Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

Tag: Yemen War

China Helps Bring An End To Yemen War

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On April 10, 2023

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So, back on March 16th I wrote an article about the Chinese brokered Iran-Saudi Arabia peace deal. At the end of the article I wrote:

I am most interested to see if this will mean some sort of peace can be worked out in Yemen, or if it means the Iranians will abandon the Houthis, which would be sad.

Turns out peace with Yemen was almost certainly part of the deal:

Saudi Arabia has decided to end the war in Yemen . A Saudi delegation will travel to Sana’a next week to conclude an agreement with Yemen, Reuters reported

I suppose it’s a little early to be sure the war will end, but it seems very likely and this wouldn’t have happened without China. The US helped Saudi Arabia bomb the hell out of Yemen and cause a massive famine: China helped bring peace.

This is part of a massive realignment happening right now.

The number of states that are planning to join BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) increased significantly last year, about 20 countries want to join…

…

Among them are Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and a number of other African countries.

China will now be the most important member of the most important economic organizations in the world, other than the WTO and perhaps the IMF, though the IMF is going to be increasingly sidelined, because loans from the IMF always come with horrible conditions and more and more there will be other alternatives.

China is the biggest trade partner for almost every nation in Africa and South America already, so this realignment only makes sense. Those expecting the US to remain the center of the economic world when it was no longer the most important economy in the world were always fools.

I suspect a some of this is also due to freeing up Russian gas and oil for sale to non-European buyers. Again, the locus moves away from the West to the non-West.

China may not be the most important country in the world yet, but it’s only a matter of time absent war or some catastrophe stopping them. None of the countries joining ever liked America and China just offers a better deal on almost everything from loans to goods to IP.

The sun is near the horizon for the American Empire as world hegemon and the opposing bloc in the new bipolar world will be economically stronger than America’s bloc.

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How Important Is the Drone Attack on the Saudi Oil Field?

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On September 16, 2019

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As you’d expect from the title, both more and less than it seems.

The impact on oil prices is not that big a deal, despite the screaming. If they were to, say, wind up at $75/barrel for a few months, well the last time we had prices that high was…less than a year ago. It’s possible this will push us into a long-delayed recession, but if it does, that recession was going to happen anyway.

If Trump acts like an idiot and attacks Iran, of course, this will turn out to be a big deal. Otherwise, it isn’t a big deal, in and of itself.

Nor should anyone be crying for the Saudis. Assume it is true the attack was launched by Yemeni Houthis with some Iranian support. Remember that Saudi Arabia has been bombing and deliberately starving Yemen for years. They’re at war, and if the Houthis have a bit of support from Iran, what of it? Saudi Arabia itself has supported many organizations which have attacked other nations, possibly including Al-Qaeda and 9/11.

If you bomb the shit out of a country, and they manage to get in one hit against you? Boo-hoo.

Nor should the US care, as Saudi Arabia is a terrible ally who has done more harm to American interests than any other “ally” in the world, with the only possible exception of Israel.

This isn’t a US problem–and it shouldn’t be their war, and they should stop helping Saudi Arabia hit Yemen. But I guess the Sauds have always been good to the House of Trump, so perhaps there will be a war, on behalf of Trump hotels.

That aside, as I have written a number of times, drones are, and were always going to be, a weapon of the weak, and it is becoming harder and harder to defend against them. The US military was incredibly stupid to develop them, because ultimately they remove part of the monopoly of force from powerful countries. A world in which air strikes require jets that only a few countries can build, and which are expensive, large, and easy-to-find is a world which is much more favorable to great powers.

Instead, we have the cost of a somewhat-effective air force and assassination force dropping through the floor. Soon, these things will be routinely used by very small governments and non-state actors to kill their enemies; specific, named enemies, just as the US has been doing for a couple decades now.

This is going to get ugly.

It’s not all bad, taken from a longer point of view. Ages where elites can easily be killed tend to concentrate elite minds. In some places, that will lead to even worse police states, but the other way to solve the issue is to make people’s lives pretty good. People with pretty good lives tend to have better things to do than engage in political violence.

The results of the work I do, like this article, are free, but food isn’t, so if you value my work, please DONATE or SUBSCRIBE.

 

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