Multipolarity

You’ve heard of de-Baathification? Now what about de-baseification? The gradual chipping back of US strategic assets in the Gulf as each in turn comes under pressure from drone and rocket fire… till only a handful of super-bases remain.
Iran’s president says country is in ‘full-scale war’ after an expansion of US attacks. They’ve struck US interests in Bahrain, Kuwait - and the Houthis are blockading Saudi ports.
The US was unlikely to win this war - but now it seems it could actually lose it.
Meanwhile…
14%. 18%. 18%
Year-on-year sales drops at Volkswagen, and Audi and Porsche, which it owns, respectively.
Germany’s biggest auto maker is in free fall, with warnings of 50 000 job cuts. But Chinese competition is only half the problem.
Finally, the main public TV station has been shut down overnight. The President has been summarily dismissed by a dubious constitutional amendment. And the opposition leader has been banned from standing for re-election.
The new leader parades round in Mao suits, making agit prop video tours of the former regime’s residences to stoke up his base.
As the airwaves breathe static, will the EU send troops to restore democracy in the little-known far-off nation of Hungary?

This week: two audio essays, on one big Iran cluster-frig.
In the Collingwood corner:
Donald Trump has become an unreadable politician. His credibility has burst through various levels of ‘madman theory’ negotiating prowess, into a place where it may not even be clear to his most intimate subordinates where his true intent begins and ends. The result is that US policy is now a broken sail, flapping in the wind.
Originally, America had four aims: dismantle Iran's nuclear programme, cap its missiles and drones, cut off its proxies, and change the regime. With nil-for-four, the window to credibly settle this beef is getting farther away – not closer.
Meanwhile, chez Pilkington:
The US now believes it can ‘print oil’. That the present attempt to jigger the markets by making use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and various ‘Whale of Hormuz’ attempts to rig the options market are long-term sustainable. They are not, as Phil points out. What goes up must come down, and the slip-slide will not be pretty. Rather than a war of attrition, Pilko suggests, the oil price war has become the totality of conflict – a Baudrillardian quarrel over supremacy of a number – only secondarily underpinned by the drones and bombs of the Arabian Gulf.
Yes, it’s time to up the escitalopram – enter code HAPPYPILLS26 at checkout to redeem this offer.

It’s an oil rush. Fill your boots, fellers, America is releasing its strategic petroleum reserves, ostensibly to see down Iranian pressure. Good news for voters, great news for foreign countries who want to sponge of the US teat. But in its ducking and diving haste, has the Trump administration inadvertently drunk its own milkshake?
Then in the second half of a two-parter, we’re digging into the brewing Ukranian-Polish conflict. At the earliest days of the Ukraine War, around 2014, their Parliament passed a series of laws which granted official veteran status to a couple of Second World War military groups who had, shall we say, colourful pasts.
Recently, the Polish President withdrew the Polish White Eagle decoration from President Zelenskyy after Ukraine named an elite special unit after one such.
Hundreds of hatchets were buried after Communism, but now, despite the shock of the war, old animosities are bubbling to the surface. And with them, the facade of a united Europe begins to crack.

This week on Multipolarity, we’re taking your questions.
It’s a Q&A episode, involving queries sent in by our loyal listeners.
Questions like:
How did you guys meet?
(Drunk, at a party).

Which EU country will be first to do its own deal on Ukraine?
(The first to fall to the populists)

Where should young Euros emigrate to if Europe is ‘screwed’?
(Find your bliss in the emerging world)

Is the Rouble overvalued?
(Depends on how you count)

Could Turkey become the balancing power in the coming struggle between China and the US?
(Probably not)

What are the mechanics of oil price manipulation?
(Dump a big short position on the market on Monday morning, squeeze the longs out)

Why do we still live with the Boomer model of geopolitics?
(Give it ten years)

And several more. You had questions. We had answers.

Of course, this week is a Pay Week - 1 in 4 episodes are gated for the folk who support our work. So if you want to get in amongst the Real Multipolarity Heads, you’ll need to sign up on Patreon or Substack. Substack gets you our print journalism too — head over, and get access to the entire back catalogue.

Iran’s 14 points: making the world safe for Shia Theocracy.
Obviously, Donald Trump putting his John Hancock to the Islamabad Memorandum at Versailles carries absolutely no historical resonance.
But after the occupation of the Ruhr and the abdication of the Kaiser, what else could the Mullahs possibly put on their shopping list?
We’ll be picking through the carcrash, looking for signs of life in DC.
Meanwhile, to cement his lousy week Donald got into a love tiff with Georgia Meloni at the G7. Was this a passing fugue of Italian passion? The flamethrower of a woman scorned? Or was it the beginning of the end of what we’ve dubbed the ‘Euroslopulists’ – fake populists kept on a long-short leash by Brussels and the European Central Bank?
Finally, Donald Trump – remember him – managed to scoop the world’s press to the news that Keir Starmer would resign as British Prime Minister, being sure to spell his name wrong as a final boot in the teeth.
Sir Keir has evoked the kind of visceral loathing among Brits normally reserved for child killers and queue jumpers. But who will they have left to blame when his affable dimwit successor blows up in half the time?