Upstairs, Downstairs.

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For the last four years or so, strategists and pundits have been living in an uncomfortable and unfamiliar world, where conflicts that have no right to exist are developing in ways they have no right to develop. The War in Ukraine is nearly four years old now, but continues to confound all expectations and explanations. The on-off war between Israel (assisted by the US), and both Hamas and Hezbollah (each assisted to different degrees by Iran), as well as the abrupt end of the fighting in Syria, the developing crisis between the US, Israel and Iran which has now become open war, albeit one fought overwhelmingly by aircraft and missiles, have between them upended all of the assumptions about conflict that have governed elite thinking since the end of the Cold War, and left an entire generation which has known only Iraq and Afghanistan completely puzzled. So this is another of my public service essays, where I try to explain why things are as they are, and why strategists and pundits generally don’t understand this.To be fair, there is much to be puzzled about. In Ukraine, the conflict is being kept alive only by massive transfusions of money, and apparently unlimited help with Intelligence and targeting to Ukraine from the West, which is also discouraging moves towards peace. Yet, in spite of many rumours and accusations, there is no evidence of formed western military units taking part in the war, or even providing direct lethal assistance in combat. The US, in spite of its deep implication, still presents itself as an honest broker, while the motives and behaviour of China…