Tectonic Shifts

The recent devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria were a timely reminder of the damage caused by continental drift when clashing tectonic plates create destructive forces hundreds of times more powerful than an atomic bomb. 

This analogy applies to our global political infrastructure as the clash of civilizations gives rise to the death of old empires and the birth of new ones. Innocent wartime casualties, societal effects of climate change, and significant technological disruptions are part and parcel of shifting power structures.

After 75 years of peace and prosperity, Russia, China, and Iran have challenged America’s global leadership. While the current flashpoint for this challenge is Ukraine, Taiwan represents the next potential powder keg ready to explode. 

With Iran supplying Russia drones for use in Ukraine, and given its near-term ability to build an atomic bomb to target Israel, it does not take a historian to realize Israel may soon be forced to preemptively bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities just like she did in Iraq and Syria. Having failed to bring Europe to its knees by shutting off the gas valves, Putin has become desperate in his attempt to stop the flow of oil from the middle east to the west, in the expectation it would damage the western economies by tripling the price of gas.

President Carter’s famous “Malaise” speech signaled to Iran’s Ayatollahs that America was divided and weak, thereby emboldening them to take 52 Americans hostage to emasculate us while chanting “Death to America” as a kind of national anthem. 

Although President Biden’s recent handling of our exit from Afghanistan looked similar to Jimmy Carter’s failed treatment of Iran, I am more pleased with the president’s recent handling of the war in Ukraine, particularly the way in which he is standing up to Putin, which is a lot closer to the way President John Kennedy handled the Bay of Pigs confrontation with Cuba.

The war in Ukraine will not be contained to that region because Russia is little more than a global gas station and Putin, a cornered thug, is undoubtedly capable of expanding the war on a new front in the middle east. China represents yet a different kind of current challenge to American power as it seeks a tectonic shift in global power.

— Sina.