Houthis FTW
The Middle-East war is hotting up and I think these Houthis are sticking around personally. I’m predicting they’ll overthrow the house of Saud and be the new Oil Barons of the Middle East, and thus much of the world.
How long will it take? Some commentators reckon a couple of years. I don’t know, but it won’t be long. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a matter of weeks and stuns the world as the most shocking and embarrassing military collapse since Paris or Singapore in WW2.
Because the fact is that no one wants to fight and die for some rich guy's sportscars.
You just have to look at who’s raw, lean and hungry and who’s bogged down in decadance.
KSA can’t fight. Dubai has become a byword for a place where you hope the women in your life don’t go for an extended period of time (If she’s been to Dubai, don’t ask why).
It’s full of snobby rich Arabs driving sports cars and crazy buildings and hotels with water-bills that would be way out of proportion to the desert surrounds. No one there is in combat condition and it ain’t gonna happen. Their military is largely based on gadgetry and mercenaries according to the accounts. The ordinary operations of KSA seem to largely run on slave labour (or cheap-foreign labour) so it will be impossible to raise a conscription army with a spirited motivation to fight.
Basically this whole place is a rich-mans wank and no one fights for that. They fight for the primal things: God and nation, blood and soil, family and friends, their pride of their past and the hope for their future.
Have you ever seen the Saudi Arabian soccer team at the world cup? Their crap, every single time. Embarrassingly bad. The players have no heart.
This Kingdom is unloved. It’s weighed down with gold and material riches but lacks a true spirit. I can’t see anyone inside of it or anywhere else in the world fighting for the Sauds unless its for money. The money will eventually run out once the oil and transport lanes are all cut.
Speaking of which, that is a very handy shipping chokepoint the Houthis seem to control. And the fact that they’ve been living on so little for so long, surviving years of assault, getting cheap weapons from China and the like. Can the Saudis deal with such mean scarcity? The evidence says no. Once the money and the good life dry up, how many of their friends and allies are sticking around? Probably none.
I drew the above cartoon inspired by the Ottomans, but even though the Turkish world has inspired alot of my recent content, I’m not sure if a new Ottoman Empire will be a fully-fledged thing. More like a Turkish-centred alliance. One can clearly see that Turkish President Erdogan has strived to rebuild a legacy network based on the old Ottoman Empire. If you think about it this is consistent with what the British, French and Spaniards have tried to do. But Turkey seems to have invested more in the sensible things like military, industry and access to raw energy, while being shrewd and dispassionate in its dealings with other nations. They certainly don’t seem to be in a position where they depend on anyone else like the Saudis do with the Americans and some kind of ham-fisted cobbled-together Mecca squad. As long as they don’t impose unreasonable demands on their allies that’s likely the way things go.
Nations are like libertarians: let me keep more of my stuff and leave me alone and we can be friends.
In summary, expect to see new borders and country names on the map of the Middle East soon. That’s my opinion.
It also probably means we’ll be spending even more for fuel and thus everything else, and that will be a long-term, even permanent state of affairs. Say goodbye to cheap everything.