Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The timing amidst continued US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine suggests that the US expects this ramped-up pressure to raise the chances of coercing concessions from Russia.

Vice President JD Vance’s trips to Armenia and Azerbaijan were aimed at advancing several interconnected strategic goals. The most immediate was making progress on implementing the “Trump Route for International Peace & Prosperity” (TRIPP), which is the planned trade corridor across southern Armenia unveiled after last August’s White House summit that ended the decades-long Armenian-Azerbaijani Conflict. TRIPP isn’t just economically significant, however, since it’s also highly strategic.

To begin with, it replaces Russia’s plan to pioneer a corridor along the same route that would be guarded by its forces, therefore challenging the Kremlin’s political influence in the post-war South Caucasus. Second, TRIPP serves as the means for optimizing Western logistical access to the resource-rich but landlocked Central Asian Republics on the other side of the Caspian, which is of interest for the US due to its critical minerals. The US signed MoUs with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan about this last November.

On that topic, Vance proposed the creation of a critical minerals trading bloc during the inaugural Critical Minerals Ministerial that was attended by representatives of more than 50 countries, thus further contextualizing his trip to the South Caucasus a week later. His progress on implementing TRIPP will help to logistically open Central Asia’s critical mineral supply chain for the US.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The US’ restoration of unipolarity risks sparking another World War if cooler heads don’t prevail. How Will Key Countries Respond?

The US’ new National Security and Defense Strategies, which collectively articulate the “Trump Doctrine”, make clear that the US’ grand strategic goal is to restore its predominant position (unipolarity) over the world. Unlike during the short-lived unipolar era that followed the end of the Old Cold War, this time the US is explicitly reluctant to embroil itself in overseas conflicts that risk overextending itself, and it’ll also now rely more on its regional partners to share the burden of advancing their shared interests.

China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are identified as the US’ adversaries, the first of them being described as “the most powerful state relative to us since the 19th century” in the National Defense Strategy, and each must now decide whether to challenge the US, balance it, or bandwagon with it. To a lesser extent, the same also applies to rising powers like India that have complicated ties with the US. In reverse order, India won’t ever challenge the US, but it’s likely to balance and bandwagon instead.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The immediate goal of the US’ de facto oil embargo on Cuba is a “regime tweaking” that achieves at least some of Trump’s demanded foreign policy goals and initiates a phased regime change that averts the impending US-instigated humanitarian crisis which could spill into Florida ahead of the midterms.

Trump promulgated a “national emergency” last week for granting himself the power to impose tariffs on any country that supplies Cuba with oil. This primarily affects Mexico, which replaced Venezuela as Cuba’s top oil supplier after the US’ capture of President Nicolas Maduro resulted in it obtaining proxy control over the Bolivarian Republic’s energy industry through his successor. Just prior to Trump’s decree, Mexico temporarily paused its oil shipments to Cuba, which now has only 15-20 days of oil left.

It was assessed here in January that “Cutting [Cuba’s oil imports] off could accelerate the economy’s collapse and thus subordinate it to the US, with or without regime change, like Washington has sought to achieve for decades already.” Trump predicted in the run-up to promulgating his latest “national emergency” that “Cuba is really a nation that is very close to falling” while Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee that “we would like to see the regime there change.”

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Redirecting Iran’s oil exports from China to India in exchange for partial US sanctions relief could avert another American attack by satisfying its goal of depriving China of some of the resources that it requires for maintaining its rapid superpower rise without risking a potentially disastrous regional war.

The US’ deployment of an aircraft carrier to West Asia and its newly announced aerial drills ominously hint that another American attack on Iran is forthcoming, one which could embolden neighboring Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and/or Turkiye (which are allies with one another) to try to militarily “Balkanize” it. In connection with that scenario, the Middle East Eye recently reported that the Turkish Foreign Ministry briefed lawmakers about a plan to carve out a “buffer zone” in Iran ostensibly for sheltering refugees.

Since they consider themselves to be “one nation, two states”, and the border is largely populated by ethnic Azeris, Turkiye would certainly coordinate its “buffer” with Azerbaijan, which could then lead to a joint operation for forcibly annexing Northwestern Iran into Azerbaijan to create a Turkic superstate. Even if that particular scenario doesn’t unfold, the prerequisite of which is US strikes leading to large-scale instability in Iran, then Turkiye could still intervene on the pretext of fighting Kurdish separatists.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Astute observers can read between the lines, and discern Russia’s displeasure with [Trump] too...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s first press conference of the year in late January touched upon a lot of topics, importantly including the Europeans’ plot to subvert Trump’s Ukrainian peace plan.

According to him, the UK “is speaking increasingly more often on behalf of the EU” and therefore plays a leading role in these efforts, “which boil down to one thing – an immediate ceasefire complemented with legal security guarantees for Ukraine. The question is what these security guarantees concern.”

As Lavrov sees it, the purpose is “the preservation of the current Nazi regime”, which “will never legally recognise Crimea, Novorossiya and Donbass as Russia…And a ceasefire along the current line of contact, following which ‘the West will help,’ is unacceptable to us because they will build bases there.” In that scenario, “[France and the UK] will deploy a multinational force in Ukraine, build a network of military hubs (bases) there… and pump more weapons into Ukraine to create threats for the Russian Federation.”

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Trump might claim that building “Golden Dome” infrastructure there, possibly with the partial purpose of serving as a cover for deploying new offensive weapons systems in the Arctic for targeting Russia and China, is required for plugging the gap between the world’s largest island and Alaska.

Trump framed his desired acquisition of Greenland as indispensable to his “Golden Dome” missile defense megaproject and hinted at the deployment of new offensive weapons systems there too in his post announcing tariffs against several NATO allies that symbolically dispatched military units there.

He’s now reportedly using similar language in private when discussing Canada, according to several administration sources, both current and former, who recently informed NBC News of this.

They claim that Trump hasn’t discussed stationing US troops along Canada’s allegedly vulnerable northern border, instead proposing “more joint U.S. and Canadian military training and operations, and increasing joint air and water patrols as well as American ship patrols in the Arctic.” The ostensibly defensive purposes that those plans would advance, however, would still leave a conspicuous gap in the “Golden Dome’s” Arctic interception range between Alaska and Greenland over Canada’s Arctic islands.

It therefore can’t be ruled out that the reported proposals are ultimately meant to advance his goal of building “Golden Dome” infrastructure on those islands for plugging this gap.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Building more facilities there to complement Pituffik Space Base would further the US’ “Golden Dome” missile defense plans for obtaining a strategic edge over Russia while extracting more critical minerals from there would reduce dependence on vulnerable Chinese supply chains.

Trump recently reaffirmed his intent to annex Greenland on the pretext that this would supposedly preempt China or Russia from invading NATO member Denmark’s autonomous territory.

Many believe that his main motivation, however, is to obtain control over what’s estimated to be the world’s second-largest reserve of critical minerals. The Daily Mail then reported that the US itself is actually planning on invading the world’s largest island, not China or Russia, who Denmark doesn’t consider to pose a threat.

Amidst this news, Bloomberg reported that “UK, Germany Talk NATO Forces in Greenland to Calm US Threat” ostensibly with the intent of deterring the US even though it’s extremely unlikely that they’d fight it over Greenland just like it was earlier assessed that France wouldn’t either.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Here’s the English version of the interview that I gave to Müstəqil’s Sahile Cabbarova about the latest US-Iranian tensions.

Trump’s statements suggest that his administration expects the latest protests to weaken the Iranian government and possibly serve as the “publicly plausible” pretext for another round of American and/or Israeli strikes on the country.

Many observers assess that the US and Israel got the best of Iran during last summer’s 12-Day War and that its air defenses were greatly damaged. If that’s true, then another round of strikes could advance their strategic agenda there.

The questions for observers to ask are whether this is an accurate assessment; whether each or both have the political will to endure Iranian retaliation; and the extent to which non-state actors and/or neighboring states could exploit the strikes afterwards.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The “Trump Doctrine” is all about the US’ continued military overmatch vis-à-vis China together with placing the US in a position where it can complementarily deny China access to the energy and markets that it requires to maintain its growth and thus its superpower trajectory.

Trump 2.0’s grand strategy has become much clearer over the past month since the US bombed ISIS in Nigeria on Christmas, executed its astoundingly successful “special military operation” in Venezuela, and is now threatening new strikes against Iran on the pretext of supporting anti-government protesters. What these three states have in common is their important roles in the global energy industry, whether present or potential (due to sanctions-related limitations), and in China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI).

Accordingly, coercing those countries into subordinating themselves to the US (whether by tariffs, force, subversion, etc.) would result in Trump 2.0 obtaining influence over their energy exports and trade ties, which could be weaponized to pressure China.

What the US wants from China is for it to agree to a lopsided trade deal that would then be replicated with the EU and the US’ other partners for, as the new National Security Strategy states, “rebalanc[ing] China’s economy towards household consumption”.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Russia’s Second-Ever Use Of The Oreshniks Was A Response To Three Recent Provocations These are Ukraine’s attempted assassination of Putin right before New Year’s, France and the UK’s official plans to deploy troops to Ukraine if a ceasefire is agreed to, and the US’ seizure of a Russian-flagged tanker in the Atlantic.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed on Friday morning that the Oreshniks were used for the second time ever after several were fired at targets in Lvov Region. Reports indicate that the Stryi gas field and gas storage facility were among those that were hit. The first time that the Oreshniks were used was in November 2024 after the US and UK allowed Ukraine to use their long-range missiles for strikes deep inside of Russia. Three recent provocations were arguably responsible for their second-ever use.

The confirmation above explicitly mentioned that Ukraine’s attempted large-scale attack against Putin’s residence in Russia’s Novgorod Region right before New Year’s was what prompted this retaliation. About that, it was assessed that “The CIA Is Manipulating Trump Against Putin” after he flipflopped from believing Putin’s claim that this attack was an assassination attempt to believing the CIA chief’s that it supposedly only targeted a nearby military site, so this can be interpreted as Putin’s retort to Trump.

Moving along, even though the Russian Defense Ministry didn’t mention any other recent provocations as being responsible for their country’s second-ever use of the Oreshniks, it can be reasonably argued that Putin probably had two others in mind too when he gave the authorization for this latest strike.