Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Oct 13 – Mahbubani on Europe’s Strategic Disease
  Related:
  – Europe is the biggest loser in US-China rare earth wars (archived) – Financial Times
  – Hubris and Theatrics Mark Atlanticist West’s Detachment from Reality – Simplicius
  – Europe’s future depends on dismantling the EU — part four – Thomas Fazi

• Oct 14 – China Reacts After U.S. Pushed Netherlands To Seize Chinese Owned Company
  Related:
  – The Auto Industry Is Panicking About Another Potential Chip Shortage – WSJ via MSN
  – Automaker group warns Nexperia chip supply issue could quickly disrupt US production – MSN
  – EU Leaders Determined To Win “Most Supine Slave Award”: Nexperia Edition – Ian Welsh
  – Netherlands mocked as ‘pirate’ after taking over China’s Nexperia – Asia Times
  – Dutch government in talks with China over Nexperia export controls – Reuters
  – Nexperia says Chinese unit operating as usual as tensions with the Netherlands run high – Reuters

• Oct 16 – Trump’s War Against ‘Left-leaning’ Groups Extends Further
  Related:
  – ICE amps up its surveillance powers, targeting immigrants and antifa – WaPo via MSN
  – Protesters gather nationwide for ‘No Kings’ rallies opposing Trump administration – Anadolu
  – Democrats Have Let Republicans Become the ‘Peace’ Party – Common Dreams
  – Roaming Charges: Aspirations to Omnipotence – Counterpunch
  – Data Centers Spark Bipartisan Fury Over As Energy Costs Soar – Naked Capitalism

• Oct 17 – A Preemptive Putin-Trump Call And The Prospects Of A New Summit
  Related:
  – Putin demanded Ukraine surrender key territory in call with Trump (archived) – Washington Post
  – Pentagon chief wears tie in Russian flag colors to Trump-Zelensky meeting – TASS
  – Trump rejects Zelensky on Tomahawk missiles in “tough” meeting – Axios

—
Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-242

Today the Ukrainian former president Vladimir Zelenski will be in Washington to convince U.S. President Donald Trump to further turn the screws on Russia.

A call yesterday between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Trump was initiated by the Russians to preempt any concessions from Trump to Ukraine.

A major headache for the Russians was the potential introduction of U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles onto the battlefield. While these weapons are old, and can easily be defended against, they are, in principle, nuclear capable. They are also complex and can not be fired without the input from U.S. satellites, U.S. intelligence analysis and specialized software.

Tomahawks are naval missiles. There are less than a handful of ground launchers which were only recently introduced to the U.S. military. Any launch of a Tomahawk from Ukrainian ground would thus have to be done by the U.S. military. Any U.S. firing of a potentially nuclear armed missile towards Moscow would have to have serious consequences.

Russia would HAVE to respond to such an attack with a direct attack on major U.S. assets. Otherwise its means of (nuclear) deterrence would lose of all of their values.

Putin wanted to avoid that situation and the decisions that would have followed from it. Thus his call to Donald Trump.

So far that part of the call of seems to have been successful:

In recent days, Mr Trump had shown an openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Mr Putin warned that such a move would further strain the US-Russian relationship.

But following Thursday’s call with Mr Putin, Mr Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 995 miles (1,600km).

“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Mr Trump said.

“We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean, we can’t deplete our country.”

After the call Trump announced that there would soon be a new summit between him and President Putin:
Cont. reading: A Preemptive Putin-Trump Call And The Prospects Of A New Summit

There are a number of indicators which lets one predict that the Trump administration, during the next election, will use government forces to severely attack and disrupt all opposition to it.

Trump has send the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into the cities to harass and arrest alleged illegal immigrants. Due cause is disregarded and the methods used by the agents are brutal.

Trump has also sent National Guard troops into cities where, he claimed, riots were taking place. There were no riots or ‘terrorist incidents’ but the presence of troops is used to create a militarized atmosphere.

A new National Security Presidential Memorandum, NSPM-7 issued by Trump has defined new classes of internal enemies:

With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence.
…
In NSPM-7, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” President Trump directs the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies and departments to fight his version of political violence in America, retooling a network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to focus on “leftist” political violence in America. This vast counterterrorism army, made up of federal, state, and local agents would, as Trump aide Stephen Miller said, form “the central hub of that effort.”
…
The Trump administration isn’t only targeting organizations or groups but even individuals and “entities” whom NSPM-7 says can be identified by any of the following “indicia” (indicators) of violence:
anti-Americanism,

• anti-capitalism,
• anti-Christianity,
• support for the overthrow of the United States Government,
• extremism on migration,
• extremism on race,
• extremism on gender,
• hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
• hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
• hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.

“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts,” the directive states (emphasis mine).

That all may sound laughable but these are unfortunately serious policies .  The target list includes organizations which do not exist:
Cont. reading: Trump’s War Against ‘Left-leaning’ Groups Extends Further

News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …

This is a a story about a fight between titans in which Europe, due to its leaders stupidity, is the most significant casualty.

Dutch government seizes control of Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia – Politico.eu, Oct 13 2025
The move could inflame wider trade tensions between Beijing and the European Union.

The Dutch government has granted itself the power to intervene in company decisions at Dutch-based Chinese-owned chipmaker Nexperia.

The highly unusual step, announced late Sunday, grants the country the power to “halt and reverse” company decisions — meaning Nexperia cannot transfer assets or hire executives without Dutch government approval, according to national media.

The move is a significant escalation in relations between the Netherlands and China and could inflame wider trade tensions between Beijing and the European Union, with Europe caught in the middle of a tit-for-tat chips war between the U.S. and China.

The Dutch have effectively stolen a big Chinese owned company.

The background via Pekingology:

Wingtech Technology is a privately-run, Shanghai-listed Chinese electronics and semiconductor conglomerate headquartered in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. It began as an original design manufacturer (ODM) for smartphones and consumer devices and has since grown into one of China’s most prominent integrated technology companies, combining electronics assembly, chip design, and semiconductor manufacturing.

Wingtech in 2019 acquired Nexperia, a Dutch semiconductor firm that was formerly part of Philips’ chip division, NXP. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Nexperia is a global semiconductor company with a rich European history and over 12,500 employees across Europe, Asia, and the United States.

In December 2024, the U.S. Department of Commerce added Wingtech to its Entity List, restricting its access to American components and technology. The U.S. unilateral sanctions threatened heavy losses and forced the Apple supplier to announce, in March 2025, the spin-off of a major part of its operations.

Zhang Xuefeng is the founder of Wingtech and CEO of Nexperia, which closed the 2024 financial year with a total revenue of $2.06 billion.

A successful businessman from China bought the Dutch company. He invested heavily and the company grew with several research and manufacturing sides throughout Europe and the world. The company paid a lot of taxes and the Dutch were happy.

In late 2024 Wingtech was put on the U.S. entity list to block Chinese semiconductor development by cutting it off from U.S. products and technology licenses.

In June 2024 the U.S. planned to extend the entity list. Not only would chip companies in China be prohibited from use of U.S. content but any international company that was 50% or more owned by a Chinese entity would likewise be penalized.

On September 30 2025 the U.S. Commerce Department extended its export restrictions:

Cont. reading: China Reacts After U.S. Pushed Netherlands To Seize Chinese Owned Company

Kishore Mahbubani is a Singaporean diplomat who has served for ten years as as ambassador to the United Nations. His talks about global policies and their development are always of interest.

His most recent one under the question “What will geopolitics look like in the next ten years?” is no exception (video).

The most important part starts at 22:54 min. Here I am mostly interested in what Mahbubani has to say about Europe (edited machine transcript):

I want to emphasize that the in current situation the key word you got to understand is complexity. [The world] is extremely complex because there are a lot of moving parts all the time. So for a start clearly and at the at the highest strategic level as you know in the cold war was bipolar the cold war ended and it became unipolar. And now we have what you have a strange combination of both a bipolar and multipolar world.
[…]
But there are also other powers [besides the U.S., China and India] that are clearly changing the situation.

Again, clearly Russia matters, right? And the biggest strategic mistake that the Europeans made in dealing with Russia is that they only look at the size of its economy and didn’t look at the overall national strength and their military capability.

So the Ukraine war could have been avoided if the Europeans had just shown some degree of respect for Russia’s own long-term strategic interests. And the tragedy of the Europeans trying to punish the rest of the world for buying Russian oil is that they could have avoided this war with Russia if they had shown some strategic common sense in dealing with Russia.

He later blames the mistake on the serious lack of abilities of the current crop of European leaders:

So all that is what I mean with complexity. It is not a simple black and white chessboard, you know, it’s extremely complex and you got to watch all the moving parts.

The people who can get the big picture are the ones who will succeed and thrive and those who don’t, like the Europeans, sadly .. .

The Europeans live in a delusionary world, and I mean that quite seriously because they, you know if you just look at the photograph of the European leaders sitting on sofas in front of the school teacher Donald Trump at his desk lecturing these European leaders. They look like school children. I mean the optics itself captured what had happened.

And for a respected prime minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte, whom I met, who is a very thoughtful intelligent guy by the way, for him to call Trump daddy? I mean it shows you that something has gone wrong.

So this actually I must tell you: In my last conversation with Kissinger he told me candidly that the quality of mind of these Europeans has gone down so much they don’t understand how much the world has changed. So this is an example of where – if you understand the world you can navigate through it, but if you don’t understand the world, like the Europeans, they seem to be in trouble.

Mahbubani diagnosis of Europe’s disease is in my view correct. But what might be the best therapy to correct this situation?

Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Oct 6 – France’s New PM Lecornu Reveals New Cabinet … And Resigns
  Related:
  – France’s re-appointed prime minister Lecornu calls for calm amid political chaos – AP
  – France’s political crisis leaves budget plans in disarray (archived) – Financial Times
  – Emmanuel Macron’s political turmoil isn’t just bad news for France – Independent

• Oct 7 – Emmanuel Todd – ‘The Defeat Of The West’ In Its Current Phase
  Related:
  – ‘Moving fast; breaking things’: A new doctrine takes root; a new era of coerced dominance – Alastair Crooke / SCF
  – Inside billionaire Peter Thiel’s private lectures: Warnings of ‘the Antichrist’ and U.S. destruction (archived) – Washington Post
  – NATO Goes Mad – Do European and American policymakers want a real war with Russia? – American Conservative
  – Most Americans don’t want troops deployed without an external threat, Reuters/Ipsos poll finds – Reuters

• Oct 8 – Ukrainian Media About Gaps In The Frontline And Other Failures
  Related:
  – Ukraine hit Russian energy sites with US help (archived) – Financial Times
     Trump administration has supported Kyiv’s operations since summer in a co-ordinated push to weaken Moscow
  – On Russian Strikes Targeting Ukrainian Gas Infrastructure – Will Ukraine be able to keep the heat on? – Amerikanets
  – Tomahawk for Ukraine: Never-ending Saga of the Wunderwaffe to Turn the Tide [i] – Black Mountain Analysis

• Oct 10 – Nobel Committee, Fearing Trump’s Wrath, Hands Peace Prize To Regime Change Puppet
  Related:
  – Nobel Organizers Look Into Surge of Bets for Winner Ahead of Announcement (archived) – NY Times
  – María Corina Machado’s Trillion Dollar Plan for Venezuela’s Economic Transformation – AS/COA
  – María Corina Machado’s Lengthy Criminal Record (Feb 2024) – Orinoco Tribune
  – Report: Trump Administration Working on Strategy To ‘Eliminate’ Venezuela’s Maduro – AntiWar
  – Venezuela’s Opposition Used UN Meeting to Lobby for US Coup – Naked Capitalism
  – Russia, China denounce US military presence in Caribbean as Venezuela warns of threat to regional peace, stability – Anadolu

• Oct 11 – U.S.-China Trade War Reaches New Level
  Related:
  – China blames Trump and US for escalating trade war (archived) – Financial Times
     Beijing accuses Washington of imposing fresh restrictions on Chinese companies after trade talks last month
  – China Is Going To Leave The US What America Left Britain: Nothing – Ian Welsh
  – China issues retaliatory rules ahead of US port fee targeting Chinese vessels – SCMP
  – Trump threatens China with export controls on Boeing parts – Reuters
  – BHP and China: Yuan Settlements Mark a New Phase in the Iron Ore Dispute – Break Wave Advisors
  – How Critical Are Bilateral Imports and Exports to the Economies of the US and China? – Sonar21

—
Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-236

Trump’s tariff war has somewhat settled down but for China.

Trump has, like his predecessor, limited exports of high-end semiconductor chips to China. He also stopped the export of machines and chemicals used to produce chips to China. These measures are extra-territorial. The Dutch company ASML is prohibited to sell its high-end machines for chip production to China because parts of them contain goods or software made in the U. S. of A.

After Trump imposed additional high tariffs on goods from China the country hit back by limiting exports of rare earth elements. China has a near monopoly on these elements. These are needed to produce modern electric motors, magnets and various sensors and semiconductors the U.S. needs. China has also stopped the import of soy-beans, one of the main products U.S. mid-west farmers depend on.

Trump had to pull back and did so. Tariffs were temporarily lowered and negotiations with China continued. A new trade agreement was supposed to signed later this month when President Trump and President Xi would meet in South Korea.

But U.S. negotiators under Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick tried to play hardball. In late September, during the talks,  they imposed further restrictions on China:

On September 29, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) released a long-anticipated interim final rule (IFR) that will result in the most dramatic expansion of U.S. export control regulations in years. The IFR, “Expansion of End-User Controls To Cover Affiliates of Certain Listed Entities,” extends export restrictions to any company owned 50% or more, directly or indirectly, by any of the thousands of entities already designated on several Commerce and Treasury Department lists.

The IFR would also impose a new duty on exporters to investigate the ownership of an end user where there is reason to believe a designated entity holds a minority stake, or is affiliated with, the end user, subject to a strict liability standard for violations.

The new measures would severely restrict any export of high tech goods to China.

The country responded in kind:

Chinese Commerce Ministry (MOFCOM) announced on Thursday that in order to safeguard national security and interests, the ministry will impose export controls on rare earth-related technologies, including rare earth mining, smelting and separation, magnetic material manufacturing, and rare earth secondary resource recycling.
…
Technologies and relevant date related to rare earth mining, smelting and separation, metal smelting, magnetic material manufacturing, and rare earth secondary resource recycling, as well as the assembly, debugging, maintenance, repair, and upgrade of related production lines are prohibited from export without permission, the statement said.

Rare earth elements are used in many U.S. weapons. Each F-35 fighter jet includes some 418 kilogram of rare earth elements, a U.S. destroyer 2,600 kg, a nuclear submarines 4,800 kg. The U.S. has currently no means to produce these themselves.

There was more to the new Chinese regulation than it seemed:
Cont. reading: U.S.-China Trade War Reaches New Level

The President of the Unites States Donald Trump had demanded to be given the Nobel Peace Prize. But following that demand would have been disastrous for the already blemished prestige of the Nobel. The government of Norway, which strongly influences the decisions of the Nobel Peace Prize committee, was in a pickle:

With hours to go until the announcement of this year’s Nobel peace prize, Norwegian politicians were steeling themselves for potential repercussions to US-Norway relations if it is not awarded to Donald Trump.
…
Mr Trump has long been outspoken about his belief that he should be awarded the peace prize, an honour previously bestowed on one of his presidential predecessors, Barack Obama, in 2009 for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”.

In July, Mr Trump reportedly called Jens Stoltenberg, Norway’s finance minister and the former Nato secretary general, to ask about the Nobel prize.
…
The newspaper columnist and analyst Harald Stanghelle speculated that retribution from Mr Trump – if it were to come – could take the form of tariffs, demands for higher Nato contributions or even declaring Norway an enemy.

After some talks behind the scenes it was decided to give the price to a different person than Trump but with the very obvious intent to also satisfy Trump by furthering a major foreign policy aim of his:

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded Friday to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado who lives in hiding after attempting to run against President Nicolás Maduro.

Machado, 58, was recognized for keeping “the flame of democracy burning amidst a growing darkness” and “ever-expanding authoritarianism in Venezuela.”
…
She leads the Vente Venezuela opposition party, but was blocked from running as the nation’s president and expelled from office in 2014. She now lives in hiding and faces “serious threats against her life,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

The Trump administration has long aimed at ousting Nicolas Maduro, the socialist leader of Venezuela. It has positioned its military assets around the country and is planing from regime change under false pretense:
Cont. reading: Nobel Committee, Fearing Trump’s Wrath, Hands Peace Prize To Regime Change Puppet

The Ukrainian news-outlet Ukrainska Pravda has a new report about the state of the Ukrainian forces at the frontline. The Russian forces are winning the war bit by bit while the Ukrainian army is in constant retreat. The report is discussing several issues which prevent the Ukrainians from holding the line.

While most of UP’s pieces are published in Russian/Ukrainian and English this one has yet to receive a translation. Below   summaries and excerpts of it (edited machine translation):

The holes between the infantry positions are getting bigger and bigger.
What prevents the Ukrainian army from deterring the Russians – Ukrainska Pravda, Oct 6 2025

The most urgent need directly on the front line remains infantry. At the current stage of the war, when the work of heavy equipment is maximally complicated, the role of soldiers in the trenches increases significantly. When they are not enough, it is not easy to organize a defense.

Due to the lack of people, many units cannot hold their positions, fully repel Russian attacks, adequately rest and conduct the necessary rotation. As a result, field commanders are forced to choose priority areas, leaving other sectors less protected.

In consequence there is no longer a real frontline. The lack of infantry leads to gaps through which Russian forces can slip into the rear of the Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian mortar troops and drone pilots who are nominally stationed five kilometer behind the frontline suddenly find themselves in direct contact with enemy troops:

A consequence of the problem described above is that infantry positions are increasingly literally deserted. Therefore, the distance between neighboring positions can be 200-300 –, 500-700 –meters, and sometimes even a kilometer.
…
The formation of a huge number of holes between Ukrainian infantry positions and the penetration of these holes by the Russians deep into our defenses has formed another trend of the current stage of the war – the lack of a stable line of engagement.
…
Due to the lack of fighters on the first line, drone and mortar operators, who stand 3-5 kilometers from the front edge, are forced to become infantry.
…
In the worst cases, which UP is also aware of, the Russians even reach artillery positions. These are 10-15 kilometers from the contact line.

Over the last six month the Ukrainian army has changed its structure. Previously various brigades were attached to temporary operational commands (TUS,Tgrs) with each responsible for large parts of the frontline. The new model is based on a corp structure with several brigades assigned to a corp to serve under one permanent command. While the restructuring is officially finished most troops have yet to find their new home:
Cont. reading: Ukrainian Media About Gaps In The Frontline And Other Failures

A few month ago I discussed Emmanuel Todd’s most recent book:

In 1976 the French anthropologist Emmanuel Todd predicted the down fall of the Soviet Union. In After The Empire, first published in French in 2001, he predicted the (relative) decline of the United States.

In his latest (and last) book, La Défaite de l’Occident (The Defeat of the West), he laments the West’s inability to distinguish facts from wishes, as seen in its behavior during the war in Ukraine. Nihilism, a lack of values and of acceptance of reality, has infested western thinking:

Trans ideology is therefore, in my opinion, one of the flags of this nihilism that now defines the West, this drive to destroy not just things and people but reality.

Todd recently opened a substack where he is posting speeches and talks he has given.

Todd has just published a new preface for his book in which he sheds light on the consequences of the West’s defeat in Ukraine.

Here are some excerpts with highlights added:
Cont. reading: Emmanuel Todd – ‘The Defeat Of The West’ In Its Current Phase

Note that these reports were posted just fourteen hours apart.

Macron Appoints French Cabinet, but Doubts Over Government’s Stability Persist (archived) – NY Times
There were significant holdovers from the previous cabinet, but President Emmanuel Macron also named several newcomers, including Bruno Le Maire, a veteran centrist politician, as defense minister.

Oct. 5, 2025, 2:04 p.m. ET
President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday appointed most of a new cabinet that left many holdovers in key positions, a semblance of stability that will do little to dispel persistent doubts over the French government’s ability to survive long enough to pass a budget this year.
…

French Prime Minister Resigns in Surprise Move (archived) – NY Times
Sébastien Lecornu stepped down less than 24 hours after he had formed his cabinet.

Oct. 6, 2025, 4:02 a.m. ET
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu of France resigned on Monday less than 24 hours after forming his cabinet, a move that caught the nation by surprise and made his government one of the shortest-lived in modern French history.
…

Last year President Macron dissolved the parliament with the hope of gaining a new majority in support of his policies. It was a devastating miscalculation.

The people preferred the opposition on the far left and far right.  Macron’s own center-right party was thoroughly diminished and landed in the third place. Without parliament support the government was unable to pass a budget.

The situation is unlikely to change until Macron accepts the will of the people and nominates a prime minister from one of the opposition parties. If he fails to do that he should resign.