Tag: perpetual war

Microsoft reduces Israel’s access to cloud and AI products over reports of mass surveillance in Gaza

Microsoft said Thursday it had disabled services to a unit within the Israeli military after a company review had determined its artificial intelligence and cloud computing products were being used to help carry out mass surveillance of Palestinians.

The action comes after The Associated Press and The Guardian published reports earlier this year revealing how the Israeli Ministry of Defense had been using Microsoft’s Azure platform to aid in the war in Gaza and occupation of the West Bank. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, wrote in a blog post that the company was taking steps to enforce compliance with its terms of service.

An AP investigation in February showed that the Israeli military’s use of Microsoft products skyrocketed after a deadly surprise attack by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023. The AP’s report cited internal Microsoft data showing the Israelis were using gigabytes of cloud storage and massive amounts of AI-enabled language translation services.

The AP also reported that Israel’s military used Microsoft Azure to compile information gathered through mass surveillance, which it transcribes and translates, including phone calls and text messages. That intelligence is then cross-checked with Israel’s in-house AI systems for targeting airstrikes.

AP reported that internal Microsoft data showed multiple Azure subscriptions were tied to Unit 8200, an elite cyber warfare unit within the Israeli Army responsible for clandestine operations, collecting signal intelligence and surveillance.

Following AP’s report, Microsoft acknowledged in May that it had sold advanced AI and cloud computing services to the Israeli military during the Gaza war and aided in efforts to locate and rescue Israeli hostages. But the company said an internal review found “no evidence” its Azure platform was used to target or harm people.

The Guardian, working in partnership with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, reported in August that the commander of Unit 8200 had met directly with Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella in 2021. The Israeli unit then used Microsoft products to aid in the development of an AI-powered mass surveillance system that was sweeping up, translating and analyzing millions of telephone calls per day made by Palestinian civilians. The report also revealed that data from the Israeli surveillance system was being stored at Microsoft cloud data centers in Europe.

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Moldova: The Next Front in the West’s Confrontation With Russia?

Moldova’s September 28, 2025, parliamentary elections are shaping up to be another highly contentious struggle between pro-Russia and anti-Russia factions.  Both the European Union and Moscow also are accusing each other of illicit election meddling to put their respective Moldovan clients in power.  In many respects, the lead up to this election is reminiscent of the tense atmosphere and inflammatory accusations of the 2023 vote for parliament and the 2024 presidential election that resulted in a disputed victory for pro-Western incumbent President Maia Sandu.

The situation also has the potential to become another prominent arena for the ongoing, dangerous geopolitical power struggle between the West and Russia.  Moldova shares a 1,222-kilometer border with Ukraine and the Kremlin currently stations some 1,500 troops in Moldova’s secessionist region of Transnistria. The U.S. government should, in this case, as in many others, stay out.

U.S. and European think tanks and news media outlets reliably parrot the allegations of Sandu and her supporters. The Atlantic Council’s Aidan Stretch notes: “Moldova is raising the alarm over escalating Russian interference as the country approaches a crucial geopolitical crossroads. On September 28, Moldova’s pro-Western government will face a parliamentary election amid widespread allegations of Kremlin cyberattacks, propaganda, and various other Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the vote. If pro-European parties lose their majority, Moldova’s Western integration could stall.”

Stretch continues:

“The implications of an election victory for pro-Russian forces would extend far beyond Chisinau [Moldova’s capital]. Moldova shares a long border with Ukraine, while the two countries are currently on a joint EU accession track. A Kremlin-friendly government in Moldova could potentially derail EU integration for both nations, while also creating a significant new security threat on Ukraine’s southwestern frontier. The coming vote is therefore an important test of Russia’s ability to reassert its influence and a potential landmark moment for the wider region.”

In the short term, though, the East-West struggle is confined to the political arena.  Sandu and her supporters in Europe and the United States are quick to highlight any evidence of Moscow’s support, especially financial support, for friendly political factions.  She recently accused Russia of spending “hundreds of millions of dollars to buy Moldova’s election.”

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MSM Reports on How Ukraine Is Crumbling Under Military, Political and Economic Problems

The real Ukraine is not what they dreamed of.

Two years ago, The Economist published an editorial that predicted a ‘Ukraine 2.0’ that was a secure, democratic, and prosperous nation.

But now, the British magazine has been forced to the conclusion that the Kiev regime is anything but what they expected.

They found that Ukraine is ‘eroded across multiple fronts’, a nation in slow decline, and the article questions the purpose of their prolonged resistance.

The Economist reported:

“’We can fight for years, losing positions slowly,’ says a senior Ukrainian official. ‘But why?’”

Ukrainian forces have been capable of holding out Russian advances but at the cost of incremental territorial concessions.

The article reasons that Russia’s attrition strategy is succeeding, hollowing out Ukraine’s defensive posture.

“Russia’s plan is to grind Ukraine down, and it is working.”

Ukraine’s society is broken, with centralized power, tested institutions, and complicated alliances, particularly as Western support is diminishing.

Prosperity is but a dream, with a Ukrainian economy battered by destruction, displacement, and a complete dependency on aid.

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Air Force AI Targeting Tests Show Promise, Despite Hallucinations

The Air Force is on its third of a series of sprint exercises intended to show how artificial intelligence can supercharge human decision-making. And while officials are raving about the results, they also demonstrate that the algorithms can still propose bad or nonsensical options that need to be babysat.

Maj. Gen. Robert Claude, Space Force representative to the Air Force’s Advanced Battle Management Cross-Functional Team, said participating in the Decision Advantage Sprint for Human-Machine Teaming (DASH) series, led by his team, was an “eye-opening experience,” though it proved the limitations of AI processing as well.

The DASH-2 sprint, held at Shadow Operations Center-Nellis (SHOC-N), the USAF’s premier tactical command and control battle lab, outside of Las Vegas earlier this summer focused on a decision-intensive process: matching the right platform and weapon to a desired military target, Claude told The War Zone at the U.S. Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. 

According to a release, six industry teams and one SHOC-N innovation team participated in the exercise, attacking the challenge of designing AI-enabled microservices that could help operators select a weapon to destroy an identified target. The kinds of targets identified in the scenario were not described. Developers watched human-only battle-management crews and designed their microservices based on their observed needs and processes. Finally, human-only teams went head to head in the weapon-matching exercise against human-machine teams.

In terms of generating courses of action – or COAs – the machines easily had it over their human counterparts on speed and quantity. 

“I think it was roughly eight seconds [for the algorithm] to generate COAs, as opposed to 16 minutes for the operators,” Claude said, adding that the machine generated 10 different COAs to the human team’s three.

But AI-generated slop continues to be a problem.

“While it’s much more timely and more COAs generated, they weren’t necessarily completely viable COAs,” Claude said. “So what is going to be important going forward is, while we’re getting faster results and we’re getting more results, there’s still going to have to be a human in the loop for the foreseeable future to make sure that, yes, it’s a viable COA, or just a little bit more of this to make a COA viable, to make decisions.”

Claude clarified in response to another question the kinds of mismatches the AI was creating. 

“If you’re trying to identify a targeting package with a particular weapon against a particular target, but it didn’t factor in, it’s an [infrared] target, or it’s an IR-sensor weapon, but it’s cloudy and [bad] weather conditions,” Claude said. “So that’s just as an example, those fine-tuned types of things that they found these COAs weren’t where they needed to be. But as we build this out, theoretically into the future … those sorts of things will be factored in.”

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War Secretary’s Emergency Meeting A Mystery To Hundreds Of Top Officers Ordered To Attend

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has summoned hundreds of generals and admirals to an urgent meeting in Virginia next week, but the reason is unknown to many who have been ordered to attend, The War Zone has learned.

Many of these high-ranking officers have been in contact with each other to find out why Hegseth has ordered such an unprecedented gathering that will upend the schedules of hundreds of them, a U.S. official told The War Zone.

“They know about this through scheduling, but they have no idea what this is all about,” the official added. “It is something everyone is wondering. There is no indication of what the topic is.”

The Pentagon confirmed the meeting but provided no details.

“The Secretary of War will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

The meeting, first reported by The Washington Post, comes as Hegseth is looking to trim the ranks of the military’s top commanders and reduce the number of headquarters.

“The directive was issued earlier this week…months after Hegseth’s team at the Pentagon announced plans to undertake a sweeping consolidation of top military commands, according to The Post.

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The Most Ominous Thing That A President Of The United States Has Said In My Entire Lifetime

There will be no peace with Russia, and we all know what that means. When I initially learned what President Trump had said about the war in Ukraine, I had a very difficult time believing it. When he was running against Kamala Harris, Trump reaffirmed his commitment to end the war in Ukraine over and over again. That was an extremely popular position, because the vast majority of Americans do not want to end up in an apocalyptic conflict with Russia. But now everything has changed. Trump has been receiving really bad advice from his national security team, and based on that advice he has fully embraced the war in Ukraine. In fact, he now appears to believe that Ukraine can actually win the war and take back all of the territory that Russia has conquered.

I had to verify exactly what Trump said about the war for myself, and so I went directly to his Truth Social account. When I got there, I read the most ominous thing that a president of the United States has said in my entire lifetime…

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‘We cannot wait’: EU calls for drone wall to deter Russia after new incident in Denmark

Denmark has joined Estonia, Latvia. Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria in the project to build a ‘drone wall’ alongside the Eastern flank.

The European Commission has reaffirmed its intention to build a drone defence system along the bloc’s eastern flank to deter Russia from violating common airspace and respond rapidly to any such incursions.

In less than one month, Russian aircraft have violated the airspace of three member states – Poland, Romania and Estonia – putting the continent on high alert. The acts coincide with intensifying barrages on Ukrainian civilians.

On Monday, two to three large drones were spotted at Copenhagen Airport, prompting a shutdown in operations for nearly four hours. The airport later reopened but warned of delays and cancelled departures. Norway’s Oslo Airport was also disrupted.

Police said they refrained from shooting down the aircraft because the risk was too great, given the airport was at full capacity and planes were stationed near fuel depots.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the incident “the most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure to date” and said she could not rule out Russian involvement.

On Tuesday, the Commission built on the events to call for the drone wall, a novel initiative first unveiled by President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the EU speech.

“For those who still doubted the need to have a drone wall in the European Union, well, here we get another example of how important it is,” said Thomas Regnier, the Commission’s spokesperson for defence policy.

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Trump’s Strategic Ambiguity and the Russia-Ukraine War

Let’s dive beyond the hype into what Trump is actually saying.

After yesterday’s meeting between US President Donald J. Trump and Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky, followed by his blockbuster Truth Social post, many were startled by the apparent U-turn by Trump on the issue of the Russia-Ukraine war.

But there is one element to be taken into consideration: Trump has long been cultivating strategic ambiguity regarding many world issues, making himself more of a moving target for the Fake News media’s relentless criticism.

If he remained immovable in his beliefs, he’d be a sitting duck for the casting of stones by the MSM hacks.

So, the avalanche of stories in the press about Trump flipping into a Ukrainian supporter are based on incomplete information, and even some vehicles have caught on to the real dimension of things.

Trump’s post and comments expressing his faith in Kiev’s ability to ‘regain all of its territory’ left people relieved, but suspicious that he will leave Europe to deal with support for Ukraine.

Reuters reported:

“Trump’s remarks on Truth Social marked an abrupt and major rhetorical shift for the U.S. leader who had previously nudged Ukraine to give up territory to end the war and rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska only last month.

But it was not immediately clear whether he would back up his words with a shift in U.S. policy, an ambiguity that could keep the onus on Europe to meet more of Ukraine’s needs through weapons and financing as Washington’s role recedes.”

Trump encourages Ukraine while not committing any new U.S. support.

“A senior Eastern European diplomat said Trump’s Ukraine comments aimed to show ‘that he is starting to disengage by sending a message that it is Europe’s question’.”

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‘Real Estate Bonanza’: The Macabre US Plan for the Post-Genocide Gaza

The jackals are back! In early September, Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and the scion of another Big Apple real estate tycoon, began working with U.S. administration, eager to plan for post-genocide Gaza.

After two years of destruction of Gaza and genocide of Palestinians, it was time for economic development – or at least property development.

“Converting military victories to political victories”

Kushner had served as Trump’s go-between in the Abraham Accords that seeks to “normalize” the relations among Israel and Arab states. Mediated by the United States, the Accords are a set of deals between Israel, Gulf States (UAE, Bahrain) and Arab states (Morocco, Sudan). But to Netanyahu, these accords were the first step in ejecting Palestine from the Middle East talks.

The goal has been to bring Saudi Arabia under the umbrella. Yet, Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza and violent pogroms in the West Bank have effectively undermined the plan. Riyadh has little incentive to inflame regional destabilization, which would penalize Saudi Vision 2030, the huge modernization and diversification program.

Talking in a recent “No Priors” podcast, hosted by his AI biz pals Elad Gil and Sarah Guo, Kushner stated that “Hamas in Gaza is basically destroyed. They have an opportunity to convert those military victories into political victories. If you’re able to find a satisfactory resolution… you can get to a place where full normalization with Saudi and Israel.”

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Trump promises Arab, Muslim leaders he won’t let Israel annex the West Bank

President Donald Trump promised Arab and Muslim leaders during a meeting Tuesday that he would not allow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to annex the West Bank, according to six people familiar with the discussion.

Two of those people said that Trump was firm on the topic and that the president promised that Israel would not be allowed to absorb the West Bank, which is governed by the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas.

Another one of the people familiar with the talks noted that, despite Trump’s assurance, a ceasefire to end Israel’s nearly two-year war against Hamas was nowhere close to fruition. Two others familiar with the matter said Trump and his team presented a white paper outlining the administration’s plan to end the war, including the annexation promise and other details such as governance and postwar security.

Special envoy for peace missions Steve Witkoff provided some details on the proposal on Wednesday. “We presented what we call the Trump 21-point-plan for peace in the Mideast in Gaza,” he said at the Concordia summit in New York. “I think it addresses Israeli concerns and as well, the concerns of all the neighbors in the in the region.” Witkoff did not mention any comments about the West Bank.

Trump told reporters ahead of his sit-down with eight Arab and Muslim countries at the United Nations headquarters that it was his “most important” of the day, but he left without speaking to reporters and the participants have yet to issue any official readout about the substance of their conversation.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the meeting as “fruitful” Tuesday evening during an interview on Fox News Channel, but he did not elaborate. Erdogan and Trump are scheduled to meet again at the White House on Thursday.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Arab leaders have been frustrated by Trump’s opposition to the recognition of a Palestinian state and his continued support of Netanyahu’s assault on Hamas, which expanded beyond Gaza earlier this month when Israel tried to take out Hamas officials when they were in Qatar for peace talks. Going into Tuesday’s meeting, they aimed to impress on the U.S. president that any Israeli incursion into the West Bank would likely lead to the collapse of the Abraham Accords, two of the people familiar with the conversation said.

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