Tag Archives: United states of America

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 11th January 2026 - 9:38 am

USA – Minneapolis

The shooting of young mother Renee Good this week in Minneapolis has further exposed the divisions in a fractured American society and President Trump’s determination to exacerbate rather than heal them.

Anyone who watches one of the many videos—or reads the eyewitness accounts—can only conclude that Ms Good was murdered by an ICE agent.

She was clearly driving away from a confrontation with the agents who were in Minneapolis as part of a politically motivated round-up of ethnic Somalis. As she was turning away from the armed agents, one of them fired through the car window and shot Ms Good in the head. A doctor then rushed forward to try and administer first aid but was blocked by the agents.

President Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kirsti Noem, Vice President J.D. Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi have rushed forward to claim that the agent fired in self-defense because Ms Good was trying to run him over. They have also claimed—without any evidence—that Ms Good was a professional left-wing agitator. Vice President Vance has gone so far as to falsely claim that the ICE agents are protected by absolute immunity because they are federal agents.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt increased the attack on Good even more by telling White House correspondents: “The deadly incident that took place in Minnesota yesterday occurred as a result of a larger, sinister left-wing movement that has spread across our country, where our brave men and women of federal law enforcement are under organized attack.”

The administration’s line has been picked up and repeated parrot-fashion by Fox News and the Republicans in Congress. Democrats and the bulk of the rest of the media have attacked ICE and the administration. The people of Minneapolis have taken to the streets in their thousands. Their action is being mirrored in other US cities. In Portland, Oregon two more people have been wounded.

President Trump had a personal message for ICE agents in the wake of the shootings: “It’s time to get rough.”

Iran

The Iranian authorities have shut down the country’s internet. The reason is quite simple: they don’t want people—inside and outside Iran—to know how many protesters they are about to kill.

And they are killing them. After protests in 2019 several hundred protesters ended up in their coffins. Human rights organisations reckon that 40 were killed before the internet was shut. The BBC has confirmed 20 of the deaths.

The country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameinei, has said that the thousands who have taken to the streets of Tehran, and at least 50 other towns and cities, are a “bunch of vandals” trying “to please” the US.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged donald trump and iran | 33 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 21st September 2025 - 10:17 am

United Kingdom

The world was focused on Britain this week. A state visit is a big symbolic event but usually the public interest is confined to the two countries involved.

Not this time, Trump’s unprecedented second state visit to the United Kingdom, was front page news in Sweden, Germany, Japan…. Would the president behave? If the US-UK special relationship faltered in the face of MAGA what chance was there for the rest of the world?

Well, the visit was a diplomatic triumph for both countries. The president and King Charles got on famously and their speeches were the epitome of diplomatic non-speak.

There were disagreements between Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer over Gaza and recognition of a Palestinian state, but the two men agreed to disagree for the sake of the wider Anglo-American relationship. The issue of Ukraine saw some a slight movement by Trump towards the UK/Europe position and he hinted at a bigger shift if all Europeans stopped all imports of Russian oil (nudge, nudge, wink, wink Hungary and Slovakia).

At the Chequers press conference, the president was asked about attacks on British free speech by his vice president and others. He simply refused to answer. The Epstein files and the fate of Lord Mandelson who was sacked as ambassador on the eve of the state visit was raised. Trump replied: “I have never met the man.”

If Trump did put a foot wrong it was when he suggested that the British government should use the military to patrol its borders instead of trying to stop the small boats with diplomacy. The president was quickly—and politely—told to stay out of Britain’s immigration issue.

A state visit would not be a state visit without the big business deals. And this state visit saw the largest ever commercial package — £150 billion which should create 7,600 jobs. Most of the money went on nuclear energy, quantum computing and AI computing. The investment, however, has been criticised by Nick Clegg, former Liberal Democrat Leader and until recently Facebook’s vice president for Global Affairs, as “crumbs from the silicon valley table.”

United States

One flickering light emerged from the darkness of the assassination of Charlie Kirk—Utah’s Governor Spencer Cox.

In fact, one can say that the light emanated from Utah’s Republican Party.

It was of course, Utah, where Charlie Kirk was shot by Tyler Robinson. And because it was his state, Republican Governor Cox stepped in front of the television cameras to speak. He could have followed in the footsteps of President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Steve Bannon, Alec Jones, Laura Loomer and other leading Republicans and called for vengeance.

But he didn’t. Instead Governor Cox called “on every American—Republican, Democrat, liberal, progressive, conservative, MAGA, all of us—to please, please, follow what Charlie taught me: Always forgive your enemies—nothing annoys them more.”

This is not the first time that Cox has refused to take the Trumpian line. He refused to endorse him in 2016 because “Trump does not support goodness or kindness.” In 2020 Cox declined to back Trump’s claim of a stolen election. And he didn’t endorse Trump in 2024 until after the attempted assassination at Butler, Pennsylvania.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged gaza and united kingdom | 4 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 25th May 2025 - 9:49 am

Romania, Poland, Portugal

On the surface, this week’s elections in Poland, Romania and Portugal were a victory for Europe’s political centre. But look an inch or two below and a different, darker story emerges.

Let’s start with Romania. A few week ago the country was looking into a political abyss after the first-round of presidential elections was won by Calin Georgescu. The far-right, ultra-nationalist, pro-Putin, anti-Ukraine, anti-NATO, agronomist was a political unknown before the December vote. Yet he managed to top the first round of a two-part elections. A quick investigation revealed Russia skulduggery. The election was annulled and Georgescu barred from running for office.

So, the Romanian far-right put up another candidate—George Simion—who adopted many of the same policies of the barred Georgescu. He lost this week’s election. The centrist Nicursor Dan can claim a solid victory with 53.6 percent of the vote but Simion was close enough—at 46.4 percent of the vote—to be a future threat.

A bit further to the north the first round of the Polish presidential elections were much, much closer. Centrist candidate Rafal Trzaskowski narrowly topped the poll with 30.8 percent of the vote while far-right candidate Karol Nawrocki’s slice was 29.1 percent. The two men will face-off in a final round on June 1st.

A far-right Polish president could easily undermine the country’s centrist Prime Minister Donald Tusk who has been in the forefront of world leaders supporting Ukraine. The president’s role is largely ceremonial except for the power to veto any legislation passed by the Polish parliament (Sejm) and to appoint the judiciary.

Further to the West, on the edge of the European continent, Portugal’s centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD) won enough seats to form a government, although it fell short of a majority.

AD’s success, however, was not the big news of the night. The big news was the triumph of the far-right Chega Party which more or less tied with the established centre-left Social Democrats with 23 percent of the vote. Three years ago Chega polled only seven percent.

The Chega Party joins Vox in Spain, Reform in the UK, AfD in Germany, AU in Romania, Sweden Democrats in Sweden, Freedom Party in Austria, National Rally in France….All of these parties have risen on the backs of inflation, a housing crisis and general uncertainty about the future. They are waiting for the established political parties to mis-step, or, fail to deliver.

United States

Gold is Donald Trump’s favourite colour. It is also expensive. These two factors could explain why the American president is calling his proposed missile defense shield the “Golden Dome.”

The wished-for shield is loosely modelled on Israel’s highly successful “Iron Dome” which has successfully rebuffed missile attacks from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.

I say, loosely, because Israel’s Iron Dome is 15 mobile Patriot missile batteries which are moved around the country to the best sites for intercepting incoming missiles. The batteries are all land-based and cover an area of 8,550 square miles.

Trump’s Golden Dome would be based on sea, land and in space and would cover an area of 7,650,000 square miles. It would also be designed to detect and destroy missiles before they are launched as well as after they are launched.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged poland, portugal and romania | 6 Comments

Observations of an Expat:100 Days

By Tom Arms | Sat 3rd May 2025 - 10:13 am

The first 100 days of the Trump Administration has been among the most consequential in American history. Consequential does not necessarily mean good. In this case, it means very, very bad.

Let’s start with the elusive issue of reputation. In the eyes of the rest of the world, America’s reputation is probably the worst it has ever been.

It took years of painstaking work to establish the trust and relationships that made America the leader of the Free World. It has had its problems, but generally speaking, post-war America is the closest the world has ever had to a “shining city on the hill.” Poof! Gone in 100 days or less.

Make America Great Again has become America first then we win, you lose zero-sum international politics.

The United States has gone from supporting democracies around the world to cosying up to dictatorships. It has threatened to withdraw support from its allies and threatened them with annexation.

The United States was the chief architect of the post-war rules-based international order which has resulted in one of the most sustained periods of world peace and economic growth in human history. Trump has turned his back on the rule of law in favour of might is right at both the international and domestic level.

He appears willing to turn away from Ukraine and towards rule-breaking Russia because—as he told Volodomyr Zelensky—the Ukrainian president doesn’t “have the cards.”

Domestically, he is bypassing Congress to rule by decree with a flurry of Executive Orders. These EOs have thrown tens of thousands of federal workers out of work. They have led to major cutbacks at the National Institute of Health, university research programmes and the Centre for Disease Control which will cost umpteen lives in America and the world.

His row with the universities has damaged academic freedom and the well-deserved reputation for excellence in America’s higher education.

He has called into question America’s much-admired system of checks and balances not only by bypassing Congress but by also ignoring the courts who have criticised him for arresting and deporting people without due process of law. Freedom of association, the press and speech (all of which are enshrined in the First Amendment) mean nothing to Trump.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged donald trump | 3 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 | Also tagged china and trade wars | 15 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 | Also tagged canada, elon musk, germany and new zealand | 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 | Also tagged defence and ukraine | 13 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 | Also tagged europe, germany, NATO and ukraine | 20 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 | Also tagged austria, germany and turkey | 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 | Also tagged ukraine | 41 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 | Also tagged gaza and palestine | 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 | Also tagged 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 | Also tagged india, ukraine and Venezuela | 14 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 | Also tagged donald trump, india, NATO, russia and taliban | 6 Comments

Europe or USA: do we now have to choose?

By Lord William Wallace | Fri 22nd November 2024 - 9:59 am

The UK’s image of its place in the world since the Second World War has rested on the claim to act as the ‘Atlantic bridge’, as Tony Blair used to put it. We were the USA’s closest ally within Europe, and one of the major players, alongside France and Germany, within Europe. The end of the Cold War weakened that claim, as American attention turned towards the Pacific. Brexit weakened it a great deal further. But now Trump Republicans and their British supporters are insisting that we have to choose: follow America, or slide back towards Europe.

The Times on November 16^th headlined the statement by Stephen Moore, advising Trump at his Florida base, that ‘Britain must decide – do you want to go towards the European socialist model or do you want to go towards the US free market?’ If the latter, then a free trade agreement would be available to avoid the tariff war Trump is threatening to engage in with the EU and others; if not, no deal. This wasn’t a surprise; Daniel Hannan had an Op-ed in the Mail three days before, making the case for Britain accepting a trade deal with the USA and the extra-territorial regulations (on food additives and hygiene, etc.) that would go with it rather than moving closer to the EU Single Market. There are even reports that some in the Trump camp want to extend the North American Free Trade Area to Australia and the UK, to form an Anglo-Saxon grouping (with Mexico as an anomaly) under American leadership.

Brexit was never really about re-establishing British sovereignty. For romantics like Hannan about the superiority of ‘the English-speaking peoples’ and the ‘special relationship’ which was thought to offer Britain continuing global status it was about following the USA and accepting its economic and social model rather than what was seen to be the European alternative – yielding sovereignty to the USA rather than sharing sovereignty with our European neighbours. Boris Johnson’s Churchill fixation pushed him towards the idea that Britain and America were and remain ‘special’ partners. Nigel Farage is an even stronger advocate of Anglo-Saxon solidarity – assuming that the USA will continue to be run by Republican Administrations promoting free markets and a shrunken state.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged donald trump, europe and North American Free Trade Area | 22 Comments

Don’t blame us for Trump

By Ken Westmoreland | Thu 7th November 2024 - 11:04 am

A friend of mine in Florida, who only recently became an American decades after marrying one, cast her vote for Kamala Harris early, to keep Donald Trump (or the ‘orange stain’, as she calls him) out of the White House. However, four million US nationals will have had no say in the matter; while all US citizens are nationals, not all US nationals are citizens, disenfranchising them further.

When Trump-supporting comedian Tony Hinchcliffe described Puerto Rico as ‘a floating island of garbage’, it was a particularly low blow given that its residents have no vote in the presidential election, despite being US citizens, and its only representation in Congress is a non-voting Resident Commissioner in the House of Representatives, with none in the Senate.

Historically, before being admitted to the Union, many states, then territories, elected non-voting delegates to the House as a first step to achieving statehood, but since Hawaii in 1959, no territory has been admitted. Puerto Rico, the most populous of them, is divided on the issue, with some favouring statehood, others independence, and others the status quo, while in the US itself, Republicans are lukewarm, dreading an increased number of Democrats on Capitol Hill.

In my innocence, I thought that the reason for this limited political representation was because Puerto Rico, along with the US Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas and American Samoa, was because they weren’t subject to federal taxes, a case of no representation without taxation, but there are more unsavoury reasons, hence them being ‘foreign in a domestic sense’.

When most of them were acquired following the Spanish-American War, there was a Supreme Court ruling that they were inhabited by ‘alien races’ unable to be governed by ‘Anglo-Saxon principles’, and therefore the Constitution didn’t have to apply there, and by extension, nor did voting rights. Despite only being supposed to apply ‘for a time’, it does so to this day, having been extended to the formerly Danish US Virgin Islands, the formerly German American Samoa, and the Japanese Northern Marianas, which only have non-voting delegates in Congress.

Posted in Op-eds | 2 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 6th October 2024 - 10:25 am

China

The Chinese leadership is worried. Their country’s long history is peppered with instances of the “Mandate of Heaven” falling from the rulers’ shoulders because of economic problems.

On top of that there is the obvious fact that autocracies run the risk of violent dissent because the non-violent avenues of protest are banned.

Paramount Leader Xi Jinping has warned of “potential dangers” and added that the Chinese Communist Party must be “well-prepared” to “overcome grave challenges.” In Xi-speak this means a crackdown on dissent accompanied with measures to help the middle classes and criticism of wealthy people who flaunt their riches.

In this week alone. The party has authorised cash hand-outs, tried to shake up the ailing property market and held a surprise meeting to kick start the economy. But three years of economic slowdown and Covid lockdown have taken a toll and economists believe that it is unlikely that China will hit the relatively modest (for China) target of 5 percent growth in the economy.

The Chinese young people have been particularly hard hit. Unemployment among the 16 to 24 year olds hit 21.3 percent in 2023. In January this year the government stopped issuing figures which implies that the youth jobless statistics have soared even higher. Also impacted has been the promotion prospects for those fortunate enough to be in employment.

For decades the Chinese have been admired – and feared—for their extraordinary work ethic. The changes in the economy, however, have created a shift in attitudes towards work. According to a recent survey by American online pollsters, in 2013, 63 percent of recent graduates said hard work paid. Ten years later the figure had dropped to 28.3 percent.

The survey by N. Aliskey, S, Rozelle and M. Whyte also revealed a fear for the future. In 2014, 76.5 percent of those polled were optimistic about the future and said that the economy and their lives had improved over the past five years. In 2023 the figure was 38.8 percent.

According to the think tank Freedom House, in the second quarter of 2024 there has been an 18 percent rise in protests and three-quarters of these were based on economic grievances. From June 2022, Freedom House has logged 6,400 incidents of dissent, and their research does not include Xinjiang or Tibet where dissent is the strongest.

United States

J.D Vance won the vice-presidential debate. That was the general consensus. That consensus is not good news for J.D. Vance. Donald Trump does not like the spotlight being shifted away from him.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged austria and china | Leave a comment

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 25th August 2024 - 10:51 am

United States

The Kamala Harris bandwagon continues to gather momentum. Going into this week’s Democratic National Convention “The Economist” poll tracker put her three points ahead nationally. The convention dividend should add another two to three points easily.

Kamala’s rapid rise, however, has less to do with her policies and more to do with vibes. Her main attributes are that she is younger than Joe Biden, pro-abortion and anti-Trump, which, for the Democrats, is more than enough.

In her 40-minute conference speech a few foreign policy hints slipped out. On the Middle East she supports Israel while sympathising and empathising with the Palestinians. On NATO she is pro-Alliance. As for Ukraine, she is anti-Putin and on China Kamala Harris remains a bit of a mystery.

Ms Harris’s recent speech in Philadelphia on Kamalanomics failed to impress the professionals. Her plans to end price gouging with federal regulations; raise child tax credits by $4,000 and hand-out $25,000 to first time home buyers, was derided by most economists as inflationary left-of-centre crowd-pleasing populism. It was not, however, as Trump claimed, communism.

Former prosecutor Kamala Harris is, however, proving adept at deflecting criticism; coming up with resonating slogans and landing punches. Two placards keep popping up at her rallies: “Freedom” and “We Will Not Go Back.”

The first encompasses a broad swathe of issues to include reproductive rights, racism, misogyny, health care, for the elderly, the electoral process, the rule of law, the constitution and democracy itself. All of which either have been, or are perceived to be, threatened by Donald Trump and his Republican acolytes.

“We Will Not Go Back” refers to the belief that Republicans want to turn the social clock back to the 1950s – perhaps even further – when Jim Crow ruled in the South and a woman’s place was in the home.

Trump is the master of the personal insult. Vice President Harris has fostered a unique method for countering them. She ignores them. Then she turns the debate on her opponent’s weaknesses. Project 2025, for instance, is a major embarrassment for the ex-president. He has repeatedly disavowed it. But Kamala Harris refuses to let it go.

Finally, there is the fact that Kamala Harris ticks almost every diversity box there is. She is a female, part-Asian, part-African all-American. Yet she rarely mentions her gender or mixed-race background. Perhaps it is time for Martin Luther King Jr’s dream. The dream that the day will come when a person will be judged not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.

China and the United States

China appreciates Donald Trump. It is too much they say they like him. His threatened tariffs and bellicose rhetoric would undoubtedly put a strain on Sino-American relations.

But at the same time, the ex-president has shown little inclination to defend Taiwan and Trump’s transactional diplomacy could simplify relations. Most of all, Donald J. Trump is a known quantity.

Kamala Harris, on the other hand, is an unwelcome mystery.

For a start, Beijing is unhappy with the end of the battle of the geriatrics that a Trump-Biden race represented. The Chinese have their own problems with a perceived gerontocracy and Kamala Harris presents an unflattering contrast with 71-year-old Xi Jinping. Since Ms Harris emerged as the Democratic nominee, all hints of a Biden-Xi comparison have been erased from the Chinese internet.

Then there is the problem of racism and misogyny. At least America’s problem as portrayed by the Chinese Communist Party. In May Beijing published a report on human rights in America which said racism is getting worse and gender discrimination is “rampant”. Kamala Harris – in case you missed it – is female and of mixed Asian-African heritage.

It is expected that Kamala Harris’s China policy will largely be a re-run of Joe Biden’s. She will likely leave in place the tariffs imposed by her mentor and continue the commitment to defend Taiwan and attack China’s human rights record.

The choice of Tim Walz as Harris’s running-mate adds an interesting wrinkle to Sino-American relations in a possible Harris administration. He taught in China and has visited the country dozens of times. In contrast, Ms Harris has made only the rare visit to Asia.

This indicates that Walz may break with vice-presidential tradition and have a role to play as the administration’s point man on China. Republicans are ready for it. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives have already launched an investigation into Walz’s “longstanding and cosy relationship with China”. Unfortunately for the conservatives they are unlikely to find skeleton’s in Walz’s Chinese wardrobe. His time in and out of Congress has been marked by repeated attack on Beijing’s human rights record, a fact that has not gone unnoticed by China’s state-controlled media.

Trump, on the other hand, is more concerned with trading rights than human rights. So, all things considered, Xi Jinping is likely to prefer Trump over Harris.

India

Last month Moscow. This week Kyiv. What is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi up to?

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged china, donald trump, india, kamala harris and Narendra Modi | 1 Comment

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 11th August 2024 - 10:21 am

United States

Weird is the new catchword of the American presidential elections. It is weird that Donald Trump – a convicted felon – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

It is weird that J.D. Vance – an anti-abortionist who claims that America is run by a miserable “bunch of childless cat ladies” – is the Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States.

It is weird because both those images sound totally “un-American” and thus unlikely to win the votes of the American electorate. So it is weird that those two men have been nominated for the two highest offices in America.

Not weird is that Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, has been chosen by Kamala Harris to be her running mate in the presidential elections. Governor Walz is – as they like to say – as American as apple pie.

For a start he is from the mid-West which is often viewed as the traditionally American part of America. He attended Nebraska State College where he met his wife Gwen. They have two children – very American.

He taught high school social studies and coached the football team. The team went on to win the state championships. That is very, very American story almost worthy of a based-on-a-true-story Netflix film.

Walz was in the National Guard for 24 years, and reached the rank of Master Sergeant. Military service is almost a requirement for American politicians.

He served six terms in Congress before being elected Governor of Minnesota in 2018. He was re-elected in 2022. It was while he was Governor that Republicans have veered away from his all-American roots and towards what they might regard as weirdness. Walz legalised marijuana, passed strict gun laws, affirmed abortion rights, introduced free school meals and free college tuition. The liberal democrats love him. Which could explain why he is also chair of the Democratic Governors Association.

Walz is also credited with coming up with the catchword “weird” to describe Trump and Vance. President Biden had been focused on Trump’s threat to democracy. Walz reckoned that threat talk was a bit of a stretch for most American voters. “Weird” is easier to understand.

Bangladesh

From Nobel prize-winning micro-banker to leader of Bangladesh is quite a leap. But at the tender age of 84 Professor Muhammad Yunus has made the jump.

He replaces Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed who has fled the country after an estimated 400 people died in student-led riots against her quota system for the civil service.

Yunus probably doesn’t need the headache of running a country of 170 million people. He already secured the Nobel Peace Prize for creating the micro-finance banking system which has lifted millions out of poverty.

Yunus’s Grameen Bank pioneered micro-credit which is acknowledged as one the factors that transformed Bangladesh from the world’s second poorest country to the 38^th wealthiest.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bangladesh, tim walz and ukraine | 3 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Kamala v. Donald

By Tom Arms | Sat 27th July 2024 - 10:01 am

Three days, to coin a phrase, is a long time in today’s Tik Tok politics. This time last week wounded and bandaged Donald Trump was basking in what the New York Times called his “mythical status.” He appeared unbeatable. Liberal democrats around the world were in despair.

Then 81-year-old stumbling, crumbling President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he was dropping out of the White House race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.

She in turn surprised pundits with a rousing Milwaukee speech and 40,000 Americans registered to vote in one day this week – a 700 percent increase on the daily average. What looked like a Republican walk-over has been transformed in an instant to a to-close-to-call fight to the finish.

Up until this week the age factor had been the major political issue, especially after Biden’s painful to watch performance in his debate with Trump. But at 78 Trump is no spring chicken and is often guilty of stumbling over thoughts and words. The dementia shoe is now on the Republican foot.

Age, however, will only be one of several issues in the roughly 100 days before the election. More than ever, the contest is now between the American left and right. There is no doubt about Trump’s far-right credentials. The Republican hierarchy tried to push him as a unity candidate at the convention. His acceptance speech at the party convention started along those lines. But he quickly lapsed into his rambling, mean-spirited right-wing attack on opponents real and imagined.

One of the reasons Harris’ 2020 bid for the White House foundered so quickly is that she was perceived as a far-left candidate. If she is going to be successful in 2024 she has to shed that image and capture the centre ground of American politics.

Not helping her are the problems on America’s southern border. Immigration is a major political issue and early on his administration President Biden handed Harris the poisoned chalice of managing America’s southern border. She failed. In 2023 a record 2.3 million people crossed from Mexico into Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged donald trump and kamala harris | 11 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Special Relationship

By Tom Arms | Sat 13th July 2024 - 9:48 am

It’s time for the Special Relationship to be extracted from the diplomatic cupboard and dusted off.

Britain needs it. Europe needs it. And, although they are less keen to admit that they need help from any quarter, the US needs it to become the cornerstone of a new Transatlantic Alliance.

For years the UK shared the “Special Relationship” tag with France and Germany. In fact, after Brexit, Britain probably slipped into third place in Washington’s relationship arrangements.

But French President Emmanuel Macron has politically castrated himself with the recent political elections and the dull and dreary German Chancellor Olaf Scholz fails to inspire either the Germans or the wider world community

Britain may no longer be an EU power, but Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide victory gives him latitude at home and kudos abroad.

He is helped by a foreign secretary who has the potential to go down in history as one of the best in modern times. David Lammy wasted no time in stamping his image on British foreign policy. Almost before Sir Keir had finished his acceptance speech, Lammy was on the plane for Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and Kyiv. This week he was at the prime minister’s elbow for the NATO summit in Washington where Sir Keir was the only NATO leader awarded a tete a tete with President Joe Biden.

Lammy also has extensive American connections. The new foreign secretary has worked, studied and lived in the US. He has family in America and his father is buried in Texas.

But what if Donald Trump returns to the White House? A prospect which appears increasingly likely as Joe Biden ages with every passing day. Lammy is on record as labelling Trump a “woman-hating neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” and a “profound threat to international order” as well as a racist and a fascist.

But both Sir Keir and Lammy have said that the transAtlantic relationship remains the “bedrock” of British foreign policy. And in a recent speech at the conservative US think tank the Hudson Institute, Lammy said that Trump’s comments on European security had been “misunderstood.” He has also gone out of his way recently to meet senior Trump foreign policy advisers.

Unfortunately, Trump’s negative policy towards Europe is based on good, sound politics. It is a reflection of a growing US isolationism which in turn is a reaction to series of foreign policy reversals. That feeling of being hard done by the rest of the world (especially its European allies) will continue regardless of whomever win the November election.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged david lammy, joe biden, keir starmer and NATO | 7 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 7th July 2024 - 10:45 am

United States

It’s official: The United States judicial system is no longer independent.

And by destroying its independence the Supreme Court has knocked away one of the main pillars of American democracy and left the constitution’s carefully structured and revered system of checks and balances heavily politicised and largely controlled by the executive.

Of course, the US judicial system was already heavily politicised. But the Supreme Court took its role as the top court seriously enough to avoid political judgements. No longer.

America’s legal system is based on English Common Law. Many of the structures were determined by the great 18th-century British jurist William …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged france, hungary and Viktor Orban | 11 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 30th June 2024 - 10:25 am

United States

Unedifying train crash. That is possibly the most charitable portray of President Joe Biden’s performance in Thursday night’s debate. The 81-year-old candidate had a simple task: Don’t look old and expose Trump as the convicted felon and serial liar that he is. He failed.

The result is that Joe Biden now faces a crushing tsunami of party and public opinion to perform his final act of public service: step aside and let a younger Democratic leader shoulder the job of preventing a dangerous demagogue from returning to the White House.

The problem is that there is no mechanism for allowing him to do so. The US constitution does not specify how presidential candidates are chosen. In fact, the founding fathers were dead set against the creation of political parties which they condemned as “factionalism.”

But human nature being what it is political parties quickly emerged and politicians hived off into camps labelled Republican, Democrat, Whig, Federalist, Nativists, Progressives…

From the early years of the 19^th century until relatively modern times, the party machinery in each state would select delegates to attend a national convention where a presidential candidate would emerge from a series of knock-out ballots.

The first state primaries were not held until 1901 when Florida broke ranks with convention. Between 1901 and 1968 only twelve states held primaries which pledged their convention delegates to a particular candidate. Then came the chaos of the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention with delegates deadlocked while anti-Vietnam War demonstrators rioted outside.

To avoid a repetition of this unedifying spectacle the Democratic Party leadership decided to extend the primary system. The Republican Party followed suit. By 1992 Democrats had primaries in 40 states and Republicans in 39 and presidential conventions had been converted from a week of back-room horse trading and multiple ballots to a coronation party.

If Biden steps aside then the Democratic Party will have to revert to the pre-1968 format at its convention in (ironically) Chicago, on 19-22 August. The problem is that there are few – if any – people alive today who attended an old style nominating convention. Old rule books will need to be pulled out or archives, dusted off and studied thoroughly.

They have just over a month to prepare, and that is if Biden decides to hand in his notice today. Presidential contenders have the same time frame to start securing delegates’ support. And then, assuming all goes well on the night in Chicago, the party has only three months to unite behind a new candidate and persuade the American electorate that their choice is better than a lying convicted felon.

France

French voters troop to the polls on Sunday for the first round of parliamentary elections that are likely to open the door to the country’s far-right.

The latest opinion polls put Marine Le Pen’s National Rally well ahead with 37 percent of the vote. Not enough for the absolute majority so it will probably need to form a coalition with the Gaullist Les Republicains (eight percent) and some of the smaller parties (five percent). President Macron’s centrist Ensemble Alliance Renaissance lags far behind at 19.6 percent.

But a huge fly in the French political ointment is the 29 percent who say they will vote for the far-left New Popular Front led by former Trotskyist Jean-Luc Melenchon. It appears that the unpalatable choice for French voters is between the extremes of left and right.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged brexit, france, iran and joe biden | 8 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Love, Hate and the International Criminal Court

By Tom Arms | Sat 25th May 2024 - 10:05 am

America has a love-hate relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the moment it is a virulent hate.

Ironically, Washington also claims to be the chief supporter of International law. “The United States does believe that international law matters,” said John Bellinger, the State Department’s chief Legal Adviser. “We help develop it, rely on it, abide by it.”

The problem is that you cannot cherry pick the law. To do so is to choose the road called hypocrisy which leads – eventually – to chaos.

It is the charge of hypocrisy that America risks in its relations with the ICC. It applauded seeing the world’s top criminal court send brutal African dictators to prison. It has celebrated the court’s warrants for the arrest of Vladimir Putin. But it has condemned as “outrageous” the decision of ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan to request warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Gaza War.

There are several reasons for American duplicity. Washington fears that the arrest warrants will only make the Israelis more intransigent. It also believes that it is important to be seen to be supporting an ally; and, finally there is the sovereignty issue. As a super power, Washington has difficulty with any international law or organisation which appears to supersede American law. The US, for instance, has failed to ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and will almost certainly pull out of the climate change convention – again – if Donald Trump is elected.

Washington has had doubts about the ICC since before its founding by the Rome Statute in 1998. It refused to sign the treaty documents, although 123 other countries (including Britain) have. If a country is a signatory to the Rome Statute then they are obligated to detain and extradite anyone for whom the ICC has issued an arrest warrant. Being a non-signatory, does not protect a country’s citizens from investigation.

The problem for America was the activities of its soldiers and the CIA around the world. In August 2002 President George W. Bush signed the American Service Members Protection Act, aka “The Hague Invasion Act”. This gave the president the power to “use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any US or Allied personnel being detained, or imprisoned, on behalf of, or at the request of, the International Criminal Court.” Effectively this meant that any country that carried out an ICC arrest warrant against an American citizen risked the wrath of Washington.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged international criminal court | 9 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 19th May 2024 - 10:09 am

Russia and China

It took Vladimir Putin just nine days for Putin to go from his inauguration in the Kremlin to Zhongnanhai – the seat of China’s political power and the home of President Xi Jinping.

At the end of the two-day visit the “partnership without limits” had been elevated to one in which there are now “no forbidden areas of cooperation.”

The two countries – and the two leaders – are united in their common goal of dismantling the liberal Western political order that has dominated the world since 1945. Democracy, they are convinced, has had its day. It is time now for Sino-Russian orchestrated autocracy.

The current pivot of the Beijing-Moscow axis is the Ukraine War. This war presents both problems and opportunities for China. On the one hand, Russian failure would be regarded as a disaster. On the other, Xi Jinping is conscious of the need to prevent Sino-American relations from deteriorating too quickly. China is not ready to step into American shoes.

So, Xi Jinping exploits Russia to poke, needle and goad Washington. He talks of “no forbidden areas of cooperation” but then urges Putin to row back on the nuclear rhetoric. China has yet to recognise the Russian annexation of Luhansk and Donetsk and – so far—has refused to supply Russia with obvious weaponry. It buys more oil from Russia but is playing hardball on the Russian request for a gas pipeline that would replace revenues that Gazprom has lost in Europe.

China, has however, ignored Western sanctions against Russia. In 2022 Russian imports of Chinese machine tools grew by 120 percent and in 2023 they rose another 170 percent.

Machine tools are just one industrial category which Secretary of State Antony Blinken has complained loudly about as helping the Russian war effort. This equipment either has a hidden defense element or it is categorised as dual-use, which means it can be used for civilian or military purposes.

Other similar categories of Chinese exports have grown exponentially since Russian tanks rolled across the Ukrainian border. Semi-conductor exports rose from $230 million in 2021 to £407 million in 2023. The machinery for making computer chips grew from $3.5 million to $180 million over the same period. Computer chips are essential for the conduct of high-tech 21^st century warfare.

Russian oil

Russian oil and gas are financing Putin’s Ukraine War. So, this week, the Russian president had good news and bad news about his war coffers.

Oil revenues are up. Gas revenues are down.

Gazprom – the state gas monopoly – lost $6.9 billion in 2023. Its first annual loss since the bad old days of Russian financial chaos 20 years ago. The reason for the drop is Western sanctions and the closure of the gas pipelines Nordstream 1 and 2. Russian gas sales to Europe were down 55.6 percent. They will be even lower next year.

The picture provided by Rosneft – the Russian oil equivalent – is much rosier. Its profits were up a record 13 percent to $14.07 billion. The reason for its financial success were India, Putin’s friends in OPEC and the end of the pandemic.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has completely ignored Western sanctions and exploited Putin’s difficulties by buying huge quantities of oil at discounted prices, India then reaps a nice profit by selling the processed oil to third countries via the world market.

The OPEC countries meanwhile, have obliged President Putin by keeping oil production down and prices up. At the same time demand for energy has grown as the world economy recovers from the Covid pandemic.

But what about the coming year. Gazprom’s revenues are unlikely to rise. It takes time to build alternative destination pipelines and storage facilities. As for oil prices, demand is starting to fall. India has reached the limits of how much oil it can process and world economic growth is expected to drop to 2.7 percent in 2024 compared to 5.5 percent in 2022.

So, what Putin needs is a first class money manager to ensure that the maximum efficiency is squeezed out of every rouble. That is why he has appointed economist Andre Belousov as his new Minister for Defense.

Putin is his own commander-in-chief. He already has a Chief of Staff in the form of General Valery Gerasimov. What he needs is someone who can organise a defense budget that is now 6.7 percent of the country’s GDP before oil prices start to go the way of gas prices.

United States

In 1923, the US Secretary of the Interior, Albert Fall, was hauled before the courts for accepting a $350,000 bribe that allowed an oil company to drill in protected reserves at Teapot Dome, Wyoming.

This is the crux of the Teapot Dome Scandal which was recognised as America’s biggest political scandal until Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged china, russia and ukraine | 8 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 12th May 2024 - 9:26 am

Russia

It was a week of military parades, trumpets, nuclear sabre-rattling and an inauguration in Russia this week.

It started with another threat from President Vladimir Putin when he announced on Monday the start of military exercises involving non-strategic nuclear weapons. This was in response to America releasing its $61 billion aid package to Ukraine, and the repetition of French President Emmanuel Macron’s threat to consider sending French troops to Ukraine.

Then there was Putin’s inauguration as he started his fifth term in office with a long walk past applauding crowds lining the red-carpeted corridors of the Kremlin. Putin’s first inauguration in 2000 was hailed as Russia’s transition to democracy. This one followed an election in which he “won” 87.5 percent of the vote while all his political opponents were either dead, in exile or in prison.

On Thursday it was the Victory Day Parade to mark the end of what the Russians call “The Great Patriotic War.” May Day was the big parade in Soviet days. May 9, was important, but it was not even a public holiday until 1965. Putin, has revived the celebration and elevated it to a collective remembrance resembling a religion.

One of the highlights of the parade is the march of the “Immortal Regiment” in which relatives troop past the reviewing stand holding aloft pictures of family members who died in the war. The scene is reminiscent of icons being carried in Russian Orthodox Church services. The 60^th and 70^th anniversaries of the war’s end (in 2005 and 2015) were the biggest public holidays in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the inauguration and Victory Day were marked by increased Russian bombardments and missile attacks as Russian troops tried to gain the military upper hand before the latest batch of Western military aid arrived.

Palestine

The two main Palestinian factions – Hamas and Fatah – hate each other almost as much as they do the Netanyahu government.

They have barely spoken since 2007 when Hamas won elections in Gaza and booted Fatah and the Palestinian Authority out of the seaside strip.

That is why it is significant that representatives from the two factions met recently in Moscow and Beijing. The Chinese meeting was especially interesting because Beijing is keen to project itself as Middle East peace broker as opposed to its characterization of the US as Middle East war monger.

The Chinese have already successfully brokered the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between regional rivalries Iran and Saudi Arabia. Shortly after that success, foreign minister Wang Yi wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offering to mediate in the decades-old Arab-Israel conflict. Netanyahu politely refused.

Brokering a rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas could be a diplomatic back door for Beijing to constructively inject itself into the Middle East conflict. It is generally agreed that the two-state solution is the logical solution to the conflict.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged china, donald trump, israel, palestine and russia | 3 Comments

Observations of an Expat: Campus Powder Keg

By Tom Arms | Sat 4th May 2024 - 10:22 am

America has for years been a polarised powder keg waiting for the spark to ignite the fuse. It has come in the form of student protests against American support for Israel.

Protesters, counter-protesters and rent-a-mob have violently coalesced around the conflicting fates of Palestinians and the State of Israel.

As of Friday demonstrations have broken out on 140 college campuses in 45 states. More than 2,000 students have been arrested by police storming barricaded encampments and university buildings with riot gear.

President Joe Biden is trying to thread his way through the oft conflicting principles of freedom of speech and the rule of law. “There’s the right to protest but not the right to cause chaos,” he said. At the same time he is standing firm on his support for Israel while privately bemoaning the fact that he is not being given sufficient credit for pressuring the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

The political result could be a November victory for Donald Trump as young people continue their Gaza protest by boycotting the polls and the older generation vote for the strong man politics of Trump.

But what do the protesters want? It varies. Some what the total destruction of Israel. Others are focused on a ceasefire and the two-state solution. Still others have been drawn to the barricades by the issue of free speech. Counter-protesters fear that Israel and Jews in general are facing the problems of the 1930s. Rent-a-mob just sees an advantage in chaos.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged israel and joe biden | 13 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 28th April 2024 - 10:05 am

United States of America

Here’s the problem facing the US Supreme Court: Should US presidents – in and out of office – have total or partial immunity from criminal prosecution for acts they committed while in the Oval Office?

Or does the failure to provide this blanket immunity expose past presidents to political vendettas by their successors or other political opponents?

Or would Donald Trump’s appeal for blanket immunity – in the words of Justice Elena Kagan – “turn the Oval Office into a sea of criminality.”

This week the Justices heard oral arguments from lawyers representing Trump on one side and Special Prosecutor Jack Smith on the other. The latter is attempting to bring the former president to trial for his role in the 6 January Capitol Hill riots.

The Justices will now go away and ponder the arguments and issue a decision several weeks from now. Court-watchers are split on what the decision is likely to be. Quite often one can determine the outcome from the questions the Justices ask. Not so, this time as the Justices are painfully aware of the impact of their decision on the actions of future presidents as well as those of Donald Jesus Trump.

Many observers think the Supreme Court will issue a split decision. This would please the Trump team as it would mean referral back to the lower courts and delay, delay, delay.

As the Justices ponder, they may consider the words of pamphleteer Thomas Paine, whose 1776 “Common Sense” had a major impact on the American War of Independence and the constitution which the Justices are sworn to protect. “Where,” wrote Paine, “is the King of America? In America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other.”

United Kingdom and Rwanda

The British government has declared itself the final arbiter of reality. It has decreed that if it says that a country is safe then it is safe, regardless of whether it is or not.

Most everyone – except for the government of Rishi Sunak – agrees that Rwanda is not safe. Freedom House judges it as “not free”. Human Rights Watch says that protesting refugees have been fired on by Rwandan police. Others have simply disappeared. The Rwandan government is supporting the M23, a violent faction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which has been accused of war crimes.

For all of these reasons – and others – the UK Supreme Court in November ruled that the Sunak’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was “unlawful” because Rwanda is not a safe country.

So the government passed a bill which decreed that Rwanda is safe and the UK Supreme Court cannot say otherwise if the UK government say it is. A clear blow to the traditional independence of the British judiciary and its much vaunted respect for the rule of law.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged rwanda, the maldives and united kingdom | 2 Comments

Observations of an Expat: War is Expensive

By Tom Arms | Sat 27th April 2024 - 10:01 am

The $61 billion in in military aid that the US Congress voted for Ukraine this week is in the nick of time. The Ukrainians were literally running out of bullets to hold back the Russian steamroller.

But war is expensive. How much bang can the Ukrainians get for their American bucks?

Let’s start with the workhorse of the battlefield – the humble 155 mm artillery shell and the Howitzers that fire them. For the past few months a steady stream of shells from North Korean and Russian munitions factories has meant that the Russians have been lobbing five times as many shells into the Ukrainian frontline than the Ukrainians have into the Russian.

It has been working. The Russians have gradually pushed forward all the way along the 620-mile front and have captured the town of Aadvika. But the release of the American aid means that the Ukrainians can now start firing back at an anticipated rate of 8,000 shells a day.

Each basic 155mm shell costs $3,000. The all-singing, all dancing precision-guided variety can set you back as much as $130,000 a shell. The Anglo-American built howitzer that fires them costs $4 million.

The howitzers have a range of up to 20 miles, which puts them near the front and in harm’s way. The popular HIMARS (the acronym for America’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) is deadly accurate up to 186 miles. This means its mobile launcher (cost $20 million each) can be fired from relative safety. But make each shot count. The missiles cost $434,000 each.

NATO has been reluctant to provide F-16 fighter jets (price $50 million plus approximately $4 million for each air-launched cruise missile). But the Americans have given the Ukrainians thousands of Avevex Phoenix ghost drones at $60,000 a drone. These can be used for reconnaissance or to carry a high explosive on suicide missions.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ukraine | 12 Comments

Tom Arms’ World Review

By Tom Arms | Sun 21st April 2024 - 9:23 am

United States of America

Self-inflicted cracks are starting to appear in the MAGA edifice. The two Republicans wielding the sledgehammers are Alabama’s conspiracy theorist Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and, of course, Donald Trump himself.

The former president, has time and again, demonstrated a total disregard for the rule of law, or at least its application to his affairs. Next week the judge in his New York trial, Juan Merchan, will decide whether Trump is guilty of contempt of court for repeatedly breaching a gag order against his making comments about witnesses, jurors, the judge, the judge’s family or any court officials.

It is a legal courtesy for opposing legal teams to give a day or two’s advance notice of witnesses to give the lawyers time to prepare. The prosecution has asked the judge that they be allowed to withhold the information on the grounds that Trump is likely to issue intimidatory comments on his Truth Social platform. The judge has agreed.

Marjorie Taylor Greene – who has been dubbed “Vladimir Putin’s Envoy Extraordinaire to the US Congress” by Democrats and moderate Republicans – appears determined to totally destroy Republican credibility. Her main target is the $60 billion aid package for Ukraine which has been held up for months by far-right MAGA Republicans in the House of Representatives.

The package is expected to be approved this weekend. But Ms Greene is determined to make a last ditch effort to kill the aid bill with a series of outrageous amendments, including: No humanitarian aid for Gaza, withdrawal from NATO, no support for a two-state solution, and – best of all – a demand that any member of Congress who votes in favour of aid for Ukraine be conscripted into the Ukrainian army.

Ms Greene and the other members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus have managed to alienate moderate Republican congressman who are expected to cross the floor to vote with Democrats to pass the aid bill. Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden said that he and his colleagues were “sick and tired” of being “bullied” and “blackmailed.”

Europe

America’s “cancel culture” came to Europe this week–and then cancelled itself.

Cancel culture, is a term used by mainly US conservatives to decry the efforts of liberals to block (or “cancel”) public appearances by right-wing speakers. The tactic has become especially popular American university campuses where left-wing student demonstrations have forced the cancellation of speeches by right-wingers.

Conservatives – quite rightly – see this as an attack on free speech.

This week the Edmund Burke Foundation, a conservative American think tank/pressure group, was hosting a conference of right-wing European luminaries in Brussels. Or at least, it was until it encountered the cancel culture of a series of Brussels mayors.

Trouble started the weekend before the event when one of the mayors of Brussels 19 districts decided that the Euro-sceptic foundation’s National Conservatism Conference would not be welcome in his district which included the EU institutions. He feared that the speakers’ anti-EU, anti-immigration and anti-LGBT views would attract violent counter demonstrations. So the venue was shifted to a building near the European Parliament where another district mayor turfed out the organisers.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged africa, europe and population | 5 Comments

Op-eds

A roadmap to Queer Equality (Tara Foster)
A strange but welcome feeling (Jennie Rigg)
Fifteen years ago today…… (Caron Lindsay)
Mathew on Monday: Pluralism Means More Than a Slogan (Mathew Hulbert)
Urgent Call to Action by Lib Dem MPs on Palestine (John Kelly)

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A strange but welcome feeling

Observations of an Expat: The Elephant Returns

Liberal Democrats should be the first choice for women

Liberal Democrats cannot afford to be absent from Britain’s cities

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