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

Even Russians find North Korea weird

... though these days, such is the sheer strength of Putin's international positioning, they must be very, very nice to them.  And send them lots of tourists, in gratitude for all the, errr, fraternal bullets and artillery rounds.  And cannon fodder.

So let's see if the Russian magazine piece at this link gets fraternally taken down in the coming days.  (If so, it's archived already: https://archive.ph/k8ULv)  Nothing you wouldn't expect, but revealing nonetheless. 

During the tours, the guides allowed tourists to approach and communicate with supposedly ordinary residents, but Valentina was alerted that they all spoke good English...  And they spoke in the same memorized phrases - that they have everything thanks to their leaders and these are not just leaders, but their fathers, whom they worship. "One of our guides once said that they are like little children holding the leader's hand and do not ask where to go. Because their father always knows everything - what needs to happen, where their direction is, where the country is heading. I thought, this is an interesting comparison with small children. It really seemed to me that they perceive everything as little children," the girl said.  

Some impressive weaponry in the arsenal, for all that. 

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

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

The Sage of North Korea

We've previously had occasion to recommend the wit & wisdom of Dilbert author Scott Adams.   

Adams is (inter alia) a trained hypnotist, an acute observer of human behaviours, and has an illuminating line in analysing issues of considerable political interest via explanatory 'filters'.   What's more, he even goes in for detailed and often contrarian predictions - and (unlike many a forecaster) is honest enough to keep his stuff up on the website, so it's easy to check what he's said over the months.

I first got interested in his writing when he predicted - with detailed reasoning - Trump's nomination and ultimate victory.  At that point there were still ten or so Republicans in the game, and his ideas could seem faintly ridiculous.  His regular explication of Trump's 'persuasion' technique is all part and parcel.  But he's no partisan: he lauded one of Hillary's plays during the US election, complete with explanation of how clever it was.  Check it all out for yourself.    

Anyhow, from early on in Trump's administration he's been posting on how the unique abilities of The Donald are just what's needed to resolve the North Korean thing.  Adams is not slow to blow his own, errrr, Trumpet** and has helpfully compiled an omnibus blogpost listing all his writings on the subject.   Suffice to say here, he's been a lot more enlightening - and close to the truth - than anyone else.  Remarkable stuff.  

Read his account for yourself - and how he reckons it could all end up.

ND

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** As an American boss of mine once gravely informed me: if you don't blow your own trumpet, someone else will use it as a spittoon

Nuclear War - the world should make this avoidable

It is really quite worrying that this is being discussed.


What lesson should we really learn, to me the obvious one is that we desperately need the UN Security Council to have more muscle.


North Korea should have been stopped from getting hold of Nuclear Weapons, history has shown us that they are very safe in a MAD environment when controlled by sane Governments. North Korea is not sane, never has been - not an adult country that can be trusted with Nukes.


The list of countries like this is quite long, but not overly so. Few societies manage to fail so spectacularly over such a long-period of time, although being communist tends to be a strong marker for this.


The next on my list is Pakistan, utterly corrupt country and culture with religious extremism thrown in too and an existential fear of India. Only then would we get to the likes of Iran.


However, surely North Korea shows that the sanctions process is very key over the longer term - Iraq, with hindsight, even proves that.


I do wonder now that the hell China is going to do in the current circumstances - after all without Chinese help North Korea would still be a peasant state instead of nuclear armed terror threat. It is hard to know as I guess there is potential for China to like the idea of the North eliminating its rivals in South Korea and Japan - equally though, in statecraft the Chinese operate effectively over decades and are useless when things have to be done over days or weeks. A tricky situation indeed, the US is out of the game now, as any sate is when threatened with MAD.

Threat of Nuclear War - not much fun is it?

We have written in the past many a post on C@W dissecting and analysing the Bay of Pigs and the Cuba Missile Crisis. It was after all, the only real time that politics (technology failure added some others) led to the possibility of an actual Nuclear War.


Fast forward 50 years and for the first time again, this seems as if it is possible. Perhaps not on the scale of the past, but enough that even life in far off Blighty would be mightily damaged should the worst happen.


And it is hard to blame, Trump, again. The idiotic man-boy has been left right in it but the intellectually superior but strategically inept President Obama. Trump has noticed that within 2 years North Korea will have weapons to strike anywhere in the world.


At that point it will be able to hold the rest of the world hostage to its mad desires and wants. This is not a situation the USA wants to happen. the US has been trying to get China to do something about this to little avail. China has been quite happy to get cheap resources from North Korea and a beholden export market (how do you think North Korea has all those nice buildings in Pyongyang that we see on the news - they did not grow themselves).


So now Trump has upped the temperature on the situation, whilst he still can. The threat is to South Korea and Japan - who still sit sweetly hoping the big boy will sort out the bully for them. China is alarmed, but perhaps also fearful that it has lost control of its client state.


In another world, assassination and regime change was the order of the day, in such a techno-medieval state of North Korea this is not on the table. Hopefully China can do something to end the impasse, but the context looks bad. North Korea's only raison d'etre is to re-take the South one day, as much as China and everyone else hopes it does not come to pas, surely one day it will.


It won't be pretty either, it is impossible to see how at least limited nuclear strikes do not take place.


Easter was yeterday

North Korea: It's Kicking Off Again!

Readers of a certain vintage will remember the good Croydonian and his fine public service blog that monitored, well, all sorts of mad stuff but North Korea featured strongly: a rich seam indeed.  Deprived of his bulletins, we do our best: but we're a couple of weeks behind the times on this one.  Fat Boy, it seems, has done it again; he's pissed off China by cancelling a friendship tour by the all-girl Moranbong Band!

Now those girls are hot.  YouTube has no end of film of the slavering L'il Kim and serried ranks of uniformed goons getting their rocks off in unison as the Moranbong laydeez strut their stuff.  Western stuff, too:  they've all been on the course!

We may be pretty sure the Chinese will take this badly, what with having no other form of entertainment available to them on the weekend once the Saturday morning public execution is over - sometimes as soon as 09:05 these days.  The time when the Gazprom choral society or the Sea of Blood opera company could satisfy their cultural needs is over, oh yes. What they want is North Korean talent imitating Western totty with short skirts, electric violins and a bit of close harmony.  Deprive them of that, and they'll be off building new islands in the South China Sea, the only practical outlet for their repressed libidos.  

And then where will we be?  2016 has hardly begun, and this kicks off.  Another fine mess for Hilary Clinton to sort out, she can't get started soon enough. 

ND

North Korea Wants to be Back in the Spotlight

OK folks, it's hot enough for the Silly Season to be declared open.  Jong-un the wrong 'un has decided North Korea needs to get itself back in the headlines where it belongs and, failing permision from his Chinese friends to pull any more of his 'war on America' stunts, he's decided to go for broke on the tourism front. 

North Korean authorities have announced an ambitious development project for the east coast city of Wonsan - an underwater hotel ... local authorities are now in discussions on how to build the hotel.

It's easy, chaps. First, Fat-boy inaugurates the project with a little ceremony and tells you to crack on or face the bullet.  Duly motivated, you buy an old Soviet submarine and put in some glass portholes and bunks: they've got one at Disneyland you can copy.  The missile tubes can be converted to dispense cornflakes at the breakfast buffet; and you can charge a premium for beds in the conning tower.    

 Then sit back and watch the crowds pour in - oh, and you'll need one of those complicated queueing schemes Disney uses to keep the punters happy for an hour or so as they shuffle foward to the magical experience.  Li'l Kim can personally monitor the queue from within, using the periscope.  He will be delighted by how respectful and orderly they are.

I will be happy to knock up a business plan and arrange the finance.  My fee will be strictly hard-currency and payable in advance.

ND

Update:  quite forgotten this until BE reminded me in the comments, but many years ago on another planet I had one of me turns ...

Start spreading the Juche
The D-P-R-K
wants us to be a part of it – Pyongyang Pyongyang !
The Lee Myung Bak group
Urge peasants to stray
way from the very heart of it- Pyongyang Pyongyang !

I wanna wake up in a city, that doesn't sleep
And find I’m King of the ’Ill - Kim Jong Il - top of the heap

These running-dog blues,
are melting away
I’ll make a Mangyongbong of it - in old Pyongyang
If I can make it there,
I’ll do it in Kim Il Sung Square
Its up to you - Pyongyang Pyongyang !

Yup, the silly season.  You can google all those crazy names.