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As I am on the road in a very different time zone, I haven’t said a great deal about the stunning US midterm elections from a ‘grand macro strategy’ perspective yet - but here are a few quick thoughts (without being party political/analytical or normative): 🌍💭 Grand Macro Strategies are not foolproof and can clearly be both foolish and fooled around with; but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist and/or can’t adapt to new circumstances. 🌍🔥 Is the US anti-war or anti *losing* wars? If Iran had worked out like Venezuela, would it have been the same issue? That is an important distinction. 🌍🔥 Regardless, the clear anti-war message from the US elections has massive geopolitical implications. 🌍🔥 Sadly, they don’t suggest world peace though. First, it’s still likely Trump still opts to escalate vs Iran to try to achieve what he hasn’t been able to so far. Second, if there is now a genuinely higher chance that Trump does an Iran TACO, to think that would end all Middle East hostilities —or leave the US in a better geostrategic position overall— is arguably wrong. 🌍🔥 If we assume the US retreats from the Middle East, regional stability is going to be very hard to sustain without the security role it now doesn’t want to play. New structures being set up are rivals as much as pillars. That suggests higher energy prices as a backdrop, just without the US playing a role. 🌍🔥 On the other hand, can the US leave the region to Iran to squeeze, as it surely will? That’s a vast loss of global position to China and Russia if so. If the US now must do that, maybe regional instability to keep all sides there tied down is the better realpolitik option, ugly as it sounds(?) However, that also won’t mean lower energy prices. One can argue this current backdrop, if sustained, *relatively* strengthens the US geostrategic hand as an energy exporter vs others. Yet it also hurts domestically, as we just saw in the midterms. However, is there a way to get oil prices down without surrendering geostrategic position? If not, are we back to the logic of escalating again before the new Congress sits? And will the new Congress not face the same old geopolitical problems? 🌍🔥 Elsewhere, Moscow has even less reason to negotiate with Kyiv now it smells US weakness, which surely won’t fight for Ukraine whatever EU countries choose to do with their own force deployments in that country ahead. Therefore, the Russia-Ukraine war is also likely to escalate - and again hit energy markets as a result given Ukraine knows that’s a key weapon it possesses. 🌍🔥 US allies in Asia are (to quote Mel Brooks) in the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous. 🌍🔥 Very sadly, being anti-war doesn’t stop wars and the opposite of war is not necessarily “peace”. 🌍⛴️ On tariffs, there is also a geostrategic / national security logic. That’s not just a US issue. Europe is pushing for new tariff instruments vs China, for one key example. Note Biden followed Trump 1 with China tariffs, which are now more global. 🌍⛴️ One could argue any US policy pivot here is most likely to be an opportunity for western economies to *align on common external tariff structures vs China* - which is an end position long argued as geostrategically logical. 🌍🔥 That only accelerates geopolitical tensions; but unfortunately so does removing tariffs if over time that also means weakening the US military-industrial base even further.