Drone Warfare in Ukraine and the Changing Nature of Combat

Ukraine has exposed serious weaknesses in Russia’s conventional military by relying on drones, electronic warfare, and rapid technological adaptation to offset Moscow’s advantages in manpower and equipment. The world’s second most powerful military could be able to carpet-bomb Ukrainian positions, then follow through with a massive surge of troops and tanks all the way to Kyiv. However, the development of new technologies has changed that calculus, making it increasingly costly to deploy expensive aircraft or risk large numbers of troops and tanks.

Ukraine demonstrated that rapid innovation, such as FPV strike drones, decentralized command, and real-time intelligence sharing, could inflict disproportionate damage on a larger conventional force. At sea, Ukraine effectively neutralized much of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet using domestically produced Neptune anti-ship missiles, one of which sank the flagship Moskva, and explosive sea drones, forcing the Russian Navy to retreat from Crimean ports.

However, the war is far from over. There are no noticeable signs that Russia is on the brink of surrender, and those saying that the paradigm of war has changed permanently, or that this war proves traditional staples such as infantry, tanks, and aircraft have become obsolete, are premature at best, if not misguided.

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Food Supply Alert: Ukraine Grain Exports Collapse As Black Sea Attacks Choke Global Shipments

Upward momentum in agricultural prices, as tracked by the Bloomberg Agriculture Spot Index, should be ringing inflationary alarm bells. The breakout comes just one week after JPMorgan analyst Nora Szentivanyi warned that the next global food crisis could materialize as early as next year.

Multiple shocks are converging all at once across the global food complex, including continued disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, rising El Niño risks, and adverse weather across the US agricultural belt.

This note focuses on another emerging chokepoint: Europe’s breadbasket, where intensifying attacks in the Russia-Ukraine war have shuttered critical Black Sea grain export terminals.

Reuters reports that global wheat importers are preparing for tighter supplies and higher prices as tit-for-tat attacks on Black Sea ports and bulk carriers continue to disrupt shipments during the region’s peak export season.

Those attacks have shuttered grain terminals and forced shippers to delay or cancel dozens of cargoes. Ukraine reported 35 attacks on vessels in port, 22 at sea, and 67 against port facilities in July, compared with just 14 such incidents during all of 2025.

Asian processors booked between 2 million and 2.5 million tons of Black Sea wheat for delivery from July through September, representing about 30% to 50% of regional import demand, according to Singapore-based traders. Traders are fretting over some grain shipments won’t arrive in time because of the widespread disruptions. 

At the importer level, Egypt and Indonesia are among some of the top countries exposed to Black Sea shipments. Egypt, the world’s largest wheat importer, sourced more than 82% of its first-half imports from Russia and Ukraine. Indonesia contracted for roughly 600,000 tons from suppliers in the region for delivery in July to September.

One Singapore-based trader who sells Black Sea wheat to millers in Asia told the outlet, “The cargoes were due to start arriving from mid-August, but many ships could not go in to load. Buyers are thinking about replacing some of these cargoes with other origins, such as Australia, North America and Argentina.”

Maxence Devillers, a grain analyst at Argus Media, said buyers facing delayed or entirely canceled shipments from the region “will have to find other solutions by the end of the month.”

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Really, O’Reilly? Bill Demands War Crimes In Iran

Hasn’t Bill O’Reilly done enough harm beating the drums for America’s failed foreign wars? But he’s still around somewhere, trying to top his earlier act with more of his trademark fever-swamp rants, now offering advice to President Donald Trump on the Iran War.

His latest advice is the stuff of world historic war crimes.

The danger is acute. The president watches Fox News “incessantly.” No one is real in Trump-world unless they are seen on TV. Those who are real assume a larger-than-life influence if they’ve been Fox fixtures. The passageway between Fox News and the Trump administration is like an eerie science fiction wormhole between galaxies. It not only seems to defy space and time, it defies common sense. How else could Trump have gotten Pete Hegseth?

Other Fox New hosts and contributors who ended up in the Trump administration include Sean Duffy, Jeanine Pirro, John Bolton, Larry Kudlow, Mike Walz, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, Mike Huckabee… There are more, but you get the idea. A preponderance of war enthusiasts, some for Iraq, others for Ukraine, all for Iran.

O’Reilly supported all three wars. And since he was the biggest Fox star for sixteen years, one must assume he looms large in Trump’s consciousness. That makes his pathogenic influence especially menacing.

O’Reilly does not appear to be given to intellectual exertions. During the heyday of Dr. Ron Paul’s presidential campaigns, for example, when the Federal Reserve, fiat money, and monetary policy were front and center, Bill asked a guest, “Who is this guy Keens [sic] that everybody is talking about?” Despite bloviating about politics and policy every night for years, O’Reilly simply had no idea who John Maynard Keynes was, the North Star of Washington’s calamitous economic policies for generations now.

In the twilight of a career riddled with little knowledge and worse judgement, O’Reilly showed up on NewsNation recently with advice for Trump in the Iran War. This, said O’Reilly, is what he would do if he were president of the United States:

“I would tell Iranians living in Tehran, the capital city, to get out. Because we’re going to wreck your infrastructure. That means water. That means power.”

Given his intellectual indolence, one immediately suspects that strategic advice isn’t original with O’Reilly. He is merely giving structure to a babbling, midnight Trump post during the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran: “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!”

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The Premeditated and Staged Insanity of War

The first matter of great importance and honest understanding is that there is no such thing as a ‘defensive’ war. What should follow then, is that no war can ever be against evil, given that war is the epitome of evil. Actual justified self-defense by any individual or group of individuals, regardless of the size and scope of the mass, is warranted only to quell a threat, but any war waged by states or nations, is a war against all, and therefore not defensive, but offensive aggression against innocents. If national war could ever be accepted as legitimate, then the individual rulers and politicians seeking to wage war would fight only among themselves instead of murdering innocents and using the children of others as fodder for their warmongering and power-seeking efforts.

Wars are always based on lies and deception. War is born from a political angle, corporate and military industrial complex standpoint, profit-seeking, and power and control aspirations. There is nothing organic about war and those pursuing war. All wars are avoidable; no wars are based on benevolence. There are no heroes or ‘patriots’ in war, wars are never ‘won,’ but always lost where the masses are concerned, and wars are always planned in advance (as well as during and after) and staged in order to achieve nefarious agendas. All wars are heinous and evil because they are done strictly for money, power, and control of people, finance, and geopolitical positioning.

The vile, and immoral depravity of war is achieved by back-door deals among the major players, regardless of the false pretense of good against evil, or the ridiculous ‘enemy’ of the state notion. Since collusion is always present, orchestrated madness is the result. The so-called problems of war, and therefore the so-called ‘advantages’ of war, are intentionally structured to achieve certain outcomes that benefit only the super-rich shadow government, the ruling class and its political pawns, and its banking and corporate heads. A mostly secret hierarchy controls the entire system, which is vastly compartmentalized, so that this secret society of power is always protected and held harmless.

Wars, in large part certainly, have allowed for a massive concentration of wealth in the hands of the tiny few of less than 1% of the population. This is not due to ‘capitalism,’ as some would suggest, because the core of real capitalism is free markets, which do not exist. The U.S., while showing many aspects of socialism and communism, (forget democracies and republics as they are stepping stones to totalitarianism) is actually more a war-mongering fascist state. I think this is without question at this time in history. But that should not be a surprise, as we currently live in a coordinated international fascist system that is bent on becoming the ultimate fascist State; a world run by the very powerful few, who are mostly hidden oligarchs seeking international technocratic rule.

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How Secretary Bessent Is Going Full-Hegseth Retard to No Avail

Six months after Trumpy & Bibi launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28th, the so-called kinetic campaign has settled into a costly stalemate, at best. And a de facto military defeat as a practical matter.

In fact, what began as another furious “shock and awe” military offensive designed to quickly and fatally degrade Iran’s nuclear program, missile forces, leadership, and regional power projection capability has instead produced:

  • no regime change.
  • no collapse of Iranian governance.
  • the severe depletion of American high-end munitions.
  • badly damaged US forward bases across the entire Persian Gulf (Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan)
  • significant personnel casualties, including 18 dead and 400 injured US servicemen.
  • Massive Federal budget costs now approaching $100 billion and rising rapidly.

Even more importantly, this misbegotten war has handed Tehran a durable pretext for restricting maritime traffic through and around its territorial waters and the Strait of Hormuz (SOH). That is, with virtually inexhaustible supplies of homemade missiles, drones and other tools of sabotage, Iran has been handed what amounts to a global economic Kill Switch.

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‘We’ll Bomb the Sh*t Out of Them’: Trump and the War on Morality

Consider this hypothetical:

Two apartment buildings share a single parking lot. Management from both Building A and Building B are engaged in negotiations over how the parking lot will be organized, painted, maintained, and paid for.

Across the street is a restaurant. The restaurant’s customers primarily come from Building A, and internal studies have shown that Building B’s tenants overwhelmingly patronize the restaurant’s competition. Therefore, the restaurant is seeking to sway the parking lot negotiations to make it easier for Building A’s tenants to get to their shop, and harder for Building B’s tenants to get to the competitor.

Through back-channel discussions, the restaurant learns that Building A may be conceding to many of Building B’s requests for how the parking lot should be organized. Worried that this will help their competition, the restaurant announces on social media that if Building A doesn’t get their act together and negotiate more aggressively, they will “bomb the sh*t out of them.”

Now, that’s quite a leap. How did we go from negotiations one day to threats of mass murder the next?

If this scenario were to occur in Anytown, USA, we would immediately see this as unhinged and immoral. No, you cannot use murder as your default method of settling disputes. The vast majority of us accept this in our day-to-day lives, and the proof of this is that the vast majority of us have never murdered anybody. We settle disputes verbally, or through contractual agreements, and if negotiations fail we tend to just walk away. But for some reason when it comes to the global stage, where the harm caused by these decisions is far greater in scale, many struggle to see the issue with this type of rhetoric.

The Hormuz negotiations

Iran and Oman have been engaged in negotiations over the future governance of the Strait of Hormuz for the past few weeks. We were told in the early stages of the talks that a deal was within reach, but it is yet to materialize. The fact that these talks are even happening seems to imply a quiet U.S. admission that Iran will control the waterway in some capacity going forward, which is a major diplomatic climb-down from Donald Trump. With this concession, the focus seems to have shifted. Whereas before the goal was to “liberate the Strait,” the objective now is to get a deal that Trump can spin into a victory.

To this end, Trump has sought to influence the Iranian-Omani negotiations. In an August 17 phone call with Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst, Donald Trump said “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.”

This frustration seems to have been caused by the lack of progress towards opening the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians and Omanis said weeks ago that a deal was almost complete, only to have negotiations extend longer than anticipated. Trump, desperate for a deal that can help bring down oil prices and sooth the economic stress at home, chose to lash out at Oman, who he believes is being too favorable to Iran.

This sadly is not an unusual sentiment from Donald Trump, who has made a habit out of threatening to bomb countries as a negotiating tactic. The regularity with which Trump threatens mass murder does not make it civilized or moral, however. It makes it even more unsettling.

As a result of Trump’s loss at the hands of Iran, the American empire has been dealt a severe dent to its armor. The image of American bases scattered across the Middle East – once a symbol of military dominance – has been quite literally shattered. Trump can no longer rely on previously held assumptions about American power in order to get his way. Thus, he must lower himself rhetorically to the level of a brutal warlord.

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NATO whines it cannot fight simultaneous wars against Russia, China and Iran

NATO war planners rarely discuss their “nightmare scenarios” in public and appear even less prepared for real-life confrontations on that scale. This is particularly true when it comes to simultaneous or near-simultaneous wars in which the most aggressive racketeering cartel in recorded history has to fight in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. As the pillar of NATO, the United States would be forced to manage wars against Russia, Iran and China at once. One of the most infamous mainstream propaganda machine outlets, The Atlantic, explored this possibility, calling it “NATO’s nightmare”. The analysis largely focuses on “a coordinated assault by Beijing and Moscow” and how difficult it would be to “muster a viable defense” (obviously implying that NATO wouldn’t attack first, which is beyond laughable given its history).

The author, Simon Shuster, warns that “about a year ago, General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s top commander in Europe, publicly warned of the risk of a two-front war involving Russia and China and urged European allies to help the US prepare”. He quotes Florence Gaub, director of research at the NATO Defense College, who described it as “the scenario we’re currently not ready for”. She warns that “NATO strategists know the gap exists, but have not closed it” and that “despite growing military cooperation between Russia and China, Western governments have conducted only a handful of low-profile exercises examining what a joint attack might look like”. Although there weren’t any publicly acknowledged drills with this specific scenario in mind, Western-led military exercises in different areas of the world certainly focused on such a possibility.

However, The Atlantic admits that even when such scenarios were conducted as part of war games, the results were “less than optimistic”. The report quotes Mark Montgomery, a retired US Navy rear admiral who participated in major war games and stated that he last studied such a scenario roughly 15 years ago. Montgomery recalled that “it didn’t go well” because “even then, the US lacked the weapons stockpiles and industrial capacity to sustain a prolonged multifront war”. Even when numerous US allies, vassals and satellite states are added to the mix, “it made no difference at all”. What’s more, Montgomery warns that “those metrics have worsened, even as some NATO countries have increased defense spending”. To prove this is truly the case, one simply needs to look at the US aggression against Iran, which demonstrated remarkable resilience.

Worse yet (for America), Tehran also uncovered the Pentagon’s woeful incompetence in fighting a remotely capable opponent. A single country that the US promised to “defeat in three days to two weeks tops” has not only withstood all attacks in the last six months, but has also successfully retaliated against US occupation forces across the Middle East. It should be noted that Iran has been under Western sanctions for nearly half a century at this point. Now imagine how a direct confrontation with Russia or China would unfold, even separately, much less simultaneously. The Atlantic fears that “Moscow and Beijing have actually improved their positions”. The report points to the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict, which “pushed Russia’s massive industrial base onto a war footing and sharpened its use of drones”.

It also warns that “while China has not fought a major war in decades, it now surpasses the US in warships and long-range missiles”. Obviously, the Asian giant hasn’t fought a major war in nearly half a century because it has refused to do so. Nothing prevents Beijing from fully restoring its sovereignty over Taiwan by force. However, it seeks to resolve the dispute through peaceful means, just like it did when restoring sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao back in 1997 and 1999, respectively. This is precisely what the US fears the most, as a non-violent transition would only strengthen China and effectively break US dominance in the Asia-Pacific without firing a single shot. Washington DC would much rather see Taiwan destroyed than give up its influence there peacefully. This is why the US maintains tight control over local military forces.

However, directing “controlled chaos” is not enough for the Pentagon to “feel safe”. Namely, growing Sino-Russian ties are what really makes the political West “shiver” (or should we say, suffer panic attacks). The Atlantic is particularly concerned by the “no-limits partnership” Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced back in February 2022. NATO simply has no mechanisms to prevent Moscow and Beijing from building their alliance. On the contrary, its truly unprovoked aggression against the entire world has only strengthened their strategic partnershipThe Atlantic thinks that “from Russia’s and China’s perspective, the timing may look favorable”, primarily because “the US is stretched by conflict in the Middle East, has shifted ships and aircraft away from Europe and Asia, and has depleted much of its advanced air-defense missile stockpile”.

Well, nobody forced Washington DC to wage yet another war of aggression. Neither Moscow nor Beijing forced the Trump administration to foolishly attack Iran. However, even the Middle East pales in comparison to how Western forces would fare in a fight against adversaries such as Russia and China, particularly now that the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict has turned the Russian military into the deadliest fighting force on the planetThe Atlantic concludes that “in a two-front war, the side most likely to prevail may be the one that acts with common purpose and stays united”. It would seem NATO didn’t learn from the strategic mistakes of its Axis predecessors, because that’s precisely what’s going to happen if it continues with its aggression against the entire world, which will have no other choice but to unite.

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A Question of Political Will: Europe Could Provide Ukraine With Air Defense Systems

Four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine still cannot get enough Patriot interceptors. Europe’s 44 countries have more than double the population of the United States and roughly seventeen times the population of Ukraine, while their combined GDP is comparable to America’s.

Europe manufactures cars, machinery, chemicals, and electronics at industrial scale. There is no reason it cannot build enough air defense systems to prevent Ukraine from being blown off the map. It seems that Europe’s failure to help is a political choice.

Granted, missile production is difficult. It depends on a narrow set of specialized inputs, including solid rocket motors, energetic materials, seekers, guidance electronics, and fuses. Each has its own supplier and qualification chain. However, these are not insurmountable barriers. Complex industries routinely overcome such challenges through investment and commitment. What is more, the United States has already proven that it can be done.

Lockheed Martin increased annual production of the PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE), the advanced interceptor used by the Patriot air-defense system, from about 300 missiles before 2022 to more than 600 in 2025. The U.S. government and Lockheed Martin have now agreed on a plan to increase annual production capacity to 2,000 interceptors. If a single American manufacturer can expand production on that scale, Europe has the industrial capacity to do the same if governments are willing to make the necessary investments and long-term commitments.

Germany has taken steps to expand the supply of Patriot interceptors. Berlin has sought U.S. approval for licensed production of PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) interceptors in Germany, while German manufacturer Diehl Defence and Lockheed Martin have agreed to expand the PAC-3 MSE supply chain in the country. In July 2026, Germany also joined the United States, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden in agreeing to explore the establishment of a PAC-3 maintenance facility in Europe.

Berlin secured an agreement to deliver 30 PAC-3 missiles to Ukraine, supplemented by five missiles from its own stockpiles, in one Ramstein-format round. Germany separately signed a contract for 600 interceptor missiles, although no delivery timeline was specified. Zelensky has described deliveries under a related IRIS-T supply plan as being spread over three years.

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International Atomic Energy Agency Digs TONS of Nuclear Material Buried in Clandestine Site in Syria! al-Sharaa Regime Reverses Plan and REFUSES To Hand Over the Findings

A former al-Qaida terrorist is now sitting on a treasure trove of nuclear material that can be weaponized.

A United Nations team has excavated a ‘previously undisclosed site’ in Syria and found several tons of nuclear material from the days of the Bashar al-Assad rule.

The agreed plan was for the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove the material from Syria – but that’s not what’s going to happen, anymore.

Syria is now holding the nuclear material, and refuses the handover, saying ‘it will remain under IAEA safeguards for peaceful civilian use’.

The Telegraph reported:

“Rafael Grossi, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Tuesday that ‘tons of nuclear materials that could be put to bad use’ had been found at the site, dating from the time of Syria’s authoritarian Assad government.

‘After your courageous decision to inform us that there was another place, another site where nuclear material had been stored, we were able to access this place’, Mr. Grossi said during a press conference with Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria’s foreign minister, in Damascus. ‘We are talking about a few tons of nuclear material that could be put to bad use’.

The IAEA had previously said it was preparing to remove the nuclear material, left over from the era of dictator Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown by a coalition of rebels in 2024. They now form the Syrian government.

However, Mr. Shaibani said the nuclear material was not dangerous and would remain in Syrian custody, subject to IAEA guarantees, adding that Syria had the right to use it for civil and ⁠peaceful purposes.”

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Pentagon Weighing Permanent Smaller US Presence In Gulf (Just Don’t Call It Retreat)

Already US officials have signaled they may just abandon hard-hit bases in the Middle East altogether, in the wake of Iran’s retaliation as a result of Operation Epic Fury, and a conflict that’s dragged on for nearly six months.

On Tuesday The Washington Post reviews the damage control underway, as the Pentagon ‘evaluates’ its future military footprint. All of this is framed as if Washington has a choice and full control over the matter, when it seems that all along the Trump administration was woefully underestimating what an Iranian response would look like.

“The Pentagon is evaluating its military footprint in the Middle East in an early sign of the Iran war’s potential to transform the U.S. presence in the region, according to eight people, including officials and others familiar with the matter,” Washington Post writes.

“One of the key areas the Defense Department is assessing is whether to pull back troops from the Persian Gulf, where America’s large overseas military bases have been battered by months of Iranian strikes, two people familiar with the ongoing analysis said,” it adds, further calling this a “once-in-a-generation” chance for the Pentagon to alter its presence in the region.

The whole thing is being reported as if the ‘smart people’ are in the room and in control, and also as if the US hegemon in the region didn’t already take a massive reputational hit following ‘forever wars’ and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 20 years after the initial invasions, the Taliban remains in firm control of Kabul and Afghanistan, and Shiite pro-Iranian politicians run Baghdad.

And now a half-year into a war where the response should have been entirely anticipated (having been predicted by years and decades of Persian Gulf war-gaming and intelligence papers), this is where things stand:

“The war really did highlight the vulnerability … of U.S. forces in the region,” said Michael Ratney, a former diplomat who served as the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and the deputy chief of mission in Qatar.

Moving troops and equipment further west to Jordan, Israel or the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia could help alleviate some of the pressure, he argued, while noting the added distance wasn’t a “perfect solution to this problem.”

Iran has already demonstrated it can strike faraway targets in Jordan and Israel. Last month an Iranian attack on Jordan killed four U.S. service members.

Anyone with eyes to see knows that this is already happening. For months at this point, dozens of US refueling aircraft have clogged up Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport, for just one example.

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