Peering beneath the hysteria...

The very persona of Trump generates a cloud of hysteria. Yet it is also true that he seems to understand this on some level and feed it, whether this can be described as strategic or not is debatable. 

One is obliged to try to tune out of this hysteria, even if like paranoia, it is sometimes justified. 

One also needs to tune out of all the yabbering ‘historians’ and other experts who are trying to impose precedents as templates to the present moment. Whatever use these could have as gateways to understanding is always limited. America has such as short-sighted view on history that it systematically re-treads the same old hackneyed material, over and over. 

I might cite examples from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (or even earlier) which could even be more relevant — or insight-pregnant — right now, but it would still be irresponsible. Historical narratives can function like dogmas, a semi-transparent cutaneous layer over reality. 

Trump has said and perhaps also done many outrageous things on the way towards finding an end to the war in Ukraine, yet behind all the unsettling noise, concrete positive steps continue to be made and the major European powers are accepting a heavy future load, which may have been the underlying goal all along from a US perspective. 

I always saw Venezuela as Little Marco’s pet project. And we need no reminding that early 50s Guatemala was also the pet project of a sitting Secretary of State. The way Vance is so far distancing himself from the seizure of Maduro does seem to reinforce this impression. 

Yet even if recent events go against the core MAGA belief system, there should be no doubt what the lures which have proved difficult to resist here have been: Caracas sits at the centre of a nexus of major US policy itches — narcos, migration, almost insanely blatant corruption driven by a criminal mafia which co-opts the organs of state (as here in Guatemala), support for Islamism, and a wormhole through which both Russians, Chinese and even Iranians have been able to blithely pursue strategic inroads right under Uncle Sam’s nose. 

And for Marco it has been holding up late stage ‘Castro’. Remove the imports and other assistance from Venezuela while Putin simultaneously self-destructs and Cuba would thereafter depend largely on goodwill gestures from Mexico and Canada, neither of whom are major participants in the new ‘Great Game’ nor represent a significant extra-hemispherical threat to anything like the same extent. 

Part of this new game, as being played by both the US and China is to make Putin think he is himself a key player, while slowly undermining him. 

The seizure of those Russian-flagged tankers today was a step in this. Before making their move on Taiwan, China is much more likely to snatch a swathe of territory in the east that it disputes with Russia. If and when it does, Russia will exit rather like one of those unfortunate third-placed reality show contestants. (No doubt with a good deal of sour grapes that could turn into very toxic grapes indeed.)

The ‘international law’ system was born out of hope and resignation in the last century. It was always going to require nations to start acting like Japanese citizens, reflexively sticking to rules with only a minimal need for policing. And when that policing did take place it was occurring at the end of a Cold War where the world appeared unipolar (a fully-aligned NATO or the US) and the cop could be seen as in some ways benign, but even before the neocon over-reaches of the 'War on Terror’, the first big customers for the Hague were brought there by a bombing campaign over Serbia which had the effect of turning Putin against the West. 

Right now the ‘other’ powers and mini-blocks around the three playing the top level game need to adapt to the evolving new situation fairly rapidly. NATO can still have some influence, because Trump wants benefits more than he wants costs and to some extent so does Xi. Only Putin still has this logic utterly back to front. 

In simple terms the big picture world may have just four ways to go forward right now:  1) the late twentieth century platitudes of the ‘international law’ order, perhaps precisely just the same old platitudes, but some would strive for a world so multipolar and inherently peaceful and harmonious that everyone just buries all their weapons along with their greed and resentment 2) open, unabashed direct conflict between the blocks, probably leading to apocalypse  3) ‘globalise the intifada’, overthrow everything, destroy all wealth, imprison and kill everyone who disagrees,  and go back to some sort of totalist medievalism across the globe (possibly seguing back into option three in the end) or 4) find a way to live within a world that has three or perhaps 2.5 great powers acting selfishly and sometimes amorally, clashing either through proxies or at a regionalised level, yet never walking away from the table where a deal of some sort awaits.

These are never going to be absolute forks in the road. Though option two in its most exclusive form tends to become one in the end. There’s some wriggle room for both head and heart, thought and action. 

Other courses of course continue to be possible at every other level other than the top level, given the current social, political and financial constitution of humanity. 

Maduro’s error, far more than his predecessor, was that he flaunted his position as a provocation in this situation where option four has been developing. He was, as they say, taking the piss.