Here is a scenario, but first a broad brush-painted historical parallel.

Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the Nazi pogroms unfolded in the late 1930s.

But Hitler never intended to confine himself to Germany and decided to attack his neighbours simultaneously, on multiple fronts East, West, North and South.

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This came against the advice of his generals, who believed that his imperialistic war-mongering should happen sequentially and that Germany should not fight the USSR until it had conquered Europe first, replenished with pillaged resources, and then reorganised its forces for the move East. They also advised that Germany should also avoid tangling with the US, which had pro-Nazi sympathisers in high places (like Charles Lindbergh) and was leaning towards neutrality in spite of FDR’s support for the UK.

Hitler ignored the advice and attacked in every direction, got bogged down in the Soviet winter, drew in the US in by attacking US shipping ferrying supplies to the UK, and wound up stretching his forces in North Africa, the entire Eastern front into Ukraine and the North Mediterranean states, the Scandinavian Peninsula and the UK itself.

In other words, he bit off too much in one chew and wound up paying the price for his over-reach.

Hitler did what he did because he could, thanks in part to the 1933 Enabling Law that superseded all other German laws and allowed him carte blanche to pursue his delusions. That proved to be his undoing because his ambition was not matched by his strategic acumen and resources when confronted by an armed alliance of adversaries.

pic.twitter.com/95GzNiAaqs

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 15, 2025

A version of this in US?
A version of this may be what is unfolding in the US. Using the cover of broad Executive Powers, Musk, Trump and their minions are throwing everything at the kitchen wall in order to see what sticks.

They are breaking domestic and international norms and conventions pursuant to the neo-reactionary “disruptor” and “chaos” theories propelling the US techno-authoritarian Right. They want to dismantle the US federal State, including the systems of checks and balances embodied in the three branches of government, subordinating all policy to the dictates of an uber-powerful Executive Branch.

In this view the Legislature and Judiciary serve as rubber stamp legitimating devices for Executive rule. Many of those in the Musk-lead DOGE teams are subscribers to this ideology.

At the same time the new oligarchs want to re-make the International order as well as interfere in the domestic politics of other liberal democracies. Musk openly campaigns for the German far-Right AfD in this year’s elections, he and Trump both celebrate neo-fascists like Viktor Urban in Hungry and Javier Milei in Argentina.

Trump utters delusional desires to “make” Canada the 51st State, forcibly regain control of the Panama Canal, annex Greenland, turn Gaza into a breach resort complex and eliminate international institutions like the World Trade Organisation and even NATO if it does not do what he says.

He imposes sanctions on the International Criminal Court, slaps sanctions on South Africa for land take-overs and because it took a case of genocide against Israel in the ICC, doubles down on his support for Netanyahu’s ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinians and is poised to sell-out Ukraine by using the threat of an aid cut-off to force the Ukrainians to cede sovereignty to Russia over all of their territory east of the Donbas River (and Crimea).

He even unilaterally renames the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in a teenaged display of symbolic posturing that ignores the fact that renaming the Gulf has no standing in international law and “America” is a term that refers to the North, Central and South land masses of the Western Hemisphere — i.e., it is not exclusive to or propriety of the United States.

Dismantling the globalised trade system
Trump wants to dismantle the globalised system of trade by using tariffs as a weapon as well as leverage, “punishing” nations for non-trade as well as trade issues because of their perceived dependence on the US market. This is evident in the tariffs (briefly) imposed on Canada, Mexico and Colombia over issues of immigration and re-patriation of US deportees.

In other words, Trump 2.0 is about redoing the World Order in his preferred image, doing everything more or less at once. It is as if Trump, Musk and their Project 2025 foot soldiers believe in a reinterpreted version of “shock and awe:” the audacity and speed of the multipronged attack on everything will cause opponents to be paralysed by the move and therefore will be unable to resist it.

That includes extending cultural wars by taking over the Kennedy Center for the Arts (a global institution) because he does not like the type of “culture” (read: African American) that is presented there and he wants to replace the Center’s repertoire with more “appropriate” (read: Anglo-Saxon) offerings. The assault on the liberal institutional order (at home and abroad), in other words, is holistic and universal in nature.

Trump’s advisers are even talking about ignoring court orders barring some of their actions, setting up a constitutional crisis scenario that they believe they will win in the current Supreme Court.

I am sure that Musk/Trump can get away with a fair few of these disruptions, but I am not certain that they can get away with all of them. They may have more success on the domestic rather than the international front given the power dynamics in each arena. In any event they do not seem to have thought much about the ripple effect responses to their moves, specifically the blowback that might ensue.

This is where the Nazi analogy applies. It could be that Musk and Trump have also bitten more than they can chew. They may have Project 2025 as their road map, but even maps do not always get the weather right, or accurately predict the mood of locals encountered along the way to wherever one proposes to go. That could well be–and it is my hope that it is–the cause of their undoing.

Overreach, egos, hubris and the unexpected detours around and obstacles presented by foreign and domestic actors just might upset their best laid plans.

Dotage is on daily public display
That brings up another possibility. Trump’s remarks in recent weeks are descending into senescence and caducity. His dotage is on daily public display. Only his medications have changed. He is more subdued than during the campaign but no less mad. He leaves the ranting and raving to Musk, who only truly listens to the fairies in his ear.

But it is possible that there are ghost whisperers in Trump’s ear as well (Stephen Miller, perhaps), who deliberately plant preposterous ideas in his feeble head and egg him on to pursue them. In the measure that he does so and begins to approach the red-line of obvious derangement, then perhaps the stage is being set from within by Musk and other oligarchs for a 25th Amendment move to unseat him in favour of JD Vance, a far more dangerous member of the techbro puppet masters’ cabal.

Remember that most of Trump’s cabinet are billionaires and millionaires and only Cabinet can invoke the 25th Amendment.

Vance has incentive to support this play because Trump (foolishly, IMO) has publicly stated that he does not see Vance as his successor and may even run for a third term. That is not want the techbro overlords wanted to hear, so they may have to move against Trump sooner rather than later if they want to impose their oligarchical vision on the US and world.

An impeachment would be futile given Congress’s make-up and Trump’s two-time wins over his Congressional opponents. A third try is a non-starter and would take too long anyway. Short of death (that has been suggested) the 25th Amendment is the only way to remove him.

It is at that point that I hope that things will start to unravel for them. It is hard to say what the MAGA-dominated Congress will do if laws are flouted on a wholesale basis and constituents begin to complain about the negative impact of DOGE cost-cutting on federal programmes. But one thing is certain, chaos begets chaos (because chaos is not synonymous with techbro libertarians’ dreams of anarchy) and disruption for disruption’s sake may not result in an improved socio-economic and political order.

Those are some of the “unknown unknowns” that the neo-con Donald Rumsfeld used to talk about.

In other words, vamos a ver–we shall see.

Dr Paul G Buchanan is the director of 36th-Parallel Assessments, a geopolitical and strategic analysis consultancy and co-presenter of the weekly A Few From Afar security commentaries with Evening Report. This article is republished from Kiwipolitico with the permission of the author.

Indonesian authorities have been accused of adopting a strategy of deploying military force to drive thousands of Papuans from their homes to make way for powerful business interests.

The accusation comes from the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) in a statement responding to news that about 2400 internal refugees have been displaced from 19 villages after renewed Indonesian military operations in the Maybrat regency.

The humanitarian crisis there is being compared to Nduga and Intan Jaya, where more than 50,000 West Papuans have been displaced by military operations in recent years.

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“Maybrat is a peaceful place. The violence we are seeing now is a result of Indonesian state attempts to clear the local people and grab the gold and minerals that lie under the earth,” said ULMWP interim president Benny Wenda.

“I have been stating for a long time that Indonesia’s military operations are not about ‘sovereignty’, but business.

“Now, Indonesia’s own NGOs have confirmed this. New reports from WALHI Papua, LBH Papua, KontraS, Greenpeace Indonesia and several other groups have noted the deep links Indonesia’s retired generals, Kopassus officers and intelligence chiefs have with resource extraction projects in West Papua.

“Powerful Indonesian leaders like Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, Maritime Affairs Minister, hold direct interests in the Wabu Block gold concession in Intan Jaya, where huge military operations have forced thousands of people from their homes.”

‘Wiping out entire villages’
Wenda claimed the military operations were attempts to “wipe out entire villages and clear the way for illegal mines”.

“They are killing us because we are Black, because we are different. This is state-sponsored terrorism,” he said.

Wenda said that given these economic interests, the Papuan people could not “trust the reports of the Indonesian police and military whenever one of their own is killed”.

“The military men’s presence in the region is illegal. Their presence is part of Indonesia’s business interests, part of their illegal colonial occupation of my land.

“The 1969 Act of No Choice was illegal, it was not done by one man one vote as required by the 1962 New York Agreement. The UN did not endorse what happened, it only ‘took note’ following fierce opposition led by Ghana in the UN General Assembly.

“Indonesia cannot claim that its invasion of West Papua is a done deal – it is not. It is the root cause of all the issues we see today.

“Indonesia has no right to send any more military to West Papua, to build the Trans-Papua Highway, or to construct any more military posts.”

Negotiated solution
Wenda said the issue would never end until Indonesian President Joko Widodo negotiated a “solution for the good of West Papua and Indonesia to hold a referendum on independence”.

He said Indonesia must listen to the will of 84 countries and allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua immediately.

“If the international community wants to help end the bloodshed in my homeland, it must act to ensure this visit happens,” Wenda said.

A new wave of displacement of thousands of people from 19 villages in Maybrat, West Papua.

They are running away from raids by Indonesian security forces following the killings of four soldiers by the West Papua National Liberation Army last week. pic.twitter.com/L7D7qTGD1N

— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) September 7, 2021

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief-of-staff General Felimon Santos Jr has tested positive for the Covid-19 novel coronavirus.

Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana shared the information today with reporters covering defence issues.

General Santos said yesterday that he was on home quarantine after coming into contact with another senior AFP officer who later tested positive for the new virus.

Secretary Lorenzana said he had been in close proximity twice with Santos – on March 21 and 22 – so he was putting himself on self-quarantine.

The Philippines has 707 infected people with 48 deaths while 25 have recovered.

JC Gotinga is a Rappler journalist.

OPINION: By Dwi Atmanta in Jakarta

After nearly 18 years of reform, public recognition of the Indonesian Military (TNI) as both defender of the state and a choice for national leadership has barely changed, although the once mighty force has stepped away from practical politics.

Candidates with military backgrounds have marked political contestation ever since democratic elections were held in 1999. Many still believe Indonesia needs the guardianship of military figures, as civilian politicians are often perceived to be unprepared to lead the nation in the face of global challenges.

After 10 years under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, once billed as a reform-minded Army general, Indonesians almost put their trust in another general, Prabowo Subianto, in the 2014 election.

Prabowo eventually lost the race to up-and-coming local politician Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, but clearly the public psyche of looking to a leader with a military background remains alive.

A recent national survey of 1225 eligible voters in all 34 provinces between January 4-15 by an organisation called the Segitiga Institute found that the current TNI chief, General Gatot Nurmantyo, could be a serious contender for president against incumbent Jokowi if the two were to go head-to-head in the 2019 election.

Previously, the more prominent polling organisation Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC) discovered in its survey that the TNI was considered the country’s most credible institution, eclipsing the President, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), the National Police and the nation’s political parties.

The majority of some 1200 respondents surveyed chose the TNI, identifying them with peace and stability, SMRC executive director Djayadi Hanan said.

We may argue with the validity of those findings but nevertheless, many seem to dream of a president with a military background for various reasons. Reformasi has stripped the military of its political powers, but definitely not its influence.

Civilian supremacy
The military has accepted the principle of civilian supremacy. But supremacy has turned into inferiority, as evidenced by the reluctance of the civilian regime to make the military fully committed to the universal rights that characterise democracy.

Look at cases of gross human rights violations that dragged a number of Army generals to the ad hoc human rights court. All the officers on trial were acquitted, despite mounting pressures to end impunity.

A much-awaited formal investigation into alleged atrocities committed in the aftermath of the September 30, 1965, aborted coup blamed on the communists looks unlikely to materialise, although the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has submitted its report to the Attorney-General’s Office.

In countering the demand for justice from victims and families of the 1965 tragedy, active and retired generals have repeatedly warned of “a communist resurrection”.

Even the Defence Ministry launched last year a state defence program in which civilians — including students, workers, government employees and taxi drivers — undergo a month-long military-style training program to strengthen patriotism and fight “foreign ideologies”, including communism.

Painstaking efforts to amend a law to bring military soldiers accused of ordinary crimes to civil courts have so far failed. Military resistance has stood in the way of revising the Military Tribunal Law.

The system has also kept the military safe from the radar of law enforcement institutions like the KPK, although the defence sector is highly prone to corruption because of the huge amount of money involved.

High corruption risk
In its latest survey, the global watchdog Transparency International placed Indonesia among countries with a high risk of corruption in arms procurement due to a lack of transparency and accountability.

The TNI’s absence from practical politics is by no means a setback for the military. Instead, the move away from practical politics has allowed the military to avoid corruption investigations and the protracted bickering that has tainted lawmakers as well as their political parties.

History reveals much about why the public still longs for military figures to lead the nation. The TNI typifies the characteristics of what some scholars define as a “political army”. The TNI has been involved in and has developed a close connection with all stages of the evolution of the country, similar to military regimes in other developing nations.

Since the birth of this nation, either in war or peace, the TNI has never lost its relevance. It is this historical presence that has made it unlikely, for instance, for Indonesia to promote national reconciliation, despite demands for justice for victims, survivors and relatives of 1965.

Each stage of modernisation, or development, leads to an opportunity or the perceived “need” for military political intervention. Development needs stability and the military will fulfill it; and when a crisis happens, the military jumps to the rescue.

Recently the military deployed its personnel to help farmers in many parts of the country support the government’s food sufficiency program.

Not only will the program close the gap between grassroots people and their “protectors”, it will also help the military keep its relevance and credibility intact.

The two surveys carry a stern warning for civilian politicians — they must address their inferiority complex to regain public confidence. With bickering civilian politicians constantly seeking figures in uniform to boost votes, people are left with more credible-looking alternatives, like active or retired officers, regardless of whether or not they have a blood-stained past.