Trilateral Militarization: From Missiles to Nukes

The trilateral militarization of the US, Japan and the Philippines has officially started. From missiles to nuclearization, it could cast a dark shadow over the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

by Dan Steinbock Posted onApril 18, 2024

In the Philippines, the proponents of the trilateral alliance frame it as a response to the “threat of assertive China.” In reality, the unwarranted trilateral alliance seems to be the result of a longstanding US maritime counter-insurgency (COIN) campaign, resting on the work of the US Navy Department and other US interests.

The purpose of the campaign has been to escalate the South China Sea friction in international media to justify trilateral militarization.

In the Philippines, the concern for escalation is fairly widespread. On Friday former president Duterte warned in Chinese media that “the US is trying to provoke a war between China and the Philippines,” expressing his hope that the Philippines can change course to “resolve issues through dialogue and negotiation.”

The trilateral alliance seems to be a prelude to a massive rearmament drive that has potential to undermine and possibly collapse the expected Asian Century of peace and development.  

Nuclearization via QUAD and AUKUS              

In March 2023, US President Joe Biden held a press conference on the AUKUS partnership with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego, California. A glimpse of the Asian future was provided by the nuclear-powered USS Missouri submarine, which was visibly in the background. It was meant to be a signal to China.

Ironically, the net effect is rising nuclearization in the South China Sea by countries that are not located in the ASEAN territories. The US-led multilateral security framework targeting China rests on the QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) between the US, Japan, Australia and India. AUKUS is more actionable. It seeks to hem in China’s moves with a nested military network, including sharing advanced military technologies like nuclear-powered submarines. The first subs will be built in the UK by late 2030s and in Australia after 2040.

In the interest of time, the US plans to forward-deploy Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines, coupled with the UK’s similar Astute-class subs, to a naval base near Perth in Western Australia, already by 2027. AUKUS is also likely to expand in 2024 or early 2025. Japan and Canada are in line to join the so-called pillar 2 section of the AUKUS agreement, while US is courting South Korea and New Zealand.

From the Chinese viewpoint, the US is expanding the AUKUS military alliance by “forming a mini-NATO in Asia, which poses unprecedented threats and challenges to the region’s prosperity and stability.” The track-record – from Iraq and Afghanistan to Ukraine and Gaza – is not assuring.

But nuclearization takes time. Hence, the missiles.

Missiles and militarization             

As veteran political analyst Francisco Tatad writes, “Marcos sees China as the source of the danger, but he does not say why our two countries should be going to war with each other over some pieces of stone in the vast disputed sea.” Tatad asks, “Whose war must we prepare for?”

The question about “whose war” remains blurry, unlike the question “how” that war could begin. Due to the 2019 expiration of the previously banned Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the U.S. is planning to deploy ground-based intermediate-range missiles in the Indo-Pacific already in 2024, thus establishing its first arsenal in the region since the end of the Cold War.

Missiles over South China Sea?

The Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones (DDG 53) launches a Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) during a live-fire test of the ship’s aegis weapons system (Pacific Ocean, June 19, 2014). Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Originally developed by the huge US defense contractor Raytheon, which has played a key role in Ukraine’s devastation, these missiles feature land-based versions of the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6) and the Tomahawk cruise missile, with ranges between 500 and 2,700 kilometers (photo right). Tomahawks in particular have been used from the Gulf War to Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

Reportedly, the U.S. Army will send the intermediate-range missile units primarily to the U.S. territory of Guam, looking for more forward deployment to Asian allies in a contingency. These allies, like Philippines, are likely expected to be open to “rotational deployments in crises.”

Responding to a crisis in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea will require missiles that can reach targets in those critical waterways or the Chinese mainland. This means an extended deployment near the “first island chain,” which stretches from Japan’s Okinawa islands to Taiwan and, yes, the Philippines.

A decade of steps toward militarization

The US Naval Department’s involvement seems to have intensified since the mid-2010s, when the late foreign secretary Albert F. del Rosario had a key role in the creation of the 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which opened the country to U.S. military, ships, and planes; for the first time since 1991. A year later, Rosario met Obama’s then-deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken in Manila, aiming at bigger bilateral commitments.

Toward deeper military alignments

(Left) Foreign Affairs Secretary del Rosario and then-Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Manila in Nov. 2015. (Center) Foreign Affairs Secretary Locsin, Jr. and INDOPACOM Commander Adm. John C. Aquilino in Aug, 2021. (Right) Gen. Romeo Brawner, Jr., Chief of Staff and Adm. Aquilino in Mar. 2024.  Source: DFA, DFA-OPCD.

President Duterte’s electoral triumph in 2016 caused a six-year breather in the ambitious plans. Militarization began to move ahead in 2021, when Admiral John C. Aquilino, Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), met foreign secretary Locsin, Jr. Adm. Aquilino welcomed bilateral progress as “a huge leap forward” and US press release described the ties as an “alliance.”

Aquilino’s calls matter. The INDOPACOM is the largest of six geographic combatant commands of the US Armed Forces. It is responsible for all U.S. military activities in the Indo-Pacific region.

But nothing was set in stone, yet. President Marcos Jr had pledged building on Duterte legacy and nurturing strong ties with both the US and China, like most ASEAN nations. But these pledges had to go. They were misaligned with the Big Defense’s plans for Manila.

In October 2022, Senator Imee Marcos, chair of Philippine foreign relations committee, still pled in Washington: “Do not make us choose between the United States and China.” But prior to the address, her younger brother, President Marcos had met President Biden and discussed “the full breadth of issues in the alliance.” Subsequently, major electoral pledges turned upside down and trilateral mobilization became an inflated response to a deflated problem.

Rightly, columnist Rigoberto Tiglao wondered why the Philippines should go to war with China, its biggest trading partner, over a dispute that “is solely over Ayungin Shoal, a permanently submerged, useless small area.”

Militarization benefited the Pentagon and the Big Defense. But what exactly did Manila get in return, except for risks?

More bases, more targets: 9, 15, or 20 sites?

In spring early 2023, President Marcos Jr. granted U.S. forces access to four new bases, in addition to five existing bases included under the expanded Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). The decision was opposed vehemently by several provinces and municipalities in the target areas. But these concerns were quickly suppressed as “unnecessary.” Even the Congress proved oddly numb about the seismic foreign policy shift, despite its huge economic and geopolitical implications.

And yet, in September, Adm. Aquilino returned to the Philippines to discuss “opportunities for increased multilateral cooperation, maritime security initiatives, and the upcoming exercise Balikatan.” The U.S. had added 63 projects for the EDCA sites on top of the previously-approved 32. These projects included multipurpose storage facilities, road networks and fuel storage, “among others.” Although the U.S. officially has only “rotational access” to the Philippines bases, it had allocated over $109 million towards infrastructure improvements at some seven EDCA locations.

Presumably, the Philippines is to serve as a logistical platform, to tie China in the South China Sea (SCS) before a potential Taiwan crisis. But more is needed. Or as Radio Free Asia reported: “The US is seeking access to more bases in the Philippines on top of nine sites already included under an expanded pact.”

Just weeks later, in a Senate hearing, Senator Robinhood Padilla addressed the presence of a US Navy Poseidon aircraft circling overhead during a resupply mission, suggesting that the US naval presence unnecessarily caused an escalation between China and the Philippines. Instead of welcoming Padilla’s comments as an opening for a democratic debate on the pros and cons of the foreign policy U-turn, the questions were hush-hushed away.

Eclipse of Southeast Asian economic engines

Until recently, Japan and the Philippines were reluctant to host new American capabilities, to avoid becoming an immediate target of the Chinese military in a crisis. As economic challenges are amounting in both countries, things are changing.

But us trilateral mobilization the only option?

While affirming the strong US-Philippines bilateral alliance in the 2022 CSIS event, senator Imee Marcos affirmed the broad US-Philippines address, but it was not exclusive with “engagement with China, including joint development, confidence-building measures, and a code of conduct in the South China Sea.” In a multipolar world, there is room for multiple power centers.

Against widespread criticism and skepticism in the ASEAN, the proponents of the trilateral militarization portray it as a pillar of “peace and stability” in the region. They live in a parallel universe. As several ASEAN leaders have warned, trilateral mobilization has potential to split Southeast Asia and bury the Asian Century. 

Dr. Dan Steinbock is an internationally recognized strategist of the multipolar world and the founder of Difference Group. He has served at the India, China and America Institute (USA), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see https://www.differencegroup.net.

 A version of the commentary was published by China-US Focus on April 12, 2024. 

 

Take That, Joe Manchin

by Ted Glick and Jane Califf / April 15th, 2024

“We are a married couple of 45 years. We are taking action together as elders deeply concerned about the future facing our 3-year-old grandson, all children, and all life on earth. That is why we have joined with many others to stop the destructive and abusive Mountain Valley Pipeline, as well as any new fossil fuel infrastructure. Three years ago, the International Energy Agency said that was needed even then, because of the seriousness of the climate emergency

“We need solar and wind right now, not destructive fossil fuels and a trillion dollar a year war economy.

“We are outraged that billions of our tax dollars are being used for military aid to Israel in its genocidal war on Gaza. War kills people and the environment.”

This is the statement that we wrote explaining why on April 10 we locked ourselves into a “trojan possum” wooden structure blocking the only access road to a major MVP construction site on Poor Mountain in Virginia. For seven hours, with the support of others, we were able to prevent work being done at this site. After extraction and arrest, we were each charged with three misdemeanors in Roanoke County, Va.

Many other people have taken actions like this going back to 2018. Indeed, an historic and heroic tree sit of 932 straight days between 2018 and 2021 in Elliston, Virginia, along the planned route of the pipeline, was a major reason why, six years later, the MVP has not been finished and is not yet operational.

Joe Manchin can’t be very happy about this situation. He and Republicans tried to squash resistance and fast track MVP construction last summer via an amendment to must-pass federal debt legislation. The amendment which was included required federal agencies to provide all needed permits within 30 days and for the federal courts to be stifled in their oversight role.

Some of those active in the movement to defeat the MVP were understandably deflated by this development, but others responded with outrage. Within a couple months of this Congressional action, young people connected to Appalachians Against Pipelines had begun engaging in nonviolent direct action to slow pipeline construction work. Hundreds of people in the last six months have risked arrest in these actions. Climate activist Jerome Wagner was released just last week after spending two months in a West Virginia prison for locking himself to an MVP drill.

The two of us have been active in movements for positive social change going back to the Black Freedom and Anti-Vietnam War movements 60 years ago. One of us is 83 and the other is 74. We are active in our town, in our state and nationally in a number of climate justice and progressive groups. We do so because we were raised by loving parents to live by the ethic that our role on this earth, for as long as we are alive and capable of doing so, is to do all we can to make the earth a better place for those coming after us.

We feel this responsibility even more so now because of the deepening climate emergency and the growing neo-fascist threat posed by Trump and the MAGA movement. We also feel it because, as of January, 2021, we are grandparents of a wonderful three-year old boy. Without question, a major reason we took this action was for him and all children.

We are heartened by many things we see within our progressive movement for positive social change. One of them is the emergence of new groups like Third Act and Radical Elders and the connections developing between them and youth organizations like the Sunrise Movement and Fridays for Future. We are also heartened to see growing numbers of elders stepping forward to take part in the direct action that young people have been taking for years in organized efforts like the fight to stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Can we defeat Manchin and his MVP corporate cronies? Can we defeat Trump and MAGA? Can we overcome the criminal fossil fuel industry and create truly justice-based and nature-connected human societies? We don’t know, but we do know based on our decades of experience that taking part in the struggle for all of these things, despite all of the hardships and ups and downs, is without question a better way to liveFacebooTwitter

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Ted Glick and Jane Califf have been married for 45 years. Jane is a retired teacher and author of the book, How to Teach Without Screaming. Ted is a volunteer organizer with Beyond Extreme Energy and author of the books Burglar for Peace and 21st Century Revolution. More information can be found at https://tedglick.com. Read other articles by Ted Glick and Jane Califf.

 

The Death of Paris ‘15

by Robert Hunziker / April 15th, 2024

The Paris climate agreement of 2015 set the standards for how nation/states must approach the net zero target year 2050 by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in stages, starting with major reductions by 2030.

Paris ’15 is dead.

According to a new report by Global Energy Monitor of San Francisco, at least 20B barrels of oil equivalent has been discovered since the International Energy Agency statement of fact in 2021 that no new oil, gas, or coal development should proceed if the world is to reach net zero by 2050.

Nevertheless, as of today, fossil fuel producers worldwide plan on quadrupling output from newly approved projects by 2030, diametrically opposite what was agreed upon at Paris ’15. Effectively, the much-heralded savior Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 is torn to shreds.

Disregard for the agreement is even worse than first blush would indicate, to wit:

Last year, at least 20 oil and gas fields were readied and approved for extraction following discovery, sanctioning the removal of 8bn barrels of oil equivalent. By the end of this decade, the report found, the fossil-fuel industry aims to sanction nearly four times this amount – 31bn barrels of oil equivalent – across 64 additional new oil and gas fields.

— “Surge of New US-Led Oil and Gas Activity Threatens to Wreck Paris Climate Goals”, The Guardian, March 2024.

Fossil fuel exploration and production is on a roll, on a high, indomitably conquering every warning by climate scientists of past decades. The big oil companies, in concert with the major developed nations, are flipping the bird at Paris ’15. It’s a worthless scrap of paper. They’re drilling and increasing production 4-fold, period!

The United States leads the way. It has produced more crude oil than any country has in history for the past six years running. Nobody is outproducing America. Making matters even more poignantly difficult to swallow and pouring salt into the wound, the leader of Saudi Aramco at a recent conference in Texas said the world should “abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas.”

Meanwhile, it was recently reported that the senior producers are “way off track” on emissions goals that, from the start, were faux commitments with a wink and a grin. According to Carbon Tracker, production plans for the 25 largest oil and gas companies do not come close to aligning with the central goal of Paris ’15, which is now lifeless.

Carbon Tracker’s Paris Alignment Scorecard reads like a lunatic gang of young druggies flunking out of high school. Letter grades run from A to H with each oil company failing. The highest ranking was a lowly D. And every company plans on expansion of oil and gas production, near term. Making matters even worse, according to Carbon Tracker, oil and gas companies are reneging on prior climate commitments. No big surprise there.

All of this is now coming out into the open in the aftermath of COP28 (UN climate change conference) held in Dubai last year, an event designed and led by fossil fuel interests. How could the UN and associated scientists be so fooled, publicly ridiculed, allowing the fossil fuel industry to hijack their most important UN climate change conference?

Now that the oil and gas industry has hijacked UN climate change conferences, it should come as no surprise that COP29 in 2024 will be held in the Azerbaijani capital city Baku. Azerbaijan has been an oil producer for over 100 years as one of the world’s top producers with fossil fuels responsible for over 90% of the country’s exports, providing two-thirds of its state budget.

According to analysts at Rystad Energy, sourced by Global Witness, Azerbaijan plans to increase fossil fuel production by one-third over the next 10 years. (The Guardian) Meanwhile, in somewhat of a mixed message, the country claims to be an alternative energy leader in the world and plans on going to 30% renewables by 2030, which is standard PR by oil companies nowadays.

One wonders what this means for activists and climate scientists and UN climate conferences. Will the fossil fuel industry continue to dominate UN climate conferences? But, even more significantly, what does this mean for planetary global warming?

A recent article in Space.com deals with the issue: “How The Runaway Greenhouse Gas Effect Can Destroy a Planet’s Habitability — Including Earth’s”, Space, com, December 19, 2023.

Here’s the storyline:

Using advanced computer simulations, scientists have shown how easily a runaway greenhouse effect can rapidly transform a habitable planet into a hellish world inhospitable to life.

Here’s the hard part:

The team of astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and CNRS laboratories of Paris and Bordeaux saw that after initial stages of a planet’s climate transformation, the planet’s atmosphere, structure, and cloud coverage get significantly altered, such that a difficult-to-halt runaway effect starts to commence. Alarmingly, this process could be initiated here on Earth with just a slight change in solar luminosity or by a global average temperature rise of just a few tens of degrees. Even those minor changes could lead to our planet becoming totally inhospitable.

The brutal result is what’s called “a hellscape.” But no timeline is mentioned. It is just one of those things that might happen sometime in the future, hopefully, nobody lives to see it, or conversely, nobody lives.

One thing is probably clear, by continuing to pump fossil fuels, enriching the atmosphere with one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, CO2 constituting 76% of all greenhouse gases, the odds and timing of the runaway greenhouse gas effect get closer by the day, and now, thanks to a new “let’s drill the hell out of it” attitude, faster than anybody realizes.FacebookTwitter

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Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

 Germany Buries the Evidence of Complicity in Genocide: Nicaragua Exposes It

BY JOHN PERRY

 APRIL 18, 2024
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Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Last Thursday, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, the British-Palestinian war surgeon, gave his first address as the newly-appointed rector of Glasgow University, chosen in recognition of his work at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. The following day he flew to Berlin, where he had been invited to address a major conference about Palestine. On arrival he was taken away by police, interrogated for several hours and eventually told he had to leave Germany and wouldn’t be allowed to return until at least the end of April. Any attempt to speak to the conference via Zoom could result in a fine or even a year’s prison sentence. By the time he was released he couldn’t have taken part in the conference anyway, since it had been already invaded by at least 900 police and closed down. Berlin’s mayor said that it was ‘intolerable’ that the conference was taking place at all.

Speaking about his experience afterwards, Dr Abu-Sittah referred to the fact that Germany had – also last week – been defending itself at the International Court of Justice against charges by Nicaragua that it is an accomplice to genocidal war. ‘This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do’ he said. ‘They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses’.

Watching the live feed of Germany’s lawyers at the Hague a few days earlier had been an odd experience. They gave the impression of being affronted that Germany had been accused of such crimes, especially by a small country which, they argued, had no stake in the case. Also, Israel could not yet be said to be committing genocide, because the ICJ has not yet determined the case brought against it by South Africa, which Germany had supported Israel in contesting. Because Israel was not party to the new case, it should simply be thrown out.

Some research might have given them a better appreciation of Nicaragua’s credentials to bring the case. Its mutual solidarity with Palestine goes back a long way. It also has more experience at the Hague than Germany, including its pioneer action against the US in 1984, when it won compensation of £17 billion (that was never paid) for the damage done to Nicaragua by the US-funded Contra war and the mining of its ports. Carlos Argüello, who led the case last week and many of its previous cases, said that Nicaragua offered its expertise to Palestine and it had already joined in with South Africa’s action. It had decided to target Germany, the second biggest supplier of arms to Israel, because the US, the biggest supplier, is outside the court’s jurisdiction on this issue.

Argüello explains that the object is to create a precedent with wider application – that countries must take responsibility for the consequences of their arms sales to avoid them being used in breach of international law. Germany’s argument that legal action cannot proceed before South Africa’s earlier case is resolved is nonsense, since countries have an obligation to prevent genocide, not merely wait until it is proven to be happening. In any case, Germany must have been aware of the numerous warnings from senior UN officials of the imminence of genocide in Gaza, which began as early as October 9^th.

Germany claimed that it has a “robust legal framework” in place to ensure its arms exports are not misused, and that sales to Israel are now restricted to non-lethal equipment. But any supplies being sent to a genocidal army are helping to sustain its criminal actions, Nicaragua replied.

Much was made of Germany’s historic obligations due to its Nazi history, but Argüello argues that these should relate to the Jewish people, not the Israeli state. He adds that Germany’s past might also oblige it to help prevent genocide wherever it might occur. Its government spokesman on the South Africa case had claimed that Germany is ‘particularly committed to the Genocide Convention’.

The economist Yanis Varoufakis was also banned from speaking in Berlin. He planned to conclude his speech by telling German politicians that ‘they have covered themselves in shame’ through their unflinching support for Israel’s atrocities. Carlos Argüello echoes this point when asked whether a decision by the ICJ can actually be enforced: we have to mobilise shame, he says, ‘…that’s the hope with this. Perhaps being too idealistic, but it’s the only weapon we have’.

Germany confirms its collaboration with genocide

by Rick Sterling / April 15th, 2024

The photo is a screen shot from Press TV showing a demo protest against the shutdown of the conference.

A three day Palestine conference in Berlin was forcibly shut down after three hours on Friday. Electricity was abruptly terminated in the midst of the presentation by Salman Abu Sitta, the 87 year old author of the authoritative “Atlas of Palestine”.

Former Greek Finance Minister and leader of DIEM25, Yanis Varoufakis, was prevented from entering Germany to attend the conference. He went on Twitter/X to send a message:

Do you know that the German Interior Ministry has just banned me from entering Germany? Indeed if that were not enough,  I have been banned  from talking to you via zoom, or indeed through a video message like this, exactly like this. The threat being that I will be tried in Germany for breaking German law. Why? Because of a speech that I published yesterday on my blog calling for universal human rights in Israel- Palestine …. So my question to my German friends, to Germans in general whether you agree with me or not doesn’t matter. … Is this (banning) in your name? Is it something that you feel comfortable happening in your democracy? From my perspective this is essentially the death knell of the prospects of democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Another banned guest speaker was UK citizen Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah. He reported on Twitter/X:

I have just returned from Germany where I was prevented from entering the country for attending a conference in Germany to give evidence on the war in Gaza and my witness statement as a doctor working in its hospitals. This morning at 10 I landed in Berlin to attend a conference on Palestine where I had been asked … to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both Shifa and al-Ahli Hospital. Upon arrival I was stopped at the passport office. I was then escorted down to the basement of the airport where I was questioned for around 3.5 hours. At the end of 3.5 hours I was told that I will not be allowed to enter German soil and that this ban will last the whole of April. Not just that … if I were to try to link up by Zoom or Facetime with the conference even if I were outside Germany or if I were to send a video of my lecture to the conference in Berlin, then that would constitute a breach of German law and that I would endanger myself to have a fine or even up to a year in prison.

Dr. Abu Sitta further commented:

Germany is defending itself against Nicaraguan charges that it is an accomplice to genocidal war as described by the International Court of Justice. This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do. They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses. …. This crackdown on free speech is a dangerous precedent…  We are watching the first genocide unfold in the 21^st Century and for Germany to become implicated as an accomplice in silencing the witnesses of this genocide does not bode well for the rest of the century.

A large contingent of police invaded the conference and shut off the electricity. Organizers told the reported 250 conference attendees to not provoke the police to violence. Afterward, organizers  held a press conference  reporting on the behaviour of police before and during the crackdown. Even before the conference, police tried to intimidate supporters of the conference and the owner of the conference venue. They threatened the venue owner might not be able to hold events in future if the conference went ahead.  An organizer asked, “Are these the methods of the mafia or democracy?”

Western and Israeli media reported the closure was to prevent “anti semitism” or “hatred of Israel”. On this dubious and hypothetical basis, public education about a real ongoing massacre and mass starvation was made illegal.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist in the SF Bay Area. He can be reached at rsterling1@protonmail.com. Read other articles by Rick.

 

Suspending the Rule of Tolerable Violence: Israel’s Attack and Iran’s Retaliation

by Binoy Kampmark / April 15th, 2024

The Middle East has, for some time, been a powder keg where degrees of violence are tolerated with ceremonial mania and a calculus of restraint.  Assassinations can take place at a moment’s notice.  Revenge killings follow with dashing speed.  Suicide bombings of immolating power are carried out.  Drone strikes of devastating, collective punishment are ordered, all padded by the retarded notion that such killings are morally justified and confined.

In all this viciousness, the conventional armed forces have been held in check, the arsenals contained, the generals busied by plans of contingency rather than reality.  The rhetoric may be vengeful and spicily hysterical, but the states in the region keep their armies in reserve, and Armageddon at bay.  Till, naturally, they don’t.

To date, Israel is doing much to test the threshold of what might be called the rule of tolerable violence.  With Iran, for instance, it has adopted a “campaign between the wars”, primarily in Syria.  For over a decade, the Israeli strategy was to prevent the flow of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah, intercepting weapons shipments and targeting storage facilities.  “Importantly,” writes Haid Haid, a consulting fellow for Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, “Israel appeared to avoid, whenever feasible, killing Hezbollah or Iranian operatives during these operations.”

But the state of play has changed.  The Gaza War, which has become more the Gaza Massacre Project, has moved into its seventh month, packing morgues, destroying families and stimulating the terror of famine.  Despite calls from the Israeli military and various officials that Hamas’s capabilities have been irreparably weakened (this claim, like all those battling an idea rather than just a corporeal foe, remains refutable and redundant) the killings and policy of starvation continues against the general Palestinian populace.  The International Court of Justice interim orders continue to be ignored, even as the judges deliberate over the issue as to whether genocide is taking place in the Gaza Strip.  The restraints, in other words, have been taken off.

The signs are ominous.  Spilt blood is becoming hard currency.  Daily skirmishes between the IDF and Hezbollah are taking place on the Israeli-Lebanon border.  The Houthis are feverishly engaged with blocking and attacking international shipping in the Red Sea, hooting solidarity for the Palestinian cause.

On April 1, a blood crazed strike by Israel suggested that rules of tolerable violence had, if not been pushed, then altogether suspended.  The attack on Iran’s consular offices in Damascus by the Israeli Air Force was tantamount to striking Iranian soil.  In the process, it killed Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and other commanders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi.  Retaliation was accordingly promised, with Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, vowing a response “at the same magnitude and harshness”.

It came on April 13, involving 185 drones, 110 ballistic missiles and 36 cruise missiles, all directed at Israel proper.  Superficially, this looks anarchically quixotic, streakily disproportionate.  But Tehran went for a spectacular theatrical show to terrify and magnify rather than opt for any broader infliction of damage.  Israel’s Iron Dome system, along with allied powers, could be counted upon to aid the shooting down of almost all the offensive devices.  A statement had been made and the Iranians have so far drawn a line under any further military action.  What was deemed by certain pundits a tactical failure can just as easily be read as a strategic if provocative success.  The question then is: what follows?

The Israeli approach varies depending on who is being asked.  The IDF Chief of Staff, General Herzi Halevi, stated that “Israel is considering next steps” declaring that “the launch of so many missiles and drones to Israeli territory will be answered with retaliation.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was taloned in his hawkishness, demanding that Israel launch a “crushing” counterattack, “go crazy” and abandon “restraint and proportionality”, “concepts that passed away on October 7.”  The “response must not be a scarecrow, in the style of the dune bombings we saw in previous years in Gaza.”

Cabinet minister Benny Gantz, who is a voting member of the war cabinet alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, is tilting for a “regional coalition” to “exact the price from Iran, in the way and at the time that suits us.  And most importantly, in the face of the desire of our enemies to harm us, we will unite and become stronger.”  The immediate issues for resolution from Gantz’s perspective was the return of Israeli hostages “and the removal of the threat against the residents of the north and south.”

Such thinking will also be prompted by the response from the Biden administration that Netanyahu “think very carefully and strategically” about the next measures.  “You got a win,” President Joe Biden is reported to have told Netanyahu.  “Take the win.” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also expressed the view that, “Strength and wisdom must be the two sides of the same coin.”

For decades, Israel has struck targets in sovereign countries with impunity, using expansive doctrines of pre-emption and self-defence. In doing so, the state always hoped that the understanding of tolerable violence would prevail.  Any retaliation, if any, would be modest, with “deterrence” assured. With the war in Gaza and the fanning out of conflict, the equation has changed.  To some degree, Ben Gvir is right that concepts of restraint and proportionality have been banished to the mortuary.  But such banishment, to a preponderant degree, was initiated by Israel.  The Israel-Gaza War is now, effectively, a global conflict, waged in regional miniature.FacebookTwitter

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.