MARKET PERSPECTIVE

By J Mulraj

Sep 20- 26, 2025

The insanity of world leaders are taking us close to midnight

Image created by Bing

Leaders of the collective West (CW) have a death wish! And they are both willing and able to destroy the world in pursuit of their jingoistic fantasies.

It is well known that NATO/USA, by seeking to admit Ukraine into NATO, prodded Russia, for whom it was a red line, into invading. The CW then, through Boris Johnson, scuttled a negotiated ceasefire agreed to by both, within 2 months of the invasion, causing thousands of unnecessary deaths. It then prolonged the war for 3 years, 7 months, fuel lying it with military and financial aid.

Things are now getting worse, as these leaders have unsatiated war lust, and are letting lose the dogs of war, in acts of sheer lunacy.

Dog number 1: America has approved a Foreign Military Sale (FMS) of munitions for Ukraine, with an estimated value of $ 825 m. This means that EU countries like Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, and some US funding, will buy $825 m. worth of munitions, including ERAM missiles (Extended Range Attack Munitions), GPS guidance kits etc. The US Congress is to approve it.

Now, under Russia’s revised Nuclear Doctrine, it will view as culpable states which provide long range weapons, such as ERAM, even though they are fired from Ukrainian territory, by Ukrainians. And, as per it’s doctrine, Russia has the right to respond with nuclear weapons if the conventional missile threatens it’s very existence.

The CW are fully aware of Russia’s nuclear doctrine and are, with this sale package of US munitions, moving the Doomsday Clock insanely close to midnight. The Doomsday Clock is symbolic clock, and the theoretical midnight hour is when a man made disaster could result in the destruction of the world.

The image above shows Ares, the mythical Greek God of War, holding the leashes of 3 dogs of war under the Doomsday Clock.

Dog number 2: Bizarrely, the funding for the package may come from Russian funds! At the time of the invasion, the CW had frozen some $300 b of Russian Central Bank assets. The EU has been toying with the idea of using the income from these funds, to help Ukraine. If, indeed, it uses income generated from use of Russian assets to buy weapons used to attack Russia, it would be a rabid dog of war.

EU countries are beyond neck deep in debt, and to prod the Russian bear as they are doing, would, in a normal world, qualify their leaders for instant entry to an asylum.

The largest European economies are nose deep in debt. The nominal Debt:GDP ratios are 135% for Italy, 110% for France, 95% for UK and 62% for Germany. In comparison it is a mere 17% for Russia! (source: ChatGPT, based on IMF and similar data). Interestingly, in PPP terms, Russia’s GDP is larger than the top European economies mentioned above! Yet, their foolish leaders continue in poking the Russian bear.

Dog number 3: On Sep 2, 2025, the US Navy sunk a Venezuelan speedboat, killing 11 sailors, accusing them of drug smuggling. This can be a dangerous portend. The legal basis of attacking another country’s boat, perhaps within it’s territorial jurisdiction, is to be tested.

Venezuela, a country in South America near the Caribbean Sea, has the world’s largest oil reserves, about 300 billion barrels of oil, more than Saudi Arabia’s of around 260 billion. When it’s former President, Hugo Chavez, assumed office in 1999, oil production of it’s State owned company, PDVSA, was a little over 3 billion barrels/day (bpd). After a dip to 1 million bpd due to a worker strike in PDVSA, oil production rose to 2.4 billion bpd by 2013, when Chavez died. Chavez used oil revenues for social programs like free healthcare clinics, education, subsidised food and housing. But he neglected spending on replenishing oil reserves and on maintenance of oil infrastructure. His successor, Maduro, hampered by sanctions, further neglected maintenance at PDVSA, and oil production has fallen to 863,000 bpd.

Venezuela was considered by USA to be in it’s sphere of influence, with no country hitherto willing, or able, to challenge US military muscle. But in a multi polar world, Russia and China are supporting Venezuela. Russia has signed a Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Venezuela, to give it technical knowhow to allow it to raise oil production. China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has promised Maduro support in protecting it’s national sovereignty. If US naval power can be flaunted in China’s sphere of influence, the vice versa is possible, too. Students of history will realise that this is how the Cuban missile crisis began. When USA refused to remove the Jupiter missiles it had placed in Turkey, which President Khruschev considered an existential threat, the latter placed Russian missiles in Cuba.

This act of shooting down a speedboat and killing 11 citizens of another nation, is irresponsible, helping move the needle of the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.

Dog number 4: Global sentiment against Israel’s brutal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza has coalesced leading Muslim nations, especially after the aerial attack on Doha, Qatar, in attempting to eliminate Hamas leadership living there. Saudi Arabia has, subsequently, made a mutual defence pact with nuclear armed Pakistan, diluting is full reliance on USA. It’s likely that further pressure on Israel by America may lead to it attacking Iran, as long as it has American forbearance, and this would be an extremely dangerous situation.

Three large countries, Canada, France and UK have, last week, recognised Palestine.

So the CW appears to be wanting to provoke conflicts, judging by their foolish actions. And expecting Putin to show restraint.

Had Kafka written a book on this, it may have become a best seller.

Contrary to Trumpian claims, the US economy is faltering. Job growth is grinding to a halt, judging by BLS figure of just 22000 jobs created in August (100,000 expected). After China ordered the suspension/pause of orders to Boeing, as a counter to Trump’s aggressive tariff rates, one of the largest items of American exports has been hit. American banks and rating agencies have not learnt lessons from the 2008 global financial crisis, one of the causes of which was sub prime lending. Quaintly termed as loans to NINJAs, or borrowers with No Income, No Jobs or Assets! The loans were then securitised (bundled and sliced) with some slices even getting an AAA rating from agencies like Moodys. Guess what! Tricolor Holdings, a Texas based company, which engaged in sub prime auto loans, went bust recently. And guess what! S&P Global ratings did rate senior tranches of its June 2025 securitisation as AAA.

The unreasonably aggressive tariffs on China has also triggered a backlash when it stopped buying American soyabean, switching to Brazil. Soya bean is its largest farm export commodity. Americas largest farm equipment supplier, John Deere, decided to set up a plant in Mexico for manufacturing a few items and cut costs. Trump has threatened it with a 200% tariff if it imports into USA anything produced in Mexico. Trump has also threatened Boeing similarly.

Last week the BSE Sensex closed at 80426, for a weekly fall of 2200 points.

One of the biggest weaknesses India has is its judiciary. There are 50 million cases pending in the pipeline. Besides this, justice is not displaying impartiality or equality. A judge in Allahabad High Court, Yashwant Warma, was found guilty of misconduct by an in house inquiry, after half burnt currency notes were found in his house. He has appealed to the SC but continues to judge. Contrast this with an employee of MPSRTC who was charged of a ₹100 bribery charge and acquitted after 39 years! It is farcical to waste the courts time for 39 years over a trifling amount, more so when juxtaposed against the continuation as judge of someone at whose house chunks of notes (surely more than ₹100 were found).

PM Modi has to undertake a thorough reform of the judiciary expeditiously.

And global leaders have to stop emulating Ares, the Greek God of War, and start emulating Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom.

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Comments may be sent to jmulraj@asiaconverge.com