You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Matthew, Chapter 24.
And so we're on to a new year.
Armenian woman kneeling beside her dead child in Syria during the Battle of Aleppo.
Heading into 2025, the big news remains the Russo Ukrainian War. Other wars are going on, of course, including the Middle Eastern War, as we have termed it here, in which the United States is an occasional belligerent.
As the world is just a few days away from the inauguration of Donald Trump as president, there's good reason to be concerned about the impact this will have on various conflicts, the Russo Ukrainian War in particular. Trump has long been a Putin fan boy for reasons which remain very difficult to discern. Over the past three years Russia has proven that it is, at best, a weak regional power. Putin is bankrupting his country and his armed forces have been reduced to such a level that he's imported North Korean forces to aid his, with North Korean being a Stalinist Clown College.
Ukraine has managed to hold on against its much larger neighbor in no small part due to largescale Western support. Europe has actually, at this point, contributed more to Ukraine than the US has. US leadership and support has been critical, but its often missed that the US has used the war to clear out obsolescent stocks of arms and, in fact, could do much more of this if it wished to, and should. Trump, however, has been generally hostile to Ukraine and lovey dovey to Putin. His relationship to the Russian head of state is so peculiar that it has long raised questions about what's behind it.
Trump, of course, who didn't serve in his nation's war when he was of military age, claims to abhor war and he may in fact have that view. He generally doesn't like military men that much, and he's sufficiently wealth and self centered that he frankly might just not grasp that there are people who are willing to fight and die for their country. Be that as it may, however, like many of the populist camp, quite a few of whom are strongly influenced by a certain strain of Evangelical Protestantism, he has an "Israel can do no wrong" view. There is no reason to believe, therefore, that the incoming administration won't essentially give Israel a free hand in whatever it wants to do in the ongoing struggle in the Middle East.
The US, it might be noted, retains a small number of forces in Iraq and Syria. Trump made sounds about pulling US forces out of Syria when he was first elected, but he didn't. He's made some statements about the US having no role in Syria now, but the US forces in Syria aren't sufficient to impact the outcome of the war there, and are there only to address ISIL in the region. There is, therefore, no real way to know how the change in administrations will impact that.
In terms of prognostications, its notable that Russia's 2024 effort in Ukraine have produced no real results. That Putin isn't trying to commit larger forces to the region and is instead allowing his forces to be bled is telling. He probably can't do more. Ukraine, however, remains unable to push Russia out. The situation therefore depends nearly entirely on what the US and Western Europe does.
The commitment of North Korean troops was always boing to be a failure and will be. North Korea is much more of a paper tiger than many suppose. Mostly, a lot of North Koreans will get killed. Those who return to North Korea will have been exposed to a partially westernized Russia. Stalinist have always feared that as it means there's now a population that knows things could be much better somewhere else. Moreover, those returning will be elite troops. They'll be much like French Algerian troops who returned home to Algeria after fighting in Indochina, and that won't be good for the Communist Hermit Kingdom.
Right now, in regard to Syria, there's really no real reason to hope that the country breaks into a western democracy. At least some period of internecine strife appears likely, absent a massive intervention by Turkey, which we really do not want.
January 1, 2025
Russo Ukrainian War
In a sort of odd even in the ongoing war, a deal between Ukraine and Russia which allowed for the transport of natural gas across Ukraine into Europe, in spite of the war, expired this past week and, as a result, Ukraine shut the pipelines down, which makes perfect sense.
This creates, for the most part a less dire situation than a person might suppose. Europe receives 5% of its natural gas from Russia. Another pipeline that does not go through Ukraine does exist.
Unless you are in Moldova.
This is the only way the breakaway Transnistria region gets gas, and the impact there has been immediate.
January 6, 2025
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine has launched a new offensive in Russia's Kursk Oblast.
Last edition:
In this instance, of course, the last edition was, from last year.
January 8, 2025
United States v. Panama
United States v. Denmark
Today's headline in the Tribune:
TRUMP TALKS USING MILITARY IN TAKEOVER
Trump appears to be demented, and the US acting illegally in a war against Panama and NATO Ally Denmark should be taken seriously.
January 13, 2025
Russo Ukrainian War
Donald Trump's special envoy for the Russo Ukrainian War, who of course right now is simply a private citizen and may always be, has declared that Trump will end the war within 100 days of taking office.
Originally it was within 24 hours of taking office.
After that, it was within 24 hours of being elected.
Of course, a person would have had to have drank the KoolAide to believe either of the first two, and not to heavily doubt the third.
A really interesting look at North Korean troops in the war:
Troops Captured by Ukraine Provide Rare Glimpse Into North Korea’s Military
January 15, 2025
Middle Eastern War/Hamas Israeli War
Hamas and Israel appear to have agreed to a complicated cease fire.
January 20, 2025
Middle Eastern War/Hamas Israeli War
The first prisoners and hostages were released yesterday.
No more wars?
That was the promise of the Trump campaign, along with the price of groceries going down (they won't) and the war in Ukraine ending within 24 hours after his nomination to the GOP ticket (that didn't happen).
No more wars isn't shaping up to be true either.
Two huge stories broke yesterday on Face the Nation, but with all going on, they aren't getting that much attention.
They are, in the style of this thread:
Israel v. Iran?
Lindsey Graham was on Face the Nation yesterday begging for Israel to hit Iranian nuclear sites. He will be "engaging" Trump on this topic.
United States v. Mexican Cartels?
Incoming National Security Advisor strongly hinted that the US will be listing two Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations and implied that the US will be intervening in Mexico to take them on.
I'm frankly amazed this isn't a banner headline.
If this goes in the direction that it seems to be, one of the purposes of having Graham and Waltz on the day before the inauguration on the best of the three weekend news shows is to get the information out, in a sort of early and curve ball fashion, that we're headed into to major military actions. We apparently are going to urge the Netanyahu administration to basically finish the Iranian regime off, or at least decapitate its nuclear potential, and we're going into Mexico with special forces and aircraft, the way we've fought in Syrian and Iraq over the past two decades, but in a much more substantial fashion.
Whatever a person thinks of these proposals, Iran is not going to go gently into the night, although you could argue, as some have, that its down on its knees and needs to be wiped out.
Mexico, no matter what the incoming Trump administration might think, does not want troops on its soil again for the third time. It would likely fight back against an intervention, just like it did in 1916, even when the intervention is against an internal enemy, just like it was in 1916.
At any rate, at least right now, it would appear that the incoming administration isn't really against wars. It's just in favor of different, and bigger, wars.
January 24, 2025
Russo Ukrainian War.
North Korea is sending more cannon fodder to the war.
This won't serve to turn the tide in favor of Russia, and if it continues, it will destroy the core of the North Korean army and leave an embittered veterans class. The real threat to Ukraine now is Donald Trump. So far Trump seems to have assumed that his pal Putin would simply end the war because Donald was elected, or perhaps due to something in the relationship between them (Trump is undeniably a Russian asset, the question is what kind of Russian asset he is, bought and paid for or by personal inclination). Trump's present plans in regard to his first broken campaign promise is to cause the Saudi's to lower the price of oil as that will make Russia's too expensive to buy, apparently.
January 26, 2025
Middle Eastern War
The Trump Interregnum is resuming shipments of 2,000 lbs bombs to Israel on the basis that "they bought and paid for them", reflecting his sad view of the world.
Whether a person supports Israel or not, already leopards are eating the faces of left wing pro Palestinian voters and Arab American voters in the US who didn't support Harris. Trump will make Biden look like a peace protester as far as Israel is concerned, and the far right is packed with the element that feels Israel can do no wrong.
Trump also is proposing to Jordan and Egypt that they take in the Gazans so that Gaza can be "cleaned out". While there is in fact some merit to the Gazans being relocated (we suggested this earlier), both countries have rejected the idea completely and Trump's phone call diplomacy is working no more successfully here than it did with his call to Denmark's leader about his bizarre demand for Greenland.
January 28, 2025
Congo
The Congo River Alliance, backed by Rwanda, entered the country and took a major city this week. Made up of 17 parties, the principal member is the U.S. and UN sanctioned March 23 Movement. I have no idea what they are seeking.
January 31, 2025
Congo
M23 rebels seized control of Goma and are advancing toward the South Kivu provincial capital of Bukavu.
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