31.8.26
Dear Partners in Thought,
As we experience a new world “disorder” of sorts, I thought it would be useful to really see what is happening in today’s world while focusing in a sober manner on two of its key disturbers, who clearly are Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. When looking at their strategies and tactics, these should lead to realising a few key potential facts that are not always mentioned.
In less than two years of his second term, Trump has changed the world we knew as well as America for the much worse, even if its enlightened MAGA hat-wearing supporters at home are taking some time to realise it. On the domestic front, the tragic ICE episodes, White House ballroom project, mail-in voting changes, renaming of the Kennedy Center, planned face on the Dollar bill or his and his constant family self-enrichment showed a consistent careless and egocentric approach unseen in any US presidency in modern history. He was fortunate that the Big Tech and AI-led booming stock market helped him take some easy domestic credit while the sealed Southern border secured his unwavering MAGA support. On the foreign front, he has weakened the Western Alliance with his Greenland offensive and various attacks against European NATO members, even if the latter’s increased autonomy and defence spending was needed. His departure from assisting Ukraine seemed un-American based on post-WW2 and Cold War history, whilst hurting the image of America’s values and principles at the same time. His Iran war and Hollywood-sounding Operation Epic Fury, when he wanted an unlikely regime change by the air and did not take account of the Iranian control of the Straight of Ormuz, showed incompetence and, as always, child-like obstinacy in its management. His renewed tariff attacks against trading partners and close allies like Canada, showed little understanding of the need for a good neighbourhood and the benefits of globalisation and world trade at so many levels, including ensuring a peaceful world. The very long list of his inept domestic and foreign policy moves, flavoured with his back-and-forth approaches, made it impossible to follow them, which gave him some degree of comfort as he could always go forward unchecked while many got used to his erratic and destructive style. After less than two years, his polling rate has gone down to very low levels due to the impact on American pocketbooks. It is then useful to note “who benefits from the crime” as the French would say, which few of us think about, so staggered are we all by all the policies developed by Trump and his career preservation-focused, mostly incompetent and clearly obedient team. Whether for real or not and as I stressed for some time, Trump has de facto acted as a Russian agent or at least a key asset, as Luke Harding recently wrote in the Guardian. This is a fact, regardless of whether or not the Kremlin has a devastating file against him based on his pre-White House Moscow trips, as mentioned years ago. This may sound odd but the main beneficiary of Trump’s domestic and foreign policy today is indeed Russia.
Putin, who was welcome as a new, sober and more stable leader of Russia 26 years ago, has shown an unexpected and gradual development into revanchist and aggressive imperialism since 2008 in Georgia and then 2014 in Ukraine, this culminating with a full-scale invasion of the latter in February 2022. Russia is clearly not winning the war that could last forever, even if now a drone-stronger Ukraine would struggle to win. This forever war is impacting both the Russian economy and society, even if the latter has been historically captured and kept quiet by the Kremlin. Putin could not care less that his war would take years so persuaded is he that Ukraine is Russian (even if Kyiv was indeed historically its imperial cradle) and the number of deaths of now well-paid Russian soldiers or quasi-mercenaries, especially from rural areas when not prisons, is not a Kremlin issue. He could clearly rejoice at the Trump administration’s lack of support to Kyiv (hence the above “asset” point) and the focus on the Iran war that lowers the world attention on his own invasion. The problem the world, and especially Europe, faces is that Putin at his increasingly late stage in power (and indeed age) has nothing to lose and would likely resort to any means to finally win, like using tactical nuclear weapons and/or invading small Baltic neighbours, which are all part of NATO. The danger with Putin, as we are in the fifth year of his war from another century, is that he may feel that the overall costs are getting too high for his country while gradually losing his mind dealing with such a challenging situation of his own making, thus leading him to yet unseen war developments and potentially WW3.
The purpose of this short Interlude was to make us step back and take some unusual lateral thinking about two key individuals of our challenging times and their actual and potentially future impacts on the world. On a last point, the real winner of the erratic policies of these two men and countries is China, the rising super-power. Beijing, for all its geopolitical flaws, is still a globalist and trade-focused power on the gradual road to a potential world supremacy. On the good side (with the historical weight of Taiwan put aside), China does not naturally resort to wars à la Putin or tariffs à la Trump, which led many countries (indeed like Canada) to have sought to be closer to it economically in recent times as a reaction to what the world had become. We can hope that America will come back to what we knew, not after the mid-terms, even if the Trump camp loses whole or part of the US Congress this November, but in November 2028 at the next presidential election. As for an increasingly unhappy Russia and given its historical power structure, it looks sadly unlikely that things could change for the better, short of an oligarchic coup driven by wealth preservation with strategic benefits for their country and indeed the world. Time will tell.
Warmest regards,
Serge
Desperate Measures 