Nope, it’s just straightening out a few messes. Unfortunately, political messes are seldom straightened out quietly. So while there is a lot of stuff exploding at the moment, it’s a relatively minor readjustment.
Major readjustments involve world wars. I vote we skip that this go around. At present, no one is doing anything that involves the US showing up with our idea of overwhelming force. While quite a bit is going on, it’s not world war level. It’s mostly Keystone Kops level with real guns.
I didn’t say minor meant nice.
So, from the least interesting, France seems on track for Republic #6. Don’t get excited. France hasn’t been a contender since they ended their monarchy and decided to borrow every dumb idea the so called Enlightenment ever came up with. This mostly means they occasionally start implementing some really good ideas, like becoming energy self sufficient, only to dismantle that in favor of a more fashionable dumb idea like saving the world from fossil fuels by becoming more dependent on them. Not even kidding.
This is why we mostly ignore France. Heck, most of the French seem to ignore France until it steps on their toes. France isn’t unstable. It’s just hopelessly weird and takes itself way too seriously.
The current government collapse is no surprise. Parliamentary governments do this kind of collapse all the time. The shenanigans the current president pulled to get a government more to his liking just delayed the inevitable. The French left is mostly Parisian – the nobility wannabes claiming to represent democracy. They seem to be losing whatever rank and file support they had. Same story across Europe, France just has to be special about it.
They’ll be fine. Well, as fine as a French Republic ever gets.
Syria’s collapse is much more severe – probably. Look, it’s got WAY too many moving parts and Syrian analysts are clueless at this stage of the game. The Assad government is definitely gone but it’s anyone’s guess what will shake out as the new governing power. Besides the four big players, Assad, Russia, Iran and Turkey, we have Israel and the US playing supporting roles and a cast of thousands in terms of militant and rebel groups.
This could go pretty okay. Depends on the insurgents, if they can carve up the turkey without shooting each other, this could be the start of something great for the Syrian people. I hope so, but insurgents have a long, long history of turning on each other when the ruling power falls.
Israel has the right idea by blowing up as many weapons as they can during the chaos. Russia is fleeing to protect its assets – ships and planes ain’t cheap! Iran is mostly low key but probably covering their backsides while trying to capitalize on the power vacuum. Turkey is also trying to gain even more influence in the beleaguered country.
The US is just monitoring for the moment.
Russia permanently losing those bases is nothing but good for Ukraine and the US and probably some good for Africa, too. Sending weapons and chaos is a lot harder from St Petersburg than from Syria. Hysterically, Russia is putting another bullet in the corpse of Real Politick. Evidently, they forgot the USSR killed that sucker with its own downfall. Russia’s ‘sphere of influence’ is getting a mite small. This won’t collapse the Russian regime – probably – but it sure ain’t gonna make it any healthier.
Iran is finding out why playing kingmaker isn’t as safe a strategy as everyone thinks. Israel toasted Hezbollah with little help from the US. Iraq is a useless mess and without safe passage through Syrian airspace, Iran’s fangs are effectively pulled for the moment. If Trump renews the sanctions as expected, Russia can’t bail them out and their ability to project chaos is about to get curtailed. Between that and existing unrest internally, Iran is not going to be having a good decade.
Turkey is the biggest headache. The current government wants the Kurds gone. The Kurds want a state of their own, and they hold territory along the border with Turkey. The US has long standing alliances with the Kurds and doesn’t want Syria turning into another failed state or worse, another Iran. The CIA will have their hands full.
Everyone thinks the US is the World’s Policeman. They’re wrong. We’re the World’s Forest Service, dumping water on every brushfire we find. Would that it were ever that simple. There’s no easy answer and it’s impossible to say what will be best as far as the factions likely to form the new government. Ultimately, the Syrian people will have to rebuild their nation. All we can do is buy them some time and breathing room in which to do it.
Maybe. Sorry, but International Relations rarely have predictable happy endings.
Oh, yeah, South Korea. That’s more interesting simply because it’s so rare for South Korea to totally lose its internal cool like that. My best understanding is that it is mostly internal. It’s probably not North Korea making a move, but it’s silly to assume North Korea doesn’t have a finger in the pie somewhere. But masters of political strategy the North Koreans are not, so this one is probably just the South Korean government in a weird collapse.
Maybe they didn’t want to be outdone by France? Dunno, but after this level of craziness, most parliamentary governments collapse and have new elections. We’ll have to wait and see. But this kind of thing is why having US troops manning the DMZ is a good plan. Parliamentary governments collapse the way most people change socks. Mind you, the overall governmental form is usually pretty stable but the administrations can be extremely unstable. Not the guys you want in charge of keeping the crazies out of the yard.
Both Canada and the UK are proceeding down the authoritarian path. Canada is a year away from ditching Trudeau. I doubt the UK’s Labour government survives that long. Trump made a joke about Canada becoming the 51st US State. If they actually pass that crazy law making ‘potential crimes’ punishable Canada will likely have a couple successions within a decade. Alberta and Saskatchewan would likely apply for territorial status with the US shortly thereafter.
Oh, and even if Canada did become the 51st state, it wouldn’t have 50 electoral votes. Those are limited to 538* at present and would only go up to 540 if we added a new state – the two senators. The House is limited to 435 total representatives. Canada would get 38 or so, most of those being drawn off of New York, California and Illinois. But it’s much more likely that Canada will fracture first, adding individual provinces as states. Ottawa would not gain power.
But that’s years in the future. Probably. I mean, they do have one more year of Trudeau. I’m surprised Canada has survived this long.
So, no, the world isn’t going crazier than usual. As always, we have to remain vigilant – we live in a neighborhood of crazies, after all – but there’s no need to panic.
Wait until the US actually starts sending troops that can’t be loaded into less than one hundred ships. That’s when things get real bad, real fast.
But not today. This is just the run of the mill world straightening out its various messes.
Probably
Update: I wrote this last week… Yes, I’m old and cranky for a reason. Anyway, I decided to post it as originally written. There’s a lot in motion and I’m not ready to draw more firm conclusions at this point.
P.S. So, I didn’t post this when I thought I would. Not a whole lot has shaken out yet so I’m not updating this at this time. I’ll be revisiting most of this stuff in the next few weeks so it’s going to get updated eventually.
Don’t get old and cranky – really does nothing for your work schedules.
Back on schedule now!
*The District of Columbia gets three electors because of their observing members of Congress – the District has no official members of either house. US government is FUN!
Yes, that’s sarcasm. Sorry about the dripping.
