An attack on Cuba, just as a projected escalation around Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific would be, would mean entering a “globalized war system on the brink of world war”
We are confronted with claims that the Israeli-American war against Iran has no clearly defined objectives, and that it also violates international law, the UN Charter…. How well-founded, exaggerated, or media-overhyped is this? We asked Dr. Sanja Vujačić, a geopolitical analyst based in Paris.
– These claims don’t hold up. On the contrary, the logic is clearly laid out through the America First concept championed by Donald Trump: domination through escalation. This is the classic “escalation logic” (Kahn and Schelling) – constant pressure on rivals Russia and China to test whether they will react and how willing they are to support each other. If they don’t react, the US confirms its global dominance; if they do react, the world enters a world war that resets the order. In other words, this is a deliberate geopolitical “Russian roulette.” Such a strategy exists in theory, but in a world of nuclear powers it carries extreme risk and unpredictable consequences. The key danger is dragging China or Russia into direct conflict – the moment when “managed escalation” turns into uncontrolled global war.
Therefore, if we are not yet in a Third World War today, it is above all because Moscow and Beijing are avoiding a direct clash with the US, despite the pressure, sanctions, NATO expansion, the trade war with China, tensions over Taiwan, and the abduction of Maduro in Venezuela; despite the withdrawal from the agreement with Iran, military strikes, and targeted eliminations (“decapitations”) of Iranian leadership and its proxy actors, as well as open threats to overthrow the Iranian regime. In short, we are no longer talking about the “possibility” of war, but about the “structure of a Third World War” that already exists – all that’s missing is the trigger: a direct clash between major powers!
Controlling the backyard
What incident or provocation could push Russia and China to “pull the trigger”?
– One scenario is becoming increasingly likely: the announced American attack on Cuba, which would transform the existing conflict from regional into transcontinental – and potentially global.
Geographically speaking, Europe and Asia form a single Eurasia, which is why the war in Iran is today described as a “great regional war.” But the opening of a Caribbean front would dramatically change the picture: the same actors – the US, Russia, and China – would find themselves indirectly (via proxies) in conflict in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Caribbean, that is, across multiple continents and hemispheres.
It is important to note that, in recognizing the conditions for the outbreak of a world war, the geographic aspect is not only important in itself – but also because it provides information about the operational reality: the various military commands, logistics networks, alliances, and political blocs that are classic elements of world war. An attack on Cuba, just as a projected escalation around Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific would be, would mean entering a “globalized war system on the brink of world war.”
In this sense, Trump recently invited NATO allies and partners from the Gulf states to join him in the Strait of Hormuz – with a direct message to China: if you use the passage, take part in protecting it. This placed Beijing before a choice – act within the American framework or risk the label of free rider – one who benefits from security that others provide. The result: since the beginning of this year we have witnessed growing pressure and an attempt to discredit Russia and China as powers capable of protecting their partners, at a moment of accelerating convergence of regional conflicts into a global conflict.
What role would Europe play in this far from optimistic scenario, and what would it look like?
– If the scenario of an attack on Cuba materializes, Trump could in the same way invite the Union to join him in the Caribbean region, where the French overseas territories (Guadeloupe and Martinique), which are part of the EU, are located, as well as the United Kingdom, under whose sovereignty the islands there fall (the Cayman Islands, the Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos).
This would mean a return to the logic of the Cuban Missile Crisis – “who controls whose backyard” – but with reversed roles. The US and Russia are already clashing in Ukraine, through political changes as well as a civil and interstate war, over control of the “Russian backyard.” By attacking Cuba, Trump would provoke Putin into retaliating in the “American backyard.”
Should Putin’s reaction fail to materialize, that would be interpreted as weakness, which could encourage allied troops to go on the offensive on the Ukrainian front as well – a scenario championed by NATO and EU leaders. United behind Zelensky, they have already lined up alongside the Ukrainian leader, who is offering the Trump–Netanyahu duo and the Gulf monarchies help in defending against the Iranian Shahed drones that Russia already uses against Ukraine. This would also officially open the transfer of the Ukrainian war to the Middle East through an “exchange of services”: Trump does not give up helping Ukraine; in return, the E3 (the United Kingdom, France, and Germany), led by Zelensky, becomes more actively involved in “managing the consequences” of the Israeli-American aggression against Iran. Europeans could offer similar services in the Caribbean Sea, or, if needed – should the Taiwan crisis escalate first – in the Indo-Pacific, where other French overseas territories are located.
Since the official Western strategy of expansion toward Russia has not changed since the end of the Second World War, Europe could once again find itself in the familiar scenario of a global East–West conflict fought with conventional weapons. All the more so since Russia is failing to conclude the war in Ukraine – showing that it remains inspired by the old Russian “strategy of sacrifice”: the readiness to wage a long, exhausting war with heavy losses, which it will ultimately win.
It is becoming increasingly likely that this continuum can only be broken if one of the nuclear powers (the US, the UK, Russia, China, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel) is the first to reach for nuclear weapons.
The law is dead
Where do the Europeans and international law stand within this “structure of a Third World War”?
– The European states, with the exception of Spain, have neither condemned the illegal American-Israeli war in Iran nor offered a diplomatic initiative to stop the spiral of violence in the Middle East. So what remains of European foreign policy is not even hypocrisy – just political irrelevance.
Why? The E3 – together with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, failed to prevent the aggression through diplomacy between the US and Iran. By activating the UN’s snapback sanctions, they raised tensions further. They then avoided classifying the war as illegal, as follows from international law, and immediately shifted their focus to managing the consequences of that war – that is, to defending against Iranian retaliation – attacks on coalition bases and interests in the Gulf states.
This “loud” European silence on the question of Israeli and American responsibility for morally and legally actionable acts – decapitations and armed aggression – sends a clear message: international law holds only as long as the hegemon does not decide otherwise. This is by no means an expression of European neutrality, but rather an undermining of the order the Union claims to defend.
Pedro Sánchez was the only one to clearly call the war illegal and to ban the use of Spanish bases for attacks on Iran, for which Trump threatened him with sanctions. Other Europeans largely did not loudly support him, and the Netanyahu–Trump duo continued climbing the “escalation ladder.” As in western films, they are already “pasting up” on every Iranian “pole” the pictures of candidates for decapitation, complete with the inevitable Wanted label and an attractive reward for whoever “turns in” the person sought. Without a vigorous condemnation of these decapitations, equally marked pictures of all critics of American and Israeli “ventures” could just as well appear on European poles.
The purpose of today’s dead international law was precisely to prevent aversion (justified or not) toward some regime from becoming a justification for an illegal war. It was not conceived as a system for rewarding “good behavior” according to the hegemon’s criteria, but as a set of constraints for moments like this one – when powerful states determine that a target is so repugnant that the usual rules no longer need to apply.
How does international law treat Iranian retaliation, and how does the Union treat it?
– In international law, foreign military bases are considered part of the armed forces of the state that uses them, and as such are legitimate military targets. Attacks are lawful only with a legal basis, such as self-defense (as Iran claims), and with respect for proportionality and the protection of civilians. Iran has, for the most part, adhered to this so far.
Help also came from the Iraqi pro-Iranian militia Ashabal al-Kahf, which claimed responsibility for the deadly drone attack on the coalition base (the US, France, Italy, and Kurdish forces) at Makhmour near Erbil, in the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan Region, in which one French officer was killed and six others wounded. This concerns infrastructure that is part of Operation Chammal, where Western allies train pro-American Kurdish Peshmerga forces to fight ISIS and pro-Iranian militias in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq.
Pro-Iranian militias like Ashabal al-Kahf are on the Western list of terrorist organizations, to which the United States has also added the IRGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Unlike the US, the Union in 2013 adopted only a non-binding resolution that politically criticizes the IRGC and sanctions individuals. Why the caution? Declaring the IRGC a terrorist organization would mean the EU designating, for the first time in its history, the official military structure of a state in this way, with a possible domino effect. Indeed, Tehran had already announced that, in that case, it would declare European armies terrorist organizations and sever relations with the Union.
The Trump–Netanyahu duo thus knew that an attack on Iran would put the coalition military infrastructure near Erbil most at risk, since it is close to the Iranian border and runs Kurdish militia camps in a way that prepares them for infiltration into Iran. In the context of the French officer’s death, the French president did not question the responsibility of the “supreme duo.” He immediately saw the “Russian hand” and invited Zelensky to Paris to jointly seek “ways to increase pressure on Russia.” Unlike Giorgia Meloni, who proceeded with the announced withdrawal of part of the Italian troops from the region in order to reduce security risks for Italy.
Operating Permit
After all this, what is the outlook, what awaits us as events continue to unfold?
– The conclusion imposes itself: the war in Iran is becoming a testing ground for linking each of the opposing powers into operational alliances. For Trump – a loyalty test through acceptance of his “logic of escalation” in the Middle East, with the warning that a lack of support calls the future of NATO into question.
At the same time, this is also a kind of test for the European Union. France, as the EU’s strongest military power, is building a position as a leading actor: from the defense of Greenland under Danish sovereignty and the base in Cyprus within the framework of NATO and the EU, through the agreement with Greece in the event of conflict with Turkey, to participation in the defense of Israel by intercepting Iranian drones and missiles, including aircraft operations in Jordanian airspace, as well as an intelligence role in Ukraine – which it took over from the Americans. It avoids open war with Iran but maintains key infrastructure – Camp de la Paix (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), Prince Hassan Air Base (Jordan), and French Forces stationed in Djibouti, alongside the Iran–Iraq–Syria–Lebanon corridor. Paris therefore expects from the Union political cover, operational support, and financial participation – confirmation that its operations are not national but European. But such interest is so far lacking in Europe.
Meanwhile, NATO and EU platforms are no longer managing to restrain the rise of Russia and China. And even without formal defense alliances in the Middle East, these powers – thanks to a political, military-technical, and economic network partnership with the BRICS states – are for now successfully supporting Iran. That is why Trump is trying to reconfigure the Western alliances. The outcome is uncertain, but the trend is clear: alliances are consolidating, breaking, and realigning – according to the needs of the “structure of a Third World War,” which already exists and is awaiting its “permit to operate.” Let us hope it never receives it.
If Iran falls, Trump will find himself in “China’s backyard,” where Pakistan, closer to China, and the Afghan Taliban are already clashing. Knowing, moreover, that the Americans came to Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, and left after reaching an agreement with them.
