Congratulations on correctly using a Chess anaology (unlike all the reports of a "stalemate" in Ukraine).
A number of decades ago when I was a keen young chess player I went through 20 or so of Paul Morphy's games, the 19th century Amercian attacking genius. For the first 5 or 6 I was entranced at how Morphy, on or around move 20, suddenly ripped apart the opponent with a series of gambits and outrageous advances of the kind that reminded me of Errol Flynn. Then I started to wonder why these opportunities were available to Morphy and not other masters of his day or later. So instead of rushing through the games to move 20 to be entertained I took a much closer interest at moves 10-19 and later 1-10. The patterns became clearer, and the more I looked the earlier I could observe how his advantage had been built. Observe, not imitate, sadly.
So we Chess players learn how great victories are won with great preparation, anticipation, logistics, control of routes (the ability to move about the board and control channels is crucial in chess), so that games are won and loss long before the apparent battle begins.
In Chess Zugzwang is an extreme of this. The little advantages have all been won and the opponent starts to collapse even before he is gently pushed.
Kiev, Jerusalem, the stand against Iran are all facing Zugzwang as you explain so well.
Of course the situations have all been exacerbated by US aggression which (Rome and Dacia) has been increased because of its weakness. Israel in a world where US no longer leads (ie post 2015 or 2020) is fated for a short death.
But we should also try to identify all those Morphy like first 20 moves. Hypersonic missiles; enough MIC capacity to support all out conventional war in Europe as a pre-requisite for a full war with Ukraine in turn a pre-requisite for the SMO; preparation for sanctions and an alternative to SWIFT, the commitment to BRICS+ by both China and Russia and the winning over of others; many other steps.
The West has made plenty of mistakes, but the biggest was to play the first 10 moves without recognising who they were playing.
Stalemate as an analogy annoys me though, so I'm pleased you have avoided it. A Stalemate in Chess occurs very rarely in obscure puzzles and quite frequently when a very poor player annihilates an even worse player but carelessly and unforgiveably leaves him unable to move but not in actual check.
Ukraine is not in stalemate because while one side has pretty much annihilated the other, Zelensky (or Biden, who ever you nominate as King) is very much in check and undoubtedly will be mated very soon. (And the false concept of "stalemate" as both sides exhausted is simply a lie when applied to Ukraine.)
The Americans cannot 'commit' themselves to a so-called 'War with Iran.'
They have neither the sufficient ground forces to mount an attack, sufficient range on their jets & ships, adequate defences against Iranian ASBMs, SRBMs & IRBMs, nor the basing & access necessary to conduct such a 'War.' I cover this in my analysis here from a while back:
Shorter version: Israel, the ethno-religious settler colonial project has boxed itself in as it is unable to compromise with its neighbors. Israel understands only the language of violence or threat thereof. The U.S., the exceptional country, the shining beacon on the hill, has boxed itself in as it is unable to compromise with other geopolitical powers. The U.S. understands only the language of violence or threat thereof.
When boxed in, there is no good move, except to attack or surrender. Way fewer words with the same conclusion.
A good perspective, but I have one problem, regarding Israel. There has never been--at least since the 1930s. a decade before the Israeli War for Independence and the Nakbah--any credible Palestinian Arab faction that would accept a peaceful solution with large numbers of Jews remaining in the Mandate Palestine. One can certainly argue that the Israeli response to this fact has been strategically unsound, but the option of a peaceful side-by-side coexistence in Palestine has never been possible because the Arabs would never accept it, having twice rejected partition and initiating a war of extermination in 1948. There may have been a chance after the Yom Kippur War when Sadat made peace, but the Iranian Revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood's assassination of Sadat killed that chance in the cradle.
The broad dispersion of Israeli Jewish settlers in the West Bank is probably a good example of this article's thesis, both in that it derives from those modes of thought, and is strategically insane. However, I note that in 2005 Israel did bite the bullet to forcibly remove its settlers from Gaza, under American pressure to be sure, but it did show that even from the Israeli side, settlements need not be forever.
The Abraham Accords were an effort to get to a settlement, by having the Arab states impose one on the Palestinians. Could it have worked? Maybe, maybe not... but, certainly not after Biden was elected and continued the Obama Administration's' feckless currying of Iran, hence building Iran into a more formidable enemy of any peace that included a Jewish presence. And exacerbating Israeli sense of siege.
As usual, a great analysis. I agree that the Combined West (includes US, UK, EU, NATO) faces the choice between strategic retreat or increased and costly strategic commitment, which may not pan out, in all 3 areas: Ukraine (against extremely powerful nuclear power Russia), Mid-east (against powerful Iran and Hezbollah) and Gaza, this time with Israel (against Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah).
The three situations generally confirm to your thesis, but there are differences. Backing Israel and aiding and abetting what is clearly genocide (does not matter if that is in the interest of Israel), US and the West risk a long term strategic defeat as far as relations with the rest of the world (ROW), who are horrified. Only by restraining Israel and supporting two-state solution can US hopefully regain its influence and hegemony over ROW. Making Israel's interests its own, US will suffer strategic defeat, not militarily but diplomatically. Doing what is right may actually aid US regain some of the loss in the strategic arena. If ROW decides that US morality is conditional, then it loses all respect needed to exert soft power over ROW.
In Middle-East, avoiding a war with Iran may be regarded as a strategic mini-defeat, but the alternative is a bloody war US cannot win in the long run.
In Ukraine again, short of starting WWIII with a nuclear nation with a capability to destroy the Combined West (because of NATO) is the ultimate strategic defeat imaginable - utter destruction of one's own homeland! A retreat at this point would be humiliating but ... the best choice for US.
very good but Israel had a choice after '67. It could have withdrew to its pre-67 borders and become a normal country except for being an apartheid state. Bided it time and eventually it would have been accepted like it almost was before Oct 7 - the Abraham Accords. Instead it has this dream of Greater Eretz - from the river to the sea and beyond. Since '48 facts 'on the ground" and continual expansion of its borders- exposition of the Palestinians as animal - subhuman. It has ignored world law, committed what would be war crimes and assassinations all over the world and gotten away with it because of "my parents died in the hoaxacaust" - not that many Jews didn't die before their time because of Nazi antisemitism (but millions more of Poles and Russians died because of Nazi chosen people ideology) but gas chambers disguised as shower chambers didn't happen. Now we have Israeli chosen people ideology acting just as bad. Comparisons of Israeli mass murder in Gaza in reaction to living in a concentration camp to the Nazis reacting to armed insurrection in the Warsaw ghetto come to mind.
My fears are that Israel will try to draw the US into a middle East conflagration when it all out attacks Hexbollah. If the US declines (as it should) and Israel loses it will use nukes. What will the world do then?
Not sure where those are as IDF losses since the ground offensive on Oct 27 total 232 dead yet the IDF has already occupied Gaza City and Khan Younis, the two main cities in Gaza. Only Rafah is left and Israel has already mounted a successful commando raid in the center of Rafah that freed two hostages.
The IDF entered a territory ruled for 15 years by Hamas, with over 400 km of tunnels and underground bunkers, yet suffered a fraction of the casualties Russian or Ukrainian forces suffered over much smaller populated areas that lacked the level of fortifications in Gaza.
Israel's most likely option is prevent Hamas from controlling a sovereign territory again while Iranian actions force the Gulf monarchies to move closer to Israel.
My two cents. The historical comparisons are fine, but this is the 21st century not the 4th. Israel has brought the grief upon itself. Having been forced into the region by the UN against the will of the regional population Israel had the opportunity to co-exist, and if they had done that would not be in the situation, they find themselves today. Instead, they chose apartied and conquest. without American power and hegemonic influence, they would not have an overwhelming force and would reap what they have sowed (live by the sword, die by the sword"). America, like Rome, is in the process of self-destruction. Our education system has been in decline for the past 40 years. We have gone from first in education to not even in the top 25. Once the "shining light on the hill" our previous policies of logic, common sense, and compassion has been replaced by greed and a power lust of a ruling class that no longer represents the general population. This trend is irreversible, and I am sad to say I'm alive to witness it. As panic sets in the self-destruction will accelerate. American leadership has no strategy. They are corrupt and reactionary and cannot think beyond their own self well being. I wish I had a more positive outlook, but I do not. Israel will fall along with the demise of the Western world and America, and we have only ourselves to blame.
Just as Zbig brought to me the concept of geopolitically active States and geopolitical pivots States (https://polsci.substack.com/p/the-great-chess-board) This post brings forward the concept of tripwire.
Your text really helped me understand why there was so much US media amplification of the 3 US deployed servicemen killed, while 20000 gazans killed or an american blogger killed in Ukraine prison is deamplified. The tripwire look like the right explanatory model for US behavior.
I completely understand your thoughts and appreciate your writing.
As an American middle class citizen I’m all for withdrawal from empire. We’re exhausting ourselves for an empire for the benefit of the the elite. Adoption of a position for the benefit of the the American middle class and united national identity is my dream. MAGA in short.
Israel is in existential crisis. Their military hegemony is greatly diminished and the demographics are quickly overwhelming them. I fully believe the Hamas attack was a green flag to justify a final solution in the Israelis favor. Soon demographics , military parity , and the collapse of the the American empire will leave Israel completely unsustainable. There can be no peace between Palestinians and Israel. Either victory by Israel that expels the Palestinians from the Gaza strip and West Bank or accept the eventual destruction of Israel. If Israel accepts anything short of total victory they’re finished as a viable country long term. Personally I believe Israel is a dead man walking. A society too soft and divided to muster the will to do what is necessary for survival. The Palestinians and Arab states desperate to keep radicalized Palestinians out of their society will prevail.
A very valid analysis, if one accepts the presumptions inherent within it.
For the Israel/Palestine conflict, one must accept the Israeli-US narrative that October 7th was a Hamas attack that took the entire Israeli military and intelligence infrastructure by complete surprise.
Please, give me a break.
The information that has emerged since, warnings from Egypt to Israel well beforehand of a potential Hamas threat, that the IDF attacking it's own people, the profiteering, the shutdown of the surveillance system along the Israel/Gaza border, never mind Netanyahu's historic links to Hamas, should make any journalist or analyst question such a narrative.
And for the conflict in Ukraine, it defies logic to think, even at the commencement of that conflict, that anyone with a functioning brain could look at the resources available to each side and conclude that Ukraine had even a vestige of possibility of victory, is laughable.
Much is being made of the accusations of genocide being laid against Israel in the ICJ, let them take their course.
But a much more obvious genocide and ethnic cleansing is happening in Ukraine.
The population of the country has fallen by over 50% since the start of the conflict.
Ironically most if the displaced Ukrainian population have actually gone to Russia.
Many others have been trafficked throughout Europe, over half a million have died on the battlefields and many multiples of that have received injuries that will make them invalids for the rest of their lives.
But that genocide is unlikely to get much coverage or airtime in this corner of the world.
Too many people of privilege would have to answer awkward questions.
"Ultimately, I have always believed that there is no durable solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict short of military victory for one side or the other".
Although many clever and well-informed people have been taking an incredibly long time to reach this conclusion, it is one I have believed to be correct for a very long time. Indeed, what it boils down to is that the whole Zionist project was doomed to failure right from its start in the 1880s.
Practically - politically and militarily - it is doomed to failure, after immense suffering and death. And morally, it was always one of the most ineradicable blots on the record of the human race. In its way, what the Zionists have done to the Palestinians and other nearby indigenous peoples is just as bad as what the Nazis did to the Jews. Perhaps worse in the sense that the Zionists are supposed to be very intelligent, educated, cultured people who began their genocidal project after the UN had been founded and the new dispensation of human rights and morality had begun.
"pardon me for rambling", he says, before producing one of the most clear-sighted assessments of the West's geostrategic position I've read in months
Congratulations on correctly using a Chess anaology (unlike all the reports of a "stalemate" in Ukraine).
A number of decades ago when I was a keen young chess player I went through 20 or so of Paul Morphy's games, the 19th century Amercian attacking genius. For the first 5 or 6 I was entranced at how Morphy, on or around move 20, suddenly ripped apart the opponent with a series of gambits and outrageous advances of the kind that reminded me of Errol Flynn. Then I started to wonder why these opportunities were available to Morphy and not other masters of his day or later. So instead of rushing through the games to move 20 to be entertained I took a much closer interest at moves 10-19 and later 1-10. The patterns became clearer, and the more I looked the earlier I could observe how his advantage had been built. Observe, not imitate, sadly.
So we Chess players learn how great victories are won with great preparation, anticipation, logistics, control of routes (the ability to move about the board and control channels is crucial in chess), so that games are won and loss long before the apparent battle begins.
In Chess Zugzwang is an extreme of this. The little advantages have all been won and the opponent starts to collapse even before he is gently pushed.
Kiev, Jerusalem, the stand against Iran are all facing Zugzwang as you explain so well.
Of course the situations have all been exacerbated by US aggression which (Rome and Dacia) has been increased because of its weakness. Israel in a world where US no longer leads (ie post 2015 or 2020) is fated for a short death.
But we should also try to identify all those Morphy like first 20 moves. Hypersonic missiles; enough MIC capacity to support all out conventional war in Europe as a pre-requisite for a full war with Ukraine in turn a pre-requisite for the SMO; preparation for sanctions and an alternative to SWIFT, the commitment to BRICS+ by both China and Russia and the winning over of others; many other steps.
The West has made plenty of mistakes, but the biggest was to play the first 10 moves without recognising who they were playing.
Stalemate as an analogy annoys me though, so I'm pleased you have avoided it. A Stalemate in Chess occurs very rarely in obscure puzzles and quite frequently when a very poor player annihilates an even worse player but carelessly and unforgiveably leaves him unable to move but not in actual check.
Ukraine is not in stalemate because while one side has pretty much annihilated the other, Zelensky (or Biden, who ever you nominate as King) is very much in check and undoubtedly will be mated very soon. (And the false concept of "stalemate" as both sides exhausted is simply a lie when applied to Ukraine.)
The Americans cannot 'commit' themselves to a so-called 'War with Iran.'
They have neither the sufficient ground forces to mount an attack, sufficient range on their jets & ships, adequate defences against Iranian ASBMs, SRBMs & IRBMs, nor the basing & access necessary to conduct such a 'War.' I cover this in my analysis here from a while back:
https://thefallofthewest.substack.com/p/irans-ascension-to-great-power-status?r=5jj6h&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Shorter version: Israel, the ethno-religious settler colonial project has boxed itself in as it is unable to compromise with its neighbors. Israel understands only the language of violence or threat thereof. The U.S., the exceptional country, the shining beacon on the hill, has boxed itself in as it is unable to compromise with other geopolitical powers. The U.S. understands only the language of violence or threat thereof.
When boxed in, there is no good move, except to attack or surrender. Way fewer words with the same conclusion.
Superb and brilliant! And I loved this: “Though Putin’s interview with Tucker Carlson perhaps did much to normalize verbose historical digressions…”
A good perspective, but I have one problem, regarding Israel. There has never been--at least since the 1930s. a decade before the Israeli War for Independence and the Nakbah--any credible Palestinian Arab faction that would accept a peaceful solution with large numbers of Jews remaining in the Mandate Palestine. One can certainly argue that the Israeli response to this fact has been strategically unsound, but the option of a peaceful side-by-side coexistence in Palestine has never been possible because the Arabs would never accept it, having twice rejected partition and initiating a war of extermination in 1948. There may have been a chance after the Yom Kippur War when Sadat made peace, but the Iranian Revolution and the Muslim Brotherhood's assassination of Sadat killed that chance in the cradle.
The broad dispersion of Israeli Jewish settlers in the West Bank is probably a good example of this article's thesis, both in that it derives from those modes of thought, and is strategically insane. However, I note that in 2005 Israel did bite the bullet to forcibly remove its settlers from Gaza, under American pressure to be sure, but it did show that even from the Israeli side, settlements need not be forever.
The Abraham Accords were an effort to get to a settlement, by having the Arab states impose one on the Palestinians. Could it have worked? Maybe, maybe not... but, certainly not after Biden was elected and continued the Obama Administration's' feckless currying of Iran, hence building Iran into a more formidable enemy of any peace that included a Jewish presence. And exacerbating Israeli sense of siege.
As usual, a great analysis. I agree that the Combined West (includes US, UK, EU, NATO) faces the choice between strategic retreat or increased and costly strategic commitment, which may not pan out, in all 3 areas: Ukraine (against extremely powerful nuclear power Russia), Mid-east (against powerful Iran and Hezbollah) and Gaza, this time with Israel (against Hamas, Houthis, Hezbollah).
The three situations generally confirm to your thesis, but there are differences. Backing Israel and aiding and abetting what is clearly genocide (does not matter if that is in the interest of Israel), US and the West risk a long term strategic defeat as far as relations with the rest of the world (ROW), who are horrified. Only by restraining Israel and supporting two-state solution can US hopefully regain its influence and hegemony over ROW. Making Israel's interests its own, US will suffer strategic defeat, not militarily but diplomatically. Doing what is right may actually aid US regain some of the loss in the strategic arena. If ROW decides that US morality is conditional, then it loses all respect needed to exert soft power over ROW.
In Middle-East, avoiding a war with Iran may be regarded as a strategic mini-defeat, but the alternative is a bloody war US cannot win in the long run.
In Ukraine again, short of starting WWIII with a nuclear nation with a capability to destroy the Combined West (because of NATO) is the ultimate strategic defeat imaginable - utter destruction of one's own homeland! A retreat at this point would be humiliating but ... the best choice for US.
very good but Israel had a choice after '67. It could have withdrew to its pre-67 borders and become a normal country except for being an apartheid state. Bided it time and eventually it would have been accepted like it almost was before Oct 7 - the Abraham Accords. Instead it has this dream of Greater Eretz - from the river to the sea and beyond. Since '48 facts 'on the ground" and continual expansion of its borders- exposition of the Palestinians as animal - subhuman. It has ignored world law, committed what would be war crimes and assassinations all over the world and gotten away with it because of "my parents died in the hoaxacaust" - not that many Jews didn't die before their time because of Nazi antisemitism (but millions more of Poles and Russians died because of Nazi chosen people ideology) but gas chambers disguised as shower chambers didn't happen. Now we have Israeli chosen people ideology acting just as bad. Comparisons of Israeli mass murder in Gaza in reaction to living in a concentration camp to the Nazis reacting to armed insurrection in the Warsaw ghetto come to mind.
My fears are that Israel will try to draw the US into a middle East conflagration when it all out attacks Hexbollah. If the US declines (as it should) and Israel loses it will use nukes. What will the world do then?
"abnormally high losses among the IDF"
Not sure where those are as IDF losses since the ground offensive on Oct 27 total 232 dead yet the IDF has already occupied Gaza City and Khan Younis, the two main cities in Gaza. Only Rafah is left and Israel has already mounted a successful commando raid in the center of Rafah that freed two hostages.
The IDF entered a territory ruled for 15 years by Hamas, with over 400 km of tunnels and underground bunkers, yet suffered a fraction of the casualties Russian or Ukrainian forces suffered over much smaller populated areas that lacked the level of fortifications in Gaza.
Israel's most likely option is prevent Hamas from controlling a sovereign territory again while Iranian actions force the Gulf monarchies to move closer to Israel.
My two cents. The historical comparisons are fine, but this is the 21st century not the 4th. Israel has brought the grief upon itself. Having been forced into the region by the UN against the will of the regional population Israel had the opportunity to co-exist, and if they had done that would not be in the situation, they find themselves today. Instead, they chose apartied and conquest. without American power and hegemonic influence, they would not have an overwhelming force and would reap what they have sowed (live by the sword, die by the sword"). America, like Rome, is in the process of self-destruction. Our education system has been in decline for the past 40 years. We have gone from first in education to not even in the top 25. Once the "shining light on the hill" our previous policies of logic, common sense, and compassion has been replaced by greed and a power lust of a ruling class that no longer represents the general population. This trend is irreversible, and I am sad to say I'm alive to witness it. As panic sets in the self-destruction will accelerate. American leadership has no strategy. They are corrupt and reactionary and cannot think beyond their own self well being. I wish I had a more positive outlook, but I do not. Israel will fall along with the demise of the Western world and America, and we have only ourselves to blame.
It's a long blog post, but worth a book.
Just as Zbig brought to me the concept of geopolitically active States and geopolitical pivots States (https://polsci.substack.com/p/the-great-chess-board) This post brings forward the concept of tripwire.
Your text really helped me understand why there was so much US media amplification of the 3 US deployed servicemen killed, while 20000 gazans killed or an american blogger killed in Ukraine prison is deamplified. The tripwire look like the right explanatory model for US behavior.
Except that the ‘holocaust’ TM is fake. The Jews control the west and the ‘west’ is expendable so long as to protect their criminal hq.
My complete and total admiration to you sir! Outstanding article.
I completely understand your thoughts and appreciate your writing.
As an American middle class citizen I’m all for withdrawal from empire. We’re exhausting ourselves for an empire for the benefit of the the elite. Adoption of a position for the benefit of the the American middle class and united national identity is my dream. MAGA in short.
Israel is in existential crisis. Their military hegemony is greatly diminished and the demographics are quickly overwhelming them. I fully believe the Hamas attack was a green flag to justify a final solution in the Israelis favor. Soon demographics , military parity , and the collapse of the the American empire will leave Israel completely unsustainable. There can be no peace between Palestinians and Israel. Either victory by Israel that expels the Palestinians from the Gaza strip and West Bank or accept the eventual destruction of Israel. If Israel accepts anything short of total victory they’re finished as a viable country long term. Personally I believe Israel is a dead man walking. A society too soft and divided to muster the will to do what is necessary for survival. The Palestinians and Arab states desperate to keep radicalized Palestinians out of their society will prevail.
A very valid analysis, if one accepts the presumptions inherent within it.
For the Israel/Palestine conflict, one must accept the Israeli-US narrative that October 7th was a Hamas attack that took the entire Israeli military and intelligence infrastructure by complete surprise.
Please, give me a break.
The information that has emerged since, warnings from Egypt to Israel well beforehand of a potential Hamas threat, that the IDF attacking it's own people, the profiteering, the shutdown of the surveillance system along the Israel/Gaza border, never mind Netanyahu's historic links to Hamas, should make any journalist or analyst question such a narrative.
And for the conflict in Ukraine, it defies logic to think, even at the commencement of that conflict, that anyone with a functioning brain could look at the resources available to each side and conclude that Ukraine had even a vestige of possibility of victory, is laughable.
Much is being made of the accusations of genocide being laid against Israel in the ICJ, let them take their course.
But a much more obvious genocide and ethnic cleansing is happening in Ukraine.
The population of the country has fallen by over 50% since the start of the conflict.
Ironically most if the displaced Ukrainian population have actually gone to Russia.
Many others have been trafficked throughout Europe, over half a million have died on the battlefields and many multiples of that have received injuries that will make them invalids for the rest of their lives.
But that genocide is unlikely to get much coverage or airtime in this corner of the world.
Too many people of privilege would have to answer awkward questions.
"Ultimately, I have always believed that there is no durable solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict short of military victory for one side or the other".
Although many clever and well-informed people have been taking an incredibly long time to reach this conclusion, it is one I have believed to be correct for a very long time. Indeed, what it boils down to is that the whole Zionist project was doomed to failure right from its start in the 1880s.
Practically - politically and militarily - it is doomed to failure, after immense suffering and death. And morally, it was always one of the most ineradicable blots on the record of the human race. In its way, what the Zionists have done to the Palestinians and other nearby indigenous peoples is just as bad as what the Nazis did to the Jews. Perhaps worse in the sense that the Zionists are supposed to be very intelligent, educated, cultured people who began their genocidal project after the UN had been founded and the new dispensation of human rights and morality had begun.