I disagree. The main difference is the burning flash points like Gaza and large scale wars like in Ukraine (it is unknown how long the Iran-war is going to take).
That is a far bigger difference than G6 and West scrambling to cooperate and advance policies without the US. And a far more serious difference as well. Last time Trump was in office the syrian war reached exhaustion after the RU intervention and front lines were frozen fairly quickly during Trump’s term.
Not so now at all. So I think @RedOverTheWater is more correct here than you are in this particular instance (super rare this, so write down date and time, people :p)
Everything this time around is a hell of a lot less stable and a Multi Polar World is finally upon us. Therefore, x additional ways for Trump to fuck up the world and make everything worse, as he has already showned in Ukraine.
I don’t reject the idea that we are now in more dangerous times, but my point was that the destabilization has been in place for close to a decade now - with the Biden interregnum having provided some respite. The outside circumstances are now worse than they were. However, the G6+1 is far more functional than it was in 2018, precisely because they are forced to deal with reality as it now is. At Charlevoix, Trump simply forced the entire process into a reactive dead end.
After this week, the gap between G6 and the US on Ukraine will be enormous. With Iran it is harder to say, simply because Iran’s nuclear development discomfited several of those powers, but one of the obvious changes is that Iran knows their ties to Russia have no value whatsoever.
Yes, for Europe and Japan it is going to take time, given that the idea that the US is a defender and the most important ally, is so ingrained in the culture. So most states will wait still, hoping that the US will change again for the better because the alternative is so grim (for Japan it means likely war with China, for Europe it means high likelyhood of war with Russia; and none of us have prepared for this).
And in Europe we have barely started to prepare for war. It is agreed, by most, that if the US exits NATO, then war with Russia is looming (not certain, but very high fucking chance) and we are ill prepared and likely to lose that war if it is being fought 3-5 years from now.
For Japan, if US betrays it, war with China (which they are also likely to lose) is incredibly likely after the invasion of Taiwan.
This is why you see such paralyzation in the West. Everyone (with brains and knowledge) is terrified of the scenario where US truly abandons us and therefore you see lots of disgusting lapdog behaviour by the likes of Starmer and Macron (which while revoltign and frustrating, is highly understandable), who tries their best to stear Trump in a non autocratic direction. But they are not very successful.
I have a friend in Japan. She said that not just her, but her parents too grew up in an environment/culture where they learned about US before they learned about China or Korea.
No, I think they are probably quite shocked at the silence from Moscow. With all of their material support for Russia against Ukraine and Trump’s own hostility toward Ukraine, I think they expected Russia to weigh in with Trump to force Israel to the table months ago.
Iranians aren’t stupid. While Iran has provided Russia with drones, and drone technologies, they haven’t received anything in return. It’s not just recent, if you look back Russian contributions to Iran is zero. Russia only invests where they have a foothold, like Syria (or Africa). Iran read the writings on the wall.
I don’t think they knew that at all when they intervened in the Big War on the side of Russia.
Iran has given Russia much more than individual European states (barring Germany), has given Ukraine. Much, much more.
Over 400 ballistic missiles. Shahed 131 and Shahed 136. (they broke a UN resolution doing so, which if the West wanted to go to war with Iran, would have been an adequate Casus Belli in itself). They also sent a lot of military advisors. Tens of thousands of Shaheed drones..
The value of their military aid to Ru is extrordinary high.
Russia bombs Ukraine every single day, with around a 100 Iranian drones. Sometimes more, sometimes a bit less. And yes, Russia produces them now after iran shared all tech. But they were still supplied by Iran. An extrardinary massive supply of weapons to Russia.
Iranians knew they will get good money, and that was enough from the cash-strapped country. They never expected strategic benefits. Not after Russia suspended (cancelled in Russian) delivery of SU27 and S300 at the warning of Israel.
My point is that, logically, Iran would not have gone all out and shared so much tech and supplied so much of their arsenal to Russia, if they expected nothing in return. But as I noted yesterday, Ru, when battle became hard in Ukraine, stalled supply of air defence and fighter jets (yes, because Israel asked, but Russia wouldn’t give a fuck about Israel if they were in a stronger geopolitical position).
