Global War Update 9/1/23

Jim Rickards asked a provocative question today:

Has World War III already begun?

Obviously the world is in the grip of a global power struggle that includes very major kinetic military aspects. Is this power struggle a world war? In a very real sense, yes, it is. Rickards has in mind a spread of the military conflict in Ukraine to other parts of the world—westward into Europe, southwards across the Sahel area of Africa.

Rickards makes the legitimate point that:

It’s often the case that momentous events begin in small ways and expand out of control. In retrospect, it seems obvious that war was inevitable. But at the time, it’s not obvious at all.

Adding to the fact that one aspect of this global power struggle is a very major military conflict in Ukraine, the global stakes extend far beyond Ukraine: “the future of NATO, control of Eastern Europe, control of Middle East oil and the global supply of uranium.”

I remain optimistic that a wider spread of warfare on the scale of what is going on in Ukraine remains unlikely. From a quite fundamental standpoint, time is still on Russia’s side, Russia knows that, and has faced down all efforts at escalation as counter productive to their long game. Rickards summary of the state of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine is worth quoting:

Ukraine is the obvious place to begin. Russia is winning the war decisively. The Ukrainian counteroffensive was annihilated on June 6 and re-annihilated after a reboot of the offensive again in late July. Ukraine is now using light infantry tactics since their armor has been blown up by Russian mines and artillery and left burning on the battlefield.

The “wonder weapons” ... have all been destroyed by some combination of Russian hypersonic missiles, anti-aircraft defenses and artillery or mines, or have been disabled by GPS signal jamming and other forms of electronic warfare.

Ukrainian combat dead are estimated at over 200,000 and all for nothing.

Ukraine has no chance of winning the war, but the war may escalate anyway. Biden’s team does not want to admit a humiliating defeat. They do want to keep the war going until after the 2024 election ...

But this is where Rickards’ argument falls down. His only concrete examples of how this conflict could expand hinges on highly speculative—and, in my view, highly unlikely—scenarios. A Polish invasion of western Ukraine that is simply not going to happen and the equally unlikely scenario of Russia attacking Romanian navy vessels (there are very few of such vessels, by the way).

Rickards next turns to France’s struggle to retain its neocolonial style hold over uranium in Africa’s Sahel region. He’s absolutely correct that this is a matter of great moment for France, but the likelihood of a major French military venture seems low and dwindling. It’s true that France retains something like 1500 troops in Niger and the US has a major drone base there, but it needs to be remembered that the decade long joint Franco - American “peacekeeping” mission in the Sahel has proved largely unsuccessful. France has been drawing its forces down, and a return seems unlikely—not only from a military standpoint but also because of the very bad light such a venture would put France in.

Neither France nor the US want to be seen by the world as intervening in Africa to reestablish colonial style hegemony. BRICS—which recently expanded to include two African nations (Egypt and Ethiopia)—is nothing if not an expression of global exasperation with just that type of Western bullying for the purpose of looting African countries of their resource wealth. Western intervention in Africa would only lead to an expansion of BRICS, which would hardly improve access to natural resources for the West. Critically for France, Algeria, which lies between Niger and the Mediterranean, sought BRICS membership at the recent summit. Algeria’s bid for membership was blocked by India, at France's request. In the meantime, however, Algeria’s relations with China are expanding and Algeria has refused French requests for overflight permission to Niger.

The reality that is becoming ever more apparent is that both France and the US were caught totally flatfooted by events in the Sahel, with no contingency plans in place. The additional Gabon coup just adds to the Western disarray, becoming one more hotspot that the West will be reluctant to get involved in. That disarray is reflected in the reports that we’ve referenced in recent days regarding Nuland’s panicked trip to Africa. Tom Luongo summarizes:

"Reports are now circulating that [Nuland] and her staff were caught completely by surprise [by] events in Africa and had no solutions, offers or even credible threats to bring to bear."

As a result, France has been reduced to trying to persuade Africans in neighboring countries to kill the Africans in Niger on behalf of white Frenchies, or in collaboration with white Frenchies. It’s still not a good look, and that ploy isn’t going well, as Rickards admits:

ECOWAS members are divided on the idea. In any case, ECOWAS action would require approval of the African Union and possibly the United Nations as well as weeks of mobilization. So no military action is likely for several months at the earliest.

The longer military action is delayed the less likely it becomes. Russia is active in the region and other countries in the region are supportive of Niger’s coup government. Further, the longer this stalemate continues the dicier will become the French military presence in Niger. Much of this was being openly predicted years ago: The bitter harvest of French interventionism in the Sahel.

Now, while I may disagree with Rickards, it’s important to note that important world leaders—including Vladimir Putin—are keeping a sharp eye out, just in case. Putin has now provided the West, and the Neocons in particular, with what he calls “food for thought.” Apparently, in addition to carrying multiple warheads, the “Satan II” can also carry hypersonic missiles.

Russia Puts Its Longest Range Nuke-Capable Missile On Combat Duty, Nicknamed 'Satan II'

The Sarmat, which is in a "superheavy" class of missiles, has a short initial boost phase which gives it better ability to elude all conventional anti-missile defense systems, given this results in a much smaller window of time to track it.

By design, its super long-range gives it the ability to reach targets thousands of missiles away in the United States or Europe.

According to its specifications, it's by far the heaviest missile Russia possesses - at over 200 tons - and heavier than all foreign competitors:

...

It has reportedly been in development since 2009, and has been in testing phase for several years, some test flights of which may have failed. The Sarmat has been touted as being able to reach speeds of nearly 16,000 mph.

Last year, after a successful test, Putin described: "The new complex has the highest tactical and technical characteristics and is capable of overcoming all modern means of anti-missile defense. It has no analogues in the world and won’t have for a long time to come."

"This truly unique weapon will strengthen the combat potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats and provide food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country," Putin added at the time.

Without doubt, the timing of Friday's announcement is also meant to spook Western leaders, as nuclear rhetoric related to the Ukraine war continues to rise, particularly in the context of Moscow having recently positioned tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

On the financial front—which includes BRICS, of course—Tom Luongo has a new article out today:

BRICS Summit Proves Geography Trumps Currency

His main point is that the expansion of BRICS that we’re seeing is based on the fundamentals of world trade—”not just expansion for the sake of expansion, but geographically strategic expansion.” That means that the currencies used in trade may not be as important as control of natural resources and, in addition, control of trade routes and choke points along those routes. In particular, he begins by arguing that “de-dollarization”—while a trend that will have an effect in time—is currently overhyped, and especially in comparison with the decline of the Euro:

While everyone is talking de-dollarization, the real currency losing it’s position in global trade is the euro. …

According to the latest data from the SWIFT RMB Tracker, there is no currency that has lost more ground in global trade than the euro. In just over two years the euro has fallen from 39.5% of global payments outside the euro-zone to just 13.6%.

This excerpt, as Luongo gets into the geographical issues, is a good intro. What he’s talking about here is France’s drive to control the flow of gas across the Mediterranean. We referred above to France levering India to block Algeria’s bid for membership in BRICS—which would have given Algeria more leverage in these matters. But Luongo points out that there also major intra-EU tensions in play:

The BRICS formally added six countries — Iran, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Egypt and Ethiopia. They could have added others and almost added Algeria if not for a last-minute veto by India on behalf of France.

Algeria is symbolic of the fight between Italy and France for access to African oil and gas. There can be no Ital-exit from the EU without Italy minimizing France’s influence in North Africa, shoring up its energy needs as collateral for a return to the lira.

Thankfully, with the help of Russia and China, the Africans are taking care of the Italians’ French Problem all on their own.

If there is one common theme beyond the geography (more on that in a bit) with all six of these countries it is their relationship with the supposedly former British empire.

Luongo then goes down a list of some of the new member nations and discusses how geographically important they are.

The list starts with Iran, unsurprisingly. Iran is at the heart of the new North South trade route. Importantly, Iran’s new port of Chabahar on the Arabian Sea—constructed by China after India dragged its feet—will provide Russia with an outlet to the world’s oceans that circumvents the choke point of the Straits of Hormuz. He notes:

China and Russia have pledged hundreds of billions in investment and sales to Iran, supporting them after Former President Trump tore up the JCPOA and put on sanctions which didn’t work, unless Trump’s goal was to ensure what has transpired since.

This is further proof Trump doesn’t play 4-d chess.

I suppose it’s also further proof that US presidents don’t set policy—the Neocon controlled Interagency does.

Next up, Saudi Arabia. It was always in the cards that the Saudis would end up in BRICS, says Luongo:

Saudi Arabia had no other option than to go along with its OPEC+ partner, Russia, if MbS wants the country to survive the end of its oil reserves.

TL’s discussion of the UAE addition to BRICS is rather fascinating. He argues that before you can really talk about a gold backed settlement system you need “a deep and liquid supply chain and financial industry in place.” Dubai provides that. Further:

Dubai and Abu Dhabi have rapidly become centers for strategic commodities trading with very successful and deepening gold and oil trading. Dubai has its own crude oil benchmark. Even Moscow doesn’t have one of those (yet).

The UAE addition was also important for purposes of minimizing intra BRICS tensions:

The UAE was necessary to get India to even consider going along with Russia and China on this idea [of a gold backed BRICS currency], which is why the UAE dirham will be the settlement currency between India and Russia on oil sales, and not the ruble. It both creates validity for a third party while also keeps India free from directly contravening US sanctions on buying Russian energy.

The result is an almost exponential increase in the credibility of the whole BRICS project. These developments—in conjunction with the addition of KSA, Egypt, and Ethiopia—also make the Persian Gulf as well as the Red Sea (and Suez Canal) virtual BRICS lakes. All these developments also increase the pressure on the US military presence in the Middle East.

I’ll skip to Luongo’s conclusion, which ends up tying into Rickards discussion of escalation, up top.

Luongo gets into this topic by discussing the simple fact that the importance of “physical collateral”—natural resources—has come to the fore. Those with physical collateral are demanding a fair return, and this is placing extreme pressure on the old European colonial powers. The US and Russia have plenty of physical collateral—the question for the US is ideological. But here is Luongo’s conclusion:

The fight for physical collateral is dovetailing perfectly with capturing control of the major trade routes. While the UK and their Neocon quislings are hell bent on starting WWIII over Ukraine, c.f. drone strikes on Russia’s Pskov airport from Latvia, the BRICS bloc understands that their best course of action is to continue building new relationships, networks, and pressuring the centuries-old colonial networks that have financed their power.

Staying out of a direct hot war simply makes good strategic sense. …

Now they [the old colonial powers] are being forced to expend their seed capital built up over these centuries on influencing events to their liking, and it’s clear they really don’t have the resources to do so for very long.

Against that backdrop, de-dollarization is the least of their worries. It will be the thing that grinds away in the background, like Powell’s shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet, and will just emerge out of these events.

The choice the West is now facing is at what point do they stop fighting this and finally come to the negotiating table. Some factions, like the US military and the banking sector, have already made their intentions clear.

The others? Not so much.

When facing extinction, that’s when you find out where someone’s true loyalties are.

So, as we know, the Neocons are desperate to keep the war on Russia going. They have their reasons. But can they hold out much longer when the US military and the banking sector really start pushing for an exit from this madness? That’s where we are.