Week signals: Back on the mainland
Plus: watch points for Russia, China, the US, Central Asia, and Hungary.
Hello,
In this week’s edition of Week Signals:
IN REVIEW. Eternal wars, eternal questions; the opiate of foreign policy; compellence and coercion.
UP AHEAD. Russia and China; elections in America; tariffs at court; the ‘stans (and Viktor Orban) go to Washington.
And don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn.
Week Signals is the Saturday note for clients of Geopolitical Strategy, also available to GD Professional subscribers on Geopolitical Dispatch.
The Week in Review: Addicted to intervention
Co-authored with Oscar Martin.
The week began with Donald Trump beginning a gold-plated tour of Asia. It ended on his return with plenty of baubles but also plenty of debate on how much had really been achieved. The reconstruction of the White House and America’s body politic continued – with new images emerging of a garish 80s-style bathroom, which the president somehow described as “very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln” – but so did the government shutdown, with today being the critical date when for many Americans its first effects will be known (more in The Week Ahead, below).
Also continuing was the Trump administration’s controversial war on drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which the UN’s human-rights chief Friday called a violation of international law. Such a reaction was expected. And we expect it will be ignored. But what is perhaps more uncertain is whether these strikes will go from sea to land, and specifically, to the mainland of Venezuela.
The Miami Herald and the Wall Street Journal claim such attacks could be imminent. Trump himself claims they’re not. The Venezuelan opposition is reportedly divided, but Nobel laureate and self-described Trump ally Maria Corina Machado told Bloomberg that escalation was “the only way.”
Should that be so, now is the time to ask why, so soon after both sides of politics vowed not to repeat the follies of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is again eyeing another war of choice. Why is the US, with natural borders and no true proximate threats, risking another quagmire in a poor but oil-rich country? Will the potential benefits outweigh the likely costs? Is the US as addicted to intervention as to narcotics? At least two of these questions are inherently unknowable, but our Paris-based analyst, Oscar Martin, takes a look.