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.

Does anyone else get the feeling that there could be a deal on between Turkey and Saudi Arabia for the division of Syria? And that their troops might be on the ground in Syria sooner rather than later?
The likely deal would involve Turkey getting control of a slice of northern Syria extending 100-150 kilometres south from its own border. Saudi Arabia would take all the remaining lands occupied by IS.
​The benefits of this deal for Turkey would be that it gets control of the Kurdish region in which the YPG is setting too good an example to Turkey's own restive Kurds of what an independent Kurdish state might look like.
The benefits to Saudia Arabia have been covered in earlier blogs and can be read below.

Why sooner rather than later?
Because of the Russians.
Saudi Arabia might have always had a long term plan to put troops on the ground in Syria, but until recently there was no rush. The longer the civil war in Syria dragged on and the more horrible and intractable it became the more likely it was that a Saudi intervention would be seen as a blessing.
Now that the Russians have rejuvenated the Assad loyalists, however, and there is talk of them re-taking Raqqa, the Saudi's need to get involved while there is still some Islamic State territory left for them to liberate.
Ideally the Saudi's would like to take Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, before they put boots on the ground inside Islamic state territory, but with their troops approaching the outskirts of Sanaa as this article is written, and the campaign for Sanaa generally progressing well for the Saudi's, it seems likely that they have decided that they need to seize their moment and will commit to fighting in two theatres.
The Turks, are also no doubt wanting to put a stop to the possible linking up of the two Kurdish controlled regions of northern Syria, a scenario which becomes increasingly likely as the continued aerial bombardment of IS makes them less able to fend off the Kurdish YPG advances.
Turkey was particularly concerned by the YPG's recent seizure of territory on the western bank of the Euphrates: which put the YPG one step closer to linking up their two bodies of territory along the Turkish border.
Another concern for both Turkey and Saudi Arabia is the prospect of a deal being struck between Assad and the Kurds. It would be advantageous for them both to act before such a deal came into being and further strengthened the Assad regime's reviving claims to be the legitimate, and still ruling, government of Syria. 

If the Turks get the North and the Saudis take the South who gets the East and the coast of Syria?
This is a good question.
With Russia giving the Assad regime considerable support one would have to say at this stage that the Assad regime is likely to retain control of the territory they already have and may well takeover most of the rebel areas which are not either Kurdish or IS. This would leave Syria divided into three spheres of power with Assad on the coast and in the coastal mountains, the Turks in the North and the Saudis controlling the remaining, mostly desert regions, to the South and South-East. 
With Russia having become so invested in supporting the Assad regime it is natural that the Turks and the Saudis would be very wary of trying to extend their intervention to the coast, but if both of these countries had their armies in the field and the tacit backing of the United States then they may well dare to take the fight to Assad and the Russians.
Then again, Russia's main concerns at the moment are with its Eastern European border and it could well be bought out of the fight in Syria if the US were to allow it significant gains in Ukraine, for example.

It's all about the Russians
The Russians, the Assad regime and even the Iranians have begun sabre rattling in response to the Turkish and Saudi announcements that they are willing to put troops on the ground in Syria. Naturally, it would be disastrous for the Russians, the Assad regime and Iran if either Turkey or Saudi Arabia or both intervened in Syria. Therefore they will be willing to go to lengths to prevent such interventions. Consequently, all of these parties are now engaged in a sabre rattling face-off.
Much will depend on the disposition of the US and the European Union in negotiations conducted far from the Syrian battlefields.
​Perhaps the Russians will succeed in staring down one or both threats.
If they do it will be a significant victory for Putin, leaving the Russian backed regime as the most likely final victor of the Syrian civil war.
Will the US allow this to happen?
The Syrian civil war could be about to enter a new phase of significant foreign intervention.

Could Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud be the leader to unite the Arab world?  Well, that is an interesting topic to speculate about.  We are at a point in history where some circumstances have arisen that would make the unification of the Arab world, or at least a decent part of it, more likely than it has been since the time of Nasser.  To begin with the Arab world has rarely been more in need of leadership with chaos and civil war reigning in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and large regions of other Arab countries.  Also one might argue that  Saudi Arabia currently enjoys a supremacy in terms of Arab leadership that not even Nasser's Egypt enjoyed, with the total lack of any strong rival for influence.  Algeria would be the next strongest Arab Sunni state, but it is located in the Maghreb, far from the Middle East, the hub of the Arab world.

 One can definitely  say that Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has already achieved an impressive feat of Arab unity in bringing a coalition of 10 Arab states together to fight a war in Yemen.  How much further could he go?

Let us post a speculative history for Saudi Arabia's near future.
a.   A period of honing military prowess and cementing one's position at the top of the regional power hegemony by leading a military coalition in Yemen.
b.   Taking control of the lands of the Islamic State after that group has been worn down by international attacks.

This would be a fine point for Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to stop and rest on his laurels, and given his age one might say this would be about where you would expect him to stop.  As he is 79 one would assume he could not really expect any more than ten good years and it would be possible for Saudi Arabia to get to this point within ten years.
The next big step for Saudi Arabia to take would be to seize the rest of Syria, but there would be big questions over whether that would be a wise step. Incorporating a large secularised population like Damascus could have a destabilizing effect within Saudi Arabia as already discussed in previous articles.  Oddly enough though Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud's age might make him more likely to take the step than others given that being the Arab leader to reunite Mecca and Damascus would make his name stand tall in posterity and he might reason that he probably won't be around long enough to deal with any messy consequences.

c    Taking control of the west of Syria will lead naturally into the need to dominate Lebanon as well.
d   With the respect earned from its previous victories and expansions Saudi Arabia, under whatever leader, may find itself with such prestige among the Arab populations of its remaining neighbours that all sorts of possibilities present themselves.

What could a brave king do?

One way in which geopolitical analysts attempt to predict the future is a method known as ‘scenario planning’. According to this method you think up as many possible scenarios as you can, within reason, and then you try and estimate the percentage chance of them coming to pass.  This is a fun task for analysts because it is one of the few times where they are seriously asked to plan out the most dramatic and extreme scenarios.  In this short article we will not attempt to set out a range of scenarios and estimate their chances of coming to pass.  What we will do though is endeavour to give you an idea of what the potential consequences of having a ‘brave king’ in Saudi Arabia really are.

Saudi Arabia’s potential for expansion

Point One:

In this world of nation states the Arab lands are an anomaly. From Morocco to Oman you have a great string of countries that are all inhabited by a people who speak the same language and define themselves as being from the same culture; they are Arabs. Consequently, most of the nations which the Arabs inhabit have few natural borders with their neighbours. On both sides of the border the people speak Arabic and call themselves Arabs and there is a past history in which the border did not exist and the inhabitants of both countries lived happily together either as part of the Ottoman Empire or one of the earlier caliphates. Not surprisingly, therefore, there have been many political leaders in the Arab World who have been advocates of Pan-Arabism and have dreamed of uniting the Arabs into one super state.  Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt briefly united Egypt and Syria in the United Arab Republic and Saddam Hussein tried to present himself as a Pan-Arab unifier in his invasion of Kuwait.  Given this unique circumstance of the Arab nations, whenever a strong leader emerges in one of their countries there are always some who will ask, “Could he be the one?”

I do not raise this matter in order to discuss whether  Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud could be the man to reunite all the Arabs, but to simply emphasise that the borders surrounding most Arab countries are more easily shifted or dissolved than those that correspond to real ethnic and cultural divisions; and that consequently Saudi Arabia would have less barriers to expansion than most countries simply by virtue of being Arab.

Point Two:

I said in the previous article that Saudi Arabia is the strongest state in the Arab world, one might argue that Egypt with its massive population is the strongest, but due to its poverty and Saudi Arabia’s wealth it is Saudi Arabia which influences the Egyptian government at the moment and not vice versa.  Egypt has been a heavily populated behemoth throughout recorded history, but it has often had outsiders come in and take over the running of its political structures.  Simply having a larger population than Saudi Arabia does not make it immune from being influenced or even dominated by Saudi Arabia. Egypt is currently part of the Saudi led coalition which is attacking Saudi enemies in Yemen.

Egypt is large, but it does not currently have the power to exert much influence on other countries.  Saudi Arabia by contrast, through its money, and increasingly through its military capabilities, does have that ability.  It is by far the most influential Arab state in today’s world.

Prediction:

The above two points being made, my prediction is that, under a brave king, Saudi Arabia will be the state to occupy the space currently occupied by the Islamic State.

Why?

1.       The Sunni Arabs of this region will prefer Sunni Arab Saudi Arabia to Shia dominated Iraq or Alawite controlled Syria.

2.       Saudi Arabia is a very traditionally Islamic state and is the keeper of Islam’s two most holy sites so to those locals who previously used religious rhetoric to support the Islamic State, Saudi Arabia will be an acceptable (even supportable) replacement.

3.       Saudi Arabia has the necessary internal and institutional strength for conducting an annexation of territory.  It has a compliant population who like to see their nation acting strongly and their military institutions are working well enough to conduct a sophisticated air campaign against Yemen and lead a 10 country coalition.  King Salman also  has particularly good support within the country’s power hierarchies after 48 years as the governor of Riyadh, during which time he was frequently used by the monarchy as the main man for healing rifts between factions and disciplining minor royals.  Tasks which show the high level of respect with which he was and is regarded and the great position he has enjoyed to build personal relationships and alliances within Saudi Arabia’s power structures.

4.       Saudi Arabia’s domestic policies make them particularly capable of dealing with the Islamic State zealots once they capture the area.  Saudi Arabia has already, in the time of its founder Ibn Saud, eradicated ultra-intolerant religious extremists by wiping out entire villages where some violently extremist forms of Wahhabism (a strain of Islam) had taken route.  Saudi Arabia can still act in this sort of dramatic but effective way as it is not accountable to any liberal/human rights focussed discourse within its political structures.  It is not a democracy. Its king is not accountable to any western notions of human rights and for the most part the Saudi population would probably view clemency for such violent enemies of the state as Islamic State as weakness.

5.       Saudi Arabia is made more acceptable to the local population by virtue of its proud history of creating itself through a process of tribal warfare rather than being a country created by western colonial powers.

6.       The area now controlled by Islamic State is a very attractive target of annexation to Saudi Arabia for a number of reasons: firstly, it has two major rivers running through it, the Tigris and the Euphrates, and Saudi Arabia is very water poor and in need of both water and arable land; secondly, the area currently occupied by Islamic State does not possess any major cities, thus if annexed it would not significantly change the power balances within Saudi Arabia.  If Saudi Arabia annexed an area with a city like Damascus in it, for example, that city would soon begin to exert an influence on the internal political dynamics of the country simply by virtue of its population and economic clout.  And given that cities tend to produce more liberal, secular and cosmopolitan views, the influence of a city like Damascus within the country might cause problems for the monarchy and their current ruling institutions.  By comparison the area currently ruled by Islamic State would be an ideal addition to the country possessing as it does a more traditionally minded rural and small town population along with the resources of water and arable land that Saudi Arabia would dearly like to possess.

7.       Although generally speaking the United States, and the western world, do not like the idea of borders changing and states expanding, they will nonetheless find very little to say against such an annexation by a former stalwart ally, particularly given the nature of the regime they will be replacing and the difficulty that any western liberal democracy would have in eradicating the Islamic State zealots from among the local population.

So, it can be seen that Saudi Arabia is essentially ideally constituted to annex the current territory of the Islamic State, so long as they are led by a brave king who is capable of seizing the opportunities that are presented to him.  If he plays his cards right he might even be welcomed in as a liberator by a significant proportion of the local population and hailed as a hero by the rest of the world.

Keep an eye out for ‘A Brave King - Part Three’

Apparently Saudi Arabia has just reached an agreement with France to send three billion dollars worth of military equipment to Lebanon to fight Islamic State.  This follows on from the events of March in which Saudi Arabia put together a coalition of 10 countries to launch airstrikes on Yemen; an engagement which is ongoing and reported to include artillery bombardments over their shared border. It appears very possible that Saudi Arabia could even send troops over the border to engage in conventional ground-based warfare.

It is without doubt that Saudi Arabia has pursued a much more aggressive foreign policy since the accession king Salman Saud on January the 23rd.  Is this simply a coincidence of timing or do we have a much more adventurist king now in charge of the Arab world’s strongest state?

There is no doubting that at this time there are many geopolitical currents that are aligning to push Saudi Arabia into a more assertive role in its region. To begin with the price of oil has dropped and there are many analysts who would say that we are at the beginning of an energy revolution which will increasingly move the world away from using oil as a source of energy.  Many in Saudi Arabia therefore must be aware that their years of fantastic wealth are coming to an end and that they can no longer sit back and rely on their financial power to buy them out of any problems they may have.  Previously the Saudi’s have not had to engage in much political argy-bargy with their neighbours because their oil wealth ensured that the United States (US), the world’s pre-eminent military and political power, was always willing to defend their borders and forgive them any domestic actions which might have caused them international problems either with their neighbours or other nations. Right now, however, one very clear sign that Saudi Arabia is quickly becoming less important to the US is the fact that the US appears to be on the verge of ending its decades-long hostility to Iran, Saudia Arabia’s main regional rival.  Indeed, no clearer sign that the tides are turning is needed, however, there have been many other currents and events that seem be pushing the Saudi’s toward a more interventionist foreign policy. One might say that the Arab Spring and the vast instability it has brought to the Arab world, particularly including the Islamic State on Saudi Arabia’s northern border, signals to the Saudi royalty that just sitting back and allowing events to take their course may not be a wise choice.  And then there is the fact of the civil war in Yemen, which is happening now and appeared to be on the verge of being won by forces antagonistic to the Saudi’s.  This also presented the Saudi’s with the possibility of several undesirable outcomes if they did not become actively involved to try and shape events more to their liking.

So, it cannot be denied that there is a coincidence, or convergence, of forces at the moment that are pushing Saudi Arabia towards a more interventionist foreign policy.  With their declining importance to the US it certainly behoves Saudi Arabia right now to show the neighbours that they have their own weight to throw around and that even without US backing they are a force to be reckoned with. And these changed circumstances appear not to have come as a complete shock to Riyadh because there are certainly signs that the Saudi’s have in recent years been quietly preparing for a less secure place in the world.  Their current spending on defence, for example, is the fourth largest in the world, ahead of such traditional powers as France and the United Kingdom and behind only the US, China and Russia.  This certainly suggests that the Saudi’s have decided to convert their financial power into military power whilst they still can.

It is certainly the case that Saudi Arabia is surrounded by forces pushing it to become more interventionist within its region, but all the same it is fair to say that Salman is a king who is willing to take bold actions.  In everyday life most people are surrounded by opportunities, some take them others don’t.  The fact that since the accession of Salman Saudi Arabia has taken some very bold moves and made significant demonstrations of its power within the region do tell us that we are dealing with a leader who is prepared to take such actions and that alone is a significant fact.

Keep an eye out for ‘A Brave King – Part Two – Speculation’

By launching direct military action against the Houthi/Saleh forces in Yemen the Saudis are taking a long term risk.  Though they might be by far the stronger party at the moment it is conceivable that they might meet strong resistance.  It is hard to subdue people who have nothing to lose and the Yemenis are very poor.  They also live in extremely difficult terrain.  Until now the Houthis were respecting the Saudi border.  Now that the Saudis have attacked them they will have no qualms about operating in Saudi territory.  Given there is significant Yemeni/Houthi population in the regions of Saudi Arabia which border Yemen's northern border, the Saudis are leaving themselves open to a war which could end up being fought on their own soil.  The Saudis may rationalise that if the Houthis gain complete control of Yemen they will, given past history, be after their southern regions next anyway.  This may be true, but the international community would have been virtually unified in opposing one country attacking another.  By Saudi Arabia attacking first they have forfeited this moral high ground.
The Saudis do already have the support, perhaps even the encouragement, of the United States of America in their attack and perhaps they believe that this is the only voice in the international court of public opinion that matters so why not invade.  This is a fair point, but America's priorities might change in the future while Yemen''s position on the southern border of Saudi Arabia will not and now that the Saudis have broken the peace I am sure the Houthis will be eager to take the fight into Saudi territory whenever they can.