Ref: AD-2746
Summary: in the wake of Volodymyr Zelensky’s White House battering and the subsequent US freeze on military support the thought may just have crossed Benjamin Netanyahu’s mind that he too could face the same fate as the Ukrainian President.
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Today’s Newsletter states as follows: “Trump is unpredictable and has already shown how well-established allies can no longer depend on US security guarantees.” The second part of this sentence is certainly justified. However, I think the first part deserves more careful thought than the commentariat collectively – and quite possibly policymakers – have given to date. For sure, Donald Trump is indulging in what one might call ‘designer chaos’ in that it is a deliberate tactic which may certainly involve some randomness but which nevertheless has a pattern to it. But more important still is the fact that we now have an increasingly clear idea of where Trump-ism is aiming to take us, i.e. the abandonment of the post-WW2 US-led international order in favour of multipolarity and spheres of influence – such ‘spheres’ to be built around the US (as, presumably, primus inter pares), China and possibly Russian. This vision is entirely consistent with Mr Trump’s admiration for strongman autocratic leaders, which also applies farther down the global food chain. In a recent essay for ‘Foreign Affairs’ Michael Kimmage referenced both Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Narendra Modi – to which one must surely add Mohammed bin Salman. All this being said, quite where the Middle East fits in this quasi-Orwellian vision is far from clear. But we may be sure that Beijing will be quick to try to take advantage of any and every opportunity it affords China, which appears to have a very firm belief in Mackinder’s Heartland Theory (“The Geographical Pivot of History”, 1904) to build on the influence it has already secured in the region though BRI and BRICS.