Defense Social Media and Updates

Iran Conflict Turns Global Economy Into Battlefield

John Keegan’s 'The Face of Battle' is a masterpiece of war literature. He moves from Agincourt to Waterloo, then the Somme, showing the shift from a small hand-to hand battlefield to a larger area defined by the range of cannon and rifles, to the industrial, distant and overwhelming killing fields of the Somme, where technology became dominant. This Iran war takes his thesis to the next level. This is a world war, as no corner of the now connected world is untouched. The global economy is an extension of the battlefield. It is not just oil, gas and energy but supply chains, stock markets, pensions, investments, mortgages, inflation. Fertiliser, therefore growing food (especially in Spring when crops are planted), plastics, medicine logistics, air cargo and travel are all interrupted and made more costly..Whether we like it or not, we are in this battlefield. Iran sends ripples of chaos into the markets by choking off oil and gas, to India, Pakistan, China and the East. Oil prices go through the roof helping Russia in Ukraine. The Ukrainians then sell arms to the Gulf States to fight Iran, so Russia helps Iran. As oil and gas are global commodities, price rises hit everyone, especially the poor. Wars are now intimately tied into energy, prices, markets, elections and politics. It is not body counts we watch but oil prices. Keegan pointed out that the scope of war was determined by the technology used, close contact with swords, at its furthest bows and arrows, gave way to canon and rifles, then artillery, tanks and planes. We now have intercontinental ballistic missiles, iron domes, interceptors and drones. Iran was defeated at Marathon when the Persians first invaded by Darius. It is worth recalling that they were held back a decade later at Thermopylae by a smaller force, then defeated at sea, guess where, in the narrow Strait of Salamis. The tables have turned here, where the Persians (Iran) are using a narrow strait as a choke point on the battlefield. Aeschylus, the Greek dramatist, actually fought in the Persian Wars and wrote a play called The Persians, but the full story of Thermopylae and Salamis is in Herodotus, who describes the battle in the strait in terms of one side using deception to lure the opposition into the chokepoint, to change the balance of power. Themistocles deliberately lured the Persian fleet into this trap. The Houthis have just entered the war and extend this idea by having the ability to choke trade in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the mouth of the Red Sea. Iran have been here before, when invaded by Iraq. They fought Iraq to a standstill losing a million soldiers but held on. Even when losing, at they did at Marathon and Salamis, they survived. When Alexander arrived and burned Persepolis in an act of drunken rage, they survived. They will survive this because they have a deep culture that is thousands of years older than the US. As Mark Twain said “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Strait of Salamis....