Tag: perpetual war

Czech President Urges EU to Change Course and Take a Diplomatic Approach with Russia

In a candid interview with BBC Ukraine, Czech President Petr Pavel, a former general with decades of military experience, offered a pragmatic assessment of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Pavel emphasized the need for diplomatic pressure and negotiation to achieve a sustainable resolution.

Pavel, who assumed office in early 2023 after a career dedicated to the Czech armed force, has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. His recent remarks signal a shift towards a conservative approach focused on minimizing human and economic costs.

Pavel’s perspective comes amid stalled Ukrainian counteroffensives and mounting international fatigue. Reflecting on the conflict’s trajectory, he acknowledged Russia’s limited tactical victories, such as the occupation of certain territories, but highlighted the exorbitant price Moscow has paid in lives and resources.

“Russia has several tactical successes. They managed to seize some parts of Ukrainian territory, but their advance is worth great sacrifices and losses,” Pavel said. “I think this is a very, very high price for land grabbing.”

He praised Ukraine’s defensive efforts, noting their effectiveness in inflicting heavy damage on Russian forces and holding strategic positions.

However, Pavel warned that prolonging the war in its current state could extend for an indefinite period, a outcome he deemed unacceptable. “If the war continues in the same spirit, it will last for years, he stated, adding that such a scenario benefits no one.

Central to Pavel’s strategy is a balanced Western response. He supports the continued bolstering of Ukraine’s defenses to demonstrate that Russia cannot prevail militarily, while ramping up non-lethal pressures to push Moscow toward talks, so that “[Russia] understands that solutions can be found only at the negotiating table”.

Pavel expressed confidence in the combined economic might of the United States and Europe as the most potent weapon against Russian aggression. He predicted that Russia’s economy, already strained, would buckle under intensified sanctions, compelling it to negotiate sooner rather than later.

The Czech leader was forthright about the harsh realities facing Ukraine, arguing against demands for a hasty full liberation of occupied lands which could inflict significant human casualties. “We do not want to exterminate the Ukrainian people,” Pavel explained.

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Syrians Fear Israel Normalization Could Trigger Another Countrywide War

Many Syrians fear another country-wide war could erupt if the country’s new post-Assad rulers make peace with Israel through a normalization deal based on Trump’s Abraham Accords.

Last week, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reports that normalization with Syria and Lebanon is on the table, as Prime Minister Netanyahu agrees with Washington on a hoped-for expansion of the Abraham Accords.

“Israel is interested in expanding the Abraham Accords circle of peace and normalization,” Saar said. Israel had already signed deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – the result of Trump’s first term in office.

“We have an interest in adding countries such as Syria and Lebanon, our neighbors – to the circle of peace and normalization while safeguarding Israel’s essential and security interests,” Saar added.

PM Netanyahu himself has recently said that the June war with Iran had opened “the path to dramatically enlarge the peace accord.”

From a strategic point of view, Tel Aviv wants to isolate any Arab country which remains resistant and critical of its war in Gaza.

Going back to Hafez al-Assad who ruled Syria since 1970, Ba’ath-ruled Syria had long been Israel’s fiercest enemy and neighbor, with the two having fought several wars.

The average Syrian has long been hugely critical of Zionism and Israeli expansionism, particularly since it came under control of the Golan Heights.

Now under President Sharaa, hundreds of foreign jihadist groups are running around Syria, often persecuting Christians, Alawites, and Druze as Sharaa’s HTS government in Damascus turns a blind eye.

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Germany’s Globalist Chancellor Suggests Diplomacy with Russia has Been ‘Exhausted’; Signals Military Escalation

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke to parliament on July 9, stating that diplomatic means for resolving the Russia-Ukraine war “have been exhausted.” He followed by reaffirming his commitment to assist Kiev.

The statement comes on the heels of the failure of the recent Russian-Ukrainian peace talks in Istanbul, which failed to reach any progress toward ending the war. The embattled nations came to a new agreement on prisoner exchanges.

According to the Guardian, Merz went on to say, “When a criminal regime openly questions another country’s right to exist with military force and sets out to destroy the political order of freedom on the entire European continent, the federal government I lead will do everything in its power to prevent this.”

Merz’s comments follow Vladmir Putin confirming his readiness for a third round of peace talks, in which he suggested that both countries discuss details of their peace memorandums, which remain “absolutely opposite.” Putin hopes that these talks could bring the nations closer to finding agreeable terms.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov hopes that the next round of talks will be a direct meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, who has been notably absent in the previous talks, preferring to send lower-level officials.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is working toward bringing Zelenskyy and Putin together, with President Donald Trump potentially joining the talks, which he has affirmed his openness toward attending.

Putin said on June 27 that it was “quite possible” that a meeting between him and Donald Trump could take place.

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Trump’s BBB busts the budget to benefit arms makers, AI warlords

Trump’s bill slashes spending on veterans to boost corporate welfare for the Big Five arms manufacturers and surging AI spying firms like Palantir.

Originally published at Antiwar.com.

The Senate is on the verge of passing the distinctly misnamed “big beautiful bill.” It is, in fact, one of the ugliest pieces of legislation to come out of Congress in living memory. The version that passed the House recently would cut $1.7 trillion, mostly in domestic spending, while providing the top 5% of taxpayers with roughly $1.5 trillion in tax breaks.

Over the next few years, the same bill will add another $150 billion to a Pentagon budget already soaring towards a record $1 trillion. In short, as of now, in the battle between welfare and warfare, the militarists are carrying the day.

Pentagon Pork and the People It Harms

The bill allocates tens of billions of dollars to pursue President Trump’s cherished but hopeless Golden Dome project, which Laura Grego of the Union of Concerned Scientists has described as “a fantasy.” She explained exactly why the Golden Dome, which would supposedly protect the United States against nuclear attack, is a pipe dream:

“Over the last 60 years, the United States has spent more than $350 billion on efforts to develop a defense against nuclear-armed ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles]. This effort has been plagued by false starts and failures, and none have yet been demonstrated to be effective against a real-world threat… Missile defenses are not a useful or long-term strategy for keeping the U.S. safe from nuclear weapons.”

The bill also includes billions more for shipbuilding, heavy new investments in artillery and ammunition, and funding for next-generation combat aircraft like the F-47.

Oh, and after all of those weapons programs get their staggering cut of that future Pentagon budget, somewhere way down at the bottom of that list is a line item for improving the quality of life for active-duty military personnel. But the share aimed at the well-being of soldiers, sailors, and airmen (and women) is less than 6% of the $150 billion that Congress is now poised to add to that department’s already humongous budget. And that’s true despite the way Pentagon budget hawks invariably claim that the enormous sums they routinely plan on shoveling into it — and the overflowing coffers of the contractors it funds — are “for the troops.”

Much of the funding in the bill will flow into the districts of key members of Congress (to their considerable political benefit). For example, the Golden Dome project will send billions of dollars to companies based in Huntsville, Alabama, which calls itself “Rocket City” because of the dense network of outfits there working on both offensive missiles and missile defense systems. And that, of course, is music to the ears of Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), the current chair of the House Armed Services Committee, who just happens to come from Alabama.

The shipbuilding funds will help prop up arms makers like HII Corporation (formerly Huntington Ingalls), which runs a shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, the home state of Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss).  The funds will also find their way to shipyards in Maine, Connecticut, and Virginia.

Those funds will benefit the co-chairs of the House Shipbuilding Caucus, Representative Joe Courtney (D-CT) and Representative Rob Wittman (R-VA). Connecticut hosts General Dynamics’ Electric Boat plant, which makes submarines that carry ballistic missiles, while Virginia is home to HII Corporation’s Newport News Shipbuilding facility, which makes both aircraft carriers and attack submarines.

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Former Biden, Obama spokespersons cash in on Gaza genocide

A mercenary firm implicated in severe abuses in Gaza has hired a PR firm led by influential former Democrat flacks, including the spokeswoman for Biden’s Pentagon.

Meanwhile, a former State Dept spokesman who defended Israel’s crimes is now VP at a Democrat PR firm representing Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Editor’s note: After The Grayzone published a report revealing damning new footage showing mercenaries from the UG Solutions firm firing toward crowds of desperate aid seekers in the southern Gaza Strip, the company deleted its entire press page. (The previously unreported footage had been inexplicably distributed to the media by UG Solutions itself).

Two days later, thanks to the sleuthing of journalist Jack Poulson, we learned that UG Solutions’ new press page was created by Seven Letter, a PR management firm operated by former Obama and Biden communications officials. Among those hired by Seven Letter was Sabrina Singh, the former Pentagon spokeswoman who routinely spun Israel’s crimes.

Seven Letters’ Gaza profiteering follows the high-level contract Israel’s Foreign Ministry signed with a top PR firm run by Biden veterans called SKDK. Among SKDK’s top recent hires was Vedant Patel, the former spokesman for the Biden State Department who was notorious for his absurd denials of documented Israeli crimes across occupied Palestine.

In addition to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, SKDK represents the 10/7 Project, a consortium of Jewish organizations which attacks reporters who fail to toe Israel’s line on Gaza.

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Why the next world order will be armed with nukes

A multipolar world is, by its nature, a nuclear one. Its conflicts are increasingly shaped by the presence of nuclear weapons. Some of these wars, such as the conflict in Ukraine, are fought indirectly. Others, as in South Asia, unfold in more direct forms. In the Middle East, one nuclear power has attempted to preempt another state’s potential development of nuclear weapons, backed by an even more powerful nuclear-armed ally. Meanwhile, rising tensions in East Asia and the Western Pacific bring the risk of a direct clash between nuclear states ever closer.

Having avoided a nuclear catastrophe during the Cold War, some European countries have since lost the sense of caution once associated with possessing such weapons. There are several reasons for this. During the ‘mature’ Cold War years, especially after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear weapons played their intended role: they deterred and intimidated. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact operated on the assumption that any large-scale confrontation would escalate into a nuclear conflict. Recognizing this danger, the political leaderships in Washington and Moscow worked to avoid the unthinkable.

Notably, while the Americans entertained the idea of a limited nuclear war confined to Europe, Soviet strategists remained deeply skeptical. During decades of Soviet-American confrontation, all military conflicts occurred far from Europe and outside the core security interests of the two powers.

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‘No nation is above the law’: Colombia to host international summit against Israeli impunity

More than 20 states will gather in Bogota on 15–16 July to declare “concrete measures” against Israel’s violations of international law, according to diplomats speaking to Middle East Eye.

The summit, co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa, will bring together members and supporters of The Hague Group, a bloc launched in January to confront what it calls “a climate of impunity” surrounding Israel’s actions in Gaza.

The group includes Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa, with additional countries such as Spain, Ireland, Turkiye, Portugal, China, Qatar, Algeria, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Oman, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Uruguay, and Palestine set to attend.

Colombian Vice-Minister of Multilateral Affairs Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir said the summit would not only reaffirm the group’s resistance to the ongoing “Palestinian genocide,” but also outline specific steps to move from words to collective action. 

“Colombia cannot be indifferent in the face of apartheid and ethnic cleansing,” he said.

The conference will be hosted at the Museo Nacional de Colombia under the banner Collective Action in Defense of Palestine, with keynote remarks to be delivered by UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese – who was recently sanctioned by the US for what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel.”

Other speakers include UK parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn, EU lawmaker Rima Hassan, and Andres Macias Tolosa of the UN Working Group on Mercenaries. Colombia’s Minister of Culture, Yannai Kadamani Fonrodona, will also participate.

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The Pentagon spent $4 trillion over 5 years. Contractors got 54% of it.

Advocates of ever-higher Pentagon spending frequently argue that we must throw more money at the department to “support the troops.” But recent budget proposals and a new research paper issued by the Quincy Institute and the Costs of War Project at Brown University suggest otherwise.

The paper, which I co-authored with Stephen Semler, found that 54% of the Pentagon’s $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 went to military contractors. The top five alone — Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion) – received $771 billion in Pentagon contracts over that five year period.

This huge infusion of funds to arms makers comes at the expense of benefits for active duty personnel and veterans of America’s post-9/11 wars. Despite pay increases in recent years, there are still hundreds of thousands of military families who rely on food stamps, live in subpar housing, or suffer from other financial hardships.

Meanwhile, there are plans to cut tens of thousands of personnel at the Veterans Administration, close Veterans health centers, and even to reduce staffing at veteran suicide hotlines. And many of the programs veterans and their families depend on — from food stamps to Medicaid and more — are slated for sharp cuts in the budget bill signed by President Trump earlier this month.

It would be one thing if all of the hundreds of billions of dollars lavished on weapons contractors were being well spent in service of a better defense. But they are not. Overpriced and underperforming weapons systems like the F-35 combat aircraft and the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) have shown themselves to be quite effective at consuming taxpayer dollars, even as the run huge cost overruns, suffer lengthy schedule delays, and, in the case of the F-35, are unavailable for use much of the time due to serious maintenance problems.

The problems with the Sentinel and the F-35 are likely to pale in comparison with the sums that may be wasted in pursuit of President Trump’s proposal for a leak-proof “Golden Dome” missile defense system, a costly pipe dream that many experts feel is both physically impossible and strategically unwise. In the more than four decades and hundreds of billions of dollars spent since Ronald Reagan’s pledge to build an impenetrable shield against incoming ICBMs, the Pentagon has yet to succeed in a test conducted under realistic conditions, and has even failed in a large number of the carefully scripted efforts.

And Golden Dome is more ambitious than Star Wars — it is supposed to intercept not just ICBMs, but hypersonic missiles, low-flying drones, and anything else that might be launched at the United States.

The good news is that if you are a weapons contractor, whether from the Big Five or the emerging military tech sector in Silicon Valley, Golden Dome will be a gold mine, regardless of whether it ever produces a useful defense system.

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President Trump Says U.S. to Send More Weapons to Ukraine Just Days After Pentagon Warned of Depleted Stockpiles

In a whiplash reversal that has infuriated America-First conservatives, President Donald Trump now says the United States “has to” ship still more arms, missiles, and ammo to Ukraine — just days after the Pentagon froze deliveries because our own stockpiles are running dry.

Less than a week ago, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth halted Patriot interceptors, artillery shells, and precision missiles, citing “dangerously low” U.S. inventories.

The Trump Administration is withholding shipments promised by the Biden Regime after the Pentagon’s policy chief Elbridge Colby found the US’s stockpiles of munitions and air defense missiles are dangerously low.

Last September, the Biden Regime announced an eye-watering $8 billion in military aid for Ukraine during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington.

Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Congress has approved nearly $175 billion in aid and military assistance for Ukraine.

“Biden emptied out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves’, the president argued. ‘We’ve given so many weapons, but we are giving weapons, and we’re working with them and trying to help them,” Trump said.

Yet on Monday night, seated beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump declared that Ukraine is being hit “very hard” and must receive more “defensive weapons.”

“We’re going to send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves. They’re getting hit very hard now,” Trump told reporters.

“Defensive weapons, primarily, but they’re getting hit very, very hard. So many people are dying in that mess,” he added.

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American cult: Why our special ops need a reset

America’s post-9/11 conflicts have left indelible imprints on our society and our military. In some cases, these changes were so gradual that few noticed the change, except as snapshots in time.

This is the case with the “Cult of Special Operations Forces (SOF)” that has emerged since 2001, first within the military, and then with society through mass media including popular autobiographies and movies ranging from “Black Hawk Down,” “Lone Survivor” “American Sniper,” “SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden” and many, many others. The Cult has metastasized to many broader cultural accoutrements (video games, fashion, veteran culture, etc.).

As with other situations where we see friends proceeding down an untenable path together, America’s relationship with its special operators requires an intervention.

First, to my SOF colleagues past and present, it’s not you…it’s us. Well, it’s mostly us — but a little bit you, too. This is not a screed against SOF; I am an old SOF tribal member, and I have many friends and family members within the community. Our SOF troops are an incredible resource for the country — they are almost invariably brave, patriotic, fit, and spectacularly competent. Regardless of our differing policy views, we should be proud of their professionalism and their many tactical accomplishments over recent decades.

What I am about to say will no doubt anger some of my SOF friends — but mainly because they’ll know that I’m right. In the coming years, we will require an institutional and psychological reset of relations between America and her special operators. The elitism and secrecy of the current “Cult of SOF” is bad for the military, bad for society, and — ultimately — bad for the operators themselves.

SOF and “Big Army”

Until relatively recently, the U.S. military had a problematic relationship with its special forces. The Vietnam experience soured many in the conventional military on the special operators, whom they saw as ill-disciplined and overrated. Others argued that concentrating superior troops and leaders in single units denied the rest of the force the leavening effect that those soldiers could have added to regular formations.

Despite the skepticism of senior leaders, however, SOF expanded on an ad hoc basis in the years following Vietnam, until its tenuous position with the Pentagon changed with the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which established an overarching Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and strengthened the position of SOF within the defense structure.

The institutional strength of SOF relative to their conventional cousins was subsequently turbocharged by the 9/11 attacks and their leading role in the ensuing Forever Wars.

Today’s operators enjoy a privileged and inverted relationship with their parent services. SOF is now a caste apart, dominating the upper ranks of the military and monopolizing media and cultural attention. The “quiet professionals” many originally envisaged now have a media machine unrivaled across the military. Today’s SOF often treat the conventional military as the minor leagues from which they can selectively draw new talent. This distinction impacts the morale of conventional forces, even if few are prepared to publicly discuss it.

This stratification has impacts beyond hurt feelings, however. Separate chains of command and separate lines of effort can sometimes undermine what should be unified campaign plans. SOF theory begins with the proposition that specially selected and trained small units can have a vastly disproportionate battlefield impact, and this has often been the case. Sometimes, however, conventional units and scarce air assets have had to drastically intervene to pull SOF forces out of untenable situations of their own making, as happened in Mogadishu, and Operation ANACONDA, and elsewhere.

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