The World Is Tilting Faster Than Washington Can React

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The US is about to brief Trump on strike options against Iran. Mali’s military just assassinated its own defense minister while an Islamist blockade strangles its capital. Myanmar’s most famous democracy activist is now under house arrest. And Israel’s intercepting aid ships in international waters while mysterious Islamist cells attack Jewish targets across Europe.

This isn’t a coincidence. This is what global order looks like when it’s fracturing simultaneously in four directions.

Photo by Marina Leonova / Pexels

Iran Wants to Make Oil Expensive Again

Start here: oil just hit its highest price since 2022 because the market is pricing in what it knows is coming. Axios reported that US Central Command has war plans ready—“short and powerful” strikes on Iranian targets. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, just responded by signaling Iran would maintain control over the Strait of Hormuz and establish “new legal frameworks” around it. He also reaffirmed commitment to nuclear capabilities.

Translation? Iran’s saying: you strike us, we’ll make energy costs explode globally.

This is a negotiation wrapped in military positioning. The Iranians know they can’t win a conventional fight, so they’re weaponizing chokepoints. About 20% of global oil passes through Hormuz. If Iran even threatens serious disruption there, prices spike, inflation screams back into Western economies, and suddenly every voter in an election year cares about what Trump does next.

Trump presumably wants to look strong. Iran wants to make any strike so costly—economically, not just militarily—that it becomes politically untouchable. Oil at $100+ per barrel is a tax on every consumer. That’s how asymmetric powers play this game now.

The question isn’t whether a strike happens. The question is whether Trump absorbs the economic blowback or blinks.

Mali Is Collapsing in Real Time

Less covered, more dangerous: Mali’s military is eating itself.

The country’s defense minister was just assassinated in coordinated attacks across the nation. Days later, an Islamist group—described only as a “shadowy” organization—has blockaded the capital. Citizens are asking a question that should terrify every leader in West Africa: “How are we going to get back home?”

When your defense minister gets killed and nobody’s arrested within days, your state has stopped functioning. When an opposition force can blockade a capital and hold it, you’re not dealing with terrorism anymore—you’re dealing with a power vacuum that’s being filled.

Mali is a former French colony that France still tried to control militarily until 2021. The US has had counterterrorism operations there for years. Now it’s sliding into something worse than it was before: not a failed state, but an actively collapsing one with multiple factions fighting for territory.

This matters because Mali’s collapse is a magnet. When a country of 23 million becomes ungovernable, refugee flows hit neighboring countries. Terrorist organizations—real ones, not the “shadowy” type—expand operations. Regional instability spreads like a rash. Senegal, Niger, Burkina Faso all have precarious security situations. If Mali goes, West Africa’s center of gravity shifts, and suddenly China’s been investing in the region while the West’s been distracted by Gaza and Ukraine.

Myanmar’s Democracy Activists Are Disappearing Again

Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and the face of Myanmar’s democratic resistance, has been moved from prison to house arrest. That’s not an improvement. That’s a signal.

The military coup was in 2021. We’re now four years in, and the junta’s consolidated enough power that they don’t need to keep the icon locked up behind bars. House arrest is theatrical—it looks like they’re loosening grip while actually tightening control. She can’t lead movements. Can’t communicate freely. Can’t become a martyr through visible imprisonment.

Myanmar’s youth don’t care about Suu Kyi anymore anyway. They’ve moved on to armed resistance. The junta’s been fighting insurgencies in the borderlands since the coup, and those groups are getting better organized. But by shifting Suu Kyi to house arrest, the regime signals to the international community: “See? We’re reasonable.” It’s a pressure valve move.

The real story is that Myanmar’s slide into fragmentation is nearly complete. It’s not going to reunify under any single government soon. Regional powers—Thailand, China, India—are already treating pieces of Myanmar as de facto spheres of influence. The junta’s holding the capital and the Irrawaddy Valley. Everyone else is fighting for scraps or building parallel structures.

Europe’s Getting Tested by Hybrid Warfare

Here’s the part that’s genuinely unsettling: shadowy Islamist groups are attacking Jewish targets across Europe simultaneously, all claiming the same campaign.

We don’t know who’s coordinating it. Could be Iran trying to create chaos in Western countries. Could be independent cells inspired by Gaza. Could be someone else entirely. But the pattern matters more than the identity right now: low-cost, unsophisticated attacks designed to sow fear in specific communities.

This is hybrid warfare in its purest form. You don’t need missiles. You don’t need an army. You need to make people in major cities feel unsafe. You need to make security services chase ghosts. You need to create divisions between communities so that cohesion fractures from within.

The difference between this and traditional terrorism is that traditional terrorism wants credit. It wants you to know who did it. These attacks? They want confusion. They want Europe feeling threatened without knowing the threat clearly.

Photo by Mathias Reding / Pexels

Why This All Matters at Once

Here’s the pattern: major powers are testing boundaries everywhere simultaneously because they suspect the US is either distracted or weak.

Iran’s probing whether economic pain changes calculations. Mali’s collapsing because regional powers aren’t intervening with the resources they once would have. Myanmar’s junta is calculating that the international community won’t press hard. Hybrid attacks on European Jewish communities are testing whether NATO countries can defend their own people convincingly.

It’s like watching predators circle when they sense a lion is old.

Trump’s about to get briefed on Iran strikes, and whatever he chooses—strike or don’t strike—sends a signal to everyone else. Strike, and he’s saying: American power still matters, consequences are real. Don’t strike, and he’s saying: maybe the economic pain matters more to us than to you.

I think he strikes. Not a massive campaign, just enough to say “we can still do this.” But I also think Iran has already calculated that outcome and positioned itself to absorb it. The real test comes after: do oil prices stay elevated, and does that political pain feed back into Trump’s polling?

My prediction: by Q3 2024, we’ll know whether the global order is actually fracturing or just undergoing painful realignment. If Mali stabilizes, if Iran and the US find an off-ramp, if Myanmar’s conflict remains contained—maybe we’re just in a messy transition. If Mali keeps sliding, if Iran escalates despite a strike, if Myanmar’s fragmentation accelerates—then we’re in something more like 2008 or 1989. Fundamental restructuring.

The uncertainty I have? I genuinely don’t know if Europe’s security apparatus is equipped to identify and stop these hybrid attacks before they create social breakdown. That’s the unknowable variable.

What I’m Watching

• Iran’s response to a strike (if it happens): Watch whether they attack US interests directly or “only” escalate through proxies and Hormuz threats. Direct attack = full escalation. Proxy-only = they’re looking for off-ramp.

• Mali’s capital blockade endurance: If the Islamist group holds the capital’s perimeter past 90 days without international intervention, the collapse is real and irreversible. Regional destabilization follows within 6 months.

• European attack frequency through June 2024: If we see more than 3 coordinated attacks on Jewish targets across different countries in the next 4 months, we’re dealing with organized hybrid warfare, not isolated incidents. That changes everything about European security doctrine.

• Myanmar’s armed resistance consolidation: Track whether regional insurgencies are forming a loose alliance against the junta. If they are, fragmentation becomes permanent. If they’re competing with each other, the junta survives longer.