ANTIWAR

Big Words from the Revolving Guy

US President Donald Trump has said he will be making an announcement about Russia tomorrow, Monday. Perhaps the most likely subject will be an expression of support in some way for the Graham-Blumenthal Senate demand for “bone-crushing sanctions” on Russia. Trump backing for the bill in itself means little, since it is an enabling measure that allows Trump to do what he is already doing with or without Congressional support in the domains of tariffs and sanctions - an economic tool and a political tool that are becoming increasingly interchangeable - but which he may or may not decide to activate.

This puts to one side the question of whether there is a chance that such sanctions will have anything like the devastating impact that people like Graham and Blumenthal may like to imagine, given (1) that they implement Third Party sanctions that punish the customers of Russian energy products by nations like China and India who are unlikely to be easily intimidated and who will very likely retaliate effectively, and (2) given that the most important outcome of US and European sanctions on Russia, so far, has been to strengthen Russia and have Russia embark on a camaign for the massive extension of Russian weapons production capability at a rate that significantly outstrips that of the US and Europe combined, one that also raws on the capabilities of China, especially, and also of North Korea and Iran.

Seizing the Assets

Trump’s statement on Russia may also relate to the question of the seizure of Russian assets in the US and, more importantly, in Europe. Recent ratcheting up of anti-Russian rhetoric in Europe may be explicable in terms of consolidating support for ignoring the legal and other jeapordies of such a seizure. The total sum in Europe (around $300 billion) is far higher than in the US ($5 billion), and certainly, the assets would help feed a continuation of the conflict for a year or so.

Without such a fillip, there is strong reason to expect, following the logic of Ukraine’s intelligence chief Budanov a few months ago to the effect that without Western weapons, Ukraine cannot expect to survive beyond the fall, that the Ukrainian army will collapse by the end of the year.

Trump’s statement tomorrow, therefore, may also bear on his recent resumption (one or two days following his “pause”) of US arms to Ukraine (albeit, he says, paid for mainly by NATO members who agree to purchase arms - with the stolen assets? - from mainly US arms manufacturers). If Trump is going to go beyond the final drawdowns from former President Biden’s Congressionally approved allocation of $60 billion to involve major new Congressionally authorized expenditures, this surely would indicate a major prolongation of the conflict, a scenario to which it seems Russia is already reconciled.

Extending US Incapability

Major new US expenditures on Ukraine would come at significant cost to US ability to sustain the costs (1) of supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the West Bank (negotiations with Hamas have predictably broken down, mainly over Hamas insistence that the IDF withdraws to its positions as of early March this year), (2) Israel’s invasion of Syria, (3) the possibility of a joint territorial share-out by Israel and Syria of a large part of the nation of Lebanon, (4) some kind of Israeli extension of its Zionist expansion into parts of Iraq and, not least (5) another attack initiated by Israel, to be followed up by the US, on Iran. Not to mention (6) the cost of protecting Israel from further Houthi attacks on ships bound for Israeli ports and Houthi missile attacks on Israel itself - Ansarallah’s truce with the US only covered threats to US shipping - and (7) the buildup of US animosity to China over Taiwan.

Despite the growing evidence of the success of Iranian attacks on Israeli military and war-related targets during the 12-day war, not to mention satellite evidence of damage that it inflicted on the main US military base in Qatar (despite Trump’s claim that all Iranian projectiles were shot down), the likelihood of an Iranian preemptive attack on Israel still strikes me as unlikely. Compare the situation with the one that confronted Russia in 2022.

Russia 2022 and Iran 2025

Russia, in 2022, launched its SMO in Ukraine, in reaction to (1) extreme US and Western provocation in the form of aggressive, anti-Russian exercises on Russian borders with Ukraine, Poland and Romania; (2) US unwillingness to negotiate with Russia over the US placement of intermediate range nuclear weapons in Poland and Romania, to be followed up, possibly, by comparable placements in Ukraine (and, later, Germany), and (3) the threatening posture of Ukrainian forces against the then independent republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, all in the broader context (4) of the unmistakable determination of the West, despite two decades of stern warning from both Russian and US spokesmen and experts, to advance NATO membership to Russian borders, and of published RAND plans to use Ukraine as a tool for bringing about the dismemberment of the Russian Federation.

On the basis of this kind of situation and this kind of logic, Iran would be more than justified in engaging in a pre-emptive attack on Israel. That it does not do so is most likely because (1) Iran has not developed its own nuclear weapon; (2) that it is therefore no match against potential Israeli use of a nuclear weapon, of which Israel has a very large number; (3) that even if Iran had developed a nuclear weapon or had been able to do so in the space between its departure from the US/Israeli-complicit IAEA (when we are going to have UN investigation?) and the time of a preemptive attack, it would be incapable of a second-strike response to Israeli/US first-strike retaliation; (4) that there are significant political and religious rifts in Iranian society on the morality of nuclear weapons and on offensive military action; (5) the tepidity, so far, of public Russian statements on the question of the Israeli threat to Iran - even if Russia has, thankfully, denied as false recent Western media claims that Russia has recommended that Iran should accept the path of zero-enrichment of uranium to appease the demands of the US and Israel - may lead Iran to be more cautious than it otherwise would be.

The Weakening of Europe

So, circling back to Ukraine, a major US arms commitment to Ukraine at a time when US weapons stockpiles are low (the 12-day war in itself reduced US THAAD stockpiles by 20%, and the US expended 50 Patriot missile interceptors just in a failed effort to protect its military bases from Iranian missiles), would seem highly counter-productive in terms of US military capacity to sustain the US as the global superpower.

We should bear in mind that (1) Trump has already pushed Europe into taking more responsibility for the financial burdens of Europe’s own security (articulated currently almost solely in mistaken terms of Russia being the main threat, when in reality it is the US that is the main threat to Europe), and so would not want to give up on an advantage so recently obtained; and (2) when US tariff policy (30% tariffs on European products scheduled for August 1) is alienating Europe, directly encouraging the rearmament of Europe under German leadership, and the further centralization of EU power in terms of potential future measures to expand the EU’s power to issue bonds for military expenditure and to raise its own army.

In brief, Biden and now Trump, have significantly undermined Europe’s economy, first by forcing it to disengage from cheap Russian energy, scuttling Nord Stream, and signing Europe up to dependence on expensive, if copious, US LNG energy. Trump continues along the same path by forcing Europe to take greater responsibility for its own defense. And is punishing Europe further with considerably higher tariffs on European exports.

In this way, the US has virtually eliminated Europe as a geopolitical competitor against US power. Even if Europe tries to hit back, as Merz is doing by re-arming Germany, it will actually be shooting itself in the foot. Germany’s indebtedness will skyrocket. Even rearmed, it will still be unable to represent a significant defense or offense against Russia’s greatly magnified armed forces. It will be spending huge sums both on US energy and on US arms. It will be dependent on the US for any nuclear capability. It will still have to depend on more expensive sources of energy. It will provoke the wrath of the German people when they realize they are the ones who are being saddled with the new debt. It will find itself torn apart from growing internal tensions, more likely to set European powers against one another than either posing a threat to the US or to Russia.

Neocons For Ever

In his first administration, Trump, in the face of the incontestable reality of the rise of China to the status of the world’s most powerful economy, at least in terms of purchasing power parity, set about re-establishing US dominance (MAGA) by taking down China in a tariff war that the US lost.

In his second administration, Trump has learned that the threat to MAGA is not simply China, but also Russia, and the BRICS and multiple other sources of contestation to US dominance, including the European Union.

These are all now rivals and enemies. The US is forcing them all either to help pay for continuing US hegemony by collaborating with Trump’s tariff regime or to confront a mixture of military and economic aggressions that will bring them to heel.

Whether or not further military aid to Ukraine goes from the US or Europe or from some continuing combination of the two of them, it is debatable whether it will arrive in time. Perhaps the US Pentagon can manage one Patriot battery; Germany’s stockpile of Patriots is down to 6 (or 5, given that one is always in maintenance) and Merz can only provide one or two more for Ukraine if he is allowed to buy them from the US. If he buys them it can take up to three years before they will be supplied, although presumably Merz would make one or two available from existing stock with a view to these being replaced as soon as possible by borrowing whatever is needed for purchases from the US.

Ukraine, which has been subject to intense Russian drone and missile attacks over the past couple of weeks, keeps claiming that it is shooting most of these projectiles down. But that claim is simply not compatible with its desperate pleas to the West for more air defense, nor is it compatible with satellite and drone photographic evidence of damage on the ground.

Western media exaggerations of Russian losses on the field (over a million) are belied even by the Mediazona figures which put the numbers of Russian dead implausibly high at 116,000 - and Mediazona has now been discredited for seeking British finance. The fact that the “propaganda of losses” is now being sharpened is probably intended to distract from Ukrainian losses (quite likely to be well in excess of a million dead and wounded), recent evidence of Ukrainian failures on the battlefield, the inability of Ukraine to secure the remaining areas of the Donbass that it currently occupies, the decline of resources and of morale, and the gathering need for Ukraine to mobilize, lower the age of conscription to 18 and even to conscript women.

Ukraine’s edge in asymmetrical warfare (terrorism, assassinations, etc.) is now being countered with the assassination in Kiev of the SBU’s head of its own assassinations department. If Russia is now minded to launch its own equivalent tactics, then these are likely to dwarf anything that Ukraine can come up with, even with Western intelligence support. There are reports that Ukraine is building a new front-line west of the Dnieper, and of Russian plans for a new offensive that would take it to the east banks. Zelenskyi is said to have demanded the resignation of his Minister of Defense, Umerov, who is also his chief negotiator with Russia. Given what we know of Zelenskiy’s stubbornness this may most likely signal Zelenskiy’s determination to keep fighting, with a new team in charge, and to walk away from negotiations. If so, it probably also entails a renewal of the period of military law and the further postponement of elections.