NATO, Ukraine and Syria Downhill
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.
Low NATO Ballistic Stockpiles
A New York Times article today notes that although Ukraine was granted permission to fire Western long-range missiles at targets within Russia’s pre-2014 borders more than a month ago (followed by six missile strikes, using at least 31 ATACMS and 14 Storm Shadows), it has slowed slowed their use. This is because it is running out of missiles (it has only 50 ATACMS missiles left, while the supply of British Storm Shadows and French Scalps is pretty much exhausted) and there is only a limited time left to fire them before Trump’s inauguration and a possible end to the war.
Note that the NYT sticks to the pretense that these weapons are fired by Ukraine on its own, whereas we know that NATO operatives and data are absolutely essential for their deployment.
Since Russia retaliated against the first uses of ATACMS in November with a demonstration firing of its new Oreshnik missile, which is said to be nuclear-equivalent without actually being nuclear, Russia appears to be avoiding further escalation as it waits to see what is going to happen when president-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated in less than a month’s time.
NYT sources such as NATO’s Admiral Rob Bauer claim that ATACMS missiles have been very effective, although in my view there is little hard evidence to support this view and it is obvious to all analysts that US and European ballistic missiles have had no effect whatsoever on reversing Russia’s steady progress towards achieving its major war aims.
As the NYT admits, no weapon has been a silver bullet or anything remotely like it. The article also cites “Western officials” as making the preposterous and silly claim that “Ukraine has relied too much on help from the West and hasn’t done enough to bolster its own war effort, especially in mobilizing enough troops,” and that it has not exercised prudent care in the number and choice of targets. It is abundantly clear to all responsible analysts that Ukraine, with firm backing from NATO, has provoked and fought the war on NATO insistence that it will provide all the weapons Ukraine would need to win. But the NYT is preparing the way for the US and the collective West to blame Ukraine for their own insanity.
Further, the NYT is now saying that the Biden decision to send 190-mile range ATACMS was taken, not in November, but in the spring of 2024 as Ukraine was being pressured by the West to resume its failed 2023 offensive, a resumption that began with a failed Ukrainian mission to establish a foothold east of the Dnieper in Krynky, Kherson region.
At this time, the US shipped Ukraine as many as 500 missiles from Pentagon stockpiles. Other sources indicate that a total number of around 3,800 ATACMS missiles have been produced since the weapon’s introduction in 1991 up to the time when production ceased in 2007 (a replacement is still in development) of which many were exported, leaving the Pentagon with a total of around 2,000 earlier this year. In other words the Biden administration in the spring of 2024 shipped to Ukraine some 25% of its remaining stock of medium range ballistic missiles. The Biden administration then encountered stiff Pentagon resistance to using them, so they were fired instead at Russian targets in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
Why did the Pentagon lift its resistance to the use of ATACMS in November? I am not sure that we know. The pretext given was the supposed involvement, still to be proven (as all such claims are coming from Ukraine and the US), of troops from North Korea in fighting in Kursk - totally irrelevant to the issue of ballistic missiles anyway, given (1) that even if such troops were being used, they were being used on Russian territory to strike back on an invading force, and (2) close engagement in the conflict of NATO countries that are not even formally party to the war and, especially, (3) the prominent role of the UK in helping plan the Kursk operation.
Russian Gas Factor
There is something brewing in the business of transporting Russian gas across Ukraine to continuing European customers for that gas including Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldava, Romania and even Austria and Italy. Ukraine has been threatening to cut off supplies to Slovakia from January 1st, while Slovakia says it may retaliate by refusing to supply Ukraine with the electricity on which Ukraine depends any time that Russian launches missile attacks on its energy system (as it did last weekend).
Ukraine is now beginning to receive US LNG via Greece, something that will likely intensify. In the event that the supply of Russian gas to those European countries that have been exempted from EU sanctions imposed in 2022 on taking pipeline supplies from Russia, is now cut off then they too will have to transition at speed to the new and much more expensive US LNG supply. This will create severe economic problems for all, including Ukraine, since if Russia loses its European market, it has little incentive to continue to supply Ukraine, an enemy whose energy system Russia is constantly trying to destory in any case. The US has benefitted from the energy crisis to which it contributed in a major way by sabotaging Nord Stream, as Biden promised he would at the eve of the conflict, since it has weakened the entirety of Europe. A sudden increase in demand for US LNG will push up US LNG prices still further, and it will also put pressure on domestic prices for gas in the US itself.
The situation may be another factor pushing Ukraine towards some kind of settlement.
Who Could Possibly Have Imagined? Two Weeks Later, Utterly Predictable Chaos in Syria
For the World Socialist Web Site, Hakan Özal reports complaints of house raids, looting, harassment of women and executions have increased, especially in areas where Alawites live, since jihadists led by the HTS took power. This follows killings of HTS troops by Alawite forces in protest against acts of violence, claimed to be revenge attacks, by HTS on Alawites.
It is already becoming patently clear that HTS is a poorly disciplined force of religious fanatics and opportunists in which the Collective West has foolishly invested its trust and over which Turkiye has insufficient control. Turkiye faces the triple embarrassment of a terrorist force it cannot control, a country to which the millions of Syrian refugees in southern Turkey still fear to return, and an escalation of combat between Turkish and Kurdish forces in northern Syria which may yet involve an intra-NATO conflict between Turkey and the US.
After two churches and a patriarchate were reportedly attacked, on December 18, in Hama, central Syria, masked and armed men set fire to a giant Christmas tree in the Christian-populated city of al-Suqaylabiyah on Tuesday. Those who tried to extinguish the tree and prevent the attack were reportedly threatened at gunpoint.
The circulation of a video on social media showing the burning of the Christmas tree in al-Suqaylabiyah sparked outrage among Christian and other communities across Syria.
Christians in Hama, Damascus and Homs took to the streets carrying crosses and protesting jihadist groups in solidarity with the people of Suqaylabiyah. The protesters formed long convoys of vehicles and demanded that minority-populated areas be cleared of jihadists.
Hundreds of people took to the streets in the Bab Tuma neighborhood of Damascus, chanting “Protect the rights of Christians.”
Andrew Bahi, a priest living in Damascus, told DPA (German Press Agency) that “We have the right to be afraid. Over the years, the [Christian-dominated] neighborhoods of eastern Damascus have been hit by hundreds of shells and we endured in our homes, but now the atmosphere remains ambiguous. There is a conflict and contradiction between words and actions.”
Samer Elias said, “Everyone chanted demanding the protection of Christians in Syria.”
The leader of the new regime, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani (Ahmed al-Shara’a), claimed that those who burned the Christmas tree were foreign fighters and would be punished. But these and similar statements lack credibility in the face of increasing harassment and attacks by jihadist gangs.
A day after these demonstrations, protests took place in Tartus, Latakia, Hama and Homs after a video went viral of a December 5 attack on an Alawite shrine in Aleppo that houses the tomb of Hussein bin Himden al-Hasibi, considered an historical leader of the Arab Alawites. In a video allegedly made by jihadists, five civilians responsible for maintaining the shrine are killed and the shrine is set on fire during the attack. The jihadists then pose on the bodies of the mausoleum servants they killed.
Government officials appointed by the HTS have tried to appease the angry masses by saying that the attack on the shrine was not new, but took place during the capture of Aleppo in early December.
Euronews reported that the killing of three Alawite judges and an officer who served under the Assad regime in Hama on Tuesday also contributed to spark mass protests in Homs, Hama, Tartous and Latakia on Wednesday.
According to the London-based anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), HTS forces killed an Alawite demonstrator during a protest in Homs, further escalating tensions. Following these incidents, a curfew was announced in the city.
The official SANA news agency announced that the HTS government launched an operation against pro-Assad forces in the countryside of Tartus. During the operation, 14 security officials from the new Interior Ministry were reportedly killed.
Alawite sheikh Ali Dareer, who lives in a predominantly Alawite neighborhood in Damascus, told Reuters: “Thousands of people are filled with resentment, anxiety, and their dignity is offended,” before adding that “However, we must remain committed to peace.”
He said that homes had been vandalised and people beaten because of their religious identity, despite HTS promises the sect would be treated with respect.
Dareer then described an incident that allegedly took place on Thursday, when people were reportedly taken off a bus and beaten because they were Alawites.
These remarks underscore the tense atmosphere in the community and the danger that the new al-Qaeda-linked ruling forces could exacerbate sectarian tensions.
In the face of the repressive policies of the HTS regime, the imperialist and regional powers that brought it to power have largely remained silent. Instead, they are doing their best to eliminate Iran’s influence in Syria, plunder its resources and increase their influence in the country.
Washington lifted its bounty on al-Jolani, paving the way for a rapprochement with the new regime. Representatives of France and Britain also met with HTS officials in Damascus. The NATO powers and their allies are trying to use HTS, which they still consider a terrorist group on paper, as a tool for their geostrategic interests.
While the US and Israel have severely crippled Syria’s military infrastructure through intensive air strikes and sought to create a compliant puppet regime in Damascus, the Israeli army has expanded its occupation and influence in the country.
As Turkey seeks to suppress Kurdish forces in northern Syria and increase its influence in the country, it has turned to more open relations with HTS. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged military and logistical support to the new regime, while Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan became the highest-ranking NATO official ever to visit Damascus, embracing al-Jolani. The HTS leader also pledged a “strategic relationship” with Turkey.
Houthi Hypersonic
Yemeni Houthis, whose leaders Israel now claims to be hunting down while NATO and Israeli aerial forces subject the entirety of the country to heavy bombing, have been consistently the most courageous opponents of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank (Israel has just closed down the single remaining hospital in northern Gaza and forced out all of its occupants while the numbers it kills each day regularly run into the hundreds - see below). Yemen’s air force spokesman, meanwhile, claims to have successfully fired a hypersonic missile on Israel’s air base at Nevatim in the Negev desert, an important strategic installation that has three runways and from which it operates US-made F-35s. It is also the seat of strategic command of the Israeli air force.
The Economist reports today that Israeli soldiers ordered some 350 patients and staff to evacuate from Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza before torching sections of the medical facility. Israel’s army said that the hospital had served as a “Hamas terrorist stronghold”. Earlier, dozens of Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike in the area.
Fusion Energy and the Future of the World
In news that cannot fail to be relevant to a world many of whose most troubling issues including that of climate change, relate to uses of and conflicts over fossil fuel, The Economist reports:
“Towards the end of 2025 Commonwealth Fusion, a company spun-out from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will open the first fusion reactor designed to operate at near-commercial scale. Known as a tokamak, the machine has a doughnut-shaped reaction vessel surrounded by powerful electromagnets which confine and heat a plasma of deuterium and tritium. The resulting reaction liberates helium, neutrons—and a lot of energy.
Commonwealth Fusion hopes to reach “q>1”, the point where a reactor releases more energy than is put into it, in early 2026. But even if it doesn’t succeed, the firm is not the only one pursuing fusion with private funding. Some startups are testing more exotic approaches than tokamaks, until now the tried-and-trusted fusion design. If Commonwealth Fusion fails to deliver, many others are lining up behind it”.