or wait until Iran retaliated against American forces in the region."
Why no third option? For example telling Israel "Your proposed action would damage American interests so don't do it. Don't forget who pays foots the bills for Israel."
The fact that such an option is unthinkable is surely revealing?
Not entirely convinced.
Seems to me that with Venezia, Trump kneecapped one of Xi’s supply legs for oil. Now with Iran, he’s kneecapped the other leg.
Not much talking about that “multipolar world” Xi has been cheerleading for the last few years. China reduced, publicly, to asking Iran to please, please pretty please let its tankers through. And to Trump, would you. If you don’t mind, stop being so beastly to our allies?
“But muh oil price!” I hear some just about to hit the keyboards to complain. The US is in a much stronger position than China on that score. It’s a net exporter of oil and, while some grades of crude are imported to match refinery capabilities, thanks to Trumps new friends in Central America, it’ll likely not go short on that, either.
Sure, “world prices” blah blah blah. High crude prices spur investment in US energy production (which was in the doldrums—we were in a supply glut ways back in, oh, I don’t know, February). And the US’s energy intensity per dollar of GDP is pretty low. China? Not so much.
Adding, for completeness, “wot ah-baat duh yookay, though?”
To which I can only present, for your delectations, the current UK energy mix for electricity generation: https://enact.lcp.energy/
“wE neEd t0 pROdUce ANd bURN MoAR GAs” never seems such a dubious proposition. Trump making Ed Milliband the hero of the hour? Who’d have thought it…
Don’t know where “ Venezia” came from… it should of course be “Venezuela”.
I take Clive's point about Chinese energy, but ...I was considering the US v China in the context of the late 19th and 20th century UK v Germany battle.
Although the Germans were and still are probably better industrialists than the UK, nonetheless the end of the confrontation was disastrous defeat for Germany. And at the moment Trump, without fixing US industry first, is stopping a big chunk of China’s oil supplies.
But Britain in her confrontation could and did call upon a big cousin, the United States, Churchill’s “gigantic boiler” with almost untapped resources. The US, which has changed hugely for the worse since 1939, has no such cousin to call upon, indeed the only possible candidate, the UK and Europe, has been enormously disadvantaged by the loss of Russian oil and gas. Almost daily I read bad news from German industry.
"the current UK energy mix for electricity generation" i.e. a day when walking in the woods makes you somewhat nervous and very glad the leaves aren't out yet.
The helicopter pilots taking people to Cheltenham are earning their money, as are airline pilots landing at Leeds and Birmingham.
US are moving all their THAAD systems from Korea to the Middle East.
In isolation, the removal of the Iranian regime would be an unalloyed good. In the context of the wider Middle East, without some post-removal plan, not so much.
Trump really doesn't understand geopolitics, through his lens it's all real estate deals, he'd probably sell Alaska back to Russia for the right deal and then wonder why he'd be being blamed for undercover Russian military assets flooding western Canada and the north western US...
Risk for the West is this is currently another war we're likely to lose, all the Mullahs need do is not collapse. Upsides are that Netanyahu may find himself brought to task. Successive US Presidents have been fed up to the back teeth of his arrogance, maybe Trump will do something about it.
The current trajectory puts this as his GW2 or Afghanistan.
On the plus side, on sites like the Speccie, the pro-Trump crowd are in full swing. If the old remainers want to see actual swivel eyed loons, there's an entire safari park's worth there.
Pretty typical day nowadays, February wind share knocked natural gas for powerburn well into second place (https://www.neso.energy/energy-101/great-britains-monthly-energy-stats) just as it has done all winter.
Natural gas for electricity generation will be down to 20% of the energy mix by the end of the year (even in winter) *just on the current build-out*.
Would have been even higher if it wasn’t for curtailment, but again, grid reinforcements *already in build* will take care of that in the next couple of years.
But sure. You keep kvetching for more natural gas dependency. Even if more licences for exploration and fracking trials was inked *right now*, any possible well flows that might, just, perhaps, come in stream in five years or so would immediately be diverted into natural gas for powerburn *just to replace what’s currently provided by renewables*. Way to go, energy policy genius.
Of course, far more likely would be LNG cargos. From some of the most unpleasant, unreliable and generally dubious countries in the world. And yes, I include the US in that. At nosebleed pricing.
Turkey - "There should be no questioning of Iran's territorial integrity, and no pursuit of regime change. We are against plans aimed at triggering a civil war in Iran and provoking conflicts along ethnic and religious fault lines," Fidan told a press conference with his German counterpart. "We are warning about this. No one should pursue such a fantasy. We would not allow it."
Venezuela is the diminutive of Venezia
One to remember for the triple word score square in Scrabble,
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