Beware of Too Many Magicians and Politicians

Most people enjoy watching magicians and magic shows. When done well, magicians entertain with sleight of hand, misdirection, and deception. Sometimes they will even resort to picking pockets and optical illusions. These days, things like machine learning appear to be magic.

Magicians aren’t the only ones who use these techniques. While magicians tend to be above board and will return anything they obtain through nefarious means, that’s not always the case for others who aren’t magicians, from politicians to billionaire businessmen.

Most magic shows have only one magician onstage at a time. However, what happens when you have a hoard of magicians onstage at the same time. Can you keep track of the magic being performed?

Eyes on Iran

I’ll leave the politics and military strategy to others, but I did want to examine how the events in Iran will affect other areas around the globe (Fig. 1). The big challenge with the air invasion is the focus it brings to the country, not to mention the destruction. The buildup and attack happened very quickly with minimal justification and no coordination with allies other than Israel. One thing magicians do is make quick movements to distract from the real trick.

Oil disruption is the obvious issue with the attacks on Iran and the Iranian response. Prices are already going up and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has stopped. Attacks on both Iran’s and other Middle East states’ oil production facilities are in the mix.

While the effects of this disruption are touted to be minor for the U.S., that’s not the case for other consumer countries like China or those providing oil like the United Arab Emirates or Saudia Arabia. No one is really appreciative of their income or supplies being reduced. Part of the challenge of understanding the impact of the attacks is who’s affected and to what degree.

Military assets and the cost of running this war aren’t insignificant. Simply moving people and material into place costs a lot of money. Expending munitions is even more costly, not to mention the lives lost on both sides. Unfortunately, the lives tend to be written off as collateral damage and the bill for replacing and repairing the equipment will not show up for a long time. More on this later.

Understated Ukraine

It’s been years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Fig. 2). This ongoing war has changed how war is being fought — even in Iran. The impact of drones in the battles are one of the major outcomes of this war and the U.S. military is trying to catch up. Recent Ukraine-Russia talks have ended with no real progress, but this has been pushed off the front page by the events in Iran.

Iranian Shahed 136 kamikaze drones have proven effective by Russia. These are now being used at home. This class of drones is relatively cheap and autonomous — they employ a commercial-grade inertial guidance system and have been found with mobile-phone components.

Artificial intelligence (AI) hasn’t been part of the mix yet, but smartphones and AI have existed for years now. Though incorporating AI into a targeting system isn’t a trivial task, it’s being done by many companies and countries.

Daily episodes of violence in Ukraine, although more numerous and deadly, are being ignored especially now given the distraction of Iran. Still, one can see the relationship with Iran, since it’s a source of oil for Russia. Likewise, there’s more than one magician on the global stage and they’re not acting in concert. In fact, most are working at cross-purposes, taking advantage of any distractions by another.

Taking Notice of Taiwan

Much more is going on throughout the world beyond Iran and Ukraine. The U.S. involvement in Venezuela, Greenland, and Cuba comes to mind, but the big one that too many overlook is Taiwan (Fig. 3).

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is one of the major silicon foundries based in Taiwan. TSMC has made minor inroads into the United States, but the bulk of its chip production takes place on the island, servicing fabless companies like NVIDIA and AMD. Replicating its cutting-edge technology elsewhere, should the island fall into the hands of new management, would be difficult at best. This includes technologies like chiplets, which have been pushing the envelope, especially in high-performance chips where the underlying die/chiplets have hit the reticle limit.

Articles about the affects of China invading Taiwan often get lost amid distractions such as Iran, Ukraine, Greenland, Cuba ….

The justifications for a takeover of Taiwan need to be considered in the context of events like Maduro’s takedown in Venezuala and striking targets in Iran. Oil prices might be the only major price fluctuation due to the events in the Middle East, but these pale in comparison to the destruction or takeover of silicon foundries in Taiwan.

Now where are those darn Epstein files. Talk about a disappearing act…

While we wait for Act 2 on the world stage with dozens of magicians, here are other articles addressing issues related to Iran:

·       Iran War Shakes Up Global Shipping Routes — Several of the world's major shipping companies have announced they are avoiding the Strait of Hormuz due to the risk posed by the military conflict in the region. @ IndustryWeek

·       Oil rises sharply as US-Iran conflict disrupts Strait of Hormuz flows — About 20 million b/d of crude oil and petroleum products transit the Strait of Hormuz, linking Persian Gulf producers — including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait — to global markets. Limited pipeline alternatives exist, but they cannot fully replace maritime export capacity. @ Oil & Gas Journal