Boiling Point and Kamikaze

The week ended on June 13, 2025, interesting news items to look at this week are:

1. Boiling Point and Kamikaze: As I stood back and pondered last week’s attack on Russian’s strategic nuclear assets and this week’s Israel’s preemptive strike on Iran, there were two striking similarities. Both involved US on a false pretext of negotiating for a temporary truce and just before the final talks, a stealth preemptive attack. Both involved the smaller country backed by the West that first bombed the larger opponent in an opportunistic move that surly would escalate the battle into a much larger theatre. Readers of this Blog are presumably aware that I tend to lean on my Christian world view of history and as customary allow me to invoke some memories around the close of WWII as a parallel to what just happened.  (Fig. 1).

(i) Kamikaze: "Kamikaze" (神風 in Japanese) primarily refers to the suicide pilots of the Empire of Japan during World War II, who flew aircraft laden with explosives into enemy ships. The genesis of the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7, 1941 was the complete embargo on oil and other vital resources to Japan by US on August 1, 1941.  This embargo severely limited Japan's access to crucial resources like oil, threatening economic stability. Japan relied heavily on US oil imports, with roughly 80% of its supply coming from the US. Japan’s per capital GDP fell sharply despite total mobilization on account of a war economy (Fig. 2).

One of the key strategic error of Japan in WWII was Japan totally underestimated US military industrial capacity (“USMIC”) and speed of recovery after the Pearl Harbor attack.  By October 1944, although Japan was not militarily defeated, on the economic front however, USMIC has demonstrably prevailed over Japan. In a self delusional religious way, Japan then invoked Kamikaze as a last ditched war tacit. (The word "kamikaze" literally translates to "divine wind" in Japanese. It originally referred to a typhoon that is believed to have destroyed a Mongol fleet attempting to invade Japan in the 13th century). (Fig. 3).

Likewise, although Ukraine, Israel and US militarily are somewhat vulnerable, directionally speaking, their economies are facing a waterfall down-slide with no discernible difference but by timing only. With China’s stranglehold on rare earth and critical minerals against military employment in US, the likelihood of US turning the table in a kinetic military contest grows dimmer by the day. With bleak economic prospects, Ukraine and Israel went on a back to back kamikaze rampage against an adversary much bigger than their own respective economy and the only hope is to drag her western backers into the fray. What outcome can we expect ? If history is any guide, from the first kamikaze strike (October 25, 1944) to a final defeat (September 2, 1945) will all happen in less than one year.

(ii) Integrity is the currency for diplomacy: Just nine days after the Trump/Putin call and eight days after Trump/Xi call, the second preemptive strike happened to an important BRICS member and key partner to both Russia and China. How would one interpret the substance of whatever intentions expressed by US to mend relationships between the great powers. When words carry no meaning then there will not be anymore need for diplomacy. In the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn “Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.” (Fig. 4).

How dark human culture has become when only the unspoken laws of the jungle rules.

(iii) Nuclear Apocalypse: The root meaning of the word “apocalypse” is the unveiling of what has been previously hidden. After the dust settled, Ukraine’s success in Russian’s strategic bombers was reduced from 41 bombers destroyed as claimed by Ukraine to 11 as reported by Radio Liberty and further reduced to 7 as claimed by Russian MOD (6.5% of Russia’s heavy bombers) and only 2 out of 5 airports suffered damages. (Fig. 5).

The international intelligence community understands CIA had set up 20 sites in Ukraine as part of the proxy war effort including a drone station but the specific June “Spider Web” operation was short range AI driven and did not involve NATO’s long range radar, surveillance aircraft or military satellites. (Fig. 6).

So far Russia’s retaliation is still restrained within the Ukraine theater. SIGH!  Turning to the ME theater, immediately after Israel’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, Iran media reported no detection of radiation leakage which was also confirmed by IAEA. This either indicates the Israeli strike did not accomplish its stated objective or Iran never had such nuclear materials. To what extent Iran will retaliate, only Iran knows but in all probability, what happened may well be the last straw.

So it seems we have entered into a period of little dialogue and no guard rails - only selfish interests, no human decency and very little common sense.

2. Financial Market Performance for the year to date to June 13 2025 : (Fig. 7)

Russian Ruble (+37.64%), Gold (+30.84%),  Silver (+25.61%), VIX “Volatility Index” (+22.55%), Hang Seng Index (+19.11%), Copper (+18.73%), Bitcoin (+13.64%), Swiss Fr (+11.91%), Uranium (+11.67%),  Eur(+11.55%), JPY ( +9.1%),  GBP (+8.38%), Nvidia (+5.72%), Nasdaq (+2.98%), Rmb (+1.65%), S&P 500 (+1.62%), Oil (-1.53%), USD Index (-9.53%),  and TSLA (-19.5%).

Once again the Israel Iran war reinforced USD has lost its safe heaven status as gold and oil are bid, stocks dumped and higher resource prices weighed on US Treasuries. White House and US Treasury are freaked out as even with the drums of war are beating very loud in Europe and Middle East, funds are unwilling to seek shelter in US. 

Matthew 24:6  And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8  All these are the beginning of sorrows.