I follow irregular warfare. Mostly mercenaries, rebels, jihadis, etc. I have to say that Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon are about to go through continued transformative instability as conflict regionalizes and we ignore the greater geo political impact.
For example, The President has legitimized the 'seconding" of U.S. troops to protect a tribal dictatorship and sees it as a mercantile transaction.
Trump pushes to defund and frustrate institutions like the UN, created up to promote state control of force and resolve conflicts. Libya is an example of the UN's toothlessness. reuters.com/article/us-lib…
States like Israel, the Gulf Kingdoms and the U.S. are powerless against Iran who has embraced the use of militias to spread influence. Why? because once you attack the head, the small groups simply franchise just like ISIS and al Qaeda. thetower.org/article/meet-t…
The Gulf countries created jihadist groups and al qaeda like America created or ramped up the Contras and other fake insurgencies. It works as way to corroded state systems which are slow, expensive and cannot retain top down institutionalized knowledge or talent.
Rebel, jihadi and other groups rely on chaos, created by a three level system, Intellectuals, backers and cannon fodder. Creating an asymmetric crippling impact on state systems. The U.S. had embraced this system in the 80's but failed terribly with Timber Sycamore in Syria.
Now the U.S. seems to be in the worst position of still owning or pursuing wars but unable to win anything from North Korea to Syria other than retreat. Putin's hybrid model of neo colonialism is probably the best system and the Chinese OBOR of debt expansionism, the next.
We need to have a reboot in which we leave behind the 1945 model and even the GWOT model to reassess what America's role in the world is. What is our self interest and how do we intend to secure resources, influence,trade access and security in the next decade?
