Global Conflicts Update

A World Increasingly At War

Considering the expanding scale of conflict globally, I thought it would be useful to do a quick recap & forecast of where the various current or brewing wars around the globe are going.

Ukraine

Reality starts to set in for the West and Ukraine. There has been an onslaught of admissions and realization from Ukrainian and Western officials.

Losses

For example, the losses (death + out of combat) for Ukraine are now admitted to stand anywhere between 300,000 (official-ish number) to 1.1 million (leak/”mistake” in Ukrainian TV and other media).

The narrative is of course that Russia has suffered at least similar casualties. Considering Russia never had to do a second mobilization, this is highly dubious.

Considering the already abysmal demographic of Ukraine, it is not unlikely that short of the refugees going back home at the end of the war, the country is essentially done no matter who “wins” the war.

Supplies

Another fact that emerges is how little artillery shells the West can/wants to supply to Ukraine.

The EU was supposed to provide 1 million shells, which is by the way still a lot less than what’s needed. Only 300,000 shells were actually delivered. The price of these shells has also tripled (because why would the defense industry not gauge prices, right?), making a German artillery shell 10x more expensive than a Russian one.

In that context, it starts to make sense why with a much smaller budget, Russia managed to keep up with the giant defense budgets of the West.

Meanwhile, it appeared that Ukrainian demands have risen to 17 MILLION shells, which is probably more than there is in the entire world for now.

This massive advantage in artillery, but also air bombing, drones, loitering ammunition, and other attack capabilities make the claims of Ukraine inflicting a 1:7 ratio on the Russian force utterly absurd.

As Arestovich, a prominent former advisor to Zelensky put it:

"Do you know what our biggest tragedy is? I think that, in the conflict between globalists and realists, we have bet on the wrong side. We kind of shed blood to end up in the losing camp.

I saw the German President's visit to Qatar, where they forgot to meet him. For 30 minutes, he didn’t leave the plane until Qatar officials came up with something. And they talk about Putin being isolated on the international stage? They almost held a horse parade for him in Qatar.

Mobilization

Demonstrating the growing shortage of manpower for Ukraine is the talk of starting to change laws so they can mobilize EVERYONE. Women, students, and even 17-year-olds or younger.

What’s the point of “saving” the country, if its people are gone?

Russia seems to handle its recruiting needs only through hiring the military for now. Its larger army size overall also allows for regular rotation of units away from the front lines, something apparently almost never done by Ukrainian forces, except after heavy losses making a unit unable to fight.

Funding

Overseas, funding is lagging.

Partly it’s due to bureaucratic and political dysfunctions. Either in the US Congress, where the democrats and republicans are too busy trying to tie Ukrainian funding to closing the southern border.

Or in the EU, where the veto rights of Hungary and Slovakia can block the whole process.

It is also partly because ammunition and funding are needed to support Israel, which also grabs all the political attention.

Israel

After a brief cease-fire, the bombings of Gaza resumed. The Israeli army seems to be struggling with guerrilla tactics and urban environment + drones & an extensive tunnel network. Which any army would struggle with, but even more so an army made mostly made of volunteers, conscripts, and reserve personnel.

Tactical Assessment

It is increasingly clear that the ONLY winning tactic for Israel is the expulsion and displacement of all the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza. This would allow it to advance methodically and exterminate anything that moves.

Even then, this would make for very expensive fighting, with destroyed urban areas the hardest to conquer.

Frankly, a better option is, once the civilian population is expelled, to perform an actual siege, blocking any entry of food or water to the area. It could be enough to literally starve out any Hamas guerrilla fighters if given enough months.

Strategic assessment

The problem is that what makes sense militarily and tactically might not be strategic/diplomatic.

Israel’s image, and the West’s with it, will not look good in the Muslim World, but also the public opinion in Russia, China, Africa, etc. will see it as a genocide. Especially with the civilian casualties in Gaza probably already higher after 2 months than in Ukraine after 2 years.

The more successful the “thining of population” (not my words…) in Gaza, the worse the position and image of the West in the Middle East will be.

Frankly, this is partly because mass population displacement is rather … distasteful, anywhere, anytime.

But also out of Islam's conquering spirit, as the 100,000s dead Yemeni children failed to trigger 1% of the outrage for dead Palestinian children.

Iran-backed Yemeni rebels are now shooting missiles at US warships and seizing Israeli cargo ships. It is unclear how the US could succeed in pacifying Yemen when 10 years of war with Saudi Arabia, which just stopped a few months ago, failed.

What Then?

I see two possible outcomes of the Israel-Hamas war.

Scenario 1 is that Israel has to backtrack its target of conquest and mass expulsion of Gaza. The problem is that this might not be an option with Israel’s public opinion and internal politics.

In that scenario, we could potentially get back to the status quo, and even maybe in the long run a 2 state solution. This could nevertheless make Israel look weak and exposed to endless terrorist attacks.

Scenario 2 is continuous escalation. The problem is that this likely closes the Red Sea for Western trade. This could be from Egypt closing Suez, but more likely from continuous fire from the Yemeni coast. In that scenario, escalation with the Lebanese Hezbollah, US feet on the ground in Yemen (Afghanistan-redux vibes), or even outright war with Iran is possible.

In scenario 2, an oil embargo repeating the 1970s would also be likely, if anything because the Arab leaders will need to placate the angry mob of the Arab street.

The visit and royal welcoming of Putin in the Middle East, and Iran’s President's trip to Moscow had to the likelihood of further coordination against the West.

Waning Support

At the end of the day, Israel will need to face the issue of being hated (like in “wishing genocide”) by neighbors with 100x Israel’s population. The current trajectory is unsustainable, and it is hard to see a positive way out for the country.

To compound the issue, any military tactics will ultimately destroy the image of Israel as a jewish state victim of genocide to be supported by the West, as the turning opinion against the country of younger generations in the US and EU illustrate.

only 32% of respondents aged 18-34 approved of Israel’s response, as opposed to about 58% of those aged 50 and older.

for those aged 18-29, 25% sympathized more with Israel, 19% with the Palestinians, and 25% “about equal.”

Times of Israel.

Ruthless application of hard power can work but is incompatible with the durable type of support Israel inherited from the events of the Holocaust.

Guyana

If that was not enough, Venezuela has announced that it now considers legally 2/3rds of Guyana to be Venezuela territory.

This fanciful interpretation of international law comes with an even more fanciful interpretation of how territorial water borders are drawn:

Venezuela is even claiming it will start drilling for oil resources immediately.

I have covered previously how Guyana's low population and massive oil reserve make it a new Qatar/Saudi Arabia. I did NOT expect Venezuela to make such a crazy move.

Overall, I doubt the US military, already present in Guyana since oil was found, will let it happen.

The annexed region is essentially unpopulated and does not have any road or infrastructure through the jungle and mountains. Bombing the supply of Venezuela should be enough to cause the invasion to fail miserably.

Furthermore, Brazil’s own armed forces are also looking with concern to this move, as Venezuela also claimed some Brazilian territory as its own for a long time.

I suspect this might be the last straw forcing Brazil+US, and maybe even Colombia to intervene against the Venezuelan regime.

It is clear that Maduro thinks he can get away with it, while the US is distracted with internal politics, Ukraine, and Israel.

Considering this is in the US’s backyard, I doubt Washington will let it happen. If it did, it could lose ALL its empire at once, and the Monroe Doctrine is the firmest part of the American Empire.

My suspicion is that Maduro is a dim-witted pawn to be sacrificed in order to distract and spread thinner the American forces. Dim-witted, because he apparently thinks he can pull it off.

Venezuela's dysfunctional management of its oil resources has made it a worthless “ally” and more of a burden for the Russia-Iran-China alliance. This is probably the last usefulness it can bring to its overseas “friends”.

While concerning in the short term, I suspect this will open the space for further opportunities in Guyana. And maybe re-open Venezuela for foreign investment, which would be a golden opportunity for Western money.

Other

Caucasus

For now, the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan seems frozen. Armenia’s inept geopolitical positioning might be its doom, with the US or EU unlikely to actually care, but Russia also antagonized.

South China Sea

A new flare of tensions in the South China Sea between the Chinese and Filipino fishing fleets illustrates the difficulty for China in handling the area.

China needs it fully controlled to secure sea trade lanes. But by doing so, it put it on a collision course with American local power relays.

Korea

South Korea’s demographic is experiencing a total collapse. If this trend persists for another 5-10 years, the country will likely be unable to keep itself protected from North Korea in the long run.

The saying goes that demography is destiny. South Korea's TFR (Total Fertility Rate) went from 1.24 in 2015 to 0.72 this year.

At current fertility rates, 200 South Koreans give birth to 70, who give birth to less than 25. Hence in 2 generations, you would have 8x LESS INHABITANTS.

North Korea is below the replacement rate as well, but still 2.5x higher than its Southern neighbor. And never shy of providing bizarre scenes, we had this:

Overall, it seems that modernity, and its cyberpunk dystopian version of South Korea, where Samsung alone makes up 22.4% of the nation’s GDP, can be more deadly than even the most insane version of communism for a nation and its people.

I can see a long-term future (10-20 years) where South Korea turns into a de facto Chinese protectorate, under the understanding that the alternative is letting the North invade the country and even helping it a little.

Considering how being supported by the US turned out for Ukraine's demographic, I doubt South Korea can afford to do the same.