Oh, also China who benefits from US deterrence being relocated from APAC and buried into Iranian dirt

Really, any rival state-level actor benefits from seeing America squander its currently limited supply of high-end munitions and put months of stress on its airframes, warships, and people.

... & sells drone parts to any and all participants. You need drones? You know who to call!

It depends where you draw the line. The extended players include:

1. Russia (as you say): I think this war of choice virtually guarantees a settlement of the Ukraine war along the current borders. At some point Europe will need to ease their energy crisis with Russian oil and gas. Well done, everybody, the system works;

2. Europe: like the GCC they are finding US security guarantees and the NATO protection racket aren't what they were sold. Pax Americana was an illusion. I've elsewhere predicted this is going to lead to arms and tech nationalism within Europe. It's actually a race between fascism taking over Europe and Europe divorcing itself from the US and I suspect fascism is currently winning; and

3. China: the biggest wineer of all this. China is still receiving Iranian oil exports. In fact, the US "punished" Iran by lifting oil sanctions, allowing Iran to sell oil to China at market rates instead of below market (because of the sanctions). Again, well done, everybody; and

4. Asia: this has exposed their weakness of imported oil, particularly Thailand, Vietnam and the Phillipines. I would not be surprised if this war of choice is the turning point that leads to a China-cenetered Asian security compact.

In one year, the US has essentially torn up the entire post-1945 rules-based international order, which it designed for its own benefit.

The post-1945 rules-based order was already a slow motion train crash that most of the West remained in denial about until Putin wiped his behind with it in the 2014 invasion of Crimea. To pretend that Trump is somehow breaking an otherwise intact system at this point is fanciful.

>"The post-1945 rules-based order" - it was always one rule for me another one for thee

The post-1945 order was dead after the NATO's war in Yugoslavia in 1999, and the subsequent recognition of Kosovo. At the very latest.

One coulld argue that it happened earlier, for example after the collapse of the Soviet Union, or the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, or after the annexation of East Germany.

In other words, all the ingredients for WW3. Lets hope we can somehow avoid that.

> I suspect fascism is currently winning

I think this war is actually pushing many away from fascism. Trump was the reference for a lot of the European right and this is showing people he was terrible and, by extension, embarrassing them all.

Heck, Orbán is currently running an electoral campaign as "the candidate of peace".

If Trump wasn't embarrassing for them before I doubt they're embarrassed now.

With the price of petrol skyrocketing, what I see in France are people complaining about taxes, not the war started by Trump.

And they still don't see the point of EVs.

Those short-sighted people are the ones cheering for fascism, so the current events have no impact on their vote.

My impression is that the fascists in Europe are trying to break up with the US too. So it's not "either or".

But I know one thing: we re going to see a rush into implementing renewables after this that will look like a post-war policy. What is also bad news for he GCC.

China's bigger win is the future demand for solar, batteries, EVs, induction stoves (replace LPG/LNG), all things electric and energy storage. There were plans to shut down the oversupply of solar, but now there must be a huge demand.

I agree with most of this, but: The collapse of NATO is not yet in evidence.

Americans should probably do some soul-searching ourselves, about whether the tin-foil squad who kept insisting that the president and/or the legislature were being controlled (or at least heavily-influenced) by Russia and Israel were... you know, right. Because a lot of stuff that's happened recently sounds crazy, except through that lens.

Russia needs its energy sources for its own war, too. Energy getting more expensive globally, while UA reducing the supply by targeting RU production, is a double edged sword. RU is now putting bans on export of some fuels, etc. Whether EU turning into a defense alliance with sole focus on RU, while taking in all lessons from UA war (without having to deal with US pressure to buy its expensive state of the art military HW which may not be all that effective in the potential drone war) is great for russia is also questionable.