Tag: perpetual war

Ukraine Faces Growing Air Defense Crisis As Patriot Supplies Dwindle

  • Ukraine failed to intercept any of the 24 ballistic missiles and four Zircon cruise missiles Russia fired in the August 5 attack, underscoring the strain on its missile defenses.
  • U.S. Patriot availability has become a significant constraint after extensive interceptor use during the Iran conflict.
  • Kyiv is increasingly seeking European inventories, expanded production, and eventually licensed or joint Patriot manufacturing to secure its air defenses ahead of winter.

Ukraine’s failure to intercept a single Russian missile during a large-scale overnight attack this week has raised fresh concerns over Kyiv’s dwindling supply of air-defense interceptors as Moscow escalates its ballistic missile strikes on the nearly defenseless capital and other regions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that deliveries of anti-ballistic interceptor missiles from partner countries have fallen sharply, leaving Ukraine vulnerable to deadly attacks that are being launched by Russia with increasing frequency.

Following a meeting with Ukraine’s military leadership on protecting critical infrastructure on August 2, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had received only a third as many air-defense interceptors this year compared to the same period in 2025.

“Our partners have the missiles. What is needed are the necessary political decisions on deliveries and on accelerating production, including localization in Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said.

Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze, who was in Kyiv during the most recent attack on August 5, condemned Russia’s latest strikes, which lit up the late-night skies with balls of flames from massive explosions.

“It was a vile attack on Ukrainians. I was hiding in the shelter along with a number of them and admiring their resilience. Russia is a terrorist state and needs to be contained,” she wrote on X.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha also urged allies not to slow military assistance.

Speaking on August 5, he said:

“Russian strikes take no summer vacation; support for Ukraine and pressure on the aggressor must not pause, either. Every interceptor counts. They are life-saving tools.”

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Judge Halts $800-a-Day Fines Against Investigative Journalist Catherine Herridge for Refusing to Betray Confidential Sources in China-Tied Case

Investigative reporter Catherine Herridge secured a major, though temporary, victory for press freedom after a federal judge clarified that she will not have to keep paying an $800-per-day contempt fine while her legal team asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her First Amendment case.

The court also denied plaintiff Yanping Chen’s request to increase the daily fine to a staggering $5,000 and ordered that the money Herridge has already paid be returned, Herridge announced Friday in a statement on X.

The district court has clarified that I don’t have to pay the $800 daily contempt fine for refusing to disclose my confidential sources while our team asks the Supreme Court to hear our First Amendment case.

The court also denied the plaintiff, Yanping Chen’s request to raise the daily contempt fines to 5K. The court ordered reimbursement for the fines I have already paid.

This case is much bigger than one journalist, one story, or one news outlet. The outcome will impact every newsroom in this country and the ability of reporters to protect their sources and do investigative reporting that seeks accountability.

Yet, critical evidence remains hidden from the public and under seal by the District Court.

At a time when many corporate media outlets choose to settle or pressure journalists to surrender their notes, I want to acknowledge that Fox News has continued to stand behind me and fully support the First Amendment and investigative journalism by paying my attorney’s fees.

I remain committed to safeguarding the principles of investigative journalism and a free press.

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Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan Sign Islamic NATO-Style Defense Pact Amid Iran War

On Friday Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a major defense agreement as leaders gathered in the city of Makkah, Saudi Arabia. It seeks to strengthen joint deterrence and expanding defense cooperation, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

It is essentially a NATO-style agreement for the ‘Muslim world’ – given that it stipulates and formalizes that an armed attack on any of the countries will be treated as an attack against all of them.

Formally called the Makkah Joint Defense Agreement, it “reflects the three nations’ commitment to bolstering their collective security and promoting peace, security and stability in the region and the wider world,” SPA reported.

The combined estimated population of these Muslim-majority countries is 380 million people, or according to the high estimates… approaching 400 million.

Al Jazeera comments on the significance of the historic pact as follows:

This is more than a diplomatic get-together and the signing of an agreement.

This essentially puts three of the largest Muslim populations together on the roadmap for joint peace, for deterring any act of aggression against them, for making sure that they are in tune with each other when it comes to intelligence sharing, gathering all of the information that is required, and also enhancing cooperation in all sorts of spheres – whether it’s energy, defence expenditure or manufacturing, among others.

Pakistan brings with it, obviously, its nuclear arsenal, battle-hardened military, and munitions it has been supplying. Turkiye, with its advanced drone and munitions systems, is a NATO member, combined with the economic power of Saudi Arabia.

The three of them combined now present a force that will take this region towards a different security architecture than the one in place over the last few decades, especially in the wake of the Iran war.

Indeed this further formalizes Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella for Saudi Arabia, which lacks atomic weapons. Turkey does not have its own nukes either, but plays host to US nuclear weapons as part of NATO. Turkey maintains the second-largest military within the NATO alliance, behind the United States.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia already have a bilateral defense pact, somewhat recently inked, which has lately seen Islamabad deploy 8,000 troops, a ​squadron of fighter jets, and an air defense system to Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi kingdom has lately been subject of sporadic ‘retaliatory’ attacks from Iran in the context of the war, and has earlier even responded by launching numerous unpublicized strikes on Iran.

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Russia Prepares Children for War

Russia is now doubling the military content imposed on school children. Beginning September 1, military instruction in the compulsory course called “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland” will rise from 20% to 50% of teaching time for students in grades six through eleven. The Russian government is converting the classroom into a military recruitment center.

The program reportedly includes drone operation, engineering instruction, military camps, and preparation for future service. Occupation authorities in Donetsk have approved a ten-year plan extending through 2036, while vocational students in occupied Kherson are being taught to operate, maintain, and repair drones. In occupied Luhansk, children are being absorbed into cadet groups, political organizations, and so-called patriotic movements designed to replace their identity with loyalty to Moscow.

Critics who say I only condemn Zelensky and Europe have not been reading my work closely. EVERY GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT. Few truly care about future generations. The masses are the disposable great unwashed to be used as their overlords see fit. Granted, many leaders are worse than others, but no one in government is “the good guy” when we are dealing with war. I do believe Putin attempted to extend the olive branch and end this conflict numerous times over, but that is simply impossible since the Western decision-makers believe this conflict can save their nations from the sovereign debt crisis. They are WRONG but there is too much tied into Ukraine at this point for the war to simply end. Kids will learn how to murder their fellow human because that is the world they will be raised in and the skills necessary to propel the machine. At the same time, this will not be a forever indefinite war. The world will not look the same once it is over.

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Uganda Approves Deployment of Troops to Gaza for Trump’s Ceasefire Plan

The Ugandan parliament voted on Tuesday to approve deploying soldiers to the Gaza Strip as part of the International Stabilization Force (ISF) envisioned by President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan.

Ugandan Defense Minister Kiryowa Kiwanuka told parliament ahead of the vote that Trump’s emissaries approached Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in July to ask for a contribution of soldiers to the ISF. He said senior military officials immediately began working with the U.S. Embassy in Kampala on details of the prospective deployment.

“Following the invitation by His Excellency Donald Trump … the President of the Republic of Uganda, ​is ready to deploy in the Gaza Strip the desired ​Uganda ⁠People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) contingent,” Kiwanuka said.

The Ugandan constitution gives the president authority to deploy UPDF forces outside Uganda, but only with the approval of parliament. Kiwanuka told lawmakers that deployment to Gaza was urgently needed “to protect civilians and allow for increased humanitarian access in the parts affected directly by the conflict.”

The defense minister said President Museveni believes deployment to Gaza would be in line with Uganda’s past support for peacekeeping missions, and would advance the goal of worldwide peace and stability.

“Uganda’s participation as part of the ISF will aid in preventing further conflicts in the region, thus contributing to broader international security by reducing risks of renewed armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, preventing extremist groups from exploiting instability and sabotaging the ceasefire implementation process,” Kiwanuka said.

The Associated Press (AP) noted there was some resistance from opposition lawmakers, including concerns that participating in the Gaza ISF could jeopardize Uganda’s membership in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

Uganda is roughly 80 percent Christian, but it joined the OIC in 1974 during the reign of dictator Idi Amin Dada, who was nervous about being overthrown and wanted to consolidate Muslim support for his regime. Amin was driven into exile about five years later, ending one of the most brutal regimes in African history.

Opposition lawmaker Hassan Kirumira said in a parliamentary speech that the “big question” was: “On which side is our army going to fight?”

The ISF concept remains somewhat nebulous, with only five countries committed to providing troops so far: Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania. Egypt and Jordan have additionally volunteered to assist with training Palestinian police officers for Gaza.

The largest firm commitment to date came from Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who pledged “a significant number of troops – up to 8,000 or more, if necessary.”

On Friday, the “Board of Peace” established by President Trump’s ceasefire plan announced its first construction plan, a base that would accommodate 150 personnel from the ISF. The base will be constructed on territory directly controlled by Israel, about a mile from the Israeli border, which would make it easy to evacuate the ISF personnel in the event of an emergency. The first group to occupy the base will be a contingent of Moroccan troops.

According to the UK Guardian, the contract for base construction was awarded to a Louisiana-based firm called Arkel International. A Board of Peace official said none of the contracts for Gaza have been finalized yet.

The Guardian said earlier contract plans portrayed the 150-person base as “first phase” of an ambitious project to construct a 5,000-person base in Gaza for the ISF. The initial small base will be rudimentary, but the larger base would be heavily fortified.

President Trump last week announced a deal had been struck for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to disarm, while Israel begins withdrawing its forces from Gaza, which would clear the way for the ISF to take over.

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Trump Threatens To Jail Arms Shortage ‘Leakers’

President Trump on Thursday threatened “leakers” with jail time over reports about dwindling US military stockpiles as a result of the Iran war, and claimed the US had plenty of munitions available.

“The US has massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types. Additionally, large amounts are being manufactured and shipped to the US as needed,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“Defense companies are building the largest number of plants and factories in our country’s history. The ‘leakers’ of these treasonous statements are being hunted down,” the president added.

Some of the most significant reports about the shortage of advanced munitions didn’t come from media reports but from analysis published by the think tank the Center for International Studies (CSIS), which used publicly available data to produce its estimates.

CSIS found that the US has used about 60% of its advanced Patriot air defense missiles and about half of its interceptors for the THAAD missile defense system, though sources told CNN that the US had actually used about 80% of its THAADs during the war.

While Trump says that US arms makers are working to produce more munitions, the current rate of weapons use far exceeds the rate at which they can be produced, and it will take years to significantly increase production.

Media reports have also said that the US has used up nearly all of its ATACMS missiles and Precision-Strike Missiles, which were both used extensively in strikes on Iran.

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Britain’s Hybrid Threats Directorate: Whitehall’s Ministry for Manufacturing Enemies

A British government operation established to counter Russian disinformation has expanded to Iran, China and Gaza, according to leaked Foreign Office files examined by David Miller, a British political sociologist and investigative researcher specialising in the study of propaganda and political influence.

Miller’s investigation for MintPress News draws on internal government pages and an organizational chart naming officials, specialist teams and private contractors. The documents expose part of a state apparatus that operates with little public scrutiny while monitoring and countering narratives deemed threatening to British interests.

At the centre of the files is the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Information Threats and Influence Directorate. Its teams covered Russia, China and Iran, while another structure worked on Israel and Gaza. Miller reports that the directorate was later absorbed into the Cyber, Information and Tech Threats Directorate. Its functions now appear to fall within the broader Hybrid Threats Directorate.

Iran was not merely added to a list of foreign concerns. Miller reports that leaked charts place the China and Iran desk under the same official who led a semi-detached team focused on Israel and Gaza, with personnel developing proactive campaigns alongside regional and communications departments. The documents therefore place work concerning Iran, Israel and Gaza within an overlapping institutional structure, showing how the same Foreign Office information-threat structure could be directed across related geopolitical issues.

The Gaza operation emerges amid an unprecedented crackdown on Palestine solidarity in Britain. The government proscribed Palestine Action under terrorism legislation in July 2025. Since then, more than 3,300 people have been arrested and over 1,200 charged with terrorism-related offences, many for peacefully opposing the ban. The UN human rights chief warned that the proscription misused counterterrorism law and threatened freedom of expression, assembly and association.

The leaked files expose another layer of state power behind that visible police response. Government analysts monitor political narratives and trace how they circulate, while intelligence agencies, communications teams and contractors develop measures against activity classified as foreign manipulation. Ministers have already portrayed pro-Palestinian demonstrations as having been “hijacked” by people seeking to sow division. Within the information-threat apparatus described by Miller, such rhetoric can recast opposition to British support for Israel as something imported, manipulated or dangerous rather than a genuine political response to the destruction of Gaza.

Once dissent enters that system, official assessments can shape government messaging, engagement with online platforms, funding decisions and how people are treated across public institutions. The machinery exposed by Miller allows officials to define the threat, identify its alleged carriers and intervene without disclosing the evidence behind those judgments.

Parliamentary oversight has not kept pace. The Intelligence and Security Committee has warned that security functions transferred into policy departments have escaped its scrutiny. The government blocked attempts to extend the committee’s remit to bodies including the Counter Disinformation Unit and the Foreign Office’s intelligence policy department, preventing what the committee called “effective scrutiny by Parliament.”

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The Fourth Turning Global War Has Already Bankrupted America — And Nobody’s Counting the Bodies

The numbers came in just after dawn on the East Coast, and they told a story that no amount of White House spin could obscure. Oil futures had stabilized at $86 per barrel overnight—a figure that would have seemed catastrophic eighteen months ago but now represented a temporary reprieve from the $119 spike that had crippled global markets in April. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, that emergency backstop established after the 1973 crisis, had fallen to 305 million barrels, its lowest level since 1983. The Congressional Budget Office quietly released its revised deficit projections: $2.3 trillion for fiscal year 2026, with another $1.8 trillion locked in for 2027 before accounting for the war’s accelerating costs, currently running at $1 billion per day with no exit strategy visible on any horizon.

This is not a recession. This is not a “period of heightened geopolitical tension.” This is the systematic dismantling of the global economic architecture that has sustained Western prosperity for eighty years, compressed into a timeframe too brief for institutional adaptation. We are witnessing, in real-time, the transition from a unipolar American-led order to a fragmented multipolar system, and the violence of that transition is being measured not just in body counts—though those are mounting in ways the Pentagon refuses to fully disclose—but in the erosion of strategic leverage that cannot be recovered once spent.

The Fourth Turning Global War has entered its terminal phase, and the metrics suggest we are only beginning to comprehend the depth of the strategic trap into which American policy has walked.

To understand the present crisis, one must first abandon the comforting narrative of accidental drift—the notion that policy errors and miscalculation have led to the current impasse. The data suggests something more troubling: a decoupling of strategic decision-making from national interest calculation, producing outcomes that serve no identifiable American objective while advancing the interests of regional actors with disproportionate influence over U.S. policy formation.

Consider the timeline with the precision of a military after-action report. On February 27, 2026, the United States initiated a surprise decapitation strike against Iranian leadership while Israeli envoys maintained ostensible negotiations in Geneva. The strike eliminated Iran’s military command structure and political leadership in a forty-eight-hour bombardment that the White House initially projected would conclude within “four to five weeks.” That projection, made on March 1, has now stretched to month five with no conclusion visible. The Strait of Hormuz, through which twenty percent of global petroleum flows, has been effectively closed since mid-March. Iranian ballistic missile strikes, utilizing Chinese targeting data and Russian satellite intelligence, have damaged or destroyed every major U.S. installation in the Persian Gulf, including Al Udeid in Qatar, Prince Sultan in Saudi Arabia, and the naval facilities at Bahrain.

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The Old Are Volunteering the Young for War

According to the European Council on Foreign Relations, support for mandatory military service reached 62% in France, 53% in Germany, and 51% in Poland. Yet the most revealing numbers appear when the German results are divided by age, because net opposition among those aged 18 to 29 reached 46%, while net support among respondents over 70 stood at 49%.

The people safely beyond military age are volunteering the young for war. They will not receive the draft notice, undergo the medical examination, surrender their careers, or be ordered into a trench. They will watch the war on television while congratulating themselves for supporting “national service,” as if clicking yes in a poll were an act of personal courage.

There is something profoundly immoral about demanding a sacrifice that you will never be required to make. If those over 70 believe so passionately in military service, governments can create senior battalions and hand them the rifles first. Let the politicians, retired bureaucrats, television commentators, and comfortable academics who preach war demonstrate their convictions personally before they conscript an 18-year-old who wants nothing to do with their geopolitical fantasies.

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Denmark Is Drafting Its Youth for Europe’s Manufactured War

Reuters reports that 1,600 Danish recruits began an expanded 11-month term of military service on August 3, up from only four months under the previous system. Denmark has extended conscription to women, plans to increase the annual intake from roughly 5,000 to 7,500 by 2033, and will send conscripts to Greenland for the first time. Europe is not preparing for peace. It is preparing an entire generation for a war its political class refuses to prevent.

The new Danish program requires five months of basic training followed by six months of operational service. New tracks include drone warfare, and more than 100 conscripts will be sent to Greenland to assume military duties previously performed by professional soldiers. The government calls this security. I call it the gradual conversion of ordinary citizens into military assets for politicians who have spent years escalating every dispute they could have negotiated.

Denmark still uses volunteers before filling vacancies through a lottery, but a lottery backed by state coercion is still conscription. Every healthy man and woman who turns 18 enters a system that can seize nearly one year of life because politicians in Copenhagen, Brussels, and NATO have decided that Russia represents a permanent threat. When voluntary recruitment no longer supplies enough bodies, the meaning of “service” will become much clearer.

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