Author Archives: Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th April 2025 - 9:56 am

United States

Republican Senators and Congressmen must be terrified of losing their jobs. And if they do go, they can only blame the man who helped put them in office— Donald Trump.

Before the economic meltdown, the Republican legislators were facing town hall meetings filled with constituents angry about Elon Musk’s chain saw approach to government, cuts in foreign aid, deportations of students and attacks on the constitution and the courts.

Almost to a man (or woman) they faced the crowds with a Trumpian smile that tried to reassure the voters that the president knew what he was doing and that he was going to “Make America Great Again”.

They had to say that because Trump and his billionaire acolyte Elon Musk held the campaign purse strings. The president has even managed to install his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as chairman of the Republican National Committee which vets candidates and channels party funds.

If a Republican candidate failed to pay obeisance to the MAGA leader and his policies then the next time they came up for re-election, Musk or another one of Trump’s billionaire friends, would finance their opponent in the primary elections for the nomination. In American politics, money talks.

Or does it? Elon Musk spent a record $25 million backing the Republican candidate in the race for a seat on the Wisconsin State Supreme Court. The Democrat candidate, Susan Crawford, won it by ten points. The electorate balked at being told what to do by an American oligarch who was working with Donald Trump to destroy the American government and its constitution.

What happened in Wisconsin could easily be a harbinger of political battles across America, especially now that economic chaos has set in. Inflation is rising despite Trump’s promises to bring it down. Most people don’t believe his promise to protect Medicaid and Medicare. Their pensions are sliding along with the stock market. And they don’t like the rest of the world hating them.

They voted for change. But not for the ill-planned unbridled change wrought by Donald Trump and his Republican sycophants in Congress and the cabinet.

There is an excellent chance of the Democrats winning both houses in the mid-term elections. They may even win a two-thirds majority in the Senate which will give them enough seats to impeach—and convict—Donald Trump for abuse of power.

But the mid-terms are two years away and Donald Trump has proven that he can wreak untold damage on America—and the world—in under 100 days.

Some Republican congressmen have spoken out against the president. Not enough. Many more have whispered their opposition in private but backed him when the cameras turned on them. If they can be persuaded by their town halls that their futures are damaged by association with Trump and assured by opposition to him than perhaps—just perhaps—Congress can grow a backbone.

Iran

The Iranians must be terrified of Trump. That can be the only reason they have agreed to meet in Oman this weekend to discuss swapping potential nuclear weapons for peace.

The reasons are clear. Tehran’s proxies in Lebanon and Gaza have been decimated. They have lost their string of bases in Syria and the Iranian-backed Houthis are suffering.

But most important of all, success has set Benjamin Netanyahu’s war-driven pulse racing. Destroying Hamas and Hezbollah is not enough for the Israeli prime minister. He wants to go after what he calls “the head of the snake”—Iran.

President Biden worked hard to keep a tight rein on Netanyahu’s blood lust, both in Gaza and Lebanon and towards Iran.

Trump appears willing to unleash him, maybe even with American help. He has proposed taking over Gaza, moving out the Palestinians and turning the area into a Middle Eastern Riviera. And as Netanyahu has increased his attacks in Gaza and the West Bank Trump has said nothing other than though to tell Hamas that “all Hell will break loose” if Hamas fails to release remaining Israeli hostages.

Posted in Op-eds | 11 Comments

Observations of an Expat: It’s War

By Tom Arms | Sat 12th April 2025 - 9:49 am

Trump has declared war on China. It’s a trade war, not a shooting war. But the fallout will still be devastating and it will reach every corner of the globe.

The markets rallied on the news that Trump had blinked. He had reduced everyone’s tariffs to a blanket 10 percent—plus 25 percent for cars, aluminium and steel—except China.

Then tariffs on Chinese goods went up. China retaliated. They went up again. As of this writing tariffs on China stand at 145 percent. And Chinese tariffs on US goods are at 84 percent.

That effectively means that the world’s two biggest economies, who between them control 49 percent of global trade, have locked themselves out of each other’s markets. American farmers who rely on China for their sales will be left with crops rotting in the fields. And American shops that sell everything from t-shirts to I-phones will be left with the choice of either empty shelves or more than doubling their prices.

Trump promised to bring inflation down. It will go up. So will interest rates as the Federal Reserve Bank tries to control spiralling prices. Which means that mortgages and business loans will rise. As business costs rise so will unemployment.

These problems will extend far beyond American shores. There is more than a grain of truth in the saying “when American sneezes the rest of the world catches a cold.”

But there is more. If America can’t sell to China and China can’t sell to America then where will all the soybeans, wheat, steel, cars, computers… go. The answer is Europe, the UK, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and India. This means that those countries goods will have to compete against Chinese and American businesses forced to dump their surplus output on third country markets. And, of course, all those countries will have to pay tariffs to export to America.

And there is more. Trump claims that the tariffs will increase foreign investment in America. Companies, he says, will build factories in the US in order to avoid US tariffs and sell to Americans. But will they? Most major businesses these days think in global not national terms. America is sealing its market off from the rest of the world and, anyway, it is quite likely to be in recession. Finally, foreign businesses crave economic stability. Trump’s up, down, in, out, unhinged shoot-from-the-hip economic policies are creating chaos rather than stability.

Perhaps most worrying of all, is the bond market. Bonds are effectively loans. US Treasury bonds are loans made to the US government to finance America’s trade deficit. At the beginning of the month America’s foreign debt stood at $7.9 trillion. Half of the debt is held by governments. Japan, China and Britain being the top three.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged china, trade wars and United states of America | 14 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 6th April 2025 - 10:03 am

France

France’s Marine Le Pen has been hoisted upon her own petard. At the National Rally’s annual convention in 2015 she stood at the podium and declared that any politician found guilty of a crime should be barred from office.

Of course, she wasn’t talking about herself. She was referring to the long parade of French political leaders who had fallen foul of the law and been convicted of everything from incitement to hate crimes to pimping to old-fashioned corruption. They included her own father (Jean-Marie Le Pen) and two French presidents (Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy).

Most of them got off fairly lightly, heavy fines and mostly suspended sentences. Only one senior French politician in recent memory has been barred from office—former prime minister Alain Juppe who in 2004 was found guilty of an almost identical crime as the one committed by Ms Le Pen: misusing public funds for political purposes.

In the case of Ms Le Pen and her 24 co-defendants in the National Rally, they were found guilty of taking $4,412,000 earmarked for European Parliamentary business and using the money to pay people working for National Rally. Ms Le Pen was responsible for $520,000 of the money.

The parallels with the legal travails of Donald Trump are obvious. But the American courts took the position that they should go easy on him because he was on the cusp of becoming president. Ms Le Pen is also leading the polls. But the French judges have argued the opposite to their American counterparts.

They judged that because Ms Le Pen was a leading candidate for the presidency of France she should receive a harsher sentence. To do otherwise, argued the court, “would cause a major disruption to democratic public order.”

Ms Le Pen and Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orban and just under half of French voters think that the sentence is unacceptable interference by the courts in the political process. Everyone else thinks that it is important that the law be upheld—a law which Ms Le Pen herself supported.

Canada

It’s called the “Trump Factor” in Canada and it is defined as the out-sized impact that the American president is having on the Canadian elections scheduled for 28 April.

The focus of Canadians is not surprising as Trump has taken it upon himself to threaten Canadian sovereignty by calling for it to become the 51st state and is about to slap tariffs on Canada which will destroy the country’s economy and tens of thousands of jobs.

Which brings us to Canada’s conservative leader Pierre Polievre who has been referred to as “Trump light.” He favours private enterprise; wants some immigration controls; is an anti-vaxxer; is so-so on the issue of climate change; has promised the biggest crackdown on crime in Canadian history; and is seriously anti-woke.

Back in January—before Trump launched his anti-Canadian crusade—Polievre’s policies were enough to put him an apparent shoe-in for the premiership as his party polled 25 points ahead of the governing Liberals.

As of this week, the Liberals are 25 points ahead of Polievre’s conservatives.

The complete reversal is partly down to the resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. After nine years in office, the pretty boy of Canadian politics, had run out of steam and was deeply unpopular.

He was replaced by technocrat Mark Carney whose impressive cv includes stints as the governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England. Carney then played the card that was the second, bigger reason for the reversal in political fortunes—the Canadian public’s growing hatred of Donald Trump.

Carney has broken with diplomatic convention and refused make his first visit to Washington. Instead he flew to London and Paris. He has been adamant that Canada will never be part of the United States. He will retaliate against any Trumpian tariffs and work to reorganise Canada’s trading patterns away from America. “Our relationship with America will never be the same,” Carney declared.

He doesn’t need any policies other than being firmly anti-Trump.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged australia, canada, china, france, marine le pen, mark carney, peter dutton and united states | 18 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Boycott!

By Tom Arms | Sat 5th April 2025 - 9:52 am

It’s time to boycott American goods and services. Buy British. Buy European. Buy Chinese. Buy anything except American.

Non-Americans hit by Trumpian tariffs cannot influence American politics through the ballot box. But they can vote with their pocket books. And a point-blank refusal to buy American products would have more of an impact than retaliatory tariffs that make those products more expensive.

Individuals are already turning their backs on American merchandise. Last month Europeans registered their displeasure with Donald Trump and his billionaire backer Elon Musk by cutting Tesla sales by 50 percent. Others have shown their disapproval by refusing to buy Coca-Cola or taking their coffee breaks at Café Nero instead of Starbucks.

But these are haphazard kneejerk boycotts which may give the individual a momentary self-righteous glow. They will have little if any effect on the Washington policymakers. What is needed is a coordinated effort that organises pickets, produces literature and stuffs it through letter products. A well-oiled machine with foot soldiers, a PR team and a website that identifies products and services to boycott and names non-American alternatives and goes on to monitor success.

A boycott would also help the re-ordering of trade patterns away from the United States. If people are not buying American goods than they are buying goods from other countries. The businesses in those countries will quickly realise the opportunity and divert their supply lines accordingly

The government can’t do the job of organising a boycott. Not because it is incapable of the task but because it would be politically irresponsible. A successful government-organised boycott would almost certainly result in retribution from the ever-mercurial Trump. It would be in character for Trump to retaliate with restrictions in vital areas such as intelligence gathering or weapons procurement.

No, what is needed is an existing political machine that has significant representation in parliament but is separate from the government. There is no time to re-invent the wheel. The public requires an existing political party whose leader has already firmly staked out a firm anti-Trumpian position and called for a coordinated response to tariffs and other unacceptable behaviour by the current tenant of the White House.

What is needed is for Britain’s Liberal Democrats—led by Sir Ed Davey—to organise a proper boycott of American products. The government can’t do it. The Tories won’t do it. That leaves the Liberal Democrats – with a leader committed to doing something—with the opportunity and the responsibility.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged boycott american goods and services, donald trump, featured and tariffs | 30 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 30th March 2025 - 8:30 am

Tariffs

There is a major contradiction at the core of the tariffs that Donald Trump announced this week.

Trump says that the tariffs have the dual purpose of revitalising American industry—especially the car industry—and raising billions in tax revenues which will allow him to cut other taxes.

The problem is that one will cancel out the other. If, as hoped, Americans eschew foreign cars to buy American, then other countries will stop exporting their cars (and car components) to the US. Thus the revenue from tariffs will substantially decline.

Trump vs Europe

If Europe wanted more reasons to re-evaluate its relationship with the US, Signalgate has provided them.

Trump has imposed tariffs. Vice President Vance used the Munich Security Conference to attack European values. But that was in public. Sometimes what is said behind closed doors—among like-minded friends—is more revealing.

Vance expressed some blunt opinions on America’s European allies. He said any airstrikes would benefit Europe more than America. He that three percent of US cargo passed through the Suez Canal compared to 40 percent of European goods.

“I just hate bailing Europe out again,” said the Vice President. “Let’s just make sure our messaging is right here.”

Hegseth also was not a European fan. “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading,” he said. It’s PATHETIC. But Mike is correct, we are the only ones on the planet (on our side of the ledger) who can do this. Nobody else even close.”

The two men went on to agree that they should find a way to force the Europeans to pay for the attack on Yemen.

US targets foreign students

Turkish PhD Student Rumeysa Ozturk was on her way to dinner at a Boston restaurant when six people with their faces covered by scarves, hoodies and large dark sunglasses surrounded her.

“We are police, and you are under arrest,” they told the 30-year-old Tufts University student. They failed to show any identification, quickly cuffed Ms Ozturk and bundled her into an SUV. The incident was captured on a surveillance camera.

Ms Ozturk is the latest foreign student to be arrested for protesting against Israel’s war in Gaza. Her specific crime appears to have been writing an op-ed for the student newspaper supporting calls for Tufts University to divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Within hours, a Boston judge, issued an order prohibiting her removal from Massachusetts. Sorry, came back the reply from the Department of Homeland Security, she is already in a Louisiana detention centre. Oh, and by the way, her, student visa has been revoked.

The same fate has befallen two other foreign students—Mahmoud Khalil from Columbia University and Bada Khan Suri from Georgetown University. Each of them exercised their right of free speech under the US constitution’s First Amendment and were arrested for doing so. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week that there “at least” another 300 foreign students whose visas have been revoked for “anti-Semitic behaviour.”

Foreign visitors—including students—have to abide by American laws. But they are also protected by American law. This includes the right of free speech, legal representation and a fair hearing. But without a student visa they cannot stay in the country to defend themselves.

Taliban talk

Posted in News | Tagged tom arms world review | 8 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: More security boo-boos expected

By Tom Arms | Sat 29th March 2025 - 8:30 am

Signalgate–as it is now called—will almost certainly be the first of many security breaches by this second Trump Administration.

There are several reasons for this: Trump’s own cavalier attitude towards secret information; the president’s extreme distaste of government employees (the “deep state”); Elon Musk’s purge of the civil service and the low calibre and inexperience of the people he has appointed to high office.

No one expects political appointments to know all the dos and don’ts of the security business less than two months into the job. They shouldn’t even necessarily know that it is highly dangerous to discuss an attack plan in a glorified What’s App group call.

That is why there are paid officials who have been doing the job for years. One of the main purposes of a civil servant is to handle the mechanics of a meeting. It is the officials’ job to make certain that the right people are invited at the right time and, if classified material is being discussed, to a secure location and that the discussion is conducted so that it is leak-proof. It is important job. Lives depend on it.

I once attended a press conference on weapons procurement at the British Ministry of Defense. Journalise after journalist asked the minister about performance details of various weapons. The minister repeatedly turned to his accompanying civil servant and asked: “May I answer that?” The civil servant politely replied: “No, minister.” He did his job.

The problem is that Elon Musk has fired many of the people who did that sort of job. Or they have resigned in disgust. Or they are too frightened to speak up for fear of losing their job.

Posted in News | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 11 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 23rd March 2025 - 9:18 am

Turkey

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on a high. His Syrian proxy is in power in Damascus. The Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan has called on his followers to lay down their arms and disband. Kurdish fighters in Syria are doing that and amalgamating their forces with those of the new Erdogan-backed government.

It is the perfect time for the Turkish president to go after his domestic opposition. And that is exactly what he has done.

This week he arrested his chief political opponent—Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu– on charges of corruption and aiding and abetting terrorists. Funnily enough, the arrest came just before Imamoglu was due to be nominated as the candidate for the presidency by the Republican People’s Party (CHP).

The elections are not due until 2028, but the opposition wanted to give Imamoglu the maximum campaign time to break the stranglehold that Erdogan has on the media, courts, police and electoral processes.

Erdogan shouldn’t be worried about the Istanbul mayor simply because he has announced that he is retiring in 2028 when his term of office ends. In fact, he has to retire. Unless… he changes the constitution.

The current constitution limits the president to two terms in office. Erdoğan was first elected in 2014, but changed the constitution so that he was able to serve three consecutive terms instead of the two under the old constitution.

Erdoğan has made statements in the past indicating that he would retire in 2028, but there’s also speculation that he might seek to alter the constitution or push for an extension of his term. Both of which are possible given the dominance of his Law and Justice Party (AKP). And his chances are improved even more by the elimination of the only personality presenting a serious challenge.

Putin

In 2007 President George W. Bush declared: “I looked into the soul of President Putin and found a man I could trust.” He later admitted that that he was wrong.

In 2014 Putin denied that Russian troops were in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. They were “local militia” or “volunteers,” he claimed. He also denied any intention of annexing Crimea. He lied about the “volunteers” and annexed Crimea.

In July 2014 Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over Eastern Ukraine. Putin blamed the Ukrainians. A multinational investigation determined it was the Russians.

At Helsinki, the Russian leader told Donald Trump that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 US presidential elections. The Mueller Report and every one of the US intelligence agencies said it did. Putin dismissed the allegations as part of a wider conspiracy against Russia.

In 2018 former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with novichok in the quiet English town of Salisbury. Putin said it had nothing to do with Russia. British intelligence determined that he ordered the attempted assassination and identified the assassins.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged israel, turkey and vladimir putin | 11 Comments

Observations of an Expat: First Shots Fired

By Tom Arms | Sat 22nd March 2025 - 10:14 am

The first shots were fired this week in the war between the White House and the American judiciary.

As expected, the courts have moved to block Donald Trump’s disregard for the constitution and the rule of law and to nudge him toward legality.

Not so expected is the Republicans response: The threat of impeachment.

So far four judges have either been threatened with impeachment or have had articles of impeachment lodged against them in the House of Representatives. They are:

Judge Paul Engelmayer issued an order preventing DOGE from accessing the federal payments system.
Judge John Bates ruled that health agencies must restore data related to gender-affirming care,
Judge Amir Ali granted a temporary restraining order that halted Trump’s 90-day suspension of foreign aid.
Judge John McConell ordered the White House to lift a freeze on federal spending.

But the bulk of the White House’s venom has been saved for and directed against Judge James Boasberg. He had the temerity to challenge the administration’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members to an El Salvadorean prison.

The deportation was wrong on so many counts. For a start, the deportees were suspected criminals. They had not been convicted in a court of law. Furthermore, the Alien Enemies Act allows for the deportation of citizens of countries with which the US is at war. America is not at war with Venezuela. Finally, the administration ignored the judge’s ruling not to land the deportees in El Salvador and to return to the US.

Trump has chosen his fight well. Immigrants are unpopular. Immigrants who are suspected members of a violent Venezuelan gang even more so. So, MAGA—and the Republican Congress—is standing four-square behind Trump.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump | 4 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th March 2025 - 8:30 am

Ukraine

The Ukraine ball has bounced from Ukraine’s court to Russia’s court and now back into America’s court.

Donald Trump has always claimed a special relationship with Vladimir Putin– “He listens to me…the war would never have started if I had been in office…I can stop this war in 24 hours.”

Not if Vladimir can help it. As I write this Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff is flying back to Washington after exhausting talks in the Kremlin. He went asking Putin to agree to a 30-day ceasefire. Ukraine had already—under pressure from Trump—said yes.

Putin said…I’ll think about it. Actually he was a bit more diplomatic. He prefaced his hesitation with the normal flattery that must precede any exchange with the American president. He said that he is “aligned” with Trump and “expressed solidarity” with the man in the White House.

Then the Russian leader said: “I need more information,”which is another way of saying “I’ll think about it,”which is another way of stalling.

Putin is stalling because at the moment he is on the offensive. It looks as if he might soon push the Ukrainians out of their Kursk salient. He continues to inch forward in the Donbas and every captured inch improves his negotiating position.

That negotiating position has not changed for three years: Ukraine out of NATO and EU and demilitarised. International recognition for the annexation of the Donbas and Crimea. Sanctions lifted. Zelensky replaced by a Russian puppet.

Trump, however, is not focused on Putin’s long-term aims. He wants a ceasefire now. He has demanded it and has threatened renewed sanctions if his ultimatum is not met. It hasn’t been and Trump’s next move will reveal more about his role as honest broker.

Trump’s tariff rollercoaster

Tariffs up, down, off, on. Markets crave certainty. They fear uncertainty and they panic at chaos.

Trump’s muddled tariff policy is causing the stock market to dive. And according to Trump’s past statements, the stock market is the best judge of his economic policies.

He started off well. His election in November was followed by big rises. Nasdaq and the Dow Jones reached record highs in December. The S&P 500 two months later. American business was anticipating an economic boom fuelled by a bonfire of government regulations. It didn’t believe that Trump would actually follow through with threats of tariffs.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, international trade, the philippines, tom arms world review and ukraine | 11 Comments

Observations of an Ex Pat : Development Bonds

By Tom Arms | Sat 15th March 2025 - 8:30 am

It’s all about timing, and in my case the time may have arrived for an idea that I first mooted 25 years ago. In 2018 it was shortlisted for a prize in honour of the late Paddy Ashdown.

It if won first prize the idea might have progressed. But instead it has sat on my computer hard drive waiting for the right moment to be pulled out.

The idea concerns foreign aid. Trump has slashed US aid by 80 percent, Britain by 40 percent, France by a third and Germany and Japan by a to-be-announced amount. On top of that, the liberal bastion “The Economist” this week sounded “The Death of Foreign Aid.”

The result will be that literally billions of people will suffer. They will have less money for education, military protection, health and investment in infrastructure projects that can lift their countries out of poverty and create markets for the developed world. Many will die. Many already have.

The Economist argues that the cuts could be silver-lined clouds. That many developing countries have become aid-dependent and the dramatic cutbacks could force governments in the developing world to reorganize and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

If so, development bonds, might be worth considering by both the developed and developing world. The concept of development bonds had its genesis in Renaissance Italy where bonds were sold to wealthy merchants to fund local building projects. The idea was unearthed by New York to finance the Erie Canal and over the years has become a financial pillar for America’s infrastructure finance. In 2023, $456 billion was raised in municipal bonds. It is estimated that $4.5 trillion is currently outstanding.

The structure is simple. Wealthy individuals invest in a bond issued by a state or local authority. The bondholders receive regular interest payments which they can deduct from federal income tax. When the bond matures they receive the principal which they invested. This also is untaxed.

My development bond proposal would extend the US system to the developing world. Wealthy individuals, banks, pension funds and others would invest in bonds to build infrastructure projects in the developing world. The investors would deduct the interest payments from taxes due in their country of residence.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 14 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th March 2025 - 8:30 am

Germany

Friedrich Merz is steaming ahead—and he hasn’t even formed his government.

The string bean leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is certain to be chancellor as soon as he has formed his coalition with the Social Democrats. But that will take several weeks of political haggling and the fast moving and fast deteriorating international scene dictates that the power house of Europe must be involved NOW.

So, next week the German parliament is being recalled to amend the federal constitution to allow the government to increase borrowing to boost the economy by investing in infrastructure and to pay for a bigger defense establishment. This means that when the new government is sworn in on March 25th it will have the financial means to hit the ground running.

Up until the election of Donald Trump Merz was a firm Atlanticist. But on election night he he spun 180 degrees. “My absolute priority,” he told supporters, “will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.”

And for those who worry about Trump pulling out of NATO, Merz strongly hinted that Europe may be the ones to leave the alliance.

United States

The US Department of Defense recently published a manual on counter-insurgency called Joint Publication 3-24 (JP3-24). It argued that the lessons over the past 60 years show that in the 21st century the only way that one country can successfully occupy another is through total annihilation.

“To hold countries,” wrote the American planners, “you need to impose order. To impose order you need to control populations. To control populations you need to use violence. Violence leads to violence, which is inherently antithetical to order.”

American forces have discovered in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan that, even with the support of local governments, tiny pockets of resistance can make chaos more or less permanent. Attempts to quell that chaos are counterproductive as they only result in reactive violence.

The days of colonial empires imposing their rule on near-docile populations is over. In the post-colonial world populations demand the right to rule. If occupiers want to usurp that right they have to impose draconian anti-insurgent measures and each new imposition undermines their control.

What the US has found to its cost, the Russians should have concluded after the failure of their Ukrainian puppet Viktor Yanukovych and will discover again if they succeed in ousting Volodomyr Zelensky and installing a stooge in Kyiv. Vladimir Putin will certainly discover the truth of JP3-24 if he goes onto re-establish the Russian empire and conquers Georgia, Moldova, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and others.

His only hope is to replace the local majority with an ethnic Russian majority. This was a well-tried tactic of the tsars and Joseph Stalin which led to the forced removal of local populations to less equable climes such as Siberia.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged canada, elon musk, germany, new zealand and United states of America | 6 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Buy American, Save Ukraine.

By Tom Arms | Sat 8th March 2025 - 9:11 am

There is an outside, long shot chance of saving Ukraine and the Western Alliance—Buy American.

I don’t mean American cars or cereal. I mean something which really costs—American weaponry, American satellite links and American intelligence.

The money is there, $300-plus billion in frozen Russian assets that was being held back for Ukrainian reconstruction. There is not much point in saving it for reconstruction purposes if there is no country to reconstruct.

On top of that the normally frugal Germans are about to remove the EU debt brake and leap into a defense spending spree. And across Europe taxes are set to rise and welfare budgets cut to pay for what is now a defense emergency.

The purpose of the rapid rise in defense spending is to fill the huge hole left by the withdrawal of the United States from Ukraine and probably Europe as a whole. The problem is that no matter how big the budget it will take at least five—probably more—years to rebuild military forces and defense industries, and Putin is banging on Europe’s door today.

That is why British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky pressed Donald Trump for security guarantees as part of any ceasefire agreement.

The problem is that Trump does not see any advantage for him—or America—in providing such guarantees. It involves expensive aid until a ceasefire agreement is reached; commits US forces to a clash with Russia if Putin—as expected—breaks the ceasefire and potentially interferes with his plans to buddy up with fellow autocrat and would block access to Russian natural resources.

So give him a cash incentive with a bit of ego boosting thrown in for good measure. This is the kind of enticement Trump easily understands.

To start with the US gets the mineral rights deal he is demanding for past aid. Next,Trump is the recognised point man in negotiations with Vladimir Putin, but he has to consult and keep informed European leaders and Zelensky.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged defence, ukraine and United states of America | 13 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 2nd March 2025 - 8:26 am

Germany

Europe’s largest economy and largest population has lurched to the right. Friedrich Merz is on the conservative wing of the right of centre Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has been relegated to the number three slot for the first in post-war German history. But, more importantly, the far-right Alternativ fur Deutschland (AFD) is now firmly entrenched in the number two position.

Electoral success such as that enjoyed by the AfD in last weekend’s federal elections would normally ensure a place in a coalition government. Not in Germany, the mainstream parties have agreed to a firewall between themselves and the AfD that prohibits political cooperation between themselves and the AfD.

It was this firewall that was recently attacked as “undemocratic” by US Vice President JD Vance at the Munich Security Conference.

But then America does not have the burden of a Nazi past which many Germans fear the AfD threatens to resurrect. It favours remigration which many interpret as a mass deportation of immigrants. It is Euro-sceptic; anti-LGBTQ; pro-Russian; opposes sending military aid to Ukraine and is ambivalent about Germany’s Nazi past. Germany’s Committee for the Protection of the Constitution has designated the AfD as an “extremist right-wing” organisation which means it is being closely monitored by the police and security services.

But the AfD garnered 20.8 percent of the vote—double what it won in the previous federal election. The party—or at least its policies—cannot be disregarded, especially its position on immigration.

The traditional German mainstream parties—CDU/CSU, FDP, SPD and Greens—have tended to deal with the immigration issue by ignoring it. In the case of the CDU, Angela Merkel went further and declared that Germany had a moral responsibility to help refugees and in 2015 admitted more than a million and laid the foundations of a backlash.

The new soon-to-be Chancellor Merz is determined to win back AfD supporters by stealing some of their clothes and introducing tough anti-immigrant legislation.

The difficulty is that the AfD has positioned itself as the only party willing to talk about immigration and propose radical action to tackle the perceived problem. If Merz and the CDU position themselves in this space, they risk being perceived as a less authentic version of the AfD. Voters are convinced that the AfD cares passionately about limiting immigration. They may be less convinced that it is a genuine priority of the CDU.

United Kingdom

The famed British Welfare State is threatened by the American withdrawal from Europe and the resultant increase in defense spending.

In fact, social spending belts across Europe will need to tighten as money is poured into missiles, drones, tanks and howitzer shells to protect Western Europe from the Russian bear.

This week, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, announced that he was cutting overseas aid from 0.5 percent to 0.3 percent to pay for an increase in defense spending from 2.3 to 2.5 percent by 2027 and three percent by the end of the decade.

The cuts in aid will put $15 billion in the British exchequer which is enough to fund the increased spending up to 2.5 percent but not enough to go all the way to three percent. And, the fact is, that three percent is unlikely to be enough. American officials are talking about five percent across Europe if they want to keep Donald Trump happy and in NATO. And if the US abandons Europe as feared than defense costs will be much, much higher.

Britain, devotes 25 percent of GDP on welfare spending and another 10 percent of GDP on the NHS. Other European countries spend between 25 percent and 30 percent on social welfare. Funding structures for health services varies.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged defence spending and germany | 7 Comments

Observations of an Expat: A British Knight in King Donald’s Court

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st March 2025 - 9:20 am

The British Foreign Office set a low bar for Sir Keir Starmer’s trip to America—Don’t fall out with King Donald. He succeeded.

That is not to say that substantive issues were not discussed. They were and included:

Tariffs – and the possibility, nay probability, of reviving the Johnson era US-UK trade deal that could exempt Britain from the crippling tariffs that Trump has threatened to impose on the EU.

The Chagos Islands – Trump is inclined to go along with the British position.

And Ukraine – On this top of the agenda item Sir Keir failed. Trump was immovable – No backstop. No security guarantees and total confidence in the honesty of fellow dissembler Vladimir Putin.

The tete a tete started with a cringe-making pantomime when in front of the world’s media the prime minister reached into his suit pocket and drew out a letter from King Charles III.

It was the expected invitation to Trump to make an historic second state visit to Buckingham Palace.

Royal Family fan Donald evinced childlike surprise and delight at the expected letter and the friendly tone was set for the private talks in the Oval Office. The first box was ticked.

An Anglo-American trade deal has long been one of Trump’s priorities. Not because of any love for the royal family or the homeland of his mother. No, Donald Trump wants a trade deal with Britain because he hates the EU. It is a threat to American trade hegemony. Trump wants to encourage its break-up and insure that Britain does not return to the European fold by pulling it closer to America.

In any upcoming trade talks the British public will be focused on chlorine-washed chicken, hormone-fed beef and higher prices for NHS drugs. The attention of Trump’s negotiators will be on coordinating regulations across a wide-range of goods and services to make it more difficult for Britain to negotiate re-entry into the European single market and/or customs union.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, keir starmer and ukraine | 1 Comment

The End

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st March 2025 - 7:00 am

February 28, 2025 may well go down in history as the day that the Western Alliance ended and the world was suddenly thrown into an unknown future by a White House bully and his initialled sidekick.

The undynamic duo’s treatment of the president of a country which has sacrificed thousands upon thousands of lives in the cause of the protection of the West shamed the United States and countries who have been in alliance with America.

“Say thank you. Say thank you,” shouted J.D. Vance when he should have been thanking Zelensky for the ultimate sacrifices his countrymen and women have made.

“You are not showing any respect,” said Donald Trump, sounding more like a mafia don then the leader of the Free World. It was draft dodger Trump who should have been respecting wartime leader Zelensky who has—against all odds—held out against the Russian war machine for three years.

Several times Zelensky tried to say thank you and explain his position, but each time he was shouted down by Vance and/or Trump.

At one point Trump pursed his lips shook his head back and forth and repeated in a childishly petulant mocking voice: “I don’t want a ceasefire. I don’t want a ceasefire.”

Again, Zelensky tried to explain that he wants an end to the war but that any ceasefire must come with security guarantees because Putin has broken every ceasefire, treaty and agreement that Ukraine has negotiated with the Russian dictator.

Zelensky flew to Washington to sign a deal which would hand over a major chunk of his country’s mineral rights. Trump said the rare earths that American companies would mine was compensation for the aid that America has given Ukraine. Zelensky agreed to that but also wanted assurances that included in the deal would be future security guarantees. A deal which gave away billions worth of mineral rights in perpetuity without protecting Ukrainian territorial integrity was worthless.

But Trump and Vance were determined to secure the rights and at the same time withdraw American support and bully Zelensky into effectively surrendering to Russia. And it was done before a television audience of billions in what appeared to be an attempt to humiliate the Ukrainian leader. The result was possibly the most disgraceful scene in diplomatic history.

European leaders, Democrats and officials from the first Trump administration seemed to regard it as just that.

John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Adviser, said on X: “Trump and Vance have declared themselves to be on Russia’s side in the Russo-Ukraine war, This is a catastrophic mistake for America’s national security. And let’s be clear: Trump and Vance now personally own that policy. It is not the view of a majority of Americans of either or no political party.”

>H.R. McMaster another former national security advisor in the first Trump administration, said it is “impossible to understand” why Trump and Vance “seem determined to put more pressure on President Zelensky while they seem to be coddling Putin—the person who inflicted this terrible war in Ukraine.”

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a post on X said the “outrageous display” from Trump and Vance was “disgraceful” and “downright un-American.”

French president Emmanuel Macron said: “We should respect those who have been fighting since the beginning,”

“Ukraine, you’ll never walk alone,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said via X. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said, “Ukraine, Spain stands with you.” Friedrich Merz, the likely incoming German leader, also said he stands with Zelensky before adding that the “aggressor and victim in this terrible war” must never be confused. Top diplomats for the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland issued similar messages of support for Kyiv and the Ukrainian president.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen praised Zelensky for his “dignity” and said the bloc will continue working with him “for a just and lasting peace.”

Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said: “Estonia’s support for Ukraine remains unwavering. It is time for Europe to step up. We do not need to wait for something else to happen; Europe has enough resources, including Russia’s frozen assets, to enable Ukraine to continue fighting,”

The diplomatic meltdown at the White House comes as European leaders—including Zelensky—are preparing to meet in London on Sunday to discuss their next moves in the Ukrainian imbroglio. Host Sir Keir Starmer sees Britain as bridge between Europe and America. The problem is that Trump and Vance appear to be intent on burning that bridge.

Here is the transcript of Trump, Zelensky, and Vance’s contentious exchange. It has been edited for length and clarity.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, featured, j d vance, ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy | 11 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 23rd February 2025 - 8:48 am

Europe and United States

The European tag team of Starmer and Macron is off to Washington next week. The British Prime Minister and the French President will be trying to persuade Trump to save the Western Alliance by continuing to back Ukraine.

It will be a difficult if almost impossible task given the flood of anti-Zelensky, anti-European and pro-Russian rhetoric that has been pouring out of Washington. But they must but try.

Macron will be the first to arrive. He will sit down with President Trump on Monday.

The French president has taken the lead in trying to rally Europe-wide support for Ukraine with two Paris summits within a few days of each other. He has argued for years that the danger of American isolationism required Europe to increase its defences to fill the American vacuum.

At the summits he proposed that European countries despatch a peacekeeping force of up to 30,000 troops to guard key parts of Ukraine’s infrastructure. They would be supported by Western air and sea power.

Keir Starmer arrives at the White House on Thursday. The British took the lead in supporting Ukraine and continue to do so. The prime minister supports the idea of a peacekeeping force, but only as part of a ceasefire agreement and only with “an American backstop.”

Starmer has been vague about what the backstop would involve, but it is likely that he would want a guarantee of US air support.

However, the peacekeeping proposal could be dead in the water before it reaches the Oval Office. Germany is opposed to it. Chancellor Olof Scholz said such a proposal is premature and would be a serious escalation. Vladimir Putin has rejected any deal that involves European troops based in Ukraine.

Ukraine

What are the negotiating positions in Ukraine? There are four actors, only two of which have started talking: The US, Russia, Ukraine and Europe.

Donald Trump’s immediate objective is clear: Stop the fighting. And he appears ready to concede victory to Russia to achieve that aim. Longer-term, Trump clearly wants to withdraw American military support from Europe and move it into the Indo-Pacific region. The US president also appears to want rehabilitate Russia in order to gain access to that country’s natural resources.

Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine. In the short term he wants recognition for the Russian annexation of Crimea and the Donbas Region (including parts which it has not occupied). He also wants guarantees that Ukraine will be demilitarised; will not be allowed to join NATO and that no western (European or American) troops will be based in Ukraine. He also wants a pro-Russian government in Kyiv. Putin wants to win so that he can use victory in Ukraine as a springboard to exert Russian influence over Eastern Europe and beyond so that Russia is once again a Great Power.

Ukraine’s wants are simpler. It wants Russia out of its territory and guarantees that it will be protected in the future through membership of NATO. In the short-term Volodomyr Zelensky will agree to a ceasefire along the current front line if it is backed up by European/American peacekeepers.

Europe is riddled with differences. Despite what many Americans think, Europe is not one country. It is 27 members of the EU, Britain and a few small states. But with a few exceptions, Europe is united in wanting to contain a resurgent Russia and regards Ukraine as fighting a war on its behalf. Europeans regard NATO and American support as crucial in their aims. Europe—as a collection of countries—has given more aid to Ukraine than anyone else. After years of American pressure they are increasing defense spending and building up their militaries to replace American troops. But it takes time and they face an uphill task persuading Donald Trump to give them that time.

NATO

Here’s the good news: Donald Trump cannot unilaterally decide to withdraw from NATO. In December 2023 the NATO Enhancement Act was passed by Congress (co-sponsored by the current Secretary of State Marco Rubio). This bill required the president to seek a two-thirds majority of the Senate before withdrawing from the NATO Alliance.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged europe, germany, NATO, ukraine and United states of America | 20 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Zelensky’s Options

By Tom Arms | Sat 22nd February 2025 - 9:40 am

Volodomyr Zelensky has had a tough job since February 2022. And since the election of Donald Trump it has become a whole lot tougher.

In just the past ten days the American president and his acolytes have gone over his head and behind his back to negotiate directly with Russia’s Vladimir Putin; accused Zelensky of being a dictator; demanded virtual total control of the Ukrainian economy; ruled out Ukrainian membership of NATO and the return of territory; accused Ukraine of starting the war and undermined negotiations by announcing that Russia “holds the cards.”

Trump has also damaged relations with NATO allies by cutting them out of any negotiations about Ukraine’s future, despite the fact that Ukraine is in Europe and the Europeans have contributed more to its defense then the US.

But hold on. Zelensky and his European allies have a few cards of their own.

The biggest ones involve cash. Russia is spending and leaking money and earning less and less while its bills pending pile grows bigger and bigger.

Let’s start with its Sovereign Wealth Fund (aka National Wealth Fund or NWF). This has been the main source of ready cash for Putin’s “special military operation.” In January 2022, the NWF coffers held $210 billion. At the start of this year, the fund had dwindled to $116 billion. But wait, it’s even worse than that. Almost all of the war spending comes from liquid reserves which have shrunk more than 75 percent from $130 billion to $40 billion.

At the current rate of spending, Putin will run out of liquid cash in less than a year. His borrowing options are limited. The IMF and World Bank are out of the question, as are western commercial banks. This leaves the Chinese who would doubtless drive a hard bargain.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged featured and ukraine | 11 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 16th February 2025 - 9:39 am

United States

It is becoming increasingly clear that the only thing standing between Trump and unfettered power is the American judicial system.

His spineless acolytes in the Republican Party control both houses of Congress and the geriatric Democratic Party appears to be sinking under a sea of Executive Orders.

The courts, however, have acted. So far they have ordered the administration to lift its funding freeze on USAID and the salaries of thousands of federal employees.

The question now is: What will Trump do? Legally, he should abide by the court’s ruling and—if he is determined to get his way—appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, where, he hopes, the 6-3 conservative majority will rule in his favour.

But that is not Trump’s way, and Supreme Court support is not a given.

The signs are that Trump will simply ignore the court rulings and either carry on and appeal or—even more likely—carry on and not bother to appeal. If he takes either approach Donald Trump will have created a major constitutional crisis.

The power of the judicial system relies on the two other branches of government respecting and accepting the court’s judgements. It is called checks and balances and THE RULE OF LAW.

There is nothing in the US constitution which gives enforcement powers to the judiciary—except the legal principle of contempt of court. If Donald Trump ignores court rulings then he can be held in contempt and detained or fined until such time as he “purges the contempt.”

This is not a criminal law. It is not a civil law. It is the only weapon that the courts have to enforce their judgements. It was used against Trump in 2022 when he was fined $10,000 a day for failing to provide subpoenaed documents in his fraud trial.

The same law could also be applied to Elon Musk and his DOGE team.

A person cannot be pardoned for contempt of court. The Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity does not apply to contempt of court. So, where is the brave judge willing to take on Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the MAGA crowd?

Germany

As Germany’s federal election approaches the two front runners—the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Alternativ fur Deutschland (AfD) are battling for the young men’s vote.

Increasingly it is the 18-30-year-old men who are playing the kingmaker’s role in Western democracies. And they are swinging further and further to the right.

In the 2024 British general election, young men played a vital role in winning five parliamentary seats for Reform. 12.9 percent of men aged 18 to 30 voted Reform compared to just 5.9 percent of the women.

In the States it was disgruntled young men who dunnit for Trump. Sixty percent of the young male vote opted for Donald Trump, according to an Associated Press survey. Trump attracted only 20 percent of the women in the same age group.

Trump was especially popular with poorly educated young white men, but he also won half of the young male Latino vote and a third of the African-American young men.

In Germany the young male vote played a major role in the AfD winning 16 percent of the vote in the European elections and 31 percent of the vote in elections in Saxony and Brandenburg.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged austria, germany, turkey and United states of America | 13 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Ukraine – Europe Missed A Trick

By Tom Arms | Fri 14th February 2025 - 7:38 pm

Europe has missed a trick. Ukraine was primarily a European problem. Russia was threatening European security, and by extension, the NATO alliance as a whole. But to most Americans the war in Ukraine, as Neville Chamberlain said in 1938 about Czechoslovakia—“is a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.”

But America coughed up billions. That is not to say that European countries—including the UK—have not dug deep. Since 2022 Europe has given slightly more than the US – $65.9 billion compared to $65 billion from Washington. Another $8.59 billion has come from non-European countries Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

But the Biden Administration was far and away the single biggest contributor propping up Ukraine. With Trump in the White House that prop is likely to be kicked away—possibly as soon as this weekend’s Munich Security Conference.

Europeans admit that their over-reliance on the American military umbrella has made them complacent about their security. Since the end of the Cold War defense budgets have shrunk to a shadow of their former selves. Germany, for instance was in 1985 spending 2.87 percent of its GDP on defense. When Russia invaded Ukraine the figure had been cut by more than half to 1.33 percent.

Budget cuts meant cuts in troop numbers. 478,000 (1985 figure) in Germany to 183,000 in 2022. Britain went from 334,000 to 153,000 over the same period.

But more importantly was a drop in investment in defense industries. Troop levels can be boosted relatively easily. But researching the latest weapons, building a factory and assembly line and starting production takes time. 1985 figures for European investment in defense industries are difficult to find, but since the invasion of Ukraine there is a clear recognition that it was not enough. In 2021 the figure was $222 billion and in 2024 it had jumped to $330 billion.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged ukraine and United states of America | 41 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th February 2025 - 8:30 am

Germany

Germany’s Friedrich Merz is gambling big. The leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is gambling with the upcoming elections, his political career, his country’s future and Europe’s future.

He is gambling that by opening—ever so slightly—the door to the German far-right that he will be able to slam it shut again after winning elections on February 23.

Ever since the end of the Second World War the mainstream political parties have maintained a firewall (or “Brandmauer”) between themselves and any far-right, neo-Nazi party that might undermine the political consensus that Germany maintain a sense of contrition for its Nazi past.

In recent years that has meant no coalitions, no deals, no talk of parliamentary support with the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD).

Merz blew a hole in the Brandmauer at the end of January when he used AfD votes in the Bundestag to push through the first reading of an anti-immigration bill. The “Influx Limitation Law” would have tightened existing immigration laws and grant police powers to detain people due for deportation and to deport immigrants at the border.”

The move provoked a stern protest from Merz’s predecessor, elder statesperson Angela Merkel. “I consider it wrong,” she said in a statement, “to abandon this commitment (the firewall) and, as a result to knowingly allow a majority vote with AfD votes in the Bundestag for the first time.”

The vote also sparked off a series of anti-AfD and pro-immigration demonstrations over the weekend.

The result was defeat for the bill at its second reading this week as 12 members of Merz’s own party voted against him.

Merz was unrepentant and has vowed even tougher anti-immigration laws if he wins the election. At the moment his party is predicted to win 30 percent of the vote. The AfD is projected to secure the number two slot with 20 percent of the vote while the opposition coalition of the Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals is likely to come in third with 29 percent.

Merz is gambling that his politics will steal some of the AfD’s far-right clothes and push up his share of the vote. But he also risks losing the centrist votes that were secured by Angela Merkel’s moderate positions. And his defeat at the second reading undermines Merz’s leadership of the CDU and runs the risk of pushing Germans concerned about immigrants into the arms of the AfD.

Europe

“Europe,” Trump recently warned, “you are next.”

The newly-elected American president was referring to those “lovely, lovely tariffs” that he is imposing left, right and centre, especially on those who dare to disagree with him.

Trump has never liked the EU. With half a billion reasonably well-off people, it is the world’s largest trading bloc, and trading bloc’s exist to protect the economic interests of their members, and they use the leverage that their size gives them to negotiate the best possible trading terms.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, european union, germany and ukraine | 7 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Death of the Two-State Solution

By Tom Arms | Sat 8th February 2025 - 9:51 am

The two-state solution is dead. Or, at the very least, it has been reduced to the one and a half state solution. But then the other Palestinian half is likely to be killed off in the next few weeks.

The concept of a Jewish and Palestinian state living side by side cannot work without American backing. No other state has the international clout or sufficient leverage over Israel.

The Palestinian state was envisaged as existing in two distinct halves—the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Donald Trump’s proposal that the US take control of Gaza, move out all the Palestinians, bulldoze it and turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” means that the US has in one press conference eliminated the Gazan half from the political equation.

The other half is expected to soon follow suit. Trump has promised a statement on the West Bank “in a matter of weeks.” In his first term he declared Israeli settlement was no longer—in his opinion—a breach of international law. He also recognised Jerusalem—which is part of the West Bank—as the capital of Israel. In his second term he quickly lifted Biden-imposed sanctions on violent Israeli West Bank settlers.

It is extremely likely that he will announce approval of Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-held wish to annex the West Bank. That means an estimated 5 million Palestinians would be forced out of their homes. Where do they go?

“They should go to new homes,” said President Trump. “Someplace where they live and not die.” Specifically, the president has suggested Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and possibly Saudi Arabia. They have all responded with an emphatic: “No way!!!”

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, gaza and israel | 17 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 2nd February 2025 - 10:43 am

United States

Lost in the blizzard of President Trump’s presidential decrees was the throwaway line that he plans to build an Israeli-style “iron dome” over the United States.

There are problems with such an ambition. For a start, the United States is 50 times bigger than Israel. Next problem is that Israel’s iron dome protects against drones, artillery attacks and short to intermediate-range missiles. Any American system would have to add long-range hypersonic intercontinental ballistic missiles to that list.

Next is the cost. Israel’s iron dome is estimated to cost $4-5 billion a year. Using the same technology, an American iron dome would cost about $120 billion. At the moment America’s entire missile defense budget is $29 billion and the total defense budget for 2025 is projected to be $852.3 billion.

The above figures are for a ground and sea-based iron dome. One of Trump’s greatest first-term boasts was the creation of the US Space Force (USSF). The force is 8,400-strong and under the command of General John Raymond. It would seem likely that Trump would want his USSF to at least contribute to the proposed iron dome.

This would involve basing satellites in space which would be armed with laser guns and kinetic missiles. There would also have to be a huge fleet of satellites based over enemy territory to spot missile launches. The advantage of a space-based system would be that the missiles could be intercepted before they reach US territory.

The disadvantages are that it would likely be construed as a breach of the 1967 UN treaty on Outer Space which prohibits the basing or use of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in space. There is also the problem of the price tag—an estimated $1 trillion.

But a space-based system cannot do the job alone. Some missiles will inevitably sneak past the laser guns. For protection against them there will need to be a complementary ground-based system as well.

Gaza

Trump is nothing if not stubborn. You could also say obstinate, inflexible, mulish, or, if you want to be kind, persistent.

His suggestion that the Gazan Palestinians be relocated in brand new homes somewhere in Jordan and/or Egypt is the latest manifestation of the first administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” programme which was negotiated by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Kushner’s January 2020 plan did not explicitly call for the resettlement of Palestinians. But it hinted that the US would provide financial incentives for them to move– $50 billion over ten years. But where? Kushner privately proposed Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. But before publishing those thoughts he contacted the leaders of those countries and was told: “No way!!!”

Resettlement of Palestinian refugees is not a new idea. It is, literally, as old as the founding of the modern state of Israel. David Ben-Gurion proposed it almost as soon as the Israeli flag was first raised. Others who have resurrected it periodically over the past 76 years include: John Foster Dulles, John Bolton, Ariel Sharon, Leader of Lebanon’s Phalange Party Bashir Gemayel, Menahem Begin, Benjamin Netanyahu, all of Israeli’s far-right religious leaders and even an Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Said.

Each time the suggestion has been raised it has been knocked down by the Palestinians and the wider Arab world. For them it has always been a non-starter

Jordan has historically been touted as the most likely home for resettled Palestinians. This is because the British Mandate included the present-day Jordan and Israel. After the 1948 war a number of Palestinian refugees fled to Jordan and were granted Jordanian citizenship. Currently about 50-70 percent of Jordan’s citizens are classified as Palestinian. But problems arose in the late 1960’s when the PLO used Jordan as its main base for guerrilla attacks on Israel. The Israelis responded in kind.

The result was that in 190-71, Jordan’s King Hussein expelled the PLO in what became known as “Black September.” Palestinians are welcome in Jordan, but not those that would antagonise Israel as many who are currently in Gaza and the West Bank might do.

As for those in Gaza and the West Bank, their views were forcefully expressed, by displaced Gazan Abu Yahya Rashid. “We are the ones who decide our fate and what we want,” he said. “This land is ours and the property of our ancestors throughout history. We will not leave it accept as corpses.”

Palestinians and Gazans are holding out for the two-state solution. Once again, Trump is consistent—this time in his opposition to what every other western country supports. The 2020 Peace to Prosperity plan proposed only a fragmented Palestinian state with limited sovereignty. The Palestinians rejected it. Mike Huckabee, Trump’s newly-appointed evangelical ambassador to Israel, has taken a step further than Kushner. “There will never,” he insisted, “be a Palestinian state.”

United States air crash

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gaza, palestine and United states of America | 5 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Millions May Die

By Tom Arms | Sat 1st February 2025 - 9:37 am

Trump’s 90-day freeze on foreign aid could be the precursor to the collapse of the UN, its corollary agencies, the World Bank, the IMF and the entire post-World War Two international order. These are not my words. They come from Sir Myles Wickstead, Britain’s leading expert on development issues whom I spoke to on Friday.

“The whole international system,” said Sir Myles, “depends on each country paying its fair share based on their national income. If a major player like the US pulls out the entire edifice is endangered.”

He also said that many would die as an immediate result of the freeze and thousands of aid workers would lose their jobs, which would have an impact on distribution in the future even if there are no long-term cuts. “Philanthropic organisations such as the Gates Foundation will be able to fill some of the gaps,” said Sir Myles, “but they have only a fraction of the money available to the US government.”

The United States is the world’s largest contributor to international development aid. In 2023 it provided $73 billion in foreign aid—more than twice as much as the next biggest contributor—the EU at $35 billion. Germany was third at £32 billion, followed by Japan $28 billion and the UK (which reduced its foreign budget from 0.7 percent of GDP to 0.5 percent).

The American freeze and anticipated cut is expected to have an especially disastrous effect on Sub Saharan Africa. More than half a dozen countries rely on development aid—mainly American—for half of their GDP. It makes up 20 per cent for more for another dozen. All 54 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa receive proportion of their income in aid.

American aid has been especially important in combatting HIV/AIDS around the world through its PEPFAR programme. It is reckoned that PEPFAR has saved 25 million lives since it was initiated in 2003. A government spokesman for South Africa, where 19 per cent of 14 to 49-year-olds suffer from HIV/AIDS, said: “Millions may die as a result of this freeze. Patients need to receive their treatments on a regular basis. If they don’t they could die. And heavens knows what will happen if there is a permanent cut.”

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged United states of America and USAID | 6 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 26th January 2025 - 10:07 am

United States

A stroke of the pen is not enough to end America’s birth right citizenship laws. Donald Trump has so many more political and legal mountains to climb before his presidential decree can take effect.

First there is the law. Already 24 Democratic states have launched lawsuits opposing Trump’s sudden end to birth right citizenship.

They are on firm ground. The Fourteenth Amendment of the US constitution says: “All persons born…in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”

Trump claims that birth right citizenship has never challenged in the courts. That is wrong. In the …

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged india, ukraine, United states of America and Venezuela | 14 Comments

Observations of an Expat: And So It Begins

By Tom Arms | Sat 25th January 2025 - 8:58 am

At the end of the first week of Trump 2.0 the world is left shell-shocked trying to find a way through an artillery barrage of presidential decrees.

He promised the decrees. He promised action. He didn’t lie. Not enough people believed him.

In less than a week Trump has—among other things—announced that he is going to end the right of citizenship for those born in the United States; closed America’s southern border and dispatched the army to help guard it.

Because Trump clashed with Anthony Fauci—the man who coordinated America’s response to covid—he has ordered that the websites for the National Institute for Health, Centre for Disease Control and Federal Drug Administration to stop issuing health advisories.

Department of Justice lawyers who worked on his prosecution plus the DoJ’s International Division and Criminal Division, are to be sacked and replaced with MAGA loyalists

Federal employees have been told that they will suffer “adverse consequences” if they refuse to turn in colleagues who “defy orders to purge” their departments of diversity, equity and inclusion measures and personnel.

The Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act were signature achievements of the Biden Administration and universally welcomed by the American business community. But they were Biden’s. Trump has scrapped them at the cost of tens of billions of dollars.

Tariffs have yet to be imposed. They are slated to be slapped on Canada and Mexico—at the 25 percent level—from 1 February. On Thursday Trump told the Davos Economic Forum that unless foreign companies moved their businesses to America they would suffer “trillions of dollars in tariffs.”

But perhaps the most disturbing of Trump’s decrees was the 1,500 pardons for the January 6 Capitol Hill riots. Not even his own vice president—JD Vance—thought he would go that far.

The Fraternal Order of Police—America’s largest police union, asked: “What happened to Republican Law and Order? This completely undermines the rule of law and is a stain on Trump’s legacy.”

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump | 16 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th January 2025 - 9:41 am

United States

Trump’s run of good luck continues. It seems likely that all but one of his cabinet nominations will be confirmed by the Senate. Congressman Matt Gaetz was the longest of long shots for Attorney General. The Ethics Committee investigation into his drug-fuelled sex antics ruled him out.

Fox News presenter Pete Hesgeth was also expected to fail in his bid to become America’s next Secretary of Defense. A seedy past and lack of experience worked against him. But Hesgeth put up a good show against tough questioning from the Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. There is nothing the Republican senators like more than a conservative who successfully fights his corner. He is expected to be confirmed on Tuesday.

The same with Pam Bondi who replaced Matt Gaetz as Trump’s choice for Attorney General. Ms Bondi sort of mollified senators when she denied that there was a “enemies list” compiled of people Trump wants prosecuted. But she then qualified this by refusing to rule out taking action against Jack Smith, the Special Prosecutor appointed to investigate the president-elect.

Smith, for his part, is clearly angry that he will not be able to drag Donald Trump into court. This week he released a partially redacted set of documents which clearly stated that if Trump had not been elected president he would be seeing his tailor for an orange onesie. The documents claimed that Trump was guilty of election interference, disrupting an official proceeding of Congress, stealing and hiding classified documents and, almost certainly, trying to overthrow the US government.

Jack Smith is, according to FBI nominee, Kash Patel, at the top of his “enemies list”. Patel has yet to be questioned by a Senate Committee, but he has publicly said that there is an enemy list. Patel, however, will be reporting to Pam Bondi.

Trump meanwhile has insisted that there is a “patriot’s list.” That is an unidentified number of people who were prosecuted for invading the Capitol Building on January 6, 2020. He has promised that he will pardon them. He does not need the assistance of Patel or Bondi to do so. He just needs a pen and paper.

Russia

They call it hybrid warfare. Russia is becoming a master practitioner across Europe and beyond. It involves, misinformation campaigns, cyberattacks espionage and sabotage of military facilities and critical infrastructure, damaging undersea pipelines and electricity cables and interfering in democratic elections.

This week Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the Russians were even plotting to blow up airliners, “not just against Poland, but against airlines across the globe,” he insisted.

Meanwhile the German government this week ordered police and the air force to shoot down the growing number of drones flying over German and American military bases and critical infrastructure. The Interior Minister said they were suspected of sabotage and espionage.

But the most disturbing incidents have involved undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic. They carry gas supplies, electricity, 95 percent of the internet traffic and $10 trillion worth of annual financial transactions.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged donald trump, india, NATO, russia, taliban and United states of America | 6 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Gaza Ceasefire

By Tom Arms | Sat 18th January 2025 - 9:34 am

They were celebrating in Gaza City when the ceasefire was announced on Wednesday. Men, women and children ran into the streets to shout, cry and pray.

Then the Israeli bombs started to fall again. 110 more Palestinians died. Shortly afterwards it was announced that a last-minute hiccup had delayed Israeli cabinet approval. Will the ceasefire hold?

The deal is the result of constant 24/7 negotiations brokered by Egypt, Qatar and the US. The bones of the agreement were announced by Biden in May. Benjamin Netanyahu, however, rejected it at the time.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden can both take a share of the credit. Biden for negotiating the deal and winning UN backing. Trump for saying he would back what Biden parleyed. It was a rare moment of cross-party foreign policy-making and undercut Netanyahu’s hopes of a better agreement from Donald Trump.

The ceasefire itself is in three clear phases. Phase one is due to start on Sunday and last six weeks. It involves the partial withdrawal of Israeli forces; an increased flow of humanitarian aid and the release of some Palestinian prisoners.

Phase two—also six weeks long—calls for the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. The return of all remaining live hostages and the release of more Palestinian prisoners and “the return to a sustainable calm.”

Phase three is the start of the reconstruction of Gaza. The return of the bodies of an estimated 32 dead hostages and the release of more Palestinian prisoners. The US, Egypt and Qatar are all committed to ensuring that both sides comply and that the ceasefire goes well beyond the first few months and becomes the basis of further agreements.

But there are a host of hurdles at which ceasefire could fall. Possibly the biggest is opposition from the Religious Zionist Party led by Finance Minister Ben Smotrich. He has said he would vote against the ceasefire unless there is a clear commitment to resume fighting once all the hostages are released. He said: “Our continued presence in the government depends on the absolute certainty of resuming the war with full force.”

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged gaza and israel | 12 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th January 2025 - 8:30 am

Why is Trump after Greenland?

Trump has three reasons for wanting to acquire Greenland:

The world’s largest island has substantial deposits of 43 out of 50 of the “rare earth” minerals.
It guards the eastern approach to the melting Northwest Passage
It straddles the route that Russian ballistic missiles would take in an attack on America’s East coast.

“Rare earth” minerals are essential to the building of batteries, computer chips and modern defense equipment. The country with the largest rare earth deposits is China. This makes Americans very nervous.

However, just because the minerals are there does not mean they can be easily extracted. Engineers have so far located 150 potential mining sites. But Arctic conditions, a labour shortage and the indigenous Innuits respect for their environment, means that after ten years, only one mine is operational.

In the early days of American exploration hundreds died searching for an ice-free passage through the Canadian Arctic linking Europe and Asia. Global warming means that within a few years ships will finally be breaking through the Northwest Passage. Greenland sits at the eastern end of what will become a major shipping lane.

It has long been recognised that the shortest route for Russian missiles attacking the US is over Greenland and Canada. That is why the US has established an early-warning system at Pituffik Space Base. Some 650 military personnel man radar systems and monitor space debris from their station 750 miles inside Greenland’s Arctic Circle.

But Trump does not need to own Greenland to place military bases there. The US has the right to build whatever military systems it requires under a 1951 treaty with the Danes, who are responsible for Greenland’s defence and foreign affairs. Trump can construct 50 more bases if he wants them.

However, it is also clear that ownership would give America greater control in other areas. It would, for instance, enable the US to introduce lax mining regulations in order to fully exploit the island’s untapped natural resources. This would, however, run counter to the daily lifestyle of the 57,000 Greenlanders who place a high premium on maintaining their unique – albeit cold – way of life.

Panama

American conservatives fought tooth and nail against relinquishing control of the Panama Canal. When the new revised treaty came before the Senate in 1977 it squeaked by with just one vote to spare.

It is not surprising therefore that ultra-conservative Donald Trump wants it back.

Unfortunately for the soon-to-be president, the reasons he has given for the re-acquisition range from outright lies to commercially dubious.

To start with, Trump says that the 50-miles of locks linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is now occupied by Chinese troops. Thus America’s security is threatened. Next, is the claim that Panama is singling out American shipping and charging it unfair prices.

It is true that China has invested heavily in Panama since 2017 when the Panamanians switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to Mainland China. The Chinese have built bridges, a railway line and a cruise ship terminal. The Hong Kong-based company Hutchison Port Holdings has also secured the contract to manage terminal facilities at both ends of the canal.

But there are no Chinese soldiers in Panama. That is a lie. If there were troops that would be a casus belli for US intervention. Under the terms of the existing US-Panama treaty, America retains the right to intervene if its security interests are threatened.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged tom arms world review | 5 Comments

Observations of an ex pat: Deep state

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th January 2025 - 8:30 am

What is the “Deep State”? How will President Donald Trump dismantle it? And why is it more likely that he will end up re-constructing it with a deeper, more biased political complexion.

If you are Donald Trump and his supporters the deep state is a living, breathing conspiracy of liberals who thwart their ambitions and conservative beliefs of how America should be run.

The deep state are a swamp of the journalists, teachers, university professors, lawyers, judges, civil libertarians, civil servants and politicians who believe that Trump lost the 2020 election and should be held accountable for his many alleged crimes.

To Trump and his supporters the deep state is comprised of regulators who block libertarian-minded Republican businessmen from opening an open-cast mine in a national park. Or they are the petti-fogging bureaucrat who stops them from planting a vegetable patch in their front garden. In short, the enemies of the deep state are those who believe that the state has gone too far in encroaching on individual liberties.

Americans love to hark back to the free-wheeling early days of the Republic. In 1800 the ratio of un-elected federal and state employees to the population as a whole was 0.05 percent. In 2024 the proportion had increased five-fold.

There are good reasons for the multiplying civil service. Over the past 225 years the world has become more complex. Special interest groups have proliferated. Elected officials have passed millions of new laws which now require an army of civil servants to administer.

A series of surveys by Partnership for Public Service show that roughly 60 percent of those civil servants are Democrats as opposed to 45 percent in the population as a whole. They also donate to liberal causes, especially if they are involved in environmental protection, diplomacy, education, social services and civil rights—the areas where Trump wants the biggest cuts. The military, homeland security and immigration are largely immune from the Republican axe and enmity. Not surprisingly their ranks are disproportionately filled with conservative Republicans.

Posted in News | Tagged observations of an ex pat | 8 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Christmas Traditions

By Tom Arms | Sat 21st December 2024 - 9:23 am

Tis the season. Egg nog, mulled wine, presents, Christmas trees, yule logs, Christmas cards, Midnight Mass, food, food and more food…. The list goes on and on. The Holiday Season is one tradition after another.

In fact, you could call it the Tradition Season just as easily as the Christmas or Holiday Season. But when and where did the traditions start? Well, they came from all over the Western world and some of the Eastern. Some have deeply religious roots. Others tell a political story. Some are strictly secular money making operations.

There was a time when Christmas was banned. And then there is the controversy about the actual birthday. The Bible does not actually give a date for the birth of Jesus, but Biblical historians believe that references to shepherds sitting outdoors at night on hills indicates that it was in the spring.

Early Christians didn’t bother with celebrating the birth of Jesus. Birthday celebrations were considered a pagan tradition. They concentrated on Easter. But Pope Julius I saw an opportunity to pull in pagan converts by setting a date for the birth of Jesus that coincided with the “birthday” of the Roman gods Mithras and Sol Invictus (25 December).

The chosen day also coincided with the feast of Saturnalia when Romans decorated their homes with wreaths (which symbolised eternal life) and greenery, including trees. They also indulged in a week of constant partying and exchanged gifts. Sound familiar?

But other Christmas traditions go back further. Archaeologists have uncovered proof that Druids made extensive use of the parasitic mistletoe during winter solstice celebrations. They believed it encouraged fertility which of course led to the association with kissing, and we all know what kissing leads to.

The actual feasting element is believed to extend back to the start of farming in around 10,000 BCE. It was introduced for the eminently practical reason that farmers could not afford to feed their animals through the winter, so they ritually slaughtered them at the Winter Solstice and ate them.

Posted in Op-eds | Tagged christmas | 3 Comments

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