Trump's envoys off to Moscow

Whenever Donald Trump's two travelling envoys, Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, go off to see Putin there is a sudden revival of optimism that perhaps this time the Russian president really will want to talk peace and not carry on destroying Ukraine. But can there really be an hope that the visit planned for tomorrow will make any difference? Putin says he likes having these two around. But that may mean he doesn't mind their vists because he is so good at winding them round his finger, as it were. He knows what he wants and he knows that the two envoys know what he wants. So there is little room for manouevre. Putin will talk about territory. He'll say he wants the whole of the Donbas region before he will negotiate seriously, and the two envoys will come away from Moscow with this meassage and pass it on to Zelensky who they are going to see on Sunday. But Zelensky has heard this message a million times. So it will make no difference. Swings and roundabouts.

Putin promises to continue helping Iran against the US

Puitn has reminded the world and in particular the United States that he is helping Iran to fight the Americans. Them about three minutes later, during a press conference, he said he remained "comfortable" with having visits from Trump's two main envoys, Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, to talk about the war in Ukraine and possible peace negoatiations. He can't really have it both ways. If he's so happy with Trump's envoys why does he then tell everyone that he is helping Iran which is right now giving Trump more grief than anything else. Well, the answer is that this is the way Putin plays the game. He likes to keep all his options open and in play. He is obviously not interested in a peace deal with Zelensky. I don't think he will ever agree to meet him face to face. But he still wants to have the occasional visit from Witkoff and Kushner to sort of keep the ball rolling on a negotiated end to the war. It's play-acting, but it serves Putin well.

The Pentagon is in a permanent state of topsy-turvyness

There is about as much unity in the Pentagon right now as there is in the Royal Family in Britain. Many officials are either not talking to each other or when they do talk, they shout. The latest victim of this idiotic state of affairs is Dan Driscoll, the now former but extremely capable US Army secretary, the top civilian job in this service. He had just had enough of bashing his head against the brick wall, while trying to persuade Pete Hegseth, the ex-Fox News US War Secretary, to approve his plan to rebuild the army, make it more streamlined and better eqipped, not with tanks and heavy artillery but the latest high-tech stuff, such as drones, bought off the shelf. It all seemed eminently sensible the way wars are now being prosecuted. But Hegseth is obsessed with developing a warrior force that doesn't have women in it or anyone else who isn't a full-grown male, sure of his masculinity and sexuality. Whole layers of experienced army officers have been fired, including the top dog, General Randy George. He was kicked out with no notice and he has yet to be replaced. Tp say that the top echelons of the army, and the other services, are walking on eggshells gives a pretty good idea of the fear and anxiety that Hegseth has caused. Hegseth may be His Master's Voice, but he is causing such outrage in the higher ranks, it's no wonder everyone is fearful of their jobs. Dan Driscoll will be sorely missed. There was a time when his name was being put forward as the next war/defence secretary. Not surprising, perhaps, that Hegseth did everything he could to get rid of him.

Pentagon planning warfare at the speed of light

The drones were seen flying low near the Rio Grande Valley in Texas last week when the Locust shot them from the sky. It was the first time the US Army had used its new laser weapon in anger, destroying targets it claimed were flying in support of Mexican drug cartels. While previously the idea of laser beams replacing surface-to-air missile interceptors was considered to be a science fiction fantasy, laser warfare is becoming a reality. The Pentagon is spending about $1 billion this year on developing a variety of “directed-energy” systems, and several are already operational after more than two decades of research. The relatively low cost of laser defences is the driving factor. The Locust, whose name stands for “Low-Cost UAV Simulation Testing,” was recently sent to Texas to arm the 8,000-strong, Joint Task Force Southern Border, with a “Multipurpose High Energy Laser.” Built by AeroVironment, a defence company based in Arlington, Virginia, the vehicle-mounted weapon is capable of firing 20-kilowatt beams that can physically burn through targets. “Neutralising threats at the speed of light” is how AeroVironment promotes the weapon in a video on its website, showing animated quadcopters tumbling from the sky. The military did not reveal details about its use last week, or whether the drones were shot down over American or Mexican territory. But it stated that the unmanned aircraft had presented “a physical threat” to US military and US Customs and Border Protection personnel. The US Marine Corps has acquired the same mobile Locust system for operational use against small drones, and it has also been mounted on the aircraft carrier, USS George HW Bush, which conducted a successful sea test in October last year. “Using directed-energy weapons, such as this, is part of the future of warfare, and it’s better than us firing a $2 million missile at a [cheap] drone,” a Pentagon official said. Dozens of countries are trying to develop similar directed-energy weapons. The UK has a laser weapon called DragonFire which could be on Royal Navy warships by 2027. China has deployed a truck-mounted laser system and has also put laser weapons on amphibious warships. Russia has a portable anti-drone laser weapon which has been tested in combat conditions. Israel’s 100-kilowatt Iron Beam laser weapon is known to have shot down drones launched by Hezbollah in Lebanon during the current crisis in the Middle East.For the Pentagon, which has used a large proportion of its most expensive weapon systems in the war with Iran, in particular its stocks of anti-missile and anti-drone interceptors, the availability of directed energy weapons has become a priority. Instead of shooting down a $30,000 long-range armed drone with a multi-million-dollar, top-end interceptor like the army’s Patriot system or the navy’s Standard SM-3 missile, one shot from a laser weapon could theoretically cost a few dollars. In its overview of the last defence budget, the Department of War admitted that “peer adversaries” had succeeded in outpacing the US “kinetic weapon magazine depth and production capability with UAS [unmanned aerial systems], missiles, and advanced sensors”. “As threat vectors evolve, directed energy technologies redefine defence, delivering scalable precision and unmatched cost efficiency to secure the battlespace of tomorrow,” the Pentagon said. As well as testing the high-power Locust, the US Navy is already equipping its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with ODIN (optical dazzling interdictor) and HELIOS (high-energy laser with integrated optical dazzler and surveillance) low-energy weapons, which are designed to blind the sensors and cameras of a drone rather than destroying it. But the ambition is for more power - of a kind that could quickly take out a cruise missile, a large drone or anti-ship missile. The Pentagon’s SCADE CTA (scaled directed energy critical technology areas) programme is aiming to develop a laser of 150 to 500 kilowatts in strength. Admiral Daryl Caudle, US Chief of Naval Operations, said recently he envisaged a megawatt-sized (1,000 kilowatts) laser weapon for the new Trump-class warships announced by the president in December last year. “I don’t think a one-megawatt laser is beyond what should be on that battery,” he said, referring to the battleships. In May, Trump himself posted an AI-generated image of a warship painted with a US flag lasering a drone with an Iranian flag, with the caption: “Lasers: Bing, Bing, GONE!!!” - although there is no such confirmed use of the technology this year. The potential for powerful laser beams to burn through fast-moving targets also poses new challenges, however, including how that power can be focussed and sustained. “One big problem is that weather patterns, such as fog and mist, can affect the tracking and the laser accuracy, and there’s nothing you can do about that,” said Mark Cancian, a former colonel who served three decades in the US Marine Corps and is a senior adviser to the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It’s basic physics. Fog and mist and dust can physically interfere with the beam. Lasers are seen as the long-term solution for counter-drone warfare because the price per shot is so low, compared with the huge cost of the systems we currently use to shoot them down. But it has been difficult to operationalise,” he said. “The other challenge is power. The army has a mobile power system but the navy would face a greater demand for power to keep the laser stable over a longer period,” Cancian said. “It’s harder to have an effective laser on a ship because it’s more often the case that the navy would be dealing with a larger missile which means they have to track over an extended time. The laser beam has to be spot on for a long time, whereas the army, for example, might be tracking a quadcopter which can be taken down quickly [like the three drug cartel drones],” he said. Trump is not the first president to enthuse about laser technology. In his famous “Star Wars” speech on March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan appealed to America’s scientists to come up with an anti-missile shield in space and on the ground to protect the US from a Soviet nuclear attack. His vision was to have exotic systems, including X-ray and chemical lasers and neutral particle beams positioned on space platforms, to target and burn up incoming nuclear warheads. Ultimately that vision was unaffordable. Trump breathed new life into Reagan’s dream, however, when he ordered the Pentagon to devise a “Golden Dome” missile shield over the US, including the the idea of space-based interceptors. Cost estimates of the Golden Dome have varied from $185 billion over ten years, according to the Pentagon, to $1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

US and Iran strike back

A month of relative quiet and now it's back to tit-for-tat strikes. Clearly US Central Command got wind of a plot by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to lay mines in the Strait of Hormuz, so preemptive action was taken and the suspected site for the minelaying was blasted. Then Iran retaliated with strikes on Jordan and the UAE. This is the type of war which can go on for ever. It also shows that the IRGC is going to continue threatening the strait but the military leaders will have learned one lesson. Whenever they plan an attack, the US gets to hear of it. Nothing can be secret. It means it's almost impossible to plan any sort of attack without the US listening in. That should be a considerable deterrent. Yet the IRGC goes ahead with its plans anyway. This demonstrates, not for the first time, that the IRGC is never going to give up, whatever damage is done to Iran's economy through the naval blockade and sanctions. What is perhaps strange is that the US has not focused all its military action on the IRGC itself. I have no idea how many IRGC personnel have been killed in the bombing raids. But it's clear this military organisation feels it can just carry on threatening the strait because it remains and will always remain the best leverage it has against the US.

What is Putin going to do next?

It looks as if Putin is preparing to throw everything - bar nuclear - at Kyiv's energy plants to make sure the winter is a terrible dark experience for the Ukrainian people. There is probably very little Zelensky and the military can do about it. Putin is more desperate than ever because after nearly five years of war against Ukraine, he hasn't got much to show for it. Western experts are warning that in his frustration he might take on a Nato country and launch some form of incursion or mini-offensive to punish the West for backing Ukraine. But if he were to do that, Putin would be in even more trouble. He can't really believe that taking on Nato will improve his situation. So, I think Putin's next move will be to step up attacks on Ukraine by a magnitude, and maybe even send in more troops to restart the ground campaign which has stalemated. What Putin won't do is think about doing a deal with Ukraine. So, any efforts by the US or Europe to fashion some sort of negotiating stance is going to fail. Putin is not interested in peace with Ukraine. He is still determined to see Ukraine, or at least the Zelensky government, collapse. Zelensky has had huge problems, with the continuing evidence of corruption and the dramatic upheavals at the top of his government, after the dismissal of the popular defence minister. He will need to reunite his government and prepare for a tough few months before winter arrives. All the threats from Moscow about attacking Britain for backing Ukraine are just that - threats. Putin is right now in a very weak position and can't afford any more aggressive moves, especially against the Nato alliance.

Will the Venezuelan people benefit from this huge oil deal with the US?

The US is going to have its hands on 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil in a huge deal between Caracas and Washington that will bring private American investment into the earthquake-hit country. Ostensibly, this will be good news for the poor country which has been ravaged by corruption and super-corrupt leadership for so long. Ex-President Nicolas Maduro may be in a US jail awaiting trial on drug-trafficking charges. But he left behind the remnants of his power base in charge. The deal has been done with the interim president, Delcy Rodriguez. But will this really be a massive optimism boost for the whole country which is going to suffer from the earthquake damage for years to come? And will all the money be invested in improving the lives of the people or will it get salted away into private bank accounts? It is difficult to predict because the leadership during the Maduro era was awash with corruption. Is Delcy Rodriguez who was Maduro's vice president and therefore must have known what was going on all those years, now going to be the country's saviour? Trump decided that she was a woman he could do business with and this is why we now have this massive oil deal which will provide the US with all the oil reserves it feels it needs for the future. Is there any small print in the deal which offers guarantees that the quid pro quo for the oil will be a much-improved economy in Venezuela and a better standard of living for its people? The people who negotiated the deal were Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary. A very odd combination unless there is some sort of security guarantee included which we don't know about. The Venezuela story still has an unknown end.