Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Most Hungarians came to take his achievements for granted and won’t appreciate what they had until it’s gone.

His crushing defeat followed the EU earlier freezing €17 billion in allocated funds on rule of law pretexts, Russiagate conspiracy theories derived from wiretaps of Orban and his Foreign Minister, and Ukrainian energy blackmail as well as threats. Liberal-globalists like Ursula von der Leyen, Alex Soros, and Donald Tusk predictably celebrated.

While the aforementioned factors played a role in turning public opinion against Orban, several other ones were arguably more important. For instance, he’s an older politician who naturally doesn’t appeal as much to the youth as his relatively younger rival, Peter Magyar. He’s also been in office for 16 years, so the opposition played on anti-incumbent sentiment, to which end they blamed him for the stagnant economy despite him doing his best given the circumstances. Corruption accusations also abounded.

The socio-political system that Orban built will now be dismantled since the opposition’s two-thirds supermajority enables them to change the constitution. Witch hunts against conservative-nationalists, beginning with him and his Foreign Minister on Russiagate-related grounds, also can’t be ruled out. His policies in support of traditional values might soon become a thing of the past.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The Hungarian people have the greatest stakes since they’ll be the ones who’ll live with the consequences.

Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Hungary have been described by RT as the “Battle for Hungary” due to the huge stakes involved for the EU, Ukraine, the US, and to a lesser extent, Russia.

The first three have also sought to influence voters, the EU, and Ukraine via various forms of meddling that include concocting Russiagate conspiracy theories and even attempting to blow up Hungary’s main gas pipeline, and the US through Trump’s and Vance’s endorsement of incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The EU’s interest in “democratically deposing” Orbán is ideological, since he’s a conservative nationalist opposed to the liberal-globalist agenda the bloc wants to impose on Hungary. The opposition’s chief economic advisor is Shell’s former Vice President for Mobility, Istvan Kapitany, and this article explains how he wants to succeed where George Soros failed. In a nutshell, the EU considers Hungary under Orban to be a major impediment to its federalization plans, which they hope to soon remove.

Ukraine hates Hungary too, but only because Orban refuses to arm it, continues purchasing energy from Russia, and has occasionally obstructed EU funding for this former Soviet Republic.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

They now hate Iran for damaging their energy infrastructure and therefore don’t want to indefinitely pay it “petroyuan” as part of the “toll” system that the Islamic Republic is flirting with imposing.

The Financial Times recently reported that “Gulf states consider new pipelines to avoid Strait of Hormuz”. Per their assessment, “In the near term, the most viable options may be to expand the East-West pipeline and also Abu Dhabi’s existing route to Fujairah.” Future plans, however, could include new pipelines to the Arabian, Red, and/or Mediterranean Seas, the last one paralleling the frozen India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) but only in the event of an Israeli-Saudi rapprochement.

From the Gulf Kingdoms’ perspective, provided that a US-Iranian deal is reached so that Trump doesn’t carry through on his threat to destroy Iran’s energy infrastructure and thus prompt Iran to carry through on its own threat to destroy the Gulf Kingdoms’, export route diversification is their top priority. Given the existing damage to their energy infrastructure from Iran, which defends this on the basis that the US used their bases and/or airspace for attacking it, they don’t want to pay any so-called “toll” to it.

About that, Iran is flirting with such a system as a form of “reparations”, one which could also lead to the yuan challenging the dollar as the global reserve currency if Tehran demands payment in it for transit. It was recently concluded here that “The US will have lost the Third Gulf War if China can still rely on Iran as a reliable low-cost energy supplier while turning the yuan into a global reserve currency that challenges the petrodollar.” That assessment still stands but with an important caveat.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

If the US oversees the optimization of the EU’s military-industrial complex, military logistics, and other defense-related matters with a view towards “dwarfing” Russia’s associated capabilities, then the challenge that Russia might face along its western frontier could mirror the one in June 1941.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeated long-standing policy in a recent interview when he told his interlocutor that “We are not going to attack any part of Europe. We have absolutely no reason to do so. And if Europe opts to materialize its threats to prepare for war against us and starts attacking Russia, the president said that it will not be a special military operation on our part, it will be a full-scale military response with all available military means in accordance with the doctrinal documents on this matter.”

To elaborate, Russia never had any plans to risk World War III by invading the Baltic States and/or Poland, whose hostile populations would also represent an enduring security threat in any occupation.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

This war might be about to get a lot uglier.

Residents of the Iranian capital of Tehran awoke on Sunday to an apocalyptic scene after the US and Israel bombed Iran’s oil storage facilities. A sky-high flaming pillar emerged in the aftermath, toxic smoke clouded out the sun, and blackened rain fell on this city of around 10 million people. The environmental consequences alone could push Tehran to the breaking point after it’s already been struggling with a severe water shortage that earlier led President Masoud Pezeshkian to consider an evacuation.

That might be exactly what the US and Israel want, however, in order to place maximum pressure on Iran to unconditionally surrender like Trump recently demanded of it. In pursuit of this, the new policy of bombing critical infrastructure like oil storage facilities will make it much more difficult for the authorities to maintain everyday life in Tehran, while bombing police stations like has recently happened as well will make the city much less safe. Many residents might therefore soon leave and depopulate the capital.

Even if Iran still doesn’t unconditionally surrender, the optics of the US and Israel doing this to its capital could be presented by them to their respective publics as further proof that they’re winning the war, thus boosting morale at home amidst continued questions about the endgame.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

The goal is to obtain proxy control over Iran’s enormous oil and gas reserves so that they can be weaponized as leverage against China for coercing it into a lopsided trade deal that would derail its superpower rise and therefore restore US-led unipolarity.

Trump claimed that the US’ military campaign against Iran is to “defend the American people”, while many critics have alleged (whether in jest or not) that it’s to distract from the Epstein Files, but few observers realize that it’s actually all about China.

It was explained here that Trump 2.0 “decided to gradually deprive China of access to markets and resources, ideally through a series of trade deals, in order to imbue the US with the indirect leverage required to peacefully derail China’s superpower rise.”

To elaborate, “The US’ trade deals with the EU and India could ultimately result in them curtailing China’s access to their markets under pain of punitive tariffs if they refuse. In parallel, the US’ special operation in Venezuela, pressure on Iran, and simultaneous attempts to subordinate Nigeria and other leading energy producers could curtail China’s access to the resources required for fueling its superpower rise.”

The resource dimension that’s relevant to Iran is a major part of the US’ “Strategy of Denial”. That’s the brainchild of Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby, and it was expanded on in this analysis here from early January.

As was written, “US influence over Venezuela’s and possibly soon Iran’s and Nigeria’s energy exports and trade ties with China could be weaponized via threats of curtailment or cut-offs in parallel with pressure upon its Gulf allies to do the same in pursuit of this goal”, which is to coerce China into indefinite junior partnership status vis-à-vis the US through a lopsided trade deal.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

Donald Trump and Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart
Tokayev, right, at the Oval Office. Kazakhstan has had
diplomatic relations with Israel for more than three decades.

He’s doing a series of favors for Trump so that he’d have his back if trouble ever arises with Russia, which is an increasingly realistic scenario given Kazakhstan’s recent decision to produce NATO-standard shells and its new military-logistics corridor with NATO via Azerbaijan and TRIPP.

Up until the first Board of Peace meeting last week, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was considered to be the foreign leader who’s behaved most obsequiously towards Trump, with his adulation of him during last fall’s summit in Sharm el-Sheikh widely being seen as excessive and self-humiliating. Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev is now giving Sharif a run for his money after proposing during the first Board of Peace meeting the creation of a special peace prize in Trump’s honor.

In the immediate run-up to it, an article was published under his name at The National Interest about how “Reliability Is the New Power”, but it suspiciously reads as AI-generated given the language and style employed or at the very least written by someone else. Most of it is just generic reflections on the evolving world order, predictable praise of Trump, and a commitment to continue expanding relations with the US. The backdrop concerns Tokayev’s last visit to the US in November for the C5+1 Summit.

Not only did Kazakhstan sign an MoU on critical minerals cooperation with the US, which was followed up on by its Foreign Minister participating in the US’ first Critical Minerals Ministerial in early February, but it also joined the Abraham Accords despite having already recognized Israel for over three decades. The preceding hyperlinked analysis assessed that “[he] likely did this as a personal favor for Trump so that he’d have his back if trouble ever arises with Russia”.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

It’s unimaginable that the US would allow any competitor to reduce its enormous new market share in the European energy industry, which it plans to further expand to make Europe even more dependent on it, and that the US wouldn’t weaponize this if Europe ever defies it on anything of significance.

The US’ dispute with Europe over Trump’s planned acquisition of Greenland, in pursuit of which he even threatened punitive tariffs against several NATO allies before relenting after they agreed to a framework deal, exposed the strict hierarchical vassal-client relationship between them.

This was explicitly acknowledged by Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, who said that “Being a happy vassal is one thing. Being a miserable slave is something else” in response to Trump’s pressure upon Europe.

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.