The Long Review of 2025: Pt II

Today I focus on geopolitics. Putin's Three-Day Special Military Operation to conquer Ukraine is approaching the end of its fourth year. Trump want nice shiny peace prize medal so his amateur diplomats ("no experience necessary") are trying to broker peace between a burglar and the owners of the home he's broken in to. "Look – the burglar's already got your utility room, so why not just sign over to him one of your bedrooms and stop fighting the guy?"

Putin can't stop the war. He doesn't want to stop the war. It is the war and the war alone that keeps him in power – and keeps him from being strung up from the nearest lamp-post. He saw what happened to Gaddafi when his people turned against him. A similar end awaits Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin should he lose his grip on the nation. An end to the war means the return home of hundreds of thousands of veterans, brutalised by their experiences in the army. With no social safety net, these men will terrorise their neighbourhoods. The very chaos and anarchy that Putin's social contract with the Russian people pledged to end. At the same time, it is the war and the total war economy that keeps the billions flowing into the coffers of Putin and his remaining oligarch cronies. Those who protest that they're not getting enough have fallen out of windows. The cake is smaller, sure, but there are fewer cake-eaters today. For Putin, the war must go on. He will pretend to humour the American 'negotiators'. But he will carry on regardless, sending thousands of Russians a week to their deaths on human meat-wave assaults, and continuing to fly guided missiles into Ukrainian homes, schools and hospitals.

This quote from the excellent Institute for the Study of War website about the situation in Ukraine: "Russian forces are unable to open a new front and cannot expand their recent limited attacks. Constraints on Russia’s available military manpower are a severe constraint on Russian operations and will likely remain so in the coming year. Russian forces are unlikely to change the pace and scale of their advances along the frontlines in 2026 if support for Ukraine continues at current levels. The grinding nature of Russian advances incurs high casualty rates, and Russian forces need incoming personnel to replenish losses in active sectors of the frontlines to maintain their slow rate of advance. Putin has continued to claim that Russian forces are advancing all along the line, which is untrue..."

Remember, Pokrovsk and Kupyansk were the targets for the Russian army's summer 2025 offensive. Neither town is in Russian hands. So what chances does Russia have to attack, for example, Poland? Putin's nuclear sabre-rattling is seen as a hollow threat, one that if anything signals his desperation. When things are looking bad on the battlefield, his minions will shriek: "We have nukes!"

Meanwhile, Trump is disengaging the US from Europe. Europe is belatedly stepping up to the challenge and increasing its defense spending. In the case of Poland this is resulting in a significantly larger budget deficit and public-sector debt, the only macroeconomic indicators to give any cause for concern. However, my worry is that not enough of that cash is going into Poland's home-grown defence industry, and too much is going to buy kit from the US and other countries. Poland should treat this as an opportunity to ramp up domestic manufacturing industry in much the same way as the US did in the 1940s and '50s. The spin-off for civilian manufacturing is clear.

Trump continues on his merry way. The jokes fall thick and fast. Mentally, the guy is utterly unfit for office. Will he be able to keep the Epstein stuff covered up? Will he implode? Will MAGA (and indeed all nativist/populist movements) implode under the weight of their internal contradictions? Is MAGA/Reform etc a broad church – or should "all migrants be deported now"? Somehow the show will go on, wokeism will become diluted, DEI initiatives will be pedalled back and, I hope, common sense will prevail. The photo (below) of Poland's foreign minister Radosław Sikorski and president Karol Nawrocki at the United Nations filled me with optimism. The two guys seem to be getting along... Good!

Will the war be over in 2026? I very much doubt it. Putin has mobilised a further 409,000 reservists and Russia being Russia there will be no change in doctrine (brutal stupidity/stupid brutality the default mode of thinking). 

China is the great geopolitical mystery. Run by one party which is run by one man, with publicly stated views that Taiwan should be incorporated by force if needs be into the Chinese nation. However, I believe that China's real goal is Outer Manchuria – the 900,000 square kilometres of land ceded to Russia in the Treaties of Aigun (1858) and Pekin (1860) along with China's access to the Sea of Japan. The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the weaker Russia becomes, and the more leverage China will have when it comes to crossing the Amur River and helping itself to what used to be Chinese land. Full of natural resources and living space. The weaker Russia becomes, the cheaper it is forced to sell its oil and gas to China. Xi Jinping looks at the war and smiles. Europe is funding Ukraine to degrade Russia militarily. Nice strategy.

Trump and China? It seems (as of Q4 2025) that the tariff wars are not hurting the US economy, although the dollar is weak. When Trump entered the White House, a dollar cost 4.08zł, today it costs a mere 3.58zł. Is this a strong złoty? It's grown against the pound too (reducing the spending power of my UK state pension), from 5.15zł a year ago to 4.83zł today. The euro has held up better (from 4.27zł to 4.22zł). The UK media has been full of articles praising Poland's economy, but frankly, I'd love to see those articles balanced by ones praising the actual UK economy. In the third quarter of 2025, it grew by a mere 0.1% quarter on quarter, while Poland's economy grew by 0.9% – nine times faster. At this rate, Poland is indeed on course to overtake the UK in terms of GDP per capita at purchasing-power parity by 2030.

This time last year:
Radom

This time two years ago:
New bridge over the Czarna

This time three years ago:
The Long Review of 2022 - Pt. III

This time four years ago:
The Person Who Contemplates Not.

This time seven years ago:
2018 – a year in journeys

This time 13 years ago:
Wise words about motoring

This time 14 years ago:
Hurry up and wait with WizzAir at Luton