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The rise of the military-technology complex

How Silicon Valley tech firms remade US defense contracting. And then opened the Pentagon’s checkbook—wide.

Bulletin, By Bernice Yeung, July 23, 2026

The tale of how the Pentagon lost its spirit of innovation often begins with an incident known as “the Last Supper.”

It was the fall of 1993. About two dozen executives from leading defense contractors had received an unexpected invitation to dinner at the Pentagon. After the meal, the group was ushered into a briefing room where William Perry, then the deputy secretary of defense (and soon, the defense secretary), gave a presentation that startled the room.

In the wake of the Cold War, he said, the defense industry should prepare for catastrophic cuts to military spending. “They should not look at it as a little dip here but as a new low plateau and adjust their plans accordingly,” Perry would later recall.

Within a couple of decades, the US defense industrial base shrank from dozens of firms to today’s so-called Big Five—Lockheed Martin, RTX (formerly Raytheon), General Dynamics, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, which together receive about a third of the Defense Department’s annual contract obligations.

Two decades of defense contractor mergers and acquisitions consolidated the defense industry from more than 75 firms to the Big Five—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Raytheon (now RTX)—also known as “primes.” Chart [on original] by Thomas Gaulkin. Source: NASA, “Final Report of the Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry”

Silicon Valley executives, like Shyam Sankar of the tech firm Palantir, have pointed to that dinner as the start of a decades-long “decoupling of commercial innovation from defense.” The chill between the Defense Department and Silicon Valley grew so strong that Sankar dubbed it “the Great Schism” in a 4,000-word, viral-among-some manifesto he called The Defense Reformation.

During those years of estrangement, the Pentagon became increasingly entrenched in the status quo, buying and maintaining hulking weapons within a ponderous bureaucracy. Silicon Valley, for its part, dashed ahead with innovations around cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and product design—though usually to enhance consumer experiences in shopping, gaming, or food delivery.

The distrust and disdain between the two camps grew serious. “There’s plenty of people in Washington in the last 20 years who’ve made a point of how much, you know, they hate us,” Netscape founder-turned-VC-titan Marc Andreessen said in a 2025 podcast.

By the early aughts, there were people in both the Pentagon and Silicon Valley who knew that mending the breach was urgently needed. China’s leaps in technological advancement sounded an alarm in foreign policy circles. In October 2024, Sankar, who is Palantir’s chief technology officer, was still making a case for the reunification of tech and defense when he published the Defense Reformation.

Sankar began the essay by summoning the story of the Last Supper as a way to explain why the country was in a “state of undeclared emergency.” Consolidation had led to the demise of the defense industrial base, he argued. The China threat meant robust innovation adoption at the Pentagon was an imperative. To get there, speed and deregulation were required.

“We need a defense Reformation to … transform the way the government does business,” Sankar wrote.

Sankar and Palantir, the controversial data-mining company that provides AI-enhanced platforms for battlefield analysis, are powerful voices in a growing chorus. Anduril, which makes autonomous weapons systems, issued a 7,000-word decree pushing for policy changes, such as aligning Pentagon tech purchasing with “industry best practices” to “reboot the arsenal of democracy.” Venture capitalists like Andreessen Horowitz are investing upwards of $1 billion in defense tech, demanding deregulation because “America’s most innovative founders are building the tools our warfighters need—but the current system locks them out.”

In the past year, there have been indications that the Silicon Valley crowd is being heard. “Industry has become influential in shaping national security policy, with leading AI companies framing too much regulation as a national security liability,” said Emile Ayoub, senior counsel with the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

Within months of entering office, President Donald Trump issued a flurry of executive orders to accelerate AI adoption and streamline defense buying. To transform the US military into “an ‘AI-first’ warfighting force,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has mandated faster but riskier methods of acquiring frontier technologies. “This is the beginning of an unrelenting onslaught to change the way we do business …………………………………………………………………………………………………

AI-related defense tech contractors have been generous in their financial contributions to elected officials. The support goes well beyond the most conspicuous displays, such as Big Tech’s eye-popping donations to Trump’s re-election campaign, inauguration, and ballroom………………………………….

 Between 2022 and 2024, these nine trailblazing AI companies and their employees have increased their campaign contributions by about 60 percent to the members of Congress who control Pentagon policy. Their defense-specific lobbying has jumped from about $650,000 to $7.7 million in the past decade…………

………Simultaneously, the Trump administration has installed a revolving door between defense-tech companies and the Pentagon. 

…..If companies move quickly from “concept to combat,” “the Department’s checkbook is open.”

In the past decade, Palantir’s revenue from defense contracts grew by an annual average of 50 percent, among the fastest of any defense firm, according to a Brennan Center analysis. That translates to at least $1.4 billion in defense department payouts since 2008.

Thanks to a surge in work with the military, Palantir became profitable in 2022. And its slice of the Pentagon pie continues to expand. Recently, the Defense Department embedded Palantir’s AI platform, used for battlefield awareness and target recognition, throughout the military. Now, as a “program of record,” Palantir will receive ongoing and long-term funding from the department.

…………………………………………………………………………As the Valley grew into a hub of global capitalism, O’Mara observes, Washington looked to the tech industry as an economic engine and a source of campaign financing. It courted Silicon Valley dollars by offering tax breaks, subsidies, and skilled worker visas and promised to fill classrooms with computers and internet connections.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Meanwhile, organizations ranging from the United Nations, to the Pope, to a consortium of nonprofits and academics known as Stop Killer Robots, decry the use of AI in warfare, especially in the deployment of lethal autonomous weapons. They argue that there’s an inherent lack of transparency when the black box of AI models is further obscured by the opaque or classified nature of military operations.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………One of the companies joining this group of Silicon Valley heavy hitters is Reflection AI, a relatively new firm that receives VC funding from 1789 Capital. In yet another example of the red flags around conflicts of interest and self-dealing emerging from the Trump administration, Donald Trump, Jr., the president’s son, is a partner at 1789 Capital—in fact, the lead partner on the deal.

……………………………………………………….o understand what’s driving the renewed relationship between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon, it’s instructive to look at where venture capital is flowing. Between 2024 and 2025, venture capital investments to defense technology nearlydoubled, from about $27 billion to $49 billion, according to PitchBook, a repository of data on capital markets.

The Silicon Valley Defense Group analyzes the prospects of the top VC and private equity-backed defense tech firms, and its 2026 report found that In-Q-Tel is still the largest funder of defense tech. But BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm, significantly increased its focus on this sector in 2025. Not to be left out, the Big Five have also thrown funding at these companies through their own venture capital arms.

Overall, the Silicon Valley Defense Group observes “seismic” shifts in the sector……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Elke Schwarz, a professor at Queen Mary University of London who studies military AI, observed that Silicon Valley has successfully reshaped how the Pentagon does business—and to its benefit.

“With its focus on iteration, agility, risk, speed, and scale, the new defence culture performs both the logics of its new AI products and that of the VC companies that fund the startups,” she writes. “It is a holistic shaping of the environment towards the vectors that make Silicon Valley VC investors enormously rich.”

She adds: “[M]ove fast and break things is not a suitable motto for any conscientious military organization.”

San José State University professor Roberto González has been studying the rise of defense tech from the heart of Silicon Valley. He said there’s an analogy to be made with the California Gold Rush. “That’s just a part of the mentality of this part of the world—you have an opportunity to get rich quick, and you go for it,” said González, author of War Virtually:The Quest to Automate Conflict, Militarize Data, and Predict the Future.

But, he warns, there’s a crucial difference between the two.

“What we’re talking about, in the end, is taxpayer dollars,” González said of the money helping to fuel the defense tech boom. “A lot of the startups will fail. But in the meantime, the pot can just keep growing larger and larger, as long as we can be convinced, as taxpayers, to keep that Pentagon budget growing.” https://thebulletin.org/2026/07/the-rise-of-the-military-technology-complex/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=New%20investigation%3A%20The%20rise%20of%20the%20military-technology%20complex&utm_campaign=20260723%20Thursday%20Newsletter

July 29, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

An Iranian missile attack on the UK is no longer far-fetched. 

It is unsurprising that Iran considers the UK bases used by US bombers to attack
the country – RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia in the
Indian Ocean – to be “legitimate targets”.

Such threats might have been
dismissed in the past as unrealistic bombast, but in a year when warfare in
the Gulf and Ukraine has been dominated by drones, along with cruise and
ballistic missiles, nations that once believed themselves safe have
suddenly become vulnerable. Iran fired two missiles at Diego Garcia in
March which failed in flight or were shot down, but the Iranians clearly
believed they had the range to reach the island. Diego Garcia is 2,350
miles from Tehran, while London is 2,750 miles away.

iNews 25th July 2026, https://inews.co.uk/opinion/iranian-missile-attack-uk-no-longer-far-fetched-4660624

July 29, 2026 Posted by | Iran, UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The hidden expansion of Britain’s nuclear strategy

 24 July 2026, https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/hidden-expansion-britains-nuclear-strategy

“CAN our nuclear subs fire missiles from under the Arctic ice?” This was a question posed jokingly at a meeting of the House of Commons defence committee earlier this summer.  

It did not need an answer. The intent was to validate Britain’s adoption of an additional airborne system for its nuclear strike force. It is with such levity that some of our legislators seem to frame the most deadly shifts in policy.

The July edition of the Bulletin of the Nuclear Scientists has outlined the background to this decision to finance a new and supplementary delivery system for Britain’s nuclear bomb. It was a decision only announced publicly in the very last week of the Starmer government and was closely linked to the fracas over the additional £15 billion for military hardware in the Defence Investment Plan.  

But why, anyway, should Britain be wanting to fire missiles from “under the Arctic ice.”


This again is linked to policy developments that have largely escaped public scrutiny. It concerns Britain’s leadership role within the Joint Expeditionary Force. Set up in 2014 this sounded like a fairly harmless left-over from some earlier war.

It is not. This “Force” is legally independent of Nato and not bound by any requirements for unanimity in the use of nuclear weapons. It is composed of the Baltic and Scandinavian states plus the Netherlands and Britain. Its territorial remit, within the current Nato division of responsibilities, is the “High North,” effectively Russia’s icebound Arctic frontiers. Hence the need for airborne nukes.  

We don’t yet know too much about the logistical implications of this decision. But earlier meetings of the Commons defence committee and also of the Scottish affairs committee give some strong indications. In terms of the deployment of supporting army, navy and air force units Scotland is seen to be the focus. Arbroath and Lossiemouth are cited. For the airborne nukes Lakenheath seems to be at least the interim base. But the nukes may also, for obvious logistical reasons, go north.


Are there deadlines for the implementation of these war preparations? Again the Commons defence committee minutes give some indications: 2030 onwards.  

And this brings us to the wider context. Britain has no particular economic interests in the “High North.” As one of Europe’s two nuclear powers, it is taking part in a wider division of labour whereby nuclear-armed France teams up with Germany to cover central Europe. And this again is within a still wider division of labour that allows the US to focus its full military might on China.  

Our media have built up “Russia” as the aggressor that threatens us all. But the bigger picture makes it quite clear that China is the overall strategic target.  

The current vacillations by Andy Burnham and some members of his Cabinet over the 3 per cent GDP target on arms by 2030 may indicate some awareness of the wider dangers implicit in this decision — as well as its dire consequences for the funding of any progressive social policies.  

The current issue of the US journal Foreign Affairs carries an article from Ely Ratner, formerly Joe Biden’s assistant secretary defence Asia-Pacific, making a clear bid for a more senior position in a future Democrat administration from 2030. His article is about how to hobble and, if necessary, militarily defeat a resurgent China.  


As we approach one further anniversary of Hiroshima, the trade union and labour movement need to mobilise alongside our working-class communities. The costs of potentially devastating warfare are being posed against what is needed for welfare — and for a war that ultimately serves a dying imperialist superpower. Decisions will be made over the next few weeks.

July 28, 2026 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Is Erasing Entire Gaza Families From The Civil Registry

 July 25, 2026,SCHEERPOST, Nora Barrows-Friedman The Electronic Intifada

The following is from the news roundup during the 23 July livestream. Watch the entire episode here.

Israel has carried out massacres on multiple families this week in Gaza, killing Palestinian children, men and women, as the army encroaches on more land and squeezes Palestinians into smaller and smaller areas.

On Wednesday, an Israeli drone strike on a tent sheltering displaced people killed a Palestinian and injured several others west of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to medical sources.

Thirteen Palestinians were killed in a series of Israeli attacks on Tuesday, including a strike on a home in the pre-dawn hours that killed six members of a family in Gaza City.

The Cradle reports that Feras al-Masri, his wife Salsabil, and their four children – Naim, 13 years old, Feryal, 11, Salma, 9, and Amira, 6 – were killed while they were sleeping. The Israeli drone strike engulfed the entire home in flames, and rescue crews say they found the bodies so completely burned that identification efforts were extremely difficult.

The explosion also forced residents in surrounding areas to flee in search of safety, while shrapnel reportedly reached nearby displacement camps, piercing tents housing displaced Palestinians, The Cradle added.

Palestinian Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal reported from the wreckage of the home, holding a piece of the loitering munition, a so-called “suicide drone,” that hit the building.

He said the residents were burned alive, and added that rescuers could hear them screaming and begging to be pulled out, but all attempts had failed.

The Civil Defense has warned repeatedly that Israel’s deliberate targeting of its vehicles and equipment, along with the scarce amount of fuel and lack of spare parts to repair damaged or worn-out vehicles has made rescue efforts like these nearly impossible.

Videos circulated on social media show Civil Defense crews pulling the charred remains of bodies, some of them small, out of the building in the aftermath of the strike.

Four Palestinians were killed in a separate strike on Tuesday, also in Gaza City, when an Israeli missile targeted the entrance to the Muslim Young Women’s Association building……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Gaza’s stolen landscape

In addition to the massacres, airstrikes and sniper attacks on people across Gaza this week, the Israeli army continues to carry out heavy demolitions of entire neighborhoods on the eastern side of the so-called yellow line.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights’ office said this week that more than nine months after the announcement of a so-called ceasefire, “still, nowhere is safe for Palestinians in Gaza.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Israeli army, settlers kill Palestinians in West Bank

Turning to the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers and settlers shot and killed two Palestinians during a raid on the village of Deir Jarir near Ramallah on the night of 19 July.

The Palestinian health ministry said that Awda Farakhna, 53, and Ahmed Abdul Abu Mukh, 26, were killed and several others were injured in the attack.

Local sources told the Wafa news agency that Israeli occupation forces also opened fire at an ambulance transporting one of the injured Palestinians to the hospital.

The Guardian newspaper reports that Israeli settlers from a nearby colony outpost arrived after 9 pm, “claiming that they were searching for stolen livestock. Israeli soldiers and police soon joined them, protecting them as they sought to take several villagers’ sheep by force.”

But when people in the village “raised the alarm and a crowd gathered, soldiers shot two men, beginning a night of three successive raids by settlers from nearby outposts and Israeli soldiers that lasted until after 2 am, according to Palestinian residents of Deir Jarir.”

In interviews with The Guardian, as they buried their relatives, “family and friends of the dead Palestinian men described several attacks each month in which they said settlers, backed by Israeli forces, arrived in houses on the outskirts of the village and then stole livestock.”

“It’s a partnership between the army and the settlers,” Adel Rashid, the father of the younger victim, Ahmed Abu Mukh, told the newspaper……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/25/israel-is-erasing-entire-gaza-families-from-the-civil-registry/

July 28, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

Not Even Israelis Are Willing To Die For Israel

And Other Notes

Caitlin Johnstone, Jul 22, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/not-even-israelis-are-willing-to?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=207992457&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a conference on Tuesday that Israel “has no interest” in participating in the ongoing military exchanges between the US and Iran, asserting that “the current situation is the best one for us.”

While Smotrich is certainly correct that it is to Israel’s benefit to stand aside and let the Americans do all the fighting and dying in this conflict, this is a noteworthy admission about a war that the US State Department says the White House ordered “at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally.”

There are three groups of people who consistently say “I’m not fucking dying for Israel”:

1. US soldiers,

2. Americans at risk of being drafted into a large-scale war, and

3. Israelis.

You see this all the time. Back in March when the US was contemplating a ground invasion of Iran, the Israeli press were churning out reports assuring their audiences that government officials said the IDF would not be participating in any such operations. Israelis are happy for Americans to die for Israel, but they are unwilling to put their own lives on the line for the Zionist project.

You know who would lay down their lives for their homeland? The Palestinians.

The Palestinians have made it clear that they are willing to die for Palestine, while the Israelis have made it clear that they are unwilling to die for Israel. For the Israelis, Israel is merely a nice-to-have which they would happily give up if it became too dangerous.

For the Palestinians, that land is home.

The New Yorker has an article out titled “How Biden Enabled Israel’s Aggression Toward Gaza — and Iran,” with the subtitle “Top officials from the previous Administration now express regret over their failure to rein in Netanyahu.” It quotes Jake Sullivan saying “I will say straightforwardly — we should have put more pressure on Israel to take a different approach” on Gaza.

And to that I can only say, fuck you. Seriously, FUCK you.

You don’t get to do this now. You don’t get to turn around and go “Oopsie poopsie, we made a mistake!” This was YOUR genocide, motherfuckers. YOURS. You chose it. You own it. Forever. The stench of the rotting corpses in Gaza will sully your names for all time.

They always planned to do this. They backed a genocide knowing they could always try to spin it as a regrettable error in hindsight, and let their sad feelings of contrition wash their hands of their sins.

Fuck that bullshit. That’s not happening. We’ll never let them forget what they did and what they are.

That same New Yorker article says Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Biden administration to keep secret any small concessions he made in allowing aid into Gaza, saying the Israeli prime minister “feared a domestic backlash for not starving Gaza’s women, children, and other civilians.”

Think about how fucked up a society has to be for its politicians to fear domestic backlash for not starving civilians.

❖

The other day Fox News host Jesse Watters joked and laughed about how the US military’s new testosterone testing policy is going to lead to soldiers with overloaded testosterone levels sexually assaulting women.

“Yeah, I want these guys on it, but you know what’s gonna happen? The guys that don’t need it are gonna take it, to triple boost,” Watters said Thursday, chuckling. “And then they’re gonna get out there, and women on base, you guys better be careful. Port calls, women in Asia, you better be careful, because these guys are gonna be wild animals and you better watch out.”

Ho ho, ha ha, watch out ladies you’re gonna get raped by US soldiers just like untold millions of other women around the world throughout history, ha ha, wocka wocka, comedy laugh laugh.

The Murdoch press is cancer.

I saw a tweet from Zionist pundit Joe Walsh saying “If you hate the state of Israel, you hate Jews. If you are pledged to the destruction of the state of Israel, you hate Jews. If you do not believe the state of Israel has a right to exist, you hate Jews.”

If you keep feeding the public the lie that they need to choose between supporting genocide and hating Jews, people are going pick hate Jews, because they don’t want to support genocide. When that happens, the blame will rest on all these pricks who circulated this lie.

You don’t get to just pretend all this fretting about “antisemitism” is happening separately from the agenda to stomp out all criticism of Israel and its abuses. You don’t get to demand that I treat them as separate things. They’re inseparable agendas. I wish they weren’t, but they are.

If you come up to me babbling about how Jews are afraid and mistreated, then I’m going to automatically treat this as apologia for a genocidal apartheid state, because that’s the primary agenda that this rhetoric is being used to promote today. It’s not my fault that this is how I respond to allegations of antisemitism. It’s the fault of the people who have weaponized such allegations to promote genocide, apartheid, war, and tyranny.

If you want me to take allegations of “antisemitism” seriously, then you must first bring to an end the campaign to use that term as a cudgel to shut down pro-Palestine protests and silence Israel’s critics. That is what you’ll need to do before I will give you the benefit of the doubt and listen to you like you’re a good-faith actor. The information ecosystem is currently far too full of genocidal Zionists lying about their experiences, their feelings, their intentions, and what has happened to them for me to listen credulously to stories about discrimination against Jews in the year 2026.

It’s so surreal how we are still expected in mainstream western society to listen to concern trolling about “antisemitism” without immediately thinking about things like Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, war, and genocide.  We’re expected to listen patiently to stories about how western Jews feel unsafe without ever looking at all those elephants in the room. It’s insulting. It’s degrading.

If the main reason antisemitism gets mentioned these days is because of opposition to Israel’s mass atrocities, then obviously I’m going to assume that’s the driving motivator behind your words when you mention it. Of course that’s going to be my default assumption. Obviously. Duh.

July 27, 2026 Posted by | Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

War Criminal Pete Hegseth Disrupted

 July 23, 2026, https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/23/war-criminal-pete-hegseth-disrupted/

CODEPINK Disrupts Secretary of War Crimes Pete Hegseth During Senate Appropriations Hearing.

Washington, DC – On Tuesday afternoon, activists from CODEPINK, Vets About Face DMV, and the National Iranian American Council disrupted Secretary of War Crimes Pete Hegseth during his testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations, demanding an immediate end to the disastrous U.S. war on Iran and condemning the administration’s request for additional funding.

Four people managed to disrupt Hegseth; of the four, two were Iranian-Americans, one U.S. veteran, and one nurse. They were each removed from the hearing and arrested. 

Today’s action comes as the administration escalates its unprovoked war, where, notably, on the first day of attacks, the U.S. bombed a grade school, killing 73 boys, 47 girls, and 26 female teachers. Since then, the U.S. has targeted Iran’s civilian infrastructure, including water plants, airports, bridges, universities, sports facilities, and the electric grid. The World Health Organization reports that the U.S. war has killed or injured over 35,000 civilians.

“Pete Hegseth and this administration will be remembered for the killing of innocent civilians and children. They have protected neither the American people nor our security, only the interests that have lined their pockets,” said Bella of the National Iranian American Council, who joined the protest. “While Americans struggle to afford their lives, this government always finds billions to bomb our families in Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, and elsewhere. This is a repugnant betrayal of humanity. It is illegal, and the American people will hold them accountable.”

More and more people in the U.S. are now rejecting additional military spending and would rather the government redirect resources to domestic needs. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 37% of Americans back new U.S. strikes on Iran, while half believe the conflict has not been worth its cost. The war has also taken a significant economic toll, as65% of Americans want a deal to end the war as soon as possible. Despite this, Hegseth appeared before the committee to request additional funding for a war that has already cost over $132 billion.

CODEPINK will continue to work towards a reinvestment of the $1.5 trillion proposed war budget into real security for people in the form of healthcare, housing, and climate justice. 

July 27, 2026 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Chris Hedges Report: Is Iran Becoming Another ‘Forever War’?

 July 22, 2026, https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/is-iran-becoming-another-forever

The Trump administration has embroiled the United States in another quagmire, similar to the Vietnam War and recent wars in the Middle East, by going to war against Iran. Now that the June 17th Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran is dead, the US and Iran seem to be stuck in a tit for tat war where the US bombs Iran and Iran retaliates against US and allies’ in the region. As Gulf States that are being targeted by Iran mount pressure on President Trump to stop the attacks, and a global economic crisis looms, the US is running out of options and time.

For a greater understanding of the balance of power in the region, the US’ military capacity and possible outcomes of the US-Iran War, Chris Hedges speaks with Professor John Mearsheimer in this episode of The Chris Hedges Report. Mearsheimer argues that what happens in the coming week is crucial in determining whether there can be a peaceful resolution to the conflict. At present, Iran has the upper hand, and the United States lacks the capacity to follow through on President Trump’s threats to escalate if Iran doesn’t acquiesce to Trump’s demand that it concede. If the US does escalate, then there is a real risk that in addition to a renewed closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Yemen may close the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, cutting off oil flows as strategic reserves around the world dwindle, which could trigger a global depression.

Hedges and Mearsheimer discuss the similarities between the war on Iran and the Vietnam War. Leadership in the United States knew early on that they could not win in Vietnam, but they continued escalating anyway. It is likely that the Trump administration knows that they have failed in Iran, but they refuse to give in even though they lack an exit strategy. Mearsheimer frames the June 17th MOU as the first concession by the US and says, “The idea that we have a newfound advantage over the Iranians now that we didn’t have when we signed the June 17th MOU agreement makes no sense at all.”

Hedges summarizes the potential paths available to the United States: “One, if the United States does continue to attack infrastructure, we are headed for a humanitarian disaster in the Gulf. If it doesn’t, then it leaves open the possibility of some kind of a negotiated settlement that is even more advantageous to Iran than the memorandum of understanding.” A glimmer of hope, Mearsheimer offers, is that President Trump halted further attacks on Iranian infrastructure this week, but what happens next is uncertain.

July 27, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US Troops Always Die For The US Alone

 July 22, 2026, Nate Bear, https://www.donotpanic.news/p/us-troops-always-die-for-the-us-alone

In the wake of the death of three American troops on a base in Jordan following a retaliatory attack by Iran, I’ve seen a lot of commentary online stating that they “died for Israel.”

This idea that Americans are dying for Israel has become an oft-repeated narrative since the US and Israel began their illegal war of aggression on Iran.

I understand the impulse, attraction and utility of this argument.

Yes, Zionists and their apartheid death state have a huge amount of slaughter, blood and destruction on their hands.

And yes, the entity and its supporters have established a symbiotic relationship with US governance which has allowed them to advance the genocide of the Palestinian people and their project of regional domination.

And I think it’s likely that convincing Americans that Americans are dying for another country helps undermine support for Israel and brings us closer to the day that the relationship is severed for good.

But the apartheid entity and its supporters are merely the parasite feeding from the lifeblood of the host. The host is providing the weapons and money as well as the global political cover for the grossly engorged entity to act with impunity.

And it is doing it wilfully.

The most revealing comment ever made about Israel didn’t come from Donald Trump, it came from Joe Biden, who as far back as 1986 said, loudly and proudly from the floor of the Senate, that “if Israel did not exist the United States would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region.”

This should tell you absolutely everything you need to know.

The Middle East and West Asia is a vital zone of influence for empire, and Israel is just one of the on-shore aircraft carriers that enables imperial power projection thousands of miles from its shores.

The US soldiers died in Jordan, just one of the nodes in a broad network of bases spanning Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Iraq, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, some of which have been in existence since the 1940s. While Israel is particularly useful to the imperium because it shares the expansionist, colonial instincts of its host, all these countries have friendly relations with the entity, the Gulf Arabs having long ago decided to choose Zionism and the siren call of empire over regional solidarity and Palestine. These bases don’t exist for Israel or the protection of Israel, they exist, exactly as Joe Biden said, to advance American interests.

Arguing that Americans are dying for Israel feels to me like a way to offload responsibility for a globe spanning empire, to indulge a fantasy that a benign America exists, and to deny the historical reality of American barbarism. It feels, ultimately, like a way for Americans to absolve themselves of their imperial sins.

Israel is a vital component of empire, but its crimes flow from the impunity and barbarity of US empire, not the other way around.

And for sure, the dismantling of a proxy regime like Israel is a necessary step on the road to a more just world, but that’s exactly what Israel is. A proxy. The tip of a spear. And an important one at that, but it isn’t the throwing arm. From Ukraine to Taiwan to its mercenaries and local insurgent groups across the globe, empire has plenty of other spear tips.

Did the apartheid state make the US invade Vietnam, commit genocide in Korea, bomb Panama, destroy clinics in Sudan or murder Venezuelans in Caracas just seven months ago? Did the Jewish ethno-state make it so that rape followed by the murder of Vietnamese women was so common that US soldiers had a special term for it: double veteran?

I don’t think so.

If Israel ceased to exist, the US regime wouldn’t pack away its toys, dissolve its one trillion dollar military death machine and go home. It would find or create another Israel.

The US resumed bombing Iran all on its own, after all.

The tragedy isn’t that American empire gets impressionable young men and women to die for Israel, the tragedy is that it gets them to die for it. For empire.

I don’t mean a tragedy we should be particularly sad about. I mean a tragedy in the original meaning of the world.

A Latina (as one of the dead soldiers, Isabella Gonzalez, was) dying for an empire of white nationalist supremacy currently trying to deport her neighbours, an empire which will never mourn her, is a genuinely classical level of tragedy, one the Greeks would be proud of.

Framing the deaths of soldiers in the Middle East as deaths for Israel makes it sound as if there would be some other just cause for which US troops could die.

There isn’t. All American troops die for empire.

The goal shouldn’t be to get Americans to stop dying for Israel.

The goal should be to get Americans to stop dying for the United States of America.

July 27, 2026 Posted by | Iran, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Israeli crimes against Palestinians did not “start” in October 2023

Israel was born of Zionist terrorism (Irgun, Stern, Lehi) against the original, indigenous, inhabitants of Palestine

Eva Karene Bartlett, Jul 23, 2026, https://evakarenebartlett.substack.com/p/the-israeli-crimes-against-palestinians?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=3046064&post_id=208173581&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

I lived in Gaza for 3 years (and 2 Israeli wars on Gaza) and spent a lot of time with farmers and fishers (who came under Israeli fire near-daily when they simply tried to fish or work their land), also lived in central Gaza, took public transit, and spoke directly with people. International organizations that worked there tended—from what I saw—to be cut off from the reality, living in expensive apartments, dining at one of a handful of expensive restaurants, driving around in their own SUVs…really not interacting meaningfully with people there (I’m sure there were exceptions, but from my experience this was the reality).

I wrote an overview after leaving Gaza, which is relevant today as it outlines the many ways Israel has been slow genociding Gaza over a decade and a half before it began its current, ongoing, horrific genocide—by ensuring Palestinians only just survived: bombing, burning or destroying their agricultural land, firing on farmers: bombing or stealing their fishing boats, firing on or abducting fishers; ensuring the sewage was untreated and pumped into the sea, or overflown into the streets; ensuring the water was almost completely undrinkable; deliberately starving Palestinians by denying the adequate entry of aid (and destroying their food sources, as above); denying exit for urgent medical care; and on and on…

During the December 2008/January 2009 Israeli war on Gaza, I was in Northern Gaza, riding in ambulances, documenting civilians injured and murdered by Israeli bombing, drone strikes, sniping…

During the November 2012 Israeli war on Gaza, I was in Deir al-Balah documenting the destruction and also at al-Aqsa hospital documenting the injured and the murdered.

This page has links to various articles I wrote at the time, also follow up investigations, including documentation of:

-Israel’s widespread use of White Phosphorous on civilians

-Israel’s deliberate sniping and shelling of Palestinian medics, maiming and killing numerous

-Israel’s deliberate sniping or point blank assassination of civilians, including children and infants

-Israel’s deliberate drone striking of civilians, including children

and more.

But before going (by boat) to Gaza in November 2008, in 2007 I spent 8 months in various West Bank communities which were being aggressed, abused, harassed by the Israeli army and by illegal Jewish colonists.

My overview of that time includes:

–Israeli army invasions into Nablus and into nearby villages, during which the Israeli army terrorized Palestinian civilians, shot up their homes, killed, injured and abducted Palestinian civilians (including a medic)

-Documenting some of the hundreds of Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks, and the impact (including deadly) they have on Palestinian civilians trying to move from one point to the next, for work, medical care, study, or other.

-The savagery of illegal Jewish colonists—usually enabled by accompanying Israeli soldiers, including attacks on farmers I was with, attacks on Palestinian civilians whose tents I slept in in Susiya, menacing and threatening Palestinian civilians (including children) in Khalil/Hebron (where illegal Jewish colonists have violently taken over Palestinian homes and occupy the streets, beating civilians, including children

-The brutality of the Apartheid Wall

-The courageous non-violent resistance of Palestinians in communities throughout the West Bank, especially in the village of Bil’in, whose demonstrations I joined nearly a dozen times. There, we immediately came under high velocity tear gas canisters fired at close proximity from invading Israeli soldiers, as well as rubber-coated bullets and even live ammunition (as such unarmed protests in Gaza, the Israeli army usually didn’t bother with tear gas but started immediately firing live ammunition at us, as they did to unarmed Palestinian farmers—elderly, young men and women, children—and myself).

The daily crimes I saw in the West Bank and Gaza continue today and impact every facet of Palestinians lives and existence. Post 2023, people who don’t even follow closely are aware of the ongoing Israeli genocide and land theft of Gaza, though that said the media has largely moved on. The crimes in the West Bank get less coverage, and are fully enabled top down in order for Israel to continue ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians and continued illegal expansion.

July 26, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, history, Israel | Leave a comment

Ukraine has a new butcher-in-chief – all the better to feed Ukrainians to the grinder

the comedian-on-the-way-to-the-presidency made one and only one specific promise: that he understood the absolute priority of peace and would do everything to find a negotiated solution with Russia.

Syrsky is gone, but his replacement is a sign that Zelensky as committed as ever to prolonging a losing war at terrible human cost

23 Jul, 2026 , By Tarik Cyril Amar, a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory https://www.rt.com/news/643351-ukraine-drapaty-new-butcher/

The rule of Vladimir Zelensky has been a catastrophe for Ukraine, and that is how it will be remembered once the dust of relentless info war campaigns in his favor – and against his critics – settles.

While the corruption of the Zelensky regime is stupendous, that fact – sad as it is – is not what makes him special, however. Because exorbitant, shameless embezzlement, kickbacks, and fraud have been the Ukrainian establishment’s perverse normal since independence. Zelensky and his cronies are certain to have cashed in like no one before because the West has pumped in money as never before while turning two blind eyes to what happens to it. But in principle, Zelensky has merely done what they all do. Not that that makes it any better.

Zelensky’s truly distinct contribution to Ukraine’s misery has consisted in two other things. His unprecedented ramping-up of authoritarianism – begun long before the escalation of the war in 2022 – and his merciless choice to relentlessly sacrifice his country and its people to serve as cannon fodder in a Western proxy war against Russia.


Zelensky’s responsibility before his country is all the greater because he once either knew better or he lied. During his 2019 election campaign, when he generally “avoided serious interviews and discussions about policy – preferring instead to post light-hearted videos to social media,” as the BBC back then was still ready to report, the comedian-on-the-way-to-the-presidency made one and only one specific promise: that he understood the absolute priority of peace and would do everything to find a negotiated solution with Russia.

And then in the spring of 2022, Zelensky, of course, deliberately missed a golden opportunity to end the large-scale war when it had barely begun. Heeding not Ukraine’s obvious national interest but duplicitous advice from the West’s emissary, then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Zelensky personally ditched an almost finished peace agreement, locking in years of devastation for his country. In the end, once the war will be fully lost, Kiev is virtually certain to get a deal much worse than what was on offer then.

Now, in the summer of 2026, it may seem as if Zelensky’s grip on Ukraine is finally slipping. A combination of street protests and – inevitable if quiet – Western pressure has forced him into a humiliating climb-down. After the president’s sudden dismissal of the popular – and much-hyped – defense minister Mikhail Fedorov, the protesters had demanded his re-instatement and the sacking of Fedorov’s rival, the military’s commander-in-chief Aleksandr ‘the Butcher’ Syrsky. Zelensky has now fired Syrsky to be replaced by General Mikhail Drapaty, while some new influential position for Fedorov is being discussed.

Boris Johnson, currently a more-than-usual washed-out has-been of British politics, busy trying to catch the public eye, has made meager headlines with blaming the Ukraine War on the Britain’s new foreign secretary, Ed Miliband. How is that supposed to work? Somehow via Syria. Yes, really.

The single most important cause of this perfectly avoidable war was of course the West’s reckless policy of NATO expansion. And the man who helped most directly to make the war go on when it could have ended quickly was Boris Johnson. But sure: “Syria.”
Boris, though, does stand for something, namely just how bizarre much of this developing story is. Here is a regime that, together with its Western supporters and users, has just been running an absurd but pervasive propaganda campaign claiming its drone and missile strikes are winning the war. And yet both the minister of defense and the head of the military have to go. An odd way to celebrate impending victory.

In reality, one thing the Fedorov-Syrsky saga shows is that even Zelensky doesn’t believe in his own boasts of moving the war from “the earth into the sky” and securing victory in that manner. Fedorov did not have to go despite finding a winning “asymmetrical” strategy, as many of the protesters and Western mainstream media claim. He never did. Fedorov did not fall over his alleged struggle against corruption either. He may have antagonized one set of war profiteers, but in Ukraine that only means another network will take a larger cut.

The most likely real reason for Fedorov’s sacking – whether it will be reversed or sort-of-reversed – is that Zelensky fears him as a rising political competitor, as Ukrainska Pravda reports. And while firing the defense minister, Zelensky himself created the cover story that there was no other way to deal with conflicts between Fedorov and Syrsky. In that way, it is Zelensky who made Syrsky, already widely disliked for wasting the lives of Ukrainian soldiers with futile and stubborn tactics, a target for the protesters.

The diehard Zelensky fans at Britain’s Telegraph may try to sell this outcome as “nimble” Zelensky successfully buying time by making Syrsky his fall guy in the same manner that he had already sacrificed his very intimate friend and top fixer Andrey Yermak to dodge the fallout from his own corruption. In reality, Zelensky has lost face again. His authority, brittle in any case, has taken another hit.

For Ukraine, though, none of this is good news. Yes, the de facto dictator Zelensky has suffered a defeat, and the abhorred ‘butcher’ Syrsky has been removed. But he has been replaced by a man who, while almost two decades younger, is very unlikely to be any better. Drapaty, who is treated with the usual kid gloves by Ukrainian and Western mainstream media, may or may not be an efficient commander. What is certain is that he first came to public attention in 2014, when his units brutally cracked down on resistance in the eastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol (before, as often forgotten, losing control of the city). Nothing in his career since then indicates a change of attitude. This is the man in charge of the whole Ukrainian military now.

Zelensky may well know that his own hype about the current air campaign turning the war around is propaganda. Yet clearly that does not mean that the Ukrainian leadership is willing to be serious about a negotiated solution. Emboldened by exceedingly rash Western support, Kiev has not yet given up on continuing a losing war, propped up by brutal forced mobilization, until an end that will be even more bitter than Ukraine’s current wretchedness.

July 26, 2026 Posted by | politics, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

‘Gaza Is One Giant Graveyard’

 SCHEERPOST, July 21, 2026,  Marah Abdel Jaber Prism

A seasoned humanitarian aid worker directing distributions to Gaza since the start of Israel’s genocide in October 2023 went on their first mission to the Strip last winter. During the two-week mission, they conducted a ground assessment: testing the efficacy of aid, recording field interviews with residents, and surveying the functionality of local hospitals. They have requested anonymity in order to share what they learned publicly, and minimize the risk of retaliation from Israeli officials. 

In a Q&A with Prism in February, they reflected on the direct role of global humanitarian aid organizations in escalating the dehumanization of Palestinians under Israel’s genocide, the lack of a true ceasefire, and the world’s abandonment of Palestinians.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Marah Abdel Jaber: What were the conditions of Gaza upon your arrival? 

Humanitarian Aid Worker: When entering, we crossed through the Karem Abu Salem border and drove straight across the militarized yellow zone through Rafah. If I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t think that it was an actual city before. It’s almost entirely flattened, and most of it has been bulldozed. As we made our way up towards Khan Younis, we saw some demolished buildings and rubble. You would never think that there were people living there before. It was obvious that the Israeli forces were bulldozing away evidence of war crimes, the genocide, and the dead. That was all I could think about while driving through it.

Abdel Jaber: What was a typical day in the field for you?

HAW: My role required visiting different programs that [a medical NGO] was running and giving feedback. I also looked into some of their pilot programs or their areas of interest for launching new programs. I visited a lot of different clinics, hospitals, a school, and even an orphanage. I spoke with different parts of the population dealing with orphaned or unaccompanied separated children, the elderly, amputees, or those receiving therapy. I had quite a diverse exposure to the issues that the population is facing there, in addition to the aid situation and the distribution.

Abdel Jaber: What was most striking about the reality on the ground?

HAW: The living conditions are horrendous. Many people don’t know about the reality on the ground because mainstream media is pushing the narrative of a ceasefire to distract from the next phase of the colonial project: to build on top of a cemetery. Gaza is essentially one giant graveyard. Airstrikes are happening in the dozens, day and night; the Israeli military ships would still shoot out from the sea; and fighter jets and drones were everywhere. Oftentimes people would tell me that I should have visited Gaza before the genocide, because it was heaven. It would stop me. I couldn’t bear the thought of that. It was still occupation, injustice, and apartheid, but they would say it was better than now. They want the Palestinian people to choose which level of oppression they have. You can have minimal or maximum oppression, because you will never have absolute freedom. These are your options. Genocide, or apartheid and occupation.

“People would tell me I should have visited Gaza before the genocide, because it was heaven. … I couldn’t bear the thought of that. It was still occupation, injustice, and apartheid, but they would say it was better than now.”

Abdel Jaber: How would you qualify the ceasefire in Gaza during your mission?

HAW: There was nothing that would indicate an actual ceasefire. People outside of Gaza view this as a successful ceasefire for two reasons. First, the idea that aid is flowing in daily. It is, but it is still incredibly minimal while being distributed inefficiently and ineffectively. Israeli forces are also allowing in consumer goods. This signals that residents can now purchase goods, but the vast majority in Gaza have been without work for two and a half years. And a lot of people lost their money in the banks because the [Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF)] destroyed them, so they could no longer access the systems. 

The secondary narrative being pushed is that, before the ceasefire, we would hear of hundreds upon hundreds of Palestinians being killed every day. Now you don’t hear as much of that. People assume that there isn’t any more killing, when really dozens will get killed in a day. That’s not a ceasefire…………………………………………………………………………………………..

HAW: Everything that we’re seeing in this genocide in Gaza, everything that the Israeli forces have implemented, is intentional. It is by design. There is nothing coincidental about it. The intentional deprivation and inhumane conditions are meant to squeeze every ounce of hope out of Palestinians in Gaza. They signaled to people that if they want to stay in Gaza, they would have to get their aid in this way. The killing was intentional to serve as a warning for everyone else watching that they either starve or die trying to access essential aid. They don’t want them to have options. At first, it seemed like the only option was to leave. Now it looks like what is being done with this Board of Peace, and building this Riviera on a graveyard, is to use Palestinians as cheap labor………………………………………………………………………………………

HAW: Someone asked me the other day, if Israel is hellbent on getting rid of the Palestinian population, why not just drop a bomb and get it over with? Why are they torturing them? Everyone knows the IOF is killing them. Why not just do it? Well, first of all, that would make the genocide too obvious. But what a lot of people miss, and we really have to stress this as often as we can, is that genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, occupation, injustice—and everything all within that realm—is not only physical, it’s psychological. The psychological aspect is crucial. You can control a population through psychological torture. It explains why, even before the genocide, Israel denied the entry of chocolates, wedding gowns, construction paper, and other menial things into Gaza. Cutting off food and medication, not allowing a catheter to come in for a dialysis patient, banning menstrual pads, and more—they want to remind you at every opportunity that they are in control of everything. There is a psychological toll that has detrimental, long-term impacts. The trauma, the lack of education, the epigenetic changes that are going to happen over the years, birth defects, and mental health will take forever to deal with. They want to ensure every aspect of Palestinian society, physical and psychological, has been damaged…………………………………………………………………………………………… https://scheerpost.com/2026/07/21/gaza-is-one-giant-graveyard/

July 26, 2026 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza | Leave a comment

The wear and tear of conflict: Ukraine, Europe, and the twilight of a great deception

They were promised glory, but instead they found themselves in hell

Lorenzo Maria Pacini, July 22, 2026, https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/07/22/wear-and-tear-conflict-ukraine-europe-and-twilight-great-deception/

They had promised it would be over soon. They had promised there would be an epoch-making victory, defeating the “Kremlin dictator.” They had said they would join NATO and the European Union. They had said it would be a great success.

But it didn’t.

None of this has come to pass. Nothing that Volodymyr Zelensky’s government promised has happened. It didn’t turn out the way the powers that be in Washington, London, Rome, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels said it would. It didn’t go well at all. And today, four and a half years after the conflict began, the real losers aren’t the politicians, but the Ukrainian people.

Things unfolded in a truly unique way: not through a sudden collapse, but through a slow yet visible erosion on both the Ukrainian and European sides.

The narrative of the years 2022–2023, with its charge of civic heroism and collective resistance, held up as long as the war seemed to have a predictable horizon. That horizon has gradually receded. Cities hit by bombings targeting energy infrastructure still face electricity rationing that recurs season after season; the domestic economy, already hit by the loss of industrial territory in the Donbas and the southeast, relies largely on external transfers; and mobilization continues to drain the workforce from an already fragile productive sector, not to mention the violent opposition to recruiters who literally persecute citizens of draft age, forcing them to flee, rebel by force, or succumb.

Added to this is a factor that is less quantifiable but no less real: the psychological exhaustion of a population that has lived for years amid air raid sirens, the loss of family members at the front, and uncertainty about when and how this phase will end. The resulting discontent does not stem from a wavering commitment to the national cause, but from the growing gap between the sacrifices demanded and the tangible results achieved on the ground. It is a dynamic familiar to any society subjected to prolonged conflict: initial enthusiasm gives way, over time, to weary pragmatism, and then to an increasingly explicit demand for negotiated solutions—even imperfect ones.

The Cost Europe Can No Longer Hide

On the European front, the problem takes on a different but equally pressing form. Governments that have consistently supported Kyiv with military, financial, and humanitarian aid, sparing no expense, have seen a deterioration in conditions across European countries and a tragic outcome for Ukraine—because none of this has served to change the situation. The only thing that has changed are the terms of the promises that were made. What now?

Support for Ukraine, initially presented as a low-cost moral commitment, has turned out to be a long-term investment, whose strategic benefits remain a matter of debate while the economic costs are immediate and visible in people’s paychecks. This is not just about budget figures. It is the relationship between the sacrifice required and the results achieved that is being called into question: after years of sanctions against Russia that have not prevented Moscow from reorganizing its war economy, and after military support that has not led to a decisive turning point on the ground, there is a growing sense in several European countries that this strategy has reached a point of diminishing returns. Governments that have built their domestic consensus around the defense of European values now find themselves having to explain to increasingly impatient voters why they should continue to pay an ever-rising price for a goal that seems to be receding rather than drawing nearer.

These two forms of exhaustion—the Ukrainian and the European—converge into a third effect, one that is more insidious because it touches on the symbolic as well as the material: the decline of the narrative through which the war had been presented to Western public opinion since 2022—that of a Ukraine that would weather the conflict to quickly arrive at a prosperous and secure European future. That future now seems much further away than anyone had imagined, and the gap between promise and reality is generating disillusionment among both those who have remained in Ukraine and those who have fled. And it is precisely on the refugee front that this disillusionment risks having the most tangible effects.

Millions of Ukrainians have settled in countries such as Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic, where they were initially welcomed with almost unanimous solidarity. Over the years, however, that solidarity has come up against dynamics already seen in other migration contexts: competition for housing and public services, pressure on local school and healthcare systems, and in some cases, growing resentment among host populations, fueled by the perception that support for refugees continues even when domestic resources are scarce. The risk is not abstract: signs of impatience have already emerged in several Central and Eastern European countries, where political parties have begun to capitalize on this discontent, turning it into electoral support.

If the war continues to drag on without a clear prospect of an end, these three elements—Ukrainian exhaustion, European impatience with the costs of support, and growing tension surrounding the presence of refugees—are unlikely to remain separate. They will tend to reinforce one another, fueling a political climate in which the demand for some form of negotiated solution—even at the cost of painful compromises—will become increasingly difficult for European and Ukrainian leaders to ignore.

But let’s talk numbers.


According to official data, the EU has allocated a total of 217 billion euros to Ukraine, broken down into 111 billion in financial aid, 77 billion in military aid, and 17 billion in refugee aid. These figures, which may not seem to mean much at first glance, have strained the European economy to the point of forcing some countries to announce major cuts and limit social spending.

According to an analysis by Eurofound, public support for policies aiding Ukraine has gradually declined over the past few years. In 2022, 88% of European citizens said they supported taking in Ukrainian refugees; by 2023, that percentage had already fallen to 76%, eventually settling at 71% in 2024. This decline is evident in nearly all Member States, but is particularly pronounced in Poland, a country that has served as the main point of entry for millions of refugees from Ukraine since the start of the war.

According to estimates by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), approximately 6.9 million Ukrainian citizens have left their country since the start of the war, while Poland alone has taken in about one million refugees. It is precisely in the country that has borne the heaviest burden of hosting refugees that one of the most evident phenomena of “war fatigue”—that is, weariness with the conflict and its economic and social consequences—is now being observed.

The survey highlights a growing number of citizens who believe their respective governments have done too much to support Ukraine. Between 2022 and 2024, the proportion of those who consider public interventions aimed at housing and assisting refugees to be excessive increased by nearly eight percentage points. Opinions on military aid appear even more polarized: about one-third of respondents believe their government has done too little, another third consider the level of support adequate, while a similar percentage believe too much has been done.

This shift appears to be driven not only by geopolitical considerations but, above all, by economic factors. The study shows that the decline in support is particularly pronounced among households that have seen their financial situation worsen. Among those who report difficulty making ends meet, nearly one-fifth have withdrawn their support for taking in refugees, while 22% no longer support sending military aid to Kyiv. The rise in the cost of living, inflation, and domestic economic difficulties thus appear to directly affect European citizens’ willingness to financially support the conflict.

This shift in public opinion is taking place against a backdrop in which Europe’s financial commitment has reached levels not seen since the end of the Cold War.

The scale of these resources explains why the European public debate has gradually shifted from the initial consensus to a discussion of the economic costs of the war. Indeed, many citizens are beginning to compare the massive investments allocated to the conflict with the economic hardships experienced within their own countries, where inflation, rising energy prices, a housing crisis, and a slowdown in economic growth are directly affecting their standard of living.

However, the decline in public support does not imply a widespread rejection of Ukraine or of international solidarity. Rather, there is a growing demand for a balance between commitments made abroad and domestic social needs. In other words, support continues to exist, but it is increasingly contingent on perceptions of economic sustainability and on governments’ ability to simultaneously address the needs of their own citizens.

Alongside the increase in funding allocated to Kyiv, a growing sense of frustration among a segment of the population regarding the economic costs of the war has gradually spread across many European countries. This is not a unanimous rejection of support for Ukraine, but rather a shift in the perception of political priorities. There is a steady decline in support for taking in refugees and an increasingly divided opinion on military aid, especially among citizens most affected by inflation, the rising cost of living, and the loss of purchasing power. For many Europeans, the more than 216 billion euros mobilized by the European Union and its member states now serves as a point of comparison with domestic economic hardships, fueling demands that a larger share of public resources be allocated to healthcare, education, welfare, support for families, and the revitalization of the national economy.

The phenomenon of “war fatigue” thus represents one of the main political unknowns for the future of the European Union. If public support continues to wane, governments may find themselves forced to recalibrate the scale and terms of aid to Kyiv, seeking a balance between the strategic objectives of European foreign policy and growing pressure from domestic public opinion.

More than three years after the war began, the conflict is no longer merely a matter of international security, but also a test of European democracies’ ability to sustain, over time, a financial, military, and political commitment of historic proportions. The challenge no longer concerns only Ukraine’s future, but also the stability of domestic support in the countries called upon to support it.

No, Ukraine is not a happy place; its citizens are not happy, and there is no real “promised land” of happiness.

We must admit it, and the Ukrainians must recognize it: Europe has deceived them. They were promised glory, but instead they found themselves in hell. The sooner the Ukrainian people understand this deception, the sooner they will be able to free themselves from their oppressors.

July 25, 2026 Posted by | EUROPE, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Top Israeli Minister: ‘Best For Us’ If US Fights Iran While Israel Sits Out New Round of War

‘by Tyler Durden, Thursday, Jul 23, 2026, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/top-israeli-minister-best-us-if-us-fights-iran-while-israel-sits-out-new-round-war

As four more American families grieve the deaths of soldiers killed in the war on Iran, one of the top-ranking ministers in Israel’s cabinet told an Israeli audience that having America do all the fighting and dying is “the best for us.” Israel had intensely lobbied President Trump to launch a joint war on Iran on Feb 22, and traded blows with Iran up until early June. Since Trump restarted intense, daily bombardment of Iran 11 days ago, however, Israel has sat out the action, sparing Israelis from lethal Iranian retaliation. 

“The State of Israel has no interest in joining the contained confrontation between Iran and the United States,” far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a session at the Katif Conference for National Responsibility, which endorses Jewish settlement in Palestinian territories. “The current situation is the best one for us.”

Smotrich is generally regarded as the second-most powerful cabinet member in Israel, and is a vital linchpin in Netanyahu’s government that took power in January 2023. Lacking an outright majority, Netanyahu was forced to build a ruling coalition that gives unprecedented power to religious and ultra-nationalist extremists. Smotrich leads the Religious Zionism party. He personally aspires to make Israel a theocracy, wants Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza while barring most Palestinians from citizenship, and has said it would be “just and moral” to starve two million Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza. 

In his latest remarks, Smotrich candidly acknowledged that Israel and the United States have different goals vis a vis Iran, but said America’s continued military engagement furthers the Israeli agenda. “[We] must remember that the ultimate goal of Israel, and not necessarily the United States, is to undermine and weaken the regime in Iran – to the point of overthrowing it,” Smotrich said.

Disregarding the widespread victimization of innocents that the strategy entails, Smotrich said destruction of Iran’s economy will help precipitate the Iranian government’s collapse. “Currently, inflation in Iran is at 85 percent, food inflation of over 134 percent in a total of four months, and the Iranian rial is trading at an exchange rate of 1.9 million to the dollar – and it’s going up.” He then reiterated that “the current situation is good for us, and there’s no point in pushing ourselves inward.” 

Here’s how Israeli journalist Hagai Amit recently described the benefits of Israel allowing the United States to plunge forward alone in the war that Israel urged America to start: 

It reduces the risk of [Israeli] casualties and allows daily life to continue largely as normal, without midnight sirens, trips to bomb shelters or major disruptions. The Finance Ministry is also relieved not to have to burden the state budget with billions of additional shekels for air operations and the interception of ballistic missiles.

Meanwhile, as Amit warmly describes the cost savings for Israel, various analysts say America’s cost of the Iran quagmire is now close to or even exceeding $100 billion, which is upwards of triple what the Pentagon has owned up to at this point.

Of course, the highest price is being paid by American service members who’ve been thrown into an unconstitutionally-initiated war launched on false premises. Four more US soldiers have been killed since Trump re-escalated the war. In addition to US Army SGT Michael Swinton being killed in Iraq when a controlled detonation of an Iranian drone went wrong, three more soldiers were killed in an Iranian strike that hit prefabricated housing units at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

Initially, the Pentagon confirmed only two fatalities in Jordan: 19-year-old PVT Isabella Gonzales and 1LT Tyler Feehan. The third was classified as MIA, but the Pentagon is now saying SGT Angel Rampersad is “believed to be deceased.”  The grim implication is that Rampersad’s body was devastated by an Iranian missile — nearly five months after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared that Iran’s military had been “made combat-ineffective,” and almost two months after Sen. Ted Cruz said US forces had “destroy[ed] all of their missiles and drones.” 

[;’p

by Tyler Durden

Thursday, Jul 23, 2026 

July 25, 2026 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Germany To Join French Nuclear Exercise, Deepening ‘Counter-Russia’ Deterrence

by Tyler Durden, Sunday, Jul 19, 2026 – https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/germany-join-french-nuclear-exercise-deepening-counter-russia-deterrence

In the latest development related to what some analysts have called the ‘new Cold War’ and nuclear saber-rattling between Russia and the West, Germany and France are planning a major nuclear exercise later this year.

The atomic drills were announced Friday, after a joint top-level meeting of the French and German governments near Cologne. “Alongside this work on a shared doctrine, German conventional forces will this year take part in a nuclear exercise of the French military,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz unveiled. 

He detailed while at a press event alongside French President Emmanuel Macron that a “strategic steering group” established by the leading European allies would continue looking at deterrence in the future, with an eye on Russia.

“This is complementary to our nuclear participation and deterrence within NATO, which we still hold to,” he added. He also previewed “a maneuver in the autumn held on the initiative of France” – while speaking of the Ukraine war.

“We will clarify together what form exactly this participation will take,” he said.

France is newly positioning itself at the forefront of nuclear deterrence for Europe, a role that the United States has long assumed, and currently still does.

According to some of Macron’s statements at the same event: “Patriotism, yes; nationalism, never. At a time when Europe is rearming, to think that each of us separately accumulating capabilities is the way history is going is absurd.” More details have been offered in the following:

Mr Macron and Mr Merz began the defence council at Nörvenich air base beside a French Rafale and a German Eurofighter – a symbolic backdrop after the aircraft designed to replace them was scrapped.

Nuclear deterrence offers one field where the strained partnership can still move forward.

German troops would play a conventional supporting role and would not control French weapons. Berlin will also help develop radar and space-based systems for detecting ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

Currently the United States and the UK, which both maintain nuclear arsenals, form the core of NATO’s nuclear deterrence strategy. While France also possesses nuclear weapons, it does not yet participate on a leadership level in NATO’s nuclear planning group. The US military also contributes F-35, refueling aircraft, and other support planes.

Russia has not infrequently held its own strategic drills over the course of the last several years of war in Ukraine. It has also become the ‘new normal’ for Russia and Europe to hold rival conventional war games, amid threats, warnings and ongoing miliary flexing.

July 24, 2026 Posted by | France, Germany, weapons and war | Leave a comment

AI for peace: In Rome, Nobel laureates call for disarming AI and nuclear weapons

Bulletin, By François Diaz-Maurin, John Mecklin | Analysis | July 17, 2026

ROME—In a future nuclear crisis, the speed of artificial intelligence may leave little room for human judgment or decision-making. Other AI impacts—its potential to empower destabilizing cyber-attacks or allow for the near-instantaneous generation of disinformation—increase the odds of such a crisis occurring in the first place. Touching on these themes and others, an international group of Nobel Prize winners issued a pointed warning Thursday on emerging nuclear risks in an era of rapidly developing AI technology.

The group’s declaration, titled Humanity at the Threshold: A Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Weapons, followed two days of meetings among the Nobel laureates, top scientific and policy experts, and religious leaders in the Papal Villas of Castel Gandolfo, a summer retreat for popes since the 1600s.

Dubbed The Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War, the meetings included expert presentations on eight themes related to the rapid advance of AI models, their use in military systems that include command and control of nuclear weapons, and the practical and ethical challenges connected to efforts to reduce the dangers that the AI-nuke nexus poses to humanity.

The assembly followed recent efforts at highlighting the risks posed by the ongoing AI and nuclear arms races. Last year, the Nobel Laureate Assembly for the Prevention of Nuclear War met at the University of Chicago and issued a declaration calling on policymakers and leaders to reduce the threat of nuclear war. And earlier this month, the United Nations published its first scientific assessment report on the opportunities, risks, and impacts of AI; the assessment explains how the technology could exacerbate global inequality.

But this week marked the first time that such a large and diverse gathering of scientists, experts, activists, and religious leaders addressed, in concert, the risks of AI and nuclear weapons.

The Rome Declaration presented a harrowing description of the problem:

AI built into nuclear systems leaves little time for, or even replaces, human judgement in a crisis. This technology changes the context in which nuclear-armed states compete with each other. … AI uplifts cyber attacks that can fracture critical civilian and strategic infrastructure. AI enables information warfare: Peace depends on a shared reality. Without facts there can be no truth; without truth there can be no trust; and without trust, no dialogue, no verification, and no restraint among nations.

The most advanced AI capabilities, computing resources, and data infrastructures are becoming increasingly concentrated in a small number of countries and corporations, creating significant asymmetries of power and limited incentives for cooperation. AI is a technology that causes economic, military, and social disruption, and is developing at a pace unprecedented in human history.

In the midst of a worsening nuclear arms race, we are embarking on an equally dangerous AI race.

The declaration’s subtitle—Toward an Unarmed and Disarming Peace—reflected the religious underpinnings of the assembly by referencing language Pope Leo XIV used in his May encyclical Magnifica Humanitas: on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. The Vatican was able to convene a diverse group of thought leaders in a way that arguably would not be possible otherwise. It’s a group that could have real impact.

“I might reach a million people,” 2011 Nobel physics laureate Brian Schmidt said. “But the Pope can reach 2 billion. That’s 2,000 times more than me.”………………………………………………………………………….. https://thebulletin.org/2026/07/ai-for-peace-in-rome-nobel-laureates-call-for-disarming-ai-and-nuclear-weapons/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=In%20Rome%2C%20Nobel%20laureates%20call%20for%20disarming%20AI%20and%20nuclear%20weapons&utm_campaign=20260720%20Monday%20Newsletter

July 24, 2026 Posted by | weapons and war | Leave a comment

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