IRAN GOT NOTHING FROM the MoU – Nima Alkhorshid
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – July 10, 2026
Can Dems harness Iran war anger to sink Trump’s military budget?
Senate blocked defense bill Monday amid frustration with administration’s return to war and lack of transparency
By Blaise Malley | Responsible Statecraft | July 15, 2026
Congress returned to Washington DC this week after its July 4 recess. With President Donald Trump having recently declared the memorandum of understanding with Iran “over” and with the two countries exchanging attacks, the war has predictably taken center stage.
Congressional Democrats have been mostly unified against the war, but this week has presented opportunities for members to use new vehicles to express their opposition via the power of the purse. On Tuesday, every present Democratic Senator voted to block debate over the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes the appropriation of Pentagon funds. The bill, which needed 60 votes to advance, failed by a 50-46 tally.
The NDAA typically proceeds in a relatively bipartisan manner, but the warning signs were apparent in June when nine Democrats voted against advancing the bill out of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC). Several Democrats framed their opposition as, in part, a rejection of the war in Iran.
In advance of the vote, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), said the bill would “effectively green light Trump’s illegal Iran war.” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who noted that he typically votes in favor of the NDAA, said he would oppose it given that the legislature had not “even had an up or down vote to authorize this war in the first place.” Republicans charged Democrats with playing politics over the national security bill, with SASC chairman Roger Wicker (R-Miss. ) calling it a “new low.”
There were other considerations at play as well, including the Trump administration’s ask for a $1.5 trillion defense budget and the lack of transparency surrounding the cost of the war with Iran. On Tuesday, Jules Hurst, testifying to become the Pentagon comptroller, told SASC members that he did not have an update on the $29 billion price tag for the war, since he had not been performing the role since May 20, when his term as acting comptroller came to an end.
Sources said that Republicans’ approach to funding bills has created conditions in which Democrats may stall or even stop defense appropriations legislation.
With Democrats seemingly dug in on blocking the NDAA until the questions surrounding an Iran war authorization are settled, the must-pass bill’s future appears murky. “The Trump administration has not meaningfully consulted Congress on the Iran conflict or engaged Democrats on broader budget strategy, leaving its budget plans and legislative priorities stalled,” a senior congressional aide told RS. “Republicans now face the possibility of flat funding for the Department of Defense under a continuing resolution, or potentially an extended shutdown.”
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In addition, a group of Senators, led by Van Hollen and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), raised concerns about an amendment to the NDAA that would more deeply integrate U.S. and Israeli intelligence. They sent a letter to their colleagues last week urging them to block the legislation until they could hold further discussion regarding those measures.
But congressional sources said that the timing of the vote — shortly after Trump’s announcement that the agreement with Iran was dead — contributed to Democrats voting unanimously against the NDAA. Supporters of ending the war with Iran interpreted the vote as a signal that the war was increasingly unpopular and that Congress should keep up political pressure on the president.
“The war with Iran is incredibly unpopular with the American people and Democrats were right to pick up on that and use this opportunity to vote accordingly,” one senior Democratic Senate staffer told RS. In order to keep up pressure on the administration, the staffer argued, Democrats “should announce publicly that they won’t support any measure to advance the NDAA until Trump resumes negotiations with Iran and gets a deal done.”
National Iranian American Council president Jamal Abdi wrote a statement that urged members to not advance any “other major national legislation (…) as long as this unauthorized war continues without an explicit prohibition on funding it.”
That major legislation may include the administration’s roughly $88 billion DoD supplemental funding request, much of which is intended to fund the Iran war. The administration made the request late last month, though its future on the floor remains unclear as Republican members remain frustrated by a lack of information from the Pentagon regarding the request’s details. As the Stimson Center’s Julia Gledhill told RS in June, “the supplemental doesn’t even detail what weapons the Pentagon wants to buy.”
Up until this point, Democratic opposition has primarily been registered through a string of votes on war powers resolutions. Both the House and the Senate passed concurrent resolutions in June to push Trump to wind down the war absent authorization from the legislature. Congressional Democrats are reportedly considering taking the issue to the courts to compel the administration to comply. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) has said that he will introduce a new War Powers Resolution this week.
The administration, for its part, informed Congress of the restarting of the war on July 10, which it says should also restart the 60-day war powers clock, though legal experts widely say that this is an incorrect interpretation.
Blaise Malley is a reporter for Responsible Statecraft. His writing has appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The American Prospect, The American Conservative, and elsewhere.
IRAN WAR REPERCUSSIONS, THE US WILL BE BLAMED /The Duran’s Alexander Mercouris
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – July 14, 2026
Bulgaria pulls out of coalition of Ukraine backers
RT | July 14, 2026
Bulgaria has no place in the coalition of Western nations pushing for continued military aid to Ukraine, Prime Minister Rumen Radev has told Bulgarian broadcaster bTV.
The France and UK-led “coalition of the willing” has long pushed to deploy troops into Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, despite Moscow’s repeated warnings that any NATO troops on Ukrainian territory would become legitimate military targets.
“We’re not part of a coalition pushing for continued financial and military aid to Ukraine,” Radev told bTV during a press conference in France on Tuesday.
“We don’t provide aid of that kind, because I believe the way to resolve this conflict is through a strong diplomatic effort to end the escalation rather than by prolonging it by military means,” he added.
Last week, Radev, a Euroskeptic elected after the previous pro-EU government collapsed last year following massive anti-corruption protests, announced that Bulgaria has exhausted its capacity to support Kiev militarily.
“We provided 13 packages; we don’t have anything else to supply to Ukraine,” he said on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara.
According to Slovak President Peter Pellegrini, several NATO nations at the summit, including Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic refused to participate in the US-led military bloc’s latest €70 billion ($80 billion) military aid package for Kiev.
Moscow has long condemned arms supplies to Ukraine, warning that they only prolong the war and cause more deaths, without altering the course of the conflict – which Russia views as a Western proxy war.
EU nations are losing what remains of their “rationality and drifting into a high-risk zone” in an effort to turn Ukraine in to a “testing ground” for their emerging military technologies, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in late June.
Europe’s Missile Bloc Just Trojan Horse to Bypass NATO Vetoes & ‘Sneak’ Ukraine Into ‘Club’
Sputnik – 14.07.2026
The anti-ballistic coalition cobbled together by Europe and Ukraine may not be a formal alliance, but in reality, it is conceived as such, Swedish air defense expert Mikael Valtersson tells Sputnik.
Hence, if one country is attacked with ballistic missiles, “the combined ABM capacity will be utilized to defend member states,” the pundit notes.
In his opinion, this initiative is a blatant attempt by pro-Ukraine hawks to “sneak” new members into a united European defense structure, and “thereby bypass possible vetoes against Ukraine joining NATO.”
The project also seeks to:
- push EU closer to a centralized European superstate
- funnel billions to Europe’s defense giants
European leaders talk big on local ballistic missile defense when they rely on US Patriots and Israeli Arrow 3s for their shield, and homegrown high-end interceptors are at least a decade away, notes the analyst.
As for Ukraine’s so-called “battlefield experience,” so hyped by Europe, it’s the result of Kiev’s “calculated information warfare” peddling misleading bravado about allegedly downing Russia’s ballistic missiles when their own Western interceptor stocks have run dry, argues the expert.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the “coalition of the willing” a coalition of warmongers, adding that it was a group of countries that did not want peace.
“This is a coalition of warmongers, this is the group of countries that does not want peace, wants to continue the war,” Peskov told reporters.
Trump painted US into a tinderbox
By Trita Parsi | Responsible Statecraft | July 13, 2026
For all practical purposes, the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of (Mis)Understanding is over. The dispute over how to manage the Strait of Hormuz in the interim has pushed the two sides back into open war. But to what end?
There is little reason to believe another round of fighting can alter the fundamentals enough to change the reality from which the two sides must ultimately negotiate. If they are fortunate, the MOU’s collapse may yield another round of talks in which the allure of reshaping facts on the ground through force has finally faded.
As I have written elsewhere, the dispute over the Strait turns, at least on the surface, on Paragraph 5 of the MOU: whether Iran is responsible for safe passage throughout the Strait for the duration of the agreement, or only for the waterway’s northern corridor.
Beneath the surface, however, lies a more fundamental strategic disagreement. Even before the MOU was signed, Tehran believed Washington’s objective was to establish a southern shipping corridor through Omani waters that would gradually erode Iran’s control over the Strait. Such a corridor would require Oman’s cooperation, which may explain why Trump at one point threatened to bomb Oman unless it abandoned its proposal for joint management of the Strait, with administrative fees collected by Muscat and Tehran.
The corridor would remain operational even if war resumed and Iran sought once again to close the Strait. From Tehran’s perspective, Washington used the MOU to strengthen this alternative route, and the U.S. military’s escort of commercial shipping without coordinating with Iran marked a significant step in that direction. If successful, the strategy would deprive Iran of its most important source of leverage — which is precisely why it appeals to Washington.
This is why Tehran has insisted that all ships transiting the Strait — regardless of the corridor they use — coordinate with Iran, consistent with its reading of Paragraph 5 of the MOU. Washington, by contrast, argues that the MOU merely assigns Iran responsibility for ensuring the safe passage of commercial vessels, without granting it operational control over all maritime traffic.
Before the funeral of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the two sides explored a compromise under which ships would coordinate their transit with both Iran and a designated Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) state. As I wrote in my Substack, “Under such an arrangement, ships would notify Tehran while also reporting to a GCC maritime authority, balancing Iran’s demand for oversight with Washington’s desire to avoid granting Tehran exclusive control.” But no agreement was reached before diplomacy was suspended for the duration of the funeral.
Accounts of what transpired in Muscat over the weekend naturally differ, but three proposals emerged. Iran advanced a variation of the earlier compromise: a dual-notification system for all vessels transiting the Strait. Qatar proposed three channels—an Iranian corridor in the north, an Omani corridor in the south, and a neutral corridor in the middle. For Tehran, this was a nonstarter, as it would effectively restore the Strait to its pre-February status.
According to Tehran, the United States and Oman favored separate management of the Iranian and Omani corridors: Iran could require coordination for vessels using its corridor, while Oman’s would remain unrestricted.
Tehran saw this as an attempt to formalize what it had long suspected was Washington’s strategy: creating a southern corridor through the Strait beyond Iran’s influence, leaving Tehran no means of challenging it short of war with Oman. Iran also contends that Muscat advanced the proposal only under intense U.S. pressure, noting that Oman had previously supported a joint management system.
Washington disputes this account. U.S. officials maintain they were open to several arrangements, provided commercial vessels could transit the Strait safely. According to the American version, the talks unraveled only after Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi consulted Tehran regarding a joint Iranian-Omani statement declaring the Strait open. From Washington’s perspective, negotiations had been progressing until Araghchi was overruled by hardliners in the IRGC, who chose confrontation over compromise.
Whether such a fracture proved decisive in this instance is unclear. What is clear is that the outlook of Iranian strategists has hardened markedly in recent weeks as they have become increasingly convinced that Trump intends to restart the war. Several developments have reinforced that belief. First, Trump’s rhetoric shifted dramatically: he called the Iranians “scum,” declared the ceasefire over, and said he might resume bombing to “finish the job.”
Second, as I argued here, Tehran believes Washington brokered the Lebanese-Israeli agreement — which contradicts the U.S.-Iran MOU by conditioning Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon on Hezbollah’s disarmament — to enable Israel to retain key positions that would weaken Hezbollah’s ability to support Iran in the next war.
Third, White House officials leaked the U.S. demand that Tehran declare the Strait open and, at least implicitly, accept responsibility for attacks on shipping. Rather than seeing the leak as political posturing to make Trump appear tough, Tehran increasingly viewed it as a deliberate attempt to derail the talks and steer the crisis back toward military confrontation.
Taken together, these developments convinced Tehran that Washington was preparing to resume the war. From that perspective, Iran’s best option was to close the Strait immediately. Rather than an attempt to extract additional concessions or an instance of overplaying its hand, Tehran’s decision appears to have been driven by the fear of losing its most important source of leverage before the next round of fighting.
In the view of Iranian decision-makers, closing the Strait would not trigger war because war was already coming. (If their assessment was incorrect, however, Tehran’s own actions have likely created a self-fulfilling prophecy by taking actions that made a military response from Washington next to inevitable).
Still, much indicates that another round of war will not fundamentally change realities on the ground or the balance between the US and Iran. Trump, in particular, does not have time on his side when taking into account both economic and political realities, and even some military factors.
By almost every meaningful measure, the global oil inventory position is materially weaker today than it was before the February war. Since the end of February, observed global oil inventories have fallen by roughly 360–370 million barrels, with only about 21 million barrels rebuilt after the U.S.–Iran MOU — recovering just 5% of the wartime draw.
More importantly, the apparent recovery reflects oil in transit rather than replenished storage: oil on water increased by 117 million barrels, while onshore inventories fell by 96 million barrels. OECD inventories declined by another 62 million barrels in June alone, including roughly 44 million barrels released from government emergency stocks.
The United States also enters any renewed conflict with a substantially smaller strategic cushion. It has fallen from about 415 million barrels before the war to roughly 337 million barrels, while commercial crude, gasoline and distillate inventories all remain below their five-year seasonal averages. Consequently, Washington has significantly less capacity than in February to absorb another major disruption to global oil flows.
In addition, the United States is now only four months away from the midterm elections, dramatically shortening Trump’s economic and political pain threshold. In February, the administration could plausibly argue that the oil shock was temporary and that prices would normalize before voters went to the polls. A renewed conflict today would push its most visible economic consequences directly into the campaign: higher gasoline prices, inflation, interest rates, and rising food, airline, freight, and utility costs.
As a Pentagon source told me last year, Iran builds missiles faster than the United States produces missile interceptors. And while Washington must divide its attention and resources among multiple theaters — from Ukraine to Taiwan — Iran has only one.
Thus, although the United States could, given enough time, degrade Iran’s ability to threaten shipping in the Persian Gulf, there is little reason to believe it could do so before the economic and political costs became prohibitive for Trump. It is essentially the same strategic reality he confronted in February. The difference is that he lacked the benefit of hindsight then. Now he has it — though it does not appear to have mattered.
Trita Parsi is the co-founder and Executive Vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.
US Reinstates Naval Blockade of Iran – Trump
Sputnik – 13.07.2026
WASHINGTON – The United States is reinstating the blockade of Iranian ports, US President Donald Trump said on Monday.
“The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump also said that the United States will become a “guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz and receive a reimbursement equal to 20% of cargo shipped through the waterway.
“All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World. The process and formation will begin immediately,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Lindsey Graham was a monster, but not exceptional
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | July 12, 2026
Lindsey Graham is dead. And if we were to apply the old Spartan and then Roman adage “about the dead, nothing but the good,” then this is where this text would have to end.
Some readers may find this shocking or unkind. But it is a fact that there is no way to write about the intriguingly sudden end of the long-term US senator from South Carolina in a ‘balanced’ manner and stay honest.
Graham was an almost cartoonishly evil man and since he was also very powerful, his moral depravity made a big difference to the lives of all too many. Downplaying that fact out of misplaced piety would be perverse; it would mean to disrespect the many victims of perfidious and brutal US and, in fact, Israeli policies of vicious violence and outrageous injustice that Graham promoted with every fiber of his being for his whole political life.
During the Gaza genocide, when challenged specifically about the Israeli mass killings of civilians, including women and children, Graham launched into what can only be called a psychopathic rant comparing the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians with American warfare against Germany in Japan in World War II (an intriguing comparison in and of itself, but that is another matter) and drawing the conclusion that Gaza should be flattened, including with nuclear weapons. Gaza has been flattened, and to his dying day, Graham never showed an ounce of compassion for those slaughtered by his Israeli friends and did everything he could to support that slaughter.
That is, of course, also why internationally wanted war criminal – really genocidaire – Benjamin Netanyahu rushed to offer his public condolences.
Speaking of Graham’s obvious subservience to Israel, the senator was, unsurprisingly, also a great fan of going to war with Iran, tirelessly calling for attacking it as violently as possible. He spread the Orwellian lies that Iran was about to pose a nuclear threat to the US and that its ballistic missile arsenal was a tool of reckless aggression, all to produce domestic support for yet another criminal American war. Himself addicted to hiding his foul character behind a bigoted and utterly fake Christian piety, Graham compared Iran’s leaders to Hitler and called them “religious Nazis,” thereby not merely offending brave men towering above him in moral and intellectual terms, but also helping to drum up propaganda for murdering them.
It is an irony of history or, maybe, divine justice that he lived just long enough to see the US follow his insane and corrupt advice and suffer a geopolitically catastrophic defeat for it.
Yet Graham was a monster long before the Gaza Genocide and the US-Israeli war against Iran. He was obsessed with brutalizing as many other countries and societies as possible. He could not see an opportunity for a war and not do his worst to make it happen. Graham’s record of warmongering is so extensive that it is hard to reproduce it in its entirety. Just shortly before his end, he had been calling for more US violence in Cuba, Lebanon, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Yemen – apart, obviously, from his eternal compulsion to scream for, in effect, more dead Palestinians and Iranians.
In true American fashion, if being Graham’s target was terrible, being his ‘friend’ was no better. Ukraine has come to stand for that experience. Even while pretending to be its ardent supporter, Graham was always among those most brutally open about using Ukraine and its people for the geopolitical and commercial interests of the US. He praised opportunities to rob Ukraine of crucial raw materials and he clearly considered pumping money into its ultra-corrupt Zelensky regime a great deal as it produced dead Russians (and, he failed to mention, Ukrainians, too, of course).
There is no other way of putting it. Lindsey Graham was an infernally bad man. And he was a revolting man: his viciousness was glaringly obvious. Graham was not a complicated case, a conflicted character, a man of light and dark. He was among the closest to pure, unadulterated, and shamelessly brazen evil many of us will ever lay eyes on.
That is why it is telling – but not surprising – to see who is lining up to let us know how much they’ll miss him, that they were buddies with him, or what a wonderful person he was. Apart from Netanyahu, for instance, German chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO’s Trump bellboy Mark Rutte, Ukraine’s authoritarian leader Vladimir Zelensky, and, of course, AIPAC.
What these often abject condolences show is not merely the moral failure – polite term – of those who offer them. There is a more general and, in its way, worse point: Horrible as Graham was, he was also representative of the elites of the US and the West. Normal people would be ashamed to be seen with Graham, dead or alive; Western elites are boasting of their intimacy with him.
Graham was explicit in displaying his genuine, sick joy in inflicting pain and misery on as much of the world as he could. Indeed, one way to describe him would be as an openly, enthusiastically sadistic imperialist. Graham was a depraved pervert of power who let it all hang out. But apart from his lack of filter, he was not an exception but typical.
Graham was the ugly and all too realistic face of much of the West and its leaders in Washington. He is gone, everyone and everything else is still in place.
Tarik Cyril Amar is 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.
NATO’s ‘Missile Summit’: The arms race Europe just signed up for
The alliance is building a European production network for Tomahawks, ATACMS, Patriot interceptors, and Ukrainian strike drones
By Dmitry Kornev | RT | July 11, 2026
The NATO summit in Ankara hasn’t been dubbed a “missile summit” by anyone – yet it probably should be. More than anything else, the meeting marked the launch of several major missile programs that could fundamentally reshape Europe’s military landscape over the coming decade.
Germany is getting Tomahawks
Chancellor Friedrich Merz got what he had been pushing for – and not just him. The United States has effectively given Berlin the green light to acquire American Tomahawk cruise missiles.
”On the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara we also agreed with the American government that Tomahawk missiles would be purchased by us and stationed in Germany. With this we are closing an important strategic gap in our defense. And at the same time we will work on developing our own European systems and deploying them in Europe,” Merz announced.
The details remain unclear. Berlin has yet to specify exactly which Tomahawk variant it intends to buy. Most likely, however, these will be the ground-launched versions, meaning either the Typhon missile system or a new launcher built around the same family of cruise missiles.
What does this actually mean?
In practical terms, Germany would gain the ability to strike virtually any target in the western part of Central Russia. If similar systems were eventually deployed in the Baltic states, their range would extend as far as the Urals.
One can assume that the German leadership will sleep a little easier knowing it has such capabilities at its disposal. A few billion dollars may seem like a reasonable price for that kind of reassurance.
And what do the Americans get?
They no longer have to deploy their own Tomahawks across Europe to reassure NATO allies. Europe gets to strengthen its own defenses – and pay for them itself. From Washington’s perspective, that’s a remarkably efficient arrangement.
Patriot missiles – Made in Ukraine?
Arguably the biggest missile-related announcement for Ukraine came from President Donald Trump, who revealed plans to grant Kiev a license to manufacture missiles for the Patriot air defense system.
No European country currently possesses such a license. Japan is the only nation outside the United States that produces Patriot interceptors.
Trump said American and Ukrainian technical teams would now begin working on the practical details – drafting agreements and preparing production. For the moment, however, this remains a political declaration rather than an industrial reality.
Ukraine certainly retains significant missile expertise. But launching serial production of one of the world’s most technologically sophisticated interceptor missiles under current wartime conditions would be an extraordinarily difficult task.
Modern PAC-3 interceptors are produced only in the United States and Japan, while manufacturing many of their critical components remains tightly controlled.
Technology, however, isn’t the biggest obstacle. The war is.
Building a facility capable of producing Patriot missiles while Russian aerospace forces retain the ability to strike targets across Ukraine borders on fantasy.
Which means that “Ukrainian production” would likely end up being Ukrainian mostly on paper, while the actual factories would operate somewhere else in Europe.
And there is already no shortage of volunteers.
Everyone wants in
Polish Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz has already announced that Warsaw is prepared to help Ukraine establish serial Patriot missile production.
That statement wasn’t accidental.
At the same NATO summit, Poland joined a four-country European consortium that will create a regional competence center responsible for servicing Patriot missiles.
For a country that currently lacks a production license, cooperating with Ukraine could offer a path into one of the West’s most important missile supply chains. Historical grievances and nationalist rhetoric suddenly become far less significant when industrial opportunities emerge. Apparently, this is different.
Germany has even stronger incentives.
Defense giant Rheinmetall is already deeply involved in multiple joint programs with Ukraine and would almost certainly welcome the opportunity to manufacture Patriot missiles as well.
The company already possesses the technological expertise, industrial infrastructure, financial resources, and long-established partnerships needed to launch production quickly.
And once the assembly lines exist, there would be little reason to produce missiles solely for Ukraine. Rheinmetall could eventually supply customers throughout Europe – and beyond.
Nothing personal. Just business.
Germany will also build Ukraine’s ‘Bars’ cruise drones
The Patriot project isn’t the only new German-Ukrainian missile initiative.
As part of the Build with Ukraine program, Berlin and Kiev agreed to organize production of Ukrainian-designed Bars jet-powered cruise drones in Germany.
The agreement was signed in Ankara by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sibiga and German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.
The Bars is a lightweight high-speed strike drone carrying a warhead weighing between 30 and 100 kilograms, with a range of up to 800 kilometers and a cruising speed of roughly 500 km/h.
Germany currently produces no weapons of this type.
For the German defense industry, the project offers an opportunity to gain experience with an entirely new class of weapon systems. The Bundeswehr likewise gains familiarity with technology it does not yet field.
The primary customer, however, will be Ukraine itself.
At least initially, every drone produced under the program is expected to be delivered to the Ukrainian military, while Germany finances the entire project.
A fairly convenient arrangement.
A European Patriot ecosystem
The summit also produced another notable agreement.
The United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden signed a memorandum launching preparations for a European maintenance network for PAC-3 Patriot missiles.
The facilities will inspect, repair, and service missiles without sending them back to the United States.
Eventually there will likely be several such centers, one in each participating country.
Officially, these facilities are intended only for maintenance. Unofficially, virtually everyone understands where this is heading. Today’s repair center can become tomorrow’s production line.
For now, Washington appears reluctant to hand Europe full-scale manufacturing rights, preferring to preserve control over its most advanced technologies.
But that position may not last forever.
From an American perspective, collecting licensing royalties from European production could ultimately prove far more profitable than trying to supply an ever-growing European demand from shrinking US stockpiles.
From a business standpoint, that logic is difficult to ignore.
Germany again: ATACMS goes European
One more agreement attracted less attention than it probably deserved.
Lockheed Martin and Rheinmetall signed a memorandum to manufacture ATACMS ballistic missiles at Rheinmetall’s facility in Unterlüß, Germany.
It will be the first production of ATACMS missiles outside the United States.
The choice of location is hardly accidental.
The Unterlüß complex has operated for more than 125 years and now employs roughly 4,000 workers while continuing to expand.
Last year the site opened a new artillery ammunition production line.
A rocket motor factory is currently under construction and is scheduled to begin producing engines and missile components in 2027.
Rheinmetall expects full-scale ATACMS production to begin that same year, with output expanding significantly through 2028 and 2029.
Current European demand alone is estimated at between 600 and 800 missiles annually.
The bottom line
Given everything announced in Ankara, it’s difficult not to view this as NATO’s “missile summit.”
If even a significant portion of these plans materializes, Europe’s missile industry will look radically different within just a few years – and European taxpayers will foot nearly the entire bill.
Operational-tactical missiles? Yes.
Patriot interceptors? Yes.
Cruise missiles? Yes.
And this may only be the beginning.
Ukraine’s Fire Point company is already promoting its proposed FP-7 and FP-9 ballistic missiles, systems that currently have no direct European equivalent. Add to that the Freya missile defense program, which envisions combining European components with Ukrainian interceptor technology, and the picture becomes even more ambitious.
As one famous fictional character of the twentieth century put it: “What a celebration this is!”
Europe certainly has reasons to be optimistic. It may well become a true missile power.
Or all of these announcements may ultimately end up where countless ambitious defense initiatives have before them – in a pile of press releases and billions of dollars spent without delivering the promised results.
That happens too.
US Strategy and the shift to NATO 3.0
A shorter declaration masks deeper tensions, as Washington pushes to reshape NATO’s role from Europe to West Asia and Asia-Pacific.
By Mehmet Ali Guller | The Cradle | July 11, 2026
The six-point final declaration of the NATO Ankara Summit is among the shortest in recent years, similar to last year’s five-point declaration from The Hague. In contrast, the 2021 Brussels Summit declaration contained 79 points, Madrid in 2022 had 22, Vilnius in 2023 included 90, and Washington in 2024 featured 38.
The sharp reduction reflects ongoing tensions between the US and Europe. The declaration is brief because areas of agreement remain limited. The debate over NATO as a “paper tiger” has not been resolved, only set aside.
In the declaration, this issue is temporarily addressed through the slogan “a stronger Europe in a stronger NATO.”
Ankara Declaration targets Russia and Iran
The first article of the six-point Ankara declaration reaffirms commitment to Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, while the final article offers thanks to the host country.
The remaining four articles center on Russia, outline a $70 billion support package for Ukraine, expand defense spending, reference $50 billion in arms deals, and briefly touch on Iran.
The Donroe Doctrine and NATO 3.0
Washington is seeking to adapt NATO to what it frames as a new strategic phase, described here as NATO 3.0. The so-called Donroe Doctrine centers on consolidating dominance in the Western Hemisphere, shifting more responsibility onto allies in Europe and elsewhere, and encircling China in the Asia-Pacific through partnerships.
In practice, this takes three forms:
- Europe assumes primary responsibility for its own security, including taking the lead in supporting Ukraine against Russia.
- A new order is established in West Asia under Israeli hegemony, requiring normalization between NATO member Turkiye and Israel, as well as between Israel and Syria and the Gulf states, while weakening Iran as the principal obstacle.
- NATO deepens cooperation with its Asia-Pacific partners—the IP4 countries: Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—integrating them into its arms supply chain and gradually extending NATO’s reach into Asia.
The political economy of NATO 3.0
Washington views militarization as the lever for the transformation of NATO 3.0. It has two key objectives: raising NATO members’ defense spending to 5 percent of GDP and building a new arms production chain. The first step was initiated in The Hague last year, and the second advanced in Ankara.
Pushing defense spending to 5 percent would generate a vast financial pool within a few years. Including NATO partners such as Japan would further expand the scale, creating a market that draws broad interest. The US aims to distribute this pool in a way that sustains the NATO 3.0 framework.
Alongside this sits the effort to construct a new arms supply chain. The approach is to retain control over core components while distributing subcomponent production across allies, linking them to one another and ultimately to Washington.
The $50 billion arms deals referenced in the declaration mark an initial step. The $10 billion NATO–South Korea agreement, which grants Seoul access to NATO’s joint defense procurement market, fits within this model.
A new military-industrial economy
For the Erdogan government, securing a share of expanding defense spending has become a priority. Ankara sees this as an opening for its defense sector, particularly through the state firm ASELSAN and the private company BAYKAR.
The Defense Industry Forum, long held as a side event at NATO summits, was included in the official program in Ankara for the first time, reflecting that shift.
Countries seeking a share of this expanding market and Washington’s effort to allocate that share in line with its strategy have converged.
The idea of a NATO Defense Bank is also on the agenda. Nine countries laid its groundwork during the Ankara summit. If realized, it would tie a military-industrial model more closely to financial capital.
Turkiye 3.0: NATO’s central frontline state
For Turkiye, NATO 3.0 also signals a new phase.
NATO 1.0 covers the period from the alliance’s founding to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In that time, Turkiye was integrated into US strategy, diluting its founding emphasis on independence and anti-imperialism, eroding aspects of its secular character through the Green Belt project, and absorbing its human capital within anti-communist programs.
NATO 2.0 spans the period from 1991 to 2026. In these years, NATO expanded toward Russia, dismantled Yugoslavia, and intervened across West Asia. Turkiye’s role was again shaped within US strategy, this time through “moderate Islamism.”
NATO 3.0 is defined by Europe taking on security responsibility against Russia, the pursuit of a West Asian order under Israeli dominance, and a strategic shift toward the Asia-Pacific.
Within this framework, Turkiye is positioned as a security enforcer for Europe, encouraged to normalize relations with Tel Aviv to secure a place in the regional order, and drawn into efforts aimed at countering Iran.
In effect, Turkiye is being placed at the center of NATO’s frontline. The naval command under construction in the Bosphorus is directed toward Russia, while the new NATO Corps headquarters in Adana is oriented toward West Asia and Iran.
Washington’s ‘Asian NATO’ objective
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte effectively represents US leadership within the alliance. His statements reflect Washington’s position rather than Europe’s.
His remarks before and during the summit pointed to a longer-term objective. Rutte argued that Russia was working closely with North Korea, China and Iran, adding that NATO “cannot be naive” and had to remain united.
At its core, NATO 3.0 reflects an effort to use the alliance first against Beijing’s partners—Russia and Iran—and, over time, against China itself. The push to reorient NATO toward Asia follows from this.
For the past four years, leaders of the IP4 countries have been invited to NATO summits. In Ankara, discussions with these states focused on expanding cooperation in defense industries and advanced technologies.
Washington is pressing these partners toward closer military alignment, at times resembling a sub-alliance—an “Asian NATO.” Proposals to open a NATO liaison office in Tokyo—though contested, notably by France—form part of this effort.
Washington, however, has continued to push for a broader NATO role in Asia. As Rutte put it, “The security of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific are closely interconnected,” reinforcing efforts to extend the alliance’s focus beyond its original geographic remit.
Expectations from NATO 3.0
Following the Ankara Summit, NATO 3.0 is expected to serve different priorities:
- For the US: aligning NATO with its Asia-Pacific strategy.
- For Europe: maintaining US involvement in European security even as direct support shifts.
- For Turkiye: expanding a military-industrial growth model.
For countries across the Global South, NATO is widely viewed as an outdated military alliance whose role has run its course.
Prof John Mearsheimer – Iran Hardliners Proven Right
Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – July 10, 2026
Türkiye sells S-400 systems to undisclosed Gulf state
Al Mayadeen | July 10, 2026
Türkiye has sold its S-400 air defense systems to an unnamed Gulf country, with the announcement expected to be made on Friday.
Turkish newspaper, Hürriyet journalist Abdulkadir Selvi reported that an informed source told him Ankara finalized the sale of its S-400 systems after a deal was approved overnight on Friday.
He added that the speculated buyers are either the UAE or Qatar, noting that the information will remain unknown until an official statement is made.
Selvi noted that the US assets in the UAE being targeted by retaliatory Iranian strikes during the war on Iran were a cause for wanting an increased air defense presence. He added that the attacks “crippled the UAE’s tourism-based system,” adding that it “has been trying to acquire alternative defense systems” after the Iranian retaliation.
He also brought up the Israeli attack on Qatar last year as a significant reason why Doha may want new air defense systems, as Qatar’s Patriot missile system did not activate during the attack on the Hamas officials in the capital city due to “Israel” being coded as a friendly country.
“Qatar learned from this shock attack that it was unprotected against Israel,” Selvi said.
The Hürriyet journalist reported that regardless of which Gulf state the S-400 goes to, Türkiye seeks to gain freedom from US sanctions from the sale.
Ankara is currently a target of the American sanctions package, Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which mandates penalties for entities that participate in “significant transactions” with the Russian defense or intelligence sectors.
The sale of the Russian-made S-400 systems could give Türkiye the break it needs to relieve itself of these sanctions that have barred it from the F-35 fighter jet program.
It is worth noting that US President Donald Trump signaled at returning Türkiye to the F-35 fighter jet program after a years-long ban, which caused tears in the relationship between Ankara and Washington.
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From the Archives
The 9/11 “Double-Cross” Conspiracy Theory
BY LAURENT GUYÉNOT • UNZ REVIEW • SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Is it true that “9/11 was an inside job”? Yes, insofar as Israel is “inside” the U.S. But for the 9/11 truthers who have identified Israel as the main perpetrators, “9/11 was an inside job” is at best a half-truth, and at worst an integral part of the Zionist operation, like a secondary flag sewn as a lining under the false flag of Islamism. Victor Thorn (1963-2017) wrote in his book 9/11 made in Israel: The Plot Against America (2011): “In essence, the ‘9-11 truth movement’ was created prior to Sept. 11, 2001 as a means of suppressing news relating to Israeli complicity. . . . The slogan ‘9-11 was an inside job’ was quite possibly the greatest example of Israeli propaganda ever devised.” In milder terms, it is “controlled opposition”.
A genuine truth movement would have pointed to Israel as the prime suspect from the start. From day one, it was obvious who would benefit. … continue
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