Tag: USA
Thought Iraq was a blunder? Iran is far worse
EDITOR’S NOTE: Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes politico‘s From Across the Pond column.
Trump’s decision to join Israel in a war against Iran is a far bigger strategic error, and one with far bigger strategic consequences.
Like many, I used to believe that former U.S. President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was the biggest strategic mistake America had made, at least since the Vietnam War.
That is, until now.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to join Israel in a war against Iran is a far bigger strategic error, and one with far bigger strategic consequences. The reasons for this are many, ranging from the immediate impact on the region and the global economy to the longer-term upshots for Russia and China, as well as the repercussions for U.S. alliances and America’s global standing.
That much is already clear — and we’re only three weeks in.
Let’s start with the similarities: Much like the Iraq War, the war against Iran began based on the presumption that the regime in power would swiftly fall and that a new, more moderate and less antagonistic one would take its place. In both instances, the idea was to remove the greatest destabilizing threat in the Middle East — Saddam Hussein’s regime in the initial case, the theocratic dictatorship in Tehran in the latter — through the swift and decisive use of military force.
But while Bush understood that defeating a regime required ground forces, it seems Trump simply hoped that airpower alone would suffice. As a result, Hussein’s regime fell swiftly — though Bush did vastly underestimate what would be required to rebuild a stable, let alone a democratic, Iraq in its place. But the Iranian government, as U.S. intelligence officials themselves have testified, “appears to be intact” despite Israel killing many of its key political and security leaders through targeted strikes.
Focusing on the region at large, Bush’s misjudgment eventually contributed to a large-scale insurgency, which strengthened Iran’s influence in Iraq and the wider Middle East. In contrast, Trump’s miscalculation has left in place a regime that, aside from assuring its own survival, is now singularly focused on inflicting as much damage on the U.S. and its allies as it possibly can.
Iranian drones and missiles have already attacked Israel and the Gulf states, targeted critical energy production facilities and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, which hosts one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas export transits.
Less than a month in, the world is now witnessing the largest oil and gas disruption in history. And as the fighting escalates to include gas and oil production infrastructure, the global economic consequences will be felt by every single country for months, if not years, to come — even if the conflict were to end soon.
The damage that has already been inflicted on the global economy is far greater than the economic consequences of the Iraq War in its entirety.
But that’s not all. Geopolitically, the U.S.-Israel war with Iran will also have far greater reverberations than the war in Iraq ever did.
For one, the Bush administration spent a lot of time and effort trying to get allies on board to participate in and support the war. It didn’t fully succeed in this, as key allies like Germany and France continued opposing the war. But it tried.
Trump, by contrast, didn’t even try to get America’s most important allies on board. Not only that, he even failed to inform them of his decision. And yet, when Iran responded predictably by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. president then demanded allies send their navies to escort tankers — despite the U.S. Navy so far refusing to do so.
And while it’s true that Iraq left many U.S. allies — even those that joined the war, like the U.K. — deeply scarred, Iran has convinced U.S. allies they can no longer rely on the U.S., and that Washington is now a real threat to their economic security.
That, too, will have a lasting impact well beyond anything the war in Iraq did.
Finally, the fact remains that when Bush decided to invade Iraq, Russia and China were still minor global powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin was only just starting his effort to stabilize the economy and rebuild Russia’s military power, while China had just joined the World Trade Organization and was still a decade or more away from becoming an economic superpower. In other words, America’s blunder in Iraq occurred at a time when the strategic consequences for the global balance of power were still manageable.
Trump’s Iran debacle is occurring at a time when China is effectively competing with the U.S. for global power and influence, and Russia is engaged in the largest military action in Europe since the end of World War II.
US-Israel Attack on Iran: Time to Implement the Global Security Initiative
Starting on 28th February 2026, the United States of America working hand-in-hand with Israel have been striking at Tehran with heavy military artillery in an operation that has come to be dubbed “Epic Fury.” Less than a day in, several high ranking officials in Iran’s establishment had already lost their lives most notably, the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Gen Mohammad Pakpour, the Defence Minister Brig Gen Aziz Nasirzadeh, and the Defence Council secretary Ali Shamkhani.
With the Red Crescent reporting that at least 200 Iranians have already lost their lives too and more than 700 injured, the US-Israel assault has undoubtedly raised questions pertaining to its legitimacy under international law.
Per the United Nations Charter (Article 2(4)), it is established that states are to refrain from the use of force targeting other sovereigns. What Washington has sought to do then, is argue that its mission in Iran is covered by the exception of self-defence provided for in the said instrument’s Article 51. In their public statements, they have described the attacks as “pre-emptive.”
In the history of warfare however, one will hardly find a party who upon resorting to violence does not bother to justify their conduct as warranted. Consequently, standards have been devised overtime for the international community to test claims of this nature. For self-defence, as Marko Milanovic a public international law scholar at the University of Reading has explained, the party seeking to rely on it must provide unambiguous evidence either of the harm already caused or destruction likely to have been caused if the measure in question had not been taken. In other words, they cannot rely on speculation or generalizations.
Unfortunately, all that President Trump has said so far falls short of this bar. The American leader for instance, has purported that Tehran is pursuing development of Nuclear weaponry something that is not only denied by the Middle Eastern nation but is also disputed by third parties. The International Energy Atomic Agency thus, has severally retained that there is no information supportive of Washington’s assertions. Oman’s Foreign Minister who also doubles as the chief mediator of the US-Iran talks coming immediately before all hell broke loose has equally confirmed that Iran had committed to “never, ever have nuclear material that will create a bomb.”
What these developments appear to be depicting then is but an extension of aggression that has come to be the hallmark of Trump 2.0. Think here about the tariffs regime that even his own Supreme Court declared illegal, the threats to forcefully takeover Greenland and Canada, the invasion of Venezuela etc. If the world does not wake up to the new reality in time, we risk plunging ourselves in a global order ruled by the laws of the jungle where survival for the fittest becomes the order of the day.
In response to this state of affairs, one of the most convincing alternatives is the Global Security Initiative (GSI) put forward by President Xi Jinping of China in 2022 at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference. In part, the GSI can be understood as a modification of Beijing’s broad approach to foreign policy to fit the needs of international peace. Three of its six core tenets thus (i.e. “respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries”, “peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation”, and “taking the legitimate security concerns of all countries seriously”) directly replicate the principles of “win-win” and “mutual respect” that the global power has championed elsewhere.
At the same time, GSI seeks to reimagine norms devised many years ago in order to suit the changing times. Emphasis on “abiding by the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter” is one such example the other being “commitment to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.” The latter also best understood as the principle of indivisible security (IS) goes back to the Cold War particularly upon the entry into force of the Helsinki Final Act. What the Communist Party of China (CCP) has done for IS is to contend that a country’s security interests are not only inseparable from those of her immediate neighbours but also those of the rest of the world just as much. This becomes especially important given how much globalization has taken effect.
Crucially, GSI has proven itself to be thorough including through Beijing’s position papers on Afghanistan and the Israel-Palestine war as well as mediation that the CCP has done between Iran and Saudi-Arabia, Fighting factions in Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia etc. If the world could build on this momentum, there is a good chance that the voices of hegemony and repression will be defeated.
Joshua Kingdom is a Research Fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
Protect Taiwan Act Escalates Tensions, Interference in China’s Internal Affairs
On February 9th, the House of Representatives in Washington passed bill H.R. 1531 a law which if it comes into force will by far be the most extreme action that the United States government has undertaken in as regards to China-Taiwan affairs in a long while.
Also known as the Protect Taiwan Act (PTA), the legislation that was introduced by Representative Frank Lucas stipulates among other things, that in the event that USA determines that certain activities by Beijing threaten “the security or the social or economic system of the people of Taiwan”, it shall acting through the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Securities and Exchange Commission etc. take all measures possible to see to it that the perceived antagonist is cut out of the International Organization of Securities Commissions, the Group of Twenty (G20), the Basel Committee on Banking Super-vision, the Bank for International Settlements, the Financial Stability Board, and the International Association of Insurance Supervisors. In other words, if successful, such a move would see China become completely isolated by the international monetary system.
That the United States of America opted to further escalate its Taiwan position without provocation is not surprising as it has in recent years shown that it is capable of crossing redlines that even the least hopeful analysts imagined if one goes back a decade or so. In 2025 for instance, the House increased its security support for the Province of China by more than threefold (from $300 million to $1 billion).
What is concerning instead, is that the modality that H.R 1531 takes is so extreme that it is literally the last step to war. Given the stakes involving Taipei when it comes to technology, anyone looking on should be gravely concerned. The island’s involvement with the manufacturing of computer chips employed in the artificial intelligence industry has brought about what has come to be understood as the “Silicone Shield” making Taiwan a national security issue for Washington.
Further important to underscore is that PTA was by all estimations bipartisan (395 representatives voted in its favour as opposed to the 2 that opposed it). It also arrived in a time when the US is doing all that it can to downplay its already existing obligations both under acceptable geopolitical norms but also in international law when it comes to Taiwan. A September 2025 publication by the Congressional Research Service thus sought to portray “one-China policies”― which is what the US is supposedly involved in― as different from the one-China principle.
This is of course, is a clear bending of history. At least if one looks at the three joint communiques (1971, 1979, and 1982) which are understood to be the bedrock of modern diplomatic relations between the United States and China. Respectively, they provide that; “the U.S. acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan strait maintain that there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China”, that “the government of the USA acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China”, and finally that “(USA) has no intention of infringing on Chinese sovereignty and territorial integrity, or interfering in China’s internal affairs, or pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan”.
Finally, as long as UN Resolution 2758 adopted in October 1971 still takes precedence over any other claim regarding the subject of our inquiry today, the US may do as it pleases albeit its actions will remain contrary to the general assembly instrument. By recognizing the government of the People’s Republic of China “as the only legitimate representative of China”, the United Nations settled once and for all any questions pertaining to whether Taiwan is a sovereign state or not. And because of this, her leadership lost their seat in New York and they have never regained it to date.
To pretend otherwise would be to undermine declarations such as the one on the Inadmissibility of Intervention and Interference in the Internal Affairs of States (1981) which have reinstated the fact post World War II, when it comes to inter-state relations, the international dispensation is governed by mutual respect.
The US then has two options; either it proceeds to ignore the law whilst being aware of the violations or it does the right thing and tone down. What it cannot do is eat her cake and have it at the same time.
The writer is a reserch fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
Analysing Putin’s Stance on U.S. Sanctions and Escalation
Dear Editor, last month on October 22, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he had cancelled his planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which was scheduled to take place in the next two weeks in Budapest, Hungary. He told reporters at the White House that “It just didn’t feel right to me,” and that he did not want a “wasted meeting.” Almost simultaneously, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Russia’s two largest oil companies, Open Joint Stock Company Rosneft Oil Company (Rosneft) and Lukoil OAO (Lukoil). Soon afterwards, the European Union also imposed another round of anti-Russian sanctions on items such as toilets, motorised toys, puzzles, and tricycles.
When a journalist asked Putin to comment on the fact that the EU had cancelled the purchase of Russian toilets, he jokingly retorted that that would cost them dearly. He advised that they would generally “actually need them in today’s situation if they continue to pursue the same policy toward the Russian Federation.” While this sounds both like a joke but also a stern warning to Europe, I think EU leaders had better heed his word. Better to err on the side of caution.
We should remember that Putin and Trump held talks on August 15, 2025, at the Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War. Although the summit ended without an agreement being announced, Trump later called on Ukraine to take responsibility for the next steps of ending the war by ceding territory. Both the Alaska meeting itself and the place where it was to be held were proposed by the American side. Moreover, in an undiplomatic act of intimidation against Putin, as the two leaders walked to the platform where the meeting was to commence, the United States Air Force fighters and a B-2 bomber flew overhead. However, Putin gentlemanly never made a fuss of it.
Speaking about Trump’s decision to cancel or postpone the Hungary meeting, Putin rightly said that dialogue is always better than any confrontation or, all the more so, than war. Russia has never shied away from holding any dialogues. The ball has often been in America’s court to determine when and where.
As for the sanctions that have been further imposed against Russia, this is the same old game, nothing new. Just like it was in the past, whereas the sanctions will certainly affect Russia in some way, they have proved to be incapable of significantly denting its economy. In his first term, Trump introduced the largest number of sanctions that had ever been imposed against the Russian Federation up to that time. The sanctions have both a political and an economic aspect. Politically, the West uses sanctions to try to pressure Russia to negotiate out of weakness. However, Putin’s stance is gritty. He asserts that “No self-respecting country and no self-respecting people ever make any decisions under pressure.” Undoubtedly, if anyone has read European history, they would know that Russia towers through history as one of the most self-respecting countries and peoples.
It is also misguided for America to continue economic sanctions toward Russia, as it weakens the Russian-American relations, which have only just begun to recover.
The sanctions are also likely to puncture America’s economy itself, so they are shooting themselves in the foot. Today, the United States produces about 13.5 million barrels per day, ranking first. In second place is Saudi Arabia, producing around 10 million, and the Russian Federation is in third, with about 9.5 million barrels per day. However, the United States consumes 20 million. They sell some of their oil and then buy even more, mainly from Canada. So, producing 13.5 and consuming 20 million barrels is not a very good position to be in, and worse, sanctioning one of your key trade partners. On the other hand, Russia and Saudi Arabia sell more oil and petroleum products. Saudi Arabia sells about 9 million tons of oil and petroleum products to foreign markets, while the Russian Federation sells 7.5 million tons. That means Russia’s contribution to the global energy balance is very significant.
Therefore, Trump’s move to break the balance that Russia brings to the global energy market is a very reckless task, which will most certainly affect American interests too. To replace the contribution of Russian oil and petroleum products on the world market is harder than Trump may comprehend, since it takes time and requires large investments.
The consequences of the sanctions are now bare, and can be seen in how the International Energy Agency is even proposing and encouraging participants in economic activity to invest in hydrocarbon energy, contrary to the contemporary acclamations for going green. Additionally, Trump seems not to understand or outrightly ignore the fact that the world economy is growing, and energy consumption is increasing. So, it is not possible to sharply increase production at once, at whim.
Economic principles also make it obvious that if the amount of oil and petroleum products on the world market sharply decreases, prices will rise. Putin minced no words in cautioning Trump about the sensitivity of such a downward spiral of things and the political consequences it would have on the United States electoral calendar.
It is commonplace to conclude now that it is in the interest of Trump and everybody to break the escalation of this conflict; otherwise, in the end, we shall all lose.
The writer is a senior research fellow, Development Watch Center.
For Whoever Controls Rare Minerals, Shall Inherit the Earth: US-China Trade War Chapter 2 Verse 1
For centuries, humankind has fought wars over oil, land and faith. The wars of today and perhaps the future will be about who controls the jewels of the earth, those rare earth minerals that power our age. They are in our chips, batteries, satellites, and missiles. For many countries, these elements power the very systems that guarantee their dominance. At the center of this struggle, stands the world’s largest economies, the United States and China. How this contest unfolds will depend not on bullying, threats and blackmail but on diplomacy, tact and compromise.
The second chapter of the U.S-China trade war kicked off with a bang. China fired a warning shot that has quite literally left the ground shaking. According to Aljazeera, China announced export controls on five more rare-earth metals- Holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium adding to earlier restrictions on samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium. Alongside these, China also restricted the export of specialist technological equipment used to refine rare earth metals. Foreign entities will now have to obtain special government approvals if they wish to export any material that contain at least 0.1 percent heavy rare earth metals from China.
As expected, the move left Washington fuming. Donald Trump took to the socials to vent his frustration, threatening 100% tariffs on Chinese exports and new export controls on critical software. The self-styled ‘king of tariffs’ went even further by questioning the importance of his highly anticipated meeting with President Xi during the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit (APEC) in South Korea later this month. Global markets and policy makers are again on tenterhooks, bracing for another phase of the largely damaging trade war between the world’s largest economies.
In this fog of trade-war, it is important to separate facts from fiction. Despite the supposed truce between both countries, the United States has continued to blacklist Chinese firms and impose port fees on china-linked ships. The Trump administration has not shied away from referring to China as an enemy and demonizing it at every turn. Washington’s long-term objective is clear: to contain China and isolate it for the mere ‘crime’ of being too good a competitor. The U.S. cites its ‘national interests’ as justification for its actions against Beijing, half a world away. However, the question practically asks itself, if Washington can behave this way in the name of national security, what stops China from doing the same?
The export controls on rare earth minerals are an assertion of sovereignty and safeguarding national interests. Rare earth metals are not run-of-the mill goods of trade. They are the hidden backbone of advanced weaponry. These elements are critical in the production of fighter jets, Submarines, radar systems, missiles, drones, smart bombs and AI driven military systems. If anything, China has a stronger moral case: Its restrictions include exemptions for humanitarian and emergency uses such as medical and disaster relief.
The world must root for the Trump-Xi summit in South Korea to take place. The two most powerful leaders in the world need to sit down and talk. Dialogue, not ultimatums will resolve this contest. The United States should approach the table with some humility and respect for China’s national interests, something Beijing has consistently emphasized. For constructive international relations, respect for sovereignty, and the legitimate security concerns of other nations is an essential prerequisite. Trump’s approach of strong-arming countries into ‘deals’ will not work with China. Compromise grounded in mutual benefit is the only path forward. The President of the United States must have learned from his attempts to force India away from Russian oil that it simply does not work that way anymore. Instead, India has grown closer to China, a development that strengthens global stability but complicates Washington’s foreign policy objectives in the Indo-pacific.
China will approach this summit from a position of strength. It controls 90% of the world’s rare earth elements, dominates lithium-ion battery supply chains, and controls a vast network of mineral processing facilities that the West lacks both the capacity and the political will to replicate in the short term. Most importantly, Beijing has shown a willingness to engage in dialogue and compromise. The United States must come to terms with the fact that China is now a pace setter, a capable competitor unafraid to defend its national interests.
Perhaps the most significant outcome for the Global South and the rest of the world would be Washington’s recognition that Beijing has the potential to become an indispensable partner. This would open opportunities, to borrow from Trump’s signature turn of phrase “the likes of which the world has never seen before.” Now is a time for diplomacy and not war, for dialogue and not threats.
The Writer is a Senior Research Fellow at DWC.
How the West sacrificed Ukraine for the so-called Liberal Ideals
One of the apparent issues involved, and what partly explains the cause of the Ukrainian war, is the difference in approach to international politics between Western leaders and the Russians. NATO nations and the American foreign policy elites seem to adhere, sincerely or hypocritically, to liberal ideals about the exercise of international politics. On the other hand, the elites in Moscow and Putin himself seem to hold a realist approach. The effect of this is that Moscow is more pragmatic about resolving the conflict, whereas its Western counterparts are dogmatic.
The final losers in this war will definitely be the people of Ukraine, whose myopic leaders have sacrificed their country as a battleground for big-power rivalry.
Let us begin by remembering the words of American leaders on the issue of expanding NATO eastwards.
When former US President Joe Biden was still a senator, serving on the Foreign Relations Committee in 1997, he stated that the one place where the greatest consternation would be caused in the short term, in terms of US-Russian and NATO-Russian relations, would be the admission of the Baltic states into NATO. He warned that that would tip the balance and induce a vigorous and hostile reaction from Russia. That was in 1997! It was 25 years later, in 2022, that the Ukrainian war broke out. Is it, therefore, right to describe Russia as an unprovoked aggressor?
When, at the 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO members proposed to integrate Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, the former CIA director, William J. Burns, and former U.S. ambassador to Moscow warned Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state then, that the entry of Ukraine into NATO was the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite, not just Putin. In the secret cable he sent her, he noted that: “In my more than two-and-a-half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russia’s interests … Today’s Russia will respond.”
In 2014, when consideration was made to add Georgia and Ukraine to NATO, Jack Matlock, America’s last ambassador to the Soviet Union, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He stated, “I consider the administration’s recommendation to take new members into NATO at this time misguided. If it should be approved by the United States Senate, it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War. Far from improving the security of the United States, its Allies, and the nations that wish to enter the Alliance, it could well encourage a chain of events that could produce the most serious security threat to this nation since the Soviet Union collapsed.”
Henry Kissinger, arguably one of the greatest scholars on international relations the world will ever know, opined in The Washington Post in March 2014 that for Ukraine to survive, it should function as a bridge rather than an outpost of either NATO or Russia. He discouraged Ukraine from joining NATO. He noted that: “Putin is a serious strategist on the premises of Russian history. Understanding U.S. values and psychology is not his strong suit. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point of U.S. policymakers. Leaders of all sides should return to examining outcomes, not compete in posturing.”
Contrary to Kissinger’s wise advice, American and European leaders have instead deployed their media to manufacture the narrative that portrays Putin as a devil, and themselves as saviours. In his own words, Kissinger humorously made a solemn aphorism that “the demonisation of Putin is not a policy, it’s an alibi for not having one.”
In one of the longest, agonising diplomatic negotiations in history, Russia appealed to NATO members not to expand eastwards. President Boris Yeltsin wrote to Bill Clinton in 1993, arguing that the expansion of NATO breached the spirit of the 1990 Two Plus Four Treaty on German reunification. Even as Yeltsin initially conceded to Poland’s campaign to join NATO at the time, he later retracted in the face of domestic pressure. It was 29 years later, in 2022, that the war in Ukraine broke out. So, how can it be reduced to the character of Putin?
In the end, Ukraine will be unable to defeat Russia without American support. Yet America is least likely to invade a nuclear-armed power, as that would spell Mutual Assured Destruction. In the face of that uphill battle, it’s Ukraine that stands to lose. Russia will bleed to the last corporal, but will never surrender to Ukraine. It would be better for the Ukrainian leadership to abandon NATO membership and seek neutrality.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
Russia-Ukraine Crisis: The Unintended Consequences of America’s Ukrainian Gambit
The Ukrainian war is not only a war between Ukraine and Russia. It is a war between the U.S./NATO and Russia. Ukraine is simply the battleground. And the Ukrainian army is doing the U.S./NATO’s bidding. The U.S., having gathered lessons from wars it has lost in countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Vietnam, calculated that if it provoked and drew Russia into a similar war against Ukraine, Russia would invade and suffer a war of attrition. America’s contribution would be to arm, train, and do propaganda for Ukrainian fighters. That it has done.
It is highly difficult to win a war against nationalistic struggles. It is nationalism that defeated colonialism in Africa. It is also nationalism that defeated American imperialism in Vietnam and Afghanistan. America understands so well that despite Russia’s firepower, it would never easily defeat Ukraine, even if it has the means to devastate it. The protracted war would leave Russia exhausted, militarily, economically and socially.
Anyone who has studied the history of NATO-Russia and U.S.-Russia relations would understand that this conflict has little to nothing to do with Kiev. There have been decades of negotiations between Russia and NATO/U.S. over the expansion of NATO eastwards. Therefore, it is fallacious for governing elites in Kiev to believe the story told by the Western media in explaining the conflict. It is presented as a conflict stemming from Russia’s unprovoked aggression, with the Ukrainian side portrayed as fighting for its sovereignty and independence. This is a strategic misrepresentation of facts and reality. The real truth is that Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty are an excuse, not an explanation for why America and its European satellites instigated this war.
Besides the likelihood of the war spiralling into nuclear armageddon, it is the unimagined and unintended consequences which may emanate from this conflict that are most concerning.
The trajectory of wars is difficult to predict. Consider any war in history, and the results of the conflict would rarely have been foreseen. Take World War I for example, where a murder incident of a Prince led to events that, within four years, concluded the collapse of four great empires – Austria, Russia, Germany and the Ottoman empires. Therefore, the Ukrainian war could even end in the destruction of NATO and the collapse of Western global influence, especially since the war is divergently contrasted with the genocide in Gaza, which is funded by the same Western nations posturing to care about the human rights and self-determination of the Ukrainian people, while funding the slaughter of babies, women and men in Palestine.
Additionally, the Ukrainian war led to the stoppage of purchasing affordable Russian gas by European countries, leading to inflation caused by high costs of energy costs. Eventually, this is leading to economic decline and further declining living standards, which are also leading to the emergence of far-right political movements. These movements could in future totally change the political environment in Europe in ways unfathomable.
One of the major weaknesses exposed by this war is the failure of Western sanctions to de-energise Russia. These sanctions, described as “crippling” by the West, turn out to have no significant crippling effect at all. It was expected that these sanctions would push Russia’s financial system into disarray and stagnate its international trade. The West imagined Russia losing the value of the ruble and being unable to earn from its foreign exchanges. The West imagined Russia unable to pay for goods and services from abroad. This would ultimately hinder the ability of Moscow to fund the war, hence lose militarily in Ukraine.
As things have turned out, those were simply wishful imaginations.
The financial war launched against Russia has proved largely ineffective because the Western market no longer occupies a significant portion of international trade and investment. New dynamic markets have emerged in Asia and the global south, creating alternatives for international investments and trade outside of Europe and North America.
Indeed, despite the “crippling sanctions” levied against Russia, its economy continued to grow at rates higher than most European economies. It seems that Moscow had already foreseen such economic warfare coming years ahead, and started to nurture new markets and relationships in Asia as an alternative to the European market.
It has now been exposed that America and its European allies are incapable of successfully waging an economic war against their adversaries. That realisation has shifted global power dynamics. Imagine what other countries would do when they see that you sanction your enemies to destroy their economies during conflicts… they would strategically start shifting away from overreliance on the dollar as a global currency. This is what has started to happen. Several countries are now starting to trade using the Yuan in what is termed the “internationalisation of the yuan.”
Since America is occasionally fighting wars around different corners of the world, it is unlikely for other countries to assume they will always be at peace with it. With America’s shifting interests comes shifting loyalties, rendering American friendship an unreliable adventure which must be enjoyed with caution. Decoupling from the dollar is thus one of the ways to diversify risks emanating from the suspicion with which most reasonable countries engage American foreign policy. The Ukrainian war has revealed this more.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
How Western Hubris Led to the Ukrainian War
One of the greatest instruments for waging war are the tools of mass propaganda. The West, i.e., the USA and NATO nations, are armed to the teeth with these. They control international news and feed audiences with anti-Russian/ anti-Putin propaganda dressed as journalism. Thus, they blame the war in Ukraine entirely on Russia. They also portray President Vladimir Putin as a maniac, disgruntled with the collapse of the Soviet empire and seeking its reconstruction. Far from the truth.
A long list of Western diplomats, politicians, great academics, and men of great standing would tell you that the United States and its NATO colleagues (hereinafter the West) take the greatest responsibility/ blame for this needless war.
The main cause of the war is NATO’s expansion into Russia’s orbit. Russian leaders always warned, since the 1990s, that turning a strategic neighbour like Ukraine into a Western outpost on the doorstep of Russia would never be accepted. This is also why Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014. Putin had feared, rightly so, that the peninsula would host a NATO naval base.
Any great power would push back if another power roamed into its backyard, threatening its strategic interests. The West/ USA knows this better. That’s why they wouldn’t allow Soviet missiles in Cuba.
The Western affront against Russia started in the mid-1990s when the Clinton administration began pushing for the enlargement of NATO. They began by bringing the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland into NATO in 1999. They continued in 2004 by adding Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Russia always complained. However, apart from the little Baltic states, none of the admitted new NATO members shared a border with Russia, so it was not threatened much.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and (former) U.S. President Joe Biden shake hands as (former) British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and (former) NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg attend a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine council, in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 12, 2023.
In continuous provocation, the West dug deeper East, considering adding Georgia and Ukraine in 2008. At the time, even France and Germany stood opposed to the move, emphasising it would antagonise Russia. But the USA supported it. NATO members agreed to declare that Georgia and Ukraine “… will become members of NATO.”
In response, Russia’s deputy foreign minister at the time, Alexander Gruhko, warned that “Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership in the alliance is a huge strategic mistake which would have most serious consequences for pan-European security.” A Russian newspaper at the time also reported that Putin candidly cautioned George Bush that “… if Ukraine was accepted into NATO, it would cease to exist.”
One cannot find it difficult to comprehend that, for instance, the USA would never allow China to build a military alliance, let alone set up a military base in Canada or Mexico. It wouldn’t even allow Russia to do so 90 miles away in Cuba. Why would they consider it right and rational to form a military alliance with a nation of such strategic importance to Russia? Why would they consider setting up military bases in a country sharing a boarder with Russia?
One of the greatest scholars on USSR-USA relations was the American diplomat and historian George Frost Kennan. As early as 1998, when the West began attempts to expand NATO Eastwards, he warned in an interview that, “Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to hurt the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the Cold War to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking …I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely to it and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else… It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course, there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then (the NATO expanders) will say that ‘we always told you that is how the Russians are,’ but this is just wrong.”
The following year, in 1997, 50 American foreign policy experts, including the former Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, wrote an open letter to President Bill Clinton stating that “We, the undersigned, believe that the current US-led effort to expand NATO, the focus of the recent Helsinki and Paris Summits, is a policy error of historic proportions. We believe that NATO expansion will decrease allied security and unsettle European stability for the following reasons: In Russia, NATO expansion, which continues to be opposed across the entire political spectrum, will strengthen the nondemocratic opposition, undercut those who favour reform and cooperation with the West, bring the Russians to question the entire post-Cold War settlement, and galvanise resistance in the Duma to the START II and III treaties; In Europe, NATO expansion will draw a new line of division between the “ins” and the “outs,” foster instability, and ultimately diminish the sense of security of those countries which are not included…”
I can go on and on, quoting voices of reason from the West challenging US/NATO expansion towards Russia’s orbit of influence. Why are Western leaders foolhardy about diving headfirst into what could potentially cause World War III?
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.
The Modern Thucydides Trap: How China’s Rise Challenges American Hegemony
The American political scientist, Graham Allison, popularised the concept famously known as the “Thucydides Trap.” This concept suggests that whenever a rising power threatens to displace an established one, the tension often guarantees a conflict will arise (war), unless deliberate efforts are made to avoid it. The concept borrows its name from Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC), who was an Athenian general, politician and historian who lived through the ferocious Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) between Athens and Sparta, which, the philosopher Will Durant quips, “Thucydides took part in…and recorded it blow by blow.”
Graham Allison has applied the Thucydides framework to the great-power politics of the 21st Century between China and the United States. He views China as a rapidly ascending power that threatens to displace the United States, which, since 1991, has enjoyed unipolarity following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Due to China’s rapid rise as a powerful contender in world affairs, there is structural stress it is exerting towards the ruling power, i.e., the United States. This stress could build fear and amplify the risk of miscalculation among America’s foreign policy elite, hence increasing the risk of war. China has made significant advancements in various fields of global dominance. It has modernised its military, most recently unveiling a sixth-generation stealth fighter jet, the Chengdu J-36. Since 2014, it has had the world’s biggest economy in PPP, and it continues to grow by leaps and bounds. It has also expanded its global influence, especially in the global south through the BRICS and BRI structures. China is also leading in the world’s most decisive technologies of the future, including robotics, Artificial Intelligence, clean energy, 5G technology, etc.
Whereas America still reigns supreme in maintaining a military reach unparalleled in history, with its cultural influence stamped on the fabric of almost all societies in the world, and having control over global financial systems through its Bretton Woods institutions, China’s rise still presents a serious challenge to its post-World War II primacy.
Whenever such scenarios arise, argues Allison, having studied 16 out of 20 historical cases, accounting for an 80% occurrence rate in the past 500 years, the likely outcome is always a military conflict, unless there are factors that intervene in the rival groups’ diplomatic camps to solve the crisis.
However, across historical time, new variables have emerged in the 21st century, which may change the context in which we understand the Thucydides trap. Unlike any previous period in history, today’s big powers are armed with nuclear arsenals, are highly interdependent on each other economically, and are closely connected digitally, which, fortunately, might make the possibility of a catastrophic all-out war less likely, as it is less rational.
Also, today, unlike yesterday, the possible outcomes of the Thucydides trap are hinged on non-traditional domains, i.e., cyber warfare, ideological competition, etc. Nevertheless, the flashpoints of rivalry between China and the U.S. are apparent in Taiwan, the South China Sea, on trade disputes, etc.
In our time, the Thucydides trap could manifest as a “digital trap.” This is because the great competition of our world is now shaped by technological supremacy, whereby nations seek to dominate each other in Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, and other cyber capabilities. Mutual fear between China and the U.S. of losing an edge over the other in the areas mentioned above could instigate “war by other means” through sabotage, espionage, cyber-attacks, etc, which unfortunately might escalate into broader conflicts. If the ruling elites in the two major powers are smart, they could instead encourage joint ventures and mutual dependency to deter aggression. This is possible, as it has been done in regards to the International Space Station, where astronauts from Russia, China, the USA, and other countries mutually work together.
Environmental pressures due to climate change could also catalyse a new dimension of the Thucydides trap in our time. Natural disasters and resource scarcity could intensify China and America’s competition for resources like arable land and rare earth minerals, which are critical for building green technology. On the flip side, since climate change is a global crisis which no nation could single-handedly solve, the two countries could turn this vulnerability into an area of cooperation on global climate initiatives, which would turn the trap into a web of opportunities for collaboration.
However, the structural inevitability of competition does not make war a predetermined outcome. The two countries’ competition can be translated into collaboration, since they are both highly interdependent. China holds over $1 trillion in U.S. debt. America also heavily depends on Chinese industries for manufacturing its products, while at the same time having China as its biggest export market.
In the heat of the Cold War, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union and America came close to a nuclear war, they established a direct phone line between the Kremlin and the White House for leaders of both countries to be able to constantly communicate to avoid any scenarios. This might be the time to do the same for U.S.–China relations. Both countries must prioritise regular high-level dialogue to avoid the Thucydides trap. This is in the interest of the entirety of human civilisation.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Development Watch Centre.