The bungling amateurism of Trump is on display. He goes from knee-jerk reaction to knee-jerk reaction, bungling left, right and centre. A blockade is an Act of War in international law, not that that bothers Trump if he even knows it. It also came out that Hegseth is deliberately giving Trump false information to let him think the US is winning, when it isn't. Trump, famously unread, and who never reads his briefs, is easy to manipulate. He is a glorified man-baby who freaks out like a child when told 'no'.
Professor Clarke said before that if the war is still going on by May then it is out-of-control. He believes it is out-of-control right now, from Trump threatening Armageddon a week ago (and Hegseth wants to launch nuclear weapons against Iran), to an illegal blockade now. God knows what insane thing he will do next.
And of course the core failure was a typical Trump one - he failed to assemble a coalition of the willing in advance. Both Bush presidents had the common sense to do that.
A former Trump Defense Secretary said that Trump is incapable of thing strategically. Everything is a gut kneejerk reaction with no strategic thinking behind it.
Meanwhile, having burnt his bridges with the UK and long-standing allies, he has now burnt his bridges with Meloni, once a close friend, all over his dumb comment attacking Pope Leo.
Michael also was asked about Lord Robertson's attack on Starmer's complete failure to fix Britain's weak Armed Forces. He agrees 100% with Lord Robertson and Fiona Hill. The defence review aimed to fix the Britain's armed forces by 2035. Starmer has now wasted two of the ten years doing nothing despite time being of the essence as Britain (and Ireland as its weak defence means it relies on the British armed forces for defence) is in a dangerous situation. He also pointed out something I have repeatedly been making too. The way in dangerous times you avoid war is to strengthen your defence, following the Roman dictum by Vegetius, Si vis pacem, para bellum - if you want peace, prepare for war.
President Connolly like Michael D Higgins entirely misunderstand the rearming going on as indicating that countries rearming want to go to war. It is in fact the exact opposite. They want to avoid war. The weaker a country's defence is, the easier a target it is and so the more an aggressor is encouraged to attack. The stronger a country's defence is, the more risky an attack on it is, and so the less likely an aggressor is to invade. Vegetius's dictum is basically saying 'to avoid war, make your defence strong.'
Nor does a smaller state have to equal strength to a larger potential aggressor. All through history, large stronger countries have been defeated, or failed to win, against a smaller one. One only has to look at the failure of Putin's invasion of Ukraine to defeat Ukraine, though Russia on paper was far more powerful. We see it right now in America's inability to defeat Iran.
Both Ukraine and Iran have a critical advantage. They are being attacked. That means for them it is an existential threat, so their citizens and military are far more determined. In contrast the attacker is not in an existential threat. Their soldiers are not fighting for the survival of their country. They are being sent into someone else's country as part of their job. They are less emotionally committed to the war than the Ukrainian and Iranian militaries, for whom it is about their country's survival. That always gives the defender an advantage. To win, the attacked country just has to survive. That is victory. The attacker has to destroy the country they are attacking, collapse its institutions, etc.
All the advice of Lord Robertson and Professor Hill is that to deter an attack Britain has to properly up its defence. In failing to do so, the Starmer government without realising it is increasing the likelihood of attack.
Often it is a battle of psychology as well as military. It is a matter of the demonstrating in your military build-up that you are determined not to give in. You want the potential attacker to think "attacking them is too risky. We may win, but wars are unpredictable and we might not. That country will resist, so attacking them is too much of a risk."
Britain, in the rearmament in 1939 that Chamberlain ordered, messed with Nazi Germany's head. They already lacked aerial dominance when Britain won the Battle of Britain. The Nazis were sufficiently nervous about attacking Britain to put it off while it attacked the USSR. Thankfully it was defeated there as it intended to attack Ireland as well as Britain. The entry of the US into the war at the end of 1941 entirely changed the odd, so the invasions of Britain (Operation Sea Lion) and Ireland (Operation Green) were put off on the very long finger.
Psychology is everything, and in the war in Ukraine, Zelenskyy proved a far better leader in the psychological war than Putin. In the psychological war, he proved to be an FDR or Churchill both of whom were exceptional war time leaders and masters of psychological warfare. In contrast, Trump in the Iran War proved to be a disaster psychologically. He failed to bring Congress or the people behind him. He failed to communicate clear goals, and erratically changes his mind daily if not hourly.
So proper defence is not just about defence. It is about the psychological message it conveys to a potential attacker and how that can deter an attack.
⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.
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