The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Gone are the days when the world watched, with bated breath, the many talks between the United States and the Soviet Union on reduction and control of nuclear arms development. Gone are the headlines announcing the beginning, continuation and completion of the SALT or START talks. The world has changed.

Now it is the United States – as before – Russia – a replacement for the Soviet Union – and… China! When the SALT and START talks were conducted, no one paid any attention to the Middle Kingdom. Now China is a power to reckon with, not merely economically but also militarily. China is estimated to have some 350 strategic missile launching pads as opposed to some 480 American. That’s hard on America’s heels. Now what negotiations on nuclear arms control and arms limitation can be conducted between the United States and the Russian Federation without taking into the equation the Middle Kingdom?

The problem is that Moscow says it has nothing to do with China: China is not Russia’s military ally, though Washington perceives it as such. Contrarily, Russia views France and the United Kingdom as America’s closest allies, and rightly so: all the three countries belong to NATO. Hence, Russia’s demand that both France and Great Britain be included in the talks is legitimate.

On the other hand, Washington is legitimately concerned about China: under the current circumstances Beijing can certainly be viewed as Russia’s ally rather than that of America. (Just to think of it: China’s might have been created by the United States of which we’ll make a reminder later in the text.) Neither does the Middle Kingdom want to be included in the trilateral talks with the Russian Federation: why should it? It is an independent power – superpower – and it can act at the negotiating table on its own. So much so that Beijing has something to win from Washington: ok, the Chinese may say, we could reduce our military development if you lift the sanctions on China and the countries that wish to trade with the Middle Kingdom. How about that? Nuclear might is always a fine bargaining chip, is it not?

It is even true of tiny North Korea as well: not that North Korea is so powerful as to be considered for joint talks. No. But Korean nuclear potential is a sufficient deterrent even for such a superpower as the United States. And there is something more to the nuclear potential: it is the determination of the Korean leadership to actually use the missiles if push comes to shove. It is not Venezuela, whose president can be adducted in broad daylight without the perpetrator of the abduction fearing any retaliation, but we are digressing.

The balance of forces has changed since the year in which the Soviet Union disintegrated. For maybe as many as two decades the United States dominated the globe and felt so self-assured that Washington began to dictate to the whole globe. This, however, has changed. Russia has reasserted herself while China has risen to the status of a(n almost) superpower.

Which by the way is good for humanity. One superpower with no rival to fear would soon become corrupted and degenerated. All the other countries would have felt intimidated with no alternative anywhere in sight. Fortunately, a world emerges where there are three or maybe four (if we include India) big players, which allows for the smaller entities to have a political alternative, and which keeps each superpower in check.

A new arrangement needs to be made – no one power wants the prospect of a nuclear shootout. Talks are not going to be easy, because it is now three big entities, not two.

Political persistent rumour has it that Adolf Hitler was the creation of the Western elites who wished to rebuild Germany and direct its power against the Bolshevik Soviet Union. That is why London and Paris did not react when Germany began to arm itself, when Germany incorporated Austria and annexed Czechia; that explains why they did not react when Poland was attacked. The Western elites wanted Germany to expand, grow stronger, and come into physical contact with the Soviet Union. Now Adolf Hitler – assuming he was the darling of the Western elites – stopped playing by their script and turned against them when he attacked Denmark and Norway, the Low Countries and eventually France. It came as a shock: he was supposed to attack the Soviet Union!

Isn’t history repeating itself? The Middle Kingdom was supported by the United States for the express purpose to turn it against the Soviet Union. Washington would have rubbed its hands in glee if Beijing and Moscow started a real hot war! Decades have passed and – due to clumsy American policy-making – Moscow was pushed into Beijing’s embrace while Beijing was pushed in Moscow’s. Now they are – though not formally – economic and military allies. But again, the Kremlin may repeat: we have nothing to do with it. Had not Washington acted the way it did, there would have been no war in Ukraine, no sanctions on Russia and China, and consequently no Russo-Chinese cooperation.

The three gunslingers have a hard nut to crack. Certainly, none wants a nuclear exchange, yet each wants to get the upper hand. They are observing each other attentively, not knowing in which direction to level their guns. It reminds one of the cultic cemetery scene from the 1966 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly classic movie. Do you recall it? Good Blondie (Clint Eastwood), bad Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), and ugly Tuco (Eli Wallach) are facing each other – graves and crosses around them, their hands over their holsters, their eyes darting from face to face, their minds calculating. That’s the United States, that’s the Russian Federation, and that’s the People’s Republic of China facing each other (who is the good, the bad or the ugly is a matter of your political persuasion). In the graveyard scene only one emerges victorious. How will things play out in political reality at beginning of the 21 century?

Discrepant Exegeses

It was not executed in broad daylight – rather, in the dead of night – but still it was disrespectful as disrespectful can be. A head of state of a sovereign nation was abducted as if he were a criminal. Handcuffs were put on his hands, he was blindfolded and transported – together with his wife – from his own country to the United States. What a show! For all to see. For all leaders to take notice. For all top politicians to be on their guard. That happened on January 3. We all know it, the whole world knows it – the whole world observed it with bated breath.

A head of a relatively large country was captured like he was a street ruffian. Apart from his personal security detail that attempted to put up a fight there was no resistance in the true sense of the word. American aircraft hovered over Caracas the way they might hover over their own turf. There were casualties to be sure but no appreciable resistance of the country as such. Pundits draw conclusions that Nicolás Maduro’s closest associates – generals, ministers – had betrayed him, had let themselves be bribed, and abandoned him in the critical moment. Word has it that only Cuban bodyguards stood up for Nicolás Maduro, as a result of which some of them were killed.

The warrant for the action? The drug trafficking into the United States that allegedly had been sponsored by Caracas and the president himself. Sure enough that is the declared objective, not the genuine one. We’ll talk about the genuine objective later in the text. Here let us make an assumption that it was drug trafficking that triggered the US action, and that Nicolás Maduro really sponsored it. If that were the case then a couple of questions arise.

For at least four years during the Biden administration the American southern border was not merely porous: it was wide open for all to come. Arrivals from South America were flocking across the border and they were not even vetted! Sure enough, drug traffickers may have been among them. Why should Venezuela be punished for that? The drugs are distributed in American cities – does anybody forces the purchase of them at gun point? Last but not least, why are the American police not effective enough? Why must the American army step in? If particular countries were to be blamed for particular sorts of crime that is perpetrated on American soil, then the US army should be intervening around the globe twenty-four seven. But then, if you do not want to have drug traffickers, why have borders open wide for all to cross them?

The event of January 3rd compels one to draw a comparison between the intervention of the US Army in Venezuela and the intervention of the armed forces of the Russian Federation in Ukraine. How alike they are and at the same time how different! Americans claim that Venezuela posed a security threat to the United States; Russia claims that Ukraine posed a security threat to the Russian Federation. Washington says it is protecting its citizens from drug trafficking cartels; Russia maintains it is protecting its citizens from Banderite fascist ideology and the military bases complete with ballistic missiles to be installed in Ukraine once Kiev joins NATO. Washington feels threatened by a country that is three-four thousand kilometers away from America’s coastline; Russia feels threatened by a neighbouring country, a country that is adjacent to Russia, a country that is not separated from the Russian Federation by a body of sea as the United States is separated from Venezuela.

Knowing all this full well, America’s allies go out of their way to either support politically the United States or keep their mouths shut; contrarily, they are beside themselves with outrage when it comes to the Russian intervention in Ukraine. Caracas had diplomatic and economic ties with China and Russia – America’s rivals, but Kiev had ties with the United States and was planning to join NATO, a military alliance which is openly hostile to Russia. These are mirror events and yet they are adjudicated entirely differently. Why?

The United States has executed an action of decapitation which is just yet another one in the long string of such actions. Think about Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Serbia’s Slobodan Milošević, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and many others. Leaders of sovereign states are put on trial (Slobodan Milošević, Nicolás Maduro) or killed (Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milošević) or chased away (Bashar al-Assad). Do you still remember the repulsive repugnant disgusting sickening abhorrent enunciation of one Hillary Clinton as she said – commenting on Gaddafi’s death and paraphrasing Julius Caesar – We came, we saw, he died! – and laughed heartily at that? Imagine Vladimir Putin saying something along these lines, commenting on the death of, say, Volodymyr Zelenskyy… What a howl would be raised in the the ‘free’ world! A statement like that would be interpreted as ultimate evidence of Putin’s wickedness.

Might is right, that’s all there is to it. So, America intervened in Venezuela because it saw it fit. All the justification that is being rolled out is either easily refutable or laughable. Isn’t it ridiculous to hear that the world’s dominant superpower needs to abduct the head of a small country located thousands of miles away across the sea because the superpower feels insecure? Isn’t it laughable to hear that the Russian Federation has no legitimate grounds for intervening in a neighbouring country that is about to join a military alliance which is openly hostile to Russia? And yet, millions of people do not seem to see it.

Now the genuine reasons for the American intervention in Venezuela. Venezuela holds the largest oil reserves than any other country, including Saudi Arabia. Venezuela also has other valuable resources. Control over them will provide the United States with enormous economic and – what follows – political leverage. We should not lose the sight of the fact that Saudi Arabia has not prolonged the agreement it once signed with Washington to only sell its oil for American dollars. That in itself is dangerous for the United States. It was the petrodollars that safeguarded American might and American development. All countries and any country wishing to buy oil – and they all need oil for a variety of purposes – needed to first have dollars. Dollars are issued by the United States, so ultimately all the world’s nations needed to directly or indirectly either sell to the United States their goods and services or borrow from the United States. Americans were growing rich by simply… printing dollars or transferring electronic impulses from their bank account to the bank account of a country which was in need of dollars.

The capture of the head of state and the installment of someone who might be willing to comply with American wishes is also a strike dealt against China. China has been spreading its tentacles to Africa and… South America. Beijing has been replacing European colonial powers on the Dark Continent and attempting to dislodge American influence from the Western hemisphere. Americans suddenly remembered the 1823 Monroe’s doctrine, which stated that both American continents are the sphere of influence of the United States alone. No one should dare to set foot anywhere south of the American border. The Chinese have financed the construction of the Port of Chancay in Peru as a part of the Belt and Road Initiative. Its task is to enable the exports to China from South American countries and imports from China to South America. The Middle Kingdom is setting foot where it should not dare, according to the Monroe doctrine.

With this intervention Americans have set yet another example – a warning sign – a mafioso-like manifestation what awaits those leaders who will not comply…

Be it as it may, what strikes the eye is pure hubris, the kind of hubris that has always been present throughout history and always will be. In 1939, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union signed a pact to divide Poland. That pact has been branded by the European Union as a conspiracy against peace; the leaders of the contracting states – Hitler and Stalin – were labeled warmongers who paved the way for the outbreak of the Second World War. Now almost a whole year earlier another pact had been signed, a pact between Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom, a pact that paved the way for the partitioning of Czechoslovakia. This pact – signed by Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier and Chamberlain – in Munich has not been branded by the European Union as outrageous, although it, too, led straight to the outbreak of the Second World War. You see? Very similar events, very different interpretations. Much the same is true of the current interventions in Venezuela and Ukraine: American intervention is regarded as the right one, Russian intervention as abominable. History is full of events mirroring each other and receiving discrepant exegeses.

Erasure of diversity, equity and inclusion. Competence and merit, instead!

In the same document on the National Security Strategy that we discussed previously, there is yet another revolutionary or counterrevolutionary bombshell that strikes a blow at the Trotskyist ideology that took root on American soil, namely that of diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI. This bombshell is the return to competence and merit. The (quasi-communist) ideology of DEI, as the document states, degraded American institutions and held the whole country back. DEI was in its essence discriminatory and anti-competitive.

Isn’t it weird that so obvious a thing as rewarding competence and merit should constitute a serious issue? Isn’t it weird that competence and merit should ever be questioned as pillars of society, economy, any kind of advancement? Isn’t it strange that there are people who think they can include the lazy and the untalented, that they can apply equity to the unresourceful and the reckless, that they can employ with preference for race or disability, and hope for the sustainability of such a society? Even the communists in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe did not have such ideas. Yes, they tried to distribute things equally among all the members of society, but only to a certain extent and they soon realized that it was not workable. People need stimuli in order to put effort in their work, in order to come up with inventions, and so on. Members of society who are unproductive but nonetheless enjoy the comfort of state care tend to act like – forgive the word – parasites. They expect more and more giving less and less in return.

That alone is bad enough, but that entails even worse consequences. Those members of society who are otherwise willing to contribute to the well-being of all will sooner or later lose interest in applying themselves to any effort. Why, if you can have all the benefits without straining yourself, why should you strain over your work, why should you put in effort? This demoralizing effect spreads like wild fire and brings about the downfall of any society. No wonder then that the document on the National Security Strategy calls for “rooting out” DEI. The so-called socialist states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were virtually eaten away by the masses of people who contributed less than they consumed. Since competence and merit were not properly rewarded, almost any initiative was nipped in the bud. Picture to yourself a socialist factory manager who rather than employing a skilled and resourceful engineer employs someone with little competence simply because she needs to be included, simply because she has children to feed (and no husband), simply because the state ideology says that no one should be left behind. It all sounds very well on paper but is divorced from reality. You can only distribute what you have, and you cannot have goods nor can you dispose of services unless you have people who manufacture those goods or perform the services. So, in order to include and diversify and equalize you still need to reward competence and merit, you still need to preserve inequality in income. A square circle, isn’t it? But that’s what reality is all about, and that’s what ideology is not about.

The do-gooders in Washington obviously thought that if they decree an equal distribution of goods and services, that if they treat everybody on a par irrespective of his or her talent and effort, that if they cease to differentiate between individuals, then they can create a model society where all participants are happy. That’s a fantasy, a fantasy that does not stand to reason, a fantasy that runs counter to reality. When fantasy clashes with reality, it is always and invariably reality that wins. Reality means that people are unequal and that the unresourceful can only count on alms. Yes, you heard it right: alms. Because that’s what any welfare means in plain language. Whatever you get without having earned it is properly called alms. And yes, alms can be distributed by magnanimous, resourceful and hence affluent people who… are affluent because they are rewarded for their competence and merit.

The document on the National Security Strategy says that the American administration will “re-instill” a culture of competence. Note the prefix re in re-instill. That means that the culture of competence on which the United States was built and which made America once great has been eradicated, has been obliterated. Loss of the spirit of competence is a fatal blow to any state, organization or society. How do you go about re-instilling a virtue once it has been lost? Not an easy task, certainly. Individuals accustomed to being taken care of by the government will naturally resist any change, they will further demand benefits and even call for their increase. Any curtailment thereof may instill the spirit of riot against and disappointment in the government. This in turn may be exploited by the opposition – by the democrats – so that the whole process of re-instilling the culture of competence might be stopped in its tracks.

But then, America has no other way out of its current crisis, for even communist China (communist!) has for decades emphasized competitiveness and merit. If the hard-liner communists have eventually understood human nature and reality, why have the American political class failed to do so? Why has the American political class let itself be fooled by such – childish – ideologies? Are the members of that class really the graduates of the Ivy League?

“American prosperity and security,” we can read in the document on the National Security Strategy “depend on the development and promotion of competence. Competence and merit are among our greatest civilizational advantages.” The document goes on to explain the obvious, namely that competence and merit translate into hiring, promoting, and honoring the best Americans (not just anybody), which secures innovation, which in turn is followed by prosperity. Wow! That twenty-first century citizens of the most developed nation need to have such basics spelled out…! That Americans need to be lectured about the simplest of natural economic rules that “should competence be destroyed or systematically discouraged, […] infrastructure, national security, education, and research will cease to function.” That Americans should be reminded of the obvious fact that “radical ideologies that seek to replace competence and merit with favored group status would render America unrecognizable and unable to defend itself”! Isn’t it the ABC of social and economic life?

Indeed, while communism died in the Soviet Union and has morphed into capitalism in the People’s Republic of China, it re-emerged in the bastion of capitalism: in the United States during the rule of the democrats. History can play pranks, can it not? The current administration and this part of the American political class that backs it have reversed the course. Will they be successful, though? Will they not be followed by the Trotskyist democrats in a few years’ time who will revive their communist ideas of diversity, equity and inclusion? America’s domestic policy appears to have been highly volatile over the recent decades, just as volatile are the decisions and statements of America’s current president, so this strategy – as correct as it is – may be put on hold or… cancelled.

Now it is official: Europe may not be European. Soon.

What has been stated over decades by many an observer in France and the United Kingdom, in Germany and the Netherlands, in Sweden and in Belgium, what has been denied and dismissed by the powers that be, eventually has been authoritatively and officially recognized and identified as the problem of utmost importance. It has been recognized and identified by no less an authority than the United States of America in the latest document on National Security Strategy drafted November and made known in early December this year.

The document that does an about-face in all American policies constitutes also a scathing attack on the policies that have been pursued for a couple of decades in the European Union. The documents states in no uncertain terms that “should present trends continue” [i.e. continued mass immigration] “the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less.” We have it in plain language. Precisely the same as what the so-called conspiracy theorists or far-right activists (as they have always been derogatorily labelled in the mainstream media) have been pointing for decades. We have in plain language what has been branded as racism, as xenophobia, as Islamophobia. Eventually, Washington itself has arrived at the same conclusion: Europe will cease to be European with all attendant problems. Because the replacement of one population with another, one culture with another, one religion (even of nominal) with another, one race with another translates into a substantial change of epic dimensions. Nigerian or Somali citizens of Germany and Sweden, Afghan or Pakistani inhabitants of France and Great Britain are not going to simply be an exotic version of the indigenous populations. Nigerian or Somali immigrants, Afghan or Pakistani settlers are importing to Europe and grafting on the European trunk Nigeria and Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan, period, which the National Security Strategy document openly states, saying that after such a change “it is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies” [so much so that] “[M]any of these nations are currently doubling down on their present path.”

Washington’s fear of losing reliable political, economic and military partners is couched in diplomatic, soft language, yet the message is as plain as day: in 20 years certain European countries may not have “economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies” due to massive, uncontrolled immigration. It is a bombshell. In the same document, Europe’s transatlantic partner makes its wishes clear: “We want Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence.” Will these words have been heard by the European political class?

Of course they won’t. Europe’s political class will make an even stronger commitment to all the policies it has pursued for the last decades – be it globalism, ecologism, immigration, regulations relating to climate-change, rainbow sexuality, cutting itself off from cheap Russian gas and oil – because Europe’s political class has turned its political principles into a religion and themselves – into that religion’s most ardent followers. Europe’s political class is following in the footsteps of their grand predecessors: Jacobins and Bolsheviks. They will rather guillotine or court-martial those among themselves who would rather correct Europe’s course than give up on anything that they hold so dear. Such is the collective psyche of any movement – be it religious or political – such are the laws of social behaviour. An ideology is like an avalanche: once it gathers momentum, no one and nothing can stop it. It must run its course until it spends its energy in a vale of tears, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Such was the case with the Jacobins and the Bolsheviks mentioned above: they had to run their political course until they wreaked havoc on their nations and until… there emerged a strong man (Bonaparte, Stalin) who managed to put a stop to the political, cultural, moral and economic insanity.

One may wonder whether the United States will avoid Europe’s fate because American demographics are not very much different from Europe’s. The years of the rule of the democrats meant that the American border was not merely porous or opened: there was no border at all. It is estimated that also in the United States the white population will pretty soon become a minority. If the United States and Europe join hands in this rush towards oblivion, then neither Russia nor China need to do anything about those two bastions of democracy and progress but wait. Twenty or so years is not such a long time.

Stated goals – genuine goals

Among the twenty-eight points of the peace proposal that has been drafted by the Americans is one that – if agreed upon – promises amnesty to all the participants of the conflict in Ukraine. This point reveals a huge lot.

For a long time now we’ve been fed the narrative that it was the Russian soldiers who were cruel and inhumane. Stories were spun and, indeed, pictures shown in the media about the atrocities committed by the Russians on Ukrainians. Do you still remember the notorious Bucha massacre? The intended pun on words – Butchery in Bucha or Butchers from Bucha – and the village carefully and intentionally selected to make the headlines sound alarming?

At the same time we’ve been fed the narrative that Ukrainian soldiers behave themselves gallantly. They are not the ones who commit atrocities, they are not the ones who assault civilians. Such things are only done by those evil Russians.

Let us assume the veracity of such statements. Then, like a bombshell, we can read one of the points of the peace proposals about pardoning the perpetrators of war crimes or other atrocities. If it was the Russians who committed those crimes, then the pardon extends to them and them alone, right? Why does the United States want to spare the Russian ruffians in uniform? Why such magnanimity? Didn’t the collective West – the United States and the European Union – label Russia’s president a killer, didn’t the commissioners want him on trial in the Hague? They wanted to hold accountable no less a figure than Russia’s president: surely they would be much stricter while handling figures of a lesser caliber!

Reading this point of the peace proposal you suddenly learn that atrocities and war crimes are not worth prosecuting. Are the Americans genuinely trying to shield the hated Russian evil-doers? Do the Americans genuinely suggest that justice should not be done? No, certainly not.

As usual, we need to distinguish between stated goals and genuine goals. The stated goal is the amnesty, something enticing for the Russians who are allegedly up to their hilts in blood. The genuine goal is – yes, you guessed it right – to protect the Ukrainian soldiers and the multiple mercenaries fighting on the Ukrainian side who have committed atrocities and downright war crimes. They are to be shielded from justice, they are to be protected, they are to be saved for future conflicts when they will come in handy.

Barely anyone remembers or, indeed, knows about the 2014 Odessa fire, a fire that burnt fifty or so (Russian) men and women alive in the Trade Union House, which was set ablaze by Ukrainian political activists. Still fewer people took notice when Russia’s President Vladimir Putin announced in one of his speeches at the very beginning of the conflict in Ukraine that Moscow knew the identity of the perpetrators of that fire and was about to track them down with the purpose of bringing them to book. Europeans or Americans may not have taken notice of those words; most probably they wouldn’t have heard them, since they only consume the news from the official channels. Yet, the wrongdoers would certainly have heard those words and consequently must have had the fright of their lives. The influential ones, those with connections to the powerful figures in the West, must have used all their influence to extract that kind of guarantee for themselves from their Western overlords.

Oh dear, Mr Trump!

Trump may have stopped the left-wing revolution, but his achievements as a top manager in the top position remain miserable: the US is running a record deficit and DOGE is ceasing to exist.

The first year of Donald Trump’s second term will soon be over. In January, the public watched with interest as the new president made statements about restoring national finances. Elon Musk and his DOGE were supposed to reduce waste, fraud and bureaucracy and optimize the government’s work. New IT systems were to be introduced, useless jobs abolished, and unnecessary expenses reduced. Musk ran across the stage with a chainsaw accompanied by Javier Milea (the Argentine president), and Trump said that DOGE was a revolution and that they would find hundreds of billions in savings and reduce bureaucracy, including the federal administration. In short: America will be great again!

However, reality proved cruel. October marks the start of a new financial year in the US and thus a new budget. The budget deficit reached a record high of $284.3 billion this month, which is $300 million more than during the Covid-19 crisis, a time when the entire economy was shut down and the world was turned upside down. Never before in US history has there been such a high budget deficit at the start of the financial year.

However, it is important to note that an increasing proportion of this is attributable to the rising cost of servicing the debt. At present, it already accounts for 19% of all revenue, and forecasts indicate that expenditure on servicing US debt will exceed all social programmes and transfers within 10 years. Therefore, it can be argued that DOGE attempted to clean one room without realizing that the entire house is dirty and the owner is constantly walking around in dirty shoes. The savings should have amounted to more than $200 billion, while audits showed that this could be four times as much. This means that not only did loud statements come to little, but in the end there was still a record budget deficit. Ultimately, DOGE ceased to exist after 11 months, even though it was supposed to function until mid-2026.

Hopefully Mr Trump manages world affairs better on the military front than he does on the economic front in his own backyard, otherwise…

Trump once danced with Arabs to their sword dance, and today…

In November, Donald Trump announced that he would approve the sale of F-35 Lightning II fighter jets, the most advanced V-generation aircraft equipped with AI sensors and other technological innovations. Even more important is who the buyer of these weapons is. It is, of course, Saudi Arabia, which will purchase more than 20 F-35s, 300 Abrams tanks, MQ-9 Reaper drones, air defence systems and a variety of missiles. Why do the Arabs need so many advanced weapon systems? Well, it’s obviously about superiority over Iran, but also (though this is not said out loud) over Qatar, which is not exactly a friend of the Saudis and is armed to the teeth.

This is a situation similar to that of the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan tried to emphasize the power of the alliance with the Arabs by providing them with the latest military technology. At that time, AWACS systems and F-15 aircraft were sold despite opposition from the United States’ most important ally in the region, Israel. At that time, it was a blow to the Soviet Union, and today Trump’s game is focused on China and Russia. The Americans had to somehow “consolidate” the Saudis in their camp, as they had recently been buying more and more weapons from China and Russia. The purchase of weapons such as the F-35 makes Arabia dependent on American technology and service.

On the other hand, the US had to use the “carrot and stick” approach to keep oil prices low, which is unlikely to please the Arabs and OPEC+ as a whole. This is an important issue for the United States, as cheap black gold keeps inflation low in the country, satisfies consumers, secures the voter base, and weakens the major exporters of this commodity, such as Russia and Iran. This shows that it is enough for the US to be present in this region through arms exports in order to remain a strategic player there.