Month: June 2025

TRUMPERY: MAKING SOMETHING OUT OF HOT AIR AND PRESTIDIGITATION.

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn THE WORLD IS CHANGING, TRUMP MYSTERY, WORLD POWER RELATIONSHIPS

My goodness! Trump’s done it again. From a mess of bloviation, trash talking, boasting, theatrical productions, deception and deflection, empty gestures and gas, he’s made something. The Israel-Iran war is apparently stopping (for now). And, part of the deal is that we are all supposed to agree that Iran’s nuclear program has been obliterated so we must all stop talking about it. (Interesting to see how that bit of mental gymnastics is handled.)

Some people whose analysis I respect (notably “Armchair Warlord” and “Simplicius”) suspected a theatrical production from the start (did any B2s even fly there?) and I was reminded of other wonderful, spectacular, powerful nothingburgers from Trump.1. For example in 2017 the loud and completely ineffective strike on Syria with a reprise the next year. Inconsistent inconsistencies I called them. The American strike was matched by Tehran’s equally theatrical production today: advance warning, loud bangs, victory claims and not much else. (But from Tehran’s perspective some more Patriot missiles used up: how many are left in the locker do you suppose? 600 to be produced this year they say but they keep needing more and more in Ukraine and there’s a lot to be replaced in Israel.)

So, what have we learned?

  • Iran is a lot more powerful than many people thought.
  • Western air defence systems aren’t very effective.
  • Who knew those little Iranian lawnmower-engined dorito drones could get all the way to Israel?
  • Hypersonic missiles are invulnerable and very frightening.
  • Tehran now knows which missiles in its arsenal are most effective and which most effectively soak up the enemy’s air defence and will build accordingly
  • Tehran’s decision to follow the missile-based armament route is vindicated. Suvorov: “Fight the enemy with the weapons he lacks“; Sun Tsu: “avoid strength and strike weakness“. `Others will notice.
  • Israel has used up the sleeper cells and intelligence penetration that it had built up in Iran.

Questions for the future

  • Has Tehran learned that the Kims were right all along?
  • Israel was supposed to be the place where Jews were safe; how many feel that way now?
  • Has Israel learned anything? Its wars have been rather offstage since 1973; the people are not used to seeing collapsed buildings in their neighbourhoods.
  • Is this the end of Netanyahu?
  • Do you think NATO is more cohesive or less cohesive after this 12-day rollercoaster ride in which every time they dutifully snapped to attention, they had to salute something different?

My predictions.

  • The damage in Israel will be much greater and much more effective than we have been told.
  • In Iran, not so much.

One final observation.

For 500 years, the West has been confident that all the best, the most powerful, the most sophisticated weapons have been in its arsenal. That hasn’t been true for some time and now the world has seen so. I was fascinated that Israel would show these photos of F14s it had destroyed as if it had accomplished something. Manned aircraft? That’s so yesterday.

HISTORY IN NATOLAND

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn HISTORY, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE

In what was no doubt intended to strike his listeners dumb with awe, the current NATO GenSek said today:

NATO is the most powerful defense alliance in world history. Even more powerful than the Roman Empire. And more powerful than the Napoleon Empire. We are the most powerful defence alliance in world history…

First “defensive”. Do you think Hispania, Britannia, Gallia, Germania, Aegyptus would agree? But, more to the point, most of the times you hear the Roman Empire mentioned these days, it’s in a sentence like this “the Roman Empire fell because it was doing what (insert name of country, or alliance.) is doing now.”

Not, perhaps, the most felicitous comparison.

But the other is even worse. As to defensive, see above. But has he forgotten a certain decision Napoleon made in 1812 that led to the Russian Army entering Paris two years later and inventing the bistro? And this while he’s ginning up a fear of Russia? Who briefs these guys: Alfred E Newman? (NOTE: You’d think that a guy who had wasted his youth reading Mad magazine would know it was spelled Neuman, wouldn’t you? Thanks to a reader)

My advice to the GenSek is that in his pleading for more money at the end of the month, he add that a Directorate of Scary Historical Analogies will be established that is actually competent.