Tag: perpetual war

The Enemy the Alliance Needs

On the morning of August 6, near the coastal town of Furuvik, a Russian couple named Semyon Rusanov and Tatyana Milenina were declared a threat to the security of the Swedish state. They had lived in Spain for five years. They opposed the war in Ukraine. They had not set foot in Russia since 2022. They had a tent, fishing rods, and two tourist walkie-talkies, and they had camped within sight of the summer cottage used by the chief executive of an arms company. For this they were interrogated for seven hours, locked in a migration detention center, and ordered deported.

No espionage charge was filed. No charge of any kind was filed. Säpo, the Swedish security service, never took the case. The couple’s lawyer said they were never notified of any suspected crime. The evidence, entire, was that they spoke Russian, carried radios sold to hikers, and could not explain their choice of campsite to the satisfaction of a policeman. On that foundation the state moved against them.

An American reader might file this under European strangeness and move on. That would be a mistake. What happened at Furuvik is a small, clear demonstration of the machinery that Washington has spent three years installing across Europe – the machinery of the necessary enemy – and the wreckage at the center of the story lies at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, where it points not at Moscow, and not really at Stockholm, but at home.

The pipeline Washington promised to destroy

Begin with the pipeline, because everything else hangs from it.

On February 7, 2022 – seventeen days before Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine – President Joe Biden stood beside the German chancellor and made a promise about Nord Stream 2, the pipeline built to carry Russian gas to Germany. “If Russia invades,” Biden said, “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” A reporter asked how, given the project lay under German control. “I promise you,” the president answered, “we will be able to do it.”

Seven months later, someone did. On September 26, 2022, four explosions ruptured the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines beneath the Baltic. In February 2023, Seymour Hersh – the reporter who exposed the My Lai massacre and the CIA’s domestic spying — published an account, sourced to a person with direct knowledge of the planning, of how the United States did it: Navy divers from the Diving and Salvage Center in Panama City, Florida, planting remotely triggered charges under cover of the NATO exercise BALTOPS 22, detonated three months later by a sonar buoy dropped from a Norwegian aircraft. Hersh reported that the operation was routed through Navy divers precisely because, unlike Special Operations Command, they are not required to report to Congress – that when the national-security bureaucracy debated the plan, CIA director William Burns came back and said, “Do it.” The purpose, Hersh’s source told him, was to lock Europe into the war at a moment when allies were wavering: destroy the pipeline, and you destroy the temptation to make peace and buy Russian gas again.

The White House and Norway denied it. Hersh’s account rests on a single anonymous source and has not been independently confirmed. I set it beside you not as proven fact but as the account Washington has never had to answer under oath – because, as we will see, the one country positioned to force that answer chose instead to look away. And whatever one makes of Hersh’s source, the hard facts around it are not in dispute: the president publicly vowed to end the pipeline, the pipeline was destroyed, and the United States was, as even Russia’s critics conceded, the principal beneficiary of its destruction.

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Pentagon’s Iran war costs hit $38 billion in five months – budget office

The US war with Iran cost the Pentagon approximately $38 billion in its first five months, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The bill could rise by another $2 billion to $3 billion for every additional month of fighting – and by more if hostilities intensify.

In a report released on Tuesday, the CBO estimated Defense Department expenses from the start of US combat operations on February 28 through August 1. The figure includes the estimated cost of replacing expended munitions and equipment lost in battle, as well as additional flying hours, military operations, and higher fuel costs.

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Netanyahu: I’ll introduce bill to revoke citizenship of those who slander IDF abroad

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he will introduce two bills to punish those who slander IDF soldiers abroad.

The first bill will introduce the option of revoking their citizenship, and the second will increase the sum they can be sued for if found guilty, Netanyahu says in a video, explicitly referencing Democrats party chief Yair Golan, former military advocate-general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi and the filmmakers behind the recent film “NAZA.”

“Their place isn’t here,” says Netanyahu, adding that he expects all Zionist parties to support the measures.

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The Compliance Layer: DEI, Readiness, And The Military’s Personnel Problem

The latest Pentagon outrage is aimed at the smallest part of the story. In late August 2026, The Washington Post reported that conservative military veterans with large online followings had received civilian roles the department would not clearly describe, near Anthony Tata’s Personnel and Readiness shop. The names included retired Col. Rob Maness, retired Col. Kurt Schlichter, and retired Col. Thomas Anderson, known online as “Cynical Publius.” They say the work involved reviewing senior service colleges — curriculum, interviews with commandants and faculty — not running a messaging shop.

The Pentagon still has not published the documents that would settle it.

Fine. Ask those questions. But do not pretend this is when politics first entered the building. The better question is whether the military had already been politicized before a few outside veterans received government email accounts.

The issue is not whether influencers now orbit the Pentagon; it is why influence only becomes scandalous when it challenges the last decade’s abysmal record, personnel doctrine, and culture-war assumptions.

The real power is not who gets a Pentagon email address. It is who writes the rules governing who may serve, what counts as fit, what officers are taught, what commanders may question, and who gets retained or removed.

They are not under fire for the policy argument. They are under fire for the name. The charge attaches to the name so no one has to answer the policy. It is still not the same as using government machinery to rewrite accessions, medical rules, fitness scoring, or careers.

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Pentagon reveals secret space weapons are already in orbit — but won’t say what they do

The U.S. has weapons orbiting Earth that can be used to defend American forces from attacks in space, the Air Force secretary revealed this week in a rare public acknowledgment of capabilities the Pentagon has largely kept secret.

Air Force Secretary Troy Meink said Monday that the Space Force now has “on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action,” but declined to say what the weapons are, how they work or when they were deployed.

The carefully worded disclosure marks a shift in how openly the U.S. military talks about weapons in orbit as China and Russia develop their own capabilities to disrupt, disable or destroy satellites.

“Is there any question in the room, by anybody, about whether or not the Chinese or Russians have been developing these sorts of weapons?” Meink told reporters after his remarks at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference in National Harbor, Maryland — right outside of Washington, D.C.

“For over a decade, we’ve been talking about the fact, and we have expressed concern, that the Chinese and Russians were developing weapons for space,” he continued. “We need to focus on making sure we can protect ourselves operating in that environment.”

Exactly what the U.S. has put into orbit remains a mystery.

The U.S. has previously discussed placing weapons in space, including plans to deploy space-based interceptors capable of destroying incoming missiles as part of President Donald Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense system.

But Meink’s disclosure goes a step further: The Space Force already has weapons in orbit for “space control,” a mission aimed at protecting U.S. access to space and, if necessary, denying an adversary the ability to use it.

The Pentagon has historically revealed little about the weapons developed for that mission, with publicly known U.S. counter-space capabilities largely based on the ground.

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‘Peace Through Strength’ as a Revolt Against Nature

“Peace Through Strength” has been a Republican mantra for decades. The slogan holds that peace can be achieved by maintaining a powerful military capable of deterring potential adversaries. It is said that sufficient military power – occasionally showcased by stomping on those who would seek to question its overarching authority – instills fear in America’s adversaries, leading to peace and safety.

While this concept of statecraft can be traced back centuries, its modern interpretation in the Republican lexicon was popularized by President Ronald Reagan. His version of the strategy focused on maintaining military power, and using it as a tool to credibly deter nations – in his time, the Soviet Union – from expanding and spreading their negative influence.

“American strength is a sheltering arm for peace and freedom in an often dangerous world,” Reagan explained. “And strength is the most persuasive argument we have to convince our adversaries to give up their hostile intentions, to negotiate seriously, and to stop bullying other nations.”

This view of foreign policy has been expressed by Republican politicians and talking-heads all throughout the almost four decades since Reagan’s departure from power. However, if we honestly assess American foreign affairs post-Reagan, peace has been hard to come by.

The way that Reagan originally described his doctrine – build a strong military to deter enemies, thus achieving a lasting peace – is far different from how later Republicans interpreted the concept. The “Strength” portion of the slogan has served as a justification for military intervention, while “Peace” remains the promised destination that never quite arrives. Having already presumed that peace can only be achieved by strength, those who use this slogan risk becoming the proverbial hammer, to which every conflict looks like a nail.

The United States has been involved in a rolling series of military conflicts for decades, all while invoking “Peace Through Strength” as its justification. Whenever a new war begins, we are assured by our GOP political and media elites that the military action is in service of a broader peace effort. “A war to prevent another war,” if you will.

This reasoning has been used just this year, as President Trump and the Republicans have sought to justify this latest adventure in Iran. As is always necessary when selling the populace on a new war, the GOP must create a narrative, one which presents the American people with a false binary: launch this war or face certain attack. We are told that the enemy, equipped with a totally random hatred for freedom and the American way of life, is arming up to preemptively attack us. Therefore, the only rational option is to strike first.

As the war – which was based on provable lies – rolls on without an end in sight, the “Peace Through Strength” message has persisted, with the slogan being used by Republicans to reassure the war-weary public that peace is the end goal.

However, peace has remained elusive for modern American presidents.

The problem is that Reagan’s vision rests on a set of assumptions about government that are difficult to reconcile with the incentives inherent in political power.

“Peace Through Strength” requires some key presumptions in order to logically make sense. For it to work, it must be the case that we live in a system where those in power genuinely, through good faith, seek a peaceful world. Put simply, those with the legal authority to create war must be willing to forgo the temptation.

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US Troops Leak New Iran War Photos Of Gulf Bases: ‘Major Damage Hidden From American Public’

As we’ve been documenting, it is clear that major damage has yet to be communicated to the American public regarding Iran’s major retaliation on US bases in the Gulf and Mideast since the start of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury. 

During the same week that a long awaited Pentagon/Department of War Inspector General’s report was released covering the first four months of the Iran War, new leaked photographs have emerged of never-before-seen base damage.

“New photos obtained exclusively by CBS News reveal for the first time the widespread damage and destruction of buildings and vehicles at multiple U.S. positions across the Middle East, as a result of Iranian missile and drone attacks,” according to a bombshell Tuesday CBS report.

The outlet describes that the photos have been submitted by US service members under strict secrecy and anonymity – given the Pentagon has sought to enforce a crackdown on troops sharing the extent of damage, and amid orders aimed at maintaining operational security. But critics say the Pentagon and Trump administration are engaged in a cover-up and propaganda. 

“This is major damage to our bases that hasn’t been communicated to the American public,” an actively deployed unnamed service member said to CBS News.

The service member added: “We’re standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face.”

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Beware Contrived Scares And False Flags In Europe

On the evening of August 4, an airport employee at Leipzig/Halle noticed a small drone resting on the apron near a parked Ukrainian Antonov freighter. It carried an explosive charge and a detonator. The charge did not go off. A bomb-disposal robot rolled out across the tarmac, and by the account German officials would later give, the device had gone unnoticed for roughly four hours before anyone found it. Then the airport reopened and the country moved on.

Twenty-eight days later, on September 1, the German government told its citizens who had done it. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul stood together in Berlin and named Russia. The consulate in Bonn would close on September 18; the lease on Berlin’s Russian House cultural centre would be torn up; more Russians would be proposed for European Union sanctions lists. The attribution was delivered as settled fact. The evidence behind it was not.

Five days after that, on September 6, the voters of Saxony-Anhalt went to the polls with the Alternative für Deutschland polling around 41-43%, within reach of an absolute majority in a state the entire German establishment had spent months trying to deny it. The sequence is worth holding in the mind as a single object. A device found in early August, a public silence lasting four weeks, and then an official enemy announced in the final days of a campaign. Nothing about that ordering is illegal, but nothing about it is accidental either.

Dobrindt’s case, as he laid it out, does not rest on a single piece of proof. It rests on three strands said to point the same way: police forensics, the resemblance of the device to earlier operations, and intelligence reporting. “Taken together,” he said, the investigations, the pattern and the intelligence findings established Russian responsibility. He named no GRU officer. He named no unit. He said the people who carried out the plan appeared to be “low-level” agents acting on behalf of unspecified “Russian state entities.”

What the public was given, then, was a conclusion and a description of the kinds of evidence that produced it—not the evidence. An independent observer cannot test the chain. Even sympathetic accounts noted the gap: the ministers named the state but kept most of the underlying material out of view. NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte pronounced the evidence “clear” without any of it being made public, and welcomed the German measures. The European Union’s foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas went further still, telling reporters in Ireland that the incident bore “all the hallmarks of state-sponsored terrorism.”

This is the ordinary grammar of attribution in the sabotage era. A government states that its services and their partners have reached a judgement, allied governments affirm the judgement, the proof stays classified; and the citizen is invited to supply the trust that the missing evidence would otherwise earn. It may be that the classified material is overwhelming. It may be that it is thin. The structure is identical either way, which is precisely the problem. A public asked to accept an attribution on faith has no way to tell a strong case from a convenient one.

The load-bearing sentence in the German case is not about forensics at all. It is about familiarity. Wadephul said the drone’s configuration, its components, its explosives, and its ignition technology were “familiar to us from other Russian hybrid operations and from Russia’s war against Ukraine.” Dobrindt used almost the same words: elements “known to us,” a device of “high technical expertise” assembled with care. Recognition, in other words, is doing the work that a signature would normally do.

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