The Course of Empire by Thomas Cole
Rarely spoken of is the effects of the Middle Eastern wars on Ukraine. For a long time, Ukraine got everything it wanted, but since Oct 7th, it has been #2, or worse, on America’s priority list. Mossad has a great deal of influence in America, just short of control, almost certainly due to a sickening collection of videos and pictures, and Israel has received the first cut off everything it needed: most especially of interceptor missiles.
Even so, the reason that Israel and the US called for a ceasefire and Iran did not (though it accepted one) is that Israel was less than a week from running out of air defense missiles, and as best I can tell, the US could only have supplied about another 7-10 days worth.
What this means for Ukraine is simple enough, they’re being absolutely hammered by Russian missiles and bombs. They don’t have enough air defense, they don’t have enough missiles for the air defense, and there is no reasonable prospect of re-stocking. The West’s larder is empty.
The tempo of Russia advances continues to increase. It’s still slow, but it’s at least eight times as fast as it was a year ago, and as Ukraine runs out of men, weapons and ammunition (Western shortages go far beyond air defense), plus as morale continues to plummet in Ukrainian armed forces, the prospect of “big arrow” warfare grows closer.
As I’ve said before I expect that period will arrive next year. The fighting age male population is decimated, those willing to fight are or will be mostly dead, and Russia will win the war decisively, taking whatever they want to. The only danger of this not happening is Putin accepting a peace offer before that: like Khameini, he is very cautious, doesn’t like war and wants it over. If Zelensky ever gets his head on straight, or is replaced, he’s likely to accept a peace deal much short of what can be accomplished by arms and an unconditional surrender.
This will be a HUGE loss for the West. The first war they have decisively lost on the battlefield in generations. There will be no concealing it, and the inability to ramp up production of weapon systems and munitions will leave the collective West so weak that no one will be able to believe they could win a conventional war against China, or even Russia.
It will, psychologically, be the end of Western hegemony. For almost 400 years the West has been dominant, and since Industrial Revolution, overwhelmingly dominant.
That era is almost over. The economic aftershocks will be huge: the end of American dollar hegemony is likely within five years, ten at the most and the entire world except, perhaps, Canada, the US and Europe, will re-orient to China. The US will even lose South Korea and Japan as reliable allies, indeed, it arguably already has (more on that another time.)
This is a literal epochal period. The “nothing ever happens” fools are missing that this is the end of a literal era: the era of European supremacy (the US is just a European settler state and Britain’s successor.)
The new era will be multipolar only if China wants it to be. They are approaching “America after WWII” levels of industrial and technological power. However, for at time, they will probably allow a multipolar world, as they are smart enough not to want to be a superpower or “world cop.”
Normally this would cycle to a superpower period, but environmental issues are likely to short-circuit normal macro-geopolitical cycles. Everyone will wind up in survival mode, and the question will be who manages this best. Whoever does will lead the next cycle, which will occur long after most or all of us are dead.
So, as best you can, you may as well be interested. You are living in truly interesting times, which come around only every half millenia or so.
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Bill H.
Isn’t it interesting to read you say that the two nations who are winning their wars, Russia and Iran, “don’t like war” even though they are winning, and that the losers, Ukraine and Israel are averse to quitting. I agree, of course. Their aversion is due to their status as proxies for this United States. Russia and Iran’s aversion to war is due to being ancient, civilized nations.
Feral Finster
Funny, I have been saying something like this for a long time now. For that matter, the noises by the european poodles bout recognizing Palestine were simply veiled demands that the United States prioritize the War On Russia.
Anyway, you can bet that Macron and Starmer are telling Trump now, that they slavishly supported the United States against Iran, they have meekly assisted in the genocide in Gaza (yes, they know full well what they are doing here), so You Owe Us Big Time Now.
Jan Wiklund
Except that the West didn’t dominate until about 1800. They dominated the Atlantic, but most of the world’s business was carried out in Asia. See Re:orient by A G Frank, https://www.ucpress.edu/books/reorient/paper
elkern
IMO, what we have here is a “Kayfabe War” followed by a “Kayfabe Peace”, and I’m fine with that, because it’s surely better than the Real War which it replaced.
Israel attacked Iran with bombs, missiles, drones, and targeted assassinations of key leaders.
Iran responded with missile attacks on Israel. (Drones too, but none of those got through).
This went on for a week or so; neither side was really “winning”, but I’d say that Israel was losing more (and if it continued, they were likely to run out of air-defense weapons before Iran ran out of missiles…). Israel’s only hope – indeed, probably their original intent – was to drag Uncle Sugar in to win the war for them.
In this one case, we’re lucky that Trump is President (never thought I’d ever say or write anything like that!). Any conventional politician – Republican or Democrat – would have mouthed all the usual platitudes about “our ally Israel” and (reluctantly but irrevocably?) committed the USA to open-ended war against Iran.
Somehow – despite $B “campaign donations” and whatever lewd pix Mossad has – Trump found a way to thread the needle, agreeing to attack Iran (once) if Israel agreed to a cease fire after that.
The US attack on Iran was “Kayfabe”. I’m sure we dropped real missiles and bombs, but we warned Iran about the attack in time for them to (1) evacuate people (and maybe nuke materials) and (2) avoid attacking our planes (though it’s also possible that we never actually flew B2’s over Iran).
Iran responded in kind (more Kayfabe), warning us about (details of!) their attack on our base in Qatar, which we (and mostly Qatar!?) fended off, apparently without casualties.
The fact that the Pentagon cooperated with Iran’s military in both of these actions is remarkable, and IMO, admirable. Of course, this is not the first case of this kind of thing: that’s roughly the story of the US missile attacks on Syria in 2019 (under Trump I).
So far, the Ceasefire is holding up well enough. Iran will not attack Israel (directly) unless Israel attacks Iran (directly). Israel will probably continue to assassinate people in – or allied to – Iran; Iran probably won’t be able to do much about that beyond rolling up whatever Mossad cells they can find. Iran’s regional network (Hezbollah, etc) is in tatters, and it will take years for them to rebuild that, but they are patient.
Bibi is certainly fuming at not getting everything he wanted from Trump (bombing Iran back to the Stone Age). Trump’s Secret Service people had better be very alert; and Democrats should avoid cheering if they fail. (The Old GOP’s only hope for regaining control over Trump’s Mob is to be able to blame Trump’s death on Democrats).
Likewise, Democrats should just STFU about the [true] fact that the B2 (?) attacks only set back Iran’s nuke program by a few months. This is not the time to play “gotcha”; right now, avoiding WWIII depends on us all pretending that (1) Iran won’t build nukes, so (2) Israel shouldn’t bomb Iran. Griping about the temporary nature of the damage to Iran’s [purported] nuke program implies that we should permanently end it; but the only way to do that is by completely destroying Iran’s industrial, technical, political and economic base… that is, to bomb back to the Stone Age, like we did with Iraq, Syria, and Libya.
The situation is still very dicey; for now, keeping the Kayfabe Ceasefire going is by far the least dangerous course.
Ian Welsh
Commerce does not matter in such calculations unless you can turn into military power. (The Mongols say hello.) What matters is who has the ability to turn on military power. Starting around 1500 Europe was expanding to every continent except Antarctica. As time went by they became more and more militarily dominant.
One can argue about China (and no one else, though Japan did hold them at bay) but China’s expansion was to the West, and insignificant in comparison.
someofparts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8lmVwu7yEs
From Max Blumenthal of Judge Napolitano – at 5:20 – 9:20 he explains that Mossad is in the White House advising Trump
someofparts
If we are talking about bombing countries back to the stone age, don’t forget North Korea.
Mark Level
Thank you to Ian for a thorough and timely post, and elkern (& others) for relevant details added to the main post.
Yes, for whatever reasons (& despite the Epstein files) the Donald did not go all in for World War 3. This is Keaton Weiss’ note that Trump’s election (which he did not urge anyone to support) made the Presidency a pistol with only 5 bullets in it for the forced game of Russian Roulette vs. if Harris was elected, 6 bullets would be in the chamber.
But this is only the first attempt to bog down the US in a regional war, we will see if it ends so happily the next time. Which Israel will certainly try.
When Iran agreed to the temporary cease-fire (which they will not honor for long, as we all know) I had feelings similar to what sorodemos shared on an earlier thread. In the 48 hours since I have reconsidered, and think that Putin’s and Iran’s caution and gradual movements have worked up to now, and not knowing what weapons the Iranians have or don’t in their bag, I cannot 2nd-guess. The West is run by complete idiots, so I don’t think they can win apart from isolated battles, certainly not a war.
As to claims that Israel could turn the entire nation into a smoking ruin, the US could do severe damage but I believe that to totally burn it down to the ground is not possible given its size, mountainous terrain, etc. And the unforeseen consequences of that would not bode well for the US internationally.
The fascist Zelensky regime is cornered, and very dangerous to a point. They have talked of creating a dirty bomb in the past, or getting a Nuke from Starmer and the Brits. It would not win them the war, they have always fought to create a Narrative, not a military victory on the field (which they never could have anyway) so I wouldn’t put it past them.
On the big question, Ian is right. The US will be very dangerous when it fully realizes (though even little Marco Rubio has admitted) that the Multipolar world is here. But that is still some time away, maybe 18 months to 2 years? Yes, this is a “literal epochal period.”
It is on a par with the destruction of Germany and the UK in 1945, followed by the fall of the USSR and its starvation and impoverishment for 2 decades under oligarchs, which Putin partially reversed starting in 2000– thus the West wanted him destroyed.
Maybe the US will be limited to small, weak wars in its own region (a Canadian province? Greenland? El Salvador?) to gain territory. It will be a hard full for the Lindsey Graham types who’ve imagined themselves to be world-spanning Giants swallowing smaller fry powers.
It will be mostly concluded sometime in 2026. “Interesting times” coming, indeed.
Mark Level
Oh, a small typo which most will see thru. I was implying that Israel will soon break the cease-fire, not Iran. We all know whose M.O. that is.
Chuck Teague
It is of concern (or, perhaps should be) that so much of discussion regarding Carney’s European ventures revolve around militaristic production, and, in terms of raw material, only in respect of such weapon production. This has been historically of the “been there, done that” vein. We’ve (western so-called democracies) all been there before, long ago. One could refer to Tuchman’s “The Proud Tower” for edification (facts from over a century ago). If we have it…may as well use it. /sarc. Food, eduation, health care? Not so much evidence there. Carney is a globalist, elitist, banker-fuck, corporate shill. What few, tiny, moldy crumbs the ordinary Canadians eventually receive will be as non-mathematically significant in relation to the free pass he intends to give his slimy corporate bros in Canadian resources companies as to pollution, mistreatment of employees and contempt for local communities. Cheers.
– CT
Carborundum
I think I mostly agree. The major deviation I would hold is that I don’t think the West, or at least the not-so-closely involved European part of the West, is going to view the loss (or whatever gaggle- fuck it devolves into) as such a major transition as to mark the psychological end of Western hegemony.
Should they view it through that lens? Sure – I just don’t think they’re going to. Near as I can tell, policy folks transitioned quite quickly to viewing this as a bleeding war (funny how lack of battlefield success will do that) which means they’ll slap a new shade of lipstick on the pig and call it good when things grind to the inevitable. The bigger driver of new configurations is American intransigence – as an example, we’re not talking about 5% of GDP to defence in this country because of Ukraine.
someofparts
https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/what-role-china-should-play-in-the
Long post about China’s attitude toward Iran and the reasons for it. Strongly reinforces suspicions that the quality of strategic thinking we see from Tehran is fairly poor.
mago
This isn’t an open thread and I make no apologies for nonetheless saying Matt Taibbi is a straight up asshole as his latest post attests.
Just blowing steam in a bloviating world and don’t expect it to go anywhere, let alone be posted here.
Ian Welsh
Hard to disagree, alas. I used to really admire Taibbi, but he’s gone full tard and proved he has no steady principles.
Greenwald is a good contrast. I have my disagreements with him, but he has integrity and principles he doesn’t abandon.
Sean Paul Kelley
Agreed Ian, but Glenn likes the sound of his own voice far too much. He rambles on his show far too often. I get frustrated and yell at the computer,” goddamnit Glenn, get to the point!” But then again, his essays on his old blog were pretty wordy as I recall.
shagggz
I agree regarding Taibbi. Quite the fall from incisive bomb thrower to out-of-touch (bordering on shit-)lib. I was cringing very hard reading his bilious dismissal of the kids these days and their risible socialistic bent. However, his latest post where he deigned to post a comment spewing some quite justified bile at him, with him responding with graceful humility, I find encouraging… people just need to keep rubbing his nose in the inexcusable savagery and duplicity of the fading fourth reich regime:
https://www.racket.news/p/what-am-i-for
ProNewerDeal
“the end of American dollar hegemony is likely within 5 years, 10 at most”
What would the effects of USD hegemony by 2030 be for everyday American people? What would be decrease in purchasing power from current 2025 to post-hegemony circa 2030 USDs?
How can a USAian mitigate these consequences? I suppose working/saving more and accumulating a significant portion of personal portfolio in non-USD assets, including ex-US stocks & gold/silver while the USD remains relatively strong could help.
How would the US housing market be impacted by post-USD hegemony? Will the US housing market start to at least somewhat reflect climate change risk by metro area?
Eric Anderson
Everyone here mentioning the dirt Mossad likely holds on Trump forget one really important point. The zionists defenses were failing with little hope resupply and Iran was beginning to turn their cities to rubble.
Mossad and Trump were duplicitous in crying chicken, and they’ll be duplicitous in breaking the ceasefire again as soon as they find it to their advantage.
Forecasting Intelligence
Interesting post – in fact, I’m going to ask John Greer his thoughts on your take (I think he broadly agrees with you).
My own take:
1) Agree with you on Ukraine’s fate, I’ve said before and will repeat your record on the Ukraine war has been better than most.
2) Also agree that the era of European dominance is almost over. Where I disagree a little is I think we are a bit closer to the Roman Empire analogy. Whilst the empire collapse, the west fell into a Dark Ages and overran by barbarian armies, the East survived and continued for a 100 years.
This time around I see, this century, Europe collapsing with western Europe getting invaded and replaced internally by Muslims (Western Europe will become sharia states by the end of the 21st century). Eastern Europe will likely become vassal states of a revived Russian Empire.
America still has a good chance of coming out ok, even after it loses its dollar dominance by the 2030s. It has strategic security, ample resources and better integrated population than Europe. Canada is secured as a satellite state and probably Mexico can remain tightly integrated within American economic and security interests.
Minus Cuba the Caribbean remains a US backyard space and US Navy should be able to control the waters around the US for decades to come. South America is a mixed bag but bottom line the US should be able to secure key resources it needs (lithium, shale oil and gas etc) over the long-term.
Sean Paul Kelley
Appreciate your thoughtful comments. One or two quibbles. First you wrote: “Where I disagree a little is I think we are a bit closer to the Roman Empire analogy. Whilst the empire collapse, the west fell into a Dark Ages and overran by barbarian armies, the East survived and continued for a 100 years.” I really dislike the empire analogy because it is an inaccurate analogy. We are a collapsing republic. Rome was a collapsing republic first as well. Began with Sulla’s march on Rome and re-writing the constitution of the republic and his proscriptions. In order to refill the Roman treasury he had dozens of wealth equites (the knight class jusst below patricians) executed and their wealth turned over to the treasury. He did his best to destroy the class of men Teddy Roosevelt would call “malefactors of great wealth.” Then Pompey’s anti-constitutional shenanigans. Then came Caesar, the scion of a great family, descendent of Venus herself. But he was no optimate–the party of the rich senators. He was a firm Populare. But the Optimates were insanely jealous of his success in Gaul. The forced a voted in the senate, the senatus consultum ultimum. Which meant every Roman had the duty to murder Caesar on sight. So of course he marched his legions across the Rubicon and overturned what was left of the wise Sullan constitutional order. But Caesar was different. He plead for clementia. Clemency. He wanted all his enemies back in Rome so the state would function. Many returned, except for that idiot Cato the Younger. Caesar engaged in very limited proscriptions. He tried to rule wisely. But was assasinated. Octavian, just to get to the main point, when he finally achieved supreme power, engaged in even more widespread proscriptions against the equites and even some senators. He then took on the mantle of Agustus, primus inter pares. A citizen like any other but first among equals. He ruled by maintaining procinsular imperium in every vote for every year for the rest of his life. Sometimes he was just as tribune. Sometimes a praetor. Sometimes a consul. But the Republic fell. And in my opinion we resemble the late Roman Republic much more than we do the rotting husk of the post-Antonine empire.
Hiero
RE: Taibbi/Greenwald – I’m always wary of seeing my exact opinion delivered to me by someone else, the allure of bias confirmation is overwhelming, but gotta say checks out.
Taibbi, the archetype of gen-X sellouts, doing an arc through fox news pappaw towards born-again evangelical – seems it’s only a matter of time before he gets there.
Forecasting Intelligence
Greers response:
Forecasting, I’m not sure he’s right that the emerging era is China’s — there are other rising powers, notably India — but the general picture seems sensible to me.
To me the US Republic effectively died in the 1940s, and ever since America has been an empire in all but name.
The rot started in the late 19th century when America started going down the empire business.
joey_n
I can understand the US, but what could prevent the other two from reorienting to China? At least after the USA loses its grip on them?