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Israel Pushing US Toward a Big and Damaging War With Iran – Ex-Pentagon Analyst

Sputnik – 19.02.2026

Israel was humiliated in the 12 day war with Iran and is seeking a similar humiliation for its rival, retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Pentagon analyst, tells Sputnik.

“Israeli demands for no nuclear capability, no enrichment, and no ballistic missiles for Iran is overtly ludicrous, but has been cultivated by numerous visits by Netanyahu to the White House to push for a big and damaging war,” Kwiatkowski says.

The Israeli leadership believes Iran is at its weakest point now — an opportunity that may not come again — and is pressing the US to act.

“Reports of excessive and invasive IDF and Mossad presence inside the Pentagon and Joint Staff planning arenas have made mainstream news, and that is likely due to leaks from inside the Pentagon, by Americans who are concerned about what the US stands to lose by fighting this final war for Israel,” the pundit points out.

How might the US-led operation unfold?

  • This time, unlike before, the US and Israel are likely to strike together, combining major electronic and cyber attacks to blind Iran and simultaneous military action
  • Experienced Pentagon planners know the risks, so if war comes, they’ll strike hard early hoping to limit Iranian missile retaliation and losses from Persian-controlled sea, land and air
  • US forces are likely to play a more overt role in the early phase, partly because there’s limited loitering time for the USS Gerald Ford and Abraham Lincoln
  • Throughout, US and Israeli forces will be coordinated by US Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS)

However, they have to bear in mind that “Iranian forces and leadership are well aware of US and Israeli tendencies and styles in offensive warfare,” Kwiatkowski stresses.

February 19, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Israel Pushing US Toward a Big and Damaging War With Iran – Ex-Pentagon Analyst

Prof. Ted Postol: US–Iran War? Israel’s Fatal Gamble

Dialogue Works Highlights, hosted by Nima R. Alkhorshid | February 16, 2026

This interview with Theodore Postol, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), specializing in nuclear weapons technology, missile defense, and national security policy, examines rising tensions between the U.S., Iran, and Israel. Ted Postol argues that Israel crossed from military to urban targets, opening the door to devastating retaliation. He claims Iran’s growing ballistic missile numbers and improving accuracy could bring Israeli cities to a halt, while missile defenses are overstated. The discussion expands to nuclear risks, great-power involvement, and parallels with Ukraine, warning of strategic miscalculation and dangerous escalation.

Transcript: Resistance News

Host: We are somehow concerned about a new war in West Asia between the United States and Iran, which we know would include Israel as well, and which would be devastating for all the parties involved, in my opinion.

When we look at the current situation, the United States is bringing a lot of weapons to the region. The Iranians are not like in the 12-day war; they are prepared. They know the attack is coming. Israelis are prepared. Americans are prepared. Iranians are prepared. How do you see the current situation? And how do you see a confrontation between the two parties?

Ted Postol: Well, at a political level, I must admit I am a little baffled by the whole thing. It is clear that the leader of Israel, Netanyahu, is hellbent on attacking Iran and taking Iran’s military capacity away from it. I should point out that Iran has not instigated any attacks against Israel except in retaliation to attacks made by Israel against Iran. The rhetoric in the West is not very informed, unfortunately. Basically, the situation is being driven mostly by Israel and also by the United States.

It seems—I cannot be sure, since I am not what I would call a deeply knowledgeable political observer—that things did not go well between Netanyahu and Trump in the very recent meeting that just ended. It is clear that Netanyahu wanted the Americans to go against Iran again. It may well happen, given all the weapon systems that are being moved into place. But it does appear that Trump at least did not indicate to Netanyahu that he was just going to go ahead, which again does not necessarily mean he won’t, because this man is so erratic.

The problem really is that the Israelis have really made what I consider an extraordinary strategic blunder. I will talk a little about this so your audience understands what I mean by it. This strategic blunder is basically putting the Iranians in a position where they are justified in attacking Israeli cities.

Prior to the most recent situation, the Iranians were very careful to focus their attacks on Israeli military installations. But the most recent attack by the Israelis—I don’t know why they believe they could do it, but basically an attempt to take off the head of the Iranian government and cause it to collapse—involved a large number of attacks on urban installations. What that did was make it justifiable—and it is justifiable, sad but justifiable, in terms of retaliation—for the Iranians to focus on Israeli cities.

Israel has several big cities, but only a few. It is a small country. As I will show with some of my briefing slides, as Iran’s capacity with ballistic missiles increases—and it is going to increase, and I will explain what I mean by that shortly—as Iran’s ability increases with its ballistic missiles, it is going to become more and more possible for Iran to cause catastrophic disruptions of Israeli urban areas. I mean catastrophic.

It won’t be at the level of what the Israelis have done to Gaza, but it will in some ways begin to approach that kind of damage and disruption. Societies are organized systems. When you do damage to a society, you cannot measure the full extent of the damage by saying, “We destroyed 20 percent of the buildings.” If 20 percent of those buildings are embedded in a structure where they are connected to 75 percent of the other buildings in terms of supplies, relationships, services, etc., you are crippling a society in a major way.

Iran either already has, or soon will have, the ability to do that to Israel. That is not going to be tolerable for the Israelis. I do not know what they can do about it. I guess they could retaliate with nuclear weapons against Iran, but that would be suicidal, because Iran has the capacity to build nuclear weapons and use them.

It is one thing for the Iranians not to go ahead and build nuclear weapons, as they say they are not doing, and as American intelligence seems to agree that it’s not what they’re doing. But they have the capacity. The one way to assure that a country will use nuclear weapons on you, if they have the capacity, is to use nuclear weapons on them.

So it is a dilemma. It is a deep dilemma for Iran, but it is just as deep a dilemma for Israel. Iran is a bigger country. Nuclear weapons are enormously destructive, but you have to use a significant number of them if you are going to destroy urban areas and military assets. The number of military assets and cities in Iran is tremendously larger than what exists in Israel. This is not a good mathematical relationship from the point of view of the Israelis.

They have, in effect, opened the door to a potentially very dangerous confrontation and ladder of escalation of some kind. But the biggest immediate problem is the non-nuclear threat that Iran now has and will predictably grow.

It is not just that they have it now. As the size of Iran’s ballistic missile forces grows—by size, I mean numbers—as the numbers grow and the accuracy improves, it will have increasing meaning. The Russians are now talking about helping the Iranians improve their accuracy technology in ballistic missiles. That seems to be an arrangement the Russians are working on with the Iranians, and that is going to have big significance, as I’ll show you shortly.

China could choose to do that as well, because they have advanced missile guidance and control technology. Iran is only a small step away from improving its accuracy significantly. It already has tremendous technical capabilities, but it could get a good boost from either Russia or China. The increase in accuracy does not have to be enormous.

The evidence suggests that the accuracy of most of Iran’s ballistic missiles, as measured from the 12-day war, is probably around one thousand meters—a kilometer. When you have one-kilometer accuracy, getting to 500 meters is not a gigantic step. Getting to 100 meters would be a lot, but getting to 500 meters is not a lot in terms of improvements and technology.

Iran is poised to be able to do that, especially with Russian help. As this confrontation continues over time, Iran will have more missiles, because it is clear they understand these missiles are a unique tool to threaten and stand off Israel. As the guidance and control systems improve and accuracy increases, the effectiveness of those missiles for disrupting, possibly even closing down, the function of civil society in Israel will increase dramatically.

The clock is not on Israel’s side. This strategic blunder—among many strategic blunders—has put Israel in a very bad situation that can only get worse over time, and significantly worse.

So why don’t we start with slide two? I have a couple of simple slides.

The point I made earlier is that the attack on Tehran was a gigantic strategic blunder. In slide three, the reason for it is that it crossed the line from attacks on purely military targets to attacks on cities.

If we go to slide four, all we are saying is that Israel only has a small number of cities. The combination of large numbers of ballistic missiles and improved accuracy will, over time, give Iran an extraordinary and growing strategic lever against Israel.

Two factors will increase this capability to leverage against Israeli society. The first is obvious: the number of missiles will grow. The second is less obvious: the improved accuracy of those missiles.

Slide 6 [the 5 first slides only contain text that was read out loud]

Slide six is a conceptual slide. Small problems in shutting down the rocket motor—when you are trying to place the rocket at a certain speed before the motor shuts down—create small differences in the angle at which the rocket is flying when the motor shuts down. Those small differences must be reduced if you want to increase the accuracy of the missile.

At the far end of the trajectory, errors are also introduced by the atmosphere. The missile may wobble a bit. But those kinds of errors can be reduced tremendously. The evidence suggests that the Iranians already know how to do that.

So, to significantly improve their accuracy—from about 1,000 meters to 500 meters—they mainly need to do better at shutting down the rocket motor at the right time and ensuring that the orientation of the missile at shutdown is accurate enough. They will likely get help with that from the Russians, if not from the Chinese.

 

If we look at the situation, what we know —we go to slide seven— is that we have an estimate of the accuracy of these ballistic missiles from the attack on the Nevatim Air Base during the October war in 2024. They obviously wanted to damage the base. The distribution of warheads shows what their accuracy capabilities were at that time. One of the warheads actually hit a building and probably destroyed an F-35 inside. There is a lot of discussion about that. These are probabilistic events.

The distribution shown is how you estimate the accuracy of Iran’s ballistic missiles at that time. That does not mean it cannot improve. It will improve, and that has meaning in a different situation from the one people tend to focus on.

The possibility that the accuracy of Iran’s ballistic missiles will become so high that they can selectively target aircraft and shelters and things like that is very low in the near future. The technologies involved are extremely advanced and will be very difficult to implement, even for an advanced country like Iran. These technologies are very difficult to master for ballistic missiles.

Iran’s cruise missiles, however—I’m not talking about their drones—have demonstrated tremendous accuracy. In the attack on the Saudi Arabian oil fields, we saw evidence that Iranian cruise missiles have the ability to lock on to an object of a certain shape and home toward the center of that object. I could show that evidence in another discussion. So cruise missiles are extremely accurate, but ballistic missiles are a long way from there.

To understand what kind of damage ballistic missiles could do to an urban area, we need to understand what damage an explosion might cause.

Slide eight shows the ranges at which certain levels of blast overpressure from a general-purpose bomb would occur. These are very general qualitative curves. For example, a 1,000-kilogram warhead, at about 100 meters you might get around two pounds per square inch. It could be 120 meters or 130, but approximately 100 meters. At 50 meters, you might get about five pounds per square inch. At around 15 meters, you might get over 40 pounds per square inch, which is enough to knock down a concrete and steel wall.

Let us look at slide nine to get a sense of what damage might look like.

This is an image from Gaza. We are looking through a hole in the wall of a building. That hole was probably produced by the blast wave from a roughly 500- or 1,000-kilogram bomb that landed 50 to 100 meters away. It depends on the strength of the wall, but this is the kind of damage you can expect at that distance.

At the far end of the image, you can see what a direct hit looks like on a significant structure, concrete and steel, reinforced structure. The structure slightly forward of it was damaged not by a direct hit, but by secondary shock waves, perhaps from a bomb or bombs that landed 30 or 40 meters away.

The point is that there is a lot of damage beyond the point where a bomb hits.

On the left side, we see a building where the exterior walls have largely been knocked out, while the roof and floors appear intact. That was probably done by a blast 40 or 50 meters away, and the walls just collapsed or were blown inward. That is significant damage from bombs that did not directly hit the target.

On the next slide, we see the interior of an apartment in Israel. This apartment was probably 100 to 150 meters away from a 500- to 1,000-kilogram ballistic missile explosion. At that distance—perhaps 50 to 100 meters—there is substantial general damage. The exterior window is blown out, and there is general disruption inside. If the blast had been at half that distance, the exterior wall could have been blown out.

Slide 11 shows damage from a bomb that probably landed 50 or 60 meters away. The walls were shattered, and the interiors were badly damaged. There is evidence of fires in the building, which often occur in such events. There is usually no one around to fight the fires because people are injured or evacuating, and tremendous damage results.

Now that we have a sense of what the damage looks like, let us go to slide 12.

This is a simulated missile impact diagram. In the upper left corner, there is a key explaining the circles. The outer yellow circle represents about two pounds per square inch—damage similar to the apartment we saw earlier, where there was general internal damage without the walls being knocked down.

The five-psi contour shows the range at which a bomb landing nearby would severely damage the exterior walls of a building. It might not knock them down completely, but it would cause serious structural damage.

The 40-psi contour, shown in red, represents the range at which the structure itself would likely collapse or suffer severe structural damage.

This simulation shows 100 missiles with 1,000-meter accuracy, assuming a one-ton warhead. A 500-kilogram warhead would produce similar general conclusions.

If you were firing at Tel Aviv—and we know the Iranians were—a significant number of warheads would land in the downtown area, which we know occurred. There was considerable damage in downtown Tel Aviv, although the Israelis tried to mask it all. But if you went and talked to somebody who was in downtown Tel Aviv, they’d tell you there was bomb damage all over the place, you know. Very very damaging. Real problem. The Israelis tried to downplay it, but there was certainly a lot of reaction from the Israeli population.

And in fact I believe — I conjecture, I don’t know — that a lot of the discussion about running out of missile interceptors, or interceptors not working perfectly, is just a smokescreen. The defense interceptors were not working very well to begin with. These missiles basically came in unopposed, to a first approximation. There may have been some intercepts, but the number was very low—perhaps around five percent. I would be very surprised if it is as much as one in ten. I would be very surprised if it is that high.

There is a mythology that the Israelis have been trying to promulgate, which they cannot hide from their population because the Iranians showed their population what could happen. There is a big set of lies being promulgated to the Israeli people and to other organizations—that the defenses are simply running out of interceptors, that there are minor problems with intercept rates, and similar claims. In fact, these systems have never been effective at all.

Most of what the Iranians fired came through. When you have 1,000-meter precision, many warheads will simply fall into the Mediterranean, for example. That is what happens when you have a weapon that is not very accurate. Now what happens when 100 missiles have 500-meter accuracy rather than 1,000-meter accuracy, as shown in the next slide.

Things look a lot worse. A lot worse. You can see that the downtown Tel Aviv area gets at least twice the density of impacts. That is not a good sign if you are Israeli.

This simulation is for 100 missiles. Iran does not have to restrict itself to that number. Over time, Iran will not only improve its accuracy but also increase the number of missiles it can launch.

Let us look, in the next few slides, at what a 500-missile attack with 500-meter accuracy could look like.

You see two roughly orange circles. One marks 1,000 meters of distance; the other marks 2,000 meters. A very large percentage of the warheads land within the urban built-up area of Tel Aviv.

Slide 16 is a close-up. You can see the buildings and the density of impacts, to try and understand what it means. The red circles show areas where the blast intensity would be enough to knock down the buildings or large parts of them. That would be severe damage.

The blue lines show areas where extensive general damage would occur: interior apartment walls knocked out, fires initiated in many buildings, people injured by flying debris, evacuation under chaotic conditions, and widespread fires.

The yellow lines indicate areas of more general damage—broken windows and more in streets and buildings.

This entire area is covered with general damage and severe damage. It is just one arbitrarily selected area.

Slide 17 shows what the whole city looks like, in this case with 500-meter accuracy missiles: the density of impacts is so great that it blocks out the city. Each red dot represents severe damage to concrete and steel buildings—big, strongly built structures—along with widespread secondary damage to surrounding buildings and interiors.

After an attack like this, Tel Aviv is no longer a functioning city. Haifa is no longer a functioning city. Beersheba is no longer a functioning city. These cities could be shut down completely by a few thousand ballistic missiles with 500-meter accuracy, which you can be sure that in the next let’s say five years, Iran will have. Because Israel cannot stop them from building ballistic missiles. They will have, I think, the outreach from Russia and China, you know, they’ll be plenty of materials available, made available to Iran to continue manufacturing these ballistic missiles. And the technology for improving their accuracy is well in hand, as Iran is a sophisticated country with advanced engineering capabilities. All it needs is a little help from Russia or China or both to refine these missiles to 500-meter accuracy.

So we’re talking about a very big strategic problem that the Israelis have brought upon themselves by this aggressive behavior.

So let me go to slide 21, because I made a point about lying to the Israeli people. This is a slide from 1991. I think this may have occurred in Saudi Arabia, where Patriots were used to defend Saudi Arabia.

A spectacular photograph. Most people misunderstood it. And in fact, the Raytheon Corporation took a great… Let’s just look at what it says: “When a system does everything in combat it was designed to do and more, that’s proof of performance.” This was in Aviation Week & Space Technology, and it ran two pages. Two pages. A total lie by Raytheon, the company that is still building Patriots and claiming they work when they don’t.

This time-lapse photo—let’s stop for a second and understand how it works. The camera is focused on the skyline, and the aperture is open. It does not open and close like a regular photograph; it is just open. When a Patriot interceptor is launched, it has a rocket motor that burns. The rocket motor looks like a point of light, and that point of light traces a line on the film because this is a time exposure.

You see the line in both cases disappears because the Patriot burns out. It finishes its powered flight, then flies like a bullet and maneuvers by changing its orientation in the atmosphere.

Now you see those two dots in the sky. Those two dots are the explosions of the Patriot warheads. They have nothing to do with intercepting a Scud.

We found this engagement on a video camera and analyzed it frame by frame. One Scud came in. They missed it with both explosions. If they had hit the Scud, it should have appeared as a track on the black photo. The Scud was bright enough that you should have seen it as a track. Somebody took that track and blacked it out. So this was consciously a fraudulent photo.

This is what the Israelis tell their own people. This is what American contractors tell the Saudis, the Poles, the Ukrainians, and whoever else is foolish enough to spend money on their system for anti-missile.

It is a very effective system against aircraft, I want to be clear. You do not want to fly against Patriots if you are in an airplane. But as a ballistic missile defense, it is worthless, as we know from Ukraine as well.

What we have here is an example of layers upon layers upon layers of fraud that have been foisted off on the populations of different countries, and on the American taxpayer, who has bought most of these Patriots for other countries, including Israel and Ukraine.

What we have is nothing but a fraud against the American taxpayer, the Israeli public, and the Ukrainian population.

Ukraine is a horrific situation because we, the Americans have put the Ukrainians in a position where their country has been destroyed and will continue to be destroyed if it does not negotiate with what is left of it and with the Russians.

You can still find articles in The New York Times, the paper that is supposed to be the paper of record. Just the other day there was an article —I shouldn’t laugh, because it’s so serious— about how Prosk in Donbass had just fallen. Prosk fell two or three months ago. The New York Times is now reporting it? This is a crime.

You have unbelievably courageous Ukrainian soldiers fighting for their country, for what they believe is the survival of their country, and they are dying at a tremendous rate for nothing. This can all be stopped by carrying out a realistic negotiation.

But the political administration in Ukraine—my best analogy is Hitler letting all these Germans die as the Russians closed in on Berlin when the best thing to do would have been to surrender. The war was over. Why cause all these people to die? They were even executing their own people in the streets for not fighting.

It is this kind of fascism, and it is fascism, that is contributing to the complete destruction of Ukraine. I mean complete, because all of these dying soldiers are altering the demography of Ukraine for the next 20 years. There will be an incredible dip in the birth rate. There already is. Ukraine could potentially even disappear as a culture. I do not think it will, but it could.

All these extremists—banderites, white supremacists—who think they are saving Ukrainian ethnicity are destroying it.

We have all this complexity going on in the world in front of us, and the cynical political leadership of NATO and the United States as well is resulting in extraordinary loss of life. I am beside myself when I think about the loss of life in Ukraine for no reason.

Just negotiate. Stop trying to make yourself an existential enemy of the Russians. Just live beside them and stop this unbelievable slaughter, because the Russians are going to stop it anyway. They can stop it by reaching an understanding, or they can stop it by basically completely destroying Ukraine as a viable state, which I think is what will occur, unfortunately.

Sorry to jump around, but from the point of view of a technologist like myself, who is most deeply concerned with violence in the world and its negative consequences, I look at this with despair.

This talk is simple in some sense. The diagrams took a long time to put together. I did not just make them up. I wanted to make them understandable so you could visualize what 500-meter CEP means. When you see it laid out on a map, you begin to understand what the consequences are. We are visual animals. Our ability to learn is based on visual capabilities, and abstractions come after that.

That is what I have to share on this issue.

February 18, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video | , , | Comments Off on Prof. Ted Postol: US–Iran War? Israel’s Fatal Gamble

US ramps up nuclear claims against China

RT | February 18, 2026

China carried out an underground “nuclear explosive test” in June 2020, a senior US State Department official has claimed, citing “fresh intelligence” on the matter. Beijing has repeatedly dismissed such allegations as “entirely unfounded,” while independent observers say the evidence is inconclusive.

The US assistant secretary for arms control and nonproliferation, Christopher Yeaw, made the latest claims on Tuesday during an event hosted by the conservative Hudson Institute think tank in Washington.

He cited seismic data “quite consistent with what you would expect from a nuclear explosive test.”

“I’ve looked at additional data since then. There is very little possibility, I would say, that it is anything but an explosion, a singular explosion,” Yeaw stated.

The minor 2.75 magnitude seismic event was registered by a remote station in Kazakhstan. Its epicenter was located some 725km away at the Lop Nur nuclear testing grounds in China, prompting the US to claim that it was caused by an underground blast.

China has repeatedly dismissed the American allegations as “entirely unfounded” and used only as a pretext to justify Washington’s own intent to resume nuclear testing. Yeaw’s remarks invoked a similar reaction, with a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington telling Reuters the latest claims were “political manipulation aimed at pursuing nuclear hegemony and evading its own nuclear disarmament responsibilities.”

Moscow has backed Beijing, repeatedly stating no evidence to support Washington’s claims exists. “Neither Russia nor China has conducted any nuclear tests. And we also know that these claims were firmly denied by representatives of China,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Preskov told reporters on Wednesday.

Independent observers have said there is too little evidence to positively establish the nature of the June 2020 incident. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, for instance, said that the monitoring station in Kazakhstan merely picked up “two very small seismic events, 12 seconds apart,” and it was not possible “with this data alone” to assess “the cause of these events with confidence.”

February 18, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on US ramps up nuclear claims against China

Erdogan wants nukes: What a Turkish bomb would mean for the Middle East

Ankara is telling the world that a selective and force-driven approach to the Iranian nuclear issue could ignite a chain reaction

By Murad Sadygzade | RT | February 18, 2026

In Ankara, the idea of Türkiye one day seeking a nuclear weapons option has never been entirely absent from strategic conversation. Yet in recent days it has acquired a sharper edge, as the region around Türkiye is sliding toward a logic in which raw deterrence begins to look like the only dependable language left.

Türkiye’s foreign policy has expanded far beyond the cautious, status-quo posture that once defined it. It has positioned itself as a mediator on Ukraine and Gaza, pursued hard security aims through sustained operations and influence in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, and inserted itself into competitive theaters from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Horn of Africa. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long framed this activism as a corrective to an international order he portrays as structurally unfair. His slogan that the world is bigger than five – referring to the UN Security Council – is a statement of grievance against a system in which a narrow group of powers retains permanent privileges, including an exclusive claim to ultimate military capability.

Within that narrative, nuclear inequality occupies a special place. Erdogan has repeatedly pointed to the double standards of the global nuclear order, arguing that some states are punished for ambiguity while others are insulated from scrutiny. His references to Israel are central here, because Israel’s assumed but undeclared nuclear status is widely treated as an open secret that does not trigger the same enforcement instincts as suspected proliferation elsewhere. That asymmetry has long irritated Ankara, but it became more politically potent after the war in Gaza that began in 2023, when Erdogan openly highlighted Israel’s arsenal and questioned why international inspection mechanisms do not apply in practice to all regional actors.

Still, for years this was mostly an argument about fairness and legitimacy rather than a declaration of intent. What has changed is the sense that the regional security architecture itself is cracking, and that the cracks are widening at the very moment the US and Israel are escalating pressure on Iran. Türkiye’s leadership has warned that if Iran crosses the nuclear threshold, others in the region will rush to follow, and Türkiye may be forced into the race as well, even if it does not want dramatic shifts in the balance.

This is the key to understanding the new intensity of the debate. Ankara’s signaling is not primarily an emotional reaction to Tehran. Türkiye and Iran remain competitors, but their frictions have also been managed through pragmatic diplomacy, and Türkiye has consistently argued against a military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue. Erdogan has again presented Türkiye as a mediator, insisting on de-escalation and rejecting military steps that could drag the region into wider chaos.

The driver is the fear that the rules are no longer the rules. When enforcement becomes selective, and when coercion is applied in ways that appear to disregard broader stability, the incentives change for every middle power caught in the blast radius. The signal from Ankara is that if the Middle East moves into a world where nuclear capability is treated as the only ironclad guarantee against regime-threatening force, then Türkiye cannot afford to remain the exception.

That logic is dangerous precisely because it is contagious. It turns proliferation into an insurance policy. In an unstable region where trust is thin and the memory of war is always fresh, the idea of nuclear weapons as a shield against interference can sound brutally rational. If possessing the bomb raises the cost of intervention to unacceptable levels, it can be perceived as the ultimate deterrent, a guarantee that outsiders will think twice. But the same logic that appears to promise safety for one actor produces insecurity for everyone else. In practice it fuels an arms race whose end state is not stability, but a crowded deterrence environment in which miscalculation becomes more likely, crisis management becomes harder, and conventional conflicts become more combustible because nuclear shadows hover over every escalation ladder.

The renewed urgency also reflects a broader global drift. Arms competition is intensifying well beyond the Middle East. The erosion of arms control habits, the normalization of sanctions as a tool of strategic coercion, and the return of bloc-like thinking in many theaters all contribute to a sense that restraint is no longer rewarded. For Türkiye, a state that sees itself as too large to be merely a client and too exposed to be fully autonomous, the temptation is to seek leverage that cannot be negotiated away. Nuclear latency, even without an actual bomb, can function as a strategic bargaining chip.

Yet the jump from ambition to capability is not straightforward. Türkiye does have important ingredients for a serious civil nuclear profile, and those capabilities matter because they shape perceptions. The country has been building human capital in nuclear engineering and developing an ecosystem of research institutions, reactors for training and experimentation, accelerator facilities, and nuclear medicine applications. Most visibly, the Akkuyu nuclear power plant project with Russia has served as an engine for training and institutional learning, even if technology transfer is limited and the project remains embedded in external dependence.

Türkiye also highlights domestic resource potential, including uranium and especially thorium, which is often discussed as a long-term strategic asset. Resource endowments do not automatically translate into weapons capability, but they reduce one barrier, the need for sustained and vulnerable supply chains. As a result, Türkiye can credibly present itself as a state that could, if it chose, move from peaceful nuclear competence toward a latent weapons posture.

The real bottleneck is not simply material. It is political and legal. Türkiye is a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and it operates inside a web of international commitments that would make an overt weapons program extremely costly. Withdrawal from the treaty or large-scale violations would almost certainly trigger sweeping sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and a rupture with major economic partners. Unlike states that have adapted their economies to long-term siege conditions, Türkiye is deeply integrated into global trade, finance, and logistics. The short-term shock of a proliferation crisis would be severe, and Ankara knows it.

This is why the most plausible path, if Türkiye ever moved in this direction, would not be a dramatic public sprint. It would be a careful, ambiguous strategy that expands latency while preserving diplomatic maneuvering room. Latency can mean investing in expertise, dual-use infrastructure, missile and space capabilities that could be adapted, and fuel cycle options that remain justifiable on civilian grounds. It can also mean cultivating external relationships that shorten timelines without leaving fingerprints.

Here the debate becomes even more sensitive, because proliferation risk is not only about what a country can build, but also about what it can receive. The Middle East has long been haunted by the possibility of clandestine technology transfer, whether through black markets, covert state support, or unofficial security arrangements. In recent months, discussions around Pakistan have become particularly salient, not least because Islamabad is one of the few Muslim majority nuclear powers and has historically maintained close security ties with Gulf monarchies.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly signaled that it will not accept a regional balance in which Iran alone holds a nuclear weapon. Saudi leaders have at times implied that if Iran acquires the bomb, Riyadh would feel compelled to match it for reasons of security and balance. Those statements are not proof of an active weapons program, but they are political preparation, shaping expectations and normalizing the idea that proliferation could be framed as defensive rather than destabilizing.

There have also been unusually explicit hints in regional discourse about nuclear protection arrangements, including arguments that Pakistan could, in some scenario, extend a form of deterrence cover to Saudi Arabia. Even when such claims are partly performative, they underscore how the region’s strategic conversation is shifting from taboo to contingency planning.

Once that door is open, Türkiye inevitably enters the picture in regional imagination. Türkiye, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia are linked through overlapping defense cooperation and political coordination, and analysts increasingly discuss the emergence of flexible security groupings that sit alongside or partially outside formal Western frameworks. The idea that technology, know-how, or deterrence guarantees could circulate within such networks is precisely the nightmare scenario for nonproliferation regimes, because it compresses timelines and reduces the visibility that international monitors depend on.

For Ankara, this creates both opportunity and risk. The opportunity is that Türkiye could enhance its deterrent posture without bearing the full cost of overt development. The risk is that Türkiye could become entangled in a proliferation cascade that it cannot control, while simultaneously inviting a Western backlash that would reshape its economy and alliances.

This is where the question becomes deeply geopolitical. A nuclear-armed Türkiye would not simply change the Middle East. It would alter Europe’s security landscape and challenge the logic that has governed Türkiye’s relationship with the West for decades. Western capitals have tolerated, managed, and constrained Türkiye through a mixture of incentives, institutional ties, defense cooperation, and pressure. Türkiye’s NATO membership, its economic links to Europe, and the presence of US nuclear weapons stored at Incirlik as part of alliance arrangements have all been elements of a broader strategic framework in which Türkiye was seen as anchored, even when politically difficult.

If Türkiye acquired its own nuclear weapons, that anchoring would weaken dramatically. Ankara would gain a form of autonomy that no sanction threat could fully erase. It would also gain the capacity to take risks under a nuclear umbrella, a dynamic that worries Western capitals because it could embolden more confrontational regional behavior. Türkiye’s disputes with Western partners are already intense on issues ranging from Eastern Mediterranean energy politics to Syria, defense procurement, and the boundaries of alliance solidarity. A nuclear deterrent could make those disputes harder to manage because the ultimate escalation dominance would no longer sit exclusively with the traditional nuclear powers.

At the same time, a Turkish bomb could accelerate Türkiye’s drift away from the West, not only because the West would react with pressure, but because the very act of building such a capability would be an ideological statement that Türkiye rejects a Western-defined hierarchy. It would be Ankara’s most dramatic way of saying that it will not accept a subordinate place in a system it considers hypocritical.

None of this means Türkiye is on the verge of producing a weapon. Political obstacles remain huge, and technical challenges would be substantial if Ankara had to do everything indigenously while under scrutiny. A credible weapons program requires enrichment or plutonium pathways, specialized engineering, reliable warhead design, rigorous testing regimes or sophisticated simulation capabilities, secure command and control, and delivery systems that can survive and penetrate. Türkiye has missile programs that could in theory be adapted, but turning a regional missile force into a robust nuclear delivery architecture is not trivial.

The more immediate danger is not that Türkiye will suddenly unveil a bomb, but that the region is moving toward a threshold era, in which multiple states cultivate the ability to become nuclear on short notice. In such an environment, crises become more perilous because leaders assume worst-case intentions, and because external powers may feel pressure to strike early rather than wait. The irony is that a weapon meant to prevent intervention can increase the likelihood of intervention if adversaries fear they are running out of time.

The escalation by the US and Israel against Iran, combined with the broader arms race logic spreading across the Middle East and globally, is making this spiral more plausible. Uncertainty is the fuel of proliferation, because it convinces states that the future will be more dangerous than the present, and that waiting is a strategic mistake.

Türkiye’s rhetoric should therefore be read as a warning as much as a threat. Ankara is telling the world that a selective and force-driven approach to the Iranian nuclear issue could ignite a chain reaction. It is also telling regional rivals that Türkiye will not accept a future in which it is strategically exposed in a neighborhood where others have ultimate insurance.

The tragedy is that this is exactly how nuclear orders unravel. They do not collapse when one state wakes up and decides to gamble. They collapse when multiple states simultaneously conclude that the existing rules no longer protect them, and that deterrence, however dangerous, is the only available substitute. In a stable region, that conclusion might be resisted. In the Middle East, where wars overlap, alliances shift, and trust is scarce, it can quickly become conventional wisdom.

If the goal is to prevent a regional nuclear cascade, the first requirement is to restore credibility to the idea that rules apply to everyone and that security can be achieved without crossing the nuclear threshold. That means lowering the temperature around Iran while also addressing the deeper asymmetries that make the system look illegitimate in the eyes of ambitious middle powers. Without that, Türkiye’s nuclear debate will not remain an abstract exercise. It will become part of a wider regional recalculation, one that risks turning an already unstable region into a nuclearized arena where every crisis carries the possibility of catastrophe.

Murad Sadygzade, President of the Middle East Studies Center, Visiting Lecturer, HSE University (Moscow).

February 18, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Comments Off on Erdogan wants nukes: What a Turkish bomb would mean for the Middle East

Trump stalls over Iran strike plan, Iran holds all the aces

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 17, 2026

Trump has the option of going to war with Iran and receiving much-needed campaign funds from Israel for the midterms – or opting to defy Bibi and facing certain defeat by losing both houses and facing certain impeachment. Can the Iranians save him?

Is Trump serious about going to war with Iran? To understand this, it’s important to examine his relationship with Netanyahu and to see who has the advantage when it comes to dragging the U.S. into a war, and whether Israel can actually be a greater threat to the U.S. than Tehran can ever be.

The trap that Trump is falling into is one where he has little or no wiggle room at all to control the Iran crisis, whereby Israel can threaten him with isolation while it goes ahead with its strike.

There are two dynamics at play here which are struggling to find a compromise. Trump wants a deal with Iran which takes away their nuclear capability, while Israel wants a war which overthrows the Iranian regime and installs a Mossad/CIA puppet. The problem, though, is that Israel is not an honest broker and keeps shifting the goalposts. The latest demand now is that removing Iran’s ballistic missiles should be at the heart of any deal that Trump pulls off.

Trump is ensnared and is aware of how Bibi is manipulating him. He may, on occasion, swear at journalists and pretend he is his own boss and his own president and that Israel is a client state of Washington which has to toe the line, but in reality, it is clear that Israel is calling the shots.

In recent days, we have heard that the one aircraft carrier the U.S. had in the region, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is to be joined by a second called the USS Gerald Ford. U.S. media report that the Lincoln is in the “Arabian Sea,” which is a comical way of saying that it’s keeping its distance from Iran’s shores and Houthi missiles off the coast of Yemen. But other reports are suggesting that the reason why Trump claims he has sent a second carrier – to beef up the “flotilla” in case of a war breaking out with Iran – is untrue. Some insiders are briefing journalists that the Lincoln has technical problems which will render it useless in a combat situation and so needs to be replaced with the more advanced Ford.

However, even this might be a false narrative offered by Pentagon insiders who are not supporters of Trump. A second explanation about the carriers is that it buys Trump time. He has even told reporters that it will take about a month for the Ford to get there, which he believes should be ample time for a deal to be struck with Iran, or at least will give him four more weeks to work out a way of dealing with the threat – that’s the threat from Israel, not Iran.

Israel threatened Trump before when he went ahead with his bunker buster bombs in June of last year by saying simply, “If you don’t do it, we’ll nuke Iran.” It worked. This time around, the threat is, “If you don’t join us, then we’ll strike Iran alone and you will have to deal with the consequences of being the first U.S. president to have to explain to the Jewish lobby why Iran is wiping Israel off the face of the map.” This second threat is multi-layered and also might work with Trump, given that the midterm elections, which are approaching, will cost twice what the elections cost which got him into office. It will be Jewish money which bankrolls him this time around, with the intention of saving him from losing both houses and facing inevitable impeachment.

And so, in many ways, Trump is closer to and more dependent on the regime in Tehran to help him out. A deal which limits the enrichment of uranium and can guarantee no nuclear bomb can be made might be something he can present to the American people as a great victory. The irony is that the deal might be more or less a carbon copy of Obama’s, which he, Trump, rejected while in his first term in office, a rejection which has created the present crisis.

The trouble with any deal now about enrichment is that it is unlikely to satisfy the Israelis, who have become more aware in recent weeks about the capability of Iran’s latest generation of ballistic missiles both in terms of defence and attack. Moreover, the U.S. attack on Iran last year for 12 days has now raised the stakes to a fever pitch, making the Iranians clearer and more focused about any kind of attack happening against them: all-out war.

According to some credible reports, Trump was recently asking Pentagon chiefs if the U.S. could carry out a single in-and-out strike operation which could be used to warn Iran while satisfying Israel at the same time about the U.S. threat, and he was told no such options are feasible. This is due to Iran being much more prepared now for such attacks, both militarily and intelligence-wise, while the Mossad operation of creating civil strife on the ground failed spectacularly. The U.S. is in a very tight corner right now, as its forces and its allies in the region are in the crosshairs of Iran the moment the first bomb is dropped, and so Trump’s options to go to war are very limited. It would be suicidal for Trump to strike Iran, as the losses to U.S. forces and the disruption to oil distribution via the Straits of Hormuz would be too great, not to mention the destruction of infrastructure in Israel itself.

But there is also another factor which is putting all the pressure on Trump to get a deal with Iran. Since last June’s attack and more recently Trump’s betrayal of cordial relations with Putin conjured up at Alaska, along with the Venezuela coup, both Russia and China have upped their support for Iran. This is a critical factor now preventing Trump from hitting Iran with anything. China recently gave Iran its latest state-of-the-art new radar system which can identify U.S. stealth bombers at a range of 700km. Game changer. If you consider Iran, Israel, and the U.S. as three poker players at the table, it is clear that Iran now has the best hand with the most options. It can maximize its role now and exploit Trump’s vulnerability by going for a deal which involves sanctions being relieved, or it could hold out and play a long game way beyond Trump’s one-month breathing space and really turn up the heat on him leading up to the midterms in November. Iran always plays for time and is good at this strategy. And given that even the kindest analysis of America’s strike capability in Iran is two weeks before depletion of all missile stocks is reached, any hawks close to Trump who are pushing for a strike must have the destruction of the U.S. in their strategy as well, as Iran cannot be pounded into a state of submission in such a short space of time. Surely that can’t be the aim of Bibi. Surely not!

February 17, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Comments Off on Trump stalls over Iran strike plan, Iran holds all the aces

Zelensky’s Ceasefire for Elections is Strategic Gambit, Not Democratic Move

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 17.02.2026

Volodymyr Zelensky’s reluctance to hold elections in Ukraine is multi-faced, according to Marco Marsili, geopolitical analyst at CESRAN International and former OSCE election observer.

The Ukrainian politician is on thin ice despite optimistic polling numbers: “The reported approval ratings reflect a carefully managed wartime narrative, not democratic reality,” Marsili tells Sputnik.

What’s the reality?

  • Demographic catastrophe: An entire generation of fighting-age men has been consumed by the front lines
  • Economic collapse: Beyond Western-subsidized survival, Ukraine’s economy is a shell
  • Neo-Nazi grip: Zelensky’s political survival depends on being perceived as a strong promoter of nationalism

To block elections and derail legitimate peace talks, Zelensky is demanding conditions that directly contradict Russia’s position.

“Zelensky’s proposal for a two-month ceasefire to enable elections is a multilayered strategic gambit, not a genuine democratic exercise,” says Marsili.
How would Zelensky use the ceasefire he demands?

Military respite: “It is a classic military pause dressed in political clothing,” the pundit explains. “Two months without active hostilities would allow Ukraine to reconstitute its shattered forces.”

Shifting blame: By proposing elections and blaming Russia for rejection, Zelensky positions himself as pro-democracy and paints Moscow as the obstacle.

Dragging West deeper into conflict: A positive Western response to Zelensky’s security demands during potential elections deepens their commitment; a negative one exposes the limits of their support.

“Russia’s insistence on addressing the root causes — NATO expansion, the status of Russian-speaking populations, Ukraine’s neutrality — reflects its view that procedural fixes like elections are meaningless without resolving the underlying security architecture,” Marsili underscores.

February 17, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Zelensky’s Ceasefire for Elections is Strategic Gambit, Not Democratic Move

US and Dutch pilots flying F-16s for Ukraine – Western media

RT | February 17, 2026

The Ukrainian military is secretly using a squadron of veteran NATO pilots to fly donated US-made F-16 fighter jets, the French outlet Intelligence Online reported on Monday.

Moscow has long warned that Western nations are moving closer to direct conflict with Russia. The report, which Kiev has denied, said the covert mission relies primarily on experienced US and Dutch air force veterans.

The foreign personnel are deployed far from the front lines and focus on intercepting Russian long-range weapons, the outlet said. They are no longer part of their original militaries and reportedly work for Kiev as civilian contractors, without military ranks and outside the Ukrainian chain of command.

A shortage of trained Ukrainian pilots was previously identified as the main obstacle to using F-16s donated to Kiev. Training courses were reportedly undermined by language barriers, a lack of qualified trainees, and other issues, and were simplified for speed.

Shortly after the first F-16s arrived in Ukraine in August 2024, Kiev began losing pilots in botched air defense missions, with four such incidents acknowledged.

The secret foreign squadron provides pilots with the experience needed to operate advanced F-16 equipment, Intelligence Online said.

Moscow views the Ukraine conflict as a NATO proxy war against Russia, in which key elements of Kiev’s military effort – including intelligence, planning, troop training, and maintenance of complex Western hardware – are handled by foreign personnel.

Western specialists were reportedly involved in Ukrainian strikes using Storm Shadow/SCALP air-launched cruise missiles on Russian territory. German officials opposed supplying Taurus missiles because Ukrainians cannot launch them independently.

Russia also says Western nations tacitly support Kiev’s recruitment of mercenaries from among their military veterans. Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik estimated that around 20,000 foreign fighters have taken part in the conflict on the Ukrainian side.

February 17, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , | Comments Off on US and Dutch pilots flying F-16s for Ukraine – Western media

West’s Claims of Non-Involvement in Ukraine Conflict ‘Epitome of Hypocrisy’ – Expert

Sputnik – 17.02.2026

NATO personnel operating Western military hardware in the Ukrainian conflict zone has long been an open secret, Russian military analyst Viktor Litovkin tells Sputnik.

Ukraine, Litovkin explains, ended up relying on foreign personnel because it:

  • Lacks the necessary number of skilled pilots and specialists to operate sophisticated weapon systems like F-16 jets or HIMARS rockets
  • Has a severe shortage of engineers who know English well enough to interpret tech manuals and maintenance charts for NATO military gear

How Does This Personnel Pipeline Work?

Western military specialists operating in Ukraine are not officially regarded as members of their respective home countries’ armed forces, masquerading instead as volunteers who chose on their own to “defend democracy.”

“It’s a tried and tested scenario: a career military man goes on a fake leave and heads off to a warzone, to be reinstated upon his return home,” says Litovkin.

Western powers’ claims of alleged non-involvement in the Ukrainian conflict are the epitome of hypocrisy, he notes.

Second-hand War Gear

NATO countries deliberately provide Ukraine with second-rate, older war gear due to concerns that any advanced military hardware supplied to the Ukrainian forces would be inevitably captured by Russian forces, Litovkin points out.

As a result, Western personnel end up operating outdated military hardware while facing much more advanced Russian combat aircraft and weapon systems that make short work of them.

February 17, 2026 Posted by | Deception, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on West’s Claims of Non-Involvement in Ukraine Conflict ‘Epitome of Hypocrisy’ – Expert

Putin aide urges retaliation to ‘Western piracy’

RT | February 17, 2026

Russia’s response to “Western piracy” targeting its maritime trade should be forceful and not limited to diplomatic means, an aide to President Vladimir Putin has said.

Nikolay Patrushev, a veteran national security official who heads a naval policymaking body, called for stronger action against Western moves targeting vessels described as part of an alleged Russian ‘shadow fleet’.

Attempts to paralyze Russian foreign trade will only intensify, Patrushev warned in an interview with Argumenty i Fakty published on Tuesday.

“Unless we push back forcefully, soon the English, the French, and even the Balts will get brazen enough to try and block our nation’s access to at least the Atlantic,” he said.

“The Europeans are in essence making steps to impose a naval blockade, deliberately pushing towards a military escalation, testing the limits of our patience and provoking our retaliation. If the situation is not resolved peacefully, the Navy will be breaking and lifting the blockade,” Patrushev said.

“Let’s not forget that plenty of vessels sail the seas under European flags. We may get curious about what they are shipping and where,” he added.

Patrushev expressed skepticism that tensions could ease, saying “there is little hope that the West has an ounce of respect for diplomacy and the law.” He argued that “the old practice of ‘gunboat diplomacy’ is being revived,” citing US operations targeting Venezuela and Iran.

Washington has used warships to target suspected drug smuggling boats off Venezuela and intercept outgoing oil tankers, including one sailing under a Russian flag. The Pentagon is now concentrating assets in the Middle East as President Donald Trump pressures Iran to accept restrictions on its missile deterrence against Israel.

In today’s world, the Russian Navy is “a geopolitical tool that combines might with flexibility and is suitable for both peacetime and armed conflicts,” Patrushev said. Its strength is needed to protect Russia’s “ability to export oil, grain and fertilizers, and the normal functioning of the state.”

February 17, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Comments Off on Putin aide urges retaliation to ‘Western piracy’

Israel Needs Time Before Another Iran War—Here’s Why

By José Niño | The Libertarian Institute | February 16, 2026

The United States finds itself in an unfamiliar position. After spending approximately one hundred and fifty THAAD interceptors and eighty SM-3 missiles to help defend Israel during the Twelve-Day War in June 2025, the Pentagon faces a stark reality. Its stockpiles are depleted, its production lines cannot keep pace, and another major conflict with Iran would require an air defense umbrella America can no longer fully provide.

The question is not whether the United States wants to strike Iran again. The question is whether it can afford to.

For now, the answer appears to be no. But history suggests this pause may be temporary, with negotiations serving not as a genuine path to peace but as a strategic timeout while Israel restocks its depleted munitions and air defenses. After all, the Twelve-Day War itself kicked off in the middle of active negotiations that critics across the political spectrum described as either a deliberate ruse or a diplomatic process Israel cynically sabotaged.

Throughout the clash with Israel, the Israeli government worked hard to control the narrative about what Iran’s missiles actually hit. Military censorship laws prevented journalists from reporting strike locations near sensitive facilities. But satellite data told a different story.

A report by The Daily Telegraph using radar analysis from Oregon State University revealed that Iranian missiles struck at least five Israeli military facilities with remarkable accuracy. These included Tel Nof Airbase, Camp Glilot housing Unit 8200, Israel’s premier signals intelligence unit, and Zipporit weapons manufacturing facility.

None of these strikes were reported from within Israel. Professor Jerome Bourdon of Tel Aviv University explained, “We probably will never know the full extent of the damage.”

Haifa’s BAZAN oil refinery was shut down for two weeks with an estimated $250 million loss. Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba took a direct hit from Iran’s missile barrage. Most critically, by June 18, a U.S. official disclosed that Israel was running low on Arrow interceptors. The Washington Post reported assessments that Israel could only maintain missile defense for ten to twelve more days. The war’s duration was constrained by the physical limits of both sides’ arsenals.

The United States used approximately 25% of its entire global THAAD stockpile during the Twelve-Day War, firing roughly one hundred and fifty interceptors. It also expended eighty SM-3 interceptors and thirty Patriot PAC-3 interceptors. The problem is that production cannot remotely keep pace with consumption.

THAAD interceptors are manufactured at a rate of only eleven to twelve per year. That means replacing the one hundred and fifty interceptors fired during the Twelve-Day War would take more than twelve years at current production rates. CSIS analysts warned in late 2025 that no new THAAD interceptors would be delivered until 2027, creating a dangerous gap.

Even after the Pentagon reprogrammed $700 million into THAAD procurement, that only covers about forty-five missiles at $15 million each. As JINSA’s Ari Cicurel warned, “Both Israel and the US used an immense amount of their interceptor stockpiles. We are still very far behind in replenishing to get back to what we had before.”

By January 2026, defense experts were sounding the alarms that depleted interceptor stocks were constraining the Trump administration’s options regarding Iran, since another war would require the same defense umbrella the United States can no longer fully provide.

The interceptor shortage is just one symptom of a deeper structural problem. A Foundation for Defense of Democracies report published in April 2025 audited twenty-five weapons systems committed or potentially committed to Taiwan, Ukraine, and Israel. The finding was stark. Only seven of twenty-five had a strong defense industrial base, while the remaining eighteen were either weak or required significant attention.

Consider 155mm artillery shells. The Army targeted 100,000 rounds per month by October 2025. As of June 2025, production stood at just 40,000 per month. Even that figure is misleading. Only 18,000 complete rounds with propellant were being produced monthly because the United States depends on a single plant in Canada for artillery propellant and has no domestic production.

Against this backdrop, the United States and Iran resumed negotiations on February 6, 2026, in Muscat, Oman. After eight months of silence following the Twelve-Day War, talks restarted with delegations led by Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The timing invites skepticism. The Twelve-Day War was launched on June 13, 2025, exactly three days before the sixth round of nuclear negotiations was scheduled. Israel struck while Iran was in what War on the Rocks described as “diplomatic preoccupation with Washington” and “military unpreparedness.”

Araghchi called the strikes a “betrayal of diplomacy,” stating, “We were supposed to meet with the Americans on 15 June to craft a very promising agreement…It was a betrayal of diplomacy and unprecedented blow to the foundations of international law.”

The Wall Street Journal reported “U.S. Diplomacy Served as Cover for Israeli Surprise Attack.” Trump told the New York Post after the strikes, “I always knew the date. Because I know everything.”

Doug Bandow noted that the Cato Institute reported that Israeli officials stated “Israel and the U.S. carried out a multi-faceted misinformation campaign” to convince Iran a strike was not imminent and that Trump “was an active participant in the ruse and knew about the military operation since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to move forward with the strike.”

Whether current negotiations represent genuine diplomacy or another strategic pause remains open. Araghchi stated that “existing mistrust poses a significant hurdle” to progress.

From a military industrial perspective, the current negotiations serve a clear purpose regardless of diplomatic intent. They buy time. Israel’s defense ministry purchased weapons worth 220 billion shekels, approximately $61.5 billion, in 2024, four times previous years, reflecting the desperate need to restock. Israel is now accelerating development and production of Arrow 3, Arrow 4, Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and ground based laser systems in anticipation of a potential second round.

The United States faces the same imperative. The Trump administration has pledged a record $1 trillion defense budget and the 2026 NDAA authorized multiyear procurement for key munitions. But experts warn these measures are necessary but insufficient given the scale of the gap between production capacity and real-world consumption rates.

The fundamental question is how long it takes to rebuild stockpiles sufficiently to contemplate another major conflict. With THAAD production at eleven to twelve interceptors per year and no new deliveries until 2027, the answer is measured in years, not months.

One thing has become clear. Military industrial issues are coming back to the fore. And the United States, despite its constant bragging about being exceptional, faces the same resource constraints that all mortal imperial polities have previously faced.

Wargames by the Center for New American Security found the United States would run out of long range munitions in less than a week in a fight with China over Taiwan. The Twelve-Day War revealed the United States cannot sustain high intensity conflict support for even one ally without severely depleting its stockpiles.

The current negotiations with Iran may represent genuine diplomacy. Or they may represent a tactical pause to allow Israel time to rebuild its defenses before the next round. Either way, the resource constraints are real. The production gaps are real. And the physical limits of America’s military industrial base now constrain its foreign policy options in ways Washington has not experienced in decades.

The quicker the United States recognizes these limits and pursues a more restrained foreign policy, the better off it will be. The alternative is to continue pretending that stockpiles replenish themselves, that production lines can magically accelerate, and that America can wage unlimited war in unlimited theaters without consequence.

The Twelve-Day War proved otherwise. The question is whether Washington has learned the lesson.

February 16, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Ian Proud: Economic Reset with Russia to Save Europe

Glenn Diesen | Feb 15, 2026

Ian Proud discusses why an economic reset with Russia is required for a stable peace and to prevent Europe from becoming a weakened relic of a unipolar past. As a former British diplomat, Proud performed a number of roles, including the Economic Counsellor at the UK’s embassy in Moscow between 2014 and 2019.

The Peacemonger: https://www.youtube.com/@IanProud

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February 15, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

US Caribbean Buildup Near $3B — Report

Sputnik – 15.02.2026

The US military surge around Venezuela that culminated in the military aggression and abduction of President Nicolas Maduro is approaching a $3 billion price tag, Bloomberg reported.

Bloomberg calculations show the deployment at its peak cost more than $20 million a day, with as much as 20% of the US Navy’s surface fleet tied up in the region. Former Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker estimated that Operation Southern Spear has “probably cost about $2 billion since August 2025,” excluding intelligence and targeting expenses.

The White House has said the operation did not cost taxpayers extra because the forces were already deployed. But experts cited by Bloomberg noted that combat activity, higher operational tempo and personnel benefits add to expenses, and there is “no contingency fund in the DOD budget for unexpected operations.”

Despite the USS Gerald R. Ford being reassigned to the Middle East, Bloomberg reported the Caribbean deployment has no clear end date, even as US lawmakers say they have not been provided with detailed cost estimates.

Billions spent. No formal accounting.

And the tab keeps rising.

February 15, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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