Trump and Putin: making up war aims on the fly

You don't need to be a second Clausewitz to know that wars of choice should have well-defined goals before even the planning gets underway, let alone the execution[1].  In saying this, nobody is advocating total inflexibility thereafter; but to launch a war without proper goals at the outset is just buccaneering adventurism.

It's a commonplace observation that Trump hasn't a clue what he's doing in the Middle East, beyond representing a vague, atavistic American fixation with Iran, and harbouring a ludicrously and dangerously false equation between Venezuela 2026 and Iran 2026.  To the extent he sometimes feels the urge to state one or more war aims, he's issued so many over the hours, days and weeks that it merely goes to reinforce his brainlessness.  (To its credit, the intelligentsia in the USA is gradually shaking off its paralysis of 2025 and is ready to call him out in scathing detail -  see this from the estimable Ryan Evans.)  Already we can offer his Iranian adventure as a perfect illustration of the principle given above: and we haven't remotely seen the full downside potential yet.

But there's another perfect illustration bubbling away somewhere north of Iran, where Putin still conducts his own ill-conceived war on Ukraine.

At the very outset, he articulated two war aims, plus a long list of gripes and grievances.  They were: (A) to "de-Nazify" Ukraine's body politic; and (B) to "demilitarise Ukraine".  In the same announcement he declared he had no territorial claims on Ukraine (sic), although it's fair to note that at the same time he was asserting that Luhansk and Donetsk were independent countries.  And of course he assumed that after his lightning war, there would be a puppet regime in Kyiv, Belarus-style, that would render territorial conquest irrelevant.

[In the runup to the "special military operation" (which was "defensive, in aid of Luhansk and Donetsk"), he had of course demanded that NATO and the EU shun Ukraine, and that the former must withdraw to pre-accession borders.  But those were hardly war aims: he hoped they'd fall into his lap at the negotiating table when Ukraine was, errr, defeated.]

Given A and B above, manifestly he has completely and utterly failed even by his own lights; and everyone in Russia knows it.  There has been no regime change in Kyiv, whatever childish political label he wants to attach to it.  And demilitarisation?  Pound for pound, Ukraine now has the best army in the world, a thriving defence industry, world-leading expertise in drone warfare, etc etc; and is reducing a vastly larger force to ruinously costly advances through unimportant hamlets at snail's pace.   Oh yes, and on the other side of the front line it is degrading Russia's mighty energy industry to a material degree; periodically grounding its civil air movements; blocking its ports; sinking its ships; and (in conjunction with sanctions) hobbling its economy.   

Here's where it gets interesting for the theme of this post.  Reports from fairly reliable Russian sources suggest Putin is under tremendous internal political pressure to find an off-ramp before the economy nosedives.  Those oligarchs still have some sway, if they conduct themselves cautiously.  One major thrust of this exercise[2] is to come up with some - wait for it - War Aims, such as can plausibly be declared duly accomplished.  Then it's "home for tea and medals" as we say in the British Army.

What, then, do we imagine his newly-forged war aims will be?  It's a serious question, notwithstanding  that sarcastic suggestions come quickly to mind.  

We'll take both kinds BTL - let's see what we can come up with to help L'il Volodya with Project "Absolute Victory26".

ND 

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[1] Long-time readers will know I often laud George HW Bush (Bush Snr) for his adherence to this principle when setting out to evict Saddam from Kuwait, 1990-91.  More on that conflict by following the 'Kuwait' and 'Saddam' tags on that post.

[2] Another is to keep plugging away at Trump, trying to persuade him that utter Ukrainian defeat is just around the corner, so why not tell Zelensky to surrender?  Yeah, right.  I have a feeling the moment for this gambit has passed.

Starmer is getting cocky

A while back I suggested Team Starmer had decided to tough it out: and I'm now utterly convinced of it.  Among several straws in the wind is a flying wooden beam: he's boasting about taking us back into the single market by stealth!  This is not a man who reckons he's done for at the end of May: quite the opposite, he visibly exudes the same kind of calm faux-authority over the heads of his pygmy-challengers that he did back in 2020, when he was obviously going to win the Labour leadership 'race'. [1] 

Given the fallout amongst the ranks of his former advisers, we must presumably look to Miliband for Team Starmer's current level of brazen confidence; some kind of bargain that runs: you do what I tell you, and if you're still here in June - which you will be - you'll make me Chancellor. [2]  Ominously, Miliband knows exactly what he'd like to do with the role.

It doesn't hurt that, even in the midst of endless and ongoing tactical miss-steps[3], Team Starmer have lighted upon a phrase to use in connection with Iran, which they clearly the believe to be highly felicitous:  I won't be dragged into this war!   

The bottom line is: he currently looks confident, which is 90% of the battle when it's just 330-odd fractious and frightened parliamentary sheep you need to get in line - with the Streetings and Rayners of this world left looking pretty sheep-ish themselves.  Yep, Team Starmer have convinced themselves they are going to see the post-May period out, and in some comfort.

And those May elections?  Is Reform really going to sweep the board, as sone thought inevitable not so many weeks ago?  Well, maybe, but I doubt it.  In my manor, they are a complete rabble, feuding like crazy amongst themselves.  If by some strange twist of the electoral arithmetic they were to get the mayoralty and/or the council, they'd not have a clue what to do with it: and in the meltdown-process of colourful infighting and manifest incompetence thereafter, they would lose any hope of a decent result come the next GE.  Is this representative of Reform across the country as a whole?  I'm guessing so.

One might imagine that Greens, equally full of chancers and losers, are just that little bit less likely to blow things completely by way of fratricide in any council where they get power in May.  We haven't had Peak Green yet; though I'll hazard a guess we've had Peak Reform.  Meanwhile, Starmer struts confidently around his confected B-list gigs here and around the world, and the media portray him in exactly the way Team Starmer have scripted for them.  His nerve, his brazen shamelessness, is holding. 

ND

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[1] Who remembers Long-Bailey or Nandy now?

[2] Though I still maintain that, the longer he hangs in there, Miliband stands a chance of the leadership for himself

[3]  E.g.

• "You can't use our bases ...
• ... oh, actually, yes you can"
• Chagos
• HMS Dragon
• RFA Lyme Bay
• "I need to talk to my team"

... etc etc - and that's just the last few weeks.  Then there was Mandelson, the by-election, ...

Negotiating with Iran? Waters always muddy there

So are there any substantive negotiations taking place, as Trump avers?  Or "talks"?  Or even "talks about talks"?  Well something, probably: but there's very good reason to be genuinely confused rather than just plain disbelieving.

Here's a first-hand story.

Back in the mists of time, when dinosaurs (Saddam, Khomeini etc) roamed the earth, I was working for a US oil company.  Then, as now, there was an American embargo on selling stuff to Iran; but the Iranians needed specialised oil products that they were unable - strange though this may sound - to produce locally themselves: and somehow we had State Department approval to sell it to them.  But it had to be done very discreetly.

Negotiations commenced, in London and Hamburg, with no American staff members involved.  There were several difficult issues to resolve, so it wasn't a simple horse-trade on price; and the whole thing was quite drawn-out.  We had an OK working relationship with our Iranian opposite numbers.

Then one day another Iranian turned up unannounced at our London offices and sought a meeting: he knew all our names & telephone extensions.  We hastily convened, and he laid out on the table all the paperwork relating to the deal, announcing that we would be dealing with him from now on.  Being somewhat taken aback, we were entirely non-committal and progressed nothing beyond making a few notes.  Upon his departure we called our previous contacts, who told us to have nothing to do with this individual, and that the whole episode was "a mistake" and should be forgotten.

We could only conclude there were competing middle-men in play and that in this murky world, copies of the paperwork could be procured for a price.  The complicated deal eventually came to completion after several more weeks.

But not without another remarkable episode.  With a particularly knotty issue being thrashed out, one of our interlocutors suddenly leaned forward and said in agitated tones:  you must concede this point to me, otherwise my family will be arrested!

I have been in many a difficult & protracted negotiation, including with Russians and Chinese counterparties.  But this is not a gambit I have met, before or since.  I have to tell you that we politely ignored his personal anxieties (genuine or otherwise) and proceeded with getting to the ultimate handshake by more conventional horse-trading.

Yes, customs & practices in that part of the world are, well, a bit different (I could tell you other stories about dealing with Arab counterparties - and Russians** & Chinese, too.)  For all his vaunted "New York real-estate expertise" Steve Witless-Dummkopf doesn't look to me like the kind of person who'd be much good at figuring out what's really going on.  Heaven help us all.

ND

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** The critical trap with Russians is their readiness to fall silent in meetings for very sustained periods of time - the record in my experience was something like 45-50 minutes: a tactic designed to make the other side's nerve crack & offer just any concession they can think of to break the apparently awful deadlock.  Well, if that's all you are made of, it'll work every time.  But 'silence implies nothing' is the operative axiom.  Oh, and never get stuck with a firm homebound airline booking (which most people do, just to get out of the miserable surroundings).  They'll back you up against it every time. 

TACO Trump signals he's had enough

Such has been the volatility of events in the Gulf, commentators have had very little of substance to offer beyond the macro comments that Trump has been dancing to Netanyahu's tune, that the mullahs' regime has a lot of intrinsic resilience & indeed strength in many dimension, and that the Gulf states need to come up with a new business plan.  OK, we can all conjure up lurid worst-case scenarios.  But what does it mean for mortgages and prices at the pump?  Etc etc.  

This uncertainty manifests itself in endless commentariat hedging (e.g. HMG, BBC) but also in outright hysteria.  The very dubious Fatih Birol of the IEA has delivered himself of the view that the current situation is like the first two oil crises (1973-4 & 1979) plus 2022, all rolled up into one.  Well, no, it isn't - yet.  Like, not even remotely.  I worry when people like him have influence on world affairs (if indeed he does).

Back, then, to Trumpety-Trump.  His demeaning and very public flailing and railing over the past week clearly signals he doesn't like how things have turned out, one little bit.  (Why wasn't I told Iran wasn't like Venezuela?)  So now we know that a combination of negative market sentiment and negative MAGA sentiment marks the limits of his manic confidence.  That's a comfortably low threshold for him recognising a need to sober up.  One might have feared his personal pride, running up against the brick wall of Iranian intransigence, would result in a ratchet effect all the way up to a small nuke.  We need our leaders to have some kind of restraints.

On the downside (and speaking of small nukes), we're left with the enduring problem of Netanyahu, who might very well find himself owning the broken vase in a short while from now.  Now there's a man who doesn't sober up just because the Dow Jones slips a few points and the neighbours are banging on the walls.

On the plus, we have a lot more realistic input on the thorny issue of what air defence needs to look like in the late 2020's, coupled with a pressing need for the west's armaments industry to gear up for several years of serious production.  We might also escape the nightmare of Iran becoming a failed state, which would make the Syrian and Afghan exodus of the last decade look like a picnic outing.

What it all means for NATO / Cuba / the mid-terms / Taiwan / Russia-Ukraine / Starmer etc etc etc ... time will tell. 

Finally, it seems Trump won't be going on the planned trip to Beijing in the immediate future.  Given that in all probability he'd have been induced to give away more of the family silver to the Chinese, that's a good thing.  Let's hope he never goes there again.

ND 

A great weekend for this p***k to resign quietly

On any other news day, this would have been another nail in Starmer's coffin.  That Special Relationship, eh?

By their friends shall ye know them

All in all, Starmer will be pretty pleased not to have been the wall-to-wall weekend headlines.  Heavy price for the Middle East to pay, though, just to spare these b******s blushes.

ND

Venezuela through Russian and Chinese eyes

In the previous post I suggested: 

... the Venezuela adventure is ... forcing Putin to eat more shit as he is lamely reduced to asking that his tanker crew will be nicely looked after.  Yep, lots of random shit happens on Planet Trump ... both Russia and Xi are utterly dismayed, as ever, by the casual ease with which perfidious western nations sweep away years and even decades of patient strategic effort: this time Venezuela, the latest in a long series  

- that series including Libya, Syria and Iran-as-Middle-East-counterweight (and supplier of arms to Russia).

Taking Russia first: Putin really had set a lot of strategic store by Venezuela - proportionately, a lot more than Xi, for whom these things are merely road-bumps, however annoying and tactically unpredictable.  Ditto Syria, ditto Iran.  Putin is beholden to N.Korea, FFS, at the same time as trying to project a superpower profile, so these setbacks are pretty hard to swallow.  The Bear with the sore head is unlikely to cut anyone any favours on its western borders, witness the performative missile strike on Lviv; but he'll be watching Iran with an awful sense of déjà-vue doom.  Where to parade his plonker now, except in the Donbas?

China looks very different.  Xi pretty much believes in regional hegemony!  So Venezuela may be a bit of a setback to a maturing long-term plan, and oil is oil; but hey, Taiwan is the only thing he really cares about, period.  

Also, he's looking forward to wiping the floor with Trump - again - this year.  He played Trump brutally last year.  You say 'tariffs', Mr Trump?  Nope, and we raise you rare earth metals.  Now, hand over your very best chips, lots of them, before we reduce your remaining industries to rust and dust ... That's the way, Donald, there's a good boy.  Now run along.

And 2026 is the mid-terms ...  Venezuela, pffft.  Trump and Xi are scheduled for a couple of summits this year, and the Chinese will be expecting to ream him again.  What else of gigantic strategic value will Trump give away this time?  The dawning of the Chinese era stands to be accelerated materially in just a few months. Scary stuff. 

ND

UPDATE:  see thread below - this is getting complicated !  

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/17/china-blocks-nvidia-h200-ai-chips-that-us-government-cleared-for-export-report

Advising Starmer on Iran & the legal stuff

An interesting challenge for the Attorney General, one Richard, Baron Hermer - a controversial figure, one-time mate of Starmer's, but rumoured to be for the chop in the first Cabinet reshuffle.  But maybe not just yet ...

UPDATE:  see this, from Guido today.  But you read it here first.

Poor Starmer: so desperate to remain in the kneeling position with Trump, but, oh, the legalities of supporting unilateral bunker-busting.  As we know, Kier is so-o wedded to the international rules-based order of things.  Him a lawyer and all.

And if Trump never really wanted to have his second term characterised by US involvement in Middle Eastern 'forever wars', well, Starmer can hardly be ecstatic about following Blair into the politico-historical dustbin of history by rash association with the wild man of the White House.

So what will Hermer advise, and how "flexible" will he turn out to be.  Remember Blair & Goldsmith?   And the Blairite legacy.  That Iraq thing, eh?   And the big inquiry afterwards.  Wow, that seems a long time ago.   But then again, history rhymes ... (with the usual apologies to G&S)

When I was a lad I made it big
As fixer-in-chief in an Attorney's wig
I cleaned up scandals and I swept up sleaze
And I pandered to the wishes of the Big Big Cheese
(He pandered to the wishes of the Big Big Cheese)
I pandered to the wishes of the Power in the Land
And now I’m sitting here with his balls in my hand

As Attorney General I made such a mark
That he asked me to change my advice on Iraq
I quickly saw the error of my ways
And gave him what he wanted without delay
(He changed his advice without delay)
I told him he could do whatever he planned
So now I’m sitting here with his balls in my hand

Now lackeys all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your conscience isn't fettered by scruple or qualm,
Be guided by this rule and you’ll meet no harm.
(He is guided by this rule and he’s met no harm)
Keep your own head down during Custer’s Last Stand
And you may come away with his balls in your hand

ND

Does Trump know how to play Putin?

He's already winding him up mercilessly.  The context is that Putin's very substantial and prickly pride has been deeply wounded by being flatly ignored and personally banned by the entire western world for several years, and that his travel and international interlocutors are constrained to China, Iran, North Korea and, errr, back to China again.  He is absolutely desperate to be out on the World Leader circuit again, as fast as possible.  And in his optimistic moments his hopes are high.

Now, nationalist Russian sentiment is aggrieved - and is certain Putin is also angry - that Trump has failed to recognize with sufficient gratitude that Soviet Russia won WW2.  They say Putin will assuredly give Trump one of his "history-lesson" rants whenever they do finally get to talk.  He is given to rants of this kind: lengthy and rambling with a mind-numbing effect on audiences.  Nobody outside of the aforesaid China, Iran and N.Korea is trained to "listen attentively" to these things any more: the days of Fidel Castro at the podium are a distant memory.  

And in Trump, they have truly misread their man.

For all his gargantuan failings in many departments, Trump has a colossal amount of low cunning in the matter of personal encounters and human psychology.  Both he and Putin have made vast capital from their differing abilities in human engagement, so they both operate psychological theories of a kind.  But mano a mano?  When dealing with anyone other than meet-the-people walkabout audiences, Putin self-evidently relies on pure menace and intimidation - he even considers this a matter for pride and the TV cameras - a very Russian thing.  Look at the merciless, gleeful, premeditated way he literally set dogs on Angela Merkel, a well-known cynophobiac.  It'll be water off Trump's back: the man doesn't give a toss for such things (and probably won't even grant a face-to-face meeting).  But having already been baited, can we see anxious, urgent Putin going for everyone else's Plan A, viz abject flattery?  Really?

Both Putin and Trump are of course themselves the subjects of endless psychological analysis and speculation, professional and amateur.  But you know who can play them both?  Well, maybe Xi, who has the luxury of considering his chess-by-post moves very carefully, and never needs to make a move he's not totally comfortable with.  But Xi is unlikely to hold the key to restoring Li'l Volodya's fortunes in the Big World of Global Prestige.

The relevant answer is ... Zelensky.  If you've seen one or other of the lengthy TV documentaries on the man, you'll be in no doubt whatever that the little comedian / showman / war leader is absolutely masterful in his personal dealings - with whole crowds of foreign politicians as well as one-on-one encounters.  He, too, has had a very long time to ponder the arrival of Trump, but his conclusions and plans for this critical juncture will have been a lot more adroit than the twisted frettings of Putin.  I'd rate Zelensky's chances quite highly of making a bit of strategic hay over the next couple of months.

On the other hand I doubt very much that Putin's upside scenario  - Transactional Trump the famous isolationist, wants a quick PR win, and gives me everything I want - will play out anywhere other than in his most optimistic dreams.  The downside - still in the global naughty corner come summer, Ukrainian drones still falling nightly on my oil refineries, and another trip to Pyongyang in the diary - looks a lot more likely.  

And Zelensky will still have a ghastly, grinding war on his hands.  Perhaps with a few more weapons in the armoury, though.  And Xi will continue to sit there quietly at his own global chessboard, planning his Taiwan campaign.

ND

The geo-politics of 2024: a seriously good read

Here's a seriously good offering by a heavyweight US historian of the geopolitics of the modern age.  We all have our amateur views on this stuff: but Zelikow is a professional, giving thought-provoking inputs from a range of telling 20th century precedents and parallels that I certainly wasn't familiar with and I'm guessing few others would be, either.  There are also some very basic history lessons the whole world should be taking  ... 

The Axis powers all ... hoped America would decide to stay in its hemisphere and mind its own business. They were not sure just when or whether they should do anything that would bring the United States into the war. Though each side started from a posture of basic hostility, they had to make new choices. The United States decided to arm Germany’s enemies. And it decided not to abandon beleaguered China ... Roosevelt did try hard to find an accommodation with Japan. His efforts in the first half of 1941 were entirely fruitless ... At all times Japan was prepared to negotiate about Indochina. It was even prepared to forego the great plans for the southward advance into resource-rich British and Dutch colonies. But Japan was not prepared to yield its domination of China ... Tokyo redoubled its efforts, diplomatically and militarily. The new government decided that it would either conclude a deal by the end of November - even a temporary one - or it would go to war. In this crunch time, the United States still would not write China off. This U.S. commitment to China was not well-understood at the time or by historians now. For Roosevelt, the commitment mainly arose from his complex calculations about the war in Europe - the need to keep the Soviet Union from collapse and therefore the need to keep Japanese troops tied down in China.   It is worth recalling today, as Russia and China confront the United States, that the proximate reason for America’s entry into World War II was its determination to save those two countries from extinction.  (my emphasis)

He feeds all the historical considerations into his analysis of today's situation for America (and Russia, China, Taiwan, Japan, Iran ...).   His lengthy conclusions start thus: 

I believe the anti-American partnership has probably decided to double down. They are probably preparing in earnest for a period of major confrontation. My view on this rests on my analysis of the history presented above as well as some key assessments of Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, and - to a lesser extent - Pyongyang. Xi and Putin regard themselves as world-historical men of destiny. They believe they are capable of decisive, strategic action. Xi ranks himself with Mao and Stalin. Putin evokes the memory of Peter the Great. In China, Russia, and Iran the information and decision environments are cloistered. In China, Russia, and Iran the propaganda ministries have already been preparing their populations for a time of war, great sacrifice, and existential struggle ...  I believe that some Iranians have now stored up so much resentment and hatred that they may be desperate to do almost anything to get at Israel. The North Korean intentions seem driven, but as opaque as usual. My working hypothesis is that they are preparing for a period of conflict and that they are wondering about possible opportunities to play an important role. In each capital there are arguments for retrenchment on one side and, on the other, for more militancy. The more militant factions have likely been arguing and speculating about ways to turn over the table. Beijing’s outlook is both the most important and the most difficult to assess, since its government has visibly sought a policy of “peaceful coexistence” with the United States. I think it is most likely that Beijing has assessed that the die has been cast for a period of escalating confrontation**.

Strongly recommended.  Incidentally, given the foregoing, the idea that appeasing Putin over Ukraine makes things better, or would have if we'd done it prior to 2022, seems to me a very odd one.

ND 

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**He has a very interesting view on China's most likely strategy for Taiwan

Iran / Israel: George Bush Snr's 1991 doctrine needed

Prisoners of Geography (Tim Marshall) is a well known, oft-quoted book on geopolitics.  It's really an A-level text - first-year university stuff at best.  I don't have a copy to hand.  But the weekend's news from the middle east brings one of Marshall's often quite blunt assessments to mind, which from memory runs roughly thus: 

A lot of people in middle eastern nations harbour vicious and irreconcilable hatreds against each other.  It's a typical mistake made by western folks, not to believe middle easterners when they say they hate someone, and what they intend to do about it.

OK, so we believe it: this whole matter is filled with irreconcilable hatreds, and people hell-bent on killing their neighbours.  And that these hatreds can spill out all over the place, not least the www.  So let's try to keep this thread strategic.

1) Looks like Netanyahu, in furtherance of his political / personal goals, has played Biden ruthlessly, successfully - and transparently.  Plenty of commentators saw a canny, US-suckering escalation coming.  Forewarned isn't always forearmed.  Still, Biden should have been able to do better than this for the furtherance of his own goals - not least of which is retaining independence of agency.  That said ...

2)  "Can the USA be relied upon any more to protect its friends then, eh?"  And indeed, can coordinated onslaughts of massed, mix-&-match missiles be defended against - by anyone?  Russia thought it had proven the answers were "no", and "no".  Well, there's a bit more to ponder now, on the part of the many people in the RoW who have been wondering about that.  Including ...      

3)  Taiwan and, errr, China.   Ah yes, China.  We read that, once again, the Chinese are "very interested" in what's going on in the middle east.  But, once again, just as in the case of their some-time client Libya, China's role seems to be that of a rather academically interested spectator.  When are they going to become that global great power they keep billing themselves as?  And it's back to the drawing board for that invasion of his own Xi keeps toying with.  ("One Iron Dome system, please, for the oriental gentleman to the north of the Philippines.") 

So, back to Netanyahu.  In 1991, Saddam Hussein launched a wave of Scuds on Israel (and Saudi).  George Bush Snr told Israel to stay its hand - which was just as well, because the pointy end of the  Israeli airforce had taken off moments before the first missile landed (we could detect Scuds at launch even in those days) and was in a holding pattern, waiting for the order to nuke Baghdad etc.  (You might like to refer back to my 30th anniversary account of this episode.) 

We all need "Ironclad" Biden** to dust off his history and make that call, firmly and credibly.  Is he up to it?  

ND

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**Wasn't that subtle of him, eh?  See, he does have some advisers with their heads screwed on.  They just seem to go missing at vital moments.

USA: withdrawing from world affairs?

It may seem perverse to wonder whether the USA is withdrawing into an isolationist shell only a couple of days after it has orchestrated a rather modest coalition[1] into military action against the Houthis.  World Policeman, or what?  Yet I can't help feeling this may be the reflex action of a former bruiser who was in the process of retreating from the fray ("leave it babe, he ain't wurf it") when somebody rushed up to take another swipe at him anyway.

Well, maybe that will persuade him to get stuck right back in there again.  People inside and outside America have been urging its government since the first few years of the Monroe Doctrine to disengage from the ROTW and concentrate on self-sufficiency and domestic affairs.  That long-lived policy saw American governments intervening all over the place, to no obvious good effect, for many years.  There was always a "leave it babe" faction advocating the opposite[2].  But overseas intervention is a hard habit to break.

But what would getting stuck right back in there entail, in a world of truculent Russians, increasingly confident & capable Turks, Iranians and N.Koreans, an out-of-control Netanyahu, and, errr, China?

For one thing, it would require military spending on an implausible scale.  The USA of Bush / Clinton / Bush / early-Obama not only operated with no serious Russian threat and only the early signs of Chinese (and Iranian) upsurgence, but also with far and away the biggest & best-equipped armed forces on the planet.  Not any more.  The Peace Dividend[3] has been taken in no uncertain terms, and the USA could no more fight the fabled "two big wars and one small one, all at the same time" than fly over the moon.  (And it's not very good at flying over the moon any more, either.)

So what are the voices that will prevail, longer-term, in Washington?  There is certainly a bellicose "pivot to China" lobby, which thinks in terms of defending Taiwan and the South China Seas.  There's another modest coalition of nations behind this one, too (always us and the Aussies, eh?  Us with our two naked aircraft carriers and all.)  But drill down deeper, and the practical measures being advocated by all except the outright headbangers are a great deal less offensively-minded than in years gone by.  The talk is of porcupine defence, stand-off weapons, drone-swarms etc - not marine divisions storming up the beaches under 100% air-superiority.  Just as with the Roman Empire: when you trade in your stabbing sword for a long-sword, you're basically on the defensive, however widely you cast the perimeter. 

And that's the warlike lobby - many of whom would withdraw substantially from the Middle East, too - not to mention looking to Europe for the bulk of support for Ukraine.  The outright isolationists & Trumpists would cheerfully deal with China - perhaps in return for their taking N.Korea out of the equation.

And what will Starmer do then, poor thing?  Some, of course, think he'll rush to Rejoin.  There could conceivably be an intelligent offering from the EU on that score.  But, interestingly, his track record as DPP was of shameful, grovelling obeisance to Washington, which seems to be a deep instinct for him.  

He'd certainly keep the RAF busily bombing on whatever coordinates Biden dictates.  While old Joe is still slugging it out at the bar.

ND

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[1] What were we doing there?  The answer is obvious: the traditional combination of (a) the general policy of sticking with our biggest & most important ally, come what may (not entirely without merit, though Wilson never saw fit to gratify Johnson in Vietnam); and (b) the age-old tradition of us in these islands:  show us a good fight, and we're in!  (a.k.a. oi'll foight any t'ree of yuz!) 

[2] It's been argued that the only thrust under the Monroe Doctrine, broadly conceived, with genuinely strategic justification was the annexation of Hawaii in 1898.  The others, all over Latin America and even beyond, were generally deeply controversial within the USA itself

[3] What peace? - Ed

Gordon Brown's aircraft carriers - looking sillier than ever

'Silly' is too light a term for Brown's costly pork-barrel folly.  He lumbered us with two ocean-going white elephants that wouldn't last 10 minutes against the Chinese.   ('Prince of Wales' !  What cynic came up with that? - as we've joked before.)

That prediction of fragility in combat might have been conjecture until very recently, albeit fairly universally endorsed.  But now ... well, now we've seen Ukraine defeat Russia's much vaunted Black Sea Fleet with little more than naval drones, aerial drones and some helpful, accurate intelligence from its friends.  Quite literally, that fleet is no longer a combatant: reduced to ignominious retreat to more distant ports.  Maybe - just maybe - US Carrier Groups have so much air-defensive firepower that they stand a chance of defending the mighty jewel at the centre of the protective ring.  But maybe not even them.  And certainly not the RN.  Asymmetric warfare at its apogee.  Like the advent of the torpedo, before destroyers were invented.  Think what anti-capital-ship effort even Iran could mount these days, let alone China.

Did I say a costly folly?  The expenditure alone - past and ongoing - on the UK's aircraft carriers is bad enough.  But the way that the very possession of the carriers drags UK defence policy into deep and distant waters will probably be more costly still.

ND

Biden & those multiple Trump sanctions: what now?

The wokerati seem to have invested a lot in Biden, and maybe with good reason as regards domestic policy; but is he going to turn out to be a Hillary-style hawk abroad?

Of particular interest to me is whatever is going to be the successor to Trump's fairly determined policy on blocking Nord Stream 2, the substantial Russian / Gazprom gas pipeline project designed strategically to outflank comprehensively their own former Ukrainian export route.  Germany of course is the intended landfall, and Germany has long stuck doggedly to its own wholly self-interested Russia policy, in the face of widespread unease and often downright condemnation elsewhere.  And yet Germany is exceptionally keen to cozy up to Biden, hoping he'll be both friendly and not overly concerned to make them step up to the plate as regards NATO contributions.

Then there's China ... and Iran ... was there a single global hotspot at which Trump wasn't throwing America's considerable sanction-clout around?  However much bravado the three target-countries muster, they do all suffer under sanctions to a greater (Iran) or lesser (China) extent.  If you've ever done any business where a sanctions-related issue arises, you'll know how paranoid mainstream western companies are about "transgressing" unilateral US diktats.  And of course most other western nations have broadly similar top-level policy goals as the USA in these matters anyway, even if no intention (or ability) to pursue them with as much (or any) vigour.

What will be the successor-policies under the new US regime?  Hillary Clinton's reputation in many quarters is that of an outright warmonger, so being a Democrat isn't per se much of an indication.  And then there are the Biden family's, ahem, *wider interests* ...

ND

China in Iran: In Whose Dreams?

Several days ago, one of our Anons alerted us to this in a BTL comment on the "Chairman Xi" post.  Astonishing stuff ... if true.  Everyone's worst nightmare.

a large-scale roll-out of electronic espionage and warfare capabilities focussed around the port of Chabahar ... and the concomitant build-out of mass surveillance and monitoring of the Iranian population ... Iran will be an irreplaceable geographical and geopolitical foundation stone in Beijing’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ project, as well as providing a large pool of young, well-educated, relatively cheap labor for Chinese industry. The mass surveillance, monitoring, and control systems to cover Iran’s population is to begin its full roll-out as from the second week of November ... 10 million extra CCTV cameras to be placed in Iran’s seven most populous cities, to begin with, plus another five million or so pinhole surveillance cameras to be placed at the same time in another 21 cities, with all of these being directly linked in to China’s main state surveillance and monitoring systems ... will enable the full integration of Iran into the next generation of China’s algorithmic surveillance system that allows for the targeting of behavior down to the level of the individual ...

China plans to build one of the biggest intelligence gathering listening stations in the world, in Chabahar. “It will have a staff of nearly 1,000 with a very small number of Iranians chosen from the top ranks of the IRGC in training, and will have a near-5,000 kilometer radius range ... to intercept, monitor, and neutralize the C4ISR systems used by NATO and associate members, including ... Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Israel”...   [allowing] Beijing to extend its reach in monitoring and disrupting the communications of its perceived enemies ... from the edge of Austria in the West, to Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya in the south, and back to the East across all of Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, and Thailand.

So what do we know?  Well, this much is indisputable: the Chinese are certainly engaging purposefully with Iran - and why wouldn't they?  The Belt-and-Road (westwards branch) pretty much requires it.  And troublemaking for the USA is troublemaking for the USA.  So a lot of what is confirmed public knowledge makes perfect sense and, who knows, may even be carried through - though many a grandiose plan never really works out as envisaged, and one can imagine no end of practical difficulties, cultural frictions, misunderstandings etc to contribute to the dampening of the squib.

However, the source (apparently single-source) of the more alarming prospect summarised above is clearly a self-serving Iranian briefing.  

How to assess it?  Well, the content (if not the briefing) all makes perfect sense - for China.  Why wouldn't they just love all those putative intelligence facilities in that central, pivotal, troubled region, the very cockpit of the world? (- US shale oil or not.)   That's global-major-league stuff - the reason why NATO has tolerated Turkey all these years; why the UK's sovereign bases on Cyprus are sacrosanct; why Israel always has something to offer; why several Gulf states are always able to make themselves useful; why Russia wants Syria. 

That said, the whole account (on the intelligence aspects) reads rather like an Iranian pimp-pitch to China.  Hey, fellahs, we've really thought this one through!  Have a look at this brochure!  We can offer you your ultimate wet dream!!   And I'm sure the Chinese can put it all in context for their strategic decision-making.  Doesn't quite have the air of a done deal: for one thing, what eejit would brief all that stuff if it was China's actual, treaty-bound Plan A for the next few years?  Don't we imagine there'd be a few pages of, errr, NDA in the documentation (with blood-curdling default provisions)?

In fact, given the background to the briefing, it's even more likely to be at still one more remove from any done deals.  Rather than being even an Iranian pitch-pack to the Chinese, it's probably a preview for the USA et al on what such a pitch-pack might contain.  Not so much an eastwards-facing: look what we can offer you, as a westwards-facing look what we might offer them! 

Indeed.  Everyone has the same dreams on these matters.

*   *   *   *   *

Equally interesting, though, is the other stuff:  the "offer" of (request for?) installation in Iran of all that ultra-invasive Chinese population-micro-control techology for directing every waking muscle-twitch of every citizen (and probably their dream-patterns too).  The mullahs want that stuff, too?

That also makes perfect sense.  The whole Chinese "social credit" thing has quite clear parallels with the way the Catholic Church operated across Europe in its pernicious heyday (and how the EC federasts, and the greens, and the Putinistas, would like to operate - if they could, or dared).  It's religious, through and through.  God is watching your every movement, knows your every thought, requires your total obedience in everything, as instructed by this vast body of totally,* ahem*, incorruptible priests ...   

Rather ideal, then, for the mullahs.  This moves my thinking on the 'Chinese Century' forward by a rather unwelcome step.  I'd tended to subscribe to the view that Soft Power intrinsically resides with the West, because everyone in the world (it seems) wants FB and Pepsi and Apple stuff and Range Rovers and freedom and etc.  Who, aside from Putin, actually wants anything Chinese (except their money and cheap labour)?

Well.  perhaps the answer is: every dictatorial regime in the world. 

Hmm.  The mullahs may fancy all that micro-control tech, as a big advance on what their network of Revolutionary Guards and onside imams can offer.  But the Iranian people themselves?  I've seen first-hand what Africans think of their Chinese "business partners".  And the Iranians are a pretty stroppy lot, with serious depth of education and culture and tradition.  Yes, of course, they've knuckled under to the mullahs for nearly 40 years now - after a fashion.  (Khomeini did something very clever when he took over in 1979-80: at first, he did nothing - except cancel the Shah's vast defence outlays and plough the money straight back into the pockets of Mr & Mrs Average Iranian.  Hey, this ain't so bad!   Thus mollified, they complacently gave him a couple of years to gather his forces for the Big Clampdown.) 

But are the Iranians, all 80 million of them, with easy access to guns and long porous borders and hostile neighbours and banditry and fanatics of all hues, ready to be shepherded into a Uighur-like existence in their own country?  The mullahs may need a bit more than their own outpost of the Great Firewall to achieve that.

ND

Ringside Seat for China

Any pugilist welcomes the opportunity of a ringside seat where a potential future antagonist is on the bill.   Russia and the USA greatly enjoyed China's discomfiture in its ill-judged 1979 assault on Vietnam.  Three years later, the Russians took a close professional interest in our recapture of the Falklands, from which they learned several lessons.  Even more salutary for them was Gulf War 1 in 1991: they'd been skeptical as to whether the NATO AirLand Battle doctrine was workable, and discovered to their dismay that it was.  (This helpfully persuaded them to sit out the 1990s, when a less chastened Russia might have lashed out as a diversionary tactic against its post-Communist humiliation.)

Yes - better to discover what your future opponent has got in his locker by watching someone else lead with their chin.  It is therefore confidently to be anticipated that the Chinese will be watching Iran vs election-year-USA with considerable interest and close attention.

The Iranians pose a serious challenge - irrespective of any baby nukes they may possess, which they wouldn't squander anyway.  Amply capable of 'conventional' fighting, they must also be the most potent initiator of asymmetric warfare on the planet right now (of which the cyber variety is just one facet**).  For one thing, the Chinese will want to see how the Iranian drone fleet fares.  Don't be surprised if it is swept from the field ... but to achieve that, the US will need to show its technological hand. 

Likewise, even the slightest escalation of violence will tempt Trump to take out the Iranian nuclear programme - but again, using what technology?  (FatBoy wants to know the answer to that one, too.)  More broadly, what means will the NSA deploy to intercept small-but-deadly operations against US assets the world over?  Or to blot out Iranian comms across the spectrum?

Finally, and on a different theme: high-profile conflict in one theatre has often been used as useful cover for some other party to have a crack at something they've had on their own list for a while.  I still don't think China will go for HK (see Predictions 2020 quiz, qn 5), still less Taiwan this year - even on a wet Thursday morning when all eyes are on a spectacular going down in the Gulf:  but Someone will try Something.

Have a nice weekend!  Oh - and I wouldn't be taking a holiday in Cyprus any time soon ...

ND   
________________
** cyber is a game lots of folks might start playing, in the hope it all gets blamed on Iran 

Saudi: Feels Like a Classic Scenario

Did We Say 'Gas and Power Prices Up' ?  Oh yes we did.

But it looks as though we ain't seen nothing yet.  Live by the drone, die by the drone: and bombing Saudi oil facilities, whether by Yeminis or Iranian proxies, is the stuff of classic scenarios for it All Kicking Off.

Several major economies on the brink of recession ... China widely felt to be a lot less robust than they'd be keen to have you know ... Europe thoroughly distracted ... Hong Kong in turmoil ... wars and rumours of wars ...

Yes, a classic scenario.  Hold onto your hats. 

ND

Oil price:  instant reaction