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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Tim Marshall
Read between
February 23 - February 26, 2022
The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold —William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”
For some time we have been moving toward a “multipolar” world.
the slowly emerging Biden Doctrine, which hopes to reenergize democracy and offer a global economic alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Geography is a key factor shaping what humanity can and cannot do.
Turkey is flexing its muscles in the eastern Med, it has much wider ambitions. Its “neo-Ottoman” agenda derives from its imperial history and position at the crossroads of east and west. Turkey aims to fulfill its ambition to emerge as a major global power.
Australia is also an enthusiastic member of what is probably the world’s most efficient intelligence-gathering network—the so-called Five Eyes—along with the US, the UK, New Zealand, and Canada.
For most of that history, the land was known as Persia. It was renamed Iran only in 1935 in an attempt to represent the country’s non-Persian minorities, which constitute about 40 percent of the population.
Ashura, and they are feeling the pain of the martyred Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, killed at the Battle of Karbala.
the city of Khorramshahr, where they used mustard gas against the defenders.
Islam has nothing comparable to Christianity’s traditional demarcation of politics and religion.
Ibn Saud,
Ibn Saud was good at timing. FDR headed home and a few days later Saudi Arabia declared war on Germany and Japan, thus earning a seat at the newly formed United Nations. The Saudis were now players on the world stage, oil made them important, and the Americans made them safe.
During America’s longest war the Saudi media did not inform the public that, proportionally, Saudi fighters captured in Afghanistan were the biggest contingent of prisoners sent to Guantánamo Bay.
Less than 40 percent of Saudis are Wahhabis, and even most of them do not condone the savagery of the current generation of jihadists.
the regional cold war with Iran that has descended into proxy wars this century.
The Saudis view Syria as an Iranian land bridge linking Tehran, via Baghdad and Damascus, to the Iranian-funded Shia Hezbollah militia in Beirut.
If Iran does become a nuclear-armed state, Saudi Arabia will consider following suit.
Saudi money is used to fund the Libyan National Army, while Turkish money and forces have ensured that the Libyan National Army cannot take Tripoli.
2018 murder of the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
the Wahhabi population, which views Shia as apostates, some going so far as to say they are not Muslims.
The kingdom has the largest desalination operation in the world, which successfully produces the majority of its domestic needs.
The ruling class cannot allow regionalism to grow stronger, and yet it knows that there is such a thing as regional identity and that those identities want a say in how things are run.
Britain’s economic and military power accelerated after the 1707 Acts of Union joined Scotland and England as a single entity. For the first time in its history, one authority alone controlled the island. Not only did the English no longer have to worry about Scottish armies heading south, but the back door to potential invasion from a European power was locked. Three centuries later, the Brexit vote has endangered the Union, and although London no longer fears an invasion from France, it is deeply worried about the economic and military effects of an independent Scotland.
decided to explore Europe’s largest island I did so on two wheels, cycling its length on the route known as LEJOG—Land’s End to John O’Groats. It’s 1,000 miles long, and usually done from south to north as you have a better chance of having the wind at your back.
the Strait of Malacca, the maritime gateway to China.
The UK and France are easily the two strongest military forces in Europe. Both are concerned about Russian activity on many fronts,
If EU countries that are also in NATO do not take a robust line with perceived Russian aggression, the Baltic states, Poland, Romania, and, to a lesser extent, the Nordics will all welcome the support of the UK.
Russia may not be friendly, but its troops are not about to pour across the north European plain and arrive on the western coast of Europe.
What does disturb their sleep is the threat of mass-casualty terrorism, nuclear and cyber threats—and a restless Scotland.
the GIUK gap (Greenland, Iceland, UK), the old Cold War “kill zone,” in the event of a Soviet naval attack, or round to the North Sea and then down toward the English Channel.
As for why Britain needs such a deterrent, supporters point to the potential threat of Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
Two and a half centuries after the American War of Independence, the British are coming again—to as many places as they can. Post-empire and post-Brexit, they will try to come as friends and equals. It won’t always be friendly, or equal.
The American humorist David Sedaris has quipped that Greeks “invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day.”
President Macron used the incident as another example of his belief that NATO is “brain-dead.” That is more an attempt to switch off the life-support machine and build a better European fighting force than a statement of reality. Macron is leading the charge for an EU army, but given German hesitancy, the British withdrawal from the EU, and with an Atlanticist in the White House in the shape of Joe Biden, he’s finding it tough going.
Neither the Brits nor the Americans want the Russians to have a power base from which to project influence into the Balkans from the south, something it has been attempting for centuries. This is also why Cyprus has been such a strategically important island and part of the reason the UK hangs on to its military base there.
In a crisis it can be a secondary defensive position if a hostile Russian navy tries to break out of the Black Sea; it is on the front line of Europe’s migrant crisis and looks destined to become a crucial transit route for the gas pipelines coming out of the eastern Mediterranean.
“In the West you need a bookshelf full of permissions and certificates. In Niger, you give someone a spade and two dollars a day, and you’re mining uranium.”
If, as predicted, China’s demand outpaces its domestic supply, it will seek to buy even more and be less keen to sell to others, including the US, whose high-tech weaponry is reliant on the product.
the People’s Liberation Army and other security forces. Chinese special forces are involved in the UN peacekeeping operation in Mali, and Beijing, having persuaded Burkina Faso to end its recognition of Taiwan, is now developing military ties in Ouagadougou. In 2017 it opened its first foreign naval base—in Djibouti.
If the Sahel becomes a source of rare earths, will it be a resource curse or a resource blessing? The
In Afghanistan, the Taliban had a saying about the foreign forces they took on: “You have the watches—we have the time.”
their biggest bone of contention with Cairo, which is also their biggest construction program: the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). It is Africa’s largest hydroelectric power plant.
The word “guerrilla” comes from this conflict, being derived from the Spanish word for “war”—guerra. It began to be used to describe groups of Spanish irregulars who took a fearsome toll on the French.
Emilio Mola, had said, “It is necessary to spread terror. We have to create the impression of mastery, eliminating without scruples or hesitation all those who do not think as we do.”
After the war Spain was a pariah state, shut out of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan, and NATO.
The Pact of Madrid was signed two years later, granting the US Army, Air Force, and Navy bases in return for $2 billion worth of military and economic aid over twenty years.
Spain joined NATO in 1982, became a member of the EU in 1986, and adopted the euro in 1999.
The US retains two bases in Spain, Naval Station Rota near Gibraltar and Morón Air Base located about 30 miles south of Seville.
Spain is one of Europe’s leaders in renewable energy, especially solar and wind.
Once you’re in Earth orbit, you’re halfway to anywhere. —Robert A. Heinlein, science fiction author and engineer
