Energy, Arms and Global Destabilization

New readers should know that my Substack posts are dedicated to surveillance of matters related to a central premise, and that premise, put at its simplest, is that the collective West, made ever more desperate and ruthless because of its unsustainable debt load, is attempting to beat back the multiple forces of multipolarity. It is currently doing this on three main fronts: against Russia over the proxy excuse of defending Ukraine; against Iran over the proxy excuse of defending Israel; against China over the proxy excuse of defending Taiwan. But there is no limit to the number of fronts that the West will entertain.

I wish us all a happy and prosperous New Year, individually and, more globally, I look to the hope of a new reign in international relations, one that will be governed by sanity, empathy, a commitment to both peace and the construction of a good life for all human beings, and one that can hold its ground robustly against human greed, lust for power, or recklessness in the domains of climate, nuclear energy and social justice.

Energy

In the past several days issues of energy have loomed large. I have discussed the new waves of sanctions that we should expect to see implemented by the outgoing Biden administration against Russia’s sales of Russian oil and gas and against the ships and tankers that carry them. We have also seen the likelihood of physical attacks on Russian or Russian-related ships and tankers in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea. Russians say unequivocally that the recent attack and sinking of the Ursa Major cargo ship in the Mediterranean between Spain and Algeria was an act of terrorism. I have yet to see a clear formulation of the likely Russian response to such attacks which may now number half a dozen.

There is also a major development that will start in a few hours time of my writing this, when Russia will switch off supplies of gas that up until now have traversed Ukrainian pipelines into Europe. I supplied details of the background to this in yesterdy’s post.

This development is most immediately important for Slovakia and Moldava and for Ukraine itself where the cost of gas is likely to rise by 400%. Ukraine will likely also have to deal with the cessation of the supply of electricity from Slovakia; and Moldava will have to deal with the cessation of the supply of electricity from its power station in the pro-Russian strip of Transmistria.

In addition, Urkaine will have to cope with the loss of control over its thermal power station in Kurakhove, now in the hands of Russian forces. Needless to say, Ukraine continues to suffer major, regular Russian missile strikes against its energy, transport, communications and of course military sytems, in testimony to the overall insufficiency of Western military and air defense support to Ukraine over the course of the SMO.

From time to time we see determined Ukrainian responses such as, over the past 24 hours, HIMARS and drone attacks on Russian targets in Kursk or Crimea but these rarely seem to be more than pin-prick dents on an overall winning Russian advance.

In Kursk, the Ukrainian defense is now mainy limited to the Sudzha area, and Russia continues to recover territory. The White House has advised Ukraine to withdraw its troops from Kursk. This might open the way for the deployment of Russia’s approximately 60,000 troops now engaged in or around Kursk for a Russian offensive on the neigchboring Ukrainian oblast of Sumy, close to Kiev, or to back up a Russian offensive into Kherson or across other parts of the Dnieper. These, along with the encirclement of Pokrovsk, the immentent falls in the coming weeks or months of Velyka Novoseliva, the entirety of Toretsk and of Chasiv Yar, Terny, Lyman and Kupyansk and, very likely, the rest of Vovchansk, will more than compensate for Russia’s principal failure this year namely, its lack of progress in the direction of Siversk.

As I have previously noted, the single biggest beneficiary of the energy issues just outlined is the US, which will benefit from a huge increase in demand for US LNG. But as I have also recently argued, this is a double-edged sword. It will push up prices for LNG, both US and Russian and for oil and gas more generally. This will be benefit producer countries, including both the US and Russia itself, but higher prices will not be good for their domestic markets. Higher international demand will speed up the depletion of the US “shale” revolution stocks. European consumers will continue to find ways to access Russian oil and gas, for example from the south through the Turkstream pipeline, or from third parties who will without any doubt find ways of circumventing Western-invented obstacles to a free trade in oil and gas, but European powers will be more inhibited in their ability to work around sanctions than their major competitors in Asia, notably India and China.

A Question of Russian Arms

For Intellinews, Ben Aris (Aris) picks up on the issue of Russian arms exports, noting a significant decline, presumaby while Russia focuses its military attention on its own defense needs. This has implications for Russia’s military industrial complex and its support for Russia’s continuing war in Ukraine, although I think Aris failes to understand the greater degree of subordination that exists in Russia of private industry to State interests, as against the subordination of the State to indusrial interests that pertains in the USA.

More important perhaps it the ability of Russia to sustain its weapons support to clients across the Global South, none more significant than India, whose support for Russia towards a BRICS-fashioned new world order is of existential importance. Without Russia, would India look further Westwards? Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Putin in July included discussion over the delayed delivery of Russia’s advanced S-400 surface to air missile defence system that India ordered and wants to protect its northern borders with China and Pakistan (although India has made recent progress in patching up these border disputes diplomatically).

Aris notes that Russian arms exports have plummeted by 92% since 2021, and that industry analysts warn that the sector’s long-term health hinges on a swift conclusion of the war in Ukraine. Arms revenue will fall to under $1bn by the end of 2024. This marks a sharp fall from $14.6bn in 2021, $8bn in 2022, and $3bn in 2023.

“Russia fell to third place in global arms exports in 2023, overtaken by the United States and France. This comes after a sustained decline in Russia’s defence exports, which halved between 2014 and 2018. By 2023, Russia was supplying weapons to only 12 countries, compared to 31 in 2019, illustrating its shrinking influence in the global arms trade. The state-owned defence conglomerate Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov recently confirmed that Russian arms sales were valued at $15bn in 2021 but fell to $7bn in 2022 and $6bn in 2023. Figures for 2024 have yet to be released, but industry forecasts predict an even steeper decline”.

There can be little doubt that Russia has significantly increased its overall arms production since before the start of the SMO, and that this has been partly responsible for increasing industrial activity generally, boosting employment and salaries, and feeding a growing economy at the expense of inflationary and manpower pressures.

Aris claims that Russian stocks of weapons are low and that it is under pressure to accept weapons from North Korea and Iran. I am skeptical about these claims, as I have not seen any such indication from other sources, nor any apparent worries on the battlefield as to the flow of weapons and ammunition. I also wonder whether the arguments that Aris uses are intended to foster the impression of a Russia that is eager to enter into negotiations to end the war that would favor the US.

West Asia

The fall of the Assad government, as I have argued in my recent posts, is of importance, first and foremost, for its implications for the security of Iran. I think it is unquestionably the case that the fall of Assad is bad news for Iran because (1) it increases exposure of Iran to Israeli aggression, (2) allowing Israel to fire from positions that are closer to Iran, and (3) to fire across territory, Syria, which, because of Israeli bombing, primarily, no longer has a functioning air defense system, while (4) the strength of Russian forces in Syria has been diminished (though not removed), and (5) Iraqi security (and with it, the hope of support to Iran of shi’ite Iraqi militia) is also weakened, and (6) the fighting capability of Hezbollah has been shredded (but not destroyed) by continuing Israeli aggressions in southern Syria and southern Lebanon.

We should expect within the next few days to see a signed, mutual defense treaty between Russia and Iran, but I don’t believe that this is totally certain in the light of the fall of Assad (among other considerations), and I don’t know for sure just what it will entail. We have seen potential overestimations of the resistance capability of Hamas in Gaza (although they still fight), and of Hezbollah in Lebanon (although they too still fight). We may have to adjust our expectations of Iran, the sophistication or otherwise of Iranian weaponry, and the speed by which Iran could, if it wished, acquire nuclear weapons. There is some reason to think Iran does have hypersonic missiles in the light of earlier, devastating Iranian responses to Israeli attacks, and the fact that the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen claim to have used hypersonic missiles which could only come from Iran or Russia or from Russia through Iran).

There is a great deal of which we are unsure. Fissures within Iran between hardliners and doves convey an overall sense of dithering and weakness.

If Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is one of the most horrific humanitarian outrage of our times, then the future security of Iran continues to be one of the most important geopolitical issues in West Asia.

Russia will surely be highly motivated to support Iran as a buffer between itself and the more volatile situation to south of Iran, and as protection against any kind of alternative fragmented version of Iran that will be exploited by the West for the fomenting of anti-Russian militia and other ruses.

There are some indications that before Assad left Syria he had been persuaded by Qatar to reduce the intensity of Assad’s reliance on Iran and Hezbollah and that Iran was becoming more disenchanted with Assad. I am disinclined to put too much weight on these reports as Assad would surely have had just as much distrust of Qatar as he clearly did of Turkey, given their respective roles in the 2011-2020 internecine conflict.

We know of course that the bulk of Syria has fallen to HTS, and that HTS is populated by a medley of foreign as well as indigenous fighters whose backgrounds are largely related to Sunni jihadism of one stripe or another, closely overlapping both with Al Qaeda and ISIS, and yet are also malleable puppets whose strings are pulled by Turkey, the US, and Arab states working with or subject to the US.

The HTS invasion may also have been aided and abetted by Israel, as well as by Turkey and the US, and some reports suggest there was consultation between Turkey and Israel ahead of the HTS invasion (fiercely denied, of course, by Erdogan who, after all, had done nothing to halt the supply of Azeri gas to Israel in any attempt to stop the genocide which Erdogan had previously denounced).

Israeli Zionists are overjoyed by the sight of Israeli expansion into Lebanon and Syria, by the prospects for Israeli aggression against its nemesis, Iran, and can take continuing security comfort from the US patsy state, Jordan, to its east, of a still US-occupied Iraq to the north, and the presence of another US patsy state, Egypt, to the south, while Saudi Arabia (supposedly a member of the BRICS) still wavers over declaring peace with Israel.

The future of HTS is very uncertain. Jolani has been talking about how long it would take to move to new elections. He has been signalling a possible opening in the new Syrian army for the Kurdish SDF, even though the SDF is a principal opponent to Turkey which is the backer of HTS.

Jolani has also reportedly been pleading with Moscow for Moscow to retain its military bases in Tartus and Khmeimem, perhaps because he thinks these will offer a balance against pressures on HTS from Turkey, the US, Iran and Israel.

There is much online debate as to whether it is in Russia’s interest to stay in Syria or to go. I think for the time being it is in Russia’s interest to stay, precisely becuse it can exert influence over HTS, remain close to Iran and to Israel. It could even end up being a major broker between Iran and Israel, holding back the threat of World War III ()since Israel will only attack Iran in the knowledge that the US will back israel). Further, Russia is a long-term supporter of Syria and of its people and I do not believe, as some do, that this relationship is merely transactional. I believe Russia takes immense pride on the efficacy of its role in Syria both over the issue of chemical weapons and over its intervention against ISIS, a role which announced to the world that Putin’s Russia was indeed to be taken very seriously and that it was a sane contender against the increasingly Machiavellian nature of US and Western foriegn policy.

Turkey may very well have over-extended itself in Syria. It is already at war against the Kurds in the northeast and, because of that, may very well end up being at war with the US and Israel. Israel too, is over-extended and may yet find itself enmeshed in a quagmire of its own making as more and more local militia of various stripes take up arms against it. The US may find that what has been the singular regional focus of neoconservative aggression up until now, Iran, has to be abandoned, temporarily, in favor of trying to sort out the other fragmentary crises that the US and Israel have instigated across the region. Many of these relate to a disperate array of Sunni/Salafist militia with whom the US can work and who can be recruites, manipulated and bribed by the US to pursue further US destabilization projects across Asia to China. In my post yesterday, I discussed Brian Berletic’s thesis that the East Turkistan Islamic movement, many of whose fighters are now in Damascus, will be re-oriented to instigate various violent campaigns against Chinese Belt and Road activities.