Authored by Jay Solomon via The FP.com,

The ‘Axis of Upheaval‘ is on the march—and the U.S. must figure out how to respond.

If it feels like the world is on fire right now, that’s because it is. From Ukraine to Syria to the Korean Peninsula, a widening array of conflicts is raising questions among defense experts: Is it 1914 again? 1939? Has World War III already started and we’re just now figuring it out?

For retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, who served as Donald Trump’s second national security adviser from 2017–2018, the answer is clear.

“I think we’re on the cusp of a world war,” McMaster told The Free Press. “There’s an economic war going on. There are real wars going on in Europe and across the Middle East, and there’s a looming war in the Pacific. And I think the only way to prevent these wars from cascading further is to convince these adversaries they can’t accomplish their objectives through the use of force.”

That won’t be easy. Consider the facts:

• In Ukraine, thousands of North Korean soldiers have recently joined Russian ground troops to bolster President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of the country. Meanwhile, Russia has opened up a new front in the war by entering the northeast Kharkiv region, as it continues to assault Ukraine’s cities and block its ports.

• A U.S.-brokered ceasefire in Lebanon that forced terror group Hezbollah to retreat from Israel’s northern border is showing signs of unraveling. Meanwhile, the Jewish state is still fighting a war in the Gaza Strip, where around 60 Israeli and U.S. hostages remain. And last month, Israel’s air force destroyed much of Iran’s air defense systems, leaving Tehran’s nuclear facilities exposed to future attacks.

• Rebels in Syria have recently seized key areas of the country that had been controlled for years by dictator Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers. Now that these insurgents have taken Aleppo, they are vowing to march on Damascus.

• In the Baltic Sea, investigators suspect a Chinese ship of sabotaging critical underwater data cables that linked NATO states. Concerns about CCP aggression are mounting amid an emerging consensus in Washington that China would defeat the U.S. in a Pacific war, largely due to Beijing’s naval superiority.

• And on Tuesday, South Korea’s president briefly declared martial law, alleging he needed to fend off a North Korean–backed coup led by the opposition party. Massive protests caused him to back down, and he is now facing impeachment proceedings.

These wars, rebellions, and spy tales may appear disconnected. But in reality, they all point to a widening global conflict that is pitting the U.S. and its allies against China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea—nations all fixated on toppling the West. Strategists have even come up with catchy nicknames for this anti-American coalition, dubbing the bloc the “Axis of Aggressors” or the “Axis of Upheaval.”

Philip Zelikow, who served as executive director of the 9/11 Commission and counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from 2005 to 2007, is among those who think these conflicts are related. “I think there is a serious possibility of what I call worldwide warfare”—meaning a world war that is not as coordinated as past global conflagrations. “It’s not hard to see one of these conflicts crossing over into another.”

As Trump prepares to enter office next month, his primary foreign policy task should be to prevent an actual full-blown World War III, sources told The Free Press—or to stop it from metastasizing if it’s already here.

To do this, the president-elect will have to fortify alliances with NATO, South Korea, and Japan—partnerships Trump has already shown he’s skeptical of. And he will need to stare down a number of American adversaries, including Putin, Chinese president Xi Jinping, and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un—a despot for whom Trump has expressed both scorn and admiration.

At the same time, Trump benefits from his willingness to break from past U.S. policies and institutions that have helped foment these current conflicts. This includes a defense industry that doesn’t produce the right weapons to compete with China or enough munitions to arm Ukraine. Defense strategists in previous U.S. administrations have been blind to the Axis of Aggressors’ moves to expand their global power, sources told me—placing too much faith in global institutions, such as the United Nations, that were incapable of checking them.

Trump, with his nontraditional advisers such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, could potentially revolutionize the way the U.S. builds and projects power, sources told me. SpaceX CEO Musk, in particular, could marry America’s military establishment with Silicon Valley’s start-up culture to produce, at scale, the types of smart airplanes, drones, and submarines needed to deter Washington’s enemies, they said.

But Trump’s desire to shake up Washington and dismantle many of its national security institutions comes with enormous risk. The disruption of the Pentagon, State Department, and FBI could make the U.S. and its allies more vulnerable if these institutions become inoperable or less efficient, current and former officials told The Free Press.

“What he’s gonna need is some agenda to bring the world back together after he pulls things apart,” said David Asher, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, who oversaw U.S. government operations against Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran in the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations.

The threat of a widening global conflict is being driven by factors reminiscent of events before the start of World War I, sources told me. This includes the breakdown in alliances and trading systems and the arrival of disruptive technologies like airplanes, telephones, and mechanized weapons. Today, there is no longer a consensus that free trade will bring countries closer together and forestall future wars. And the Covid-19 pandemic revealed the dangers of reliance on China for medical supplies. Trump’s threats to slap high tariffs on China and other countries also raise the specter of greater conflict.

“What you learn when you study economic history is that long cycles do end and when they do, they end with war,” said Asher, who’s worked on Wall Street and said he has recently briefed financial institutions on the threat of a global conflict.

Both McMaster and Zelikow said that the Syrian civil war that started nearly 15 years ago should have been a major wake-up call to the U.S., Europe, and NATO. The Obama administration tried to oust al-Assad through diplomacy and talks that included Russia and Iran, the strongman’s primary patrons. But then the U.S. and Europe were blindsided in 2015 when Moscow and Tehran propped up al-Assad with both air and ground troops.

“We started talking about great power rivalry and all of that, but we didn’t really do anything to arrest these trends,” said Zelikow, who’s now a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

This Syrian playbook can now be seen in Ukraine. Iran, North Korea, and China have all been supplying weaponry or technologies to Russia, while Iranian-backed Houthi fighters are now reported to be on the Ukrainian battlefield alongside North Korean troops.

The war in the Middle East, sparked by Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, has also attracted this broader axis. The Houthis, in support of Hamas, have been attacking international ships in a critical transit strait of the Red Sea. And they’ve been getting guidance from both Tehran and Moscow, according to current and former U.S. officials.

On the north side of the strait, an Iranian general is “directing the Houthis using Russian intelligence,” McMaster told The Free Press. On the south side, “you have an Iranian surveillance ship. And you have a Chinese [naval] port, you know? I mean, that’s not by mistake.”

How will the Trump administration confront this emboldened axis? A significant divide among foreign policy strategists may prove difficult to bridge. In one corner are hawks and traditional Republican conservatives—such as incoming National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio, and UN Ambassador designee Elise Stefanik—who have called for a muscular defense of Pax Americana. They’re expected to press Trump to continue arming Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and even amp up our military support to preserve the Western order.

On the opposing side is an isolationist wing reflected in the public musings of Trump’s eldest son, Don Jr., who tweeted on November 17 about the Biden administration’s decision to provide long-range missiles to Ukraine:

The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives. Gotta lock in those $Trillions. Life be damned!!! Imbeciles!

Trump’s vice president J.D. Vance, and his advisers, including Tucker Carlson to Tulsi Gabbard, also believe U.S. military overreach led to catastrophic U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and needless Western provocations of Putin that sparked his invasion of Ukraine. They argue that stepping back, rather than expanding, is the key to global peace.

Some Trump confidantes told The Free Press they’ve been studying U.S. policies that led up to the past two world worlds as guidance for today. They have concluded that Washington was too lenient on Hitler’s Germany leading into World War II, but too committed to European allies in the early 1900s ahead of World War I. And they believe Trump will need to strike a balance between these two postures.

“I think you have to learn the lessons of both wars,” Peter Thiel, the tech investor and close Trump ally, told The Free Press last month. “You can’t have excessive appeasement, and you also can’t go sleepwalking into Armageddon. In a way, they’re opposite lessons.”

*    *    * 

Jay Solomon is an investigative reporter for The Free Press and author of The Iran Wars. Follow him on X at @FPJaySolomon and read his piece, “Inside the Battle over Trump’s Foreign Policy.”

By Jack Phillips of The Epoch Times

Mexican security forces said on Dec. 4 that they had made the largest fentanyl seizure in the country’s history, impounding 1,100 kilograms (1.2 tons) of the synthetic opioid in the state of Sinaloa.

Mexico’s top security official, Omar García Harfuch, said in a statement that more than a ton of fentanyl was seized by officials in Sinaloa state. Several guns were also seized, and two men were arrested, he said.

“This is an investigation that has been going on for a long time, and yesterday, it gave these results,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said at a press conference on Dec. 4, referring to the fentanyl seizures.

Violence has worsened recently in Sinaloa, where factions of the Sinaloa Cartel have been engaged in bitter fighting that flared after the capture of kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in July.

“These actions will continue until the violence in the state of Sinaloa decreases,” Harfuch said.

Sinaloa is home to the powerful drug cartel that bears the same name and was formerly headed by longtime drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is currently incarcerated at the ADX Florence federal prison in Colorado.

Security forces found the fentanyl at two properties in the municipality of Ahome after intelligence work and tip-offs from the public led them to investigate there.

In one building, law enforcement found 800 kilograms (1,763 pounds) of fentanyl, some precursor chemicals, and four vehicles. In the other, they discovered 11 packages totaling about 300 kg (660 pounds) of fentanyl, as well as precursors, scales, and industrial mixers.

Former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who handed over power to Sheinbaum in October, repeatedly denied that Mexico was a center for the production of fentanyl despite significant evidence to the contrary.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump recently threatened to levy a 25 percent tariff against Mexico and Canada if either country didn’t do enough to curb illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking into the United States.

His warning prompted a phone conversation with Sheinbaum, with the Mexican president later saying that caravans of migrants will be stopped before they reach the U.S.–Mexico border. However, she denied Trump’s claim last week that the Mexican border was closed down.

This week, activists and a Mexican agency said a migrant caravan heading north was dissolved. The Mexican National Migration Institute denied claims that the agency used deceptive tactics and said it had not received “any complaints” from members of the caravan.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, before several top Canadian officials assured reporters that the country would improve its border security with the United States.

Continue reading at the Epoch Times

Authored by Felicity Bradstock via OilPrice.com,

• The rapid growth of data centers to support AI is significantly increasing global electricity demand.

• This surge in demand threatens to outpace the development of renewable energy sources.

• International regulations are needed to ensure tech companies use clean energy and minimize their impact on climate goals.

The global electricity demand is expected to grow exponentially in the coming decades, largely due to an increased demand from tech companies for new data centers to support the rollout of high-energy-consuming advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI). As governments worldwide introduce new climate policies and pump billions into alternative energy sources and clean tech, these efforts may be quashed by the increased electricity demand from data centers unless greater international regulatory action is taken to ensure that tech companies invest in clean energy sources and do not use fossil fuels for power.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released a report in October entitled “What the data centre and AI boom could mean for the energy sector”. It showed that with investment in new data centers surging over the past two years, particularly in the U.S., the electricity demand is increasing rapidly – a trend that is set to continue. 

The report states that in the U.S., annual investment in data center construction has doubled in the past two years alone. China and the European Union are also seeing investment in data centers increase rapidly. In 2023, the overall capital investment by tech leaders Google, Microsoft, and Amazon was greater than that of the U.S. oil and gas industry, at approximately 0.5 percent of the U.S. GDP.

The tech sector expects to deploy AI technologies more widely in the coming decades as the technology is improved and becomes more ingrained in everyday life. This is just one of several advanced technologies expected to contribute to the rise in demand for power worldwide in the coming decades. 

Global aggregate electricity demand is set to increase by 6,750 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030, per the IEA’s Stated Policies Scenario. This is spurred by several factors including digitalization, economic growth, electric vehicles, air conditioners, and the rising importance of electricity-intensive manufacturing. In large economies such as the U.S., China, and the EU, data centers contribute around 2 to 4 percent of total electricity consumption at present. However, the sector has already surpassed 10 percent of electricity consumption in at least five U.S. states. Meanwhile, in Ireland, it contributes more than 20 percent of all electricity consumption.

While the speed and manner in which AI use will grow remains uncertain, and efficiency improvements are expected to be made, electricity demand from data centers, cryptocurrencies, and AI could reach as much as 1,000 Terawatt Hours (TWh) in 2026 – roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan – compared to 460TWh today, the IEA predicts.

The organization calls for more public-private dialogue, with policymakers, the tech sector, and the energy industry coming together for discussions to manage both expectations and energy use. Greater international regulation of the tech sector is required to ensure that the growing electricity demand for data centers does not outweigh the green transition achievements currently being seen worldwide. 

There are growing fears that, if left unregulated, the electricity consumption of data centers could surpass the electricity demand of some U.S. cities or even states. Many data center developers are concerned about finding enough land to house new sites and enough clean power to run them. The facilities could increasingly require 1 GW of power or more, which is equivalent to around twice the 2023 residential electricity consumption of Pittsburgh. 

The president of Lancium, a company that secures land and power for data centers in Texas, Ali Fenn, explained that U.S. tech companies are in the “race of a lifetime to global dominance”. Fenn said, “They’re going to keep spending” because there’s no more profitable place to deploy capital. 

At the rate the advanced technologies are expanding, renewable energy sources will not be sufficient to meet the growing demands of the tech industry. Many tech companies are expected to use natural gas to power operations, particularly in the U.S. where the gas sector is set to continue expanding rapidly. 

Currently, many tech companies operate data centers with a capacity of around 40 MW. However, in the coming years, more firms are expected to invest in campuses of 250 MW or more. As a growing number of campuses of 500 MW or more emerge in the 2030s and 2040s, which is equivalent to the power needed for 350,000 homes, this could lead to a surge in demand for gas-generated electricity, following years of national investment in a green transition.  

While the U.S. is expected to see the greatest data center expansion in the coming decades, Europe’s data center power consumption is expected to nearly triple by the end of the decade. Meanwhile, China has invested over $6.12 billion in a national project to develop data centers in recent years, according to a senior government official. 

A joined-up approach to regulating the energy usage of data centers is required to prevent the anticipated rise in electricity demand from challenging the progress of the global green transition. Governments worldwide must establish clear regulations and limits on the energy use of tech companies for advanced technologies, such as AI, if they hope to meet Paris Agreement climate pledges. This may include requiring tech companies to fulfill their energy needs through clean energy sources, such as renewables and nuclear power, as well as slowing the pace of deployment of these technologies.