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Mearsheimer: IRAN WINNING THE BATTLE FOR WORLD OPINION

Daniel Davis / Deep Dive – August 26, 2026

Prof. John Mearsheimer joins Daniel Davis LIVE to discuss the latest developments in the Iran war, U.S. strategy, Israel, and the broader geopolitical consequences of the conflict.

August 27, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Video, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Mearsheimer: IRAN WINNING THE BATTLE FOR WORLD OPINION

Ukraine’s Western-Supplied Tanks Useless Against Russian Drones – Report

Sputnik – 26.08.2026

Once among Ukraine’s most coveted Western weapons, tanks like the German-made Leopards now mostly sit idle, The New York Times reported.

The $10 million vehicles are currently “hidden in forests and collecting cobwebs” as the Ukrainian military is “trying to imagine new ways to deploy them.”

Ukraine’s 33rd Brigade was created specifically to field and operate those Western tanks, but by the time they reached the battlefield in 2023, Russian drones “were already inflicting a deadly toll and were able to strike tanks at their most vulnerable points.”

A number of tanks have sustained damage during evacuation efforts while towing disabled vehicles—reducing the costly battle tanks to little more than overpriced recovery tractors. Ukrainian crews concede that they are able to operate only in poor weather, when wind, rain, and low visibility help obscure them from the ever-present drone threat.

Earlier, Western media reported that Leopard 2 tanks had failed to deliver the battlefield breakthrough Ukraine had hoped for, suffering losses to mines and proving vulnerable to drones. Up to 40 such tanks have reportedly already been lost.

August 26, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on Ukraine’s Western-Supplied Tanks Useless Against Russian Drones – Report

Israel exports 6 times more arms per capita than US, 19 times more than Russia

MEMO | August 26, 2026

Israeli arms exports per capita in 2025 were roughly six times greater than the United States and 19 times greater than Russia, a new study has found, revealing the extraordinary scale of Israel’s weapons industry relative to its population.

The latest study by Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa found that Israel exported arms at a rate equivalent to roughly $263 per citizen in 2025, compared with $41 per person in the US and $14 in Russia. Calculated against Israel’s Jewish population alone, the figure rises to $340 per person, around eight times the US rate and 25 times Russia’s.

The findings are based primarily on figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), whose Arms Transfers Database tracks major conventional weapons. Although the US remains by far the largest weapons exporter in absolute terms, Abulhawa found that adjusting exports for population produces a dramatically different picture.

Israel ranked seventh in total arms exports between 2020 and 2025, behind the US, France, Russia, Germany, China and Italy. But once the same data is divided by population, Israel moves far ahead of every major weapons-exporting country. Its per-capita arms exports were roughly 2.5 times those of Norway, the nearest competitor, and more than six times those of the US.

The study found that this dominance is not the result of a single exceptional year. Israel has been either the world’s largest arms exporter per capita, usually by a considerable margin, or close to the top in every year of the past 25 years.

Looking across the entire 1960-2025 period covered by the database, Israel also recorded the highest average arms exports per capita of any country, at the equivalent of $56 per person every year over 65 years. The study found that Israel’s lead over competing arms exporters has widened particularly sharply during the past decade.

Abulhawa also examined arms exports against the size of national economies, showing how deeply the weapons trade is embedded in Israel’s economic model.

Using SIPRI figures, Israeli arms exports amounted to around 0.25 per cent of GDP in 2023, more than three times the equivalent proportion in France and more than six times that of the US.

But SIPRI does not count much of Israel’s lucrative trade in drones, ammunition, small arms, cyber technology, surveillance equipment, services and training. Using governments’ own wider figures for defence contracts instead, Israel reported $13 billion in arms-export agreements in 2023, equivalent to around 2.5 per cent of its GDP.

Proportionally, that makes Israel’s arms-export economy around eight and a half times larger than that of the US and almost nine times larger than France’s, according to the study.

The figures suggest that while larger powers make more money from weapons in absolute terms, no comparable country derives as much arms-export business relative to the size of its population and economy as Israel.

August 26, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | | Comments Off on Israel exports 6 times more arms per capita than US, 19 times more than Russia

Netanyahu Claims Reaching Agreement With Iran Impossible

Sputnik – 26.08.2026

TEL AVIV – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday that reaching a “good” agreement with Iran’s authorities is impossible.

A ceasefire between the United States and Iran has been agreed upon, including freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, Pakistani military sources and Iranian security sources previously told Sputnik. The parties are expected to officially announce the ceasefire in the coming days.

Speaking at an event on settling the West Bank, the Israeli prime minister said that he is determined to ensure no threats from Iran. Netanyahu said that he discussed this with US President Donald Trump a few weeks ago at the White House.

“We discussed three options. I told him about an old option – to reach a good agreement. We have no objections. But I doubt that with this group of people … an agreement can be reached. I told him [Trump] that an agreement is impossible,” Netanyahu said.

The prime minister said that the second option is a resumption of hostilities.

Trump announced the launch of an economic operation against Iran on August 20, calling it “isolation on an unprecedented scale.” He urged US allies to join Washington.

Tehran will use all its resources to combat Washington’s economic pressure, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Monday, adding that the only option for the US is respectful dialogue with the Iranian people.

August 26, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Comments Off on Netanyahu Claims Reaching Agreement With Iran Impossible

Blame Churchill for World War 2. Not Hitler

By Mike Whitney • Unz Review • August 25, 2026

Winston Churchill, for all his triumphs and successes, was probably the man most responsible for the early and rapid collapse of the British empire….What brought the British empire down as rapidly and terribly as it did was world War 2. In my opinion, WW2 was exactly what Churchill called it “The Unnecessary War”. And the fatal blunder was the decision in panic of the British government after Czechoslovakia fell apart in March, 1939, was to give an unsolicited war guarantee to a collection of Polish colonels who had a romantic view of their own warlike capacities , who participated in the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and Britain gave them this guarantee to back them in a cause –control of Danzig– where they thought the Germans were fundamentally right. And that war guarantee which stiffened the Polish spine, gave the Poles the backbone to stand up to Hitler who now had no way out but to take Danzig. Hitler attacked Poland, Britain declared war on Germany, and that six year war brought down the British empire. And the man who was driving hardest for war with Germany was Winston Churchill Pat Buchanan Interview, You Tube (:29 seconds)

Video Link

“We must recognize that many of the fundamental ideas that dominate our present-day world were founded upon a particular understanding of that wartime history, and if there seems good reason to believe that narrative is substantially false, perhaps we should begin questioning the framework of beliefs erected upon it.” Ron Unz, Editor The Unz Review

I have long thought that our over-simplified, “cartoonish” portrayal of Adolf Hitler as ‘the embodiment of all evil’ has distorted our understanding of the events leading up to the Second World War. Hitler may have been a tyrant and a monster, but his strategic objectives do not appear to align with what we are told by western analysts and historians. Hitler’s invasion of Poland was not the first step in a broader campaign aimed at world domination nor did he plan to conquer all of western Europe. His goals were much more modest and reasonable. He simply wanted to recapture the territory that had been seized from Germany under the terms of the universally reviled Versailles Treaty. The Treaty –which arbitrarily partitioned Germany, stole its material assets, slashed the size of its army, and imposed reparations so big that the nation would remain a permanent colony of western bankers and financiers– also left 8 million German nationals marooned in countries outside of their own sovereign borders. Poland was one of those countries and Hitler intended to ‘put it right’. Here’s how Ron Unz summed it up:

Hitler’s final demand, that 95% German Danzig be returned to Germany just as its inhabitants desired, was an absolutely reasonable one, and only a dreadful diplomatic blunder by the British had led the Poles to refuse the request, thereby provoking the war. The widespread later claim that Hitler sought to conquer the world was totally absurd, and the German leader had actually made every effort to avoid war with Britain or France….

(Hitler) hoped to finally settle the Polish border dispute, offering concessions far more generous than any of his democratically elected Weimar predecessors had ever considered. But Poland’s dictatorship instead spent months rejecting his attempts at negotiations and also began brutal mistreatment of its German minority, finally forcing Hitler into declaring war. Why Everything You Know About World War II Is Wrong, Interview Ron Unz

So, the dominant narrative that we all learned in grade school is (as Unz says) “substantially false” which calls into question the “framework of beliefs erected upon it”, particularly that WW2 was the “good war”, a Manichean struggle between the forces of good and evil. But it wasn’t a struggle between good and evil, because as Unz points out, Hitler’s claims were “reasonable” and legitimate. Versailles was a catastrophe from the get-go and Hitler set out to roll back its demands as would any German patriot. Imagine if the US went to war with Mexico and foreign politicians decided that the US must hand over Texas, Arizona and California as part a final settlement. The public outcry would be so ferocious that eventually a politician would emerge (like Hitler) who would promise to retake the stolen territories by hook or crook. That same rule applies to Hitler. He was just doing what he was elected to do.

The whole idea that Poland was just the first steppingstone in a broader campaign for world domination is laughable. There’s no evidence to support that at all. Hitler wanted to rebuild post-Versailles Germany and put as many of the 8 million German nationals who found themselves outside the country, back under German rule. This wasn’t a global power-grab, it was a firm but responsible way to reach a just outcome, which is evident by the way he pursued his goal, through negotiation. Once again, most educated people in the west seem to think that Hitler overpowered Czechoslovakia and then marched into Poland the next day. Wrong. Hitler pursued a diplomatic path for nearly a year. Negotiations with Poland lasted roughly 10 months, from late October 1938 until the invasion on 1 September 1939. In other words, Hitler showed great restraint and patience. So why would an impulsive, tyrannical hothead look for a diplomatic solution when he could simply deploy the Wehrmacht and crush the anemic Poles beneath his tank-tracks without batting an eye?

Maybe because he wasn’t an impulsive, tyrannical hothead after all. Maybe that’s just more of the same hyperbolic narrative that has colored our understanding of Hitler from the very beginning.

Video– Historian Darryl Cooper on Churchill — “Churchill Is the Chief Villain in WWII. ..Churchill is a terrorist… Hitler didn’t war with England.”

Here’s where it gets interesting, because Poland is not some little blip on the radar. The whole history of WW2 rests on our understanding of who started the war and who is ultimately responsible for the war. And that honor goes to England not Germany. It wasn’t Germany that declared war on England. It was England that declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, two days after Germany invaded Poland.

But if Germany invaded Poland than Germany must be responsible for starting the war.

No, because as Buchanan points out in the opening statement, Poland regarded Chamberlain’s “unsolicited war guarantee” as an insurance policy against a German invasion. As the author says, “that war guarantee which stiffened the Polish spine, gave the Poles the backbone to stand up to Hitler”. In other words, Polish leaders were duped into believing that they could thumb their nose at Hitler because the Brits ‘had their back.’ They didn’t need to negotiate or be reasonable because big brother would bail them out. Of course, big brother couldn’t bail them out because England had no combat troops, no military bases, no airfields, and no naval bases anywhere near Poland. So there was no way they could rescue Poland if Hitler attacked. Even so, they ignored all of that, shrugged off Hitler’s demands, and forced Hitler to invade. Poland fell in two weeks and Chamberlain never lifted a finger to help. (So much for British guarantees) In fact, it’s worse than that, because Hitler had formed an alliance with Stalin to divide Poland between themselves (The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) thinking that the alliance would deter Chamberlain from declaring war. But Chamberlain wasn’t deterred. He stood firm and declared war anyway offering up Poland as a sacrificial lamb in order to drag all of continental Europe into a World War with Germany.

Buchanan describes Chamberlain’s war guarantee to Poland the “greatest blunder in British history” worse than the Munich Agreement. It provided a “blank check” to the Polish government who then refused to negotiate over Danzig (an overwhelmingly German city) and the Polish Corridor, issues that many British leaders believed should have been resolved in Germany’s favor. The guarantee transformed a limited German-Polish border dispute into a general European war that pitted Germany against the Allied Forces in western Europe and US. The eventual outcome of the conflict would be the destruction of Poland, the fall of France, the Blitz, and tens of millions of deaths, outcomes that were entirely avoidable.

So, Chamberlain’s war guarantee was the proximate cause of World War 2, not Hitler’s invasion. The guarantee not only ensured that Poland would be destroyed but also that a large swath of countries in eastern Europe would fall under the iron grip of Soviet Russia after the war ended. Apparently, none of the geniuses in Chamberlain’s cabinet were able to anticipate that dreary outcome.

Historian David Irving reveals Hitler’s secret peace offering to Churchill in June, 1940 (while Churchill was bombing Berlin)

“I will withdraw all German forces from everywhere in Europe except for the provinces which had always been German and which had been taken away from Germany at the end of the first world war… I have the greatest admiration for the British and the British empire and I want the empire to survive into perpetuity and grow larger and larger. If the British empire at any time should threatened by some outside force,.. I guarantee that I will provide to the British whatever forces they may ask for to throw these aggressors out of the empire.”

And the consequences for England were equally dismal due largely to Churchill’s zealous commitment to a conflict in which Britain never should have participated. This is part of the story you will never find in the western histories where “bulldog” Churchill is regularly lionized as a symbol of moral fortitude and true grit. What’s lost in these glowing panegyrics is that the dissolute PM’s “incurable bad judgement” precipitated the end of the Empire and the sharp decline of Britain’s role in the world order. Churchill was given a prosperous and prestigious state to oversee, and left it a broken, bankrupt shambles requiring the handouts from foreign creditors.

Keep in mind, England was the world’s biggest creditor state when the war began but wound up as the world’s biggest debtor by war’s end. Take a look:

Grok– Before the Second World War began in 1939, the United Kingdom was still one of the world’s leading creditor nations (often described as the largest or among the very largest in terms of accumulated overseas investments and net external assets). British holdings of foreign securities, direct investments, and related income streams remained very large. By the end of the war in 1945, Britain’s position had been reversed:

Large volumes of overseas assets had been sold or liquidated to pay for essential war supplies. Britain had accumulated massive external liabilities, particularly the “sterling balances” owed to Commonwealth countries, India, Egypt, and others, plus obligations linked to American assistance. Net income from overseas investments fell sharply… Contemporary official assessments stated that Britain had “ceased to be a large-scale creditor country” and faced a severely weakened external financial position, ranking among the world’s major debtors relative to its pre-war standing.

By 1945, Britain’s external financial position had reversed dramatically: it faced large net liabilities, reduced investment income, and dependence on American financial support…. This shift from global creditor to major debtor was a direct consequence of the enormous cost of the wars and the need to finance them by drawing down assets and accumulating obligations. Grok

So, the war’s biggest cheerleader (Churchill) was, in reality, an incompetent, drunken buffoon who dragged his country to ruin in order to engage in a conflict which he later admitted was “unnecessary”. Shocking.

August 25, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Comments Off on Blame Churchill for World War 2. Not Hitler

Dozens of ex-lawmakers, staff landed at military firms since 2015

By Julian Cooper | Responsible Statecraft | August 24, 2026

In the last decade, 31 former members of Congress and top staff have left Capitol Hill and joined the military-industrial complex as lobbyists or contractors, according to a new report from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The 21 lawmakers named in the report served on either the House or Senate Armed Services Committee, the legislative bodies that set the Pentagon’s annual policies through the annual National Defense Authorization Act. In addition, the report names 10 former senior committee staffers who transitioned to working as weapons industry government liaisons or lobbyists.

These 31 former officials represent a snapshot of the military-industrial complex’s “revolving door,” through which ex-policymakers transition from setting the Pentagon’s agenda in Congress to cashing in on those same policies in the private sector. “That report we published is the most direct explanation we’ve ever seen of why the defense budget always goes up,” said John Mecklin, the author of the report and former editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The report highlighted a variety of potential ethics conflicts, focusing in particular on the growing path between Congress and Silicon Valley defense tech startups.

Chris Vieson, the former staff director of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC), was appointed earlier this year to the National Commission on the Future of the Navy, established to advise Congress on everything “from shipbuilding and acquisition to maintenance and repair, workforce, training, and modernization.” Vieson is also an active registered lobbyist for two defense startups: Saronic Inc., a manufacturer of unmanned maritime vehicles; and watercraft builder Whiskey Project Group. Previously, Vieson worked as a lobbyist for Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm gaining influence in the Pentagon and pushing AI integration.

According to its executive director, the National Commission on the Future of the Navy aims to modernize the Navy to prepare for conflict with China and Iran. As part of this goal, the Commission will “test emerging ideas such as a hybrid fleet and expanded use of unmanned systems.” Vieson’s lobbying client, Saronic Inc., is one manufacturer of such unmanned systems.

While the revolving-door phenomenon is not new, the report captures the increasing influence of a new generation of Silicon Valley military firms. Former HASC member Mike Gallagher and staffer Jeff Miller have taken up jobs as an executive and a lobbyist, respectively, for Palantir. Former Republican staff director of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Christian D. Brose is now the Chief Strategy Officer for Anduril, an autonomous weapons startup valued at $61 billion in its latest round of fundraising.

According to Mecklin, Congress is eager to let Silicon Valley officials into their bureaucracy. “It takes the Pentagon many, many years to acquire a new defense system like a fighter plane. With a high-tech system, you just can’t wait that long,” he said. “So they found a way around the complicated acquisition processes of the Defense Department.”

Likewise, Silicon Valley weapons startups that wish to challenge prime contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are desperate to hire former politicians. “If you’re a company that wants to get into defense contracting, it’s highly beneficial to hire people that understand the process of federal appropriations in the defense sector,” Mecklin explained.

The Bulletin’s revolving-door report also details a who’s-who of top congressional stock traders. Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who has served on HASC since 2015, has been trading GE Aerospace stock via his spouse since 2023. Scott’s trades this year violated the STOCK Act, a bill passed in 2012 to curb insider trading. That makes Scott one of seven Armed Services Committee members to violate the STOCK Act this year, generally for failing to disclose trades within 45 days, as the law mandates.

Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) is another HASC member who has benefited from military contractor stocks. In December 2025, she disclosed her husband’s $100,000-$250,000 purchase of stock in Elon Musk’s xAI, which merged with SpaceX soon after in February. McClain’s husband’s xAI shares were converted into SpaceX shares months before the company’s historic IPO in June. McClain previously violated the STOCK Act for her delayed disclosure of a trade worth up to $450,000 in Palantir stock.

The report also makes note of Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) trading stock for prime defense contractor Lockheed Martin and aerospace manufacturer Honeywell. Tuberville, one of the most active stock traders in Congress, has served on SASC since 2021. When President Donald Trump faced criticism this spring for his own portfolio of weapons stocks, Tuberville told a reporter for MeidasTouch, “I do the same thing.”

Mecklin believes that laws like the STOCK Act are insufficient to curb members of Congress cashing in on defense spending. “The way you really stem this kind of behavior is to have inspectors general and law enforcement agencies that are on the lookout for them. Occasionally, take up one of these egregious cases and just prosecute it,” said Mecklin.

“Unless you have a system that actually scares these people so they cut it out, it’s going to continue.”

Julian Cooper is a Chicago-based journalist, an editorial intern for The Progressive, and a research intern for the Quincy Institute’s Democratizing Foreign Policy program.

August 24, 2026 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | | Comments Off on Dozens of ex-lawmakers, staff landed at military firms since 2015

IRGC rejects US claims, says Iran retains surveillance edge in Hormuz

Al Mayadeen| August 24, 2026

The spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Mohebbi, dismissed US officials’ claims that Iranian radars had been targeted and that oil tankers could transit the Strait of Hormuz as “media hype”.

Mohebbi told Mehr news agency that “the IRGC’s surveillance and intelligence-gathering capabilities cannot be confined to the radars known to the enemy.”

He highlighted the surveillance, reconnaissance, and intelligence-gathering methods employed by Iran’s armed forces, saying the IRGC’s monitoring capabilities “do not rely on satellites, as the Americans believe; rather, there are other surveillance methods that the opposing side may not yet be capable of detecting”.

Mohebbi said, “If the Islamic Republic did not have a discerning eye capable of monitoring maritime movements, how could it accurately strike specific targets at sensitive points on vessels?”

He stressed that Iran maintains continuous intelligence coverage of maritime activity, saying that when a missile strikes a critical point on a vessel and disables it, this demonstrates both intelligence superiority and the ability to acquire and engage targets with precision.

‘Blinding the enemy’s eyes in the region’

He also referred to “the attacks carried out against the enemy’s surveillance and reconnaissance systems”, saying: “In reality, we have blinded the enemy’s eyes in the region and targeted its radars and electro-optical networks”.

Mohebbi rejected the assumption by Iran’s adversaries that “destroying a number of radars known to Iran means eliminating the Islamic Republic’s surveillance capabilities”, saying: “This is far from reality.”

Strike accuracy demonstrates surveillance capability

Mohebbi highlighted the vastness of the Gulf and the operational challenges of conducting maritime warfare, saying that “in this vast battlespace, even under the cover of darkness, when a missile strikes its target with precision, it becomes clear that intelligence and operational targeting capabilities underpin the operation”.

He stressed that Iran’s methods for detecting and tracking targets “are not something whose every detail the enemy can identify”, adding that “the outcome of the operations and the precision of the strikes themselves demonstrate the extent of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s intelligence coverage”.

It is worth noting that Iran has repeatedly said that US military bases and economic assets in the Gulf region have been used to launch acts of aggression against Iran, including strikes that have resulted in civilian casualties. In this framing, any Iranian action targeting such facilities is a retaliation against hostile military activity originating from or enabled by those bases.

August 24, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , | Comments Off on IRGC rejects US claims, says Iran retains surveillance edge in Hormuz

NATO wages hybrid war on Russia as Europe prepares for wider conflict

By Ahmed Adel | August 24, 2026

The war in Ukraine has long ceased to be a bilateral conflict between Moscow and Kiev. What began as a military operation has evolved into a sustained hybrid NATO campaign against Russia, with Ukraine receiving military assistance and intelligence sharing, European states rearming, and the anti-Russia sanctions regime continually expanding. The cumulative effect is an attempt to degrade Russia’s strategic capacity while avoiding the formal declaration of direct war.

According to Bild, military planning documents are circulating within NATO. The documents, developed by United States Army Major Andrew Pingray, lay out that the objectives in a war with Russia would be to halt an offensive and significantly weaken the Russian military’s potential. The German newspaper reports that NATO has developed a multi-phase concept for a potential large-scale conflict with Russia, often referred to as the NATO Land Warfighting Concept.

“NATO is preparing with a new concept of land warfare for a possible Russian attack in the Baltic region,” the publication says.

Bild reported that in the opening phase, combat aircraft, long-range missiles, and unmanned systems would play a central role. Along the frontiers of the Baltic states with Russia and Belarus, planners envision autonomous zones where the permanent stationing of Alliance ground forces would be minimized. From these zones, strikes could be directed against targets on Russian territory, including airfields, industrial facilities, bridges, and rail nodes. Later phases involve more restrictions on logistics and deploying unmanned systems deeper into Russian territory.

The circulating documents also state that NATO’s top priority should be suppressing the missile threat. To this end, the Alliance plans to use aircraft, missiles, and drones to destroy Russian missile systems. One of the plan’s key areas of focus is the Kaliningrad exclave of Russia, where Russian missile and air defense systems are deployed.

According to Bild, the NATO plan also includes the possibility of cooperation with Russians opposed to President Vladimir Putin. Separately, the creation of an “air bridge” for the delivery of drones and robotic systems to Russian territory, which could be used against military targets, is being considered.

Although it is unclear whether this document is a fully authorized operational plan or one of many contingency studies, its existence and partial disclosure indicate that European military planners are seriously exploring scenarios for direct conflict with Russia.

The political context for these preparations has shifted markedly. Under the previous administration, American involvement in the Ukrainian theater was more overt and expansive. The current Trump administration’s position reflects greater reluctance to commit combat forces or to underwrite indefinite European escalation.

American intelligence support, satellite reconnaissance, and the continued sale of advanced weapon systems to Ukraine have not stopped, but the heavier financial and manpower burden is being shifted to NATO’s European members. European Union countries have responded by expanding their procurement programs, particularly in air and missile defense, artillery munitions, and longer-range strike capabilities. These purchases are presented as investments that strengthen collective defense and revitalize domestic industry, thereby providing political cover for rising defense budgets amid Europe’s economic woes.

Germany has moved from limited, non-lethal aid and uniforms to a more assertive military posture, especially after the change of leadership in Berlin. The current German government has accelerated spending commitments and public rhetoric that frames Russia as an enduring threat to the EU. British and French strategic preferences continue to shape the overall direction, with the two traditional powerhouses of Western Europe encouraging Germany to assume greater responsibility as a continental military power while seeking to limit their own direct exposure.

The Black Sea, particularly the ports of Odessa and Nikolaev and the Danube delta, has taken on heightened strategic importance. Disruption of these ports affects the flow of Western military supplies into Ukraine. Russian strikes on port infrastructure are therefore attempts to sever supply lines that have been reoriented from commercial grain exports to military cargo. The substitution of Western weapons shipments for agricultural traffic along the Danube highlights the militarization of civilian infrastructure.

At the same time, a formal ceasefire that leaves the underlying security architecture unresolved would, from the Russian perspective, create new vulnerabilities rather than lasting stability, especially if Ukraine remains integrated into Western military, intelligence, and political structures and does not revert to neutrality. This is particularly important because European states are already expanding industrial capacity, stockpiling munitions, and refining doctrines for high-intensity conflict.

The ongoing hybrid campaign—integrating support, economic measures, information warfare, and societal militarization—allows the West to exert constant pressure without direct attribution to combat. If this hybrid strategy continues without a political solution that addresses Russia’s core security concerns, NATO’s planning is likely to become increasingly aggressive. Europe’s accelerated rearmament and the emerging detailed plans within NATO dispel any resistance to the idea that the conflict has now expanded beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

August 24, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Comments Off on NATO wages hybrid war on Russia as Europe prepares for wider conflict

Russia’s Zakharova Accuses Finland of Complicity in International Terrorism

Sputnik – 24.08.2026

MOSCOW – Finland’s cooperation with Ukraine in the field of drone production makes it complicit in international terrorism, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

“Official Helsinki is essentially complicit in international terrorism. Moreover, the state is dragging ordinary Finns into a bloody abyss,” Zakharova said.

Zelensky announced on Sunday that Finnish and Ukrainian companies had signed documents on the development and production of drones in Finland for the needs of Ukraine and Europe.

Russia says that arms supplies to Ukraine hinder the peace process and make NATO allies a party to the conflict. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says that any shipments containing weapons for Ukraine will be a legitimate military target.

August 24, 2026 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Comments Off on Russia’s Zakharova Accuses Finland of Complicity in International Terrorism

Japan rejects Ukraine’s missile plea

RT | August 24, 2026

Japan does not plan to supply Ukraine with weapons, Chief Cabinet Secretary Minoru Kihara has said. At a press briefing on Monday, he told reporters that Tokyo “is not considering any deliveries” of defensive or offensive weapons “at this time.”

Kihara was responding to Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergey Koretsky, who asked Japan on Sunday for anti-ballistic missiles, in an interview with Kyodo News.

“I would like to kindly ask one and only thing… anti-ballistic missiles,” he was cited as saying. “It’s the most important thing we need… I very much hope and count on your country.”

Koretsky took office in July and was reportedly close to disgraced businessman Timur Mindich, a close associate of Vladimir Zelensky who fled to Israel amid a corruption scandal.

“At this time, the government does not consider transferring weapons under the Self-Defense Forces Law to Ukraine,” Kihara said, referring to an overhaul in April of Japan’s defense-export policy that lifted restrictions limiting transfers to non-lethal categories and opened the door to lethal weapons exports.

He noted that Tokyo has already provided Kiev with non-lethal equipment and pledged around $20 billion in recovery, reconstruction, and humanitarian aid, signaling that it intends to keep its assistance within these bounds.

Japan’s stance on the Ukraine conflict has been marked by contradiction. Tokyo has publicly sided with Kiev, condemning Russia’s military operation and taking part in the Western sanctions. However, it has stopped short of supplying lethal weapons to Ukraine, and unlike some Western nations, has retained stakes in key Russian energy projects, citing their importance to domestic energy security.

Over the past few months, Ukraine has increasingly sought new military hardware from its Western backers to counter severe battlefield shortages amid the steady advance of Russian forces. Last month, Russia announced the capture of the key Ukrainian stronghold of Konstantinovka in northwestern Donbass before launching an offensive toward the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, the last two major cities in the region still under Ukrainian control. Over the past week, Russia has liberated six settlements in Donbass.

Kiev has intensified long-range drone attacks deep inside Russia, increasingly striking energy and civilian infrastructure and prompting Moscow to denounce the raids as terrorist attacks against civilians. Last month, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik told RT that Ukraine is trying to mask its battlefield setbacks by attacking Russian civilians and presenting the strikes as “some kind of achievement.”

Russia has long accused Western weapons suppliers of enabling Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign. A Sunday Times report last week claimed that Ukraine has used British-made drones for long-range attacks inside Russia over the past six months. Moscow maintains that this aid makes Kiev’s foreign backers direct participants in the hostilities and only serves to prolong the conflict. Earlier this month, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Russia will adopt “much harsher methods to destroy everything that enables the West to fuel Kiev’s war machine.”

The ‘coalition of the willing’, a group of Western states pushing for continued aid to Ukraine which includes the UK, France, and Germany, will convene in Kiev on Monday to discuss future weapons deliveries. Kiev is expected to seek additional interceptor missiles. The UK is set to announce that it will provide Ukraine with classified technical information needed to assemble long-range cruise missiles domestically.

August 24, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Comments Off on Japan rejects Ukraine’s missile plea

Israel’s New War in Syria: Why Türkiye Is Now in the Crosshairs

By Robert Inlakesh | The Palestine Chronicle | August 22, 2026

What has been happening in Syria should come as a wake-up call for the Turkish leadership: as long as Israel is a major player in the region, you cannot simply compete with them without engaging in violent conflict.

Earlier this week, Israel began bombing Syrian military positions for the first time in around four months, specifically targeting an air base where Turkish military personnel are known to be present – this is not random violence; it is instead part of a concerted pressure campaign that is pushing boundaries that even the United States is not fully prepared to go along with.

Israeli air raids targeted and destroyed air strips and hangars at the Abu al-Duhur Air Base in the Idlib province of Syria, inflicting significant damage and intentionally attempting to curb efforts by Turkiye to revive the largest destroyed Syrian air force and air defense systems.

While Tehran and Moscow were the chief supporters of the former Syrian military, the country now depends on both Washington and Ankara. NATO member Turkiye has therefore taken it upon itself to try and get a military foothold inside Syrian territory, attempting to extract the maximum it can from its relationship with its neighbor.

Like Iran, Turkiye has different interests from its other major partner inside the country, but unlike the Iranians, the Turkish State is not backing resistance to Israel and instead has maintained strong economic ties with the occupying regime. However, the Israeli government does not care that Turkiye presents no military threat to it, nor are there any signs it will; it is only fixated on regional dominance and views Syria as competition.

Turkiye and Israel are both US allies, meaning that the American government will not throw its weight fully behind either side and instead play a balancing game. Yet, the Israelis evidently have much more sway over Washington and seek to crush Turkish regional influence, as they endeavor to achieve their dreams of a “Greater Israel”.

Israeli bombing attacks against military positions – with the exception of a few occasional strikes – largely halted after March, when a series of strikes were carried out. The reason behind most of the attacks carried out against positions affiliated with Damascus-aligned forces has been to send a message. This is precisely why the old Ministry of Defense was even blown to pieces and why Israel launched strikes in the vicinity of the Presidential Palace – they are demonstrating who the boss is and warning the Syrian leadership of the consequences should it step out of line.

The Syrian leadership, under the command of Ahmed al-Shara’a, or Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has largely capitulated to Israeli demands, such as attempting to disarm Syrians in the south of the country, working to intercept arms shipments to Hezbollah, and even signing a “Joint Fusion Mechanism” with the Israelis. As part of this mechanism, it was clearly written that Syria would even pursue economic projects with the Zionist regime that continues to expand its occupation of southern Syrian lands.

The relationship between Syria, Turkiye, and Israel today is one of a tug of war. The Turkish State is attempting to help Syria revive its air force and hopes to introduce a functioning air defense system to the country, but the Israelis want Syria weak.

It is also clear why Tel Aviv is so paranoid. They know that the future of the Syrian State is not certain and they see the sentiments expressed by the fighters who have formed the new Syrian Army. They are also aware that everyone in Syria is armed and that with a different leadership, or an escalation that spins out of control, they could be in serious trouble.

During the era of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) possessed a large arsenal of strategic weapons, much of which was incinerated during the overthrow of the previous leadership in an enormous Israeli air campaign. However, what Tel Aviv feared just as much was the strength of Syria’s air defense network – regarded as one of the most sophisticated in the region.

Not only did Israel destroy the air defenses of Syria during the regime change transition in December of 2024, but what impacted the nation’s ability to defend its skies even more was the disappearance of the old air defense teams. When it comes to these sophisticated weapons, the humans operating them are just as important as the systems themselves, and it takes a long time to properly train new operators. Under the new Syrian Army, there are no experienced operators who are on hand, meaning that it will take help from their Turkish allies if they are ever going to have a functioning air defense option.

Israel is competing with Turkiye as of now, with the situation not deteriorating into direct confrontation. Although we are far from the point of anything that could resemble war between the two, the Israelis will kill Turkish soldiers and may even explore options using intelligence operatives inside Turkish territory in the future.

Ankara is clearly not willing to respond to Tel Aviv with the use of force, or even using armed factions to carry out operations in the south, despite Turkish soldiers having been killed by Israeli airstrikes in the past. At some point, Turkiye will likely be forced to make a decision to defend its interests that will involve confronting Israel.

Bear in mind that despite the rhetoric of its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish State never even severed ties or cut off Israel’s flow of cheap gas from Azerbaijan throughout the Gaza genocide. The Israelis have interpreted the behavior of the Turkish leadership as weakness, meaning that they are going to push things to the limit, testing just how far they can go before the regional power decides to finally take concrete measures against it.

Ankara is seeking to become an international trade hub, sitting at the crossroads between Asia and Europe, benefiting immensely from the expansion of the Middle Corridor. Yet, Tel Aviv has been busy forming alliances to ensure it is a thorn in Turkiye’s side, including expanding tripartite relations with Greece and Cyprus.

What has been happening in Syria should come as a wake-up call for the Turkish leadership: as long as Israel is a major player in the region, you cannot simply compete with them without engaging in violent conflict. If Ankara seeks to truly assert its power, it must pursue confrontation and make the Israelis suffer in Syria; if it backs down and refuses to do this, it will end up feeling the consequences of its strategic mistake.

– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

August 22, 2026 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Comments Off on Israel’s New War in Syria: Why Türkiye Is Now in the Crosshairs

China rejects US call to sever economic ties with Iran, says sanctions will not resolve war

Press TV – August 21, 2026

Beijing has rejected Washington’s latest demand that countries join a renewed campaign of economic sanctions against Iran, reaffirming that the escalating crisis requires political dialogue.

“Sanctions and pressure tactics are not the solution,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Thursday.

The rebuke came one day after the Trump administration issued an open call to allies and China alike to fall in line with what the president billed as the “most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country”—a boastful threat that came after Washington failed to achieve any of its war objectives military some six months after starting the aggression on Iran in late February.

Notably, the United States has yet to detail the full scope of its so-called operation, with US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent punting further specifics to a Monday press conference—a delay that raises questions about the campaign’s actual readiness.

China calls on parties to act responsibly and stick to the political and diplomatic approach, added Jian.

Iran has strongly condemned the US campaign, with Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi describing Washington’s economic aggression as an attempt to divert attention from America’s own problems.

Araghchi pointed to America’s “unprecedented debt & surging interest costs” as Washington seeks to impose further economic pressure on Iran.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday the latest US sanctions, announced on the anniversary of the 1953 coup against Iran’s democratically elected government, demonstrate Washington’s continued hostility toward the Iranian people.

“The new US sanctions are not only another indication of the continuation of 73 years of hostility by US policymakers toward the Iranian people, but also demonstrate the anti-human, lawless and hegemonic nature of the US government,” the ministry noted.

The ministry further condemned the sanctions for targeting the fundamental rights of Iranian citizens and violating international norms.

“Without a doubt, the US economic sanctions against Iran, which target the fundamental human rights of every Iranian citizen, constitute ‘economic terrorism’ and ‘crimes against humanity,’” it maintained.

Beijing’s rejection comes ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s planned September 24 visit to the White House, adding significance to China’s refusal to participate in Washington’s economic campaign against Tehran.

August 21, 2026 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , | Comments Off on China rejects US call to sever economic ties with Iran, says sanctions will not resolve war

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