The propaganda playbook dictates that the most serious announcements should be delivered in a nothing to see here casual manner. And no one is better at untethered propaganda than White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.
When she announced a Trump visit to the Walter Reed Medical Center for a chat with the troops, she slipped in that Trump would also “stop by for his routine yearly checkup”. But anyway…moving on fast…
Except this yearly checkup is just six months from the last one. If you’re having an annual checkup every six months, things are clearly not optimal.
For the last few weeks Trump’s team have been fire-fighting to dispel mounting rumours of his declining health. The long, unexplained absence from official duties. The bruises on the back of his hands of a type you usually see when a canula has been inserted. The swollen ankles. The string of verbal missteps and moments of confusion. When he stopped a non-existent war between Cambodia and Armenia (presumably he meant Azerbaijan and Armenia. Or maybe Cambodia and Thailand. Who knows?).
One of Hemingway’s characters in The Sun Also Rises noted that he went bankrupt “Two ways. Gradually then suddenly.”
The world is a chaotic place right now and sometimes it’s hard to divine the important ingredients in the bubbling stew of events. When there’s no clear context, it’s easy to believe that things will carry on just as they are.
But if you squint, it’s possible to see that on many fronts we seem to be reaching a tipping point. One that has been building gradually but could come suddenly. Not just for Trump, and not just confined to his health, but also for his pal in Moscow, Putin.
The White House has already admitted Trump has health issues. He takes medication to control his cholesterol and three months ago his spokespeople said he has chronic venous insufficiency which causes blood to pool in the legs.
Whether you can take seriously the results of any of the medical examinations is another matter. Just before the 2016 election, Trump’s personal doctor admitted that Trump had dictated the full bill of health conclusion released to the media. The checkup six months ago said he was hale and hearty because he had “frequent victories at golf”.
US Presidents have always played fast and loose with their health announcements. There’s no legal requirement to publish them so you get what is deemed acceptable for consumption.
But while many people have suggested Trump is ailing, it’s the health of the nation’s economy that could be just as important.
J P Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned that the stock market was overheated and faced a fall, possibly within six months. “I am far more worried about that than others,” he said, pointing out the uncertainty arising from the geopolitical environment, fiscal spending and remilitarisation.
“All these things cause a lot of issues that we don’t know how to answer,” he added. “So I say the level of uncertainty should be higher in most people’s minds than what I would call normal.”
Many people think the vast investment in AI propping up the US economy is a bubble. This week the Bank of England compared it to the Dotcom boom and subsequent bust of the 1990s.
Other parts of the economy are not looking good. Shoppers are starting to feel the effect of Trump’s erratic tariffs in rising prices at the checkout. The rate of job hiring is falling fast, US debt is significantly rising and consumer confidence is falling.
The tariff regime is still playing out, but the data suggests things can only get worse. On top of that, the US is embarking on military adventurism. Civilians are being executed in fishing boats and there’s a belief that Trump is prepared to commit regime change in Venezuela. He wants o take on Afghanistan to reclaim the Bagram Airbase. And there’s a US military buildup in Qatar which could be used for several reasons.
Never mind US cities in Blue states swamped by ICE and the National Guard and facing threats of military intervention.
Trump and his handlers might feel they’re in total control of the outcome. But one of these things or all of them could blow up and trigger a chain reaction of unforeseen consequences. It now feels like Trump is teetering on the brink
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Putin is peering over a similar precipice. Autumn 2025 was the period when analysts said Russia would run out of its stocks of Soviet-era supply of weaponry. More resources are having to be poured into drone, tank and missile production instead of the civilian economy.
While the overall economy isn’t close to collapse, as Trump suggested a couple of weeks ago, it is facing significant challenges. Forecasts of GDP growth has plunged from 2.5% to less than 1%. Inflation is high at 8.1%. The CEO of state-owned banking company Sberbank admitted Russia was now in “technical stagflation”.
Putin has been forced to increase VAT by 2% to 22%, going against one of his promises to the Russian people. The federal budget deficit hit 4.9tn rubles in the first six months of 2025, exceeding what had been forecast for the entire year. And two-thirds of the rainy day savings of the national wealth fund has already been spent.
The boom that came with the initial war economy is over. Storm clouds are gathering.
On top of this, a Russian military blogger wrote a detailed post about how domestic recruitment for the army was badly failing. The sign-on fee is spiralling, but people just don’t want to sign-up. Putin is being forced to look further afield for recruits. Ukraine says Russia could have 25,000 Cubans fighting for them soon. These foreign fighters are often barely-trained and do not easily assimilate into the Russian military style.
But the most pressing threat for Russia is Ukraine’s successful campaign to degrade its oil refining industry, which not only hits earnings from fossil fuel exports but is also impacting domestic consumers. Occupied Crimea is already facing gasoline rationing and this is likely to develop in other parts of the Russian Federation
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There have been some suggestions that Ukraine has destroyed 38% of Russia’s production. That would be the upper limit. But even if the real figure is lower, Ukraine’s campaign is, if anything, accelerating and with winter fast approaching the pressure on ordinary Russians will continue to grow.
As with Trump, each individual issue may not be a crisis. But it’s easy to see a confluence of calamities developing. Two of the biggest threats to global security can no longer count on good times ahead.
The world could look very different in a few months’ time. Perhaps even a few weeks.
Whether it’s a better world is not yet certain, with billionaire libertarian Peter Thiel jerking the strings of his Vance puppet in the White House and whatever craziness would follow a Russian defeat.
But the rules will have changed. It’ll be a new game. And that will mean there’s all to play for.
A really fitting piece. It truly does feel like something is going to give; the question being exactly what remains so far unanswered.
You point to some interesting trends. Yet for balance its worth saying others are going the other way:
Trump is pushing the boundaries are finding he has much more power than others realised. He can ignore the courts, deploy the army domestically and even sack supposedly independent agency staff. Institutional safeguards are proving to be weak or nonexistent.
Putin is steadily advancing in Ukraine and getting away with more and more incursions in Eastern Europe.
The world is more violent, as mid tier countries fight with no Pax Americana to keep the lid on. UAE is backing genocidaires in Sudan and has quietly annexed Socotra.
What happens next? Plenty of conflicts could get much worse, very quickly.