Iran War: Ignoring Lessons From Ukraine
The wars in Ukraine and Iran are linked; the death of Iran's leader is not the news it might seem. Worse, US military planning visibly ignored key lessons from Ukraine - so Americans are dying.
Guess the Geopolitical Theater section had better go first today… sigh. Just… sigh.
I had wondered whether Team Trump would be stupid enough to launch an attack immediately after Iran refused to capitulate to US demands last Thursday. Turns out, Dipshit Donny and his gang of middle-age frat boys couldn’t wait another month for more US assets to arrive and proper coordination with essential allies established.
Like their buddy Putin, they think war is another kind of TV show. Drunk on media portrayals of the US military being all-powerful, they just stuck their collective genitals in a hornet’s nest, to put it crudely. Morons. Doubt they’ll be the ones who pay the price, either, unless someone in the Secret Service plays Roman praetorian guard and chooses the next US president a few years early.
Iran’s immediate retaliation has already claimed the lives of four six American personnel, critically injured four more, and left another fourteen seriously wounded - least. With this administration, who knows what the truth really is.
This is only the beginning of the pain. Even the administration is admitting as much. All their blather about how this won’t be another forever war is another stone cold lie. Media types going along with the bullshit fed to them is predictable, but only reinforces the doom loop at play.
Let me blunt and clear in a way that will probably soon be made illegal in the US, or at least get this blog banned from Substack: before this is all over, I sincerely hope that Iran finds a way to kill Trump, Vance, Hegseth, Johnson and a fair few other leading US politicians.
They’ve sent other people’s kids to die in a totally pointless and almost certainly futile war. Best case outcome is this all happens again in a few years.
It is impossible to prevent a sovereign country from developing missiles or influencing its neighbors unless you are willing to attack it forever or control who governs it. Nuclear technology probably can’t be regulated either. You think most Iranians will see this as liberation? An errant US weapon was already probably the cause of over a hundred kids being killed at a school. Always great for popularity.
All the bastards who are willing to sacrifice the lives of young Americans in pursuit of their childish fantasy about paying back everyone who Fox News ever insisted humiliated their country - and by extension them - are who deserve to suffer for this, not Americans in uniform. All Trump’s talk about dead Americans being heroes is sick: they are victims of a jointly executed murder: Iran may have pulled the trigger, but cowards in D.C. made that happen.
Ugh. If you’re going for a decapitation strike, you have to do it right. That means employment of all available assets to destroy actual capabilities first, not jumping at an opportunity to kill a few leaders then cribbing together correct strategy after the shock has worn off and assets are distributed. Why? Because once you go there, any survivors have an incentive to do as much damage to you as possible, no holds barred. If you comprehensively whack capabilities up front, on the other hand, killing leaders costs a whole lot less.
Gotta love how Israel claims have destroyed around twice as many Iranian launchers as Israeli intelligence said existed a week ago. Yet missiles and drones keep coming in.
These motherfuckers just fucked up big time, and their carousel of shifting justifications for the disaster is a smokescreen for how badly they’ve miscalculated. They were so damn eager to see more headlines about how another bold “surprise” attack so shocked and awed surviving elements of the regime that it just up and surrendered.
And why not? Every other time Team Trump has done something incredibly dumb but didn’t manage to get Americans killed, the usual media pundits and the expert class celebrated. Just last week analysts were confidently predicting that the US would immediately secure the skies and suppress Iran’s missile launchers, no problem.
Yeah, so much for that, guys. Ask folks in Dubai right now how that’s working out.
The road to hell is paved by experts with narrow disciplinary knowledge and no awareness of just how little even scientists truly know about many objects and processes. Even now the talking heads are looking for any excuse to talk up all the amazing firepower the US has at its disposal and not its failure to prevent serious casualties.
In a real war, the enemy gets a say. They don’t have to perform according to script. Nor do they have to accept the standards for success you claim matter. The whole war is hell, and people die line may be true, but coming from a leader it’s a fucking excuse. It’s exactly like when Donald Rumsfeld, now second-worst secretary of defense in US history, told soldiers that you go to war with the army you have, not the one you want.
I would not be the least bit surprised if this SecDef gets fragged by a subordinate, Vietnam style. Anyone who pulls it off definitely gets into Valhalla or Folkvangr, according to my ethics. When Hegseth dies, I hope Allfather Oden stops by his hanged corpse to ask how he managed to become such a wanton fuckhead before leaving him to Hel’s tender mercies.
Team Trump’s war on Iran is in the same league, as far as strategic disasters go, with Putin’s assault on Ukraine. Hope of a domestic uprising toppling the regime is now all but dead: that just isn’t how countries work. And that’s not what Team Trump wanted anyway. As in Venezuela, this crew was banking on surviving regime elements coming to heel straight away.
This hasn’t happened, and the chances diminish by the hour. Americans are in for another long war win no defined outcome, because the stated objectives change according to whoever is talking and their audience. Oh, but I hear we aren’t doing any rules of engagement or other pussy liberal stuff that made Vietnam go wrong, so there’s no way we can lose, right? Right?
Team Trump just pulled a Putin. Yes, Iran’s regime is monstrous and more than deserves to be obliterated, but that’s not the USA’s job. Not if the US won’t fight Putin to protect Ukraine, a country of vastly greater significance and importance than Israel ever could be.
Attacking Iran under these circumstances is rank cowardice of the highest order, and further fuel on the fires burning down the USA. There are no viable endgames for the Iran War that don’t leave the USA fundamentally less safe. Team Trump rolled the dice on an operation which could only hope to succeed if human nature were entirely different.
And as far as justifying this to the US public, well, the essential question to ask is this: how many American lives is knocking over the Iranian regime worth? Go look family members of the slain in their eyes and tell them their sacrifice is worth the cost. Try it, I dare you.
Hegseth’s invocation of historical claims that Iran killed hundreds of Americans over four decades as a reason for the US to sacrifice lives now to take it out is straight out of Putin’s playbook. What next, asserting that it’s better to die occupying Bandar Abbas to keep the Hormuz Strait open than overdose on Fentanyl? Put that on a recruitment poster for the Marine Corps!
I don’t think the administration is really stupid enough to put boots on the ground except maybe to rescue downed pilots. But I also thought that if they did hit Iran early, they’d go smaller and hit nuclear or missile sites alone in the hope of making the promised Iranian retaliation look completely disproportionate.
Many analysts are arguing that hitting the Gulf States like Iran presently is represents a pointlessly self-destructive widening of the conflict, but Iran has solid reasons for choosing this strategy. Here are the top six:
Already facing a hostile force far more powerful than anything Iran can hope to defeat by military means, it doesn’t really matter if the Gulf States add their power to the USA’s; the number of Patriot interceptors available to stop Iranian retaliatory strikes across the region is the critical variable.
Increasing the number of countries trying to conduct operations in the restricted airspace of the Persian Gulf is bound to create a massive coordination hassle, boosting the chances of friendly fire - like the Kuwaitis accidentally downing three US F-15Es, which happened the other day.
US responsibility for ensuring the defense of the Gulf States means that US defenses are spread out; a broad strike pattern will leave an opening for an Iranian shift to focused barrages targeting the most vulnerable bases in the pursuit of maximum casualties.
Following through with Iran’s promise to do exactly this regardless of whether it draws retaliation is a necessary demonstration of resolve that also forces the targets to carefully consider their next steps, as Iran can cease the barrages if they agree to tacit terms, or make any particular country a priority target.
Economic damage to Dubai - which for some reason people thought would be safe despite the UAE’s close alliance with Israel - and other wealthy Gulf entrepot cities will quickly mount even if Iranian attacks never launch a dense strike seeking maximum casualties, because the threat will remain.
In several Gulf Countries, most notably Bahrain, a large and poor Shi’a population has historically experienced repression from wealthy Sunni leaders, creating a risk of domestic troubles and boosting espionage opportunities as Iran casts this war as part of a general Sunni-Shiite battle.
In Iran, the choice was clearly made at the highest level to ensure a prompt and calibrated retaliation in the wake of any decapitation attempt, however successful. Though not being a nuclear power, the Iranians basically set in place an effective second-strike capability and used it effectively. Everyone is now questioning what they might attack next, and the inability of the US to stop missile attacks on allies is extremely damaging to its status as security guarantor for the Gulf States.
Iran’s retaliation has forced the US to recalibrate, buying surviving Iranian leaders time to organize a broader counterattack. Militias across the Middle East are activating. D.C. has lost control, hence Trump and his crew showing up everywhere to insist otherwise.
Even the Iraq War was not as intrinsically stupid as this one. Iran is not Iraq, some artificial country carved out of the old Ottoman Empire that probably would have been better off split into parts. Iran is ancient, and Iranians have a lot of pride in their heritage. Whatever the character of the regime, people never respond well to an outside force coming in and deposing their leaders. The outcome is always either chaos or resistance, sometimes both at once.
Why? The reason is staggeringly obvious to anyone with half a brain. If outside force can come depose one regime in your country, why wouldn’t it or some other power knock over a future one? Who is to say any foreigner will truly have the best interests of local people heart? Better the devil you know than the devil from abroad is how the human brain thinks. This ain’t complicated maths, folks.
If Iran had killed Trump, it would certainly have been cathartic for tens of millions of Americans who despise him or his policies. Yet they would also demand a furious and likely nuclear response. Because you do something once, odds are you’ll at least threaten to do it again. Nationalism may be nuts, but sometimes it’s all you have. Organization of any form has a power of its own.
Iran’s ongoing retaliation in and of itself proves that organization persists, dampening the chances of resistance groups taking on a regime that may be wounded, but can still fight back. Frankly, I suspect that Khamenei had issued specific instructions for what to do if he were killed. There is ample reason to suspect he accepted that the US or Israel was likely to kill him, so succession plans were laid. He was 86, after all: time was close to killing him without the US getting involved. Apparently, the view that he accepted martyrdom is shared by many close observers of Iran. If that’s the case, then this whole war is a terrible trap.
The character of Iran’s retaliation sure lends credence to this theory. Widespread, but not directionless: sized to inflict just enough damage on US allies to make them aware that they aren’t immune but leave plenty of space to do more as a deterrent to backing D.C. too far.
Broad attacks trigger widespread demands for US protection, keeping defenses dispersed and Patriot interceptors in demand. Iran can use its older and more vulnerable weapons first, when defenders are still sending two, three, even four Patriots to get every inbound missile. Windows to inflict more serious damage on select targets with denser barrages are left open, though Iran can simply maintain a steady drumbeat of smaller attacks that become more deadly with time. Bombardments no longer feel abnormal after a while, dulling reactions near targets, while stocks of defensive weapons run low, allowing better weapons to slip through at a rising rate.
Iran has proven a much more rational actor in prior engagements than foreign analysts seem willing to admit. On multiple prior occasions, the Iranians restrained their response when the US committed an act which, had the shoe been on the other foot, would have led to widespread demand among Americans for open war. The Iranians fired just enough missiles to inflict symbolic damage, not fatalities, after the US killed IRGC head Soleimani as well as in retaliation for the US attacks on nuclear facilities last year.
Unfortunately, the sole rational imperative driving Iran’s leaders now is making the proven cost of attacking them as high as possible. They can and must draw blood. Any economic chaos they can generate helps their cause too, since Trump pays close attention to Wall Street. Also, the opportunity to keep the US sucked in for the long term may yet push Beijing to offer covert support, especially in the form of mid-range air defenses.
The Iranians look to have learned more from the Ukraine War than the Americans at this stage. They’re fighting back asymmetrically. This stands to get very ugly, especially if any ground troops ever do get involved. But those still in Iraq and Syria are in extreme danger.
There is precious little hope of any organized domestic opposition sufficient to overwhelm hundreds of thousands of regime-aligned paramilitaries that isn’t localized in nature. Kurdistan, Balochistan; these may successfully rebel with foreign backing, but are not critical to Iran’s immediate goal of weathering the storm while making the Americans pay a price. All that ethnic slices of Iran breaking off will do is drag in the Turks and Pakistanis. Kurds and Balochis hoping to exploit this moment have to be very wary of US and Israeli promises.
Internally, Team Trump has placed every Iranian in the difficult position of either supporting an outside force which has a history of intervening wherever it wants on some pretext or going with the default nationalist position, one that’s bound to be enforced by tens of thousands of armed militiamen on the streets. And if there is an uprising, what then? Unless the regime fragments, and there is presently no sign of that happening, civilians don’t have much of a chance against pro-government militias.
Anyone who thinks that the US can provide effective air support to activists with the assets available is misguided, at least for the next month or two. And it’s hard to believe that people would gather when they might be mistaken for regime supporters and get bombed.
The only way a regime decapitation strike could possibly work out well is if surviving elements, as in Venezuela, had already agreed to take over and prevent any counterattack. Because there will always be survivors. Which you actually want, because otherwise who will respond to your demands? There’s plenty of literature in the nuclear deterrence world covering all the reasons why decapitation isn’t a realistic military option.
But awareness of that is probably zero in this administration, and journalists covering military affairs only have one incentive: make content for Raytheon, Boeing, and Lockheed ads to sit next to. Palantir, Anduril, and SpaceX too, I imagine. I don’t know, because I block ads and never browse the internet on a phone. Cognitive hygiene and all that.
It has been darkly amusing to see the vibes coming from Mar A Lago enter a downward spiral on day two of the conflict, as US fatalities confirmed that their “high-risk, high-reward” gamble had failed. Sure, a bunch of senior Iranian leaders were dead, but by no means all. More importantly, the existing regime had been trying to walk a narrow tightrope, accepting limits on nuclear development which were the original claimed cause of the crisis before Trump expanded his demands.
Team Trump got too damn cute for their own good. What’s incredibly sad is that had they done the correct thing and priced in this exact Iranian reaction, they could still have gone through with the silly operation in a month when the US had two more carrier groups in place and more time to properly coordinated the defense of the Gulf with allies.
Instead, they’re having to throw a regime-change operation together on the fly while figuring out how to suppress Iranian missile launches in real time.
They decided that the preparation close coordination demands would spoil the surprise, I’ll bet. Not that there really was any, save in the specific timing of Trump’s war starting up and his choice to go for decapitation instead of, say, taking out as many Iranian missile sites as possible. Too many were overlooked or insufficiently damaged.
Piss poor prior planning prevents proper performance - heh, say that ten times fast and correctly when you’re drinking before giving briefings, Hegseth, you’ll sound less like your penpal Medvedev. Speaking of, this tool getting pushed out in front of the press to handle the tough questions now being asked as the guarantee of more US fatalities sets in is a sign of the administration’s discomfort. All he and the rest of Team Trump have is hollow bravado that belies the trap they've put themselves in. Vance has tried to keep his head down for a reason.
Putin made much the same mistake in Ukraine as Team Trump did Iran. The march on Kyiv was accompanied by such confidence that Ukrainian infrastructure would wind up under Muscovite control that the initial missile assault was actually a lot less damaging than it could and should have been in order to quickly accomplish Putin’s core objective of destroying Ukraine. The barrage that rained down at the outset of the conflict aimed to paralyze, not annihilate. Ukrainians shrugged off the shock and awe and fought back where they stood.
Iran is not Ukraine. It’s bigger, more rugged, and is home to a lot more people. The Iranians in charge are also more than happy to let elements of the IRGC launch terror attacks against civilians. They have allied militias to draw on, too. D.C. may be tougher than Moscow in a fight, but geography matters. Iran is much too large to ever be able to exert real-time, constant aerial control everywhere. So the enemy will always have sanctuaries.
The US needed at least twice the firepower in theater covering only half the sites it presently has hosting people to correctly manage the offense/defense equation. Even having allies angry at Iran’s wide retaliation won’t help, on the balance. It just creates more liabilities. Meanwhile, Iran can freely sow chaos.
Hezbollah and the Houthis are useful as distractions: Israeli airstrikes will soon have to prioritize Lebanon over Iran. Yemen will likewise distract the Saudis and UAE. The Iran-backed militias in Iraq are the bigger danger to Americans, though. They already see the thousands of US troops still in Iraq as occupiers: plenty of young Iraqis today grew up during the occupation and learned to hate the Americans who often treated their families like trash. Some are trying to storm the Green Zone in Baghdad already. Iraq could very easily splinter.
What I expect to see play out in the next week is a steady intensification of drone, mortar, and rocket attacks on US forces in Iraq. At some point, the Iranians can join in with a sustained series of missile and drone barrages, the cumulative intended effect being to overwhelm US defenses at a small number of bases and inflict dozens or even hundreds of fatalities.
It’s fair to be blunt: Trump and his team have condemned an unknown number of Americans to death. They’re running around talking about how the slain are heroes who died for a noble cause, but that’s utter and complete horseshit.
Yes, the mullahs do deserve death for what they’ve done over the years. But those lost Americans deserved their lives, and you can’t give that back to them or their families. No, Iran wasn’t about to attack us. That’s another outright lie from an administration the Founders would support most patriotic Americans openly rebelling against.
Some really compelling footage has actually been coming from US personnel on the ground, in defiance of OPSEC and plain common sense. One of the first indications that not all was as Team Trump had expected after the decapitation strike came from a US service member in Bahrain who apparently decided to livestream what he thought would be air defenses whacking down an Iranian barrage. What happened instead was a missile slamming into a warehouse, at which point he belatedly realizes that a high-rise is not the best place to be under the circumstances.
The clip is about half a minute long, yet the narrative evolution in that space is positively epic. All of a sudden war became very real for one young dude. It’s all fun and games until the missiles or drones are hitting near you. Poor guy will probably be hunted down and disciplined on Hegseth’s orders.
Having watched a lot of strike footage from Ukraine and russia, it’s interesting to note that Americans react kind of like Muscovites under fire. Ukrainians, even early in the war, exhibited far more basic fortitude than most Americans tend to upon witnessing missile or Shahed strikes nearby. Here’s another, from Kuwait, where an apparent service member’s rising alarm at the increasing accuracy of Iranian strikes suggests they also thought they’d be filming a fireworks show. Yeah, war is real, dudes. Welcome to the world. Should have been paying more attention to the war in Ukraine.
To be clear, I really, sincerely hope that I’m wrong about everything and tomorrow an uprising sweeps the remnants of the regime away and the Iranians will be free at last. I really hate that everything I know about the way countries work suggests that there are two likely outcomes from this mess: an Iran owned by a hyper-nationalist and Islamist IRGC bent on regional revolution, or a horrific civil war that spills over into Iraq, the Gulf States, and Pakistan, which, by the way, just plunged into an open-ended war with Taliban-run Afghanistan.
At this rate, if the world makes it to 2030 without a rogue nuke being used on a city somewhere in Southwest Asia, it’ll be a profound miracle. The idiots in D.C. do not understand what they’re lighting on fire, abroad or at home. They’re making all the stuff they claim to be trying to prevent more likely, and it’s unclear if they’re all just that stupid, incredibly brazen liars, or both. I’d bet on both.
Beyond the geopolitical lunacy of starting this war, as predictable as the decision was, the fact that US leaders have deliberately learned little to nothing from the conflict in Ukraine is impossible to deny. Yes, they’re very different conflicts, even if D.C. and Moscow use many of the same excuses to justify their policy - nuclear weapons and missiles. But the failure to recognize how potent combined missile and drone attacks can be is just sad.
It’s standard for US Patriot batteries to fire off two or even four interceptors at each incoming shot. The Ukrainians no longer have that luxury, constrained by limited stocks, yet the proportion of Iranian missiles and drones that get through compared to Muscovite rates reveal broadly similar dynamics. 95% is good, but insufficient to stop a hit eventually.
Neither the US nor Gulf allies, it seems, are nearly as efficient as Ukrainian SAM operators. Somehow, nobody has bothered to import Ukrainian knowhow across three years of operating modern systems at scale across a broad geographic area. Also, the Iranians are likely reserving their most effective weapons for select attacks.
The Iranians, on the other hand, are so far employing the best orc tactics straight out of the gate. Despite the damage they’ve suffered, they’ve already done serious harm to the veneer of US invincibility. Initial celebratory media coverage at home has already turned darker. Team Trump is already having to talk about the war lasting weeks or longer. Another three-day special military operation that failed.
This is what it looks like when a decapitation op goes wrong. The Iranians have zero incentive to hold back now and plenty of asymmetric channels to work with, so a price will be inflicted. It’s a war unlike anything the US has fought before, and the military was not properly prepared.
So far, of the bases in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and Bahrain that have come under heavy fire, Bahrain has turned out to be the most vulnerable, with 5th Fleet’s main base taking heavy hits, logistics and comms facilities, blown up, thankfully with no known fatalities. Those all happened at Arifjan in Kuwait, which also got it relatively hard compared to the Saudis or even Iraqis.
Qatar was mostly protected, though an intercepted missile landed on civilians, and the attacks on the UAE were more shocking than militarily significant. Also CENTCOM is there, so lots of generals swaggering about micromanaging stuff. Gotta make sure they’re well protected, right?
Dubai being an international travel hub and hosting a few prominent skyscrapers, a few Shahed strikes were bound to resonate in the global press. The UAE’s air force should be highly experienced after fighting in Yemen, though, so leakers there are notable. Bahrain is likely especially vulnerable because of Saudi and US involvement in putting down Arab Spring protests some years back. There, locals have been recorded cheering Iranian hits on US facilities.
Thank goodness those F-15 pilots who ejected after the Kuwaitis shot them down by accident went down there. Civilians quickly came to their assistance. People remember when your country actually liberates them.
I’m not emphasizing Iran’s successes to downplay the damage US and Israeli forces have done and will do. But against the backdrop of a conflict chosen mainly to boost Team Trump’s hopes of not losing the House in the Midterms this year, the inability to fully suppress Iranian missile forces is very significant.
In addition to striking command and air defense sites and some of Iran’s underground missile facilities, the US also blew up most of Iran’s regular navy - to the degree it has one - and the IRGC headquarters. Sill, these aren’t exactly big achievements given the power imbalance. Recent strikes on Iran’s national TV station suggest frustration and a widening of the target set, further distracting from the core mission of defeating Iran’s missile capabilities.
These are clearly well dispersed, with the US and Israel forced to try and hunt down a couple hundred mobile launchers. The Iranians can employ caverns to hide launchers until they’re ready to fire, leaving only a few minutes of exposure to attack. That means strike packages of the kind the US and Israel use, which temporarily dominate an area so that attacks can be carried out before the aircraft withdraw, will only slowly take out Iranian launchers.
Stealth bombers loitering near missile deployment areas might be used to slowly wear down Iran’s missile launcher stocks. But this too could get risky. Iran hasn’t been able to target them so far, but establish any patterns and eventually someone will figure out how to exploit them. Gotta recall the Serbian SAM crew that figured out how to get a flight of missiles close enough to F-117 stealth jets to bring one down and damage another.
Persistent patrols that whack launchers in real time is probably a dream so long as Iran can threaten jets with medium-range mobile SAM systems that don’t rely on radar guidance to find targets. There will be areas in western and southern Iran that become too risky for missile launchers to operate eventually, but longer range weapons located deeper in the country can still hit the Gulf States and Iraq even if Israel is eventually out of reach. You just can’t risk pilots deep in Iran, where ability to evacuate them in the event of a loss or simple accident is close to nonexistent.
I’m not saying that the US will actually lose the war. Only that it will cost a lot more than planned and take a lot longer to reach a point where both sides finally pretend they won. Regime change is very unlikely, and stupid to bet on.
The impacts on the world system stand to be extreme, and not trending in the USA’s favor. This was a massive unforced policy error, and probably the beginning of the end for Trump. He’s gotten Americans killed through sheer incompetence, and a price will be paid. Now old bone spurs gets to experience the comedown side of playing warlord.
Team Trump’s big war on Iran is already a botch of historic proportions. It was supposed to be over already, kicking off a Midterm season that was never likely to go well for the party in power as things stood. And so Trump turns out to be just as stupid as Biden on foreign policy in every dimension. Too bad it’s ordinary Americans in uniform who are paying the price, not Trump, Vance, Hegseth, and all the rest.
Funny how absorbing even the most basic lessons from the Ukraine War could have averted this mess. But Team Trump didn’t actually want the best possible outcome in Iran: they never wanted a popular uprising, just a shift in Iran’s negotiating team. Forcing one is a cynical tactic that all but ensures no opposition figure can emerge who won’t be tainted by the assumption of being owned by the Americans and Israelis.
If the IRGC coordinate with militia allies to overwhelm air defenses at one or more bases in Iraq with drones, missiles can then do devastating damage. A breach of the base perimeter by militia fighters is not out of the question in the wake of a sustained barrage. This is why evacuating Iraq and Syria before the fighting started was so important, and why US military leaders tried to warn Trump about the reality of casualties.
But US leaders adamantly refuse to admit how vulnerable US forces have become. And they’re so bound to media cycles that they’re forever mistaking tactical victories for something more. Iran is losing assets and facilities, but mostly ones it can do without but keep on fighting.
It is to be hoped that Europeans resist being dragged into the USA’s Putin-style mad crusade beyond protecting their own allies. Team Trump just started a war that could drag on for years at a low level. This is the time to get the hell out of the Middle East and refocus the alliance on what matters: beating Putin before he can find a way to take advantage of chaos in the Middle East.
An X-factor that hasn’t been considered nearly enough is the potential for China to do to the USA in Iran what the US has arguably done to Moscow in Ukraine.
As of now, the number of missile interceptors the US and allies can produce is dwarfed by even Muscovite production. Chinese stands to be much larger by far. The Chinese have invested a great deal in their own missile arsenal, so the more Patriots that get used elsewhere, the happier Beijing is. It’s conceivable that D.C. would refuse to defend Taiwan simply because it lacked enough Patriots to avoid unacceptable casualties in Okinawa.
So China has every reason to treat Iran as a proxy now, feeding the Iranians older equipment in sufficient quantities to keep them in the fight and draining US resources. By 2027 the window should be wide open to moving on Taiwan, probably without an invasion being necessary, given US inability to break a simple blockade.
There are also precious few positives for Ukraine’s fight in this. Whatever enjoyment supporters of Ukraine understandably get from seeing a regime that has materially assisted the orcs in murdering Ukrainians take such hits, unfortunately the scarcity of Patriot interceptors is about to become far worse. More Ukrainian lives will be lost.
Iran has at least two thousand ballistic missiles left. Iranian missiles will be fired for weeks to come, gobs of Patriots used to knock most of them down, because unlike the Ukrainians, Gulf Allies can’t scrimp on missiles and accept some losses in their dense urban areas or to critical infrastructure. After the war, everyone will rush to replenish their stocks, meaning higher prices and competition. Not good for Ukraine. Hope the Europeans can ramp up SAMP/T production fast.
Still, missile defense is mostly about dispersion and decoys, with ability to hit enemy launchers mostly useful for constraining their employment somewhat. Kinetic intercepts are a last resort, because there is a limit to the number of intercepts a system can achieve, while launches can be timed overwhelm it.
Reliably hitting launchers is a massive campaign in and of itself, demanding uncontested control of the skies. Air superiority is one thing, control another, so this capability is exceptionally unlikely to emerge. As in Ukraine, air dominance can be easily denied by the presence of even a small number of SAM systems that rely on optical/infrared detection instead of emitting radar signals. A small risk of losses adds up to an unsustainable situation given enough time.
Books could be written detailing how the US is missing the lessons of the Ukraine War to its detriment, but this geopolitical overview is already over-long as it stands. From a failure to apply enough force at the beginning to picking the wrong targets straight through to shifting the justification for the conflict as the outcome deviated from hopes, it’s all so incredibly similar.
The geopolitical consequences will be nearly as grave, and not because of the superficial alliance with Moscow. Putin was never truly allied to Iran or Venezuela. Both have always been pawns designed to play on the obsessions of Beltway twats, distractions which could be discarded as supposed concessions at need.
Iran did give Putin some short-range ballistic missiles, but few or none have been used in Ukraine, so far as I’m aware. Iran gave the orcs basic design specs for Shahed derivatives and tactics, but production and development is all local now, albeit powered by Chinese parts.
Ending what arms shipments the Iranians still provided Moscow is great, but hardly decisive in Ukraine’s fight. Much more damaging will prove to the strain on Patriot interceptor stocks. It also isn’t great to have European military assets pulled towards the Middle East. All wins in Putin’s book far exceeding whatever the mullahs still offered in return.
So: to sum up, the Iran War is another geopolitical catastrophe, and Ukraine stands to get burned. If the Europeans don’t wake up to the fact that they’re going to be at war sooner than they expect and invest in Ukraine’s swift victory, 2027 stands to really suck.
Now to your regularly scheduled conflict in Ukraine, where the news is actually wildly better. For the first time in a long while, the Ukrainians liberated more territory than they lost in a month of fighting, even as orc casualties exceeded Moscow’s ability to replace them.
The Ukrainians fight war with math. Americans, who apparently forgot that Star Wars is fantasy, prefer to trust their feelings. I know who is more likely to do well in war.
State of the Fronts - Week 9 2026
Over winter, something has shifted with respect to Ukraine’s fight. The change is subtle, but it’s there: a new confidence in Ukrainian analyst assessments.
A sense of having endured everything the enemy can possibly throw appears to be spreading despite widespread exhaustion with a seemingly endless war. Winter was hard, but it didn’t break Ukraine, and now core battlefield trends are moving in the right direction. The orcs are losing as much territory as they seize, and more people than they can mobilize. Behind the front, Ukrainian missiles and drones strike daily, at times several times a day. The war has arrived in the Muscovite rear.
Spring has arrived, and with it muddy days, which I expect will reward careful, systematic movements of the kind the Ukrainians are exhibiting in the counteroffensive north of Huliaypole. It continues to develop along anticipated lines, with Ukrainian forces pushing their perimeter another kilometer or so towards Uspenivka this past week. Slow going, but casualties are hopefully very low.
Elsewhere the orcs are still pretty much stuck, barely creeping forward despite a couple hundred or so attacks and upwards of a thousands deaths a day. Communications and supply issues are reportedly mounting thanks to the loss of Starlink, which helped the orcs use drones to resupply forward positions.
Here’s the strategic view, for reference:
Zaporizhzhia-Dnipro
As the southern sector is where the Ukrainians are running the most active counteroffensive operations right now, it’s still worth looking at first, even though this branch of Moscow’s long campaign is a distraction from Donbas - more for the orcs than the Ukrainians, on the whole. The orcs haven’t managed to gain any ground in the Stepnohirsk or Orikhiv areas, nor much in Huliaypole. Ukrainian fighters meanwhile continue to advance.
I still can’t tell if the Ukrainians aim to fully liberate Huliaypole and restore the positions they held last fall, something which would require a lot more fighting against an enemy now aware of the presence of reinforcements. At the moment, it’s still ambiguous whether the goal is this extensive, or the Ukrainians simply want to shore up positions and threaten the flank of any orc advance through Huliaypole towards Orikhiv.
Muscovite forces are still trying to secure Huliaypole and move through it towards Orikhiv, with the success of this effort depending a lot on what happens north of Uspenivka. The orcs still have to contend with a long commute to the battlefield over open terrain from Velyka Novosilka, although fully securing Huliaypole will open a shorter road to Polohy. There seems to be a natural instability in the present configuration of fighting forces in the area. This suggests either the Ukrainians will reclaim substantial ground in spring or the orcs will advance in the south until Huliaypole is under their control.
Here as on every other front the effective combat power that Moscow can apply at the point of contact is highly diluted compared to how it looks before getting within twenty kilometers of Ukrainian positions. In the crudest sense, effective density of enemy strength is a function of how many of their trips between rear and front are successful. The Ukrainians can currently interdict movements at so many points that only slowly building up people and supplies over time allows for a successful advance against heavy opposition, and then only with such extreme casualties that replacements are instantly required.
If you’ve ever played a desktop tower defense style of game, you already have a better intuitive grasp of the essential mechanics than a lot of American folks with stars on their uniforms. Of course, it’s an even tougher challenge when the other side can attack your towers. Which is why ground drone proliferation is a wonderful thing, if you have enough of them and people trained to use them.
Increasingly, these are replacing the heavy weapons section in tactical formations. Instead of a person lugging a machine gun or rocket launcher around, a drone can do the job, withdrawing to reload or being assisted in a hide by companion infantry. Most of the weight carried by personnel needs to be a combination of armor, batteries, and comms, along with food, water, and ammo. They’re vulnerable enough without trying to lug a crew-served weapon or operate it in the field.
The most important use for armed ground drones at present is providing fire support to infantry. Small drones armed with a weapon heavier than a person could ever comfortably bear, like a M2 .50 cal machine gun or Mk19 grenade machine gun, can support infiltration by personnel who then fight bolstered by a level of direct fire cover they could never haul close to the enemy undetected otherwise.
If anything stands to render the tank obsolete, it will be tank-hunter ground drones. Strapping anti-tank missiles to them won’t be difficult. More and more the tank is best used as a straight-up assault gun. Ideally hides a few kilometers back from the main line are established and tanks moved into them, rolling out for brief excursions to provide fire support before tucking back under cover.
The Huliaypole counteroffensive looks to be a useful model for how the Ukrainians plan to run counteroffensive ops going forward. Only taking on fights they know they’ll win, moving methodically against weakened or overstretched enemy units, and building up drone densities until the enemy can’t move around or resupply: this is the new rhythm of Ukrainian offensive operations.
Kostiantynivka
For both sides, infiltration of assets into forward positions is the name of the game. Ukrainian counteroffensives north of Huliaypole were enabled by the presence of large forest tracts that were previously instrumental in halting the orc advance along the Vovcha west of its confluence with the Solena. In Kostiantynivka, Ukrainian control over several blocks of reinforced concrete high rises - at least, their battered shells - anchors the ability to locate and destroy orc teams trying in infiltrate the suburbs.
Both sides are struggling to sustain the movement of people and stuff from rear to the front. Increasingly, the fight to destroy it before it reaches staging areas twenty kilometers back is crucial.
To hold outlying positions of their own, the Ukrainians have to rotate personnel forward using infiltration tactics or during orchestrated movements where enemy drones can be overwhelmed by countermeasures for a brief window. It isn’t easy, especially on the Kostiantynivka front where the enemy can stage in much of Toretsk and Chasiv Yar under reasonable cover.
But this is terrain that the Ukrainians have been preparing for many months now. Effectively built bunkers are as difficult to clear as any concrete structure. So far, every attempt to get large groupings massed in the suburbs of Kostiantynivka through infiltration gets broken up.
The biggest threat to Ukraine’s hold on Kostiantynivka over the long run is Moscow’s ability to use drones to harry the main road connecting it to the rest of urban Donbas. Intensive efforts to combat Muscovite deployments of fiber-optic drones as smart land mines up to twenty kilometers behind the front are necessary to sustain a flow of supplies and reinforcements in to the city and evacuation out. Nets over roads, patrols to locate and destroy waiting drones - all of it demands people and planning.
At the moment, Ukrainian lines are holding out very well despite the dangers. 19th Corps is very skilled at inflicting maximum pain on orc attempts to advance and know the ground. If the flanks hold, prospects for the Ukrainians destroying an orc offensive that looks set to escalate through spring are bright.
Dobropillya
One of the bigger unknowns in the defense of Kostiantynivka remains how effectively the orcs capitalize on finally grinding through Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. Centre for Defence Strategies predicts a major push on Dobropillya next, which is why I’m renaming this front to that from Pokrovsk. Be nice to think that the Ukrainians could retake it, but I suspect that isn’t possible until summer at the earliest.
Throwing whatever force is left to the Combined Arms Armies Moscow has in the area at Dobropillya is probably the orc plan, mistake though that would be. Oddly enough, Moscow’s refusal to narrow the scope of offensive operations is still one of Ukraine’s greatest allies. A relentless, Wagner-style meat wave relying on overwhelming Ukrainian logistics and getting at drone operators might actually be enough to punch through the Drone Wall. That’s only happening if Moscow concentrates all its remaining firepower on just one or two fronts at most.
JG’s Modern Warfare did a great job looking at Moscow’s Combined Arms Army setup last week - definitely worth a read. It’s not easy to track these things, because they act as shells which subordinate brigades and regiments, sometimes divisions or even whole corps, get assigned to until they’re used up and pass back into the reserves.
The three operating in the Pokrovsk area - 51, 41, and 2 - are chewed up, probably together have only the strength 2nd did when it crawled into Pokrovsk starting last year. If they go after Dobropillya in an attempt to outflank Ukrainian defenses in the Druzhkivka area and come at Kramatorsk from the west, they’re liable to fritter away their efforts while 8 CAA and the corps that’s reinforcing it do the same in Kostiantynivka.
Over the past week, the orcs do appear to have begun a new operation with these battered CAAs to envelop Dobropillya. Attempting to push northwest from Pokrovsk and the bridgehead over the Kazenyi Torets, most attacks wound up thwarted. The Ukrainians are slowly losing control of Rodynske and Hryshyne, but the process is apt to take a few weeks more. While I have to expect the Ukrainian lines here to withdraw at least five kilometers further from Pokrovsk from where they stand now towards Dobropillya, there’s a strong chance that Moscow’s advance will halt in this sector for good at that point.
The orcs may hope to take Dobropillya, but the more realistic option for them is advancing north along both banks of the Kazenyi Torets. Moscow always goes big before reluctantly reducing the scope of a campaign. I bet the orcs will wind up in a bitter crawl towards Druzhkivka that stalls out short before summer.
In other words, the necessary preconditions for going after Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are unlikely to be set. Moscow’s 2026 push risks stalling out by midsummer, rendered vulnerable to a countervailing Ukrainian campaign.
Lyman
Putin’s generals look to have decided that they’re not getting at Lyman unless 3 CAA can break through north of the E-40 highway connecting Sloviansk to Bakhmut and reach the Siverskyi Donets. Ukrainian control over the ridge south of the river and a series of forest patches between Siversk and Sloviansk makes displacing the defenders in the forest between the river and Lyman too tough.
But this is probably some of the most heavily fortified country in all of Donbas, having spent three years on the most direct line of advance from occupied Bakhmut to the coveted orc target of Sloviansk. And if the orcs have decided to commit to a frontal assault here, that largely renders the efforts to get at Lyman from the north almost moot, because its role in any assault on Sloviansk is to act as a forward base for drone operators. A nice to have, but not essential, if you choose to play frontal assault.
With the Siverskyi Donets between it and Sloviansk, Lyman is only an important anchor for an orc noose that was always meant to be tightened around Donbas by way of an orc push through Pokrovsk and Dobropillya, west of the main Ukrainian defense line built on Kostiantynivka. Taking it would also let the orcs north of the river focus on pushing 3rd Army Corps west of the Oskil.
As Moscow’s effective power along the fronts dwindles, Putin’s best hope of a military victory is probably to abandon all diversionary and broad flanking efforts and mount a frontal assault before the Ukrainians can redeploy to stop it. Instead, he’s set to try and avoid the effective inability to threaten military operations that would stem from accepting the extreme cost and double down on a failed operational paradigm.
Trying to outflank a stiff defense is not a bad way to fight. It fails if you don’t do it at the proper scale. Right now, Moscow is only successful where the orcs conduct tactical level envelopments, stretching a zone of control through the twenty-kilometer killzone to fracture it then rapidly reinforcing when the Ukrainians reset. Operational-level moves involving multiple CAAs trying to outflank the Ukrainians in a more broad way always devolve into a series of tactical pushes running in parallel anyway, only they wind up competing for resources.
But were Putin to adopt this approach, the Ukrainians would be able to launch counteroffensives that wouldn’t actually help them at the focal point of the orc assault, but would liberate territory, thereby giving the impression that Moscow was losing. Putin can’t have that. Thankfully, it’s a law of nature or something that these bastards’s egos always foreclose their best option.
Kupiansk-Kharkiv
No substantial changes in the Kharkiv area, though the orcs look to be trying to get some vigor back into their forces struggling through Vovchansk. Doubt it will go well. This is an unlucky sector for them.
The Ukrainians in Kupiansk are pretty visibly using the surviving orcs downtown as both bait and a perpetual reminder of Putin’s weakness. All efforts to get to them are smashed.
Sumy & North
Nothing substantial has shifted up north, either. Moscow is increasingly resorting to pure terror tactics in bombarding Sumy, following the pattern in Kherson, prompting Zelensky to promise better defenses. The North Koreans are still in Kursk, helping and learning.
The Muscovites seem bound to keep trying to create buffer zones on Ukrainian territory where they are able, but for the most part this isn’t working out too well. Any major force concentration capable of a large scale push would be detected and countered.
Kherson-Crimea
Ukraine’s far south is unchanged too. Spring ought to bring an uptick in activity, with smoother waters probably helping naval drones launch FPVs from the coast.
A perpetual contrast here between orc attacks on civilians and Ukrainian hunts for air defense systems. One advances the cause of victory, the other is a symbol of how Putin’s war never really changes. An AI from a 1998 real-time strategy game is tougher to predict than this guy or most of his generals. The Ukrainians should try placing some pipes as bait and see what crawls in.
Strike Campaigns
Ukrainian deep strikes focused on the south of the Muscovite empire this week as well as what might be termed the deep operational zone, which extends through all of occupied Ukraine. There looks to be a distinct campaign underway to damage orc battlefield logistics by hitting depots and command nodes at this level, probably a bid to further upset planning for the summer campaign.
The Ukrainians are proving ever more adept at hunting orc air defenses with drones, which blast open corridors for more drones and some missiles. Accumulating degradation of Muscovite defenses over Crimea and Novorossiysk probably explains why a major drone attack last night creamed the latter, smashing port infrastructure and possibly a warship or two.
Another very intriguing raid with Flamingo drones this week reportedly utilized the valley of the Volga river to evade air defenses, flying deep into Mordor. No confirmation on what if anything they whacked, but this was almost certainly a probe to see how ready the orcs were than anything else.
So much of the unusual level of skepticism directed at Fire Point over the past six months sure looks to stem from inter-industry rivalries. Competing missile and drone companies are undoubtedly annoyed by Fire Point’s proven ability to produce large volumes of quality wares at reasonable prices. Internationally, precision strike weapons are a prestige capability that US services have to pay dearly for, so the arrival of cheaper and nearly as effective competition is very scary.
Considering how many unexploded Tomahawk warheads have been recovered after recent US operations from Nigeria to Iran, the increased range and warhead size of the Flamingo makes it a worthy competitor if there’s geography to exploit, which can offset the relatively large radar profile. Inclusion of terrain mapping navigation systems may make them as or more accurate in real-world conditions.
Ukraine will never get Tomahawks anyway. Europe should move away from them to domestic systems, some high end, lots Flamingo style. The more complicated a picture you can present the defender, the lower the average cost of your attacks. Iran learned this lesson well.
Moscow’s winter campaign against Ukrainian power infrastructure has failed, not to put too fine a point on it. The Ukrainian negotiating position didn’t change, Zelensky’s 60%-plus approval didn’t fall, and Muscovite weapons didn’t force Ukrainians to demand surrender.
Still, there’s no excuse for not preparing Ukraine’s power systems for next year right away. Decentralized production, lots of portable generators on standby - and hopefully a fully-realized air defense system. That part is largely up to Europe, though Ukrainian interceptor drones and domestic air defense systems are essential too.
The orcs aren’t about to stop lobbing missiles into Ukraine, but with the change of the seasons likely comes a shift in targets. Railways are reported to be high on the enemy’s priority list, but also water treatment facilities, because of course the orcs would want to destroy the plumbing. When you can’t beat ‘em, make life suck, I guess.
Air, Sea & Signals
Air
Standard week of work for the Ukrainians in the sky: close air support missions targeting drone operators at the front, interception missions taking down drones and cruise missiles behind. No news on Gripens, but increasingly European aid is not explicitly disclosed, which is probably ideal. Too easy to predict what will happen by reading sheets listing every individual tank and infantry fighting vehicle.
Evidence of their presence will be felt in a steadily increasing rate of orc pilots going on eternal flights. Hopefully sometime this year. Meteor use can’t be profligate, because supplies are limited, but even a few kills will change the orc calculus.
Sea
With winter’s end likely comes greater operating space for naval drones, but so far, there has been no news. World is still waiting on the Europeans to step up and start seizing more orc shadow tankers. Of course, with the Iran War raging and vessels sailing in the vicinity of either the Persian Gulf or Red Sea probably uninsurable, European leaders might not accept any more damage to energy markets.
The orcs were caught trying to scout France’s aircraft carrier DeGaulle with a drone while in port in Sweden, so maybe that will give the French added incentive to put their navy to work? If Moscow’s oil lifeline is severed, the threat to Europe will soon decline. But it sounds like the random drone or two the Iranians sent towards Cyprus are set to be an excuse for the Europeans to tell the Americans that they’re helping out. DeGaulle is being sent to the Med.
Look, Europeans, as a US citizen with plenty of British ancestry I’m probably like, a third pirate by genetic heritage. Someone front me a few billion Euros, and I’ll totally build up a force to start taking orc shadow fleet ships as prizes. Warships too, given a chance. Since you all remain so easily distracted by whatever dumb thing Trump does.
Signals
Comms troubles still plague the orcs, and though there are ways to get around losing access to Starlink, it seems the enemy became a bit too reliant on a technology that Elon Musk can’t exactly complain if Ukraine gates on its sovereign territory. He’s actually gone a bit quiet of late, oddly enough - maybe finally waking up to the fact that his persona is kind of fucking grating to most people?
Doubt that - far more likely is the guy deciding that it’s time to zig again, the zag of being bitchy about Ukraine aid and hyping the bullshit risk of nuclear World War Three over Crimea now too boring and out of date. Musk probably has people savvy enough to realize that open association with Team Trump could only ever take the brand so far. Guy will die eventually, and getting deep in a rat scramble over who runs the Republican Party after is a mug’s game. Only winners in US politics are the politicians.
Also, after the death toll from an unwinnable, endless war with Iran adds up, the Republican brand may be toast for good. If Team Trump someday tries to steal an election to put their chosen successor in power, that’ll kill the movement, even if the dying takes a while and looks about as dignified as a wounded orc bleeding out after a drone strike. Yes, I’ve seen that in more video feeds than I care to recall, and I can’t blame the Ukrainians for showing the reality of what happens when you invade their country.
Regardless, the Ukraine War has proven that the side which can maintain a clearer picture of the landscape and freely communicate maintains a tremendous advantage. The signals domain is now as or even more important than ground, sea, or sky. If you can’t communicate, you can’t share good information, and you lose. Though even if you have all the information in the world, it’s worse than useless without a working theory to tell you what’s significant and not.
Staff Affairs
Work continues in Ukraine on improving the mobilization process and applying something resembling universal standards on the gaggle of brigades the Ukrainians field. Aspects of them, at least: Federov looks like someone who adheres to the old adage that what is measured gets managed, so if something is critical, a digital record needs to be kept for evaluation.
This is slow and steady work, with results appearing only in time. It also runs into the trouble of knowing what measurements really matter. Which you need at least a heuristic systems model to truly understand, because over time, this changes.
No word on Syrskyi being retired, as some were hoping might soon prove the case after Federov took over. A cynic might point to the Huliaypole counteroffensive being well timed with regards to his future, but that seems like a stretch. The timing was simply right: the orcs were stretched out and trying to grasp too much.
There are some interesting debates underway in Ukraine on how to handle orc forces building up in the operational zone, which stretches from roughly twenty to a hundred kilometers beyond forward positions. Up to twenty klicks, corps and brigades handle most tactical level stuff on their own with FPV, bomber, and increasingly ground drones. But beyond, it’s a free-for-all, with the new USF branch slowly taking over responsibility for it one section of the front at a time.
Once interdiction of orc combat power in this zone becomes routine, the work of teams on the front will get that much easier. Drone superiority at this level will support far more effective counteroffensive operations. Technology has almost reached a stage where ground drones can slowly infiltrate a fairly broad area ahead of any people, making it impossible for the enemy to move without being detected and shot at when they begin to fight. I have to expect that someone will work out how to use milk cow drones to fly in and recharge the batteries of ground drones in waiting mode.
Planning and coordinating operations in this brave new world isn’t a task for the faint of heart. It is beginning to become very clear how various implementations of AI can offer serious advantages on the battlefield. We humans are way too easily fooled by our own biases.
At the top level, Zelensky actually, in my opinion, made one of his infrequent errors when he swiftly jumped to back the US and Israeli actions in Iran over the weekend. Now, I know that he has to be reasonably supportive to placate Trump, and also has every reason to celebrate the mullahs getting wasted as due justice, given their ongoing support for Putin’s attempt to destroy Ukraine.
But there’s nothing lawful about the US-Israeli intervention in a strict sense, so it’s a tough spot to complain about the illegality of Putin’s assault on Ukraine while celebrating a war based on outright lies about Iranian capabilities and intentions. It was a relief to see how quickly he pivoted the next day to casting Ukraine as a source of lessons and support for countries which happen to have lots of Patriot missiles - and could still after the war is over, with less need for them, depending on how things go - that Ukraine desperately needs. Other kit too.
Ukraine may possibly benefit from this, and good riddance to the mullahs, insofar as they’re really gone and not just promoting the next generation - Khamenei’s own son is replacing him, apparently, which sure makes referring to Iran’s leader nice and consistent. Another point in favor of this being his dad’s succession plan.
But there’s absolutely no guarantee of anything good coming out of this for anyone. Aid to Ukraine could easily wind up negatively impacted for a long time to come, and Putin is bound to end up even more important to China than ever before.
Concluding Remarks
Gotta say, the Chinese see the state of the world system like I do, they now have a golden opportunity to quietly back Iran’s fight and drag this war out forever at almost no cost to themselves, just as they’re effectively doing with Putin. Global oil prices can skyrocket: they get all the heavily discounted crude from Putin they need, unless the shadow fleet is halted.
Trump has destroyed what little remained of US power, committing it to an adventure highly likely degenerate into another quagmire, with Americans dying in dribs and drabs for years - sometimes more, when a terror attack works. The Chinese now have a vested interest in displacing US influence from the Middle East entirely, and after suffering attacks thanks to a misguided US-Israeli joint attack done without sufficient preparation and planning, much of the region is liable to be open to Chinese influence.
Who in their right mind would ever trust the Americans? Deep down, Iran was attacked because some Americans have long dreamed of a war with Iran, and Trump badly needs their votes in the upcoming midterm elections, silly as that motivation may sound. When delusions drive policy, anyone could become a target. Ask Spain, presently on the receiving end of Trump’s ire because it won’t back the war with Iran. Or the UK, whose PM Trump is pissed at because the US would really like to stage B1 and B52 bombers from Diego Garcia instead of Guam or the continental US.
The urgency of European autonomy from the USA is now extreme. Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, and most of Southeast Asia should also be firewalling themselves against the USA. Wars begin when you will, but don’t end when you please. Not when the other side’s survival depends on constantly disproving the other’s assertions that they’re beaten wrong by simply shooting back.
Victory in Ukraine is also more urgent than ever before. By 2027, I’m afraid the door will close for good, now. Team Trump has unleashed the whirlwind, and best bet is a major Chinese move before this pack of chimps has left office, voluntarily or in body bags. If that happens, keeping Putin pushing forward in Europe at all costs will become essential to Chinese strategy.
So the good news of the week is the steady enhancement of Ukraine’s fight in every dimension. Maybe this thing in Iran will go like US propaganda types insist. But it’d be a first. Best to assume a new forever war is on. Putin and Xi have got to be feeling positively gleeful.
Excellent analysis as always Andrew, thank you 👍