2024 is shaping up to be a year of conflict and competition in international relations.
The world seems to be returning to a Cold War with authoritarian Russia, Iran and their Middle Eastern proxies on one hand versus the Western democracies on the other hand.
Which side(s) China and India, in the middle, back are key. China is a trading partner for most countries, but increasingly Russia's major financier. China siding with Russia gives Putin hope he can win in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s clear right to exist is mixed with US organised Western military support aimed at eroding Russian military and political power. The Ukraine war may be costing Russia about US$200 million/day and weakening Russia’s army and navy.
Western sanctions on Russian energy sales are leading to international energy scarcity, with consequent energy price rises and higher profits for US, Arab and Australian energy companies. This boosts the national incomes from tax of the Western energy exporting countries, while hurting energy importing countries and Western consumers.
The Ukraine and Middle East wars also benefit US arms companies selling weapons and ammunition to the US Defense Department. US political power over NATO has been strengthened by the Ukraine War. The latter war frustrates Putin’s expansion plans elsewhere. All this increases the chances of Biden’s re-election but may bite Biden as war fatigue hits the American public. Biden is already blamed by many for losing the war in Afghanistan in August 2021.
If Trump wins the November 5th, 2024 Election Trump "the Statesman" may broker a Russo-Ukraine peace treaty that might largely be drafted by Putin. Hence the resulting Russian victory over Ukraine would benefit Putin as well as Putin's friend Trump. A Russian victory over Ukraine might also embolden China into such risky behaviour as blockading Taiwan.
Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel actually benefits Russia by costing the West. Russia supports Iran in weapons and as an ally. Iran in turn supports anti-Western forces throughout the Middle East including Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard regional forces and Houthis in Yemen.
The Hamas-Israel war may be costing Israel more than US$100 million/day. Also that war and the broader Iran aligned conflict may be costing the US $100 million/day to fund US Middle East military and CIA paramilitary operations that favour Israel.
The US is made to look two-faced by supplying Israel with weapons and ammunition, while the US purports to be a regional peacemaker. Israel, in killing too many Palestinian civilians, has eroded any residual Western moral exceptionalism.
2 comments:
I wish I could say I am surprised by Israel’s behaviour. I entirely expected the intolerance to surface once Israel had a safe space of a few decades. After all, it is not a secret that the kernel core of Semitic faiths are all intolerant. What has been surprising has been the virulent extent to which any critical commentary on Israel is smeared as antisemitism and the speaker is virtually crushed.
As to the US, outside of the Anglo sphere, I think US hypocrisy was always a well known quantity. More than the US supplying ammunitions, the blame lies with the arabs for not throwing political capital behind the Palestinians to secure a deal that leaves Israel and Palestine at reasonable peace…..
Hi GhalibKabir
For the benefit of readers: Semitic faiths are more commonly called "the Abrahamic religions" most notably Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all centred on worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, was a Hebrew patriarch, extensively mentioned in Hebrew scriptures, Christian Bible and Muslim Quran.
Some polytheistic Hindus derogatively call these Abrahamic followers "monotheists" specifically aimed at Muslims in India.
While Christians and Jewish people hold much responsibility if only Palestinian refugees had been permitted by other Arab nations to blend into nations of the Arab world (from Morocco to Iraq and Saudi Arabia) in 1949. But Arab tribalism won out over humanitarianism.
As a comparison 12 million ethnic Germans (who hadn't lived in Germany for centuries) became refugees in 1945. They were driven out of Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Baltic States. They received sanctuary in Germany being allowed to blend in as citizens.
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