Introduction
If the start of the Russian Special Military Operation marked the historical beginning of the end of Western Hegemony, then October 7 was a highly potent fire accelerator. Today I’m going to give an update about both Ukraine and the Middle East. Moreover, I’m going to further frame the emerging and ongoing Wars of Liberation…which also could be called World War Three.
Background
For a better understanding of the following article, I recommend that you read these articles in advance:
Middle East
Who is profiting?
In my previous articles about the Middle East, I hinted that the party who is maintaining the perpetual conflict in the Middle East is neither the Jews, the Arabs, the Zionists, nor the Americans. It is a third party. The Western Oligarchy. I couldn’t go deeper into the matter in my previous articles because I was forced to wait until I release Economics and Empires 5 to frame the groundwork. Now that this is done, I can clarify some things.
The whole of the Middle East serves the Western Oligarchy for one single reason: controlling the access to the oil of the Middle East for all nations worldwide. And to control its price to have direct leverage over the world economy by doing this. Remember in Economics and Empires 5? Geopolitics, or the struggle between the few great powers, is solely about resources and markets. That’s all. There is nothing more. Human life is irrelevant in this consideration. (Yes, it’s disgusting.)
Hence, the role of Israel since its foundation (think about the location of Israel) has been to act as a key element of the eternal fire in the Middle East. Not because of the Jews. The Arabs and Jews are both victims; abused to fight perpetually in the Middle East. Not because of the Zionists. They are useful idiots with their drive for expansion. No, since the Middle East has been given “independence” by the former colonial masters, a tool was needed to control the Oil and its price in the region. And I include here all great powers from 1945.
It would not be an impossible task for the world powers to guarantee lasting peace in the region. That would be achievable even today. Unfortunately, the Western Oligarchy doesn’t allow the Americans to do that. The Oligarchs still try to hold all the occupied regions (worldwide) together.
Consider this: the best chain of events for the Oligarchy is perpetual regional war, in the form of occasional major outbreaks which are not won by anyone. Then periods of “peace” until the new generation is ready for the next war (revenge for fallen parents, etc.). By doing this, all regional powers in the Middle East also are in constant rivalry, and they struggle amongst each other. Hence the need for (Western) weapons and protection. By applying this classic divide-and-conquer strategy, each individual country is too weak to resist blackmail and threat of force by Western powers. The result is that, in the past, an American president could travel to Saudi Arabia, hand over directives for Oil pricing and preferred distribution, and Arab leaders would simply nod in agreement.
That is gone, since China and Russia are now actively brokering peace and friendship amongst ALL states in the Middle East. The worst possible outcome for the West is peace in the Middle East. That would mean the Middle East would consolidate and regain sovereign control over their Oil, and consequently Oil prices. To be a little more precise: the Oil price for the West.
If the Middle East is no longer being held hostage by the West, it would also mean that Oil-producing countries would no longer be forced to sell Oil in Dollars. They could sell their Oil to interested parties in domestic currency. What does that mean? It means, in classical Business Administration terms, à Price Diversification. And what does that mean? An individual price for goods for each customer/block.
To be more precise, and you should consider this carefully: the Dollar is the global reserve currency. Rather, it WAS. Hence, it established the value of each good traded worldwide. If one can buy a good with other currencies what is the value of the Dollar then? I will explain that more precisely in Economics and Empires 6. But for now, we can consider the following: if the West comes to the Middle East and wants to buy X barrels of crude with Dollars, what considerations would a Middle East leader, e.g., MBS, make to build a price according to the price diversification method?
With the Yuan, one can buy all the industrial goods one needs in daily life from BRICS. (Going forward, there will be another international or BRICS trade currency). Not only can one buy it; one can buy it for a cheap price. For Dollar, I can buy goods either manufactured very expensively in the West (expensive resources for the West, due to self-sanctions) or buy expensive Western imported BRICS produced goods with a bonus on top. This is a losing game. Why would one do that? In this case, one would need exorbitant amounts of Dollars to be able to buy something with them in the West.
Please rethink everything I just wrote. This has major macroeconomic implications that people have not yet started to grasp or even think about. And it is coming with lightning speed.
I’m going to sum it up. If there is peace in the Middle East and the Middle East countries unite, then the world economy is instantly divided into the two blocks: “The West” and “The Rest”. Since the West can’t produce anything competitively (high inflation if peace breaks out in the Middle East due to price diversification), its currencies would be very weak in the trade with BRICS nations. Moreover, the West would need to invest a huge share of its wealth to buy Oil because Western currencies would be of low value in international trade. This, by the way includes the Euro as well. It lives only through the Dollar.
The value of the Dollar and the Euro are solely protected by the American Army. Think about that.
To summarize: peace in the Middle East is a nightmare for the West. Hence, there is a well lubricated system, that I have described several times, to keep the Middle East in perpetual conflict, with its well-known pawns. Israel, Palestine, Saudi-Arabia, Iran, and (almost) all the other regional powers. Türkiye, though, has been a western country and has also profited, as many other countries, from the exploitation of the region.
The Western Oligarchy is not defined by religion. If we consider that they are 5 I personally see two claimed religions here. Christianity and Judaism. CLAIMED religions. If one does some research one can conclude that these people don’t give a f*** about religion. Well, yes, but maybe a completely different religion then these two. And I’m not talking about Zionism. Hence, they are not interested in a single life in the Middle East. Not Jewish, not Christian, and not Muslim. They care about keeping the war running.
Never forget, all wars could be instantly ended in the Middle East without force if the great powers would reach agreement. Without war and without force. Only by decision. Neither the Arabs nor the Israelis would be able to do anything about it.
It looks like that “The Rest” decided to bring peace by force. Please don’t ask me here about my opinion. Everything is so gruesome and horrible; I just try to do an independent analysis of this horrible situation.
Chain of Events
Well, BMA was one of the first to describe the situation as it was, and made the right predictions. Right on October 7th. Why?
Well, as is almost always the case, if a major geopolitical event emerges, almost all analysts instantly turn into experts of this new event. I’m being sarcastic here. For example, with the ECOWAS (Niger) crisis, we all turned into Africa experts. I did my part as well, but claimed that I’m not an expert. 😊
Well, in the of case Israel, even though I’m definitely not an expert (as opposed to in Europe), I did years of research on the Quds Forces. And when I woke up on October 7th and saw the news, I knew instantly what was going on, since I had predicted this exact event several years earlier. That’s the background.
Now let’s go through the chain of events from a non-Western perspective (No endorsement by BMA, only a description of what we saw):
Russia and China spent a year of emergency diplomacy, as a consequence of (OR as a part of) the SMO, all around the world. Especially with many state visits of Arab leaders to China and vice versa. The same was true for Russia.
It is to be assumed (even though there is no way to know it with certainty) that the regional Axis of Resistance has been greenlighted, and even (covertly) supported by Russia and China to execute the Quds plan. Which is the plan by all regional powers, coordinated by the Quds forces to free Jerusalem (Quds/Palestine).
The triggering of a large provocation by Hamas deep into Israel to make sure that Israel would be forced to commit the highest degree of brutality as retaliation.
Taking pictures, including live streams, of dead people (Children!) all around the world in general, and in the Arab states in particular.
Causing major outrage and pressure by the public on regional leaders, who are mostly Western vassals.
Forcing Israel to go into Gaza to destroy Hamas, free Hostages, and perhaps even displace the Palestinians to Egypt to solve the “problem” once and for all.
The West deployed major naval forces to the Eastern Mediterranean, to make sure that no sudden peace would break out after a potential defeat of the Netanyahu government on the battlefield.
Hezbollah intervention in the North, which has yet to culminate. The threat of defeat of the Israeli forces in the North.
Intervention by the West on behalf of Israel to save the status quo (perpetual war scheme).
Intervention by Iran on behalf of the Muslim world by:
Executing the Quds plan all around Israel.
Firing insane numbers of rockets and missiles into Iraq, Syria, Israel and the Western Armada, with devastating consequences. Casualties on each side that are an order of magnitude greater than everything we have seen in Ukraine to date (this has yet to develop).
Entering Iraq and Syria with regular Iranian ground forces and fighting the American occupation forces with the help of the local resistance and militias.
The appearance of our old friend Samson…
I did not explain the role of Türkiye here. Why? Because I don’t know. President Erdogan is gradually gaining independence from the West for Türkiye. And he is paying for it by stabbing BRICS in the back from time to time. How will he behave in this event? Türkiye is also dependent on the regional Oil. I have no idea and I can’t make any predictions.
Well…Number 12 is the unpredictable escalation spiral that could follow. No serious predictions possible here.
Before you start to panic: I have described a spiral of escalations that can be stopped at any time. That does not mean that it needs to escalate all the way to number 12. It can, in theory, stop already at point 7, if some diplomatic success is possible. Moreover, as I know the West well, I assume that there are many solutions in the making which are “between the lines”, to save face. It remains dangerous.
You can also call this scenario a big fat trap for Israel and the West.
Note: BMA does not want or endorse any kind of violence here. We simply try to soberly analyze the situation.
Now let’s look at the Western and Israeli perspective:
Netanyahu had very deep domestic problems before the war started. Now he has even more problems. Essentially, and similarly to President (???) Zelensky, he is now driven by war to ensure his survival. If the war ends, his political career will end as well. Most likely he can even end up in prison. He sees, in conquering Gaza, his only chance to solve an old “problem”. By winning a war and conquering land he might save himself and gain popularity.
This leads us to point two. Did Israel know that an attack was imminent? Maybe yes, maybe no. I don’t know. Either is possible but, it doesn’t change the situation. If the political leadership (I DON’T KNOW!) knew about it, they could have decided to let it happen to start the conquest of Gaza to save Netanyahu. If not, we are talking about a critical error of the Netanyahu government ,which will force it to achieve some kind of victory. The result is the same.
Netanyahu tries to conquer Gaza to have a domestically-relieving success.
The West/Americans see a lethal threat and also recognize that this is a prepared trap for them. They try to slow Netanyahu down because they are not prepared for this threat/trap. They are having some success in this. Netanyahu has delayed the operation for a few days. We see a massive opening of an air transport bridge by the Americans to bring assets into position for what is to come.
Netanyahu goes into Gaza. Hamas can’t defend Gaza. It is impossible. Yes, the IDF is taking and will further take heavy casualties, but if they are determined they will eventually succeed.
Hezbollah is ready to accept a certain number of causalities or land conquest by Israel before it intervenes. Israel knows it can’t defend itself if Hezbollah intervenes, therefore forcing the Americans to somehow intervene.
The Americans are sending their assets, but struggling and hesitating to intervene because it could be a well-known trap for them. This trap could/would cost tens of thousands of American lives if executed (let’s hope we won’t see this event).
The rest you can see in the chain of events described above.
This is an analysis of what we see. We do not endorse anything that is happening. And, first and foremost, not the killing of civilians.
Well, things are about to get out of control very soon. Still, there is hope for some kind of diplomacy or face-saving retreat by the West/Israel to preserve the status quo (perpetual war). (My personal and private opinion is, that there will be some kind of face-saving retreat by the West.)
Hassan Nasrallah’s speech
On 3 November, Hassan Nasrallah gave a long awaited “historical speech”. Many observers were expecting that he’d declare war on Israel, or trigger something similar. I didn’t believe that, since that’s not how it works nowadays. Instead, I’ll break it down to four points:
He declared all the fallen Arabs since the start of the hostilities as martyrs.
He declared that even though the resistance is supported by Iran it is not controlled by Iran. Of course, he needs to say that officially.
He noticed the current weakness of Israel and how it needs the support of a Western Armada to prevail.
He didn’t declare war. Of course he didn’t. Instead, he declared that Hezbollah is already fighting against Israel. A third of Israels forces are diverted from Gaza up to the northern border. Moreover, he said that the Resistance around Israel will increase the pressure on Israel in the following days. Of course, he didn’t mention how.
Well, basically that’s all an official can say. Nothing unexpected.
If Hezbollah is to fully enter the war, there are two scenarios from my point of view:
The so called big-bang approach: Hezbollah will enter the war on a broad front line and fire hundreds and thousands of missiles per day in a shock-and-awe approach.
The gradual approach: Hezbollah would slowly but steadily increase its attacks and commitments in the border region until the point where we suddenly recognize that there is a full commitment. This would cause much uncertainty. Israel would not be able to determine how big the involvement would eventually be, and Israel would be forced to divert enormous resources to the northern border, just in case.
As of now nothing is certain. Nasrallah’s speech did what it was supposed to do. It sows further uncertainty on the Western and Israeli side.
Role of Russia and China
First things first. I know us Slavs very well. Especially Russians and Serbs. What is happening in Ukraine is a Slavic tragedy. The West forces two same people to kill each other and keeps the conflict alive with money and equipment, to ensure that the maximum number of people are killed. I explained that in several previous articles. It is called Scorched Earth.
Meanwhile approximately 600,000 Ukrainians and Russians combined (I won’t distinguish here because they are the same people and they are on the same side of the Western balance sheet.) are dead. Forced by the West to commit literal suicide.
Again, I know us. And I know exactly; no evidence is needed because it’s in our genes. I was only wondering in what geographic area the retaliation would occur. And with “retaliation” I mean a hot war where the West would suffer similar losses in human lives as the Slavs do currently in Ukraine. Even though I was more focused on East Asia, the Middle East makes far more sense from a Russian and Chinese perspective.
I’m convinced that the following applies:
Russia:
Russia certainly greenlighted the Iranian operation. Iran wanted to do it for a long time and was waiting for the right time when it is strong and Israel and the West are weak. This is currently the case. But without the green light from President Putin this was impossible. I’m convinced the green light has been given. Evidence shows that Iranian official planes are now allowed to operate from the Russian bases in Syria.
I think that’s the whole role of Russia here. Nothing more. Only greenlighting and the provision of the airfields for Iranian planes.
President Putin announced that MIG31K fighters will patrol the Black Sea and cover the Mediterranean Sea with their Kinzhal missiles. Every location where the Western armada is stationed. What does that mean? Would Russia intervene on behalf of Hezbollah or Gaza? No. Russia is guaranteeing the Syrian statehood. Russia is making sure that the armada is not touching Syria. If it does, the carrier battle group would be transformed in a submerged battle group. (Very, very, very unlikely). That’s the whole role of Russia. Nothing more.
Well, internally it is of course a relief for the operation in Ukraine. Fewer killed Russians and Ukrainians will be the result. And if everything proceeds as described above, the number of Western casualties would be similar to the what the Russians suffered in more than a year, but will occur in only a few weeks. So much for retaliation. You think Russia would never do such a thing? No realpolitik? Then go back to Disneyland.
China:
To be completely honest… From my point of view I assume that we are witnessing a joint Chinese-Iranian operation. Even though I can’t talk about evidence, yet. All the humiliation in Asia in general and Taiwan in particular by the Americans. All the pressure through Taiwan and other Asian regional powers and Australia. A large-scale diversion that hurts to the bone is long overdue from a Chinese perspective. Moreover, Iran will be a strategic investment by China, and Iran will be protected by China, including militarily and through BRICS. All part of the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). It is a major trade hub in the heart of the heartland. Hence, we are now seeing Chinese warships in the region to show support/presence.
I personally assume that the whole operation has been planned and is being executed between China and Iran. Yes, I know I’ll be bombarded by the crowed which sees only the fight between the absolute good and the absolute evil. And Iran, China, and Russia are on the side of the absolute good. Well, that’s bullshit. Geopolitics are realpolitik. Exactly as market economy and capitalism are. You do what you need to do to protect yourself and destroy the enemy, by any means. While the Western approach always kills millions of people, the adversaries are doing similar things (on a far smaller scale) but in a much more subtle (sophisticated?) way.
On BMA, you will read analyses that are as objective as possible. Which of course doesn’t mean the analysis ARE objective, but we do what we can. That’s why I don’t write about Serbia. It would be a huge, long, endless, epic rant in favor of Serbia. 😊I’ll spare you that.
Well, here we are. In applied Realpolitik. And if it spirals out of control it will cost millions of lives. But neither in Russia, nor in China nor America. Again, Realpolitik. Realpolitik can be disgusting, can’t it? 😊
Consequences for the United States
Well, if the spiral swirls for some time, then it will have devastating effects on the United States. I’m going to list several of them here:
Tens of thousands of dead soldiers, sailors, and marines.
Peace in the Middle East. Which is an absolute horror scenario for the abovementioned reasons.
High inflation.
Scarcity of fuel in the West.
Excessive spending for energy in the West. Which leaves far less money for infrastructure, social benefits and industry.
War! (Inter-Western war or civil war).
Wars of Liberation
This is exactly what I have wanted to explain since the start of the African revolutions. Russia and China started encouraging all kinds of nations and western vassals to free themselves both from Western occupation, and the need of perpetual war. In other words, to free the world and to bring peace.
Peace between nations is an absolute horror for the Western Oligarchs. The West is not even remotely strong enough, neither economically nor militarily, to keep the whole world under control when the world is united and not artificially divided by occupation troops.
The Western advantages in trade would vanish overnight. The West would be forced to suddenly pay actual market prices. With an excess of Dollars resulting from a growing use of alternate currencies, hyperinflation would kick in for Western countries.
Well. I expect to gradually see ever more conflicts popping up, conflicts that are not of benefit to the West.
The entirety of all these conflicts will be an ongoing World War Three, which I call Wars of Liberation.
I have always said that it is not likely that we will witness a hot shooting World War between the great powers, and I still hold that viewpoint. Instead, we will have the Wars of Liberation. “Small” fires everywhere, which are absolutely unfavorable for the West.
Ukraine
Basics
This section will be very short. In the next article, I’ll write more about Ukraine.
Mobilization potential
For now, I want to say this: the Ukrainian combat effectiveness has dropped to almost zero, compared to the Russians. What does that mean? I described that in one of my prior military articles in detail. Check that out for a refresher. In fact, the Ukrainian unit cohesion has dropped to almost the lowest level. There is no time nor the possibility to train the large number of people that is needed to replace current losses. It is also called the “Force Generation Cycle”.
The professional Ukrainian army is destroyed. Now, unmotivated people are being dragged from the streets to fill the gaps in the steadily destroyed formations, units, and subunits. Since the people are not motivated and many of them have not joined voluntarily, we can’t even talk about unit cohesion.
What did I describe as a consequence of the lack of unit cohesion and professional and lengthy training? A drop in the combat effectiveness. This is what we now see. To achieve the same results as before, that is, just holding the line, Ukraine needs to invest far more lives per day than before. On the other side Russia is losing far fewer lives daily than before. Which puts additional stress on the Force Generation cycle of Ukraine. Hence, the pressure to generate more forces in a far shorter period of time, just to achieve the same results.
The increased casualty rate of Ukraine and the decreased casualty rate of Russia can be visualized by a mathematical formula, where one could calculate the eventual end of the war, if the right assumptions would be fed in. (I don’t claim to have the right data).
Ukraine has entirely and comprehensively lost the war already. What now follows is the even more ugly part which eventually happens to conclude each big war. This is the collapse of the human mobilization potential of the defeated enemy. That means to be able to conclude the war and achieve some kind of a surrender, a number of Ukrainians will have to die in order to trigger the realization in the Ukrainian population that they are defeated. This will be the onset of hopelessness. In fact, the death of hope. When hope is lost, the Ukrainians will collapse and/or surrender.
Believe me, what I just wrote is the last thing I or my colleagues at BMA want. I wish just the opposite, because these people are all fellow orthodox Slavs like me. I wanted only to show you how such wars have ended in the last several thousands of years.
Unfortunately, hope is kept alive by external powers and their control over the Ukrainian media, propaganda, and oppression machine. Which means that even though the war is lost for Ukraine, there is still the potential of a further 500,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers (worst-case scenario). Again, BMA prays for ZERO deaths.
On the other hand, Russia’s casualties are decreasing by the day. Due to the loss of combat effectiveness of the Ukrainian side, and the skyrocketing combat effectiveness of Russian soldiers (Russia was just declared as the worldwide #1 military power by several publications). In fact, it is a horrible job for the Russian soldiers now. About two months ago, they received the green light to explicitly hunt down and destroy Ukrainian manpower all over the country. Not only on the front line, but also in the rear with missile strikes on troop concentrations and training sites.
The exact number of Ukrainian KIA casualties are unknown, since it is impossible to evaluate the consequences of impacts in the rear. But estimates are now about more than 1,000 dead a day. There are even indications we are talking about 1,200 dead per day. This is horrific.
Let’s make a rough and imprecise calculation without taking POW’s, wounded, and deserters into account, which would change the result dramatically. If the worst-case scenario for further Ukrainian mobilizations is 500,000 men and we take the current rate of dead per day into account we have the following calculation: 500,000 people / 1,200 dead people / day = 416 days. Now one would need to add the wounded, captured, deserted, and gradually increase the kill rate per day because of the drop of combat effectiveness, and the 416 days would gradually shrink.
The result is the number of days until the final collapse of the Ukrainian nation. Of course, it is unrealistic that the nation can fight until the last solider. Hence, the collapse could of course happen when roughly several tens of thousands of people are left, because operations and logistics couldn’t be maintained any more at this point. This would further decrease the number of days until collapse.
I can’t and won’t make any predictions. All of this stuff is cynical and I don’t enjoy writing about it, since these are our people who are dying there.
Avdeevka
As we speak, we are witnessing the creation of another Artemovsk- (Bakhmut)-like meatgrinder, designed to exhaust the Ukrainian mobilization potential as well as the Western-supplied weapons.
The cauldron will not be closed soon, if ever, just like I explained at the beginning of 2023 for the battle of Artemovsk. The Ukrainians need to have the opportunity to feed as many people into the cauldron as possible. I miss Prigozhin here, who from time to time cried about the bad situation for the Russians, which triggered even more Ukrainians to be fed into the cauldron… We’ll see who will take his role this time. Someone clearly will need to cry wolf. 😊
Outlook
As for the geopolitical situation, we all should start praying to whatever god we pray. There is a huge potential for millions of dead within the next several years if the situation spirals out of control. Still, I maintain my conviction that the great powers won’t clash directly, unless an incident happens. Remember the 15% probability for an incident?
Moreover, the situation for Western countries appears to be approaching a critical point. If things continue to develop as they do, the biggest enemy and threat to the West will be the West itself.
Going forward, I plan to write a short war analysis about Ukraine and maybe one or two short economics pieces. At the end of November, I’ll start writing Economics and Empires 6, the last part of the series. I plan to release this part by the end of this year.
[i] Edited by Piquet (EditPiquet@gmail.com)
Great article as usual. In my own reason article....
https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/terrorist-attack-or-strategic-victory I argues from a similar, although not identical point of view. Geopolitics is very much about "optics" these days--and the October 7 attack was strategic in this sense because it provoked an emotional, knee-jerk overreaction from the Zionists which makes their essentially genocidal intentions clear to the entire world-- and US support for this,
Message?
No one is safe.
US carriers, submarines, and NATO support in the Mediterranean are militarily meaningless. The SMO has demonstrated the inadequacy of NATO military technologies and strategies – and this attempt to impress does the opposite. The war will not widen or escalate because the Americans have just put themselves at risk. Both the Israelis and the Americans are casualty adverse. If the SMO has taught us anything it is that urban warfare takes time and it's costly. In the case of underground fortification – it takes even more time. Hamas is at 20 years to build one of the most sophisticated underground military systems ever-- with 300 km of tunnels and three levels, impressively distributed. No, gas won't work. Water won't work.
So the US and Israel are caught between a rock and a hard place.
At the same time they have alienated a sizable chunk of the global Jewish community.
Quick Comments
1. I don’t think Samson would show up. Even if the current Israeli government is confident and some are crazy the West (or even some in the US) along some sane ones will stop it getting there. You never know but I highly doubt it. Especially if ...
2. A defeat is inflicted on US forces in the Middle East. It will become clear at that point that big daddy can’t protect Israel anymore. Which will leave it the choice of reaching a negotiated peace or lose everything. Which would mean ...
3. A face saving option is unlikely. This is an existential moment for the West. They know it. Even Biden said it in his Oval Office speech (if you can even call it that). And we know their answer to every existential moment - more war. Also, if a face saving option is given their influence still remain even if diminished which they can use to try to derail or usurp the emerging world order. The other side knows that. Like Austin said “Russia needs to lose and look like it’s losing” - same thing just replace Russia with “the West”.
Unfortunately many (millions) people will die. Many died in unnecessary wars since WW2 ended. Hopefully this will bring about a sufficiently global and lasting peace that their unsolicited sacrifice will not be in vain.