Trump’s return will change Asia’s trade game – Asia Times

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Donald Trump’s election win is creating new financial relationships for Asia, bringing both confusion and tactical opportunities. &nbsp,

Trump’s policies, generally known for prioritizing strong British benefits, are now raising concerns across Eastern markets, where trade, investment and political stability could all be significantly affected. &nbsp,

Trump’s re-election is likely to sign a return to heightened business conflicts, particularly with China. His past leadership set a precedent by imposing severe tariffs on Chinese goods, citing trade imbalances and fears about intellectual property.

The charges, which swelled into a trade war in large numbers, disrupted global supply chains and shook up industries that depend heavily on US-China business. &nbsp,

Trump is anticipated to revise or expand this strategy. On the campaign trail, the businessman-cum-politician frequently said he would impose 60 % tariffs on all Chinese goods and 20 % on all other nations ‘ imports.

If fully implemented, this threats risks China as well as other Asian countries whose supply chains are tied together.

A new trade war, in the eyes of China, would only add to the financial strains it is already experiencing due to a lingering house crisis and a weak domestic economy, which have raised doubts about whether it will be able to meet its 5 % GDP growth target.

The past Trump administration’s taxes pressured China to reassess its business methods, pushing it to get deeper regional partnerships.

China can be expected to look to expand its industry alliances in Asia further, especially within the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP ) free trade bloc, if these taxes are increased or more stringent laws are implemented.

The shift could lessen its dependence on US markets, leading to a more cohesive and dependent Asian trade bloc, and easing the impact of revived tariffs on the country’s crucial export market.

Under Trump 2.0, smaller economies in the region that serve as intermediaries between the world’s two largest markets in terms of business are also likely to experience a more difficult setting. &nbsp,

Places like Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia, which benefited from various benefits from the last trade war’s producing shifts, may experience additional risks if tariffs continue to stifle supply chains.

Additionally, they run the risk of receiving tariff-sensitive items because their products are shipped from a factory elsewhere.

In response to the business tensions, these nations may be able to produce more products, but the confusion of sustained demand may restrict capital outflows, potentially putting off long-term growth and investment.

In addition, Japan and South Korea might have to make proper choices about how to deal with China and America. Both countries are important US allies and depend heavily on imports, especially in high-tech areas like automotives and semiconductors. &nbsp,

With Trump’s renewed effort to reintroduce high-value manufacturing employment to the US, Japanese and South Korean companies that export to the US may experience additional taxes or pressure to move production to fresh American companies.

Both nations will struggle to balance their ties with China, their largest trading partner, and the US, a vital safety alliance, as competition grows to keep the US as a vital business.

Tech issues

In the software industry, Trump’s plans are expected to continue restricting Chinese exposure to US high-end systems, impacting Chinese technology firms like Huawei. &nbsp,

With the result of these limitations, Chinese companies have already been forced to look for alternatives in Asia, which could lead to an increase in modern technology in the region.

China has responded by investing a lot in its domestic semiconductor sector, but the restrictions on sharing technology may cause the differences between nations to grow and make Asian countries choose to take sides in a technical battle. &nbsp,

With more powers putting pressure on nations like Taiwan, which has a strong position in the semiconductor sector, export restrictions or expansions could become more difficult. This could create an environment in which corporate industries can become battlegrounds for power and control.

Under Trump, as traders react to changes in trade relations and international capital flows, the price of the currency areas in Asia may experience significant fluctuations. &nbsp,

On the horizon, Beijing might start implementing capital controls or other measures to maintain the yuan as a result of increased tension.

In addition, emerging Asian currencies may experience uncertainty if taxes or trade restrictions cause their exports to decline, making these nations more prone to cash outflows. Having said that, the current perhaps even present an opportunity for some Asian nations to boost exports as the money rises.

As a result of Trump’s policies, funding flows into Asia may be affected. This could lead to pressure on American businesses to relocate their operations there.

Asia may initially face challenges as a result of this money duplication, especially if Washington implements tax incentives or other measures to encourage more regional growth. &nbsp,

However, if Asia’s economies continue to shift toward consumer-driven models and digital economies, they could attract a new wave of foreign investments that are unrelated to American investments.

Even with shifting US priorities, these markets may still be appealing to international investors because of the favorable demographics and growing middle class in many Asian countries and the spread of digital infrastructure.

While Trump’s second presidency may erect new hurdles and barriers for Asia’s export-geared and investment-dependent economies, the region’s adaptability and integration should allow for resilient responses.

The region could have a foundation to successfully deal with shifting policy directions from a more protectionist administration in Washington thanks to Asia’s extensive trade networks, expanding technological capabilities, and shifting alliances.

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‘Trump trade’ wins, Asia loses as risk factors surge – Asia Times

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It’s obvious Donald Trump’s big gain is a game-changer of epic sizes, from the harsh effect in Asian economies to the frantic press speculation about what lies ahead.

The declines in Chinese securities and the yuan only demonstrate how investors are quickly rearranging their strategies for addressing global financial risks and opportunities. The money surged on the news Trump scored a&nbsp, next term. US companies jumped, as did crypto prices. Provides on US Treasury securities shot higher, also.

The” Trump trade” that Asia has in mind is to take cover. A Trump 2.0 White House may certainly be more inward-looking, putting Asia’s export-oriented economy in harm’s way.

A large fire radius is present. Though aimed at China, Trump’s designed 60 % tariffs will destroy Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and another trade-driven markets. The aftermath on shipping flows could be unimaginable.

According to Dubravko Lakos-Bujas, a planner at JPMorgan,” a significant increase in tariffs would reflect the most significant departure in policy from the latest administration and possibly the largest source of volatility.” The current macro environment is significantly different from what it was eight years ago, when the business cycle was in its mid-cycle, when the Fed did n’t care about inflation, and when pro-growth 1.0 policies were simpler to implement and had a greater impact on the bottom line.

Trump’s win over Kamala Harris is more of a “black swans” occasion for Asia than a “gray one.” Unlike the past, the latter is a repetitive but doubtful results. A “gray swan”, though, does have its own&nbsp, serious consequences, too.

Unexpected effects might be a way to strengthen Xi Jinping’s influence in China. Trump may effectively strengthen it by attacking Beijing with such an aggressiveness that he essentially strengthens by compulsion to integrate with an Eastern economy with China at its core and not an America led by an uneven, mercantilist president who blames Asia for many of his country’s failings.

For Asia, the best-case situation is that Trump’s tax risks are more a negotiating strategy than a real accompli. In fact, Goldman Sachs economists predict that Trump may only establish 20 % tariffs on China and resist the urge to impose blanket charges on other countries.

Trump may turn the other means and impose taxes he has previously threatened to impose. Trump has already stated that there will be 100 % taxes on Mexican car exports.

How much is manufacturers in Japan and Korea hope to avoid such restrictions, especially given that Tesla’s CEO has Trump’s ear? At the very least, electronic vehicle charges will be stacked confidently against non-US manufacturers.

The&nbsp, financial challenges &nbsp, may be even greater. One is that a penny march that has already irritated Asia will take a turn. For years, the economy’s “wasteball” impulses have shook international markets. It has lured enormous waves of global capital west, disadvantaging emerging-market markets in specific.

The difficulty, explains Tom Dunleavy, a companion at MV Capital, is that emerging markets “rely strongly on assets and have debts in money”. The majority of business and debt is also based in dollars, along with fuel. And he says that” the ratio of everything is going up.”

Regardless of the dubious reasoning behind it, the more packed a continued-dollar-strength business becomes as the result of the global fallout when depressed punters flee for their exits. And Trump was serve up some such situations.

Though Trump’s tariffs get the headlines, Asia is extremely worried about what his next president may mean for the Federal Reserve, the keeper of the world’s top supply money.

Trump put the techniques on the Fed during his 2017-2021 stay in the White House. Jerome Powell sabotaged his hand-picked Fed chair, and he went after him frequently. In 2019, Powell bowed to unrelenting force from&nbsp, Trump, who also threatened to fire him.

That’s how the world’s most powerful economic authority added liquidity to a flourishing business that did n’t need new substances. Trump’s Fed meddling set the stage for the post-Covid-19 price surge to come. It also tarnished the Fed’s credibility in global markets.

For Asia, Trump’s Fed policies are especially worrisome. The region’s central banks are armed with the largest stocks of US Treasury securities. Japan alone holds$ 1.1 trillion of US debt, China$ 770 billion.

Together, Asia’s largest holders of dollars own about$ 3 trillion worth. Trump 2.0 would put at risk vast amounts of Asian state wealth if his fiscal policies push Washington’s debt far above today’s US$ 35 trillion.

Not to mention the ways China might retaliate, leading to cycle of tit-for-tat trade curbs. Or might Beijing make a move to dump sizable amounts of Treasuries to punish the Trump 2.0 gang?

Or what if Trump’s designs on altering the Fed’s mandate come to pass? A key plank of the” Project 2025″ strategy that the Heritage Foundation devised for a&nbsp, second Trump term&nbsp, is watering down Fed independence.

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Trump took shots at Powell and his fellow policymakers. ” I think it’s the greatest job in government”, Trump said. Everybody talks about you like a god when you say,” Let’s say flip a coin,” and you show up to the office once a month.

Trump also contends that the White House has every right to compel the Fed to do its bidding.

Trump once remarked in August that the Federal Reserve had “kind of got it wrong” ( very interesting ). He went on to say that” I feel the president should have at least ]some ] say in there, yeah. I feel that strongly. I think that, in my case, I made a lot of money. I was very successful. And I believe I have a better instinct than those who, in many cases, would be chairman of the Federal Reserve.

This could put the Fed’s economic role closer to that of the People’s Bank of China.

To be sure, the concept of central bank independence has been muddied. Take the&nbsp, Bank of Japan, which has held interest rates at or near zero for 25 years. What truly self-governing central bank would do that?

Yet the Fed is a different story. The dollar serves as the foundation of global finance and trade. Trump frequently discussed using a weaker dollar to gain a competitive advantage during his first term. Any policy change that undermines confidence in the US government and the dollar makes the world system shakier.

A weaker dollar could fan inflation. That, on top of Trump’s tariffs, could put the Fed in a very tough spot as Trump looks over Powell’s shoulder. Economists are frantically debating how all of this might turn out.

” On the US dollar, Trump wants to revitalize US manufacturing and exports”, says Will Denyer, an analyst at Gavekal Research. He may try to manipulate the dollar lower because he recognizes that the strength of the US dollar is an obstacle to these goals.

However, Denyer says, “he has few good options. Given how dependent the US government and companies are on foreign capital today, it is difficult to use capital controls to deter foreign inflows. And if Fed chair Jay Powell persists until the end of his term in May 2026, leaning on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates wo n’t be simple in the near future.

Trump might try to use the threat of tariffs as a negotiating tactic in an effort to revalue their currencies, Denyer adds. However, it is doubtful whether multilateral or even broader economic policy changes will significantly weaken the US dollar in the absence of broader economic policy shifts.

This, Denyer concludes,” will leave Trump to hope that continued disinflation allows the Fed to cut rates, weakening the US dollar. However, there is a sizable probability that loose fiscal policy and sticky inflation will keep&nbsp, monetary policy&nbsp, relatively tight, supporting the US dollar and confounding Trump’s aim of weakening the currency”.

Another irrational possibility: whether Trump will continue to flirt with defaulting on US debt. He declared to CNBC in 2016 that he would “know that you could make a deal” if the economy crashed. And if the economy was good, it was good. So, therefore, you ca n’t lose”.

Trump considered canceling Beijing’s debt while serving as president for the first time in light of trade tensions. With the US national debt twice the size of Chinese gross domestic product, it’s easy to see how that would make the 2008″ Lehman shock” seem quaint by comparison.

Asian assets are also weighed by the threat of geopolitical conflict. One example is what a Trump 2.0 foreign policy team might have for Taiwan.

Trump’s return is music to Vladimir Putin’s ears, giving the Russian leader greater scope to commandeer&nbsp, Ukraine&nbsp, once and for all. Compared with US President Joe Biden’s administration, Trump also seems less likely to come to Taipei’s defense if China moved against the island of&nbsp, 23 million people.

Asia investors will also keep their bets guessing about the direction US policies in the Middle East will take. Trump, for instance, might give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more freedom to fight the conflict in Gaza. He’s also likely to tighten sanctions on Iran, adding fresh uncertainty to oil supply dynamics and, by extension, energy prices.

” Conceptually, the impact of a potential second Trump term on oil prices is ambiguous”, says commodity researcher Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby at Goldman Sachs.

As Trump 2.0 assumes power, other issues will concern Asian governments. Japan and Korea are concerned that Trump’s “grand bargain” trade agreement with Xi leaves other top Asian nations staring in from the distance.

All that’s clear, though, is that there will be fewer guardrails or inhibitions as Trump seeks to “make America great again” at Asia’s expense.

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Trump 2.0 would be no easy ride for Vladimir Putin – Asia Times

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MOSCOW—Many American elites, their media allies and card-carrying Democrats are convinced that a second Trump presidency would present Vladimir Putin with only opportunities. The reality is that a Trump 2.0 administration would likely bring more problems than the Russian leader has at present.

This soft-on-Putin narrative stems from the “Russiagate” conspiracy theory alleging that Trump was either a full-blown Russian agent or easily manipulated by Putin during his first term. Check the record, though, and it’s clear that Trump imposed more sanctions on Russia than any US president before him until Joe Biden.

Trump failed to implement campaign pledges to improve ties with Russia due to the pressure applied on him by the Russiagate accusation and the way in which some permanent members of the US military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies, spelled “deep state”, subverted his policy vision.

Trump also bombed Syria early in his presidency in response to what Russia considered to be a false flag chemical weapons provocation, which Barack Obama balked at doing in 2013 and thus called Russia’s bluff from back then.  

Another irritant in bilateral ties was the sanctions that Trump imposed on the Nord Stream II pipeline, motivated by his bid to poach the European energy market from Russia for American producers.

Russia was also displeased that Trump did nothing to encourage France, Germany and Ukraine to implement their obligations under the Minsk agreements to resolve the conflict between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine.

These and other issues caused Russia to regard Trump’s first presidency as a lost opportunity to enter into a meaningful rapprochement and to be bitter about it in hindsight.

Biden’s term was much worse for bilateral relations, but it didn’t start that way. Biden and Putin met in Geneva in June 2021, shortly after the US leader waived Trump’s sanctions on Nord Stream II, following which Putin publicly defended his American counterpart’s cognitive state in response to a question about them.

But anti-Russian “deep state” hawks ultimately preferred prioritizing Russia’s containment over China’s, sustaining America’s security dilemma in Europe. Putin’s security guarantee requests from December 2021 were rejected, which set into motion the events that would lead to his decision to launch his “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022.

It’s beyond the scope of this analysis to rehash the run-up to that fateful decision, but it’s sufficient to say that the events that followed have completely changed the nature of Russia-US relations. If Trump returns to office, he’ll inherit a much more difficult bilateral situation than he did during his first tenure.

The precedent set by his inability to prevent anti-Russian “deep state” hawks from subverting his envisaged rapprochement bodes ill for his possible second term from Moscow’s perspective, considering the much greater power these officials now wield over policymaking on all Russia-related matters.

Russia’s fears that they could stage a major provocation for escalating the Ukraine conflict if Trump wins, whether before or after he’s reinaugurated, explain why Putin endorsed Biden and then Kamala Harris.

Contrary to his image in the Western mind, Putin is a very cautious leader who considers himself the consummate pragmatist. That explains why he only authorized conventional military interventions in Syria and Ukraine at what he thought to be the last possible minute before perceived windows of opportunity closed.

He’s even been constructively criticized by nationalistically minded Russians and their supporters abroad for waiting too long with both military interventions, arguing they might have been more successful had they had been launched earlier.

Putin’s endorsements of Biden and then Harris weren’t part of some “5D chess master plan”, like some have speculated, but rather were sincere reflections of his preference for dealing with the proverbial devils that he already knows than a return to Trump uncertainty.

Not only might Russia fear that the “deep state” could stage major provocations to subvert Trump’s stated plan for ending the Ukraine war within months of taking office, but Trump himself might flirt with “escalating to de-escalate” on his own.

These same “deep state” forces have wisely applied a “boiling the frogs” approach to the latest phase of the already over-decade-long Ukrainian conflict by gradually escalating US involvement and always signaling such in advance so that Russia could prepare and not overreact.

This managed warfare has helped Russia and the US manage their worsening security dilemma caused by American mission creep in the conflict, thus avoiding an apocalyptic World War III scenario sparked by miscalculation – at least up until now.

That could change if Trump is re-elected, at least from Russia’s perspective, since either he or the “deep state” could ignore these prior guardrails by escalating to de-escalate in very dangerous ways. The purpose would be to coerce concessions from Russia ahead of a seemingly inevitable grand peace deal.

Putin has staked his reputation on at least obtaining control over the entirety of the four former Ukrainian regions that Russia now claims so he will be very reluctant to freeze the conflict before that is secure on the battlefield.

Perhaps a series of mutually acceptable compromises between Russia and the US (which could coerce Ukraine into complying with whatever Washington agrees with Moscow) might be reached under Trump. But even if the “deep state” doesn’t subvert such a deal, other problems might quickly arise for Russia.

If the aforementioned compromises aren’t paired with sanctions relief for Russia, then Trump might revert to his preferred use of these means to pressure India, Turkey, the UAE and others into sanctions compliance to Russia’s detriment.

His well-known dislike of Iran could also see him repeat his prior “maximum pressure” policy against Tehran at the expense of Russia’s efforts to develop the North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC), which runs through Iran and connects Russia with the Gulf States, India and further afield to Africa and Southeast Asia.

In that scenario, Russia would risk becoming even more disproportionately dependent on China than it arguably already is, which it has sought to hedge and avert by using India as a counterweight in various ways.

A Trump 2.0 presidency would only present opportunities for Russia if none of those three scenarios – “escalating to de-escalate”, doubling down on sanctions enforcement, and choking off the NSTC – transpires, a fair compromise ends the Ukraine war and the US “Pivots (back) to Asia” and out of Europe pronto.

Trump’s plan for NATO, as reported by Politico, could enable Russia to more effectively manage their security dilemma in Europe with a view toward negotiating a new security architecture there.

American troops could thus be freed up for redeployment to the Asia-Pacific to contain China, shifting the center of the New Cold War to the other side of Eurasia and relieving some of the pressure applied on Russia over the past two and a half years.

Moreover, encouraging the Europeans to take more responsibility for their own security could lead to a thaw of sorts in their ties with Russia, as would the lifting of some sanctions.

US prioritization of China’s (and to a lesser extent Iran’s) containment over Russia’s in a second Trump presidency would relieve pressure on Russia in Europe, though at the cost of creating new problems that might threaten its interests further afield.

The heightened risk that a hot war could break out by miscalculation between the China and the US, or at least between China and some of the US’ top regional partners like Japan, the Philippines, and/or Taiwan, would destabilize the world much more than the Ukrainian conflict has over the past two and a half years.

That’s because the Asia-Pacific is the center of global economic growth, and a major conflict there would likely disrupt key supply chains. This is especially so for the tech sector, specifically with regard to the high-end chips that power the so-called “Fourth Industrial Revolution” as well as state-of-the-art military equipment, thus limiting Russia’s supply even more than currently due to US-led sanctions and raise the risk it falls further behind peers and rivals.

Even if a hot Asia war is avoided and supply chains remain intact, Trump would be expected to apply tremendous pressure on Russia to distance itself from China, perhaps through a carrots-and-sticks approach of the sort that he implied during his live interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday night during a fundraiser in Arizona.

At the event, Trump claimed that Biden “allowed them (China and Russia) to get together. It’s such a dangerous thing. The stupidity of what they have done… I’m going to have to un-unite them, I could do that too.”

Considering the trade war that Trump waged against China during his first term and his explicitly declared goal of ending the Ukraine war “as soon as possible” if he’s re-elected, Trump might try to meld the two initiatives to “un-unite” China and Russia as part of a new divide-and-rule strategy.

This could put Russia in a dilemma of either accepting whatever deal  Trump might propose at the expense of reversing some of the bilateral progress made in with China since 2022, or rejecting it at the cost of Trump dangerously escalating to de-escalate in Ukraine with the potential for a hot war with the US and associated miscalculation risks.

Cautious and pragmatic Putin might thus prefer to retain the presently more predictable trajectory of US-Russian ties in the New Cold War under Harris than risk a new era of global uncertainty under Trump.

Andrew Korybko is a Moscow-based American political analyst who specializes in the global systemic transition to multipolarity. He holds a PhD in political science from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.” Follow him on X at @AKorybko

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The nations on the brink of going nuclear – Asia Times

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Following Israel’s October 26, 2024, attack on Iranian energy facilities, Iran vowed to respond with “all available tools,” sparking fears it could soon produce a nuclear weapon to pose a more credible threat.

The country’s breakout time—the period required to develop a nuclear bomb—is now estimated in weeks and Tehran could proceed with weaponization if it believes itself or its proxies are losing ground to Israel.

Iran isn’t the only nation advancing its nuclear capabilities in recent years. In 2019, the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which banned intermediate-range land-based missiles, citing alleged Russian violations and China’s non-involvement. The US is also modernizing its nuclear arsenal, with plans to deploy nuclear weapons in more NATO states and proposals to extend its nuclear umbrella to Taiwan.

Russia, too, has intensified its nuclear posture, expanding nuclear military drills and updating its nuclear policies on first use. In 2023, it suspended participation in the New START missile treaty, which limited US and Russian deployed nuclear weapons and delivery systems, and stationed nuclear weapons in Belarus in 2024.

Russia and China have also deepened their nuclear cooperation, setting China on a path to rapidly expand its arsenal, as nuclear security collaboration with the US has steadily diminished over the past decade.

The breakdown of diplomacy and rising nuclear brinkmanship among major powers are heightening nuclear insecurity among themselves, but also risk spurring a new nuclear arms race. Alongside Iran, numerous countries maintain the technological infrastructure to quickly build nuclear weapons. Preventing nuclear proliferation would require significant collaboration among major powers, a prospect currently out of reach.

The US detonated the first nuclear weapon in 1945, followed by the Soviet Union (1949), the UK (1952), France (1960), and China (1964). It became evident that with access to uranium and enrichment technology, nations were increasingly capable of producing nuclear weapons. Though mass production and delivery capabilities were additional hurdles, it was widely expected in the early Cold War that many states would soon join the nuclear club.

Israel developed nuclear capabilities in the 1960s, India detonated its first bomb in 1974, and South Africa built its first by 1979. Other countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Sweden, Egypt, and Switzerland, pursued their own programs.

However, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), enacted in 1968 to curb nuclear spread, led many countries to abandon or dismantle their programs. After the end of the Cold War and under Western pressure, Iraq ended its nuclear program in 1991.

South Africa, in a historic move, voluntarily dismantled its arsenal in 1994. Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Ukraine relinquished the nuclear weapons they inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union by 1996, securing international security assurances in exchange.

Nuclear proliferation appeared to be a waning concern, but cracks soon appeared in the non-proliferation framework. Pakistan conducted its first nuclear test in 1998, followed by North Korea in 2006, bringing the count of nuclear-armed states to nine. Since then, Iran’s nuclear weapons program, initiated in the 1980s, has been a major target of Western non-proliferation efforts.

Iran has a strong reason to persist. Ukraine’s former nuclear arsenal might have deterred Russian aggression in 2014 and 2022, while Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who dismantled the country’s nuclear program in 2003, was overthrown by a NATO-led coalition and local forces in 2011.

If Iran achieves a functional nuclear weapon, it will lose the ability to leverage its nuclear program as a bargaining chip to extract concessions in negotiations. While a nuclear weapon will represent a new form of leverage, it would also intensify pressure from the U.S. and Israel, both of whom have engaged in a cycle of escalating, sometimes deadly, confrontations with Iran and its proxies over the past few years.

An Iranian nuclear arsenal could also ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Its relations with Saudi Arabia remain delicate, despite the 2023 détente brokered by China, and Saudi officials have previously indicated they would obtain their own nuclear weapon if Iran acquired them. Saudi Arabia gave significant backing to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, with the understanding that Pakistan could extend its nuclear umbrella to Saudi Arabia, or even supply the latter with one upon request.

Turkey, which hosts US nuclear weapons through NATO’s sharing program, signaled a policy shift in 2019 when President Erdogan criticized foreign powers for dictating Turkey’s ability to build its own nuclear weapon. Turkey’s growing partnership with Russia in nuclear energy could meanwhile provide it with the enrichment expertise needed to eventually do so.

Middle Eastern tensions are not the only force threatening non-proliferation. Japan’s renewed friction with China, North Korea, and Russia over the past decade has intensified Tokyo’s focus on nuclear readiness.

Although Japan developed a nuclear program in the 1940s, it was dismantled after World War II. Japan’s breakout period, however, remains measured in months, but public support for nuclear weapons remains low, given the legacy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where nuclear bombings in 1945 killed more than 200,000 people.

In contrast, around 70 percent of South Koreans support developing nuclear weapons. South Korea’s nuclear program began in the 1970s but was discontinued under US pressure. However, North Korea’s successful test in 2006 and its severance of economic, political, and physical links to the South in the past decade, coupled with the abandonment of peaceful reunification in early 2024, has again raised the issue in South Korea.

Taiwan pursued a nuclear weapons program in the 1970s, which similarly ended under US pressure. Any sign of wavering US commitment to Taiwan, together with China’s growing nuclear capabilities, could prompt Taiwan to revive its efforts. Though less likely, territorial disputes in the South China Sea could also motivate countries like Vietnam and the Philippines to consider developing nuclear capabilities.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has also had significant nuclear implications. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently suggested to the European Council that a nuclear arsenal might be Ukraine’s only deterrent if NATO membership is not offered. Zelensky later walked back his comments after they ignited a firestorm of controversy. Yet if Ukraine feels betrayed by its Western partners—particularly if it is forced to concede territory to Russia—it could spur some factions within Ukraine to attempt to secure nuclear capabilities.

The war has also spurred nuclear considerations across Europe. In December 2023, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer endorsed a European nuclear deterrent. A Trump re-election could amplify European concerns over US commitments to NATO, with France having increasingly proposed an independent European nuclear force in recent years.

Established nuclear powers are unlikely to welcome more countries into their ranks. But while China and Russia don’t necessarily desire this outcome, they recognize the West’s concerns are greater, with Russia doing little in the 1990s to prevent its unemployed nuclear scientists from aiding North Korea’s program.

The US has also previously been blindsided by its allies’ nuclear aspirations. US policymakers underestimated Australia’s determination to pursue a nuclear weapons program in the 1950s and 1960s, including covert attempts to obtain a weapon from the UK. Similarly, the US was initially unaware of France’s extensive support for Israel’s nuclear development in the 1950s and 1960s.

Smaller countries are also capable of aiding one another’s nuclear ambitions. Argentina offered considerable support to Israel’s program, while Israel assisted South Africa’s. Saudi Arabia financed Pakistan’s nuclear development, and Pakistan’s top nuclear scientist is suspected of having aided Iran, Libya, and North Korea with their programs in the 1980s.

Conflicts involving nuclear weapons states are not without precedent. Egypt and Syria attacked nuclear-armed Israel in 1973, and Argentina faced a nuclear-armed UK in 1982. India and China have clashed over their border on several occasions, and Ukraine continues to resist Russian aggression.

But conflicts featuring nuclear countries invite dangerous escalation, and the risk grows if a nation with limited conventional military power gains nuclear capabilities; lacking other means of defense or retaliation, it may be more tempted to resort to nuclear weapons as its only viable option.

The costs of maintaining nuclear arsenals are already steep. In 2023, the world’s nine nuclear-armed states spent an estimated US$91.4 billion managing their programs. But what incentive do smaller countries have to abandon nuclear ambitions entirely, especially when they observe the protection nuclear weapons offer and witness the major powers intensifying their nuclear strategies?

Obtaining the world’s most powerful weapons may be a natural ambition of military and intelligence sectors, but it hinges on the political forces in power as well. In Iran, moderates could counterbalance hardliners, while continued support for Ukraine might prevent more nationalist forces from coming to power there.

Yet an additional country obtaining a nuclear weapon could set off a cascade of others. While larger powers are currently leading the nuclear posturing, smaller countries may see an opportunity amid the disorder. The limited support for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, in effect since 2021, as well as the breaking down of other international treaties, reinforces the lingering allure of nuclear arms even among non-nuclear states.

With major powers in open contention, the barriers to nuclear ambitions are already weakening, making it ever harder to dissuade smaller nations from pursuing the ultimate deterrent.

John P Ruehl is an Australian-American journalist living in Washington, DC, and a world affairs correspondent for the Independent Media Institute. He is a contributor to several foreign affairs publications, and his book,“Budget Superpower: How Russia Challenges the West With an Economy Smaller Than Texas’”, was published in December 2022.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. It is republished here with permission

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BRICS+ wants new world order sans shared values or identity – Asia Times

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The last two summits of BRICS countries have raised questions about the coalition’s identity and purpose. This began to come into focus at the summit hosted by South Africa in 2023, and more acutely at the recent 2024 summit in Kazan, Russia.

At both events the alliance undertook to expand its membership. In 2023, the first five Brics members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – invited Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join.

All bar Saudi Arabia have now done so. The 2024 summit pledged to admit 13 more, perhaps as associates or “partner countries.”

On paper, the nine-member BRICS+ strikes a powerful pose. It has a combined population of about 3.5 billion, or 45% of the world’s people. Combined, its economies are worth more than US$28.5 trillion – about 28% of the global economy. With Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE as members, BRICS+ produces about 44% of the world’s crude oil.

Based on my research and policy advice to African foreign policy decision-makers, I would argue that there are three possible interpretations of the purpose of BRICS+.

  • A club of self-interested members – a kind of Global South cooperative. What I’d label as a self-help organization.
  • A reforming bloc with a more ambitious goal of improving the workings of the current global order.
  • A disrupter, preparing to replace the Western-dominated liberal world order.

Analyzing the commitments that were made at the meeting in Russia, I would argue that BRICS+ sees itself more as a self-interested reformer. It represents the thinking among Global South leaders about the nature of the global order and the possibilities of shaping a new order.

This, as the world moves away from the financially dominant, yet declining Western order (in terms of moral influence) led by the US. The move is to a multipolar order in which the East plays a leading role.

However, the ability of BRICS+ to exploit such possibilities is constrained by its make-up and internal inconsistencies. These include a contested identity, incongruous values and lack of resources to convert political commitments into actionable plans.

Summit outcomes

The trend towards closer trade and financial cooperation and coordination stands out as a major achievement of the Kazan summit. Other achievements pertain to global governance and counterterrorism.

When it comes to trade and finance, the final communiqué said the following had been agreed:

  • adoption of local currencies in trade and financial transactions. The Kazan Declaration notes the benefits of faster, low-cost, more efficient, transparent, safe and inclusive cross-border payment instruments. The guiding principle would be minimal trade barriers and non-discriminatory access.
  • establishment of a cross-border payment system. The declaration encourages correspondent banking networks within BRICS and enables settlements in local currencies in line with the BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative. This is voluntary and nonbinding and is to be discussed further.
  • creation of enhanced roles for the New Development Bank, such as promoting infrastructure and sustainable development.
  • a proposed BRICS Grain Exchange, to improve food security through enhanced trade in agricultural commodities.

All nine BRICS+ countries committed themselves to the principles of the UN Charter – peace and security, human rights, the rule of law, and development – primarily as a response to the Western unilateral sanctions.

The summit emphasised that dialogue and diplomacy should prevail over conflict in, among other places, the Middle East, Sudan, Haiti and Afghanistan.

Faultlines and tensions

Despite the positive tone of the Kazan declaration, there are serious structural fault lines and tensions inherent in the architecture and behavior of BRICS+. These might limit its ambitions to be a meaningful change agent.

The members don’t even agree on the definition of BRICS+. President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa calls it a platform. Others talk of a group (Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi) or a family (Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jianan).

So what could it be? BRICS+ is state-driven – with civil society on the margins. It reminds one of the African Union, which pays lip service to citizens’ engagement in decision-making.

One possibility is that it will evolve into an intergovernmental organization with a constitution that establishes its agencies, functions and purposes. Examples include the World Health Organization, the African Development Bank and the UN General Assembly.

But it would need to cohere around shared values. What would they be?

Critics point out that BRICS+ consists of democracies (South Africa, Brazil, India), a theocracy (Iran), monarchies (UAE, Saudi Arabia) and authoritarian dictatorships (China, Russia).

For South Africa, this creates a domestic headache. At the Kazan summit, its president declared Russia a friend and ally. At home, its coalition partner in the government of national unity, the Democratic Alliance, declared Ukraine as a friend and ally.

There are also marked differences over issues such as the reform of the United Nations. For example, at the recent UN Summit of the Future the consensus was for reform of the UN Security Council. But will China and Russia, as permanent Security Council members, agree to more seats, with veto rights, on the council?

As for violent conflict, humanitarian crises, corruption and crime, there is little from the Kazan summit that suggests agreement around action.

Unity of purpose

What about shared interests? A number of BRICS+ members and partner countries maintain close trade ties with the West, which regards Russia and Iran as enemies and China as a global threat.

Some, such as India and South Africa, use the foreign policy notions of strategic ambiguity or active non-alignment to mask the reality of trading with east, west, north and south.

The harsh truth of international relations is there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. The BRICS+ alliance will most likely cohere as a Global South co-operative, with an innovative self-help agenda but be reluctant to overturn the current global order from which it desires to benefit more equitably.

Trade-offs and compromises might be necessary to ensure “unity of purpose.” It’s not clear that this loose alliance is close to being able to achieve that.

Anthoni van Nieuwkerk is professor of international and diplomacy studies, Thabo Mbeki African School of Public and International Affairs, University of South Africa

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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BRICS isn’t de-dollarizing anytime soon – Asia Times

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BRICS Summit host Russian President Vladimir Putin disappointed both anti-colonial enthusiasts and Western alarmists last week by conceding that the bloc’s members “have not built and are not” building a payment system to challenge the US dollar-based global banking system.

The leaders of the two economic giants present at the summit, China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi, did not mention alternative payment arrangements in their respective remarks.

The technical requirements for alternative payment systems aren’t the problem. The SWIFT system that controls interbank payments in dollars and other major Western currencies merely transmits secure messages.

The challenge, rather, is economic: US demand for imports fuels an outsized portion of economic growth in the Global South. China’s exports to the US amount to just 2.3% of its GDP, but about half of its surge in exports to the Global South since 2020 depends on re-exports to the United States.

While China’s exports to the Global South more than doubled from about US$60 billion a month to $140 billion a month, US imports from the Global South rose from about $60 billion a month to $100 billion a month during the past four years.

Graphic: Asia Times

Dependence on the US market varies widely across the universe of developing countries. Vietnam and Mexico, the two favorite venues for so-called “friend-shoring,” that is, transferring production away from China to putatively friendlier countries, registered big increases in exports to the US as a share of GDP.

Vietnam’s exports to the US in 2023 amounted to about 27% of the country’s GDP, compared to just 10% in 2020, while Mexico’s US exports rose to 27% of GDP in 2023 from 20% in 2010.

Graphic: Asia Times

Singapore and Malaysia, by contrast, showed little increase in US exports as a share of GDP. Indonesia and Brazil export comparatively little to the United States.

Some Asian countries, notably Malaysia and Thailand, export more than 60% of their GDP, mainly to other Asian countries. Brazil, Indonesia and China are far less export-dependent.

Today, China exports just 19% of its GDP compared to 27% in 2010, which means that an increasing share of GDP growth depends on domestic consumption and investment.

Graphic: Asia Times

What makes the United States such an important factor in the economies of the Global South is its enormous current account deficit. The table below ranks the current account surpluses and deficits of the 20 largest economies from the largest deficit to the largest surplus.

With a current account deficit of $80 billion a month, or $1 trillion a year, the US appetite for an excess of imports over exports dwarfs the rest of the world.

Graphic: Asia Times

China is the largest or second-largest economy in the world, depending on whether we count GDP in US dollars or adjust for purchasing power parity, but China’s imports from the Global South have been stagnant for three years.

Graphic: Asia Times

China won’t replace much of American import demand for the time being, given Beijing’s focus on high-tech investment rather than consumer demand. At the margin, that leaves the Global South all the more dependent on the US.

Projecting current trends into the future suggests a steady rise in consumer spending in the Global South, especially in East Asia, and the emergence of robust domestic markets and less dependence on exports.

Below is a chart published by the Brookings Institution think tank last year, projecting that the total consumer market in East Asia will overtake the US consumer market by 2028.

Graphic: Asia Times

Developing countries, though, don’t pay their bills on projections. Arranging payments for goods in international trade is a trivial issue. More challenging is financing long-term deficits.

India, for example, used to run an annual trade deficit with Russia of less than $3 billion. Discounted Russian oil sales to India after the start of the Ukraine war boosted this to more than $60 billion.

What will Russia do with the Indian rupee equivalent of $60 billion? It would far prefer to have another currency, for example, the UAE dirham, that can be used to buy goods in third markets.

The Global South doesn’t yet have the capital markets or the currency stability to convince a surplus trading country to simply hold assets of the deficit country in exchange for goods.

That is what the United States does so well: Its $18 trillion negative net foreign asset position corresponds to the last 30 years’ cumulative current account deficits.

America sells assets to foreigners in return for their goods. The Global South doesn’t have the assets to sell, or at least not in the form that the rest of the world would like to own.

That helps explain why the BRICS Summit’s final declaration relegated the issue of payment systems to feasibility studies:

We reiterate our commitment to enhancing financial cooperation within BRICS. We recognize the widespread benefits of faster, low-cost, more efficient, transparent, safe and inclusive cross-border payment instruments built upon the principle of minimizing trade barriers and non-discriminatory access.

We welcome the use of local currencies in financial transactions between BRICS countries and their trading partners. We encourage strengthening of correspondent banking networks within BRICS and enabling settlements in local currencies in line with BRICS Cross-Border Payments Initiative (BCBPI), which is voluntary and nonbinding, and look forward to further discussions in this area, including in the BRICS Payment Task Force.

BRICS central banks don’t hold each other’s currencies as reserve assets, with limited exceptions. Just 2.3% of world central bank reserves are held in China’s RMB, up from 1.1% in 2016 but down from a peak of 2.8% in 2022. Most of them are buying gold. If the legend on US currency states, “In God We Trust,” gold says, “Trust nobody.”

Sweeping changes across the Global South would be required to make their currencies attractive reserve instruments—transparency and risk management of capital markets, the development of a local middle class, infrastructure, and education.

A great deal of this is happening in stages in many developing countries but progress is gradual and uneven. We now can foresee circumstances under which the Global South might declare independence from the dollar system. But we aren’t there yet and won’t be for years under any foreseeable circumstances.

Follow David P Goldman on X at @davidpgoldman

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BRICS internal rifts buy West time before new direction is chosen – Asia Times

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The recent BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan was less notable for what happened at the meeting than for what happened before, or on the margins or not at all. Among the notable things that did not happen was another expansion of the organization.

Since the addition of Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the 2023 BRICS summit in Johannesburg, which almost doubled the number of member countries from the original five (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), further enlargement has stalled.

Argentina, which was also invited in 2023, declined to join. Saudi Arabia, another 2023 invitee, has not acted on the offer to become a member, either. Its de-facto ruler, crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, was among the notable absentees in Kazan.

And Kazakhstan, Russia’s largest neighbor in Central Asia, decided shortly before the summit that it would not join. This drew Russia’s ire, resulting in a prompt ban on imports of a range of agricultural products from Kazakhstan in retaliation.

While invitees have declined the opportunity to join BRICS, a long list of applicant countries have not been offered membership. According to a statement by Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, at a meeting of senior BRICS security officials in September, 34 countries have expressed an interest in closer relations with BRICS in some form.

This appears to be a substantial increase in interest in BRICS membership compared with a year ago, when South Africa’s foreign minister, Naledi Pandor, listed 23 applicants ahead of the 2023 summit.

But the fact that, since then, only six invitations have been extended – and four accepted – indicates that formal enlargement of the organization, at least for now, has been stymied by the inability of current members to forge consensus over the next round of expansion and the reluctance on the part of some invitees to be associated with the organization.

Meetings on the margins

The summit declaration may offer little of substance. But there were a number of bilateral meetings before and in the margins of the gathering that are more indicative of the direction of BRICS. Perhaps most importantly, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, and China’s president, Xi Jinping, held their first face-to-face discussion in five years.

This is a remarkable change from just a few months ago, when tensions between New Delhi and Beijing were intense enough for Modi to cancel his participation in the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Astana, Kazakhstan. Yet, with a deal now reached over their countries’ longstanding border dispute, the two most populous and, in terms of GDP, economically most powerful members of BRICS have an opportunity to rebuild their fraught relations.

A warming of relations between China and India could generate more momentum for BRICS to deliver on its ambitious agenda to develop, and ultimately implement, a vision for a new global order. Implicit in this would be a shift of leadership in BRICS from China and Russia to China and India and, with that, potentially a change from an anti-Western to a non-Western agenda.

This is, of course, something that exercises Putin. He acknowledged as much when he referred to the Global South and Global East in his remarks at the summit’s opening meeting. He also emphasized that it was important “to maintain balance and ensure that the effectiveness of BRICS mechanisms is not diminished.”

In his own bilateral meetings before and during the summit, Putin drove home the point that, despite western efforts, Russia was far from isolated on the world stage. One-to-one meetings with Xi, Modi, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan gave Putin the chance to push his own vision of BRICS as a counterpoint to the US-led West.

This may be a view shared in the Global East – Russia, China, Iran North Korea – as well as in non-BRICS members Cuba and Venezuela. But many in the Global South – particularly India and Brazil – are unlikely to go all in with this agenda. They will focus on benefiting from their BRICS memberships as much as possible while maintaining close ties with the West.

Lacking a coherent agenda

India is the most significant player in BRICS when it comes to balancing between East and West. NATO member Turkey is the equivalent on the outside. That country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, traveled to Kazan and did not shy away from an hour-long meeting with his “dear friend” Putin.

The relationship between Moscow and Ankara is fractious and complex across a wide range of crises from the South Caucasus to Syria to Libya and Sudan. Yet on perhaps the most divisive issue of all, Russian aggression toward Ukraine, Turkey has consistently maintained opened channels of communication with Russia and remains the only NATO power able to do so.

The fact that there has been relatively little public pressure from official sources in the West on Erdoğan to stop is probably a reflection that such communication channels are still valued in the west. This and Nato’s continued cooperation with India point to a hedging strategy by the West. India cooperates with the US, Australia and Japan – the so-called Quad group of nations – on security in the Indo-Pacific, and it has maintained political dialogue with NATO since 2019.

Turkey and India may not see eye-to-eye with the West on all issues. But neither do they fully align with the Global East camp inside BRICS, and especially not with Russia. If nothing else, this limits the ability of BRICS to forge a coherent agenda, deepen integration and, ultimately, mount a credible challenge to the existing order.

Relying on India and Turkey to do the West’s bidding in undermining BRICS is not a credible long-term strategy. BRICS may have achieved little as an organization, but the Kazan summit declaration indicates that its key players continue to harbor aspirations for more.

However, as the flailing expansion drive of the organiZation indicates, there is also an internal battle in BRICS over its future direction. This, in turn, creates space and time for the West to exercise more positive and constructive influence in the ongoing process of reshaping the international order.

The Global East may be beyond redemption, but there is still a massive opportunity to reengage with the Global South.

Stefan Wolff is a professor of international security at the University of Birmingham.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Europe can’t be defended against Russian attack: report – Asia Times

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A shocking but accurate record on European and European defense has been released by the German Kiel Institute. According to the report, the state of Germany, Europe, and the United States is nevertheless terrible.

Bottom line: Despite all the talk of a NATO combat, the alliance, including the United States, is not prepared for any conflict with Russia. Additionally, it makes the suggestion that the cost of security products is causing profit for defense companies but not for the sake of security as a whole.

The Kiel Institute, founded in 1914, is regarded as Germany’s leading significant think tank. In September, the Institute&nbsp, produced a study &nbsp, called” Fit for war in decades: Europe’s and Germany’s slow rearmament vis-a-vis Russia”.

The review makes a significant point about how ready Germany and other European nations are when Russia attacks them. Additionally, it tells a terrible story about how expensive and unsatisfactory European protection manufacturing has become. &nbsp, &nbsp,

A fantastic example is Germany’s Caracal weather abuse car. A Caracal is a kind of crazy rabbit found in Africa, Pakistan, the Middle East and parts of India. The German car, an unarmored gussied-up car based on a Mercedes G group vehicle, was put up by Rheinmetall, Mercedes-Benz AG and ACS Armored Car Systems GmbH.

A European Caracal Air Assault Vehicle.

The Caracal lacks weapons on its wide-open sides. Over 3, 000 of these cars have been provided to Ukraine at a cost of&nbsp, 1.9 billion dollars, which works out to 620, 000 dollars per product. &nbsp,

For less than$ 35, 000 per copy, you could pin an antitank weapons or equipment gun on a four-wheel drive industrial jeep. And since Ukraine has no evacuation ability, an air abuse aircraft dropped onto the field is a non-starter. ( The euro now trades at$ 1.08 to the US dollar. )

30mm weapons for the German Puma troops fighting car is an equally abhorrent case. The Puma costs a remarkable$ 5.3 million each, while its 30mm weapons charges around &nbsp, 1, 000 dollars per chance! &nbsp,

Puma you fire up to 600 rounds per minute. That compares to a US 30mm High Explosive Dual Purpose round ( more specialized than a run-of-the-mill bullet ) at$ 100. European 30mm ammunition costs ten times more than American 30mm weapons.

Additionally, soldiers are getting defensive defense headsets from the German army. Tactically available commercially available tactical headsets retail for$ 299. If additional features like noise cancellation are added, the price may go up to$ 400, but not more. But European devices cost a whopping&nbsp, 2, 700 dollars each.

Bottom line: People and businesses are making a lot of money by providing Western armies or sending goods to Ukraine. Some people believe it to be openly corruption because institutions are involved in these transactions. Mind that the Kiel Institute just goes as far as to claim these payments are uber-expensive, no more. &nbsp,

A European Puma Tank.

The fact that Russia’s defense industry is growing rapidly and that North Korea is then adding more supplies with artillery shells and missiles is a lot, according to the Kiel record. &nbsp,

North Korea, it seems, has been grinding out weapons also in excess of anything it can use, and until now, it did not trade them. Of course, the Kim Jong Un tyranny is sustained by the Russian agreement with North Korea by providing funds or the equivalent and funding the projects.

All of this helps present, in part, that Germany’s opportunities in security are corrupted ( I think that is the right word ) by excessively expensive equipment. &nbsp,

Also if Germany really meets the NATO target of 2.1 % of GDP for defence spending, what the European military ends up receiving is incredibly expensive. Not to mention that a lot of it ends up in Ukraine and is only gradually, if at all, replaced on the domestic before.

Even with sufficient saving, what money is spent on boggles the mind. Very much, for instance, is going into heat defense, something that is important for Germany’s potential defense needs.

Nevertheless, NATO-supplied air defenses have done a poor to horrible work in Ukraine, a forerunner of a dangerous upcoming in Europe unless the problem is corrected. An interesting note ( website 25 ) in the statement, set in ultra-small form, discusses Ukraine’s ability to shoot down Russian missiles and uavs:

Sample interception rates for commonly used Russian missiles in 2024: 50 % for the older Kalibr subsonic cruise missiles, 22 % for modern subsonic cruise missiles ( e. g. Kh-69 ), 4 % for modern ballistic missiles ( e. g. Iskander-M), 0.6 % for S-300/400 supersonic long-range SAM, and 0.55 % for the Kh-22 supersonic anti-ship missile.

There is little information about the infiltration levels of hypersonic weapons: Ukraine claims a 25 % intrusion price for the Kinzhal and Zircon, but Ukrainian options also claim that to interceptions of this nature require the fire of all 32 launchers in a Patriot battery made of US-style to have any chance to shoot down a single hypersonic missile. By contrast, European Nationalist batteries have 16 rockets, and Germany has 72 launchers in full.

Take notice that Patriot’s interceptor missiles are in extremely limited stock. Manufacturing these weapons takes a long time, and setting up these weapons has proved difficult. Bolloxing manufacturing lines is also caused by a lack of crucial parts. &nbsp,

Boeing provides crucial components for the missile’s target ( when it works ) while US defense contractor Lockheed Martin is the main manufacturer. Boeing wo n’t solve that problem, at the earliest, until 2027. In addition, Boeing is currently facing a significant business strike and a crisis internally that is still far from resolved.

But there are great questions about air mechanisms. The US has given Ukraine the Patriot and other methods. The Russians put a lot of effort into destroying them, but even when they succeed, their catch level is below par. Europe has supplied IRIS-T, NSAMS and other methods that, so far as can be determined, are almost similar to the Patriot. &nbsp,

On the whole, Jewish methods are greater, but they are not deployed in Ukraine. What is regarded as the major US method for air defence, AEGIS ( in the form of AEGIS Ashore ), is not in Ukraine. The devices are in use in Romania and Poland.

Europe largely has none of its own air defense deployed in Europe. The US is not much more prosperous. Some systems, particularly the Ground-Based Mid-Course Interceptor based in Alaska, are a combined case.

The Pentagon is then searching for better-performing fighter weapons to replace its current ones. The 40 or so weapons in stock merely function about half the time despite some tests that were optimized to ensure success.

The potential is also concerning as fast weapons arrive on the field, seen in Ukraine in the form of Russia’s Kinzhal and Zircon. Hypersonic assault weapons are hardly ever a possibility for systems like the Patriot, Iris-T, or any other NATO air defense systems.

The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal weapon as seen at the 2018 Moscow&nbsp, Victory Day Parades.

The image is n’t particularly beautiful when it comes to drones, which are being shot off by Ukrainians and Russians in droves. They are difficult to kill, and present war tanks and troops fighting vehicles can be destroyed by systems like the Russian Lancet helicopter. &nbsp,

No one has yet devised a successful strategy to stop swarms of drones, not yet Israel, and stop some of the smaller attacks that pass by.

Above all, the Kiel record puts a new and important view on Europe’s security position and, by extension, the US, which is pledged by treaty to help protect Europe.

It is time to step back and assess whether a credible defense of Europe is possible in the wake of NATO’s continued expansion and growing angst in Europe and Russia. Right now, judging by the Kiel report, the answer is no.

At Asia Times, Stephen Bryen is the senior correspondent. He also served as the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s staff director and its deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. &nbsp,

This&nbsp, article was originally published on his&nbsp, Weapons and Strategy&nbsp, Substack, and is republished with permission.

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BRICS summit gives IMF gang a run for their money – Asia Times

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It’s going to be a active, anxious and challenge-laden International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington this month.

There, the financial glitterati will fight a bewildering range of hot-button issues ranging from China’s decline to Germany’s crisis to geopolitical risks everywhere to a toss-up US election that’s screening nerves everyday. Put in the IMF’s instructions about a US$ 100 trillion people loan timebomb.

Amazingly, Washington may become hosting this week’s next most effective economic gathering. The more enthralling function will be in Moscow, where the BRICS countries are holding their annual conference.

Some observers predicted that the grouping, which combines Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa, would eventually have been a sideshow. In 2001, then-Goldman Sachs analyst Jim O’Neill coined the BRIC acronym. In 2010, the four original users added South Africa.

In the decades since, the BRICS seemed to reduce forward thrust. In a 2019 review, Standard &amp, Poor’s said the union had lost impact. &nbsp, Around that same day, O’Neill himself took some photos at his design.

O’Neill recently wrote that” the divergent long-term financial direction of the five states weakens the scientific value of viewing the BRICS as a clear economic grouping.” According to some people, I’ve made jokes about how appropriate it would have been to call the name “IC”&nbsp, given the obvious debacle of the Portuguese and Soviet economies in the last decade since 2011, both of which have obviously performed significantly worse than &nbsp, what the 2050 scenario path laid out.

However, the BRICS have since recovered some of their momentum and are now adding five more users. This year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates may join the slide.

Mariel Ferragamo, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, information that” the addition of Egypt and Ethiopia will intensify tones from the African continent. Egypt likewise had close business ties with China and India, and social ties&nbsp, with Russia”.

As a fresh BRICS part, &nbsp, Egypt” seeks to&nbsp, get more investment&nbsp, and increase its damaged economy”, Ferragamo information. ” China has long courted Ethiopia, the third-biggest business in sub-Saharan Africa, with&nbsp, billions of dollars of investment&nbsp, to make the region a hub of its Belt and Road Initiative. The addition of Saudi Arabia and the UAE would send in the&nbsp, two biggest economies&nbsp, in the Muslim world and the next and eighth major oil producers internationally”.

The schedule of this growth dovetails with a major BRICS plan: de-dollarization.

The BRICS announced plans to create a “multilateral online lawsuit and pay system” called BRICS Bridge in February, which “would help bridge the gap between the financial markets of BRICS member countries and promote joint trade.”

According to reports, the gathering this week will use a new strategy to make efforts to replace the US dollar more quickly. Udith Sikand, an analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, notes that one idea is for a gold-backed BRICS monetary unit.

According to Sikand, it seems unlikely that any single currency could get past this compulsion to completely replace the US dollar’s central role.

” A wide range of currencies could, in a more multipolar world, theoretically chip away at their enormous role. The logical consequence of a change would be that while the dollar is still important to global trade and capital flows, its ability to serve as a safe haven when stress is diminished as investors weigh their options from a myriad of alternatives.

The West needs to understand how much it makes the BRICS more comfortable. After all, this opening for the Global South is largely attributable to the Bretton Woods gang messing up their individual economies and, consequently, the global system.

Take the US, which is rife with political chaos at a time when the nation’s debt is over$ 35 trillion. The risks posed by the upcoming&nbsp, November 5 election alone have credit rating companies on edge, particularly Moody’s Investors Service, which is the last to assign Washington a AAA grade.

Germany is flatlining, highlighting headwinds bearing down on the broader continent. As Germany’s Economy Ministry puts it, “economic weakness likely continued in the second half of 2024, before growth momentum gradually increases again next year”, adding that “technical recession” risks abound.

The European Central Bank’s decision to cut rates for the third time this year last week highlights the level of concern.

Allianz Global Investors ‘ global chief investment officer, Michael Krautzberger, claims that” this increase in the speed of rate cuts is justified because the combination of sub-trend euro growth and target inflation supports a much less restrictive monetary policy than is currently the case.”

Krautzberger adds that” there are some hopes that recent Chinese policy support will help trade-sensitive markets like Germany, but we doubt that will be sufficient to offset the region’s weak domestic demand picture.” There is also a chance that trade disputes will return to the policy agenda after the upcoming US elections in November, adding to the risk of negative growth.

Making matters worse, according to the US and China’s combined borrowing patterns, public debt levels are projected to reach$ 100 trillion this year.

” Our forecasts point to an unforgiving combination of low growth and high debt – a difficult future”, says IMF managing director&nbsp, Kristalina Georgieva. ” Governments must work to reduce debt and rebuild buffers for the upcoming shock, which will undoubtedly occur, and perhaps sooner than we anticipate.”

Such unthinkable debt levels pose a serious and immediate threat to the world financial system. In a recent report, IMF analysts wrote that “higher debt levels and uncertainty surrounding fiscal policy in systemically important countries, such as China and the United States, can lead to significant spillovers in the form of higher borrowing costs and debt-related risks in other economies.”

These spillovers could make monetary policy decisions in both Asia and the world more difficult.

Officials from the Bank of Japan are declaring their intention to keep raising rates in Tokyo. Yet that’s despite data showing renewed weakness in retail sales, exports, industrial production and private machinery orders. and concerns among ministry of finance officials about the potential return of deflationary forces in the months to come.

Even though inflation is easing in Japan,” the central bank has made clear that it will raise interest rates”, says Danny Kim, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. ” At best, this will slow growth. At worst, it could trigger a wider economic decline”.

All of this raises the question of whether the world’s top economies are complacent about potential dangers. &nbsp,

As officials arrive in Washington, there’s considerable relief that the US has n’t experienced the recession that the vast majority of economists predicted. Or that China’s downshift had n’t pushed mainland growth too far below this year’s 5 % target.

However, there is reason to believe that this is the last sigh before the storm. The geopolitical path is as dangerous as they can get. Middle East tensions are rising as Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on, aside from the ominous debt milestone that the IMF has flagged. And then there’s the return of the” Trump trade”.

Polls indicate a close race between Kamala Harris and former US President Trump. The betting markets, though, suggest Trump might prevail. If so, Asia could quickly find itself in harm’s way.

Trump’s threat to slap 60 % tariffs on all Chinese goods is just the beginning. Many people predict that a Trump 2.0 administration will impose much higher taxes and trade restrictions, wreaking havoc on Asia in 2025.

Even if Trump loses to Harris, he’s hardly going to accept defeat and move on peacefully. Many people are already concerned that their supporters may launch an attack on the US capital to protest his demise because the election was stolen. That’s likely to imperil Washington’s credit rating anew and spook investors pushing Wall Street stocks to all-time highs.

The fallout from the Trump-inspired January 6, 2021 insurrection was among the reasons Fitch Ratings revoked its AAA rating on US debt, joining Standard &amp, Poor’s. The question now is whether Moody’s downgrades the US, too.

This uncertainty favors the BRICS. Southwest Asia is also clearly orienting its attention toward the BRICS countries. &nbsp, All this is a global game-changer that few in the West saw coming.

Earlier this year, Malaysia detailed its ambitions to join the intergovernmental organization. Thailand and Vietnam are also interested in joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is a group of nations. In Indonesia, an increasing number of lawmakers are BRICS curious, too.

Joe Biden, the president of the United States, may be dealt a particularly bad blow by Southeast Asia’s involvement. Since 2021, a regional bulwark has been a hallmark of the Biden era in opposition to China’s growing influence and attempts to replace the US dollar in trade and finance.

The BRICS phenomenon demonstrates a growing stutter in relations between the US and many ASEAN members. This, at a time when&nbsp, Saudi Arabia&nbsp, is looking to phase out the “petrodollar”. As China, Russia, and Iran square off against old alliances, Riyadh is making more efforts to de-dollarize.

” A gradual democratization of the global financial landscape may be underway, giving way to a world in which more local currencies can be used for international transactions”, says analyst&nbsp, Hung Tran at the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center.

” In&nbsp, such a world, the dollar would remain prominent but without its outsized clout, complemented by currencies such as the Chinese renminbi, the euro, and the Japanese yen in a way that’s commensurate with the international footprint of their economies”, Tran says.

According to Tran, “how Saudi Arabia approaches the petrodollar continues to be a significant predictor of the financial future as its creation occurred fifty years ago.”

This week in Moscow, that potential future is on full display. Officials in Washington ignore those machinations at their own risk, 800 kilometers away.

Follow William Pesek on X using the hashtag# WilliamPesek

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BRICS summit gives IMF gang a run for its money – Asia Times

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It’s going to be a active, anxious and challenge-laden International Monetary Fund meeting in Washington this month.

There, the financial glitterati will fight a bewildering range of hot-button issues ranging from China’s decline to Germany’s crisis to geopolitical risks everywhere to a toss-up US election that’s screening nerves everyday. Put in the IMF’s instructions about a US$ 100 trillion people loan timebomb.

Amazingly, Washington may become hosting this week’s following most powerful economic gathering. Moscow, home of the BRICS countries ‘ yearly mountain, will host the more enthralling event.

Some experts predicted that the gathering that gathered Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa would end up being a show just a few decades ago. In 2001, then-Goldman Sachs scholar Jim O’Neill coined the BRIC acronym. In 2010, the four original users added South Africa.

In the decades since, the BRICS seemed to reduce forward thrust. In a 2019 review, Standard &amp, Poor’s said the union had lost importance. &nbsp, Around that same day, O’Neill himself took some photos at his design.

O’Neill recently wrote that” the divergent long-term financial direction of the five states weakens the scientific value of viewing the BRICS as a clear economic grouping.” Based on the obvious debacle of the Portuguese and Soviet economies in the current century since 2011, where both have plainly performed significantly under-perform compared to what the 2050 scenario route laid out, I have often joked that I should have called the acronym “IC”&nbsp.

However, the BRICS have since recovered some of their momentum and are now adding five more people. This year, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates may join the slide.

Mariel Ferragamo, an scientist at the Council on Foreign Relations, information that” the addition of Egypt and Ethiopia will intensify voices from the African continent. Egypt even had close business ties with China and India, and social ties&nbsp, with Russia”.

As a fresh BRICS part, &nbsp, Egypt” seeks to&nbsp, get more investment&nbsp, and increase its damaged economy”, Ferragamo information. ” China has long courted Ethiopia, the third-biggest business in sub-Saharan Africa, with&nbsp, billions of dollars of investment&nbsp, to make the region a hub of its Belt and Road Initiative. The addition of Saudi Arabia and the UAE would send in the&nbsp, two biggest economies&nbsp, in the Muslim world and the next and eighth major oil producers internationally”.

The schedule of this growth dovetails with a major BRICS plan: de-dollarization.

The BRICS announced plans to create a “multilateral online lawsuit and pay system” called BRICS Bridge in February, which “would help bridge the gap between the financial markets of BRICS member countries and promote joint trade.”

According to reports, the gathering this week will use a new strategy to make efforts to replace the US dollar more quickly. Udith Sikand, an analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, notes that one idea is for a gold-backed BRICS monetary unit.

According to Sikand, it seems unlikely that any single currency could get past this compulsion to completely replace the US dollar’s central role.

However, it is possible that a wide range of currencies could collectively chip away at their outsized role in an increasingly multipolar world. The logical consequence of a change would be that while the dollar is still important to global trade and capital flows, its ability to serve as a safe haven in stressful times would be diminished as investors weigh up their options among a myriad of alternatives.

And for that, the West needs to understand how much it makes things easier for the BRICS. After all, the Bretton Woods gang’s messing up their individual economies and, consequently, the global system contributes to this opening for the Global South countries.

Take the US, which is rife with political chaos at a time when the nation’s debt is over$ 35 trillion. The risks posed by the upcoming&nbsp, November 5 election alone have credit rating companies on edge, particularly Moody’s Investors Service, which is the last to assign Washington a AAA grade.

Germany is flatlining, highlighting headwinds bearing down on the broader continent. As Germany’s Economy Ministry puts it, “economic weakness likely continued in the second half of 2024, before growth momentum gradually increases again next year”, adding that “technical recession” risks abound.

The European Central Bank’s decision last week to slash rates for the third time this year can be seen as a sign of the level of concern.

This increase in the rate of rate cuts is justified, according to Michael Krautzberger, global chief investment officer at Allianz Global Investors, because the combination of sub-trend euro growth and target inflation supports a much less restrictive monetary policy than is currently the case.

Krautzberger adds that” there are some hopes that recent Chinese policy support will help trade-sensitive markets like Germany, but we doubt that will be sufficient to offset the region’s weak domestic demand picture.” There is also a chance that trade disputes will return to the policy agenda after the upcoming US elections in November, adding to the risk of negative growth.

Making matters worse, according to the US and China’s public debt levels are projected to reach$ 100 trillion this year, in large part due to the country’s borrowing patterns.

” Our forecasts point to an unforgiving combination of low growth and high debt – a difficult future”, says IMF managing director&nbsp, Kristalina Georgieva. Governments must work to reduce debt and rebuild buffers in anticipation of the upcoming shock, which may occur sooner than anticipated.

The world financial system is in immediate danger of such unthinkable debt levels. In a recent report, IMF analysts wrote that “higher debt levels and uncertainty surrounding fiscal policy in systemically important countries, such as China and the United States, can lead to significant spillovers in the form of higher borrowing costs and debt-related risks in other economies.”

These spillovers could make monetary policy decisions in both Asia and the world more difficult.

Officials from the Bank of Japan are declaring their intention to keep raising rates in Tokyo. Yet that’s despite data showing renewed weakness in retail sales, exports, industrial production and private machinery orders. and concerns among Ministry of Finance officials that deflationary forces might return in the months to come.

Even though inflation is easing in Japan,” the central bank has made clear that it will raise interest rates”, says Danny Kim, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. ” At best, this will slow growth. At worst, it could trigger a wider economic decline”.

All of this raises the question of whether the world’s leading economies are complacent about potential dangers. &nbsp,

As officials arrive in Washington, there’s considerable relief that the US has n’t experienced the recession that the vast majority of economists predicted. Or that China’s downshift had n’t pushed mainland growth too far below this year’s 5 % target.

However, one might assume that this is the last blip before the storm. The geopolitical path is as dangerous as they can get. Middle East tensions are rising as Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on, aside from the ominous debt milestone that the IMF has flagged. And then there’s the return of the” Trump trade”.

Polls indicate that Kamala Harris and former US President Trump are in a very close race. The betting markets, though, suggest Trump might prevail. If so, Asia could quickly find itself in harm’s way.

Trump’s threat to slap 60 % tariffs on all Chinese goods is just the beginning. Many people predict that a Trump 2.0 administration will impose much higher taxes and trade restrictions, wreaking havoc on Asia in 2025.

Even if Trump loses to Harris, he’s hardly going to accept defeat and move on peacefully. Many people are already concerned that their candidates ‘ supporters may stage a second invasion of the US capital to protest their election defeat. That’s likely to imperil Washington’s credit rating anew and spook investors pushing Wall Street stocks to all-time highs.

The fallout from the Trump-inspired January 6, 2021 insurrection was among the reasons Fitch Ratings revoked its AAA rating on US debt, joining Standard &amp, Poor’s. The question now is whether Moody’s downgrades the US, too.

This uncertainty is influencing the BRICS’ positions. Southwest Asia is also clearly orienting itself toward the BRICS countries. &nbsp, All this is a global game-changer that few in the West saw coming.

Earlier this year, Malaysia detailed its ambitions to join the intergovernmental organization. Thailand and Vietnam are also interested in joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which is a group of nations. In Indonesia, an increasing number of lawmakers are BRICS curious, too.

The involvement of Southeast Asia could have a significant impact on Joe Biden, the president of the United States. Since the Biden era, a regional bulwark has been built to counteract China’s growing influence and attempts to replace the US dollar in trade and finance.

The BRICS phenomenon demonstrates a growing stutter in relations between the US and many ASEAN members. This, at a time when&nbsp, Saudi Arabia&nbsp, is looking to phase out the “petrodollar”. As China, Russia, and Iran square off against old alliances, Riyadh is making more efforts to de-dollarize.

” A gradual democratization of the global financial landscape may be underway, giving way to a world in which more local currencies can be used for international transactions”, says analyst&nbsp, Hung Tran at the Atlantic Council’s Geoeconomics Center.

” In&nbsp, such a world, the dollar would remain prominent but without its outsized clout, complemented by currencies such as the Chinese renminbi, the euro, and the Japanese yen in a way that’s commensurate with the international footprint of their economies”, Tran says.

Tran points out that “in this context, Saudi Arabia’s approach to the petrodollar continues to be a significant harbinger of the financial future as its creation was fifty years ago.”

This week in Moscow, that potential future is on full display. Officials in Washington choose to ignore those plots located 800 kilometers away at their own risk.

Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek

Continue Reading