Peter Bülow

“🇩🇰has proposed a really modest wealth tax on the super rich of 0.5%. There are people who say it would be an economic disaster. It’s absurd. Does anybody think that if you tax Bill Gates by 0.5%, he will stop working?” - @JosephEStiglitz at @EUparliament #TaxMix2050 @EU_Taxud

Kabul 2021 to invasion of Ukraine 2022 to October 7, 2023. Connecting the dots on geopolitical decisions/ leader perceptions/ conflicts/ interconnectedness. A master class as always from LTG (ret) McMaster @LTGHRMcMaster youtube.com/watch?v=TA-owr… Because looking at history, the biggest conflicts often start that way by having a few smaller ones that then interconnect into something much bigger. I am concerned. I mean, I think what we have seen are cascading conflicts. I think we saw what I would describe as a self-defeat and disastrous and deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan as precipitating the massive reinvasion of Ukraine. So remember, the fall of Kabul in August of 2021, a massive reinvasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. I would draw a line between that and our inability to sustain the weapons and ammunition support for Ukraine in early 2023, and also other elements of perceived weakness, like the judicial reform efforts in Israel and the backlash. I think that’s what led Ayatollah Khamenei to conclude, “Hey, I’m going to cross this off my list,” this being the destruction of Israel and the killing of all the Jews. So you get October 7th of 2023. I think then you see the perception of weakness carry over to Maduro’s behavior when President Trump tries to make a deal with him and he says no, “I’ve got my sponsors of China and Russia.” This carries over to Iranian behavior when President Trump gave them 60 days and they thought he’s not going to do anything. This is last year’s strikes against the nuclear facilities, and then negotiations again when they thought he could string him along. So what’s important about this, I think, is that now we are acting in a way that could restore deterrence. That’s positive. But I think what we have to do is continue to portray strength, because it’s strength that prevents conflict. I think if the Chinese were to perceive weakness in our resolve, for example, to challenge their claims in the South China Sea or their claims over Taiwan, that would embolden them. But I’ve got to say, China’s got some problems right now, economically and apparently within their military. I mean, Xi Jinping just fired a number of his generals again, including one he went to kindergarten with, so that doesn’t really communicate great confidence in the PLA. Not that we would want to be complacent. I think what we really need to do is reduce China’s coercive power over our economies by making our supply chains more resilient, reducing our reliance on manufacturing along the southeastern coast of China, where so much of it is concentrated. And we have to build up our militaries to convince China that it could not accomplish its objectives through the use of force, objectives associated with what appears to be a desire for an exclusionary area of primacy across the Indo-Pacific region.