America, Russia, India

Trump declared that the American embassy in Israel would be moved to Jerusalem. All the Arab and Muslim countries protested. But I feel like I don't understand exactly what is at stake for them. Were they hoping for a different final status for Jerusalem? Does this American move decrease their negotiating power somehow?

At the same time, Putin announced that he will run in Russia's 2018 elections. Everyone expects him to win. But I have a feeling he won't complete his term in office. The Prime Minister is supposed to be next in the line of succession, so will competition for that position become the real struggle in Russian politics?

A columnist for SAAG suggests an "Indo Pacific Treaty Organization" on the model of NATO, in order to contain China and China's allies. It has a kind of historical plausibility. But for now, India plays both sides - it's in BRICS (which subsumed the older IBSA), and in the "Quadrilateral" with Japan, Australia, and America.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia

The Pakistani government of Nawaz Sharif's brother (installed after Nawaz stepped down, due to Panama Papers allegations of offshore money) just had an urban confrontation with some of the religious parties, and it lost. Election candidates in Pakistan must swear that Muhammad is the final prophet, and the religious parties were up in arms about a legislative amendment weakening the oath's significance.

It was like the religious agitation in Indonesia earlier this year, in which President Widodo's successor as mayor of Jakarta, "Ahok", widely tipped to follow him to the presidency, instead ended up in jail for blasphemy. My theory for Pakistan is that the army (the real kingmakers there) deliberately used the crisis to weaken the current government, and further paved the way for their favorite, Imran Khan, to eventually take over.

Elsewhere, another Sharif - retired general Raheel Sharif (no relation to Nawaz) - was in Saudi Arabia, in his capacity as commander of Prince Muhammad's Islamic Military Alliance. "bint chaos" has a few posts about the ongoing Saudi revolution.

Political update

Russia proposes that there should be an energy grid in north-east Asia connecting Russia, Japan, China, and the Koreas, which would be a foundation for peace and economic cooperation, and which would be connected to China and Russia's larger economic projects.

China just hosted a BRICS summit in Xiamen, has a party congress coming up which will decide on the leadership for the next five years (Xi and Li will stay), and will then host Trump during his first Asian trip as president.

Japan has a surprise election coming up, which Abe should win. This after Merkel hung on in Germany (but the AfD entered the Reichstag), and separatist votes were held in Spain's Catalonia and Iraq's Kurdistan.

North Korea's policy is to keep its nukes and develop the country.

China, India, Japan

The world seems paused for a moment. Rival forces push against each other in many places, but mostly I see deadlock. Trump remains in power, America's alliances remain in place, China and Russia are still partners, Iran and Saudi Arabia still glower at each other.

Of all the places where nothing is happening, I choose to mention the latest border tension between China and India. Technically it's in Bhutan, but the Indian fear, I have learned, is that China will be in a position to sever the narrow Siliguri corridor connecting India to its north-east states.

Japan has now stepped in, to assist development of the region. The hope is not just to secure the area militarily and politically, but also to make it a bridge between India and ASEAN. Thus India hastens to weave its own network of influence; even as China now talks of an "Ice Silk Road" in the Arctic.

King Salman and President Trump

They both had to wait a lifetime before becoming ruler. I imagine them surveying today's mad wide world quizzically, and thinking: I never thought it would be like this.

Does either of them feel in control, I wonder; or does the world outside the palace grounds seem like a roaring ocean with a mind of its own?

And which of them does have more power?

Coming events

In April, with Trump bombing Syria during his mini-summit with Xi, it looked like the new polarity of the world might clearly be China versus America, with Russia in the Chinese bloc by default. The Russian press rumored that Trump and Putin might meet (in Finland?) this month, but the government has dismissed that idea.

There are several elections looming in second-tier powers. But I would nominate the forthcoming Belt-and-Road summit in China, to be the month's main event. Yes, such events (the Chinese Internet Summits also come to mind) are highly scripted and they're all about what a genius Xi is, but they are also milestones in the transformation of China into a true peer of America.

As for the elections... I think Britain and Iran will confirm the status quo. So will France if they choose Macron. Volatile South Korea is the wildcard, if Moon Jae-il does get in.

Elsewhere in the democratic world, let's note Turkey's presidential referendum, Jakarta's election of a mayor backed by Islamists, BJP by-election victories and a focus on West Bengal next. And Trump had his "100 days" rally.

Sea power

While the world struggles to interpret this wave of American military actions, let me note that they come from all the world's major oceans. The cruise missile attack on the Syrian air force came from the Mediterranean, an arm of the Atlantic. The US military in Afghanistan, where the "MOAB" bomb was used against Islamic State, is supplied from the Indian Ocean via Pakistan. And those carriers now headed to the Korean peninsula to deter a Kim Jong Nuke test, are coming from the Pacific. America inherited hegemony over the world's oceans from Britain, as any Russian geopolitical theorist could tell you, and it hasn't relinquished that hegemony yet.

News from the quaternity

The quaternity has been my private name for the four big powers, America, Russia, India, China.

America remains in political flux. I won't even try to predict what's next; but I will make a comparison with Russia.

Just now in Russia, there were demonstrations against corruption. The numbers weren't big, but they were in dozens of cities. As I understand it, they were held in response to a video by Alexei Navalny detailing a network of corruption around prime minister Medvedev.

Now contrast this with what Trump is facing: challenges from CNN and the CIA, as well as from the establishment of his own party. Putin owns the institutions but faces an activist opposition, whereas Trump faces institutional opposition.

China meanwhile is busy building its new geoeconomic empire - every month, more countries join the New Silk Road and its maritime counterpart. I was struck by the prominence of China's political consultative assemblies in recent weeks. These bodies have no power, but they do issue advice to the real government. It seems like a Chinese path, if not to democracy as the West understands it, then to a more participatory technocracy.

Finally, in India the giant state of Uttar Pradesh voted for Modi's BJP, and now a Yogi Adityanath is the new chief minister. Ayodhya is here, site of a mosque that was torn down by Hindu activists in the early 1990s, so that a temple of the god Rama could be rebuilt. If that happens, it could be like the founding of modern Israel, a turning point in the revival of a major religious civilization.

Spy war

Trump's opponents were racing to find something irrevocably damning about his team's interactions with Russia. They did manage to corner Michael Flynn into resigning.

Now Trump's supporters are racing to find something irrevocably damning about how Obama's team carried out that investigation. So far, they have got the liberal media contradicting themselves, as Mark Levin demonstrates.

Meanwhile, Wikileaks has started releasing documents on the CIA's cyber-spying. Under the codename "vault7", they have been hinting at this release for at least a month, though no-one knew what it was going to be about.

My theory is: Wikileaks gets a lot of its material from Russian intelligence (though surely through third parties), and these latest documents are meant to provide political ammunition for Trump allies, that will help them purge the American intelligence community.

So it's really a continuation of what happened during the 2016 election campaign. Then, the DNC and Podesta email leaks were meant to hurt Clinton and help Trump. These new leaks, by hurting the CIA, can help Trump bring it under control. If that is accomplished, then Trump and Putin can really get down to business.

The new normal II

With Flynn gone, it appears to me that Pence, Mattis, Tillerson... are the real government now. I expect them to implement the essentials of Trump's program - border control, a new realism in national security, economic nationalism. And Trump himself remains in place as icon of the movement that he led; still good for rallying the people and shaming the press.

France is next

Technically the Netherlands is next - general election on March 15, whereas France's presidential election will occur in late April, with a final runoff in May if necessary.

But for me, the big hint that the secret forces on both sides of this 'nationalism vs globalism' battle are refocusing on France, even as the outcome in America remains in doubt, was a minor event: Julian Assange creating a personal Twitter account, in addition to that of Wikileaks; and for his background image, a few frames from the famous French comic "Asterix". To me, that signals an intention to be involved with what happens in France.

It has been remarked that a Trump victory in America is a strategic win for Russia, even if bitter institutional resistance prevents Trump from cooperating with Putin, because official America is now busy fighting itself rather than mobilizing against Russian actions in Syria and Ukraine in a unified fashion.

This presents an updated paradigm for interpreting the outcome in France. Macron the Rothschild banker appears to be the favorite candidate of the Atlanticist establishment. If he gets in, the supranational institutions may be preserved.

But if Le Pen gets in - she's a Eurosceptic, a Russophile, an opponent of Islamization. Even if the French institutions resist her agenda - and surely they will - it will again force institutions like NATO and EU to turn inwards, meaning that they have less attention and energy available for expansion.

Analogies

In this moment when the anti-Trump forces have claimed their first scalp, an unexpected Soviet analogy presents itself: Khrushchev! According to Wikipedia, after the Politburo overthrew him, he told a friend:

"Let them cope by themselves. I've done the main thing."

The new normal

I am not entirely happy to link to this piece by David Frum. It is written in opposition to Trump. But at least it aims to be realistic, and it offers a glimpse of what the routine side of life during a Trump presidency may resemble. One may imagine it as a backdrop against which dramas and transformations unfold.