From the top of a space station, our world looks like who knows what. A world full of military fronts, existing and potential conflicts, some of which are dangerous and some of which are catastrophic. Overall, the view is neither optimistic nor sympathetic.
In the heart of Europe, a superpower, Russia, is destroying a sovereign state without hindrance. Fighters, battles, bombings of civilians, refugees, millions of homeless, dead and wounded from all sides. Until a year ago, Putin’s Russia was a “potential threat”, and now for six months it has been a war. After all, “Ukraine is mine”.
China is angry
China is furious that Nancy Pelosi “dare” to visit Taiwan. In Washington they fear Chinese fighter jets. Beijing shows no signs of giving up on the dream of annexing Taiwan “because it is ours”. A mighty country that covets a small sovereign island. Chinese fighter jets are making sorties over Taiwan, on the Chinese coast they are setting up runways for takeoff and landing on land, the closest to Taiwan. Because “Taiwan is us”.
A coalition is forming against Iran in the Middle East, slowly, but it is happening and not necessarily on the surface. The Gulfs, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the USA. The Israeli Navy exercises in the Red Sea with the American 5th Fleet, without hiding from Iran, on the contrary.
The Iranian nuclear threat is seen as a “potential danger”, and every expert knows how close it is to or approaching a nuclear weapon. In Tehran they do not take Rafael Grossi from the IAEA seriously, in Vienna the debate hall is deserted, and in the depths of the mountain the centrifuges are spinning. Arguing about “time
Hacking” and the enrichment procedures, and there are disputes when this will happen and who will decide what. The world is debating, and in Iran apparently they are.
In the far north, in the Arctic regions near the North Pole, Russian and American warships are roaming under and above the ice. In the meantime it is quiet there, but why is Putin coming back and making threats to increase his forces in that far and cold part of the world.
Africa and South America not in the game. Pretty quiet there.
What we see from the space station: one danger that turned from potential to reality on the ground, Russia invaded Ukraine. Huge amounts of weapons and military equipment are making their way from the US and Europe into Ukraine. Cannons, tanks and missiles and rockets are moving across Europe eastward as if they were textile goods or foodstuffs. Iran and China, one with its nuclear and one with its greed for Taiwan, are still defined as potential dangers .
In the end, everything depends on the leadership and the leader, on the one who stands at the wheel. Joe Biden isn’t getting any younger and has midterm elections in November, could lose the majority in both houses. US presidents know how to deal with such a situation, it has happened in the past and American democracy is strong.
Vladimir Putin is alive and kicking despite reports of illnesses. In Iran there are no signs of a change of government. The ayatollahs are stronger than ever, that’s how it seems today. In Russia and Iran there are no signs that Western sanctions are bringing masses of hungry citizens to the streets. The economic situation in both countries is not alarming, but there is food, and the Axis of Evil regimes have not yet fallen.
A spectacle of plenty of horrors
What you see from the space station in the observation of the earth is a spectacle of many threats, dangers and fronts for the most part, one of them is already materializing and a war is currently unfolding before our eyes. The other threats exist, but potentially, and for the potential one must prepare. The preparations include a military buildup of unprecedented proportions.
Javelin anti-aircraft missiles travel from the US to the UK. Every week another country announces that it will purchase F-35 stealth aircraft, including neutral Switzerland. Finland and Sweden are on their way to NATO. Little Estonia is arming itself, Latvia has a conference of 19 countries using Israeli-made ‘Spike’ missiles, and Poland is turning into a military front saturated with tanks, cannons and planes, so close to the Russian border.
Biden is sending Patriot and GNA THAAD missiles to Saudi Arabia and the Emirates. Israel also has procurement plans that in a few years will change the face of the Air Force.
The US does not want to fight
Where does all this put us, in Israel? We notice a certain similarity in the patterns of behavior and reactions of the IDF and the US to terrorist incidents. Huge resources are invested in attacking terrorist adjuncts and refrain from taking decisive military measures to eliminate the sources of terrorism, the organizations, their people and their weapons.
This week, American unmanned aerial vehicles carried out successful operations to eliminate an Al Qaeda leader and a senior member of ISIS who had been hiding for years, were located and eliminated. “Beautiful” operations, but we didn’t see American drones attacking Russian tanks that entered Ukraine to stop an unnecessary and bloody war.
The USA has good reasons not to enter the war. But the fact is, the American conduct today is not similar to that of two world wars, Korea, Vietnam and more. The same goes for Iran: promises and aspiration for a paper agreement. The strategy and national security policy of the USA speak More Chinese and Russian than Persian.
Israel is afraid of one terrorist operator
And here at home: in a definitely successful military operation in Jenin, a senior member of the Muslim Jihad, Bassem al-Saad, and his men were arrested this week. Operation “Yafa”, but the State of Israel refrains from military operations that would eliminate terrorist organizations from the north and south, which threaten it, its cities and the security of its residents.
Obviously, the country has good reasons to avoid the actual elimination of terrorism, but a somewhat worrying fact is happening this week. Following the arrest of one senior member of the Muslim Jihad, an entire country entered into panic and apprehension. The Otaf roads were closed, the beach was closed, the train traffic between Ashkelon and Sderot was stopped, the Erez crossing was closed. Families sit at home. All this because of the arrest of one operative of a terrorist organization?
Fear of anti-tank missiles hitting vehicles on Israeli roads. Why weren’t the missiles destroyed a long time ago, but are there and threatening. Discovering a tunnel – why a tunnel that was dug for weeks and months was there and not destroyed before it was “discovered”.
It is possible that the answer is that we are conducting a war between wars. But perhaps the gains between war and war, between operation and operation, in the north and in the south, are too great.
This is how the threat of missiles from the Gaza Strip was created on a central road in the south of the State of Israel where thousands of Israeli citizens travel every day with a sense of security, until the road and the train are closed to them because of what happened at night in Jenin.