Welcome to this week’s Great Game, which is obviously focused on the ongoing Israel/Gaza war. In this piece we answer three key questions in geopolitics right now: 1) What on earth are Chinese warships doing in the Middle East? 2) Why haven’t Israel invaded Gaza yet and 3) Have Russia re-gained the initiative?

What are Chinese Warships doing in the Middle East?

Over the weekend, we started getting reports of a Chinese naval task force headed for the Middle East. What is going on there? Well, first of all, it’s probably kind of true when the Chinese claim that the deployment has nothing to do with the Israel/Gaza war. The Chinese task force was already in Oman for drills and after all it is only a smaller task force of a frigate, a destroyer and some support ships. However, there are two key take-aways from this: