Was it real?

As we record this on the morning of the 23 June, we are a little over 24 hours removed from Operation Midnight Hammer, in which USAF assets, including B2 Spirit stealth heavy bombers, attacked the Iranian nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Esfahan. 

US President Donald Trump says that Iran's nuclear programme has been destroyed for good. Open Source satellite pictures of the Fordow site show six ominous black holes in two, tightly clustered groups of three, into which deep-penetration bunker buster bombs were dropped. The entire strike package got in and out entirely unmolested.

But was Iran's nuclear programme really destroyed? There are suggestions that Iran moved its highly enriched uranium from the Fordow site some days before the US attack. If it was such a devastating blow, why has Iran not responded? US Bases and Gulf energy infrastructure is far closer, and far easier to strike than Israel, which Iran is still pounding.

And was Iran a paper tiger? So beset by corruption and ill discipline that Israel could establish air supremacy in a single night, and US air assets can roam the skies with impunity? So that it could have its entire nuclear programme destroyed in a week? That it would be too afraid to strike back, lest the US escalate further. 

What was real at all? And what's next… 

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Malcom Kyeyune is one of the oldest friends of Multipolarity.

In his first 2025 appearance, he catches up with Andrew about the state of the world. Trump’s ‘military parade’. The breakup of the MAGA coalition. Violence on America’s streets. The advent of hypersonic missiles above the skies of Tel Aviv.

This is a wide-ranging, theory-of-everything overview of the geopolitical moment.

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The Big Divorce has finally hit. Like a country rock record written by the WWE, the Trump Musk split has been its own kind of kino. But beyond two hotheaded men who secretly still love each other very much, could it be that this marks the schism between tech and MAGA?

Meanwhile… that escalated quickly. As LA smouldered over the weekend, Trump punched the nuclear button, demanding to send in squadrons of marines. Whether they storm the beaches of the I-110 is perhaps secondary to the constitutional question: who holds the keys to law and order in a divided America?

Finally, right now China is squeezing its rare earth metals. Always wear gloves if you do that at home, but if you do it at a geopolitical level, just get ready for some serious blowback.

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This week, we’re going as big picture as imaginable. Philip Pilkington has a thesis about liberalism itself:

1. That it is bad.

2. That it is ending. 

That’s the nub of his new book, released this week.

He argues that the modern world order is based on a doctrinaire and unrealistic form of liberalism and has given rise to hollowed-out financialised economies and disintegrating societies that can barely even reproduce their population or meet their energy needs. 

Only by abandoning our liberal delusions and adopting hard-headed post-liberalism can the West survive.

In this special edition, Andrew Collingwood interviewed him in front of an online audience on a live Twitter Spaces. 

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China is planning a new version of its Made In China 2025 industrial strategy. Just as America is punching holes in its own science funding budget, we'll be reporting from the output gap. 

Meanwhile, the new US ambassador to Ankara has declared that he's against carving up Syria in a modern Sykes-Picot, the treaty that drew up the Middle East modern borders. Is this an important anti-colonial action or just a license for Erdogan to gobble up his own Ottoman empire?

Finally, Harvard continues to come under shelling by the US government. Not content with disbarring international students, Trump said on Monday that he is considering taking $3 billion of previously awarded grant money and giving it to trade schools. Is this a case of frightening them to with an inch of their lives or is Trump genuinely guillotining the credentialed aristocracy that runs the United States? 

To hear the full episode (and the whole back catalogue of our special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity) go to Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Two audio essays, half a world apart. 

Nixon went to China first. Now, Philip Pilkington is there; to see what fifty years of openness to the West has done for the place. Turns out, quite a bit. He’ll be sharing his impressions: North Korea-style police state, or Singapore-style authoritarian wonderland?  

While Philip is playing tourist, our very own Andrew Collingwood is crossing the Rio Grande and the 49th parallel, taking the temperature on America’s deteriorating relations with both Canada and Mexico. After all, collectively, they have it surrounded. 

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

More ordnance in the Middle East. Rumours are that Trump is agreeing to a two state solution; Israel is out in the cold; Netanyahu is not having his calls returned, and a trillion dollar deal is incoming with the Saudis. We’ve had shuttle diplomacy… but this is Challenger Space Shuttle diplomacy?

Meanwhile, Pakistan has apparently shot down as many as three Indian Rafale fighter jets in recent clashes over Kashmir. The culprit? A chinese-made BVR system. To some, this unexpected win apparently means that in the future, BVR-equipped jets will shoot each other down from tens or even hundreds of miles away. But past a certain point… why do we even need the jets? 

Finally, the eye-watering hundred percent tariffs on China are about to be peeled back down to a manageable thirty percent. A victory for someone. But in the longer term, isn’t this Liberation Day turning into De-dollarisation Year?

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

No one imagined that Romanian elections would become a big spectator sport, but they’ve really proved us wrong. Remember the TikTok Secret Police Election? Well now Romania is back with a sequel: Ethno-Nationalist Hooligan for President.

The question smart observers are asking is: why can the powers that be live with one, not the other? The smartest are keeping the answer to themselves.

Meanwhile, if you’re passing through Ben Gurion International Airport, hang onto your drink. You wouldn’t want a slice of Houthi rocket in your arak.

But bad news for the duty free counter is even worse news for the next twenty years in the global air defence industry.

Finally, the AfD has been officially designated as 'right-wing extremist' by Germany’s spy agency. It’s eyes down for a full ban. Who knows, one day, Germany could even aspire to the democratic standards of Romania?

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon:

https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Three months ago, Pierre Poilievre was going to take 50 per cent of the total vote, a historic generational landslide. Now, he’s a pub trivia question. 

What happened in Canada? 

Did it warp beneath the enormous trade gravity of the Trump Presidency? 

And why did Canadians think that turning to a milquetoast former central banker would turn off the US electromagnet dismantling their country one bolt at a time? 

India and Pakistan are at it again. 

Early in the week, reports were of World War 3. Vishnu and Allah duking it out with nukes at the gates of hell. 

So far, it’s all sparks and no light, but this week’s rift shows how the region is both increasingly important and ever more a pawn of bigger powers. 

Finally, on Saturday Foreign Ministers from five central Asian countries met with China’s Wang Yi to talk over deepening trade ties.

It may seem like just a bunch of bros jawing over the agree-to-agree communiquê, but this is the dawning of the Middle Corridor. 

You can get special paywalled premium episodes of Multipolarity every month on Patreon: https://patreon.com/multipolarity

Gold is going to the moooooooon. Fantastic news for gold bugs. Until someone works out that this is a short against America, and the Wall Street types celebrating are effectively blowing the kazoo for the end of their own industry. 

After all, if gold remains on the moon, they’ll have to figure out whether they still need financial services consultants in space. 

Meanwhile - it’s a day ending in Y so someone in the Pentagon must be plotting an attack on Iran. 

It seems incredibly illogical and stupid. Which makes it all the more probable, by Pentagon standards. 

Finally, China has raised tariffs on American goods to 125 %, restricted the supply of rare earth metals, stopped investment in US private equity, and cut off its natural gas terminals. 

Tit has given way to tat - we’ll be weighing up who has cut off more of their nose to spite their face.

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