Our influence continues to wane in the Middle East...Egypt ignores US requests...

 

Egypt has ignored U.S. requests to close its airspace to Russian military flights, testing the limits of Washington’s ability to choke off Moscow’s supplies ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive. (WSJ)

— Instant News Alerts (@InstaNewsAlerts) May 12, 2023

I keep saying it but no one is listening. The world outside of the West does not view the war in Ukraine the same way our leadership does. My biggest concern is that this war and the way we're conducting it is having unintended knock on effects. The most obvious to me is the "you're with us or against us" camps that are developing. The US/EU has only Japan, Australia, a little bit of S. Korea and I can't name many more on one side and on the other China, Russia and the rest of the world.

The terrible thing is that I don't think its the war itself that has caused this but the over the top sanctions, the seizing of assets and the SWIFT actions that has caused many former allies (along with numerous other issues on individual nation state basis) that is weakening us world wide.

This war won't end this year.  More fuel spikes are coming.  The food supply chain will remain fragile.

In short I expect more chaos ahead.