This article will examine the risk versus reward potential of all the prospective northern​ offensives that Russia could run in Ukraine. It will then come to a conclusion as to the most likely.

Offensive One
Direction  – Driving south from Belorussia along the Polish border, taking or encircling Lviv then following the Dniester River valley to seal off the Romanian border and the Moldavian border north of Transdniestria.

Rewards – The purpose of this offensive would be to cut Ukraine off from Western supplies. Given that Hungary, Slovakia and Transnistria are not allowing military supplies to cross their borders into Ukraine then it is only the Polish border, the Romanian border and a small section of Moldavian border north of Transnistria where supplies are making it into Ukraine (The flow of goods from the Romanian border south of Transnistria has been blocked by the destruction of two strategic bridges). Without supplies from its allies, Ukraine would quickly run out of munitions and weapons systems with which to fight. So if this offensive was successful it would mean a quick and decisive end to the war. Added benefits for Russia would be that most of the fighting and consequent destruction and death would take place in the extreme west of the country, which is the most anti-Russian part of the country, leaving the more pro-Russian East and Centre with less damage.

Risks – The danger with this thrust, though, is that the Russian right flank would be extremely vulnerable to an attack across the Polish border by the very well-armed and highly motivated Poles. With fighting right on the Polish border it runs the risk of some munitions straying across the border and giving Poland an excuse to cross the border in retaliation. Such a move would be the more likely as, if the Russians had an extended offensive pushing south from Belorussia, it would be very tempting for the Poles to enter the fray, cutting the salient off from Belorussia in the north and thereby surrounding the attacking army in one relatively easy move. That would be a disaster for the Russians. Further more, it would be very difficult for the Russians to take Lviv quickly a major city with perhaps the greatest anti-Russian, pro-war sentiment in Ukraine.

Conclusion – Whilst the rewards of this plan are enormous. The potential for a disaster is too high a risk for the Russians. This is not the strategy they will employ at this time.
 

Offensive Two
Direction – Driving south from Belorussia, beginning at a point midway between the Polish border and the Dneiper river, then heading south to make contact with the northern border of the Russian ally, Transnistria.

Rewards – Similar to Offensive One, the purpose of this offensive would be to cut off Kiev and the great majority of Ukraine from Western supplies. 

Risks – Unlike Offensive One, though, the Russians do not have the difficult task of taking Lviv indeed there are no major urban areas standing in the way of this offensive reaching its desired goal. This thrust would also be far enough away from the Polish border that the fighting has little chance of spilling over, and if the Poles decide to intervene anyway, then the Russians will have some time to prepare to face them as they will need to cross some 60 to 100 kilometres of Ukrainian held territory before encountering the Russian flank. Not being right up against the Polish border, however, will mean, though, that there will be a significant slab of Ukrainian territory on the Russians’ western flank with the major city of Lviv at its core and that even if the rest of Ukraine is cut off this western region would be well set up to carry on the fight.
Being a salient striking down between Ukraine’s two primary military logistics hubs of Lviv and Kiev, this Offensive also has the potential to see an attacking Russian army cut off from its support and encircled. Though that possibility is reduced by the less likely intervention of the Poles.
 
Conclusion – There is a lot to recommend this offensive plan. Particularly, when it may well be the case that Putin does not want Lviv and was intending for it to be the capital of a rump Ukrainian state, which would be useful to him as somewhere for all the die hard Ukrainian nationalists to go to, rather than staying in the conquered part of Ukraine and causing the Russian administration headaches.
I do not think the Russians will undertake this offensive at this time. They are currently winning in the East (if only marginally) and at the moment the momentum of the war is turning in their favour. They appear to be getting stronger while the Ukrainians appear to be weakening. Given this situation they will be reluctant to do anything risky that could turn momentum and morale against them. Better to pursue safer courses of action even if their gains are only small rather than give the Ukrainians a chance to have a big win and undo all of the positive momentum. As one analyst has said ‘Right now, the Ukrainians only hope of victory is through a Russian mistake.’ I think the Russians would assess that they need to avoid the possibility of a ‘mistake’ at all costs, so their up-coming offensive will be, I think, one that risks little.
If the Russians are successful in taking the East bank of the Dnieper. It will be after that when they will endeavour to launch this offensive, not now.
 

Offensive Three
Direction – Driving south from Belorussia straight at Kiev.

Rewards – Taking the capital of Ukraine.

Risks – Destroying the city which was the medieval capital of Russia for 600 years. A very difficult and costly fight through Ukraine’s largest city. Making enemies and warriors of many civilians who might not otherwise have been wanting to resist the Russian takeover.
Despite the great cost to achieve, it would not necessarily bring the war to an end even on the East bank of the Dniepr.

Conclusion – Not going to happen. My guess is that Putin does not want to see sustained fighting in Kiev. The initial attack on Kiev was conducted in the hope of scaring Ukraine into submission. Once it was clear that sustained fighting would be needed to take the city, Putin withdrew.
 

Offensive Four
Direction – Driving south from Belorussia along the East bank of the Dneipr River, taking Chernihiv, taking or encircling the Eastern suburbs of Kiev, pushing on along the Dneipr to meet up with another Russian army pushing north along the eastern bank of the Dniepr from Zhaprizhia or a Russian army pushing west toward the Dneipr from a starting point between Sumy and Kharkiv.

Rewards – Cutting off Eastern Ukraine from all supplies from the West which would mean any Ukrainian forces in the East would quickly run out of munitions and weapons systems with which to fight. This offensive would also make Kiev a frontline town subject to artillery fire from the Russian forces. This would have a significant psychological impact on the Ukrainians. Also reducing the ability of their largest city to function productively and in all likelihood forcing a withdrawal of the central government to the West, probably to Lviv.
 
Risks – As with all salient attacks there is the risk of being cut off and encircled. An attack along the east bank of the Dneipr to Chernihiv was attempted at the beginning of the war and failed to take Chernihiv, so it is known that Chernihiv will not be easy to take. Making deep attacks from two or three directions requires a lot of manpower, firepower and logistics in an environment where mobile warfare has proven difficult, so far. Given all of this it is possible that these offensive thrusts will become stalled before meeting up. Offensive thrusts that fail to meet their goals will cause reputational/morale damage to the Russian army.
 
Conclusion – This strategy will be employed in parts. The pushing south along the east bank of the Dneipr will be held off for now but attempts to attack north from Zhaporizia along the Dneipr and West from between Kharkiv and Sumy will be made. If both, or even just one, of these attacks goes exceptionally well then a thrust from the north will eventually be made.
Part of the reason why I am confident the Zhaporizhia and Sumy/Kharkiv thrusts will be made is because these attacks have multiple success points. On the Zhaporizhia front if they just move the front forward a few kilometres; it is a success; if they take or encircle Eastern Zhaprizhia City – they have taken control of a vital Dneipr crossing; big success; if they make it all the way to Dnipro; they have blocked two key Dneipr crossings; outstanding success. From the border between Sumy and Kharkiv, if they simply take some Ukrainian territory then they have succeeded in creating a buffer zone along the border; success; if they push in 30 kilometres between Sumy and Kharkiv, then they have put themselves in a position to encirlcle either city or drive toward the Dneipr, thus putting the enemy in doubt and forcing them to divide their forces or leave one or more options open; big success; from there the outstanding success of encircling Kharkiv or Sumy or driving to the Dneipr is possible. If the later option is achieved then an attempt to meet that thrust with an army coming up from Zhaporizhia or down from Chernihiv would be a next step.
 
Ultimate Conclusion
So, I am predicting that if the war plays out in the Russian favour, but the Ukrainians continue to fight, then first we will see offensive four put into action and then after that offensive two. Of course, as outlined in the previous blog, I would see the partial implementation of Offensive Four being conducted in tandem with attempts to advance on all existing fronts in order to stretch Ukraine's strategic reserves to the maximum.
 

So, my predictions for the Russian offensive.
I need to preface this though by saying that I do not know the situation on the ground in Ukraine anywhere near as well as the Russian Military Commanders. There is much information before them that I do not have. My guesses are simply based on widely publicized information about the situation on the ground. They may suffer from a lack of critical information. That said, my predictions, based on my limited knowledge, are as follows: 

1. The Russians will attack in all new and existing frontlines simultaneously in order to exceed Ukraine’s ability to throw effective reserves at each attack, thereby giving the best opportunity that at least one direction of attack should make a breakthrough.
2. The main new front/axis of attack will be entering the Kharkiv region between Kupiansk and Vovchansk (the Donets River). They will push south hoping to envelop the Ukranian lines that are facing the Russians in Luhansk Oblast. They will be seeking to use the Siversky Donets river as a protection on their western flank while the eastern flank attacks the Ukrainian positions. The role of the Russian forces in Ukraine will be to pressure the Ukrainians from the East, but the main attack will come from the west. Any attack from the East will have to overcome well established defensive positions and then if they make it to the Oskil river the Ukrainians have prepared positions waiting to help them defend the West bank of this river. So, it will be much better to attack from the west, attacking the Ukrainian defenses from behind and then being able to use those self-same defenses to hold the Oskil river line against the Ukrainians trapped between its eastern bank and the Russian lines further east. Of course, the Ukrainians will know that this move could trap all of their forces on the Luhansk Front so they will do their best to stop the Russians on, or near, the northern border. I think, however, that this is the direction to which the Russians will devote their best resources. Why? Because destroying the Ukrainian Army is more important than taking large grabs of territory. If the Russians can destroy the Ukrainian Army then they can take as much territory as they wish. If they take a big grab of poorly defended territory but leave the Ukrainian Army largely intact then they risk having that territory and others removed from them later in the war. Destroying the Ukrainian Army will therefore be priority number one and the attack with the greatest potential to deal it a severe blow is the one outlined above, so I think the Russians will invest many forces into it despite its predictability. Also, if it does not come off then they can claim that they were just trying to create a buffer zone along the border as they have previously stated they would. So they can claim a sort of victory even if they only make it a few kilometres across the border.
3. The second area of focus will be the Donetsk Front. Here they will attack almost everywhere. If destroying the Ukrainian Army is the goal, here is where it is most concentrated. Liberating Donetsk though has long been a stated goal of ‘The Special Military Operation’ so politically any ground taken in Donetsk Oblast is a public relations win. Within the oblast, though, I do not think they are planning a frontal assault of Vulehdar. They have lost too many troops trying that previously. Vulehdar will definitely be a key target, but my thinking is that they will try to surround it by moving north from Pavlivka, Shevchenko and/or Novomaiorske to block its western flank and moving west from Solodke and Novomykhailivka to cut it off from the north. It also seems unlikely that they will attack Niu York and Toretsk directly as the contact line facing these two urban centres was first established in 2014 and has probably been built up over the years to be extremely difficult to fight through. It is far more likely that they will endeavour to take these areas by encirclement, pushing north from Avdivka and west from Bakmut/Artemovsk.
4. The third region of attack will be between Kharkhiv and Sumy. Such an attack, if it pushes deep could threaten either city with encirclement and so give the Russians options. If the Ukrainians look like they have Kharkhiv too well defended then the Russians can potentially swing north and grab Sumy. Naturally though, Kharkhiv, as Ukraine’s second largest city and former capital, would be the preferred target. If the attack does not make much ground, once again, the Russians will be able to claim that they were just intending to create a buffer zone along the northern section of the Kharkhiv border, so once again they will be able to claim victory with just a few kilometres captured.
5. Finally, the Zhaporizhia front will also be a direction of attack. The Russians will endeavour to dash forward from Robotyne to Orikhiv and will also attempt to drive up through Stepnohirsk to Zhaporizhia City. This attack is likely to be the least resourced and the least sustained. If the initial push succeeds, and a breakthrough is made, then the Russians may well send more resources to Zhaporizhia, but if the initial charge is unsuccessful then it is likely the Russians will be content to simply retake any land lost to the Ukrainian offensive and then sit on their hands. The reason being that they have established very strong defensive lines where they are and that as the next Ukrainian Offensive, if there is one, is likely to want to head through the land bridge to the sea, they might prefer to present the same tested and successful defenses rather pushing forward at great cost only to occupy less defensible positions when the expected assault comes and losing yet more troops as a result.

 
Northern Attack Routes
It seems unlikely at this stage that the Russians would also attack from the northern Ukrainian border in the next few months, so I will save analysis of these prospective invasion routes for a later blog.

I find it highly likely that before the Ukraine war is over the Poles will put troops on the ground. Historically, when The Ukraine and Belarus have not been Russian territory, then they have most likely been Polish territory. The Poles, naturally, would like to regain some of their 'lost' eastern lands. Consequently, the current conflict in Ukraine is far too good an opportunity for them to miss. Taking land requires deploying troops so expect to see the Poles on the ground in The Ukraine. Poland's recent orders of massive amounts of military equipment, including 1000 K2 tanks from Korea, indicate the line of their thinking.
Ideally, the Poles would hope to send their troops in with the consent of Ukrainians. Arriving as the saviours when the war had got to the point that Ukraine was on the verge of total defeat. Although self-interested, it would still be a brave move to stand face-to-face with the Russians, but the Poles do have an ace up their sleeve. They can offer the Russians a complete end to the war in return for dividing Ukrainian territory between them; afterall, even today, if Poland suddenly closed its border to any trans-shipment of armaments then the Ukraine War would be over. The Hungarians are already closed to arms shipments. Moldavia is blocked from shipping arms by the fact that its border with The Ukraine is controlled by the breakaway republic of Transniestria which is strongly pro-Russian, to the extent of having a Russian base on its soil. And the Romanians have only some small roads through the thick of the Carpathian mountains to use after the Russians destroyed the bridges on the lower Dniestr River. That leaves tiny Slovakia as their only significant import route and Slovakia's main opposition party is already campaigning against their involvement in the war.
And then, of course, the Poles might be able to win the backing of the USA for their move. That would constitute another huge Ace.
Apparently, the former Polish foreign minister has said that it has been discussed at high levels whether if Ukraine became a Polish 'Protectorate' it would be covered by Article 5 of the NATO constitution requiring all NATO members to come to its defense.
Of course, talk of Polish protectorates only makes sense if the Ukrainians are losing the war and badly. If Ukraine looks like being the eventual winner then look out for the Poles finding reasons to move into Belarus. Were Belarus to send troops into Ukraine the Poles might consider it enough of a justification for them to attack Belarus. The Belarussians may not be simply looking for excuses not to enter Ukraine when they tell the Russians they need their troops to guard their own borders with the West. Putin, too, might well be deliberately wanting to keep Belarus out of harm's way, in order not to give the Poles an excuse to get involved.
Indeed, the only outcome where I do not see Polish troops on the ground, is if something like the current stalemate continues, where Ukraine is still strong enough to defend itself, but the Russians are not destroyed either. If such a stalemate is quickly followed by a ceasefire agreement then the Poles might miss their chance. I use the word 'quickly' deliberately, because it seems unlikely that a stalemate could go on for many years, eventually one side or the other should gain the upper hand as they are too dis-similar in capabilities. So it seems likely that the Poles will get their chance and if the Americans and Ukrainians aren't willing to negotiate with the Russians, the Poles, I suspect will be happy to, as for them a negotiation over Ukraine will not be zero sum; but rather win: win.

The talk is that the Russians are about to launch an offensive. The question is, 'Where will it be?'
I am neither a military expert nor well-informed about the battlefield dispositions of either side, however, I am prepared to make a few predictions.
The offensive is about to happen ostensibly because the ground in The Ukraine is finally frozen hard enough to support tank movement. Therefore, one can deduce that the offensive will seek to use tanks and that the time period of the offensive, with a duration determined by the vagaries of the weather, could well be very short. That the Russians might be desiring to use their tanks to maximum effect is also suggested by the fact that we know the West has promised to send a considerable number of tanks to The Ukraine before the summer offensive season (When the ground is once again hard enough not to bog the heavy tanks) so the Russians are likely to want to attempt mobile tank warfare now before all those new tanks arrive to bolster the Ukrainian's mobile warfare capabilities. Given these preconditions we are looking for an area of the frontline where mobile tank warfare is most useful and where something meaningful can be achieved in a time period which might be as short as two weeks. By deduction this suggests that the Russians are probably going to attack on the Luhansk Front. The Donetsk Front is still in many places the same frontline as has been the border between The Donbas and Ukraine for the last six to seven years. It is deeply entrenched, heavily fortified, and frequently urban and not at all ideal for mobile tank warfare. The Zhaporizhia Front is open terrain which has fortifications and trenches only dating from May, which means they are not likely to be as comprehensive as on the Donetsk Front. The Zhaporizhia Front is a possible tank attack site, but the Luhansk Front is preferable as it too is open terrain, with a Frontline only established in September and which appears to be far less fortified and entrenched than the Zhaporizhia Front to judge by the constant reports of relatively mobile warfare that has gone on along that front since September. Additionally, on the Luhansk Front the Russians would not have to push the Ukrainians back very far to push them entirely out of Luhansk Oblast and into Kharkhiv Oblast so the politically significant claim of 'liberating' all of Luhansk Oblast would be able to be made as soon as that was done. Furthermore, just outside the borders of Luhansk Oblast flows the Oskil River, which runs from north to south in a relatively straight line (unlike the very meandering Siversky Donets River) and would make an ideal defensive line to anchor on while offensive action moved elsewhere. Given all of these factors I am predicting that 'liberating' or 'occupying' the entireity of Luhansk Oblast will be the minimum objective of the Russian's winter offensive and that if they fail to achieve even that much then their offensive would likely be deemed a failure.

Why Bhakmut and Vuhledar?
There has been much questioning in the mainstream Western media about why the Russians are trying so hard to capture Bhakmut. I would say that for the context of the war, as it is currently poised, Bhakmut is very strategically located. The Donetsk Front as I have stated above is an old frontline that is extremely heavily fortified and entrenched. Frontal assaults all along this front are likely to be extremely costly in terms of lives lost and success will only get you to the next line of fortifications. Consequently, ideally, the Russians would like to 'outflank' these fortifications and come at them from behind. Bhakmut guards the northern flank of this frontline. If they take Bhakmut they can then push South-West cutting off frontline urban strongholds like Toretsk from behind. Bhakmut also has the advantage of being on the road to the cities of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk further to the North-West, so an element of doubt is introduced about in which direction the Russians are heading from Bhakmut as Kramatorsk and Sloviansk are the largest cities remaining in Ukrainian-held Donetsk Oblast and are also significant prizes that they will need to protect. My guess is that if the Russians take Bhakmut while the ground is still hard enough to support tanks then they will swing south and try to cut off all of those frontline, fortified, urban areas while they can. They can perform the slow attritional war of street-to-street fighting in cities like Kramatorsk when the fields are muddy.
Vuhledar, similarly, is the first fortress on the way to outflanking the fortified Ukrainian frontline from the south. This is why the Russians have risked and lost so many troops trying to take this small village.

So much for the plans of sweeping tactical gains thought up while pouring over the maps in the military head quarters.
While they are hoping that these plans come off, it is likely that the Russians will employ a simpler strategy that they know they can execute. One of, while they have the men in reserve, increasing the pressure all along the frontline, and if they find a weak point, throwing everything at it in the attempt to make a break-through.

It would seem to me that if Russia is intending to install its own government in Ukraine then the man they would choose to lead it would ideally be Viktor Yanucovich. Viktor Yanukovich is the democratically elected leader of Ukraine who was ousted in a coup in 2014. He has been living in Russia ever since. If he is the man that they put in charge of whatever is left of Ukraine at the end of this war, then it would allow the Russians to undercut all of the criticisms that have been leveled at them in terms of an 'unprovoked attack'. If they can claim that they are restoring a democratically elected leader then it would certainly give their invasion legitimacy in many eyes.
The greatest problem with this strategy, however, may well be Viktor Yanukovich himself, I have no knowledge of whether he would agree to be re-installed as President of the Ukraine. Particularly, if it is over a partitioned Ukraine. I believe he has previously spoken of trying to get Russia to return The Crimea, so he may not be willing to go along with what may be Putin's current plans for the Ukraine.
Further evidence that the re-installation of Yanukovich is unlikely is the fact that we have not heard Russia saying that this is what it is doing. This might, however, be because they wanted to keep their real intentions unknown to this point, or it could be that Putin is waiting to see how well his invasion goes before choosing his end goal and he is not yet sure that he will choose the one in which Yanukovich would be helpful.

Some Carrots in the Pot.
There were many notable things about Putin's speech yesterday (Australian East Coast Time) which ended in his recognition of the independence of the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk(see attached link www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrGLhhTtxFU). One of the things which struck me though is that when he spoke about how the Bolsheviks, when they created the Soviet state of Ukraine, were too generous with its borders, he not only says that 'historically Russian lands' were given to it, but also that 'historically Hungarian' and historically Polish' lands were also given to it. Such an admission leaves the door open to future negotiations with Hungary and Poland about a future carve-up of current Ukrainian territory. Indeed, I would guess that the Hungarians have long had their eye on just such a redrawing of their border with Ukraine and their pro-Russian attitudes over recent years have been, at least in part, a preparing of the ground for just such a negotiation, where they barter their support for Russian moves into Ukraine in return for a renegotiation of their border with The Ukraine, in the event that Russia does come to control it. Given that the Hungarian speaking section of Ukraine is only a small sliver of territory immediately adjacent to the current border and on the western side of the Carpathian mountains it would seem to be an exchange that Putin may well be willing to contemplate.

Hungary is already in the Russian camp. Poland, however, is completely another matter. Poland has led the European resistance to Russian actions in The Ukraine and they have been The Ukraine's strongest supporter. They have also done their best to pull Belarus away from its links to Russia, and they have worked to block Russian influence in Lithuania and increase their own.

This advocacy is not entirely based on a fear of Russia, as some claim. Poland also has an historical claim on all of these states having ruled them during the 15th and 16th centuries. As well as during a brief period in the 20th century, between the world wars.  Poland is a true historical competitor to Russia in these territories and as such it would seem unlikely that their hostility to Russia could be altered. However, Putin's recent reference to 'historically Polish lands' suggests that he might be amenable to giving some of Ukraine 'back' to Poland, if he gained control of it, and that thought will now be firmly lodged in the back of many Polish nationalists minds. Perhaps in the future, Polish resistance to the Russian occupation of The Ukraine might be turned to support by the negotiated return of some 'historically Polish lands'. And I am sure, if such negotiations ever did take place then Poland's leaving NATO and signing a security treaty with Russia would also be on the table.

Putin's potential undermining of NATO did not stop there, however, at the same time as talking about Polish lands being given to Ukraine he also spoke of 'historically German lands' being given to Poland. What if Putin told Poland that he would give them their 'historical lands' only if they agreed to give half as much land area back to Germany. Would this be enough to lure an already wobbly Germany out of NATO?

Putin's speech has already shaken Europe for reasons not mentioned here. However, Putin chooses his words carefully, and various nationalist leaders in Hungary, Poland and Germany will have heard the suggestion that some of their dearly held goals might be achieved through an alliance with Russia.

Over the past several months, Putin has been gathering his ingredients. Today he threw in the salt. Now he will slowly bring the pot to the boil.

​This may not be a very professional sounding analysis, but it is what is in my mind.

So, in my last hurried post I said I would explain my reasoning for why I think Putin will go into Ukraine. I have left it late enough, so I had better explain myself now before events overtake the need for any prediction.
Now, I am by no means a military expert, so my predictions are based on political calculations rather than any specialised knowledge of troop deployments and such like.
So, some reasons why I think Putin will go into The Ukraine:
Firstly, it is not primarily about NATO. If his stated demands were met, Putin would probably be happy and might put off the invasion for now, but I think that primarily his goal in going into The Ukraine would be the hope of reuniting the Russians. Putin considers Ukrainians to be Russians. Kiev was the capital of the first Russian state. Most of the Ukraine has been part of Russia for hundreds of years and the only reason it was part of a different state to Russia under the Soviet Union, in Putin's thinking, I presume, was because the Russians wanted to make the Soviet Union look like it was an International Union rather than just a Greater Russia, so they generously gave a bit of Russian territory to create some states like Belarus, which had never previously existed and The Ukraine, which had only existed when the Nazi's had control of the territory. The Russians had thought that Belarus and The Ukraine would always be under the control of the Soviet Politburo so there was no problem with calling these regions independent states. They had never imagined that their creations might actually become independent !! They even added the Crimea to The Ukraine in 1954. Thinking like this you can see that Putin, a strong nationalist, might want to correct the 'geopolitical tragedy' of the collapse of the Soviet Union and bring at least these, formerly Russian, states back into Russia. In Belarus it appears Putin has achieved this aim relatively peacefully (There is a 'Union State' agreement by which Russia and Belarus  are essentially merging). He must have thought he was on the way to achieving the same with the Ukraine when Viktor Yanukovych was elected President. He was hoping to get The Crimea back into Russia even more quickly with Yanukovych scheduling a referendum to be held in Crimea in 2014 to let the Crimea decide between the Ukraine, Russia and Independence. When Yanukovych was undemocratically overthrown Putin's strategy for peacefully reintegrating The Ukraine took a significant hit, though, I would assume. 
So, Putin's sense of grievance over The Ukraine is pretty strong. He believes The West underhandedly stole The Ukraine away from him by overthrowing a democratically elected President. He would also see an invasion as a noble effort to reunite his people. So his motivations to take control of the Ukraine are far stronger than some concerns about an aggressive foreign alliance structure. Geo-strategically there is a lot to gain as well, many analysts talk about Russia's declining population, extremely long borders, and open, easy-to-invade geography. Adding the Ukraine to Russia would add 40 plus million people while shortening their border and putting that border on an easily defensible mountain chain.
So, Putin has a lot to gain from bringing Ukraine back into the Russian fold. Not to mention, entry into the pantheon of Russian greats, if he pulls it off. And the greater the gain; the greater the risk one is willing to take to obtain it.

So, why now? Why during this particular standoff?
Well:

• Given that the West has started arming Ukraine, if he backs off now he will have incurred a price for his build up of troops (the better arming of Ukraine and the uniting of NATO) without having achieved any gain. Given that a price has already been paid Putin will not want to walk away.
• If Putin waits till next year Ukraine will only be better armed
• Right now, many European countries have a large dependency on Russian gas and oil and so are not very motivated to stop trading with Russia. In a year's time these countries might have diversified their economies away from Russian commodities.
• Right now, many in the American administration see China as America's biggest concern and so their attention is divided. In a year's time, China might have been laid low by a financial crises, causing the US administration to start rating Russia as their strongest competitor.
• Given that the US has at no point said they will help defend Ukraine militarily, the one card that might really dissuade Putin has not been played.

Given all of the above, it is my prediction that Putin will act rather than back down.
One way or the other, we will soon know.

Well, this blog is meant to be about geopolitical predictions, so here is a big one:
Russia will go into The Ukraine again and this time they will go in big.
Why big?
Because the international reaction to them taking the rest of Donbas would be the same as if they invaded the entire country. So if they go in they should go in for everything they want.
In addition, the more audacious their gambit, the stronger the impression they will make on their neighbors and the world.
Why would they go in at all?
I will have to save my reasoning for a later post.

Many news reports are saying that there are more than 100,000 Russian troops on the Ukrainian border. Some news reports are saying around 90,000.

So, does this mean an invasion of The Ukraine is imminent?

I would say: certainly not. The Russians are positioning themselves to take advantage of possible opportunities. Russian troops moving into the Ukraine, en masse, is certainly more likely than it was a year ago, but it may not come in the form of an invasion and will not happen at all unless global and local conditions present a compelling opportunity.

First: The Why?
Why would Russia want to take possession of The Ukraine?

Because in many Russian minds, and almost certainly in Russian President, Vladimir Putin’s mind, The Ukraine is Russian territory. The very first historical mentions of a Russian people and state come from tales of the ‘Kievan Rus’. Kiev was the first capital of the Russians. Today, Kiev is the capital of The Ukraine. Many Russian’s don’t see The Ukraine as just a lost province; they see it as their historical heartland. They strongly desire to see The Ukraine re-united with the rest of Russia.

Second: The Why Now?
Why is it far more likely that the Russians might make a play for taking back The Ukraine now, rather than a year ago?

Because they have finished the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, which means that they can now pump natural gas direct to Germany and the rest of Western Europe. Previously, their gas, which provides an enormous income stream, had to pass through The Ukraine to reach Western Europe. So, naturally, the fear was that any aggressive moves toward The Ukraine could see the Ukrainians shut down the gas pipelines and hamstring the Russian economy from the very beginning of the war. Now, the Ukrainians can no longer play this card. So, the price the Russians would have to pay for aggression against The Ukraine has been substantially lowered. Not only that, but the Russians now have leverage over many of the European nations who might otherwise have supported The Ukraine against Russia. Now, the Germans, for example, know that if they support The Ukraine against Russia, they risk losing the natural gas upon which their economy currently depends. Previously, the Germans would have lost the gas immediately that the war started so the Russians could not have used the restriction of supply as a threat to keep them out of the conflict.

So, the Russians are highly motivated to regain The Ukraine and they have already created infrastructure and political levers that would significantly lower the expected cost of an invasion of The Ukraine. So why wouldn’t they go ahead and invade?

The main reason why the Russians would limit military actions against The Ukraine as much as possible is precisely because they see themselves as the one people. They would like to re-unify the country peacefully if they can. Many think that the Ukrainian identity is weak and does not have deep historical roots for many Ukrainian citizens, they hope that a well-managed crisis might bring many Ukrainian citizens around to wanting to re-integrate with Russia. President Putin is also surely aware that a brutal invasion may well be something which could inspire a stronger sense of Ukrainian identity than that which already exists. To draw an historical example, one might say that the inhabitants of the former Portuguese colony of East Timor had no strong sense of a national identity at the time when the Portuguese abandoned that colony, however, after a brutal Indonesian invasion, the East Timorese identity became extremely strong.
So, the Russians are hoping that The Ukraine will soon find itself in such economic or governmental difficulties that a re-unification with ‘Greater Russia’ will be welcomed by the populace. Of course, now that the Ukrainian government can no longer stop them exporting gas to Western Europe the Russians are able to tighten the economic screws on The Ukraine in a way they never have before. They have already banned exports of coal to The Ukraine, it remains to be seen if they are going to shut off the oil and gas as well this winter. There are various ways that the Russians can manipulate circumstances within The Ukraine to try and bring on a crisis. It is not the purpose of this article to try to detail them all. What I would like to emphasize, however, is that there are some potential global events which Russia might be watching or even waiting for.
Imagine, for example, that China began implementing its plans to take control of Taiwan. Such activity, whether it be a blockade or a military assault, would likely take a great deal of American attention. Would that not present a perfect opportunity for an old-fashioned military invasion of The Ukraine? Is it not possible that there might not already be a deal between China and Russia such that if China begins an attack on Taiwan then Russia should attack The Ukraine, to divide the attention and resources of America and its allies? Certainly, such a deal would make perfect sense. Indeed, the deal might even go the other way. It might read that ‘if Russia attacks The Ukraine then China should begin its attack on Taiwan.
Remember, such attacks would not be seen by either country as an act of aggression against a sovereign state. China would see an attack on Taiwan as simply the final chapter in a long-running civil war. Certainly, that civil war has been cold for many decades now, but, nonetheless, Taiwan is the last holdout of the Chinese Communist Party’s opponents in the battle to control China. Taking control of Taiwan would be for them an act of national reunification. For the Russians, with The Ukraine, it is the same. They too would see an invasion of The Ukraine as an attempt to reunify their country. Both Russia and China are very conscious, however, that the USA and the West would represent their actions differently and are worried about what they would do against them. Seen from this vantage point it would seem strange if there is not a deal between these two countries to co-ordinate their attacks on Taiwan and The Ukraine.

So ...

Right now, the Russians are in a strong position to move on The Ukraine; they have removed their economic vulnerability; global fossil fuel prices are high, boosting their economic strength and making their customers less likely to want to seek other suppliers; they have a strong leader with good domestic support and the US administration is focused on China and domestic discord and the American people are tired of foreign engagements. If an opportunity appears, the Russians may well move on The Ukraine.

However ...

For the Chinese, the current moment does not appear so compelling. The US is watching them closely and they do not want to get into a hot war with the Americans. However, their hand might be forced. My feeling is that the Chinese will continue to keep trading with the US for as long as they can, and the American administration will go along with this for as long as it can too. However, American domestic opinion might eventually force the administration to cease engagement with China. Just on the 2nd of December, 2021, the World Tennis Association has ceased any engagement with China over the Peng Shuai affair. One can imagine that outrage over what is reportedly happening in Sinkiang (Xinxiang) might shortly follow. At some point trade between China and The West might come to an abrupt halt and at that point China might feel it has much less to lose by attacking Taiwan. Indeed, attacking Taiwan might become a necessary, even the only, face-saving move left to a Chinese leader who is faced with the West’s anti-Chinese actions.

So, if Russia chose to make moves on The Ukraine this winter, it is quite likely that Chinese would not act on Taiwan but rather choose to wait till their own circumstances were more compelling. However, if China does move on Taiwan this northern winter then I think it very likely that Russia would initiate some actions against the sovereignty of The Ukraine.
 
Summary:
Russia is presently very well set up to intervene in The Ukraine, more so than at any period since The Ukraine Crisis began back in 2013-2014 with the toppling of a democratically elected pro-Russian government. The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has made Russia far less vulnerable to Ukrainian economic retaliation and simultaneously given the Russians more economic control of several Western European countries (most significantly, Germany). Consequently, the Russians are far more likely to intervene in the Ukraine than they have been previously, and they have stationed their military in a manner that would allow them to intervene very quickly should an opportunity arise. The Russians are probably working to manufacture such an opportunity, with moves like banning coal exports to The Ukraine, but other opportunities could arise without their meddling, an example of such being a Chinese play for Taiwan. Other opportunities, though, can be imagined, such as a poor response to the pandemic within The Ukraine causing  economic or administrative failure. Despite their strong position a Russian invasion is not a given, however, as the Russians would like to avoid alienating the majority of Ukrainians. They would prefer to intervene in the country in a situation where their intervention would be welcomed by, at least, a significant number of Ukrainians. However, if something like an invasion of Taiwan was begun by the Chinese the Russians may well think that the international circumstances were so favorable that they should take advantage of the situations and launch an invasion of The Ukraine regardless.
​Such are the precarious circumstances in which we find ourselves at the moment.

Do you see what I am seeing?
Many in the media are talking down the possibility of a war between the USA and Iran. "Iran does not want a war," they say, "They know they can't match the US." Maybe so, but who says it is Iran who gets to choose?
Since the 'Shale Revolution' which made the US effectively independent of Middle Eastern oil, as recently as during the Trump Presidency, the US no longer has to worry about Iran being able to shut down its energy supply. Indeed, if a war in the Persian Gulf shut down oil production in the region that would just strengthen the US vis-a-vis all of its economic competitors whose production costs would suddenly increase, if indeed they were able to maintain much production at all.
So what is to stop the US going after Iran's nuclear program? We all know that the US doesn't want the Iranians getting nuclear weapons; not when Iran's regime considers the US to be 'The Great Satan'.
In the past the US had to tread carefully as a result of their dependence on Gulf Oil; that dependence no longer exists.
The logic is clear.
Perhaps the US president does not want a war, but there are certainly some Hawks in the US defense establishment who might think now is a good time to authorize some aggressive actions that might inspire retaliation of the sort that makes heavy-handed responses hard to avoid for even the most pacifist presidents.
There are certainly signs that some foreign powers are preparing for a Persian Gulf Crisis.
Suddenly, Japan has some naval strength positioned in the vicinity of the Persian Gulf. This is very unusual for Japan. Could it be that Gulf oil dependent Japan is making sure it has naval power in place to convoy out any of its oil tankers if fighting breaks out?
Then there is Turkey. Suddenly, out of the blue, Turkey's parliament has decided to authorize troop deployment to hapless, but oil rich Libya.
Now, the Libyan civil war has been going on since 2011 so one could be forgiven for asking of Turkey, 'Why now?'
Could it be that Turkey is foreseeing the possibility of a loss of oil imports from the nearby Gulf States and is consequently seeking to put itself in a position where it can use its considerable military to secure access to Libya's oil reserves?

Perhaps Iran and the US will sort out their differences without much disruption to Persian Gulf oil supplies, some however appear to be making sure that they are prepared for a potential energy crisis.

I have not been watching the world for a while. Having been buried in my own personal projects, family and occupation I only now put my head up and look around at the world.
So what do I see?

1. I see that oil prices are high and have been that way for a while.
2. I see that Turkey, is finally flexing its military muscles and is slowly, carefully and quietly conquering parts of northern Syria.
3. I see that there are moves being made within Saudi Arabia to purge any possible sources of opposition to the king and the crown prince.
4. I see that neither the EU nor the Eurozone have collapsed, but the governments and politicians that oppose it seem to be gaining influence not losing it.
5. I see that President Xi of China is gathering enormous powers to himself.
6. I see that Donald Trump is meeting the President of North Korea in Singapore.
7. I see that Russia is hosting a World Cup, a bare four years after hosting a Winter Olympics

So what do I make of it all?

1. That with the rebound in oil prices Russia and Saudi Arabia are doing much better than many expected two years ago.
2. With Turkey moving into Arab territory there is an extra incentive for Arabs to unify and that there will be support for a strong Arab leader if one emerges.
3. Saudi Arabia could be strengthening itself internally in preparation for taking on a more aggressive role in its region.
4. The EU is already fraying politically. There is no need for it to disappear; countries can just stop doing what it says and it will simply become less and less important. Hungary and Poland are already flouting its directives, and they are flouting their flouting. The Eurozone can’t simply fade away. It will either continue to function more-or-less as-is or countries will leave it. I think some countries will eventually choose to leave.
5. The fact that 6. Is occurring despite 5. Suggests that Xi is extremely concerned by China’s relative strength vis-à-vis USA and is willing to be very nice to the USA and help them with North Korea so as to dissuade the USA from totally devastating the Chinese economy as they could do if they launched a trade war.
6. I see the American President’s meeting with the North Korean President as more of a reflection of the state of mind of the Chinese President than anything else.
7. Having weathered western sanctions and now showing an expected budget surplus for this year, Russia will be able to use the World Cup to show the world that reports of its imminent demise were vastly premature.

Extra observations:
The USA has recently started taking steps to act in its own economic interests and despite some bad press has found the process less politically painful than many expected. As their first small steps succeed, their appetite for putting America first will probably increase.
It has become clear to me that Russia has probably offered the US a grand bargain/threat on Ukraine, which would run something like ‘Ukraine stays out of NATO and the EU and you stay out of Ukraine or we let the tanks role.’ The Donbas Republics are key to this strategy because if Ukraine joined NATO and Russia attacked then all of NATO would be duty bound to go to war with Russia – and they probably would in the case of such a clear attack. If, however, Ukraine joined NATO and then the Donbas Republics suddenly had some extremely successful offensive thrusts in their on-going civil war, then technically no NATO members would be ‘duty bound’ to intervene. This would explain why so little has been done for Ukraine by the West since its ouster of the pro-Russian government.

Here is a prediction for the International Space Station (ISS) that I made some years ago, prior to the creation of this blog. My prediction was that it would be sold to one of the private space-focused companies, who would then attach rockets to it and use it as the space ship to take them to Mars orbit. There they would dock with one of Mars' moons and potentially start excavating a radiation proof base to act as a future orbiting space station for Mars. Whether they would actually descend to Mars' surface on that first mission would depend on whether their finances had stretched to bringing along a descent vehicle with them.
Docking with Mars' moons, Phobos and Deimos, would be something the ISS could handle because these moons are so small that they effectively have no gravity and so approaching them would be just a matter of parking next to them, like docking with a satellite in Earth orbit. Descending to Mars' surface would require a separate, far more robust, vehicle and a great deal more fuel. And might be left to a follow up mission.

If this can be done why wouldn't the combined governments attempt it rather than leaving the glory to a private company?
Firstly, because private companies and individuals can take risks and cut corners that governments would be pilloried for, and secondly; the combined ownership of the ISS might make mission organisation and decision making a nightmare that would further jeopardise the success of the mission.

Were the ISS to be successful in reaching and returning from a Mars moon trip it might well be used as a regular shuttle between Earth orbit and Mars orbit

If we stand back and look at the map of Asia we see three giants, China, India and Indonesia. The most strategic ground between them is Malaysia and ‘lo and behold’ the population of Malaysia is made up of Malays (the same ethnicity as Indonesians) Chinese and Indians. All three countries would like to control this territory. The Europeans sailed from the other side of the world to do just that and fought wars amongst themselves for the benefit.  Malacca, Malaysia’s most notable city of 500 years ago, has a history of having been ruled by the Portuguese, then the Dutch and then the English. The Europeans were interested in Malaysia because it controlled the shortest shipping route between China and India, through the Malacca Strait, and that strait was at the same time the safest route into the riches of the Indonesian archipelago.

All three of the Asian giants have large populations of their ethnic brethren living in Malaysia. Can anyone see the potential for conflict?

All sides already have form.
 
The Chinese
Malays/Indonesians populate the lands on both sides of the Malacca Strait, so one might assume that they were its typical rulers prior to the arrival of the European naval empires. Malacca’s pre-European history, however, centres around the tales of the great warriors Hang Tua and Hang Jabat and of the Babanonya – the princess and her 100 handmaidens who all arrived from the sea. All are now thought by many to have been ethnically Chinese; Hang being a form of Han. Thus suggesting that Malacca’s heyday as the dominant city on the Straits was a period when it was actually ruled by a Chinese elite. Certainly, there is no doubt that Chinese traders have been long established both in Malacca and throughout the Strait's major port cities.

A more striking example of the Chinese’s ability to gain influence in the Straits is Singapore. In 1800 Singapore was nothing but a swampy island with a few Malay villages on it. Sir Stamford Raffles, the British colonial administrator par excellence, however, identified it as the perfect spot to establish the Straits' next power city. The Chinese flooded in and became the dominant population of the island, then, after Malaysia’s independence from Great Britain, they broke away and formed their own independent country. Consequently, Singapore is a clear case of Malay-ruled territory being taken over and subsequently ruled by Chinese.
 
The Indians
India too has an ongoing history of involvement in Malaysia. Under the British, Malaysia was ruled from Calcutta, but the most significant influences of India in Malaysia are, like the Chinese, not the result of any officially stated government policy, but rather the result of their people’s movement (whether that be irrespective of, or as a result of, specific government policies is a matter for another article). The potential for the ‘innocent’ migration of economic immigrants to have nation changing effects has already been seen in the case of Singapore, but an Indian example can be seen in the shape of the Tamils. An Indian ethnic group, hailing from Tamil Nadu, the Tamils, migrated to Sri Lanka, the island nation which was just across the Palk Straits from their homeland. Initially, it was poor fishermen who arrived, setting up villages on the coast. The indigenous Sinhalese allowed them to stay. With the passage of years and the growth of their population, however, the Tamils eventually declared their own independent republic in the north of Sri Lanka and a decades long civil war ensued before the Tamil republic was eventually crushed. In this case, the Indian (Tamil) immigrants were unsuccessful in establishing an independent state for themselves, unlike the Chinese of Singapore, but during the long years of civil war many of those Tamils fled the fighting to settle in Malaysia, where they are now the largest of the Indian minorities. An ethnic group with a record of migrating into an area and then trying to establish their own Independence might certainly be considered a threat by the indigenous Malay population.
 
The Indonesians/Malays
So, the Chinese have taken Singapore and the Indians bear watching, but for most of the second half of the 20th century I would say the Malays have been the ones gaining ground. While it is true that Singapore gained its independence in this period. It is the case that the massive influx of Chinese to Singapore occurred under British rule. British rule was also friendly to the immigration of Indians into Malaysia. Since Malaysia gained Independence from Britain in 1957, the welfare and relative demographics of the native Malay populations have risen significantly vis-à-vis their two large immigrant communities. Indeed, part of the reason why Malaysia let Singapore go relatively amicably was because the Malays knew that if Singapore stayed in their federation then the immigrant populations would out-number the Malays. By letting Singapore leave they ensured that they would at least be able to maintain control of what was left of the country through a democratic majority. Ever since, the Malay led government of Malaysia has been pursuing policies which ‘positively discriminate’ in favour of Malay citizens. These policies have succeeded in growing the wealth and numbers of the Malay population. Malaysia has also prospered economically, such that it now has a GDP per capita which is much higher than all of its three neighbouring giants. Such success could mean that if there were ever a federation of Indonesia and Malaysia it may well be led by Malaysia rather Indonesia. That uniting the Malays into one homeland is an idea with a serious political following has been known since Indonesia's President Sukarno endeavoured to make the dream a reality, by force, during the period from 1963 to 1966. A Malaysian led initiative would be more likely to succeed peacefully, however, given that until now it is Malaysia who has resisted the idea through fear of complete domination from Jakarta. That such a possibility is increasingly likely is due to Malaysia's growing wealth, which gives it an increasingly strong position vis-a-vis its much larger neighbour: a time might come when Malaysian politicians might think that some sort of federation might present more opportunities than risks.
 
The state of play
If we stand back and look at the map, particularly an ethnic or demographic map, we see that the pieces are on the board and they are changing position (the game is in play). The Malays/Indonesians (a nation of chess lovers) are ahead, but everyone is still in the game.
In a sense there is a sort of ‘Cold War’ going on in Malaysia in the form of a battle between ethnicities for influence and power. On the ground the battle is waged every day through such acts as the Chinese sending their children to private Chinese schools rather than government ones and Indian communities turning local caves into Hindu shrines.
 
Could there be a ‘hot’ conflict in Malaysia?
Certainly, the conditions exist in Malaysia for the slow fuse of ethnic tensions to be ignited into a ‘hot’ conflict. All that is needed is a spark. And the great danger of a 'hot' conflict in Malaysia is that it has the potential to draw in all three Asian giants.
 
Potential sparks
Both the Chinese and Indian ethnicities are already positively-discriminated against in Malaysia. The discrimination has generally been accepted as ‘positive’ by the world and many Malaysians on account of the fact that when it began Malays were by far the poorest and most under-privileged segment of Malaysian society. On average they may still be less wealthy than the Indian and Chinese communities, but at what point does 'positive discrimination' become just 'discrimination'? At what point do discriminated-against minorities feel that enough is enough? Will there be a point in the future where large, globally significant countries like China and India decide that they can no longer abide having Malaysia discriminate against their ethnic diaspora?
At the other end of the stick, could an increase in Malay nationalism lead to a Pan Malay movement that would seek to unify Malaysia with the other Malay homeland of Indonesia? How would the large minorities of Chinese and Indians react to such an event? Would such an event lead to more, or less, discrimination.
 
China’s push into the South China Sea shows a growing willingness on behalf of China to make plays for increased control of its important seaways? Where does that end? There have been similarities drawn between China’s current policies and the US moves from the 19th century to control the Carribean Sea. Those moves ended in US control of the Panama Canal, the World’s 3rd most important sea route. The Malacca Straits are the World’s second most important sea route. The USA controls the Panama Canal but does not directly control Panama so the Chinese may not need to physically control Malaysia, but the US does involve itself in Panamanian affairs; the deposition of Manuel Norriega being one notable example.
 
In conclusion
Malaysia is already an ethnic battleground, albeit a very civilized one at the moment. There are, however, shifts in power and influence amongst the main ethnic groups in Malaysia and with each ethnic group having a giant nation at their back the potential for conflict, even large scale international warfare exists.

The Malays have the homeground advantage and recently the game has been on their terms, but Singapore demonstrates that there have been periods of history where they have lost ground, literally, demonstrating that their current control cannot be taken for granted.

China has made a recent aggressive surge into the nearby waters of the South China Sea, and there are suggestions that the currently embattled prime minister of Malaysia, Abdul Razak, might be susceptible to taking Chinese money and support if it helps him stay in power.
​
Meanwhile, India, calmly sitting back, might be the one to win influence by not making enemies.

My feeling is that Indonesia, or some Malay based power, will be the ultimate winner in Malaysia, so long as they have better than competent leadership (certainly not a given) but the real question is not so much who will win but whether the battle to control the strategic Malay Peninsular might turn violent, leading to the involvement of one, or more, of the Asian Giants in an armed conflict.

The Twentieth Century was a Slavic century
The Slavs won the last two world wars and their tide is still rising.
 
I love historical maps. If you look at a series of historical maps over a period of a thousand or even thousands of years you can see the rise and fall of nations and empires simply by viewing the changes in the territory they control. If you apply this very simple analysis to maps that are both pre- and post- both of the world wars you will see that the Slavic people were very clearly the winners of both. Prior to the First World War much of Central and Eastern Europe was controlled by two large German run empires, the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. By the end of the war the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been replaced by the Slav controlled states of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Poland (plus Austria and Hungary) and the German Empire had also ceded some territory to the newly recreated Poland. By the end of the Second World War Poland had taken over even more, formerly German, territory.
In future centuries I have no doubt that some historians looking back will say that in Europe the story of the 20th century was the story of the Slavs. They were the people whose power was steadily growing through the century. And if you think ‘Well the maps are misleading, the Slavs were just the accidental beneficiaries of historical circumstance,’ then I would draw your attention to the Russian revolution; the event whose intellectual, philosophical, and political repercussions virtually shaped the history of every other nation of the world through the rest of that century. Need I point out that the Russian revolution took place in a Slavic state.
Indeed, the true accidental beneficiaries of history in the 20th century are the Americans and the Anglosphere. They have leapt forward while the ‘Great Tussle’ was going on elsewhere. And the great tussle of the twentieth century, by the way, was not between the Soviet Union and the USA so much as it was between the Slavic and Germanic peoples.
The Slavic territorial advances of the twentieth century were just the most recent chapters in a struggle that had been going on for centuries. The Slavs were the dominant people of Eastern and Central Europe by the 6th century AD having spread west in the wake of the westward moving Germans, but the German’s made many attempts to push back to the East over the intervening centuries. Charlemagne’s campaigns are one famous early example; and the activities of the Teutonic knights form another. In general, though, the Germans were not able to shift the Slavs from the territory they had settled on, although with the advantages of their more advanced civilisation they often did come to control them. Hence, the appearance of so many Slavic states in place of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War was not on account of a sudden mass migration of Slavs into the area, but rather a removal of German overlordship from a population that was already Slavic. The humiliated Germans pushed back again after their losses in the First World War. They managed to gain control of a great deal of the German inhabited regions of Czechoslovakia and then launched the invasion of Poland which precipitated the Second World War. Eventually, though, they were repelled and lost even more territory to the Slavs. The end of the Second World War also included the removal of large ethnic German populations from many regions of both Poland and Czechoslovakia thus increasing the proportion of Europe inhabited by Slavs. During the Cold War, Slavic control extended even further than their settled populations with the virtual Russian control of East Germany marking the historical high point of Slavic power within Europe for the last 800 years. Since then, with the reunification of Germany, Slavic control has receded, although Slav inhabited territory has not.
Not only were the most significant territorial wars of the Twentieth Century conducted between Germans and Slavs, one might even say that all of the intellectual running in the twentieth century was carried on between Russia and Germany as well. Marx, after all was a German, so the German’s also have a claim to originating that great intellectual tussle of the Twentieth Century: the foment around the ideas of communism.
 
 
As Germany has this century resurfaced as the most powerful economy in Europe and Russia is struggling to deal with American hostility and low oil prices what makes you think Slavic power will trend up rather than down in the near future?
 
It is important to remember that Slavic power is not synonymous with Russian power. There are other Slavic countries in Europe, and it is in their policies that I see the source of their continuing rise. It is generally known that many Slavic countries have done well since the end of the Cold War. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Slovenia stand out as having become countries with a good standard of living and education. The largest of these, Poland, has even become very significant politically and is charting its own independent course between the major regional powers of Germany, Russia and the USA. The Slavic countries, led by Poland, can already be seen to have the self-confidence to stand up to the European Union. Their refusal to accept hordes of refugees from very different cultures is a prime example of this. For many of these nations, having only recently gained control of a sovereign country for their people they are understandably reluctant to share it with others. In most cases these countries have a degree of cultural homogeneity that the Western European countries have already lost. That homogeneity therefore is a point of difference with the West and one that the Eastern European countries could well benefit from. Cultural homogeneity makes nation building a much easier task and with national pride comes a willingness to make sacrifices for the benefit of the country. Such national feeling has in the past made certain nations more formidable in war than other countries, it also leads to stronger community feelings between individuals with all of the intendant, though difficult to quantify, benefits which that entails. 
As an example of the benefits of strong nationalism, the Russia of today can be used. Russia appears to be surviving sanctions and economic difficulties with very little political unrest, and this appears to be the result of the peoples’ gratitude for what the Putin led government has done for Russia and Russian pride since the beginning of the century.
So, their attachment to nationalism, though it may well cause frictions and even war in some areas will, I think, be of overall benefit to Eastern Europe in the years ahead.
 
Another element of growing Slavic power will be their continuance of their westward push. The Slavs have been gradually pushing west for centuries and I see the hordes of Slav workers who poured into Britain and other Western countries at the start of this century as a continuation of the same trend. Consequently, politicians in Britain, France and Germany know that they have to consider the views of significant Polish minorities while politicians in Warsaw have no such concerns. Overall, this increases the relative power of the Slavic populations in Europe.
 
The downfall of Russia should also not be taken as a downfall of Slavic power. I am not at all convinced that Russia is about to deteriorate from its present position, but even if it did most of the likely beneficiaries of such an event would be Slavic states. And, in the event, they would probably be Slavic states with a great deal of support from the United States behind them. If one thinks about the reconstruction of Japan and Western Germany after the Second World War; a Poland or Ukraine with such backing could quickly become very influential.
 
Climate change is also a phenomenon which appears to be working in favour of the Slavs.
If the Earth is warming, and the North Pole is warming at the fastest rate, then this could significantly improve agricultural yields in Russia and increase the percentage of land where human habitation is viable. As Russia has more land above the Arctic Circle, and immediately adjacent to it, than any other country; it is the country, of all the countries on Earth, which stands to gain the most from a warmer climate. Less ice in the Arctic Ocean could also open up Russia’s northern coast to more maritime trade making that coast more economically productive, and militarily strategic, as well.
Poland too stands to benefit from a warming Northern Hemisphere. With a coastline on the Baltic, a sea which often freezes over in winter, Poland could gain all-year round maritime access and even an increased beach-tourism industry, not to mention longer growing seasons for its already fertile plains.
 
In conclusion
I feel that the facts on the ground indicate that the Slavs are quietly improving their position in Europe while the West is concerning itself with other matters. The presence of large numbers of Slavs in many of Western Europe’s major cities, where not so long ago they were almost non-existent, is an indicator of their growing influence. In similar vein, the fact that Slavs are now noticeable as tourists in places like Australia and South-East Asia also speaks to the fact that incomes and living standards in their home countries are improving to positions where they are comparable with Western countries. The evidence of the map is also telling, in that it shows that Slavic governments control a greater portion of Europe than at any time (with the exception of the Cold War period) since the 11th century. The map also shows that Russia is the biggest country in the world and has increased in size recently with the addition of Crimea. There is talk of the possibility of Russia losing territory in Europe in the next decade, but even if this were to occur, the beneficiaries of such a collapse would most likely be other Slavic states. Global warming is of geo-strategic benefit to the Slavs, as well.
Lastly, the fact that large numbers of Slavic migrants are settling in Western Europe, yet the Slavic nations keep their own countries migrant free and culturally homogeneous suggests that Slavs will have a voice amongst the many divergent cultures in Western countries in the future whilst those countries will have no voice in the culturally harmonious Slav homelands. All these trends suggest to me that Slavic influence and power in Europe is set to increase in the coming decade, rather than the reverse.
 
Before leaving off …
I would also like to point out that almost everything that has been said here about the Slavic countries, applies as well to most other non-Slav countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Romania do, for the most part, possess the same advantages and attitudes as their Slavic neighbours and they therefore have the potential to benefit in the same way. Indeed, the similarity in their attitude to nationalism has led the governments of Hungary and Poland to become virtual brothers-in-arms on certain issues within the European Union, and they, along with Putin’s Russia, are now looked to as examples of how countries should be run by many nationalist groups throughout the West and the rest of the world; a clarifying example of how these countries are already gaining influence in the world while the attention of the West’s governments remains focused elsewhere.

The most populous country in the world is China – and everyone has heard the predictions that China will be the next super power.
The second most populous country is India – and everyone is aware that India is Asia’s other giant.
The third most populous country in the world is the United States of America – and there is no need to mention what everyone knows about it.
The fourth most populous country in the world is …. How many people could finish that sentence correctly?
A new colleague of mine, knowing of my connection to Indonesia, went away and consulted an encyclopaedia for some facts about the country. Later she asked me if what she had read was true. Did Indonesia really have 240 million people? I thought the number sounded a little light but I acceded that it was close.
“But that means it is bigger than Germany, bigger than France,” she responded in amazement.
My colleague, it appeared, had previously thought of Indonesia as just an exotic tourist destination whose greatest importance came from being close to Australia. She was clearly stunned by the implications of Indonesia’s population statistics.
There is weight in those statistics. Any country which has that many people, my colleague clearly realised, was a country with some power. And she was very surprised that she had reached middle age without realising that Australia’s neighbour was so much more than a cheap tourist destination.
Indonesia is probably best known for the island of Bali, an idyllic island that is a Mecca for tourists. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that Bali is even better known than Indonesia. The author of this article remembers a conversation with someone who said they had never been to Indonesia, but that they had been to Bali.
This conversation was probably symptomatic of the lack of attention paid to Indonesia even by those who should know better.
Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation on earth. Only China, India and the USA are larger. It is also developing fast in ways that are important but would not show up strongly in the economic statistics by which most countries’ relative health is usually analysed.
 
Democracy
Since the fall of Suharto in 1990 Indonesian democracy has become increasingly robust. The first democratically elected President in this period, Abdurahman Wahid, was barred from running again by the country’s elite for being beyond their control and the next two presidents were consequently members of the ruling class (Megawati Sukarnoputri, a former President’s daughter and Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, a former general) but the current president Joko Widodo makes much of his humble origins and is certainly not from the military/inherited wealth background of his predecessors, a fact which suggests that democracy is now too firmly entrenched in Indonesia for the elites to control. This is a very positive sign for Indonesia, speaking to the growth of institutions that become too strong to corrupt. With increasing democracy comes increasing accountability and amidst anti-corruption drives and civil society activism Indonesia is slowly descending in the global corruption rankings - steadily falling away from its former world number one ranking under President (read dictator) Suharto.
 
The Arts
Exactly why the arts should matter is still not exactly clear to the author of this article but what is clear is that the flourishing of the arts coincides with the flourishing of a country. All countries that have had a golden age of artistic achievement have had a coinciding golden age of influence in the world as well. With this thought in mind the impressive artistic output of Indonesia should be heeded. Though Indonesian is a very new language it has already (in the author’s opinion) produced at least one great novelist, Mochtar Lubis, and many great musicians. And now its movies are starting to attract international attention, as its painters and sculptors long have.  This vibrant arts scene means that Indonesia has soft power force. The author remembers watching television in Madagascar and seeing how all of the local stars were just imitating American models. He realised then that a country’s artistic output can bind other peoples to it far more surely than any military might. Soft power comes out of the arts and Indonesia’s artistic output in the Indonesian language is part of what is helping to bind this archipelagic nation together. The author’s personal experience of this comes from noting that twenty years ago Sasak children on the island of Lombok would be speaking only Sasak as they played and would wait to learn Indonesian at school, starting in the fourth grade, whereas today Sasak children run around imitating their favourite cartoon and television characters and calling to each other in the Indonesian that those characters use. Indonesia’s art scene is increasing the internal strength and cohesion of the country. An important factor in an island nation that boasts more than 300 ethnicities, each with their own language.
 
But isn’t Indonesia too divided amongst all its ethnic groups?
The fact that Indonesia needs to work to bring its people together is something which is often cited as the reason why analysts doubt that Indonesia will ever have the influence that its population figures suggest it should. It is said that Indonesia is too divided ethnically and geographically. However, it is the authors observation that Indonesia hangs together much more easily than many imagine. It is true that there is resentment in the outer islands for the domination of Java and the Javanese, but this does not mean that there is resentment for the idea of Indonesia. In many ways it has felt to me on my travels there that the outer islands are more Indonesian than Java. You are more likely to hear Indonesian being spoken on the side of the road in Sulawesi and Kupang than you are in Java. The outer islands also share a cosmopolitan history that separates them from the central islands of Java and Bali. Java and Bali have abundant fertile plains that gave rise to cultures that derived their main source of wealth from farming. Aristocracies ruled over peasants and very hierarchical, self-sustaining, inward looking cultures developed. The outer islands by contrast were mostly mountainous with poor soils. Farming was pursued, certainly, but it was not the abundant provider that it was in Java and Bali, consequently the people of the outer islands were much more dependent on fishing and sea-craft and developed cultures that saw maritime trading as their main source of wealth. What they traded varied from location to location. In some places it might be minerals like iron, in others, spices which grew well on those islands like cloves and nutmeg, some sold swallows nests from their limestone caves, in other areas dried fish or other marine resources like trepang were sold. Whatever their trade goods, in the outer islands the richest centres were always their trading ports and their main source of wealth was trade. Consequently, the cultures that developed in these islands were led by traders. Therefore, they were more egalitarian, far more outward looking and dependant on constant interaction with other islands and other peoples for the maintenance of their standard of living.
The cultures of Indonesia’s outer islands therefore have always been living in a loose web of inter-dependence with each other, so the idea of a unified maritime empire, which is essentially what Indonesia is, sits quite naturally with them. Foreign analysts who arrive in Jakarta and see the relative wealth and power of Java compared to the other islands and consequently deduce that Indonesia is essentially a colonial system controlled by Java, can be forgiven for thinking that, given the enormity and variety of Indonesia’s peoples and geographies, the centre cannot hold. However, Indonesia is not that classic ‘core and peripheries’ colonial system. Certainly, Java is the powerful and dominating core, but there is much more binding the peripheries together than Java’s power. In many ways the true heart of Indonesia is spread among those islands and Java and Bali are the odd ones out not the uniting force.
 
Isn’t Indonesia at a massive economic disadvantage through being spread among all those islands?
Being an archipelagic nation is an economic advantage, not a disadvantage, take a look at Japan and the United Kingdom by way of quick examples.
The seas between the Indonesian islands are sheltered and narrow. It does not require ocean crossings to move between these islands; these seas, or straits, are small and calm. Furthermore, they are equatorial waters that are out of the path of hurricanes. They are very safe waters to cross. Now, given that even with today’s modern transport systems, moving goods by boat is still far cheaper than moving them by rail or truck, all of this water, is, in fact, an economic advantage. Think of all the trouble that China is having trying to develop the regions that are not either coastal or on a navigable river. That is never going to be a large problem for Indonesia. Indeed, Indonesia has prospered by its archipelagic nature in the past. Sophisticated maritime trade was already present in Indonesia when the Europeans finally arrived, looking for spice, in the fifteenth century and for a while Indonesia was the economic epicentre of the global trading system. The European discovery of the continents of the Americas and Australia were all just accidents in their search for the riches of the Indes (read ‘Indonesia’). As another example of Indonesia’s economic importance back then the island of Manhatten, where stands modern day New York, was swapped for a tiny Indonesian island called Rum.
 
But aren’t Indonesia’s people too spread out to provide economies of scale in a central location?
It is also not the case that, with all its islands, Indonesia lacks a population centre with the critical mass to sustain an advanced economy. The island of Java has more than 100 million inhabitants and according to some estimates Jakarta is the second largest city on the planet. Not only that, but Indonesia is also urbanising fast and currently stands at 54.7% urban (www.worldometers.info). Indonesia has both a concentrated core and a hinterland accessible by coastal shipping. There are economic virtues here to be capitalised upon.
Furthermore, Indonesia sits astride the sea lanes between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. These are the sea lanes which connect China and Japan with Middle East Oil and connect the West Coast of the USA with India.
The Malacca Strait is the second most important sea route in the world and its waters are divided between Indonesia and Malaysia (A country which, in large parts, shares both language and ethnicity with Indonesia).
 
What about border change? Isn’t Indonesia too unstable?
Since Independence Indonesia has acquired and then released the territory of East Timor and has fought a successful war to gain the western half of Papua and an unsuccessful war to incorporate Malaysia. There is a feeling that Indonesia’s borders are not yet set and that this is a potential risk factor for the country. This is true and there is much that can be said on this topic, but I would simplify it down to saying the area it is most likely to lose would be the western half of Papua, the least developed part of the archipelago, and the area it is most likely to gain is Malaysia, a more highly developed neighbour, which shares language and ethnicity with Indonesia and really only developed as a separate nation due to one area having been ruled by the British in European colonial times and the other having been ruled by the Dutch.
Were Indonesia to merge or federate with Malaysia at some point in the future then the resulting country would have complete control of the Malacca Straits and would be an even larger and richer and well-positioned nation than the current Indonesia. That such a union could be brought about successfully at some point in the future seems quite likely given that the two nations both share the same national language, Bahasa, and are ethnically very similar as well.
Were Indonesia to lose western Papua, it would admittedly lose its richest mining province, but it would also lose its least developed and least integrated citizens. It is quite possible that the loss of western Papua would be a benefit to Indonesia as whole.
Being an island nation also means that Indonesia is far less susceptible to invasion from its neighbours than a country with land borders.
 
The Centre of Asia
In many ways Indonesia is at the centre of Asia. Certainly, some might look at a map and say Sinkiang or Tibet were at the geographic centre of Asia but it can be argued that Indonesia is at the cultural meeting point of Asia. The two great realms of Asia are China and India and those two worlds meet in Indonesia.  Most obviously, Indonesia is halfway along the sea route between these two giants and located at the natural choke point of that sea route, at the end of the Malay Peninsula, but its claim to being between them goes further than that. Many Indonesian ethnic groups have genetic and linguistic connections to southern China but culturally Indonesia is much closer to India. So, there is a fusion of both East Asia and South Asia in Indonesia. And, yes, sitting on that great trade route between the two, being able to disrupt the trade of either yet being far enough removed not to be vulnerable to invasion does give Indonesia an ability to influence the giants from a position of security that a place like Myanmar does not have.
 
If Indonesia’s geography is so good then why hasn’t it been cashed in on already?
In a sense, Indonesia’s geography has already shown its worth at various times in the past. We have already mentioned that when the Europeans arrived in the sixteenth century they found the islands were already home to sophisticated maritime trading networks. And the technology found among the islands was also comparable with what the Europeans were using. Some islanders, for example, were already using cannons (indeed there is some speculation that cannons and firearms in general might have been an Indonesian invention, combining the fireworks powder traded from China with the local penchant for using blow pipes) and their ships too were comparable to what the European’s were using, though designed for the calmer protected seas of South East Asia rather than open ocean sailing.
There were small maritime empires operating in Indonesia, at that time, such as the sultanates of Ternate and Tidore and the Bugis of Makassar, with whom the Europeans had to fight for control when they arrived. But there had been large and wealthy empires in islands before that too, with the most notable being the Majapahit and the Sriwijayan, who were known to the rulers of China. So, history shows that the island of Indonesia could provide the base for both large empires and societies that were advanced by the global standards of the time. It also shows that the islands were a relatively secure base from which to operate as they were never conquered by an external power until the arrival of the Europeans and the creation of their global maritime empires.
So, Indonesia’s geography has proved its worth in the past, and it looks to be moving toward fulfilling its potential once again. In some ways its population is providing the impetus. During colonial times Indonesia’s population was sparse, but now it is growing to a point where a certain degree of influence is inevitable. Perhaps consequently, Indonesia is beginning to take off as one of the new China’s (the countries set to take over China’s low-end manufacturing role as wages in China continue to increase), and constant visitors to Indonesia can see the steady rise in living standards that are becoming available to the general population.
 
Won’t de-globalization stall Indonesia’s growth in its tracks?
So, Indonesia is following in China’s cheap manufacturing footsteps, but what happens if globalisation fades with increased tariff boundaries, robotization, 3D printing and fear of supply route disruption in this period of terrorism and state failure? Could it not be that Indonesia is following an out of date model?
If globalization does fade, Indonesia is one of the few countries that would grow its relative strength in such a world. Such a world is all about having the resources locally and Indonesia is one of the most resource rich countries, it has oil and minerals as well as some of the most productive farmlands on the planet, combining volcanic soils with year-round growing seasons. Indonesia can be both self-sufficient due to its resources and secure thanks to its island geography. So, Indonesia it seems is poised to benefit regardless of what the future brings.
 
Conclusion
Indonesia’s growing power is already showing in how other powers treat it. In particular, its treatment by China is telling. China is throwing its weight around with other South China Sea countries at the moment; building on islands and having naval stand-offs. When Chinese fishing boats are caught fishing in Indonesian waters, however, the Indonesian president flies in to watch them be burned. And the response from China? Very low key. China may be bullying other South China Sea claimants, but it is choosing not to pick a fight with Indonesia.
Indonesia is already a G20 country both economically and militarily and its ranking in both regards has been climbing over recent years.
For mine, though, the real joker in the pack for Indonesia’s potential power is its linguistic and ethnic brotherhood with Malaysia. Regardless of how the relationship between these two countries develops, though, Indonesia is very much the unseen giant of today’s world. It goes under the radar on account of its past poor performance, but there are many reasons to believe that its future will be more significant than its recent past, and for those who look closely there are many signs of building strength.

Perhaps, more should have been made of this earlier, but the idea of boasting has come late. Before everyone forgets how few people called the US election correctly I would like to draw readers' attention to the post on the 18th of June, 2016, where not only the results of the US election, but the Australian election too, were predicted with 100% accuracy.

I do notice that there was one mistake in the post, however, the speech quoted as taking place on the 13th of July, actually took place on the 13th of June; which would make sense seeing as the post went up before the 13th of July.

It has been said that the US does not have a military option against North Korea. North Korea's ability to destroy Seoul if they are struck by the US makes a US strike on the North politically unthinkable, according to many.
However, if South Korea had a public split with the US, and could convince the North that they were totally against any US attack, then perhaps the North would not retaliate against Seoul if such an attack did come.
Somewhat ironically, if the South withdrew from its alliance with the US, over the current crisis then that could give the US more room to act.
And by the way
If the South distanced itself from the US it would also make China happier with the idea of a strike. China certainly doesn't want a full blown war on the Korean peninsula, and so it would oppose a strike if it thought that ran the risk of restarting the Korean War. If, however, there was to be a strike and no war, China could be quite happy about the North having its nuclear and ballistic weaponry removed.
This is just a by the way thought, though, because the US does not need any approval from China to decide whether it bombs North Korea or not.

The US Congress has just increased sanctions on Russia by overwhelming majorities in both the House of Representatives (419-3) and the Senate (98-2). On the face of it these sanctions may just seem like a patriotic backlash against the Russian for interfering, or trying to interfere in the US election. And for some congressmen that may indeed be the primary motivation for voting for them. The instigators of this bill for new sanctions though had more on their minds than anything related to the last election. The primary target of these sanctions is the Nord Stream 2 project. Nord Stream 2 would see a pipeline laid under the Baltic Sea which would be large enough to supply northern Europe with all of the Russian gas which currently gets to northern Europe via pipelines through Ukraine. The drafters of this new sanctions bill are worried that if Nord Stream 2 is built then Russia will be able to turn off the gas to Ukraine without having to lose its business in northern Europe. This naturally would massively increase Russia’s ability to influence events in Ukraine and possibly even inspire a popular revolt against its current pro-western government (freezing through a couple of Ukrainian winters without heating might just convince a majority of Ukrainians that their government’s anti-Russian stance was not in their own personal interests). Alternately, if peaceful pressure did not suffice then with Nord Stream 2 operating, Russia would also be able to heat up the Donbas conflict and intervene militarily in the Ukraine without jeopardising its main source of foreign income. Given these possibilities it is no surprise that certain segments of the US administration are worried about Nord Stream 2. For sure they want to stop it, so these sanctions cleverly target companies who would do business with Russian energy companies. The US legislators are hoping to stop Nord Stream 2 from the German end by applying pain to any company that would work with the Russians to make Nord Stream 2 a reality. It is a clever strategy and we wait to see if it will work. The Russians have offered the criticism that the US is just trying to drive European nations toward more expensive American energy suppliers. It is a valid point that American companies will be winners if these sanctions have their desired effect. And surely many Europeans are aware that if in addition to making the Russians poorer these sanctions make Europe less energy secure and more dependent on the Americans then that will be just another reason why they will be thought a good idea by some American strategists.
We now wait to see if the sanctions will have their desired effect upon the Nord Stream 2 project. Several factions within Germany clearly don’t like this use of American power to interfere with their own energy security. The German foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, has spoken out against the sanctions bill. What Angela Merkel will say and do we have yet to see.
It is possible that rather than stopping Nord Stream 2 these sanctions might inspire a backlash of their own which will see the Germans choose Russia over the US in this case. The bill’s drafters would argue that without the sanctions the Germans would have agreed to Nord Stream 2 anyway. So at least the sanctions will make them think twice and then reveal how deep their alignment with the US really is.
Coming on the back of Trump’s visit to Europe recently convincing Angela Merkel that Germany needed to provide for its own defence it might look like there is currently a concerted US campaign to push the Germans away from them. If there is though it is interesting to note that the sanctions bill did not originate with the president’s team and it is probable that he personally would not favour it. Given its overwhelming support however it is hard to see President Trump not signing the bill (though he could use the excuse that he does not want to antagonise the US’s valued ally, Germany).
If, in the end, President Trump does sign the bill it will make an interesting example of how the US can be governed (and I mean quite literally governed; eg: ruled/administered) by forces outside the Presidency. Whether those forces will succeed in inserting a wedge between Russia and Germany or will in fact push them closer together is something that we will watch with close attention. Either way, it is safe to say, that the latest sanctions bill illuminates certain aspects of both US foreign policy and the functioning of the US administration at this point in time, and the response to it could illuminate even more about the state of international relations within Europe

Myanmar (formerly Burma) is not often mentioned in the press as a geostrategic country but the rise of China has made it so. Myanmar’s importance to China lies in the fact that it can provide an overland link to the Indian Ocean that saves China from having to ship goods through the contentious South China Sea and Malacca Straits choke point. The Chinese have just opened a pipeline to carry crude oil from Myanmar’s port of Sittwe to Kunming in China’s Southwest. A similar pipeline has already been carrying natural gas along the same route since 2013.
Given this investment in infrastructure it is clear that links between Myanmar and China are already developing. To some this might seem strange as it has been alleged that several of the ethnic armies which operate along the Myanmar-China border have in the past been sponsored by China. Indeed, some would see Myanmar’s former (and partly continuing) isolationist policy as an attempt to protect itself and its national unity from the meddling of its powerful neighbours.
Clearly, though, Myanmar has decided to abandon isolationism. Realising that their neighbours have all been developing at a faster rate, Myanmar’s government has decided to reconnect to the world before it becomes too weak relative to its strengthening neighbours. This seems like a wise move.
Normally when a country is worried about powerful neighbours stirring up trouble and secessionist movements on their borders they would look to make an alliance with a powerful country that does not share a border with them. One would think that the United States would fit that bill perfectly and there certainly have been signs that Myanmar would like to be better friends with the US. At the end of the day, however, Myanmar has not taken this route and is unlikely to given that the USAs ‘human rights’ agenda, if implemented, would severely restrict the central government’s ability to deal with its myriad ethnic independence movements. Indeed, many governers of Myanmar see national disintegration in the policy advice of western governments. Take for example the Western media and diplomatic pressure to be nicer to the ‘Rohinga minority’. From the Burmese perspective, their Buddhist country is being invaded by Muslim Bangladeshi’s spilling over the border from over-populated Bangladesh while the western governments tell them they should give the invaders more rights. Myanmar’s population is roughly 54 million; Bangladesh with only a third of Myanmar’s area has 151 million. The discouraging of muslim immigration from their neighbour is a matter that many in Myanmar see as a matter of national survival. No wonder that Aung San Su Kyi, who perhaps even owes her life to the human rights agendas of western governments, has, now that she is in power, not been willing to raise her voice in support of protecting the Rohingas.
Given, the current ideologies of western governments, it is not surprising that the government of Myanmar sees them as more of a threat to their national unity than either India or China. Therefore, Myanmar looks for development aid from its neighbours and given that predicament it is not surprising that it is currently favouring China. Myanmar is only of interest to India for the purposes of blocking China. If China did not have interests in Myanmar then India would have little interest in it either. China, however, is interested in Myanmar for what it can offer in terms of access to the Indian Ocean, consequently Myanmar does have leverage against the Chinese in a bilateral relationship. Now that the pipelines are built Myanmar can threaten to close them if the ethnic groups along the Chinese border become restive, giving China an incentive to act with the government in Napydaw in suppressing any independence movements.
So, Myanmar’s geopolitical hand is improving. The advancing technology of pipelines has made it useful to an ‘almost superpower’ in a way it never has been before and it can leverage this usefulness to help build its own national strength.
At the same time Myanmar still faces a number of difficulties. It has many ethnic minorities along its borders that have formed guerrilla armies and make the rule of the central government weak in their areas of strength. It is also surrounded by dangerous neighbours: China and India are both too large for Myanmar to ever win a war against; Bangladesh is dangerous for reasons already mentioned, and; even the fellow Buddhist country of Thailand is an historic rival against whom Myanmar has fought many wars throughout the ages.
In Myanmar’s favour, though, is the fact that its central Burmese core is a very strong and a natural national unit occupying a large area of extremely productive farmland with the economic gift of a large and navigable river flowing through it. As a former colony of Britain, Myanmar’s history of English language use also make it a place where modern industries and services could set up shop more easily than in other low-wage countries, and its proximity to both China and India as well as the important sea lanes of the Indian Ocean mean that it has relatively easy access to large markets.
Other Positives
Mostly tropical but with a temperate region in the far north Myanmar stretches from the warm waters of the Andaman Sea to the frozen heights of the tail end of the Himalayas giving it a climatic range that is useful for agriculture. Being a relatively large country it also has a good variety of natural resources and a relatively large population, though no-where near as crowded as most of its neighbours.
Mighty rivers, fertile plains, jungle clad hills and ice-capped mountains with a kaleidoscope of ethnic groups could also make Myanmar a great tourist destination.
 
In conclusion
Myanmar has since its independence been at great risk of losing territory to secessionist movements. So far it has held together and the country has great potential.
When all things are considered it is not surprising that the government in Napydaw currently sees  China, with its lack of concern for a country’s ‘human rights’ record, as the friendliest power. At least China has a positive interest in Myanmar, unlike the USA and India who might be described as having a negative interest in Myanmar, ie: they are only interested in it for the sake of blocking China.  Were it not for China’s interest in Myanmar they would have little interest. As indeed they were very disinterested throughout all the years when China was too weak to draw Myanmar into its orbit.
So, China is the most important relationship for Myanmar today as it is the relationship which offers the best hope of development without compromising unity. How Myanmar manages this relationship and balances both international and intranational forces will have geopolitical significance. China has few allies in its region and a friendship between China and Myanmar could serve both countries very well.

So Angela Merkel said that Germany would take one million refugees and everyone thought ‘that woman is very compassionate,’ and perhaps she is, but when one looks at the decision geo-strategically one finds that there could be other motives behind her decision.
 
​
Germany's Struggle
Since its unification in 1871 Germany has been engaged in a Geopolitical struggle with the other core European Powers: France, The United Kingdom and Russia. These four core powers, or empires as they were initially, have for the last 150 years been constantly engaged in the attempt to improve their positions vis-à-vis the others. The Austro-Hungarian Empire also used to be involved in this game, but it was torn apart following the First World War, a reminder of how deadly the game can be. Turkey, initially in the guise of the Ottoman Empire, was also a player in this game, but as they were almost always an ally of the Germans rather than a competitor I will put them on one side for now.
 
So, if we look at what impact Germany’s decision to take one million immigrants has had on its three traditional rivals we start to see the possibility that there might have been more reasons than altruism to recommend this course of action to Germany’s leader.
 

To begin with The United Kingdom.
Less than a month ago we had the dramatic vote for Britain to leave the European Union (EU). Immigration played a major role in that decision and the vote was close. It could certainly be argued that Germany’s sensationalised decision to accept a million refugees helped to convince Britons to choose to leave the European Union.

How does this act affect the comparative power of Britain vis-à-vis Germany?
On the British side of the equation there are many saying that Britain’s economy will suffer by the decision and that the country might fragment with Scotland and Northern Ireland splitting off. Certainly there is a chance of all of this, which would mean the virtual destruction of one of Germany’s tradition rivals. These doomsday predictions, however, may be mightily overstated. I, for one, can envisage Britain enhancing its influence in the world as a result of the Brexit. Whether or not the UK benefits from leaving the EU, though, there is no doubt that their leaving has left Germany in a stronger position within the European Union. Germany was already the strongest country within the European Union, but it could be challenged by Britain and France. With Britain out Germany’s power within the EU immediately grows.
 

What about France?
With Britain out of the EU the only other powerful country left in the EU other than Germany is its old rival; France.

What impact has Ms Merkel’s decision had on the relative strength of France vis-à-vis Germany?
Well, it could be argued that by accepting so many refugees Germany is being seen as a country that is sympathetic to Muslims and it could be argued that Germany has been cultivating this perception since accepting its first influx of Turkish immigrants through its ‘guest worker’ program back in the 60s. So how does this help Germany in its geopolitical game vis-à-vis the other European powers?
 
It should be noted that Germany, to this point, has not suffered from the mass slaughter Islamic terrorist attacks that have hit the UK and particularly France and with this grand gesture to further bolster Germany’s pro-Islamic credentials it could be expected that whatever increase in Islamic terrorism might occur following the decision its targets will be countries other than Germany. France for example is living under a state of emergency due to the frequency of mass casualty Islamic Terror attacks, so it could be argued that Merkel’s decision has contributed to shielding Germany from Islamic terrorist attacks while undermining the civil security of its rival France. Indeed, with the latest attack in Nice horrifying the French people, the chance of a National Front victory at the next election increases and that could lead to a Frexit. A situation that would leave Germany as the sole remaining power within the EU; a situation which would be something akin to Germany taking control of all of the minor countries of Europe; a massive geopolitical advantage to Germany if it should come to pass.

 
And now for the third rival; Russia.
Unlike the others Russia is not in the EU, but Merkel’s decision does have an indirect affect on Russia too. For the past 150 years Germany’s most reliable ally in containing Russia has been Turkey. Russia’s desire to gain control of the sea passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean poses an existential threat to the Turkish State and consequently Turkey, or the Ottoman empire as it was then, allied with Germany in the First World War and avoided joining the Allies against Germany in the Second World War until after the result was a forgone conclusion.
By accepting the one million refugees Germany took the pressure off its old ally Turkey, who was the main transit route for the refugees, and it thereby reaffirmed its bond of goodwill with a country that was at the time involved in a military standoff with Russia over the use of its air force in Syria.
 
So, in conclusion, it can be seen that by making her sensational announcement of accepting one million refugees Angela Merkel was taking a step which enhanced Germany’s geo-strategic position vis-à-vis all of its traditional rivals for power within Europe while at the same time appealing to all those who support ‘compassion politics’ both within the western world and abroad.
For those who doubt that the German chancellor and her advisors could have had anything but humanitarian concerns in mind when they made their decision, I would ask you to pose yourself the following questions:
“Was Angela Merkel aware that Britain was going to have a referendum on whether to leave the EU in the near future?”
“Was Angela Merkel aware that immigration would be a significant issue in that referendum?”
“Was Angela Merkel aware that her acceptance of one million, mostly Islamic refugees into the EU via Germany, from where they might later move to Britain or anywhere else they wanted, would be likely to strengthen Britain’s Leave campaign?”
I would posit that the answer to all of the above questions is “Yes.”
 
It should also be known that, tied in with its alliances with Turkey, Germany has a long history with the idea of using Islam as a weapon. In the first instance this was as a tool to be used against the colonial empires of Britain, France and Russia. On the outbreak of the First World War the Germans even established in Berlin a ‘Bureau of Jihad’ “to produce pan-Islamic propaganda to instigate revolts in French North Africa, Russian Central Asia, and, the jewel in the crown, British India with its 80 million muslims.”[1]
The German Legationsrat and friend of Kaiser Willhelm II who oversaw the establishment of this Bureau, Baron Max von Oppenheim, believed that “In the future Islam will play a much larger role…. [T]he striking power and demographic strength of Islamic lands will one day have a great significance for European states.”[2]
Given that its building of the Berlin to Bagdad railway and its support for the Ottoman Empire in its decay form some of the prouder narratives of German foreign policy over the last 150 years one might find it surprising if Ms Merkel’s advisors were not aware of this heritage. Indeed, one might even note that up until the end of the First World War Syria and Iraq were provinces of the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s erstwhile ally of the day. So in accepting the Syrian and Iraqi refugees one might even wonder if Ms Merkel was not in fact making a nod to Germany’s history and reaffirming an old bond of goodwill between her country and the peoples of that region.
 
In conclusion
For those who think that I might be drawing a very long bow in these speculations, I will concede that you might be right. It is the case that although one might have knowledge of enough facts to uncover the criminal in a detective novel it does not automatically follow that you will put the pieces together correctly to figure out what happened. Similarly, though Angela Merkel knew enough independent facts to forsee the effects of her decision upon her three main European rivals, it does not necessarily follow that she came to those realisations or that they were her primary reasons for acting.
Nonetheless, I think it has been a very enlightening exercise to analyse her action in terms of the effects it would have on Germany's geopolitical rivals.
 
 


[1] Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans, Penguin, 2016, p.48

[2] Oppenheim quoted by McMeekin, The Berlin-Bagdad Express, 27, 91 as cited in Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans, Penguin, 2016, p.48

I said in the raison de etre of this blog that it would be in part a public record of political predictions, so given that recent articles have been more about explanation than prediction I think some crystal ball gazing is due.
 
Predictions relating to the US election:
Donald Trump will win the US presidential election.
Trump made a speech on the 13th of July, which I think will be looked back on as significant. In it he cited protection of the LGBT community as a reason for banning immigrants from countries with a history of exporting Islamic extremists. In the wake of the Orlando massacre this argument will carry weight and will cause rifts within the ‘social progressive’ ranks which had formerly been overwhelmingly in support of Hillary Clinton.
 
Predictions relating to the Australian Election:
In the coming Australian election the Nationals will steal primary votes from the Liberals and the Xenophon Party will steal votes from Labor.
Pauline Hanson will win a senate seat.
The coalition will be returned to government.