Superficially the war in Iran has dealt Ukraine a huge blow. The White House is now completely distracted, and the Trump administration seems to have abandoned, or at least paused, the ceasefire negotiations with Russia. Trump is in a rush and told Zelenskiy: give up Donbas and we can do the deal. Zelenskiy said no. Again.

More pragmatically, the US is burning through its weapons at an unbelievable rate. In one month, it shot off three to five years’ worth of its production capacity of Patriots and THAAD interceptor missiles. The Nato alliance was short of these missiles before the start of the Iran war but now there's simply none left. Reportedly, Israel the skies are now open as it also used up all of its defensive interceptor missiles.

At the same time Ukraine is facing a macroeconomic collapse in a few months as the EU's €90bn loan has been tied up by a Hungarian veto. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas was in Kyiv yesterday and made it clear that it's not just Hungary who's objecting to lending the money. As we reported, the disunity in the EU is growing and the faith in the US is faltering as it's clear the “special relationship” is dead.

However, Bloomberg opinion editor Marc Champion (and my first ever editor when I was briefly on the Moscow Times) pointed out in an op-ed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy doesn't seem to be particularly fazed.

Stepping back and taking a bird's eye view, Trump appears to be rapidly and comprehensively destroying America's standing in the world both diplomatically and militarily.

Since the end of the Second World War the US has been the backbone of the International Security order. Its overwhelming military might and its cornucopia of high quality weapons has underpinned the security of numerous countries. First and foremost, in Europe America maintains some 500 military bases as well as in Japan where the occupation never ended. However, its reach goes far beyond these two poles and the Middle East has also bought billions of dollars of US arms as well as set up 13 military bases throughout the region.

A month into the Iran war and it appears those weapons don't work anymore. Air fence missiles are not just running out, the Patriot PAC-3 interceptors don’t stop Iran’s best missiles. And those 13 bases? They have all been destroyed by Iran in a matter of days.

That came as a shock to everyone. Increasingly desperate for interceptors the Gulf states, in particular, have started to cast around for alternatives. Reportedly going into the war Saudi Arabia had 2800 missiles but has used in the first month 2400. With the production backlog meaning that the US won’t be able to replace them until 2028 at the earliest, nobody feels particularly secure any more. That's obviously useless because new missiles are needed yesterday.

Cue Ukraine. Kyiv already has the most advanced anti-drone weaponry in the world. When Zelenskiy was trying to get money out of Trump last year, trading Patriot missiles for Ukraine interceptor drone tech in a $50bn deal, Trump told him to talk to the hand. More recently when Zelenskiy repeated the offer, he said more explicitly “We don't need any help”

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) is taking a different view. It is very clear that they do need help, and they need help right now. He invited Zelenskiy to Riyadh and signed a defence pact. Reportedly Ukrainian drones are already in use and have shot down “hundreds” of Iranian Shahed drones in just the last week. Moreover, Ukraine has a large idle production capacity to make more. Zelenskiy just needs some investment capital…

The White House was not happy about this deal. Trump said that the Kingdom can look after itself and the MbS can “kiss my ass.” That wasn't a clever thing to do. I am not an Arabist, but I've been told you do not insult Arabs. They do not take it kindly. MbS quickly followed up from a conversation with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and said defence cooperation with the US is now over. The Kingdom will look for its weapons amongst its “regional partners.”

It looks very much like Zelenskiy suddenly has a new partner, a very rich partner, who can take over from the non-existent help Ukraine is getting from the US and the unreliable help Ukraine isn't getting from the EU.

More generally, the US security umbrella, which has been so important to the world order for 70 years, is also looking increasingly like a paper tiger.

The US involvement in the Middle East has been to include the Gulf states under the US security umbrella. But now it started a war with Iran, a war that it's clearly losing, that security deal seems to be pretty worthless. Trump has put himself in a position where the Gulf states, in particular, as well as Ukraine, are increasingly ignoring him as he has been unable to deliver on the promise of peace and prosperity. In fact, Trump has delivered on exactly the opposite.

The Arab states are incredibly angry at Trump. Without consulting them, or even taking their interests into account, instead of investing and helping them promote their “Vision” programmes to diversify away from their hydrocarbon dependence, he set the match to the biggest conflagration in the region in many years.

It appears in the space of a month Trump has totally dismantled what was left of America's reputation as a bastion of freedom and democracy and the guarantor of peace and prosperity. Pax America is over.

Trump has clearly been shocked and frustrated by his fading authority. He called on his so-called Nato allies to come to his military help in order to extricate himself from the Strait of Hormuz imbroglio and they refused. He said twice now that he's going to pull the US out of Nato. What has changed in the last week or two is nobody cares. The US presence is not going to make enough of a difference. It's now fairly clear that the US would not automatically prevail in a war with either Russia or China as they both have the same drone and missile tech that Iran does.

That is another giant geopolitical blunder Trump has made. After the annexation of Crimea, many analysts pointed out the sanctions on Russia were driving it into China’s arms and an alliance between Moscow and Beijing was not in the US interests. In this war it is becoming increasingly clear that all three of the other CRINK (China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) members are providing Iran with weapons and intel. Until now, the Sino-Russian relation was largely economic, but now the CRINK alliance is a military alliance to add to the existing economic one. Collectively, the four CRINK countries have just under half of all the world's soldiers serving in standing armies.

Instead of singling out his enemies and picking them off one by one – first Russia, then Iran and next possibly China – the US has pushed all four CRINK countries together into a single military bloc that are now actively militarily cooperating by supplying Iran. If the US attacks China – or China simply takes advantage of America’s revealed lack of clothes and blockades Taiwan – then the US would find itself fighting a war in three major geographical theatres simultaneously: Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. It’s only ally? Europe. Maybe. And just in Europe.

Through a mixture of arrogance, ignorance and incompetence, Trump and his team have completely failed to understand how radically the nature of war has changed. As we have been spelling out in detail, it’s no longer the “Command of the Commons” where overwhelming might carries the day, a doctrine that has been in place for decades, but now is “Command of the Reload”. Cheap and plentiful $20,000 drones can, if not defeat, they can easily neutralize the most powerful navy and air force in the world. The US-Israeli coalition has armed themselves for the wrong war. The Fifth Fleet is currently standing about 3,000km off the shores of Iran, terrified to go anywhere near it. A ground invasion of Iran is a fantasy. The US has command of the skies, but it can’t find Iran’s men and weapons that are safe in mountainous caches after the IRGC triggered its Decentralized Mosaic Defence doctrine (DMD) in the first days of the war. Tehran has been preparing for this war for decades. Trump apparently decided to go in on a whim at JD Vance’s prompting.

America’s role as Global Policeman is over. Countries are now looking for alternatives who can provide them with real security guarantees. And the country they are turning to is? Ukraine.

That's pretty shocking. That has changed in just a few weeks. That is why Zelinsky is looking, if not happy, he is looking a lot more relaxed. Having MbS as a friend is not a bad bet at all. And everyone wants it as everyone realises they need to ditch Trump and the US’ empty promises.

As Henry Kissinger famously said: ““It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.”