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| Martial Law Protest in South Korea Source |
While we were being used to the standard "All quiet on the Western Front" reports, seemingly out of nowhere 2 places flared up into conflict.
Firstly, in South Korea.
It seems a president down on political luck decided to summon army to bail him out, under pretense of external danger. (Not that danger is totally inexistent, to be sure... North Korea has been making warlike noises even by their own standards lately).
He was forced to back down by the legislature, including own party members, and massive citizen protests.
What worries me is that in almost exact scenario we had Red Phoenix start in the original Larry Bond novel - civil unrest in the ROK leads to US starting troops withdrawal, and NK takes chance to invade.
What reassures me is this episode seems to be already over and will not impact ROK army readiness in the long term.
Secondly, there is sudden offensive of rebels in Syria, capturing Aleppo and Hama. I will not try to reinvent the wheel and reference excellent article by the great Cdr Salamander, here.
I actually have been wondering when the Russia retreating to fight Ukraine - and Iranian proxies in the area being pounded to ground by Israel - would result in situation change in Syria, and here it is.
For those who don't have the time to read, I will just leave this excellent picture. Veritable Game of Thrones, with ISIS playing Nightwalkers wanting to kill EVERYONE. As the situation enters dynamic change, I expect interesting times ahead. As in "May you live in interesting times!" ancient Chinese curse.
I can already predict that increased fighting might trigger another stream of refugees in Europe, but this time finding much less hospitable ground than in 2015.
Far right parties have gained ground, and even mainstream right and some left have grown to accept voters distrust - or even disgust - of immigration.
Stay tuned...
Interesting, the US supporting a lot of others, but little support FROM others. Wonder how that will change when Andy gets back into office and Barney is out.
ReplyDeleteLAST MINUTE EDIT: it seems Russian warships all sailed out from Tartus, Syria base in a hurry.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why...
What Joe says. We support everyone. And yet often those we support do not and will not support us.
ReplyDeleteFunny that Israel has sent search teams to US disasters like the condo collapse in Miami and on various hurricane disasters previous to the administration of 44 and 46 (that would be for 43 and 45 that they sent support.)
As to all the fires around the world, the once and future President Trump did a good job stomping out them during his first term. Let us all pray that he is as successful or more successful the second time around, assuming the cabal of feckless idiots that control this current administration and bureaucracy don't manage to rapidly increase the background radiation levels around the world.
Great (in a "Oh, we're soooo copulated" way) report on world events. And I am glad that Europe, for the most part, has finally opened its collective eyes to the threat of refugees from Africa and the Middle East. Refugees who always seem to be fit young men of military age. Hmmm. Coincidence? Kind of like all the asylum seekers and illegal aliens pouring over all our (the USA's) borders. That, funny, after one threat of tariffs and one phone call from Trump to the Mexican El Presidente, seems to have slowed greatly along our southern borders. Hmmm... funny that. We eagerly await the effects of Castro's little boy's visit with Trump.
"Refugees who always seem to be fit young men of military age."
DeleteI like how the "Every person on Earth has a right to come into the US" try to compare these "refugees " to Jews fleeing Germany in the 1930s. You look at those photos and it's mostly women, children, and the old folks. Many of the men tried to get their families out, but stayed behind themselves.
Side note: many of the people citing Jews getting out of Germany deny the Holocaust the Jews were fleeing, and are chanting "From the river to the sea" in support of the mohammedean Einsatzgruppen.
Interesting times have become even more interesting Sarge.
ReplyDeleteThe troubles in the mid-east have been there about forever... I look at the chart with all the colored arrows and say???
ReplyDeleteI miss the days when I could trust what I saw on the evening news...
Sarge, interesting diagram. Looks like the only two entities not fighting ISIS are the GCC and the free Syrian Army. Never heard of either, so probably not much help, so not much loss.
ReplyDeleteBut with all those entities fighting ISIS, shouldn’t they be non-existent now? Asking for a friend!
;-)
juvat
So the South Korean incident was not just an idle happening far away, this time: our oldest daughter Nighean Gheal is there teaching English. I sent here a text yesterday morning as soon as I got up and saw the news. She had not known until I sent her a message (it would have been afternoon her time there). She said there was no disruption that day and that when a president has low ratings, North Korea or Communism is an easy target to raise support. She did say a number of her Korean friends were concerned.
ReplyDeleteThe ongoing Syrian incident took me very much by surprise, as that has been (relatively) quiet. The fact they made such progress was more surprising.
Chauvinistic of me, I suppose, but the United States seems to be a stabilizing force in the world, a damper on human ambitions so to speak, and right now that damper isn't working. The world sees a firm damper coming for the next four years and is making the most the the time left before President Trump resumes office.
ReplyDeleteAs far as major powers go, US have been usually the most benevolent.. especially compared to things like Russia under any of its guises, Tsarist, Communist or Putinist.
DeleteSarge, still have family in Korea? I wonder what the man on the street thinks. The president claiming a risk to democracy sounds eerily similar to one here, and he decided to suspend democracy to save it. Crazy.
ReplyDeleteIndeed I do, my wife's two brothers and her oldest sister.
DeleteWell done, Paweł.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it is interesting to get a slightly different point of worldview. I appreciate the info, Pawel, well done. Thanks!
Deletejuvat
Thanks for the update Pawel, as has been said we live in 'interesting times'. Over here in the UK my main concern is hybrid warfare. The Russians are adept at the whole disinfo/plausible deniability game and at driving wedges into populations. Lest we forget the Russians have already killed a dissident over here using polonium and deployed a nerve agent to try and kill a defector.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how much of a threat Russia is militarily at the moment, in Ukraine US/Western kit seems to be way superior to most things the Russians have and most readings are that there are no 'wunderwaffen' on the way for the Russians but when you are dealing with an enemy with a complete disregard for human life all bets are off. If the Russians triumph it will be because our leaders have not grasped how evil the Putin regime is and we have allowed them to drive wedges into our society.
We've had a few incidents in the UK that make me think cyber attacks have been made, failures on the railway signalling system which is a big thing given how much the Greater London area uses rail and also failures in other infrastructure areas.
Finally the west needs to rearm. A lesson from WW2 is that 'the best is the enemy of the good enough'. I'd rather have an ample supply now of kit that is good enough rather than wait for the ultimate (which will be out of date when it arrives anyhow) The refugee crisis needs dealing with (how I have no idea but simple solutions are a fantasy). Remember the bad actors such as Erdogan, Xi, Putin et al will have no compunction in using refugees as weapons to cause discord.
Fun times ahead.
Retired
I concur with much of your view, Russia is not conventionally armed to challenge NATO after losses in Ukraine, while nukes are of limited value beyond deterring other side nukes and possibly some catastrophic conventional defeat. But espionage, sabotage and assassinations are tools Russia loves to employ, and which have few direct counters. My own instinct would be to gift Ukraine some 50 Tomahawks aimed specifically at GRU and SVR and FSB HQs. Let the Lubyanka burn...
DeleteEmergency update:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.bbc.com/news/live/cwy8xzxe0w7t
Well, that escalated quickly...