Zelensky

War in the Gulf: provisional balance sheet, part 3

/ Dan Smith / Leave a comment

Historians seem to expend a lot of time and energy arguing back and forth over many years on the balance of gains and losses in a war. The arguments tend to be plagued by uncertainties over data and definitions from beginning to end. History takes its own time to unfold, so it may not be until some time after the event that the results really start to become clear. Identifying a winner means defining what winning means. But the victor in the war may pay such a high price that they follow up by losing the ensuing peace. Not for nothing has the term Pyrrhic victory entered the lexicon, meaning a victory achieved at excessive cost – winning the battle but losing the war. It happens all too often and is one of many reasons why war should not be taken lightly. 

With such reservations in mind, this post is the third in a series aiming at an initial assessment of gains and losses in the Gulf war, looking at governments that were involved yet wholly or largely non-combatant.

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The war on Iran: from the ceasefire to the off-ramp?

/ Dan Smith / 2 Comments

The ceasefire in the US-Israeli war on Iran brings cautious relief. The bombing, the missiles, the destruction and the killing can stop, which is unreservedly good. But ceasefires are tricky things. They reflect the dynamics of war as much as peace and the threats each side holds over the other persist. Israel and the USA can unleash physically destructive forces Iran cannot match. Iran can unleash economically destructive forces to which the USA has no viable response except more destruction.

That Iran’s strategy is viable is clear every time Trump blinks when the oil price jumps or the stock market slumps. And that strategy has given Iran the strategic initiative, which Trump’s threat to erase Iranian civilisation does not take away. 

Big blustery threats and swear words from Trump aside, what can we see unfolding amid the thick fog of this war? This is the second in a series of blog posts sketching out a few pointers I see to what is happening today and what may happen tomorrow and the day after. 

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Ukraine, 1 year on: China’s peace plan is not a plan

/ Dan Smith / 1 Comment

A year after the renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine, China has come forward with a 12-point statement of its position on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis. That, at least, is what is called by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

It is widely reported in the international news media as a peace plan. See, among others, AlJazeera, AP, BBC, CNN, DW, Guardian, New York Times, Reuters, Sky, Time (though it calls it a proposal).

But it is not a plan and China does not say it’s a plan – it’s a position according to the government and to CGTN, Beijing’s state-run English-language news channel (though, to be fair, CGTN joined the crowd and called it a plan on the second day of coverage). Further, it does not outline either what a peace settlement could consist of or a pathway for getting there. It is a statement of opinion that stays away from specifics about what its support for dialogue and negotiation could mean in practice.

And I think that in ramping up a statement of position into a peace plan that can then be criticised for lacking specifics, the news media are missing something.

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Putin’s 6-sided box in Ukraine

/ Dan Smith / 2 Comments

Western commentators on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing war are frequently using the term, ‘quagmire’ – a bog, swamp or morass, from which, once you have entered, it is between hard and impossible to get out, as every move you make to free yourself sucks you deeper in. The term was widely used in the 1960s about the USA’s war in Vietnam.

As Lawrence Freedman has pointed out in one of his commentaries on the war, the term has a closely related partner – escalation, which might seem to a state stuck in a quagmire like the only way out. Both terms have a history and have considerable currency when analysing the problems and risks big states face in wars with smaller states.

But there is another metaphor from the time of the Vietnam War and all those arguments and debates, which I find even richer – the six-sided box. By invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has taken his country into a box from which it is hard to see the way out. And that is bad news for everyone.

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