Author Archives: Tom Arms

Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Nikki Haley

By Tom Arms | Sat 16th December 2023 - 9:33 am

Presidential wannabe Nikki Haley is a charismatic, hard-headed woman who hides her ambition and political nous behind a veil of southern charm.

In 2016 candidate Donald Trump attacked her for suggesting he release his tax returns, the then Governor Haley, flashed an ironic smile and replied: “Bless your Heart.”

Trump simply smiled back. He did not realise that the phrase was Carolina code for “May you rot in Hell.”

The steel magnolia allure of Ms Haley has taken this daughter of Sikh immigrants from the South Carolina legislature to the state governor’s mansion, to the ambassador’s job at the UN and finally to the number two position in the race to win the Republican nomination for the US presidency.

She is yet to become a real threat to front-runner Trump, but she has emerged as the only outside chance.

Haley was a reluctant Trump supporter in 2016. She started off backing Marco Rubio and when he dropped out she switched Ted Cruz. Trump’s rhetoric, she warned, “would lead to violence.”

But in the end Party loyalty won out and one of the most powerful and popular Republican governors endorsed the Trump campaign. In 2017 she was rewarded with the job of US Ambassador to the United Nations.

At the UN former governor now Ambassador Haley agreed and disagreed with Trump. She agreed with him on withdrawal from the Paris Climate. The Iran Nuclear Accord and the UN Human Rights Council. She is – and still is – a big supporter of Israel. But Ambassador Haley opposed Trump’s, threats to NATO, the Muslim ban and his bromance with Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. “Instead of praising dictators,” she said, “we should have the backs of our allies.”

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 10th December 2023 - 10:44 am

Ukraine

Remember Ukraine? A reminder: It is the East European country sandwiched between Russia and Poland which Russia invaded in February 2022.

You would be forgiven for letting it slip from your political consciousness. Six months ago it and its president Volodomyr Zelensky were being hailed as the “democratic shield” protecting the West from land-hungry autocratic Russia.

Now it has been pushed out of the headlines the corridors of concern by the war in Gaza and whichever crisis comes next.

The problem is that Ukraine cannot afford to slip off the front pages. It needs a successful PR campaign to stay in the war and keep the shield intact. Its armaments industry and its population are limited.

Russia’s manpower pool is four times the size of Ukraine’s. Its historic label is “steamroller.” Its armaments industry is ten times larger and was preparing years before the war started. It is also receiving weapons from Iran, North Korea and possibly China.

It is weapons that are particularly important at the moment, especially artillery shells which are used by both sides to hold the enemy at bay. Russia is estimated to have fired 22,000 rounds a day during the summer to stymie the Ukrainian counter-offensive. The Ukrainians fired 5,000 rounds.

European members of NATO promised Ukraine 1 million rounds of artillery shells by the end of 2023. It will fall well short of that target, although several European countries–  including Germany, the Netherlands, Britain, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Finland and the Baltic states—have started to increase their armaments production. However, a lot of the increased production will go towards replacing depleted national stocks.

America, is, of course, the historic “arsenal of democracy.” But President Biden’s promised support is being held up by Republican congressmen who either want to divert money to Israel or feel that Ukraine is solely a European problem.

If the defense of Ukraine is left entirely to Europe then the hard-pressed European economies will have to increase armaments production even more. At the current rate, the million promised rounds is only enough to keep the Ukrainian guns firing for another six months.

UK and Rwanda

Britain’s Rwanda asylum issue is morphing into a constitutional crisis. At stake is the independence of the British judiciary, a long-established cornerstone of the country’s democratic foundations.

The UK Supreme Court recently threw out government plans to fly asylum seekers to the central African country of Rwanda. The basis of their decision was that the proposal was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention on Refugees and three British acts of parliament relating to asylum seekers and refugees. Rwanda was not safe, ruled the court, because its government was likely to return asylum seekers to the country from which they had fled. This is known as refoulement.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Colonial Problem

By Tom Arms | Sat 9th December 2023 - 9:44 am

A colonial era Latin American border dispute is threatening to blow up into a major conflict involving the United States, Brazil, Venezuela, the tiny country of Guyana and possibly Britain as the former colonial power.

The catalyst is the discovery of large oil and gas deposits off the coast of the Essequibo region which is claimed by both Venezuela and Guyana. It has been occupied by Guyana since 1840.

On December 3, President Nicolas Maduro held a referendum in Venezuela in which 95 percent of those balloted voted in favour of annexing the 100,000 square mile Essequibo region which is two-thirds of Guyanese territory. It should be noted that international observers labelled the referendum “grossly unfair” and with a “low turnout”. Furthermore, no one in the Essequibo region voted.

International criticism, however, has not stopped Maduro from ordering foreign companies out of the jungles of Essequibo and the exclusive economic zone off the coast.

Venezuela has also mobilised its army of 100,000 in preparation for a possible invasion. Guyana has put its 7,000 troops on alert. And Brazil has sent troops to its border with Venezuela because the Venezuelan army would have to pass through Brazil to attack Guyana.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has said America will protect Guyana’s sovereignty and additional US warships have been dispatched to the Caribbean for manoeuvres with Guyana’s five-boat navy.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 26th November 2023 - 8:45 am

Diplomatic Miracles do happen.

And if you need proof just look at the exchange of hostages currently taking place between Hamas and the Israeli government.

Enmity, internal divisions and complex diplomatic channels have all been overcome to allow not only a hostages-for-Palestinian-prisoners exchange but also a ceasefire and aid convoy into Gaza.

There were problems. One was the opposition by far-right Israeli cabinet ministers to any agreement on anything with Hamas. The other was the fact that 50 of the roughly 240 hostages were held not by Hamas but the even more extreme Islamic Jihad.

Then there were the complex diplomatic channels. There are no direct links between Hamas and Israel. Instead the Israelis talked to the Americans who talked to the Qataris who talked to Hamas who talked to Islamic Jihad. There was—still is—a danger of mixed or misinterpreted signals in this game of diplomatic Chinese whispers.

But so far so good. The two sides have agreed a four-day ceasefire during which the Palestinians will release 13 Israeli hostages a day. As soon as their release is confirmed, Israel will set free 50 Palestinians held in Israeli prisoners.

At the same time, the aid convoy that has been sitting on the Gaza-Egyptian border will cross into Gaza to deliver much needed water, fuel, food and energy supplies. 300 lorries are expected to cross the border today (Friday). The UN World Food Programme says it is not enough, but it is a start for the 2.2 million aid dependents Gazans.

There is even another potential diplomatic miracle. According to diplomatic sources, the Israelis have offered to extend the ceasefire a day at a time in return for the release of 20 hostages per day.

But hanging over the good news is the real danger that the ceasefire could quickly collapse.  There are many danger points. One is that Islamic Jihad may back out of the hostage deal. Relations between it and Hamas are poor.

The other is Israeli insistence that Palestinians who have fled northern Gaza for southern Gaza do not return home during the ceasefire. They fear that returning Palestinians would include Hamas fighters. But from the Gazans point of view, they want to retrieve their belongings and, in many cases, bury their dead.

Then there is the very real possibility that a frightened, nervous, hate-filled and trigger-happy Israeli soldier or Hamas fighter will loose a deadly rifle volley.

Finally, there is the possibility of a major conflict with Hezbollah on the Israel-Lebanon border. Hezbollah attacks have significantly increased since October 7, but so far the presence of two US aircraft carriers off the coast of Lebanon has been an effective deterrent.

The Argentina peso may soon be no more. 

The country’s newly-elected anarcho-capitalist (his phrase) president Javier Milei wants to ditch it for the US dollar.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex Pat: Geert

By Tom Arms | Sat 25th November 2023 - 8:47 am

White-haired Dutch politician Geert Wilders hates the label far-right. Neither is he particularly fond of being called an extremist or fascist.

Wilders also dislikes Islam, the Koran, the EU, asylum seekers, and most foreigners in general. He is the avowed leader of the “Counter-Jihad Movement.”

He has been in and out of Dutch courts on hate charges; was banned for several years from Britain, Germany and Austria and has a permanent armed police guard to protect him from assassination. Wilders has attacked the Koran as a “fascist book”, Mohammed as “the devil” and Islam is a “retarded culture.”

He does have likes. They include: Vladimir Putin, Margaret Thatcher and Israel. He is less keen on France’s Marine Le Pen and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. On Donald Trump he is ambivalent. He approves of Trump’s anti-Muslim and America first policies, but questions his honesty and claims to have won the 2020 elections.

The leader of the Dutch Freedom Party also wants to turn back the clock to 1830 and reunite the Netherlands with the Flemish-speaking region of Belgium.

Wilders political beliefs are important because he is in line to be the next Prime Minister of the Netherlands. And as one of the founding members of the European Community the Netherlands has an outsized voice in the EU and beyond.

His premiership is not guaranteed. The Netherlands has a proportional representation system and a leader needs an outright majority of the 150-seat parliament to form a coalition. Wilders this week won the most seats—37– but the other main parties have either point-blank refused to serve with

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th November 2023 - 9:15 am

China and USA

The Sino-American goalposts have changed. Two years ago, the Chinese economy was booming and the US was struggling to emerge from a damaging coronavirus pandemic.

But as Presidents Biden and XI met in San Francisco this week the American economy was booming at 4.7 percent. The Chinese economy was reeling from a burst property bubble and government crackdowns have led to a flight of foreign capital.

When the Chinese star was in the ascendant so were the sabre-rattling “Wolf Warriors”. But the changed circumstances has led to the dismissal of bellicose foreign minister Qin Gang and last month Xi replaced Defense Minister General Li Shangu who was under US sanctions for overseeing the sale of weapons to Russia.

Beijing cannot afford poor relations with Washington at the moment. And Washington – with the problems of Ukraine, Gaza and forthcoming presidential elections, doesn’t want to have to worry about China. All of which could explain why the leaders of the world’s most powerful countries managed a cordial meeting in San Francisco this week.

But will it hold and can they build on it? The question is still hanging. A week before the meeting US and Chinese diplomats held a meeting to discuss each other’s nuclear arsenals. It was the first such a meeting and a good sign.

Climate change is clearly a topic to build on. It is difficult for the two biggest economies to dispute the importance of saving the planet. There are differences on how to handle fossil fuels but agreement on methane gas emissions.

A big topic in the US is opioid abuse, in particular fentanyl. A sizeable chunk of the drug is produced in Chinese laboratories and shipped to America. Last year fentanyl was responsible for 75,000 American deaths. The two leaders agreed to discuss the issue further Xi stressed that the easiest way to stop the problem would be for Americans to stop buying the drug.

Touchiest topic is Taiwan. On that Biden-Xi agreed to disagree. But they did agree to resume communications between each other’s military establishments. These were suspended after the visit to Taiwan of US Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Both sides that it was vital for the opposing militaries to talk to one another to avoid accidents. As Xi put it: “Conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides.”

Taiwan

The potential spanner in the Sino-American diplomatic thaw is January’s presidential and parliamentary elections in Taiwan.

At the moment the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) controls both the presidency and the parliament and opinion polls show them way ahead to stay in power.

This is not good news for either Washington or Beijing. This is because the DPP is moving Taiwan to declare itself an independent sovereign nation. This is opposed by Beijing because Taiwan would then be able to offer itself as a multi-party capitalist democratic alternative to the one-party autocracy on the mainland.

The US administration would be unhappy because an independent Taiwan would undermine its policy of “strategic ambiguity” which allows it bestow de jure diplomatic recognition on communist China while enjoying de facto relations with Taiwan.

The problem is an old one. It dates back to 1949 when the Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan and claimed to represent all of China from the offshore island. Until 1979 successive American administrations agreed with him.

The unilateral independence route is not a foregone conclusion. The Kuomintang Party (KMT) is committed to watering down the independence demands and improving relations with Beijing. This week the party announced it was joining forces with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to fight the elections. The outcome could have far-reaching consequences.

Turkey and Germany

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: The Revenge of Trump

By Tom Arms | Sat 18th November 2023 - 10:16 am

Vengeance is mine sayeth ex-president Donald Trump. And he is preparing to wreak it on his political opponents.

Beavering away in the back rooms of Trump campaign headquarters are scores of political acolytes drawing up plans for a second Trump Administration.

The first term caught Trump and his supporters unprepared. The 2016 presidential transition is regarded by many as one of the worst in American history with key appointments taking months – sometimes years – to be filled. And when the jobs were assigned the people were either ill-suited, ill-prepared or – in Trump’s opinion – not loyal enough.

According to a range of sources inside and outside the Trump campaign, that will not happen if Donald Trump is returned to the White House in 2024. The right people have been identified; are being briefed and will hit the ground running with policies and legislation that will make Trump’s first term look like a Victorian tea party.

For a start, the ex-president is out for revenge. He is a man who bears a grudge and acts on it. His key targets are said to be President Biden, his family, former Attorney General William Barr, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the courts, the civil service and anyone who says he lost the 2020 presidential election.

Donning the victim’s mantle, he has already claimed that he is fighting for every little man and woman who – like him – “has been wronged and betrayed. I am,” he told this year’s Conservative Political Action Convention, “your retribution.”

But there is more, as Trump made clear in near-apocalyptic terms in a recent Veteran’s Day speech in which he pledged “to root out the radical left-wing thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

As for policies, on the domestic front, the ex-president plans to cut taxes, reduce federal spending, dramatically increase the number of political appointments to federal jobs, re-impose his Muslim ban, deport children born in the US of illegal foreign parents, finish building his southern border wall, defund the FBI, impose the death penalty on drug dealers, ban teachers from teaching multi-culturalism and multi-racism, increase oil and gas production, impose a ten percent tariff on all imports and punish doctors who help transsexual patients.

And if anyone dares to take to the streets to protest, Trump says he will invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to suppress them.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th November 2023 - 12:00 pm

Anti-semitism

Anti–Semitism is rocketing worldwide. In London, the Metropolitan Police, reported that that incidents of anti-Semitism increased 1,350 percent since October 7. Similar figures are emerging from the US, France, Germany, the Netherlands….

This is because the Israeli government has become a symbol violent oppression and far-right intolerance based on religion.

And the sad fact is, too many people conflate Judaism with Israel. They fail to recognise that there are a sizeable number of Jews in Israel who do not support Netanyahu and there is an even larger number of Jews outside Israel who do not support his Likud-led coalition.

However, a large number of people instead wrongly believe that the actions of the Netanyahu government are a mirror reflection of the views of worldwide Jewry. This is partly because Israel was created as a homeland for Jews and all Jews have the right to citizenship in Israel.

In a way the global wave of anti-Semitism is in the interests of Netanyahu. It reinforces the view of Jews as victims and allows him to claim that he is fighting for all Jews. Otherwise, why would people be attacking innocent Jews outside Israel?

It is complicated and sad. For many years – while successive Israeli governments struggled to establish the Jewish state against the odds – the link between Israel and Judaism worked in favour of world Jewry. Now that Israel is seen by many as oppressive and undemocratic it works against then.

West Bank

Spare a thought for the West Bank. In fact, focus on it, because if you fail to do so, it may well erupt into an even more violent conflagration then what we are seeing in Gaza.

The West Bank, unlike Gaza, is not under the control of Hamas. It is nominally controlled by the Palestinian Authority which in turn is controlled by the remnants of the PLO. In reality, however, security on the West Bank is in the hands of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) which means Israel controls the West Bank.

Eighty-two percent of the West Bank’s residents are Palestinians. The remainder are Jews. They are illegal because since 1967 the international community has refused to recognise Israeli sovereignty over the territory and branded most of the Jewish settlements as illegal.

There are an estimated 600,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Most of them are Orthodox Jews who claim the land as part of God’s contract with the Jews.

As the number of Illegal settlers have increased so have demands that the West Bank (Judea and Samaria of the Old Testament) be formally annexed. To help matters along, some settlers have taken to attacking Palestinian settlements, driving them out of their homes and, in some cases, murdering them.

Some members of the current Israeli cabinet are, in fact, illegal West Bank settlers. One of them, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is responsible for security issues. He has been seen in recent weeks handing out guns to settlers on the West Bank.

Since 7 October the settlers have increased their attacks on West Bank Palestinians partly because they see an opportunity and partly to pre-empt retribution by West Bank Palestinians in support for their countrymen trapped in Gaza. According to the UN, nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in settler attacks since 7 October. The UN adds that the Israeli army has done nothing to stop the attacks.

There is little that West Bank Palestinians can do in response. There have been demonstrations in Ramallah, Hebron or Nablus, but security is tightly controlled by the Palestinian Authority working in conjunction with the Israeli military. For the moment they have a lid on the security situation. But then, they thought they had a lid on Gaza.

USA Republican Party

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: A sad tale

By Tom Arms | Sat 11th November 2023 - 9:09 am

The story of Israel is possibly the world’s oldest and saddest. It stretches back Millennia to God’s land deal with Abraham and encompasses wars, slavery, a long and bitter diaspora, pogroms, and the Holocaust.

And that is just the Jewish side. On the Palestinian side (or if you prefer, Arab), there is colonialism, wars, displacement, refugee camps, unemployment, and their own diaspora.

But let’s start with the Jews and relatively modern history. In 1917 the British government issued the Balfour Declaration which set aside the British mandate of Palestine (as it was then known) as a homeland for the Jews. But there was a proviso, Jewish rights were not to be realised at the expense of the resident Arabs.

This obvious contradiction led to The Israelis fighting against the British and Palestinian Arabs for the right to create their own state.  In 1948 they succeeded and emerged as underdog heroes; rising from centuries of discrimination and the horrors of the Holocaust. However, the tactics they used to achieve their political success was terrorism.

When the infant Jewish state defeated the Arab armies in 1948, 1967, 1956 and 1973 its leaders morphed from terrorists to soldiers. Now they were heroes carving a modern successful nation out of an arid wilderness.

But there are two sides to every story. If the Jews are the most oppressed people in 3,500 years of history then the Palestinian Arabs are possibly the most oppressed in modern history.

It is true that in 1947 they were offered a separate Palestinian state in an UN-partitioned Palestine. With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight they should have accepted the deal. But at the time they saw no reason to give up the land that their families had lived on for centuries. The Jews said their God had given them the land. But the Jewish God was not their God.

In fact, it was not the Palestinians themselves who fought in 1948. It was mainly the Arab states with the help of poorly equipped and ill-trained Palestinians. The Arab states were more interested in an anti-colonial war to stop the establishment of a Western outpost in the Middle East than they were in upholding Palestinian rights.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 29th October 2023 - 11:38 am

Trump

Trump has been too tight-fisted for his own good. That is the judgement of number of those observing the trial of ex-president Donald Trump on racketeering charges related to his alleged efforts to subvert the Georgia electoral process.

So far, three lawyers and one bail-bondsman out of 19 of Trump’s co-defendants – have flipped, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against the ex-president.

One of the main reasons for their change of heart is believed to be astronomical legal fees. America’s top legal eagles are expected to turn up in the Georgia courtroom for the Trump trial. Their fees can be as high as $5,000 per hour and each defendant is expected to have two or three attorneys each for the six-month trial.

The fees for just one lawyer could run to $3.6 million. The latest co-defendant to change sides is Jenna Ellis. Her crowdfunding page raised $216, 431 for legal fees – a drop in the proverbial ocean. This means that most of the co-defendants face the prospect of bankruptcy unless they turn against Trump.

The ex-president may have been able to retain their loyalty by paying their legal fees. He has refused to do so. All the money being raised by his crowdfunding efforts is going to his legal fees alone, except for what he can siphon off for his presidential campaign.

There are other reasons for bail bondsman Scott Hall, and lawyers Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro to switch sides. Agreeing to help the prosecution means that prison time has been more or less ruled out. And the lawyers are hoping that the most they will be found guilty of is a misdemeanour. If the jury opts for a felony charge then they will be disbarred and lose their legal license.

There are, however, risks in turning against Trump. He has repeatedly proven himself to be a vengeful man with thousands of followers prepared to harass those who turn up against him and even issue death threats. And death by shooting is a very real danger in America – as the people in Lewiston, Maine discovered this week.

Israel

Why are we waiting? Is the question being asked by thousands of Israeli soldiers camped on the Gaza border and in the street cafes of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised a ground invasion of Gaza to end the power of Hamas once and for all. But so far no Israeli boots have trod on Gaza ground.

There have been a lot of exploding artillery shells – an estimated 8,000 of them. And there has been a watertight blockade which has left 2.2 million Gazans without food, water, electricity and vital medicines. As a result an estimated 6,000 Gazans – many of them women and children – have died, and the world’s sympathy is shifting from Israel to Gaza.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: MAGA wins

By Tom Arms | Sat 28th October 2023 - 9:48 am

MAGA has won the Speakership of America’s House of Representatives.

It is difficult to be more MAGA-like than Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson.

He is opposed to Ukraine; supports Israel; maintains that Trump won the 2020 election; is a born again evangelical Christian who quotes the Bible whenever possible; voted against the Biden budget; is a member of the right-wing Freedom caucus;  is opposed to same-sex marriage; opposes abortion and has Trump’s endorsement.

Moderate Republicans – and just about everyone else – were terrified at the prospect of the election of right-wing “legislative terrorist” Jim Jordan. He seemed more intent on tearing down the political establishment then working with it. So they blocked him, again and again and again.

The moderates wanted Minnesota Congressman Tom Emmer wielding the Speaker’s gavel. They looked as if they might succeed. Then Donald Trump interceded – in a complete reversal of his previously stated neutrality, and in contravention of all political conventions – slammed Emmer for voting to certify Joe Biden’s election and endorsed Mike Johnson.

By this time the moderates had been worn to a frazzle by long nights, ruined weekends and endless rounds of votes. They risked being blamed for a government shutdown if a Speaker was not chosen soon as well as being accused of preventing vital aid reaching war-torn Israel and Ukraine. They voted for Johnson for an easy life.

They will most likely live to regret it. Moderate Republicans are telling themselves that the lesser of two evils has been elected. But the only real difference between Jim Jordan and Mike Johnson is the decibel levels at which they operate. Jordan’s reputation is as a loud-mouthed arch-conservative bully. Johnson is quieter. He has as worked more in the Capitol Hill shadows and he has not been in Washington as long as Jordan. But Johnson is every bit as uncompromisingly far-right as Jordan and just as ruthless in pursuit of his political agenda. The difference is style, not substance.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 22nd October 2023 - 9:51 am

Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin must be delighted by the Gaza Crisis.

It ticks a number of Moscow’s foreign policy boxes. For a start, it distracts the world from his war crimes in Ukraine and allows him to point the blame finger at America’s absolute support for Israel.

Russia’s Middle East policy is complicated. It supports Bashar al-Assad in Syria, but Putin also has a close personal relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has used that relationship to stop Israel from sending weapons to Ukraine.

Russia has also refused to go along with most of the rest of the world in branding …

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Threading the diplomatic needle

By Tom Arms | Sat 21st October 2023 - 9:42 am

An American-led offensive is desperately trying to thread a narrow diplomatic needle and prevent the Gaza Crisis from exploding into an uncontrollable wider war.

Joe Biden, Olof Scholz and Rishi Sunak have all been to Israel this week. Emmanuel Macron and Giorgia Meloni will soon follow.

Together they are known as “The Quint” and they are all preaching the same message: 1- Support for Israel and its right to defend itself. 2- Total condemnation of Hamas. 3- The need to differentiate between Hamas and Palestinians. 4- The urgent need for humanitarian aid to reach Gaza residents 5- Prevent the red mist from blinding Israel to the wider consequences of a no-holds barred invasion of Gaza. 6- Deter Iran.

The foundational premise of the diplomatic offensive is that American support for Israel is granite-like. The oppressive security-heavy policies of successive Likud-led governments has chipped away at American backing. But the American-buttressed plinth on which Israel sits is so large that it is unlikely to ever be reduced to rubble.

Alongside Israeli over-reaction is the associated problem of Iran’s reaction to the Gaza crisis. Its foreign minister (Hossein Amir Abdollahian) has threatened to activate the “Axis of Resistance” if Israeli forces move into Gaza. In fact, Tehran may have already done so. On Thursday the American warship USS Carney intercepted Israeli-bound missiles fired by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. US troops in Syria and Iraq have suffered drone attacks and Hezbollah has launched missile attacks from southern Lebanon.

In response to the Iranian threat, the US has moved two aircraft carriers into the eastern Mediterranean and 2,000 additional troops into the region. Washington said they are meant as a deterrent.  On the diplomatic front, Washington is relying mainly on Qatar to act as a go-between. The Gulf kingdom has good relations with Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran as well as playing host to 10,000 American troops. Japan, which has reasonable diplomatic relations with Tehran, has also offered its services.

The immediate focus of the Western countries is humanitarian aid to Gaza. This is a signal to the Arab countries that while condemning Hamas, they do not hold the Palestinians as a whole responsible for their actions. President Biden has pledged $100 million. The EU has trebled its assistance to Gaza to $75 million and the UK has increased its aid to $12.8 million. Canada and Japan have upped their aid to $10 million each and Australia is sending $32.4 million in aid to Gaza

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review – 15 October 2023

By Tom Arms | Sun 15th October 2023 - 10:40 am

Ukraine

Lest we forget in the turmoil of the Middle East, there is an important war being fought in Eastern Europe. Russia has launched what appears to be a counter to the Ukrainian counter-offensive. Bitter fighting has been reported around the town of Avdiika.  Volodomyr Zelensky has said his men are holding their own, but it should be acknowledged that the Ukrainians have suffered heavy losses in their summer counter-offensive.

One of Ukraine’s biggest concerns is keeping the lights on. The Russian-controlled nuclear power plant at Zaporizhia supplied 48 percent of Ukraine’s energy needs. A significant chunk of the remainder of Ukraine’s electricity network was knocked out last winter by Russian missile and drone attacks. Much of it has been patched up in a fashion that would do Heath Robinson proud. But Ukrainians fear that their patched up energy infrastructure will collapse under another attack this winter. President Zelensky visited NATO HQ again this week to appeal for more air defences and jet fighters. One positive factor on the energy front, is that Ukraine is now plugged into the wider European grid, but that still does not supply all of its needs.

Nuclear weapons

Meanwhile, general relations between the West and Russia are expected to take another knock next week when the Russian Duma votes on whether withdrawal from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The vote is widely expected to be a resounding yes. The Russians have already withdrawn from the INF Treaty, START and New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Talks) and the Comprehensive Weapons in Europe Treaty. The test ban treaty is the last agreement to be scuppered in the mosaic of Cold War and post-Cold War treaties.

While the Russian parliament is voting, NATO will be conducting its annual nuclear exercise codenamed “Steadfast Noon”. It involves fighter jets capable of delivering nuclear weapons, although no such nukes will be on the planes. The exercise will be conducted over Italy, Croatia and the Mediterranean. Russia has already objected.

Polish Elections

Poland is on the political knife-edge this week as it prepares to go to the polls on Sunday. The stakes could not be higher. Opinion surveys put the ruling right-wing PiS (or Law and Justice) Party ahead, but without enough votes to form a government. Nipping at its heels is Civic Coalition, led by liberal centrist Donald Tusk, a former Polish Prime Minister and president of the European Council.

If PiS wins an overall majority—or is able to form a coalition with even more right-wing parties—then it will be their third successive government. This means that many of the policies that they have enacted will be almost impossible to reverse. These include a virtual ban on abortion, politicisation of the judiciary, increasing control of the media and academia and a curb on LGBTQ rights. Most recently the PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski announced that Poland was stopping military aid to Ukraine because it needed to restock its own weapons store.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an ex pat: Worst and much, much worse

By Tom Arms | Sat 14th October 2023 - 11:55 am

Too often the choice facing international decision makers is not between good and bad but between bad and worst. In the Middle East, at the moment, it appears to be between worst and much, much worse.

The possible consequences of the likely Israeli reaction to the attack by Hamas are terrifying and potentially global in their impact.

Let’s start with Israel itself. The overwhelming majority of Israelis are calling for massive retribution for a terrorist assault which left 1,300 dead, 3,300 injured and 150 held hostage in underground Hamas dungeons. It would be difficult for any Israeli government to ignore the public demands. For arch-conservative Benjamin Netanyahu it is nigh impossible.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has formed an emergency government of national unity. He has also called up Israel’s 350,000 reservists who will be added to the 150,000 Israeli troops on active service. The bulk of this force are already massing on the Gaza border waiting for the whistle to launch a ground offensive.

There will also be major deployments on the borders with Lebanon and Syria to prevent Hezbollah from joining the fray. And in the West Bank to control Palestinians there.

Massive and painful retribution appears inevitable. But what detailed form will it take and how will the world react? Gaza has been subjected to Israeli ground offensives and occupations in the past. These have resulted in a temporary reprieve. But each has been costly in military lives and cash expended. Neither has solved the long-term problem. Successive Israeli governments have failed to grasp the fact that oppression is not a long-term security solution.

This Israeli offensive is likely to be different. Already they have imposed a total blockade of Gaza. No food, water, energy, medicine or any goods of any kind are allowed into one of the most densely populated and impoverished strips of land in the world. A million residents in the northern half have been warned to immediately move to the southern part of Gaza, and all Gazans have been advised to leave their homes.

But they have nowhere to go. Their only other land border is with Egypt which has refused them asylum and has worked with Israel to enforce a long-term blockade. The possibility of a heavy handed response is very real. How the world reacts could result in fearful consequences.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 8th October 2023 - 10:46 am

United States

The ripple effects following the ejection of Kevin McCarthy from the Speaker’s chair in the US House of Representatives are severe and wide-reaching. The issues most affected are moderates in the Republican Party, Ukraine and the credibility of the United States.

The mainstream of the Republican Party – or at least the congressional caucus – is not as unreasonably far-right as it is portrayed. Out of the 221 Republican members of the lower house, only 40 are signed up members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus. And of those, only about 20 could be considered extreme right by American standards.

The problem is that the Freedom Caucus – especially the far-right 20 or so members – are really a separate political party using the broad coattails of the Republican establishment to pursue policies which are antithetical to their own party. They can succeed in their aims because the Republicans’ majority as a whole is so narrow that the Freedom Caucus holds the balance of power.

In practice this means that the next Speaker could easily be Congressman Jim Jordan, a rabid Trump supporter and founding member of the Freedom Caucus. He has already secured the ex-president’s endorsement.

It also means that Ukraine will find it difficult to secure the next tranche of US military aid it has been promised. For the Freedom Caucus and Donald Trump the issue of self-determination and respect for the rule of law comes after support for Vladimir Putin.

The ejection of McCarthy also makes a US government shutdown almost certain.  It was McCarthy’s successful 11th-hour deal to prevent a shutdown which provided the straw that broke the back of the caucus camel. Any future Speaker will be all too aware that he will suffer the same fate if he allows Biden’s budget through Congress.

All of the above bolsters the belief that political divisions are rendering the US ungovernable. This in turn undermines credibility at home and abroad. America is the recognised standard bearer of world democracy. Alternative systems—especially Russia, China and Iran—argue that if democracy can’t work in America… then it can’t work.

Ukraine

Support for Ukraine this week suffered a blow on the European side of the Atlantic as well as the American.

It came in the form of an election victory for the pro-Russian Slovakian politician Robert Fico and his Direction-Social Democracy (or SMER-SD) Party. Fico’s party failed to win an outright majority in parliament, but with 24 percent of the votes it is the largest single party and is currently in coalition talks with smaller pro-Russian parties.

They have until 16 October to form a government and in the interim period have announced an end to all aid to Ukraine; a block on Ukrainian membership of NATO and an end to Slovakian support for EU sanctions against Russia.

Unlike most of the current batch of European populist parties, SMER-SD is left as opposed to right-wing. This, however, has not prevented Hungary’s populist right-winger Viktor Orban from welcoming Fico’s victory. Clearly common ground on the populist positions on the EU, Russia, gay rights, woke culture, immigration, media restrictions, curbs on the judiciary, sanctions and the war in Ukraine trumps the political spectrum issue.

This is not Fico’s first run at Slovak prime minister. He was initially elected to the job in 2012 with a whopping 83-seat majority. He was forced into coalition after the 2016 election and shortly afterward ran unsuccessfully for the presidency. In 2018 he was forced to resign as prime minister after the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. He had been investigating the Slovakian mafia and police later linked Maria Troskova, Fico’s assistant, to the gangs.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Pivotal Turkey

By Tom Arms | Sat 7th October 2023 - 9:44 am

Turkey is emerging as a pivotal country in the Ukraine War. As the fighting on land grinds to a bloody stalemate, the importance of naval power has dramatically increased.

As far as Ukraine and Russia are concerned this means the Black Sea and the Bosphorus and Dardanelles that links the sea to the wider world.  Turkey has control over these straits through a series of conventions dating back to the early 19th century.

Unsurprisingly, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is using his position to extract every possible concession from the Russians, Ukrainians and NATO.

At the start of the war the naval balance weighed heavily in Russia’s favour. The Ukrainians had one warship stuck in the repair yard. Moscow, on the other had its Crimea-based Black Sea fleet of 40 surface ships and seven submarines.

Putin used his naval superiority to good advantage. A successful amphibious landing was staged at Mariupol and the Sea of Azov and Kerch Straits were closed to Ukrainian shipping. Odessa and other southern Ukrainian ports were effectively closed by a Russian blockade, bombardment and minefield.

Then the Ukrainians hit back with shore to ship missiles and drones. The first major victim was the fleet flagship, the cruiser Moskva. Then the bridge connecting Russia to Crimea was bombed and now Russian naval installations on Crimea are under bombardment.

Putin badly needs to reinforce his Black Sea naval forces with ships from the Pacific, Baltic and Mediterranean commands. But he can’t. And the reason for this takes us back to the 19th  and early 20th centuries and Moscow’s perennially unsuccessful efforts to gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 1st October 2023 - 10:20 am

Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh is no more. The centuries-old Christian enclave has finally been absorbed into Muslim and Turkish-dominated Azerbaijan. Tens of thousands of residents have fled to refuge in Armenia and many more face the possibility of persecution.

The fate of Nagorno-Karabakh has been in dispute since the Persian Empire hived off a considerable slice of the Armenian Kingdom in the seventh century. Since the end of the Cold War it has been the cause of two wars and innumerable skirmishes between Azerbaijan backed Turkey and Armenia backed by Russia.

The end of Nagorno-Karabakh has signalled a major shift in the geopolitical forces in the southern Caucasus. Russia and Vladimir Putin have suffered a major blow. They are the historic protectors of Armenian interests in the region and the main reason that landlocked Nagorno-Karabakh existed as an autonomous political entity for as long as it did.

But the Ukraine War has siphoned off Russian military resources, including some of the 1,000 Russian peacekeepers who were keeping the Turkic-speaking Azerbaijanis at bay. As a result, the Armenians lost faith in the protective abilities of Russian sponsors and allowed themselves to be seduced by American blandishments. They even went so far as to sign up to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court which has issued a warrant for the arrest of Vladimir Putin.

The problem is that geography, history and cultural links meant that Russia was always the Armenians best bet.

France

France is undergoing its own version of climate change-wrought water wars.

Soaring temperatures have dried up groundwater resources and reduced the water available from snow and glacial melt in the Alps and Pyrenees. To compensate the government is forced to rely increasingly on reservoirs. These are being partly filled with rainwater and partly by diminishing groundwater resources.

More than 100 plastic-lined mega reservoirs have been built or earmarked for construction. Their capacity is equivalent to 1,600 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

All this sounds like the government is responding to the shortage. But the problem is how the water is shared. French farmers are a big lobby and agriculture is being given priority for irrigation purposes as opposed to domestic and industrial users.

But even among the farming community there are disagreements. Because of the cost of pumping stations, the farms nearest to the reservoirs are the ones that benefit. That is only about 15 percent of the farms. The result is that farmers are fighting farmers, domestic users are fighting farmers and industrial users. Industrial users are fighting farmers and domestic users and everybody is fighting the government. A series of demonstrations has so far led to about 500 injuries.

Climate change

There have been two significant developments on climate change law this week.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Not So Evergrande

By Tom Arms | Sat 30th September 2023 - 7:55 am

Uncertainty – political and economic – is the buzzword doing the rounds as the world faces the imminent collapse of Chinese property giant Evergrande.

And the market – in fact everyone – hates uncertainty.

No one knows how the secretive Communist Party leader Xi Jinping will react. Will he take the view that Evergrande is too big to fail or too big to save?

What will be the reaction of the millions of Chinese who are set to lose the money they gave to Evergrande and Country Garden (the other Chinese property company on the brink of collapse) for unfinished homes?

Will the problem of Chinese homelessness, high youth unemployment (currently running at 21.3 percent) and slow recovery from Covid create social unrest? And if it does, past performance indicates that Xi would respond with increased repression.

Can the ruling Chinese Communist Party escape the political consequences of its high-growth policies by shifting blame onto the shoulders of the companies’ management?

Evergrande’s debts total $300 billion. Country Garden’s liabilities are estimated at another $100 billion. Between them they directly employ more than 250,000 workers. Indirectly, millions of jobs will be impacted in industries servicing the property market.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 24th September 2023 - 9:51 am

Ukraine

Ukraine has approximately 30 days before the autumn/winter rains bring their counter-offensive to a muddy halt.

To date they appear to have broken through the first line of a three-line Russian defense in an area around Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia. There is an outside possibility they can achieve a major breach, but that is highly unlikely.

There is more depressing news for Ukrainian troops. For a start the bromance between Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un will keep the Russian troops supplied with artillery shells to help keep the advancing Ukrainians at bay.

Then there are problems with Poland. Up until this week the Poles have been a driving force behind EU and NATO support for Ukraine. But Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki – with one eye on the farming vote and next month’s general election – has stopped military supplies to Ukraine because Ukrainian grain is driving down Polish wheat prices.

Poland has the support of Slovakia and Hungary and wants EU-wide restrictions on the import of Ukrainian grain. The Ukrainians, of course, are exporting their grain to EU countries because the Russian blockade makes it impossible for them to ship it to their usual customers in the Middle East and Africa.

The next problem is signs that US support is waning. This week Volodomyr Zelensky turned up in Washington to assure American lawmakers that Ukraine is slowly but surely winning. President Biden responded with a $325 million military aid package. Zelensky also has the support of the leadership in both the Senate and House of Representatives. But a group of far-right Republican Trump supporters are threatening to block a financial package which includes an extra $24 billion in aid to Ukraine.

And then, finally, there is the fact that Trump has pledged to stop military aid to Ukraine if he is elected in 2024.

France

It has taken seven years, but it looks as if the investigation of France’s right-wing leader Marine Le Pen may end up in court.

She and 23 members of Her Rassemblement National – including her father Jean-Marine Le Pen – are accused of misuse of EU funds. They allegedly used a total of about $620,000 of money which was meant to be spent on EU administration to fund party activities.

The accusation comes from the Paris Prosecutor’s office and still has to be confirmed by the prosecuting judges. But it seems highly likely that that is a formality.

If she is found guilty, Marine Le Pen faces the possibility of a $1 million fine, 10 years in jail, and a 10-year ban on holding public office. Her conviction would have a major impact on the French and European political landscape.

According to the Paris Prosecutor, Ms Le Pen spent $45,000 of EU funds to pay her personal bodyguard. On another occasion she is alleged to have diverted EU funds to pay for a meeting to discuss party activities and hung an EU flag outside the meeting room. When the meeting started she told party members “take that s**t down.”

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: The Great Indian Escape

By Tom Arms | Fri 22nd September 2023 - 6:55 pm

India is likely to escape the consequences of allegedly murdering a Sikh Canadian on Canadian soil.

And this in turn will have consequences for democracy and political structures in India, the sub-continent’s relations with the rest of the world, Canadian relations with its allies and the international rule of law.

Let’s start with the fact that the claim that Indian intelligence agents were responsible for the murder of Sikh nationalist Hardeep Singh Nijjar is – so far – an allegation. And that the government of Narendra Modi has dismissed it as “absurd.”

But, at the same time, it is inconceivable that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would have stood on the floor of the Canadian parliament and announced that he had “credible evidence” that India was behind the murder given the dire repercussions of such a claim.

India is fast becoming one of the most important countries in the world. It has overtaken China as the most populous. Its economy is growing at 7.8 percent and is set to overtake Japan as the world’s third largest.

It has become a go-to destination for Western companies seeking to “de-risk” their investments in China. And as a member of the Quad Alliance it is a key counter-balance to Chinese influence in the world.

All this means that the US and its allies – including Canada – have been actively courting the Delhi government of Modi and this courtship has turning a blind – or at least blinkered – eye to its excesses.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 27th August 2023 - 7:42 pm

Mutineer Yevgeny Prigozhin – and the nine other passengers on his private plane — this week joined a long and growing list of “Putin’s Bodies.” Those on the grisly register share one common fatal flaw: They dared to cross the Russian president.

The tally starts with 1,300 innocent victims. It was 1999. Putin was yet to become president. But as prime minister and head of the FSB he needed a false flag operation to win support for his war in Chechnya. It is alleged, therefore, that he bombed a Moscow apartment building and blamed it on Chechen terrorists. Three hundred died and 1,000 were injured. Putin got his war.

Politician Sergei Yashenkov made the mistake of uncovering evidence linking Putin to the bombing. He was shot in the chest in 2003. Former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko also accused Putin of the apartment block bombing. He was poisoned in London in 2006 with polonium-laced tea.

Journalists are a favourite target of the Russian president. Paul Klebnikov, chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes, was busy writing a series on Kremlin corruption when he was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2004. Anna Polikovskaya accused Putin of turning Russia into a police state. She was shot in the lift of her apartment building in 2006. Natalia Estemirova specialised in exposing human rights abuses. She was abducted outside her home and later found in a wood with a bullet in the head.

Human rights lawyer Stanislaw Markelov was walking down the street with his friend Anastasia Buburova when they were both gunned down in 2009.

Russian media mogul Mikhail Lesin was in Washington and on the verge of cutting a deal with the FBI on corruption charges. He was found beaten to death in his hotel room in 2015.

Boris Berezovsky fled Russia for exile in Britain after daring to challenge Putin. He was found dead in his Berkshire home. The inquest returned an open verdict. Boris Nemtsov accused Putin of being in the pay of corrupt oligarchs. He was shot in the back on a Moscow street in 2015.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: The Almighty Dollar

By Tom Arms | Sun 27th August 2023 - 3:35 pm

The Almighty Dollar is a bit too mighty for a growing number of countries. They want to curb it.

That was one of the driving forces behind this week’s 5-nation BRICS meeting in Johannesburg and the reason why another 40 want to join the latest political/economic organisation. Six of the applicants were admitted to the club this week.

BRICS is the acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—the current membership of the 14-year-old organisation. It controls 26 percent of the world’s GDP as opposed to the G7’s 30.7 percent, although the G7 is dropping and will drop further faster with BRICS expansion.

For BRICS you could easily substitute China which dominates the BRICS economies. And for G7 just say America. Which means the two economic groupings have become political/economic weapons in the Sino-American clash.

BRICS has thus become a diplomatic vehicle for the Chinese attempt to constrain the dollar as the world’s reserve currency or replace it altogether.

It has its work cut out for it. The dollar is indeed almighty. Eighty-seven percent of the world’s trade is conducted in dollars. The currencies of 65 countries are pegged to the value of the dollar and the American greenback is the official currency of five US territories and 11 foreign countries.

Being the world’s reserve currency bestows advantages on the US economy and the government that controls it. Chief among them is lower borrowing costs on the international market, which allows America to carry a bigger public spending debt then other countries.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 20th August 2023 - 10:01 am

Donald Trump

Donald Trump will never see the inside of a prison. Neither will he be fitted for an orange onesie.

Not because he is innocent. Based on the evidence I have read to date, he is guilty as Hell. And I am sure a lot more will come out during the numerous trials he faces.

No, he will remain a free man for several reasons. One is that his lawyers will use every trick in their legal library to delay, delay, delay. They will appeal against the Washington venue for the trial there. They will also claim that the Washington judge is biased. The same with New York.

Their objections will be dismissed. But justice requires that they be heard and that takes time.

Next, there is the jury selection. One recent trial took several months to select the jury because they went through over a thousand potential jurors. In the case of Trump, the difficult is in finding 12 people in politically polarised America who do not have an opinion of the man and his election lie.

Even if a jury is selected, a venue is agreed for all four trials and impartial judges are found, there is a reasonable chance that a dedicated MAGA supporter will find their way onto a jury and block a guilty verdict.  Unanimous jury decisions are required in American trials. That is a high bar for the Trump prosecutors.

Let us suppose he is found guilty on a felony charge in a court by a jury somewhere in America. The verdict is then likely to outrage and activate his MAGA base to such an extent that Trump wins the 2024 election. If that happens he will simply pardon himself and his many co-conspirators. The case in Georgia will be more difficult because he can only give pardons for federal crimes and Georgia is a state crime. But his highly paid lawyers should be able to find a loophole.

If they don’t, there is the appeal process. If Trump is found guilty he will appeal. The appeal process can extend for years, possibly up to and beyond Donald Trump’s allotted time on this Earth.

Russian spies

Spies, spies, everywhere – especially the Russians. Which is not surprising. They had a huge spy network in Tsarist days. It was massive under the Soviets and, of course, Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent in East Germany.

There is also the fact that Russia is at war, oops, I mean conducting a “special military operation” (SMO) in Ukraine. The SMO means that Russia needs intelligence on who in NATO is supporting what, when, where, how and why in Ukraine. Also, who they can support to espouse the Russian cause, scatter seeds of division and discontent and maybe even overturn a government or two.

And finally, if the war escalates, how best to attack NATO.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: Enemy of my enemy

By Tom Arms | Sat 19th August 2023 - 10:57 am

The well-worn phrase “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” has ancient roots.  It dates back 7,000 years to the Sanskrit literature of India’s Vedas. The Romans and the Koran adapted it to their political needs.

In Modern times it has been repeatedly applied. Possibly the most famous examples are Churchill and Stalin, and Mao and Nixon.

This weekend President Joe Biden will use the well-worn diplomatic axiom to try and persuade the leaders of South Korea and Japan that they should bury deep-rooted historical animosities to unite against the common enemies China, North Korea and Russia.

All three leaders will gather at Camp David on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They are expected to issue a communique agreeing to closer economic ties, intelligence sharing, a Tokyo-Seoul-Washington crisis hotline, a first ever joint statement of principles and trilateral military exercises.

What they will NOT do is agree to a formal treaty. Neither will Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida formally apologise for Japanese atrocities committed before and during World War two.

There are lots of good and obvious reasons for Japan and South Korea to be friends. Both of them are threatened by China and North Korea and, to a lesser extent Russia. From the US point of view there are 85,000 American troops costing an estimated $15 billion. Washington desperately wants Seoul and Tokyo to shoulder more of the burden.

The South Koreans and Japanese have the means to assume a bigger role but until recently have lacked the will. Japan is the world’s third largest economy and fourth largest military establishment. Fast-growing South Korea is not far behind, ranking 13th in the world GDP list and sixth on the size of its defense establishment.

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Tom Arms

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 13th August 2023 - 11:17 am

Pakistan

Pakistan is sliding back into military rule. Actually, it never really left it. The military and its friends in the intelligence services have for decades been the puppet masters pulling the strings of successive nominally democratic governments. Quite often they don’t even bother with the veneer.

Imran Khan knew this. That is why he came to a modus vivendi with the army early in his premiership. Unfortunately for the cricketing star that arrangement did not last. He tired of both the orders and the corruption and decided to be his own man and clear the Augean Stables. Unfortunately he ended up being cleared out himself.

He is now languishing in gaol and barred from elected office. His crime was failing to report an estimated $600,000 in gifts from foreign dignitaries. It is an interesting crime. If properly enforced a large chunk of the Pakistani political establishment would be sharing Imran Khan’s jail cell.

Not satisfied with jailing their opponent, the military have also organised a postponement of elections. Under the Pakistani constitution, elections have to be held within 90 days of the dissolution of parliament. The Pakistani parliament was dissolved on Thursday, but new army-friendly Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif said elections would be “postponed for several months”. This was ostensibly because the electoral commission needed time to re-draw constituency boundaries following the acceptance of a census report just last week.

But before dissolution, the government did manage to rush through two bills increasing the powers of Pakistan’s omnipresent intelligence agencies. They can now search and arrest anyone they suspect of a “breach of official secrets”. Furthermore, anyone who reveals the identity of an intelligence agent will now be automatically sentenced to three years in prison.

Possibly in anticipation of this new law, 157 Pakistani political activists “disappeared” last month.

History control

George Orwell famously wrote in his book “1984”: “Who controls the past controls the future.”

The words are profound, wise, correct and often followed. Which is why we have two examples of history control this week. The first, perhaps not surprisingly, is out of Moscow. Vladimir Putin’s educationalists have rushed through a new secondary school textbook aimed at “educating” 16-18-year olds about the Ukrainian political facts of life.

The new “patriotic curriculum” declares that Ukraine is an “artificial state.” Russia launched its “special military operation” as part of a programme of “denazification and demilitarisation.” The goal of the West is to “destabilise Russia” and Moscow is “a victim of Western aggression and fighting for its very existence.”

On the other side of the world, in the sunshine state of Florida, we have another attempt to control the political debate through teaching. There the target is wokeism. To battle it, presidential hopeful Ron de Santis has employed the skills of Prager University to produce a series of history online and off-line videos.

Prager University is not a university. It is a conservative video production company run by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager with the avowed intent of spreading conservative values to counter the “evil liberal elitist values” of most American universities. Its videos are completely unaccredited and disavowed by most serious educationalists.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an Expat: Immigration – Analysis and Suggestions

By Tom Arms | Sat 12th August 2023 - 10:12 am

There is a total absence of holistic joined up thinking on the emotive topic of immigration.

The solution does not lie simply in quotas, walls, barbed wire, African exile, indecipherable application forms or even hunting down people traffickers.

It needs to be recognised that the human souls washing up on the shores of the developed world did not materialise out of the ether. And furthermore, that demographic realities dictate that immigration is not an unalloyed evil.

But politicians – especially the more populist variety – prefer to pander to an electorate which has been fed a diet of fear of cultural and racial pollution. They offer short-term solutions and headline-grabbing sound-bites while failing to acknowledge the causes or offer long-term resolutions.

The fact is that immigrants are being driven northwards by basic survival instincts. If given the choice, few people would choose the maybes of immigration over the safe certainties of family, financial security and their own familiar culture. Millions of Palestinians and Syrians have lived for decades in overcrowded refugee camps because they nurture the dream of returning “home.”

Unfortunately, the home grown safety nets are being destroyed in increasing numbers by war, famine, and climate change

There are currently famines in Afghanistan, Haiti, Nigeria, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, South Sudan, Madagascar and throughout the Sahel Region to name but a few. There are wars in the Middle East, Africa, South East Asia and South America. Gang Warfare in Central America has displaced 600,000 people.

There are 900,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh; six million Syrians in refugee camps in five countries and 2.7 million Afghans who have fled the Taliban. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported recently that there are 108.4 million displaced people in the world—the largest at any time in history.

Climate change is causing the world’s deserts to grow, displacing even more people. Scientists reckon that by 2050, 25 percent of the world will be desert. The Sahara is expanding by 30 square miles a decade. Even faster-growing is the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and Northwest China. 2023 is the hottest year on record with temperatures reaching 58 centigrade in the Sahara, 50 in India and 48 in Kuwait.

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Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 6th August 2023 - 10:07 am

Ukraine

The Ukraine war has resulted in the world facing a shortage of every grain product and the prospect of widespread starvation in the developing world and spiralling food prices in the developed.

Shortages of corn and wheat – Ukraine and Russia’s two biggest grain exports – have increased demand for that other major grain product – rice. This has led India to ban exports of non-basmati rice “to ensure adequate domestic availability at reasonable prices.” India exports 40 percent of the world’s rice.

To compound the problem other major rice producing countries – Thailand, Pakistan and Vietnam – have all suffered bad harvests this year due to deteriorating weather conditions.

But back to Ukraine where Vladimir Putin has ended the Turkish-brokered deal to allow grain ships past the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. He followed that up with a devastating drone attack on Izmail which handles about a quarter of Ukraine’s grain exports. An estimated 40,000 metric tonnes of grain bound for Africa, China and Israel was destroyed and the port has been closed indefinitely. Since withdrawing from the grain deal on 27 July, Russia has destroyed an estimated 200,000 metric tonnes of grain as well as civilian ships, port facilities and grain storage silos.

It should also be noted that Ukraine’s Izmail is at the mouth of the Danube and on the opposite bank is NATO member Romania.

Putin

Vladimir Putin has weaponised food. He has created a worldwide shortage and is now using access to Russian-produced grain to blackmail/bribe selected countries.

This was obvious at the recent Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg where he promised free grain to carefully selected African countries. Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Eritrea and the Central African Republic have all been rewarded for their support at the UN and links with the Wagner Group.

The summit, however, was not the big success Putin hoped for. The last such gathering was in 2019 when 45 African leaders turned up in Sochi. This time only 27 made the trip north to Russia’s Baltic port.

The drop in numbers was largely due to Putin’s failure to deliver on his promises. In 2019 Russia promised to quadruple direct investment in Africa. But since then it has dropped by two thirds and now represents only one percent of the total inflow of Sub-Saharan Africa’s capital investment.

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Tom Arms

Observations of an expat: The Big Lie is finally in court

By Tom Arms | Sat 5th August 2023 - 10:06 am

Donald Trump will get his wish. He desperately tried to air his election fraud claim in court. He made over 50 attempts to do so, including two to bring it before the Supreme Court.

But Trump’s problem is that the wrong person – or entity – is charged with lying. It is not the swamp, deep state, establishment elite or the blob that is being hauled before the court accused of porky pies in pursuit of naked power. It is Donald Trump.

The cornerstone of the case of Special Counsel Jack Smith and the Department of Justice is that Donald Trump lied when he claimed electoral fraud. That he – and his co-conspirators – knew that he lied and that he used the lie in the criminal pursuit of subverting the US constitution, the electoral laws and the proceedings of Congress.

If he didn’t lie. If Donald Trump is indeed the victim of an elaborate conspiracy involving the Department of Justice, his own Vice President, over 50 courts and tens of thousands of individual vote tellers, then Jack Smith’s case collapses into an ignominious legal heap.

Trump’s lawyers hope they have a constitutional ace up their sleeves – the right to free speech as enshrined in the First Amendment. Freedom of speech protects the right to lie – up to a point.

Bill Barr, Trump’s Attorney General, was prominent among those insisting that the ex-president accept the election results and attacked him for not doing so. This week, the country’s former top lawyer, dismissed the First Amendment defense. He said: “They (the Department of Justice) are not attacking his First Amendment rights. He can say whatever he wants. He can even tell people that the election was stolen when he knew better. But that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy to defraud the United States.”

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Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 9th July 2023 - 9:38 am

Israel

The upsurge in violence in Israel is no surprise. It is a direct result of the government’s swing to the far-right. In fact Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu is, relatively speaking, now one of the more liberal members of his cabinet.

The Prime Minister’s time, however, is increasingly occupied by court appearances in an effort to fight charges of corruption, bribery and fraud. He also has to deal with the ongoing demonstrations against government plans to curb the independence of the Israeli judiciary.

The daily business of fighting Palestinian terrorism is dominated by ultra-orthodox politicians. These include several West Bank settlers who totally reject the concept of the two-state solution; demand the removal of all Palestinian settlements and, in one instance, have connections with right-wing terrorist organisations.

The latest round of violence started in the West Bank Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin. Like most such sites it is plagued with poverty, high unemployment and poor services. In short, an incubator for Palestinian terrorist groups.

The current round of violence started just over two weeks ago when an Israeli military jeep was blown up. As usual, the military responded and a 15-year-old Palestinian girl died. The cycle of violence continued and after two weeks the death toll had reached 12 Palestinians. But perhaps more importantly, the Israelis resorted to deadly air strikes for the first time in 20 years.

As of this writing Jenin is quiet. But violence has broken out in the West Bank Palestinian camp at Nablus where two people have died.

The Israeli army is reported to have been eager to withdraw as quickly as possible from Jenin and Nablus. They do not believe that a military solution is possible. The politicians disagree.

Leading the anti-Palestinian charge within the cabinet is National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. He is an illegal West Bank settler who wants to completely dismantle the West Bank Palestinian authority. He is a former member of Kahane Chai, a right-wing Jewish terrorist organisation which is banned in Israel and the US. In 2007 Ben Gvir was found guilty of incitement against Palestinians and terrorism.

Aryeh Dei, another West Bank settler and the Health Minister was actually sent to prison for three years for bribery. The Supreme Court has tried to block his appointment to the cabinet which led to the current battles between the court and the government.

Aryeh Dari, Interior Minister; Yoav Galant, Defense Minister; and Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister, are all illegal West Bank settlers.

The two-state solution: a Palestinian state and an Israeli state living side by side, remains the preferred resolution of the Biden Administration, the UK and EU. According to International law, the 600,000 Israelis settled on the West Bank are there illegally. But there has been no real effort to pursue the two-state option since 2014 and the Trump Administration more or less rejected it.

This has encouraged the ultra-Orthodox parties who are now in coalition with Likud to press for the dismantlement of the refugee camps and the Palestinian Authority and open the area to Jewish settlement only. The result can only be more violence.

France

France has a history of riots. The French Revolution, the 1848 revolution which ended Bourbon rule, the 1871 Paris Commune which followed the reign of Napoleon III and the 1968 student riots which brought about the downfall of Charles deGaulle are some of the better-known examples.

In more recent times there were the yellow vest demonstrations against fuel taxes and the protests about raising the pension age.  But the most recent riots are on a different scale then these two.

They started when a 17-year-old ethnic Moroccan-Algerian boy named Nahel Merzouk was stopped and shot by police at a traffic light in the Parish suburb of Nanterre. The “Justice for Nahel” riots spread throughout France. At the last count 5,000 cars had been burned, 1,000 buildings and 250 police stations were attacked and damaged and 170 police were injured.

There are several reasons for the riots. One is a basic approach to policing in France. In Britain and the US the police are seen as servants of the public. In France and most other continental countries, they are viewed as controlling the public.

It is in this context that in 2017, a law was passed giving police the right to shoot any car driver who failed to stop when challenged. The law was quickly challenged by the UN Human Rights Council. In the past 18 months, 17 people have been shot under the terms of this law. They are overwhelmingly ethnic Black Africans or of Arab origin.

Most of them also live in what are called the Banlieues such as Nanterre. These are poverty stricken suburbs which encircle the wealthy city centres of France. The average unemployment rate in many of the Banlieues is 70 percent compared to seven percent for the rest of France.  Drug use and crime are rampant. Public services are poor. No-go areas are common. The residents feel forgotten and angry.

Roughly twenty percent of France’s population is from an ethnic minority—one of the highest proportions in Europe. This high percentage of Arabs and Black Africans has created resentment from both the ethnic people and large sections of the White indigenous French community.

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