The collapse of assumptions is like the end of the world—or worldview. We assumed conventional battles and nuclear bombings ended with the 20th century. But wars in Russia-Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon prove us wrong. Western defence officials now raise the nuclear threat level. Britain’s armed forces chief Tony Radakin declared, “We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age. It is defined by proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before.”
Such warnings are ominous. But western threat perceptions are also fuelled by false narratives, a kaleidoscope of selective evidence and wilful distortions. Russia threatens to use tactical nuclear weapons if NATO crosses its redlines in Ukraine. Mainstream west unreservedly accuses Russia of invading Ukraine. But respected American and European historians, left and rightwing groups, openly blame NATO expansion for triggering this war.
Nuclear drumbeat increases, but there is no mention of the US unilaterally withdrawing from its nuclear and missiles treaties with Russia in 2019. Radakin said Russia’s induction of North Korean troops into Ukraine is dangerous. But equally dangerous was deploying British agents into Ukraine to invade Russia’s Kursk region. The west sees threats from China’s growing nuclear stockpiles and maritime fortifications. Isn’t that what ascending powers do? No mention that China’s nuclear arsenal and naval bases don’t compare with the US. Radakin blamed Iran for not cooperating with international efforts, when it was Britain’s “special friend” Donald Trump who scuppered the nuclear deal.
Geopolitical changes challenge assumptions. Perched on tanks, victorious rebels raced into Damascus, cheering and jeering, shouting and shooting. Statues of the fallen Syrian dictator and founders of his dynasty were toppled, heads severed and kicked like football on streets strewn with shattered glass. Bearded men blazing guns and praising God invariably bring long-term misery to ordinary citizens. This is not prediction, it is déjà vu. We have seen such triumphal scenes before. They did not end well, not in Iraq, not in Libya, Sudan or Afghanistan.
The Middle East meltdown threatens the world as nation states disintegrate, their leaders assassinated or banished. Syria has now fallen to a scattershot patchwork of rebels, jihadists, nationalists, mercenaries, militias and terrorists with links to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. They hail from competing geographies, feuding histories and incompatible ideologies. “It’s a pretty toxic brew,” said Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.
The long arm of the US and its great games stir these toxic brews. The covert CIA operation Timber Sycamore to topple Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was launched a decade ago by the Obama regime. As weapons and money flowed, Syria became a honeypot for swarming regional gunmen, its opposition overrun by gangsters and terrorists. Like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, Assad used brute force to keep his diverse country together. Now Syria risks being balkanised, disintegrating into separate fiefdoms tacitly controlled by big powers—the US, Russia, Turkey, Israel and a weakened, isolated Iran. Shadowy hands now rock the cradle of civilisation.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s decades-long, self-proclaimed ambition is redrawing the Middle East map. He has devastated Gaza, invaded Lebanon and Syria. Iraq, Libya and Sudan were already destroyed. War with Iran remains. As president again, Trump may reduce the nuclear threat from Russia, but increases it from Iran. The US is complicit, the UN toothless, regional Sunni powers, treacherous. Iran’s allies are distracted, dismembered or destroyed. Shia-Iran is a cornered power with nuclear weapons. Threat levels rise, alarm bells ring. What it may do is best left unimagined.
Pratap is an author and journalist.