I subscribe to a Substack run by a green chicken named Doomberg. It's the most informative and thought provoking paid subscription I have. This morning, one article in particular opened my eyes to a couple of possibilities. Here's a link to the article, but it's probably paywalled. The article is about Iran's relationship with China. China apparently gets much of its oil from Iran. I wonder if in fact our belligerence towards Iran might not really be a much longer term strategy to weaken China, our real long term geopolitical adversary. The article focuses a great amount of detail on this hypothesis, and it's worth reading for that reason. But I'm referencing it because it got me thinking about some seemingly unrelated topics that had been lingering in the back of my mind for quite a while. For one thing, the article suggests to me that Trump's animosity towards Iran might not be entirely at Israel's bidding as many have suggested.
Also, the complexity of our international relationships is a reminder of how confusing and mercenary real geopolitics can be. To oversimplify it egregiously, it's more like the game of Risk than anything else. The natural assumption is that everybody in the world is your potential enemy. The only way not to be eaten is to eat them first or make temporary alliances of convenience with your enemy's enemies.
Maybe this is why the peace treaty in Ukraine wasn't accomplished in 24 hours. Both warring parties must be exhausted and looking for a solution. Ukraine has no cards to play with Russia, but Trump, if he's willing, can continue to bleed both mercilessly to get something from each in exchange for an end to the war. This minerals deal with Ukraine may be one example of that. He certainly never said anything about it during the campaign. It was only afterwards that the seemingly mercenary condition of a minerals contract was introduced in exchange for his assistance with a peace agreement. And who knows what we can extract from Russia. They're not losing in Ukraine, but they're not exactly winning either. At some point, Putin would rather end the war. What's he willing to pay for Trump's help in doing that? Maybe some concession in an entirely unrelated geopolitical arena. Abandoning his support of Iran for instance or a reversal of Russia's recent rapprochement with China. Saudi Arabia recently announced an increase in crude production, dropping oil prices significantly. That's not in the Saudi's direct interest to do such a thing. Did Trump engineer that move from the Saudis in exchange for something about which we remain ignorant in order to threaten Russia's position in oil markets?
On a slightly different topic, but not entirely unrelated in terms of how the world really works, let's consider DOGE. I'm seeing complaints from some that despite DOGE making drastic cuts in wasteful programs, Congress is making no effort to cut future funding for the agencies responsible. My cynical speculation? Trump wants to keep the funding so he can use it for so called "soft power" programs promoting HIS agenda instead of those soft power programs that previously promoted "woke" and anti American agendas which had been their purpose under Democratic administrations. Likewise the Epstein information. We'll never see it. The blackmail potential of that information will now simply be put to the use of the new power brokers in DC. Instead of a Democratic controlled FBI and DOJ, we now have a MAGA controlled bureaucracy. Does anybody really think Donald Trump would willingly forfeit that kind of leverage voluntarily?
More and more, I think one must seek to understand the world in terms of Machiavelli and not in terms of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Boy Scouts don't set the world's agenda. Men like Mao and Stalin do. And Putin, Xi and Trump. Maybe Bibi too. I wish it weren't so, but since it apparently IS so, I guess I'm glad we have someone like Trump on our side...I think. After all, one should NEVER fall in love with any politician. They will ultimately break your heart. Machiavelli understood that too!
Posts
