Tag: perpetual war

Moscow Forces Complete Conquest of Luhansk Region, One of the Cradles of the War, Fighting Since 2014 to Secede from Ukraine and Join Russia

While the world is fixated on Middle East tensions, Russian forces continue pounding military and strategic targets all over Ukraine.

Having amassed an enormous cache of kamikaze drones and missiles, Moscow is methodically implementing its ‘war of attrition’.

As we have often discussed here on TGP, in this kind of warfare the main objective is not so much territorial gains, but rather a campaign to degrade the enemy’s capabilities to the point it can’t fight anymore.

The only reason why this ‘attrition’ took more than a few months to be accomplished is that the US under Biden and all the other western powers have flooded the Kiev regime with unprecedented amounts of military aid to the tune of half a trillion dollars – but now, three and a half years later, the Ukrainian capabilities are again on the brink of destruction.

To accomplish that, the Russians have now in June unleashed the strongest drone and missile strike campaign of the whole war.

Keep reading

Europe’s Defense Reality Check: The Mathematics of Military Inadequacy

Following President Trump’s successful push for NATO allies to commit to spending 5% of GDP on defense by 2035, Europe now faces the potentially insurmountable challenge of reversing decades of military neglect. Building a force capable of defending the continent against Russia or China will be a massive undertaking, made even more difficult by declining birthrates, a shrinking workforce, and the political cost of maintaining generous welfare states and pacifist norms.

NATO allies agreed on June 25, 2025, to more than double their defense spending target from 2% of GDP to 5% by 2035, with the commitment structured as 3.5% for “core defense” and 1.5% for broader security measures including infrastructure and cyber defense. This achievement was widely praised, with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stating: “Would you ever think that this would be the result of this summit if he would not have been re-elected president? … I think he deserves all the praise”. However, the magnitude of this commitment becomes clear when examining current spending levels and capability gaps.

In 2024, European NATO members spent a combined $454 billion on defense, just 30% of total NATO spending, while the United States spent $997 billion, or 66%. Reports claim European military spending rose by 17% to $693 billion in 2024, but that figure misleadingly includes Russia’s estimated $149 billion. Given that NATO exists primarily to deter Russian aggression, it is absurd to include Russia’s defense budget in Europe’s total.

Even in terms of GDP percentage, Russia continues to outpace the European Union in defense spending. The EU’s total defense spending is projected to reach around 2.04% of GDP in 2025, while Russia is expected to spend 7.5% of its GDP on the military. But the gap in spending is just one part of Europe’s broader capabilities deficit.

Unlike Russia or the United States, Europe’s $454 billion in defense expenditures is fragmented across more than 30 countries, each with its own command structure, procurement system, administrative overhead, and military bureaucracy. In contrast, the United States achieves far greater efficiency and combat power through its unified $997 billion defense budget, which supports a single military structure with global reach.

Keep reading

Trump Says He Gave Iran Permission to Bomb U.S. Base in Qatar and…Well, Mostly Crickets?

When political scientist Seth Masket shared this story on Bluesky yesterday, I couldn’t believe it was real. The right-wing Washington Times reported that at a press conference at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands on Wednesday, Trump revealed that he had given Iran permission to bomb the U.S.’s Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar in retaliation for the American bombing of their nuclear sites. 

“They said, ‘We’re going to shoot them. Is one o’clock OK?’ I said it’s fine,” Trump said. “And everybody was emptied off the base so they couldn’t get hurt, except for the gunners.”

I poked around for other major coverage of this extraordinary admission, and landed only on a transcript of the press conference. And yes, amid a characteristically meandering monologue, Trump actually said that he let a foreign adversary bomb an American military installation. But this story has pretty much come and gone with virtually no attention and certainly none of the outrage commensurate with what Trump said.

Let’s consider what Trump’s verbal diarrhea here could mean. Suppose he is (for once) telling the truth. Wouldn’t that represent the most shocking dereliction of duty one could imagine for the commander-in-chief? (A high crime or misdemeanor, perhaps?) Is he saying he let Iran get its retaliation out of its system with what he called “a very weak response” to bring an end to hostilities? Perhaps Trump simply was rambling incoherently as he basked in his new “daddy” glow at NATO.

Keep reading

Prophecy, not politics, may also shape America’s clash with Iran

When most people contemplate the future of America’s conflict with Iran, they hunt for clues in grainy satellite photos, statements from military analysts and President Trump’s social media posts.

But when scholar Diana Butler Bass considers what could happen next, her thoughts turn toward another group she says is now thinking more about prophecy than politics.

She recalls warnings from her childhood about the rise of an Antichrist, stories about weeping mothers clutching their empty blankets after their babies were suddenly “Raptured” to heaven and paintings of an angry Jesus leading armies of angels to an Armageddon-like, final battle in modern-day Israel.

Those stories terrified and thrilled Bass when she heard them growing up in a White evangelical church in the 1970s. It was a time when the end always seemed near, and books like the bestseller “The Late Great Planet Earth” warned Christians to gird their loins for a period of Great Tribulation and prepare for Jesus’ triumphant return to Jerusalem.

Bass, a prominent, progressive religious author who hosts a popular Substack newsletter called “The Cottage,” no longer believes those stories. Yet when she considers why the US struck three nuclear facilities in Iran this month and what could happen next, she now offers a prophecy of her own: Bombing Iran will reinforce Trump’s status as God’s “Chosen One” and Israel as His chosen nation among many of the President’s White evangelical supporters.

Many of these supporters dismiss the dangers of a larger war, she tells CNN, because such a clash would mean the world is approaching the “end times” — a series of cataclysmic events ushering in the Second Coming of Christ and the rise of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecies.

“There’s almost a kind of spiritual eagerness for a war in the Middle East,” says Bass, describing attitudes among some White evangelicals. “They believe a war is going to set off a series of events that will result in Jesus returning.”

Trump’s decision to bomb Iran has so far been examined almost exclusively through the lens of politics or military strategy. Yet there is a religious dimension to his decision – and what could happen next – that’s been underexplored.

Keep reading

US Approves $510 Million Arms Deal for Israel

The Trump administration has approved a new arms deal for Israel that will provide the country with $510 million worth of Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMS), kits that turn bombs into precision-guided weapons, as the US continues to provide military aid to support the genocidal war in Gaza.

According to the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), the State Department notified Congress of the sale of 3,845 JDAMS for 2,000-pound BLU-109 bombs and 3,280 JDAMS for 500-pound MK 82 bombs. The deal also includes US “government and contractor engineering, logistics, and technical support services; and other related elements of logistics and program support.”

The DSCA said Boeing is the principal contractor for the deal. The notification of the potential deal begins a time period when US lawmakers could potentially block the sale, but there’s little opposition to US military support for Israel within Congress, despite the many war crimes the US is implicated in by providing Israel with weapons.

Fragments of bombs with US-provided JDAM kits have been found at the scene of Israeli airstrikes in Gaza that have massacred many civilians. In 2023, Human Rights Watch said it identified JDAM fragments that were found in two airstrikes on homes in central Gaza that killed 43 civilians, including 19 children, and 14 women.

Keep reading

Israel Called Its Initial Attack on Iran ‘Red Wedding,’ Referring to a Fictional Massacre that Relied on Deception

According to The Wall Street Journal, Israel codenamed its initial attack on Iran that killed senior military leaders “Red Wedding,” referring to a gruesome massacre from the book series “Game of Thrones,” which was adapted into a TV series on HBO.

In the Red Wedding scene, one family murders the members of the other, including a pregnant woman, during a wedding feast, a surprise attack that relies on betrayal and deception. Israel’s attack also relied on deception as it used the cover of nuclear talks between the US and Iran to catch Tehran off guard.

The Israeli attack was launched on Friday, June 13, two days before the US and Iran were set to hold another round of nuclear negotiations. According to the Journal report, part of the ruse involved Israeli officials leaking stories to the media about a split between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the possibility of Israel attacking Iran.

Trump and Netanyahu held a phone call on Monday, June 9, the day the Journal report said Israel had decided to launch the attack on June 13. Axios reporter Barak Ravid, a former IDF intelligence officer, reported the day after the call that an Israeli official and a US official told him that Trump expressed to Netanyahu that he believed he could reach a nuclear deal with Iran and opposed military action at that time.

According to the Journal, on the day of the attacks Trump told reporters that the US and Iran were “fairly close to an agreement” and that he didn’t want the Israelis “going in,” and Israeli officials told reporters they would wait to see the results of the next round of US-Iran nuclear talks before attacking.

The Journal report said: “The key to the deception, said a security official familiar with the planning of the operation, was the idea implanted in the minds of the Iranians that Israel wouldn’t strike without US authorization and participation. As long as the US wasn’t mobilizing its forces and was engaged in negotiations, Israel could threaten to attack and even mobilize its troops in plain sight of Iran without giving away the element of surprise.”

Hours before Israel’s bombing campaign started, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was still committed to a diplomatic solution with Iran. The Journal report said Israeli warplanes were already getting in the air when he made the post.

Keep reading

The UK’s Crackdown On Pro-Palestine Activists Has Reached New Orwellian Levels.

For years, the UK government has attempted to crack down on the activist group “Palestine Action”, due to their disruption of the Israeli arms manufacturing plant Elbit Systems, which manufactures weapons used to slaughter civilians in Gaza.

The UK government has consistently coordinated with officials from Elbit Systems to assure them that it will crack down on pro-Palestine protests.

As the Guardian has reported , because many court cases have led to “Palestine Action” activists being “acquitted for in the past with human rights defenses” UK government officials met with representatives of Elbit Systems to “reassure” them that they would crack down harder on the protests.

As the independent outlet Declassified UK reported, in 2022, “then home secretary Priti Patel met privately with Martin Fausset, the CEO of Elbit Systems UK, to ‘discuss protests and security’, Home Office documents revealed that the purpose of the meeting was to ‘reassure… Fausset that the criminal protest acts against Elbit Systems UK are taken seriously by the Government’”.

As journalist Kit Klarenberg reported, soon after this meeting, a UK court “ruled that human rights defenses could only be relied on in cases of vandalism of public property, not in cases where criminal damage has been caused to private property. Because Elbit is a private company, the Attorney General’s Office used this determination to dramatically increase prosecutions of Palestine Action activists.”

The Guardian also reported that this meeting with Elbit Systems was “attended by a director from the Attorney General’s Office, said to be representing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).”

Tim Crosland from the Defend Our Juries group said “These disclosures, despite the extensive redaction, are the smoking gun on what has been obvious for a while: the government has been trying to put a stop to juries acquitting those who expose and resist corporate complicity in violations of international law and mass loss of life. Such political interference is a national scandal that goes right to the top – the corruption of democracy and the rule of law by those with wealth and power”.

The UK federal government has also coordinated with local police in an attempt to crack down on Palestine Action protestors, even giving a direct line of communication between Elbit Systems and UK police.

As Declassified UK reported, after “Palestine Action” activists disrupted an Elbit Systems drone factory in Leicester in 2023, “Britain’s policing minister Chris Philp held a briefing with Leicestershire police’s deputy chief constable regarding the ‘ongoing protests’”.

Notes from the meeting state that there were “Pushes for remand of those arrested and supports proactive action, show of police and clear[ly] expects us to be taking action against those that commit crime. Focus not on peaceful protestors and facilitating that but on the company”.

Another police file showed that Elbit Systems even shares intelligence on protestors with UK police, as Declassified UK reported, “Elbit Systems UK has ‘its own intelligence cell and shares[s] information with the Police across the country on a two weekly basis’, a police file observes.”

Along with Elbit Systems, the Israeli embassy in the UK has pressured the UK government to crack down on Palestine Action protests.

As the Guardian reported in August of 2023, “Israeli embassy officials in London attempted to get the attorney general’s office to intervene in UK court cases relating to the prosecution of protesters”.

The Guardian found that “The papers, obtained through a freedom of information (FoI) request by Palestine Action, indicate that embassy officials pressed for the director general of the attorney general’s office (AGO), Douglas Wilson, to interfere in cases related to protests on UK soil.”

Since the genocide in Gaza began, the UK government has gone further with its crackdown on Palestine Action activists.

In August of 2024, UK police arrested and charged 10 Palestine Action activists for entering an Elbit Systems facility in Filton, Bristol.

Documents have strongly suggested that the Israeli embassy interfered in the investigation into the Filton activists arrested.

As the Guardian reported in early September of 2024, the head of international law at Britain’s Attorney General’s Office, Nicola Smith, sent the contact details of the CPS (Crown Prosecutorial Service) and Britain’s counter terrorism police (SO15) -who investigated the Filton case- to the deputy Israeli ambassador to the UK, Daniela Grudsky Ekstein.

Keep reading

Beyond the Bombs: Who Really Won the 12-Day War Between Israel and Iran?

On June 13, 2025, Tel Aviv launched what many international observers and Iranian officials have described as an unprovoked military strike on Iran. Israeli jets bombed military and nuclear sites, while Mossad-run sleeper cells carried out sabotage missions against air and missile defense systems from within Iran, and drones smuggled into Tehran were launched against local missile launch bases.

Dozens—perhaps more—of nuclear scientists and top military commanders were murdered with surgical precision, often in the presence of innocent family members, who were themselves frequently killed. A climate of chaos and uncertainty seemed to engulf everything.

These early results so exhilarated Israeli officials that they talked a big game on where their operation would lead, making several incendiary claims along the way. They boasted of operating in Iranian airspace without hindrance, invited the U.S. to get formally involved with the “elimination” of Tehran’s nuclear weapons program, and anonymously briefed the media that “a multi-faceted misinformation campaign”—in which Donald Trump was an “active participant”—had been conducted “to convince Iran that a strike on its nuclear facilities was not imminent.”

Internationally-wanted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu forecast on June 15 that Israel’s war on Iran “could certainly” produce regime change, as the government was “very weak,” and that “80% of the people would throw these theological thugs out.”

A hard-hitting response to Netanyahu’s premonitions and Tel Aviv’s military strike quickly arrived from Tehran in the form of a wave of missile attacks. Wreaking unprecedented damage on Tel Aviv and Haifa. The impact on Israeli military installations is difficult to assess due to its strict policy of internal censorship.

Visibly, though, Iran’s bombardments sent Israelis scurrying for shelter, while many others fled the country outright. Such was the exodus, from a country that has already suffered mass depopulation since October 7, 2023—the Israeli government has since scrambled to implement legally questionable bans on its citizens leaving.

Keep reading

Baby Formula Runs Out in Gaza, Newborns Face Imminent Risk of Death Amid Israeli Blockade: UNFPA

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) warned on Monday that hundreds of newborns in incubators at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis are at imminent risk of death due to a severe shortage of baby formula, as Israel continues to block the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.

In a post on X, the UN agency said, “Infant formula has completely run out in the Gaza Strip, and they are at risk of death.”

On Thursday, two infants were announced dead due to a lack of medicine and nutrition, especially baby formula, at the Nasser Hospital, where lead doctors have been making demands to key figures, organisations and authorities to let in essential types of baby formula and other medical necessities to ensure the wellbeing of mothers and their children.
A total of 18,741 children in Gaza have been admitted for treatment of acute malnutrition since the beginning of this year, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). This comes amid a months-long Israeli blockade, with Gaza’s entire population now facing high levels of acute food insecurity.
In the first two weeks of June alone, there were 1,648 new admissions, with 17 of the patients suffering from complications, it said.
“The current volume and pace of deliveries remain critically insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza’s entire population, which is facing high levels of acute food insecurity,” OCHA said.

Keep reading

UK rap duo faces ‘hate crime’ probe over anti-genocide chants at Glastonbury

British authorities have launched a criminal investigation into the Glastonbury Music Festival performances of Kneecap and Bob Vylan, UK police announced on 30 June.

During their performance at the festival on Saturday, punk-rap duo Bob Vylan led tens of thousands in a chant of “Death, Death to the IDF,” in reference to the Israeli military that is committing genocide in Gaza, and “Free, Free Palestine.”

Avon and Somerset Police stated that a criminal investigation is now underway, citing hate crime laws.

“A senior detective has been appointed to lead this investigation,” a police spokesperson said. “This has been recorded as a public order incident at this time while our enquiries are at an early stage.”

The investigation will be “evidence-led and will closely consider all appropriate legislation, including relating to hate crimes,” the statement added.

Following the concert, US authorities revoked Boby Vylan’s US visas. The artists were also dropped by their agent at the US-based United Talent Agency.

Irish-language rap trio Kneecap took the stage next despite calls for them to be banned from performing. A member of the group, rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, is facing a terror charge after displaying a flag in support of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah at a performance in London last November.

The criminal investigation comes as the UK continues to crack down on pro-Palestine speech, journalism, and activism.

On Monday, the UK campaign group Palestine Action announced that it had launched legal proceedings to block the British government’s move to proscribe the group under anti-terror laws, a step that would make membership a criminal offense.

The legal challenge follows Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s announcement that she plans to place Palestine Action on the UK’s list of banned organizations, citing what she called the group’s “long history of unacceptable criminal damage.” 

Keep reading