The extent to which so much analysis assumes that the IDF would just repeat the 2006 playbook as if it had not learned as much as Hezbollah from that conflict is baffling.
It's likely the Israelis have a pretty good overview of what faces them in Southern Lebanon.
Israelis are more likely to win in purely military terms against Hezbollah and Hamas than many blinded by myth-making surrounding both organisations assume
But if the Israelis get sucked into Lebanon in a lasting way and this drags on they'll tank Israel's economy in the process
Hezbollah's greatest weakness right now is how predictable its responses have become. Rather than seeking diplomatic room for maneuver, a Hezbollah leadership trapped by its own resistance mythology keeps doubling down on futile attacks that expose it further to Israeli attrition
Internal instability within the regime will build up over months and years in ways that factions who can attract or buy the loyalty of armed formations are most likely to take advantage of.
The liberal opposition is likely to be irrelevant to this intra-elite struggle for power
I suspect if and when Putin falls, a lot of people in the EU and US will be shocked with how quickly many Russian emigres who now present themselves as liberal will be willing to align with promising armed factions out of desperation to gain some power in Russian politics
And none of this happening anytime soon. Barring Putin's unexpected death, we're probably at least a decade away from any prospect of regime fall or transition in Russia even if the Russian army is defeated in Ukraine.
A general who took care of his troops, was popular among soldiers and officers while proving competent in handling military operations is one of the most senior figures to get purged.
Putinism's approach to squeezing the army resembles Baathist regimes under Hafez or Saddam
In the emerging Russo-Baathist regime, the greatest mistake a general can make is being honest in the hope of saving the troops under his command rferl.org/a/russia-gener…
If the US is unable to provide aid to Ukraine and does not seem a reliable partner for other European states its concerns will be ignored by Ukraine and other European states
Quincyite Restrainers and MAGA isolationists are ultimate cakeists in assuming the US can withdraw commitments from allies while still keeping influence the US developed through massive involvement in key global regions.
Instead DC will moan on the sidelines as others ignore it.
The Ukrainian leadership is made up of a lot of experienced people who know how DC will react to certain actions yet they're starting to do them anyway.
The French leadership knows how sketchy Biden is over talk of troops on the ground anywhere yet Paris is shifting anyway.
Panels at the Munich Security Conference invariably spend a lot of time wringing hands over the so-called Global South while spending as little time as possible paying attention to the details of relentless conflicts and regional power rivalries in the Global South
A bit of time at MSC focused on wars in Sudan, Abiy's moves, state cohesion in the Sahel or growing risks of state vs state war between DRC and Rwanda rather than vague strategic platitudes might show EU and US policymakers actually care about events in the "Global South"
When Russian PMCs, Romanian mercs, Chinese brokers and Ukrainian special forces are showing up in wars across Africa alongside French, UAE, Turkish, Italian and Portuguese usual suspects then maybe it's time MSC noticed how much events in different global regions are intertwined
A potential trap in focusing entirely on narratives of settler colonialism in assessing imperial power structures and migration that can go back centuries is how quickly they can get absorbed into Far Right demands for expulsion of minorities in Europe, India or Africa
The assumption that narratives of settler colonialism will only target West Europeans or North Americans looks ropey if one considers how various nativist movements in Europe, Africa and India can also end up targeting the migration and political legacies of Muslim empires.
Taken one step further, within the framework of Far Right worldviews that see migrants as part of a wider conspiracy to displace "native" populations in Europe, what may begin as a Left wing decolonial agenda can quickly get hijacked to be used against Muslim and other migrants.