Geopolitical cataclysm

Three years into the Ukraine War and one and a half years into the Gaza War, geopolitical chaos and uncertainty has only quadrupled. Peace is evasive and global players seem to be eyeing endgames that would plunge humanity into more wars not less.

Israel, finding the US unswervingly on its side, is bent on repeatedly breaking the ceasefire with Gaza and Lebanon. Syria, with Assad gone, has become a contest between Turkey, the Saudis, the Europeans and Israel, each ready to grab their share of bounties of a war they never fought but only fueled.

The US, with MAGA on Trump's mind, is threatening to attack Iran's nuclear arsenal, which is literally impenetrable by conventional firepower. So will the US have to use its nuclear option? Considering that, Iran has lately been showcasing its expansive underground facilities and huge inventory, just to show it's ready for a counter-attack, and we know that its first target will be Israel. The state-run Tehran Times has stated, "Iranian missiles are loaded onto launchers in all underground missile cities and are ready for launch." Another report said that more than 1,000 hypersonic ballistic missiles were aiming at nuclear facilities in Israel.

Rather, Trump keeps jumping from threats to Nuclear Deal and back, making for uncertainty, that has pushed Iran to prepare for the worst. So, while US is acting acrobat; Russia, China and Iran have had a round of meet-ups that have been ending in comprehensive economic and strategic treaties involving the three. Resultantly, in case of any attack on Iran; China and Russia are now in a position of coming to its rescue. And Iran, in spite of Trump utterance that he will soon have talks with Iran, has announced that it will go ahead for weapons-grade nuclear power.

All the while, trying to hand over the carrot to Iran, the US is constantly attacking Yemen. And the ongoing Gaza war and the shaky ceasefire with Lebanon mean that the Middle East is still extremely volatile. And if attacked, Iran would surely reactivate all its assets - in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen to hoard upon Israel.

Preempting this, the US has deployed the Carl Vinson Strike Group, which will join the USS Haris Truman in the Red Sea, while the USS Theodore Roosevelt and USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike groups are already around the Gulf of Oman, and added B-2 stealth bombers in Deigo Garcia, an island facing the Middle East. Needless to say that the US has dozens of military bases in the Arabian Peninsula.

And because Israel is not ending its war on Gaza, and constantly reiterating its wishfulness of expelling the Palestinians, Egypt has moved its army in Sinai, with Egyptian strategist Maj Gen Samir Farag saying that "the Egyptian armed forces are at the highest level of preparedness as if war could erupt tomorrow."

In Syria, Türkiye has taken the lead with the new Syrian government in signing the deal to train the Syrian Army and to acquire the military/air base in Palmyra, the would-be largest overseas airbase in the world. Israel couldn't swallow that either and bombed the base just days before Türkiye troops were to enter. This did not alter Erdogan's resolve though, who has said that "just as we entered Karabakh, just as we entered Libya, we can do something similar to them (not Syria, Israel)."

While the Middle East bubbles at the brink of a wider war, the sinkhole is not merely regional, it's global. It's more a product of plagued global financial system than of cross-border tensions; it's more based on the West's fear of losing hegemony over the rest of the world and more on their lust for endless control and power. The sinkhole is widening and deepening, and we're all slipping into it together.

Trump came with claims that he would end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. He has instead added a third - a trade war that is proving to be more divisive and threatening to upending the existing globalised world order. The tariff and reciprocal tariff game is cutting out the once integrated global economy into smaller, more isolated multipoles. China has already announced a digital RMB infrastructure that will exchange credit with ten ASEAN and six Middle East countries, bypassing the SWIFT system, a move being labeled as Bretton Woods 2.0.

Europe will no longer be a protégé of the US, it will have to take care of its own finances and security, for which Ursula von der Leyen has already announced a $844.6 billion plan for defence spending across the EU bloc. South America has remained steadfast with the socialist-tilted Pink Tide and several of its states want to join the BRICS.

India, whose defence budget for 2024-25 was $74.30 billion, has been swiftly increasing indigenous defence productions, including that of fighter aircraft and space assets. In its contest with China, and as a QUAD partner it is building an underground nuclear submarine fortress, facing the Malacca Strait. And the Pacific Theater is just as packed with energy, as the US seeks more bases in the area, when it already has 15 major bases in Japan, 15 in South Korea and several more in Australia and the Philippines.

Most human populations are anti-war, but many who are in power crave for it. Ukraine and Gaza may be the epicentres of dissolution and chaos, but the eventual spread of this disarray may be a potential cataclysm of global proportion.

Now, if the US manages to pacify Netanyahu for a real ceasefire and push the deal into phase-II; manage to bring the Iranians to some kind of deal; retreat from the Ukrainian front; and accept a multipolar world order and shared economic prosperity, it may delayed an annihilative war for a decade or so.

But if the US behaves like the stubborn unilateral narcissist that wants all the power, then humanity needs to prepare itself to be slashed and emptied in a cataclysm of global proportion in very near future.

And don't say you didn't see it all coming!