After 6 months of war, why aren’t oil prices even higher?
By Sam Fraser | Responsible Statecraft | August 25, 2026
For decades, the potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz has been considered the ultimate doomsday scenario for global oil markets. So, when Iran effectively closed the Strait earlier this year in response to the joint U.S.-Israeli assault, many analysts warned that oil prices could skyrocket to record highs.
The logic was straightforward. Prior to the war, about 20% of the global oil supply transited the Strait. A loss of supply on this scale could easily have pushed oil prices to $150 or even $200 per barrel — but it didn’t. Instead, prices peaked around $120 per barrel in April and have largely stayed below $100 since June.
To understand the dynamics that have so far prevented an even higher price spike, and to get a sense of where oil supply and prices may be headed as the conflict drags on, I spoke with Rory Johnston, a leading oil markets analyst and the author of the Commodity Context blog. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Sam Fraser: Let’s talk about why we haven’t seen the $150-200 per barrel oil prices that you warned about early in the war. You’ve pointed to a few reasons, including China’s massive import cuts. As we understand it, what has China done with their oil imports and how have they managed it?
Rory Johnston: It’s a bit of a mystery. At this stage, what we know for sure is that China reduced its crude oil imports by over five million barrels a day, roughly 45% of their total pre-war import appetite. For China, there’s two endpoints of that crude oil balance: into a refinery or into storage. We know that China had been building up a massive volume of strategic reserves prior to the war.
Essentially half of the 5 million barrels a day reduction can be explained roughly by reductions in refining runs in China. The remainder is a question of balancing in and out of stockpiles. Some of it would’ve been likely a drawdown of less visible or underground stockpiles. And the other portion of it is the halting of that prior pace of stockpile building. The main debate is how much each of these factors is contributing. If, let’s say, 80% of that remainder is a halt to prior purchases that were building strategic stocks, that is a bearish outcome for oil prices because it means that Beijing doesn’t need to replace those volumes anytime soon. But if they are aggressively drawing down less visible strategic stocks right now, that’s a much more bullish interpretation because it means they can’t keep going on forever and they’re going to need to replace those stockpiles.
On the refined product side, they cut refining runs by about 2.5 to 3 million barrels a day. What are they doing with that prior flow of diesel, jet fuel, et cetera? And that’s where we start to get even more speculative. Above-ground storage tanks for refined products don’t have floating roofs. We can’t independently verify their fill.
It comes down to the apparent consumption and the apparent available supply of these fuels within China. For gasoline and diesel, each of those supplies have apparently fallen by about 20%, which is a stark reduction. There’s no evidence that people in China are just driving a fifth less. If they aren’t actually cutting back that much on consumption, where is the fuel coming from? Prior to the war, we suspected that China was also building strategic reserves of refined fuels. Again, we can’t verify that, but if they had built that up, they could be drawing it down. We’re then faced with that same question as in crude oil, how much of this is a cessation of prior stock building and how much of this is the drawdown of existing stock?
For reference, the last moment we saw anything like this in terms of apparent consumption collapse was COVID zero in 2022 when the country was entirely locked down.
Fraser: So we can say that stockpiles of refined products must exist, but we have no insight into their size or how much is being drawn down or how sustainable those drawdowns would be?
Johnston: Correct. There are mixed estimates, but I think they are at best estimates. It’s funny, I think in some ways the lack of verifiable data allows people to speak very confidently about what’s happening in China, because there’s no data to rebut virtually any argument. That’s just allowing people to run with it without any kind of real pushback.
Fraser: How have we seen the Chinese buying patterns change since the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding and since it collapsed?
Johnston: What we saw following the MOU was a surge of exiting cargoes from Hormuz. The vast majority of that seems to have routed towards China. What we saw was that, at the very bottom, Chinese crude oil imports fell to around 6 million barrels a day in June. And then those spiked back up to more than 10 million barrels a day in July, or at least that was the high point in July. Roughly a month later, those imports are back down around six. You’ve seen a rollover back to where we stood pre-MOU.
Fraser: Do we know how long this import suppression can continue?
Johnston:. Let’s say this has been entirely a drawdown of stocks, which seems implausible. Even then, they have more than a billion barrels of crude oil stocks that we know about for sure. If they want to support the market to their maximum ability, they can do that for months further. But in doing so, they would deplete the entirety of the energy security blanket they’ve spent almost two decades constructing.
Fraser: Let’s move on to the strategic petroleum reserve releases by the U.S. and other partners. To what degree have those been instrumental in keeping prices from going a lot higher?
Johnston: It’s part of the suite that the world has kind of engaged in to blunt those effects. This is the largest release of strategic stocks on record. Depending on the exact month you’re talking about, it has potentially been over 3 million barrels a day of incremental supply coming from OECD SPRs. Without that, the market would’ve been much tighter and we likely wouldn’t have experienced the same relief even with China’s import cut at the same time.
Fraser: Last week the U.S. SPR dipped under 300 million barrels. There’s a lot of discussion of what the physical limits on those stockpiles are given that they’re stored in salt caverns. They need a certain amount of fill to maintain structural integrity. Are we anywhere close to pushing up against the U.S. ability to continue drawing down from those stockpiles?
Johnston: I do not believe we are. I think that you have probably at least another 200 million barrels that can be readily drawn down. With the required fill level, absolutely it would be a massive issue if you just drew it down and left a vacuum in there. It would implode on itself. But they don’t do that. They one-to-one replace a barrel of crude oil extracted with a barrel of saturated brine. So theoretically it should maintain the same fill. The issue for SPRs is not necessarily fill level, but number of refill and empty cycles. It’s the actual up-and-down motion that disturbs and further erodes the walls and structural integrity.
I think that the SPR caverns can get below 100 million barrels of fill before we run into any issues.
Fraser: So if we continued the current rate of drawdown, that would take us well into next year.
Johnston: Correct.
Fraser: Over the course of the war, Trump or someone in his administration will make a statement about how diplomacy is progressing or about how much oil is coming out of the strait. And even if those are quickly disproven, there is a downward impact on prices. So why do these traders keep listening to Trump? Has there been a change in the reaction of markets over the course of this war?
Johnston: You definitely get smaller drawdowns to these kinds of jawboning attempts today than you would have, say, in March and April, where there are multiple days that you saw $15 to $20 per barrel reductions in the span of a day.
When you look at the history of oil, there’s a tendency on these geopolitical events to overdo it. That’s a natural kind of fear-driven phenomenon. In some ways Trump has short-circuited that normal behavior in oil markets. Because while you’re right that it’s never coming true, the price action is coming true. At the end of the day, for prices to go higher, you need traders to bid higher. And if they bid higher and they get blown out of the water and they lose their jobs, they’re going to be replaced by someone that doesn’t bid higher on geopolitical risk. It has successfully arrested the upside volatility. But if we keep getting tighter, markets will continue to respond higher; we just won’t get those runaway phenomena that we would’ve seen historically.
Fraser: Since the start of the war, we’ve seen Saudi Arabia and the UAE successfully use pipelines as an alternative route to get oil out of the Gulf. How much oil are those getting out at this point? And has the Houthi blockade of Saudi shipping in the Red Sea had a meaningful effect on this?
Johnston: The total volume coming out of Emirates at Fujairah and then the west coast of Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea rose to about 6-7 million barrels. It was about 2-3 million before, so that was an incremental change of 4-5 million barrels.
To your question with the Houthis, it has absolutely been having an effect. As soon as they started attacking Saudi ships, the entire Red Sea fleet went dark. Everyone turned off their transponders, making it much harder to verify flows out of Saudi Arabia. Verifiable transits of Saudi tankers through the Bab al-Mandab have gone functionally to zero. They still are probably getting some out, but we’re also seeing evidence of flows north into the Mediterranean. Pre-war flows here were around a million barrels a day, give or take. That’s jumped over the past week or two to around 2.5 million barrels a day, presumed Saudi flow.
Over the past two weeks, we’ve also seen Saudi Arabia begin loading tankers in the Gulf again, which they hadn’t done since the collapse of the MOU. And the question is, does Riyadh know something? Is something big going to break in the Hormuz negotiations? Or are they being forced back into the Gulf? You’re seeing reports now that they are participating in the Emirati-led shuttle trade, ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman. It seems likely that some of that is displaced barrels coming back from the Red Sea. So Saudi Arabia is needing to diversify away from its diversification. There’s a poetic side to it.
Fraser: Pulling all these factors together, where are we left in terms of a kind of global supply shortage? And what kinds of price impacts can we expect if that persists over the next few months?
Johnston: It’s very hard to estimate global balance right now. My bet would be 2-4 million barrels a day undersupplied on a global basis.
The rub on top of that is that we now have a parallel crisis that’s emerging on the refining side of the slate. So even if we’ve sorted out what was happening on the crude oil side, we have the Ukrainian hammering of Russian refineries, the attacks in the Black Sea, the reduction in U.S. exports now that stocks have drawn down, and China is not exporting refined products either. All together this further tightens global refined product markets.
If this persists and we keep drawing down crude oil stocks, the crude oil price is going to keep rising. On top of that, we could see refined product prices independently going higher. So that’s just an amplification. For consumers, it’s refined product prices and not crude oil that are going to drive those economic issues.
Fraser: So even though these factors we’ve discussed have kept oil prices down so far, and the biggest of these can persist for a while, we could still be looking at those extremely elevated prices by a few months from now.
Johnston: Easily. We’re already feeling it. Refined prices are already at demand-destructive levels. It’s just a question of whether they are at sufficiently demand-destructive levels. It’s the same fundamental concern I would’ve had back in April, playing out on a much longer timeline and now more on the product side than the entire oil complex.
Sam Fraser is a writer based in New York City. He holds a Master’s in International Finance and Economic Policy from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, where his studies focused on the changing global trade system. Previously, Sam worked as Senior Communications Associate and Publications Manager at the Quincy Institute.
Sanctioning the Dollar Iran Already Left: Why Bessent’s “Economic D-Day” Is Toothless
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | August 24, 2026
There was one sentence in Scott Bessent’s Monday sanctions announcement that gave the whole game away. Anyone who launders money for the Iranian regime, the Treasury Secretary warned, “will be removed from the US dollar system.” He meant it as a threat of annihilation. It is, instead, a confession of the policy’s central weakness. The entire architecture of what Bessent has branded “Operation Economic Outcast” rests on a single assumption — that Iran and its trading partners need the U.S. dollar. They increasingly do not. And a threat to bar someone from the dollar system means nothing to a trade that has already walked out of it and into the Chinese yuan.
What Bessent actually announced
Strip away the “economic D-Day” theatrics and the substance is a secondary-sanctions framework: the United States threatens to punish any country or entity that refuses to sever economic ties with Iran, expands the categories of activity exposed to those secondary sanctions into five new fields — digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, and shipping — and designates roughly sixty individuals, entities, and vessels tied to nuclear and missile procurement, cyber operations, and oil smuggling. The mechanism of pain, in every case, is the same: exclusion from the dollar-based financial system that Washington polices through its control of dollar clearing, SWIFT messaging, and correspondent banking.
That is a devastating weapon against anyone who lives inside the dollar system. It is close to irrelevant against those who have deliberately built their most important trade outside it. And Iran’s lifeline — the oil trade with China — is now largely outside it.
The trade that runs on yuan
Follow the barrels. China is now the buyer of over 80 percent of Iran’s seaborne crude exports. Iran is shipping somewhere around 1.65 to 1.8 million barrels a day, almost all of it to the independent “teapot” refiners of Shandong, moved by a shadow fleet of more than 350 tankers using ship-to-ship transfers off Malaysia, Singapore, and the Sea of Oman, the cargoes routinely rebranded as Malaysian or Omani. And critically, the money for it increasingly does not move in dollars. Payment flows in yuan, routed through small Chinese banks and Hong Kong trading shells, settled in a growing volume of renminbi that bypasses the dollar clearing system entirely.
The plumbing for this is China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, CIPS — the settlement network the People’s Bank of China launched in 2015 precisely to clear cross-border yuan transactions without touching the Western financial architecture. Its use has surged in lockstep with the war. CIPS processed on the order of $214 billion in March 2026, hit a single-day record of 1.22 trillion yuan — roughly $178 billion — across nearly 42,000 transactions, and saw its average daily value jump about 50 percent from February to March, a spike analysts tied directly to the Iran conflict and rising yuan demand in oil trade. More than five thousand institutions are now connected. These channels allow settlement without any intermediary US bank in the chain — which is the entire point.
Nor is this confined to China. Even Indian refiners buying rare cargoes of Iranian oil have settled the payments in yuan, routed through the Shanghai branch of an Indian bank, because Iran wants a currency that sidesteps the dollar sanctions channel. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has reportedly begun demanding yuan or cryptocurrency for oil transactions outright. When Bessent adds “digital assets” and “gold” to his sanctions categories, he is chasing evasion routes Iran is already using by design, through a shadow system purpose-built to be untraceable.
You cannot freeze a yuan payment out of a dollar system it never enters. That is not a loophole in Bessent’s plan. It is the plan’s foundation, missing.
The market already delivered its verdict
The most eloquent judgment on these sanctions came not from a pundit but from the oil market itself. If traders believed Bessent’s “economic onslaught” would actually choke off Iranian barrels, crude would have spiked on the announcement. It did the opposite. Brent fell about 2.3 percent on August 24, sliding below $92, as investors concluded the measures were unlikely to remove Iranian oil from the market. A sanctions package advertised as an economic D-Day was met by the market marking the price of oil down. The traders who move real money on real supply read the announcement for exactly what it was: sound and fury aimed at a target the dollar can no longer reach.
The one tooth Bessent won’t bare
There is precisely one measure that could actually bite the yuan trade: sanctioning the major Chinese banks and the CIPS architecture that clear it — cutting large Chinese financial institutions out of the dollar system and forcing Beijing to choose. And that is the step Bessent, once again, announced but did not take. He warned that at least one major financial institution could face sanctions this week, and said China would not be exempt. A threat, not an action — the same threat that has hovered over this campaign for months and never descends, because executing it means a financial rupture with Beijing on the eve of a planned Trump-Xi meeting, and an oil-price shock Washington cannot afford heading into the midterms.
And even if he pulled that trigger, the trade is engineered to survive it. The yuan payments already move through small Chinese banks and Hong Kong front companies precisely so that the large, dollar-exposed institutions stay clean and the flow continues if a big bank is hit. The system was designed by people who assumed Washington would eventually come for it. Bessent is threatening to breach a wall its builders reinforced years ago.
Ten years of sanctions, and a larger economy
Step back from Monday’s announcement and ask the longer question: what has a decade of sanctions actually done to the size of Iran’s economy? Measured properly, it has grown.
The measure matters, because there are two ways to size an economy and here they tell opposite stories. In nominal dollars — the plane on which sanctions operate — Iran looks devastated: its dollar GDP is around $300 billion in 2026, and dollar income per head has been falling fast, because the rial has been pulverized and everything Iranian looks cheap when priced in a currency Iranians increasingly cannot obtain. But nominal-dollar GDP largely measures the exchange rate, not the economy. Measured by purchasing power parity — which values what Iran actually produces at the prices Iranians actually pay, stripping out the collapsed currency — Iran’s GDP has risen from roughly $1.4 trillion in 2015, when the JCPOA-era sanctions architecture was in force, to about $2.18 trillion in 2026, by the IMF’s reckoning the world’s twenty-third-largest economy. That is an expansion of more than fifty percent over the same decade of “maximum pressure” that was supposed to break it.
The caveat belongs in plain sight, not buried: part of that gain is simply more Iranians — the population has grown by roughly a sixth since 2015 — so per-capita output has risen far more modestly, and none of it means Iranian households feel richer, with inflation running near forty percent and the currency in ruins. Growth of the economy is not prosperity for the family. But that is a different claim from the one that matters for sanctions policy. A pressure campaign that can wreck a currency and still not shrink real output is a campaign that produces hardship without submission. Iran has now demonstrated exactly that across two sanctions architectures — the JCPOA snapback and its “maximum pressure” successors — and ten years of data. Bessent is adding a chapter to a book whose ending is already written.
The honest limits
This is a dollar bypass, not the death of the dollar. The greenback still makes up around 57 percent of global foreign-exchange reserves against roughly 2 percent for the yuan, and only a low single-digit share of cross-border trade settles in renminbi; CIPS remains far smaller than the SWIFT-and-CHIPS system it shadows. The claim here is narrow and it is enough: a determined seller like Iran, with a willing Chinese counterparty, can route its oil revenue around the dollar — not that the world has.
Nor are the sanctions literally costless to Tehran. The friction of operating in the shadows is real: Iran sells its crude at discounts of $14 to $17 a barrel below Brent, up from $8 in 2023, precisely because sanctions raise the risk and complexity of buying it; its fiscal break-even sits far above the price it actually realizes, and the rial has lost most of its value. Bessent’s measures will add a little more friction at the margin — another turn of the screw on the discount, another few front companies to replace.
But friction is not a chokehold, and a poorer Iran is not a compliant one. The sanctions make Iran’s oil cheaper and its economy more strained; they do not, and cannot, sever the yuan-denominated artery to China that keeps the oil flowing and the regime funded. That artery is the thing Bessent promised to cut, and it is the one thing his announcement does not touch.
Bessent has threatened to expel Iran and its partners from a financial system Iran has spent years leaving. The dollar guillotine is real, and it still falls with terrible force on anyone standing beneath it — but Iran’s oil trade stepped off the block and into the yuan, and every fresh round of dollar-weaponization only sharpens the incentive for others to follow. The measures announced Monday will generate headlines, a few dozen designations, and a marginal widening of the discount China already enjoys on Iranian crude. What they will not do is the thing they were sold to do: collapse Iran’s options and force it to heel. You cannot sever a lifeline that no longer runs through your hands. Bessent is standing guard at a door Iran walked out of a long time ago, threatening to lock it.
China will not play along with the US’ ‘reckless games’ on the Iran issue
Global Times | August 21, 2026
US President Donald Trump announced on August 19 local time that he would launch a so-called “economic D-Day” operation against Iran. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in outlining the operation, described it as “economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale,” adding that other countries “are either with us or against us.” When asked whether the new sanctions would involve China, Bessent urged China to “get with the program,” claiming that would do China “a big service.”
The US war against Iran has now entered its sixth month, with both sides now locked in a stalemate – unable to escalate the conflict further yet unable to reach a negotiated settlement. The so-called “economic D-Day” operation is less a new offensive launched by the US against Iran than it is yet another attempt by Washington to cut its losses as quickly as possible and extricate itself from the quagmire of the Middle East – a move to change tactics and keep gambling after military means have proven ineffective.
But it may well be heading in the wrong direction. Whether it is the ever-rising bills at US gas stations or the soaring energy and shipping costs in global markets, one thing is clear: Economic sanctions can concentrate pressure on a single country, but it is difficult to confine the costs to that country alone. War cannot solve problems, and sanctions only add fuel to the fire.
The so-called “either with us or against us” rhetoric, in a sense, exposes Washington’s strategic predicament: it “can no longer handle this mess on its own.” Ironically, while Washington has been spouting “bold rhetoric,” its circle of allies has remained silent on the matter. In fact, since the US’ war against Iran began, most US allies have been highly reluctant to go along with America’s radical strategy out of concern for the spillover effects of the conflict and the energy crisis. The reason is simple: for these countries, the Iran issue affects energy supply, shipping security, and inflationary pressures.
The US has set its own house on fire, yet it wants the whole world to help fan the flames, making the blaze even bigger – and in the end, it expects everyone else to foot the bill. Who would want to be such a patsy? The US has repeatedly labeled European nations “cowards” for refusing to join the war, further provoking a strong backlash from its European allies and creating a rare, deep‑seated rift in the alliance system.
If the US cannot even rally its own allies, it certainly cannot expect to boss China around. China has consistently opposed unilateral bullying and long-arm jurisdiction – not because China is Iran’s largest trading partner and maintains long-standing friendly relations with Iran, but because once this US logic is accepted, international trade would no longer be normal exchanges between nations. Instead, it would devolve into an absurd situation where the US unilaterally sets the rules and the flow of all goods must be approved by the US.
If the US can force China to cut ties with Iran today, will it be able to arbitrarily cut off all foreign trade with any country it regards as a “rival” tomorrow? If so, there is no doubt that the world would be reverting to the law of the jungle, where the basic rules of modern civilized society will cease to exist.
The Strait of Hormuz is a strait used for international navigation. Restoring safe and free passage through the strait as soon as possible serves the interests of all parties and is also the shared aspiration of the international community. But if the fact that “the Strait of Hormuz concerns a certain country’s interests” is used as a pretext to demand that this country unconditionally comply with Washington’s maximum pressure and trade bullying, that would not only put the cart before the horse, but also steadily deplete the US’ international credibility while exacerbating global energy volatility, high inflation, and market disorder.
Only a comprehensive ceasefire and the cessation of hostilities can fundamentally create the conditions for easing tensions, because the disruption of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz is itself a spillover effect of the US’ war against Iran. China has consistently supported all efforts conducive to a ceasefire and an end to hostilities. But ultimately, those who tied the knot must be the ones to untie it; this knot can and must be resolved by the parties directly involved.
America’s strategic predicament stems precisely from its obsession with the “big fist” and its inexplicable confidence that “there is always a way to force those who refuse to comply into submission.” If the US continues applying pressure at will, it will only be kept trapped for longer and sink deeper.
Simply expanding economic pressure will only prolong the conflict and increase the losses for all sides. The entire world can see this clearly. Not only will China not play along with the US’ “reckless games” on the Iran issue, but the international community will not stand with Washington either. From moral, legal, and practical perspectives, escalating unilateral sanctions has neither legitimacy nor feasibility.
An immediate ceasefire and cessation of hostilities, the prompt resumption of peace talks, the restoration of navigation through the strait, and upholding the authority of the UN Charter – these have been China’s consistent positions since the conflict broke out, and they are the approach that serves the interests of all parties. Only by abandoning the Cold War mentality of confrontation, setting aside the tool of maximum pressure, and returning to the proper track of dialogue and negotiation can Washington cut its losses in time and make a dignified exit.
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.
NATO whines it cannot fight simultaneous wars against Russia, China and Iran
By Drago Bosnic | August 19, 2026
NATO war planners rarely discuss their “nightmare scenarios” in public and appear even less prepared for real-life confrontations on that scale. This is particularly true when it comes to simultaneous or near-simultaneous wars in which the most aggressive racketeering cartel in recorded history has to fight in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. As the pillar of NATO, the United States would be forced to manage wars against Russia, Iran and China at once. One of the most infamous mainstream propaganda machine outlets, The Atlantic, explored this possibility, calling it “NATO’s nightmare”. The analysis largely focuses on “a coordinated assault by Beijing and Moscow” and how difficult it would be to “muster a viable defense” (obviously implying that NATO wouldn’t attack first, which is beyond laughable given its history).
The author, Simon Shuster, warns that “about a year ago, General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s top commander in Europe, publicly warned of the risk of a two-front war involving Russia and China and urged European allies to help the US prepare”. He quotes Florence Gaub, director of research at the NATO Defense College, who described it as “the scenario we’re currently not ready for”. She warns that “NATO strategists know the gap exists, but have not closed it” and that “despite growing military cooperation between Russia and China, Western governments have conducted only a handful of low-profile exercises examining what a joint attack might look like”. Although there weren’t any publicly acknowledged drills with this specific scenario in mind, Western-led military exercises in different areas of the world certainly focused on such a possibility.
However, The Atlantic admits that even when such scenarios were conducted as part of war games, the results were “less than optimistic”. The report quotes Mark Montgomery, a retired US Navy rear admiral who participated in major war games and stated that he last studied such a scenario roughly 15 years ago. Montgomery recalled that “it didn’t go well” because “even then, the US lacked the weapons stockpiles and industrial capacity to sustain a prolonged multifront war”. Even when numerous US allies, vassals and satellite states are added to the mix, “it made no difference at all”. What’s more, Montgomery warns that “those metrics have worsened, even as some NATO countries have increased defense spending”. To prove this is truly the case, one simply needs to look at the US aggression against Iran, which demonstrated remarkable resilience.
Worse yet (for America), Tehran also uncovered the Pentagon’s woeful incompetence in fighting a remotely capable opponent. A single country that the US promised to “defeat in three days to two weeks tops” has not only withstood all attacks in the last six months, but has also successfully retaliated against US occupation forces across the Middle East. It should be noted that Iran has been under Western sanctions for nearly half a century at this point. Now imagine how a direct confrontation with Russia or China would unfold, even separately, much less simultaneously. The Atlantic fears that “Moscow and Beijing have actually improved their positions”. The report points to the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict, which “pushed Russia’s massive industrial base onto a war footing and sharpened its use of drones”.
It also warns that “while China has not fought a major war in decades, it now surpasses the US in warships and long-range missiles”. Obviously, the Asian giant hasn’t fought a major war in nearly half a century because it has refused to do so. Nothing prevents Beijing from fully restoring its sovereignty over Taiwan by force. However, it seeks to resolve the dispute through peaceful means, just like it did when restoring sovereignty over Hong Kong and Macao back in 1997 and 1999, respectively. This is precisely what the US fears the most, as a non-violent transition would only strengthen China and effectively break US dominance in the Asia-Pacific without firing a single shot. Washington DC would much rather see Taiwan destroyed than give up its influence there peacefully. This is why the US maintains tight control over local military forces.
However, directing “controlled chaos” is not enough for the Pentagon to “feel safe”. Namely, growing Sino-Russian ties are what really makes the political West “shiver” (or should we say, suffer panic attacks). The Atlantic is particularly concerned by the “no-limits partnership” Presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced back in February 2022. NATO simply has no mechanisms to prevent Moscow and Beijing from building their alliance. On the contrary, its truly unprovoked aggression against the entire world has only strengthened their strategic partnership. The Atlantic thinks that “from Russia’s and China’s perspective, the timing may look favorable”, primarily because “the US is stretched by conflict in the Middle East, has shifted ships and aircraft away from Europe and Asia, and has depleted much of its advanced air-defense missile stockpile”.
Well, nobody forced Washington DC to wage yet another war of aggression. Neither Moscow nor Beijing forced the Trump administration to foolishly attack Iran. However, even the Middle East pales in comparison to how Western forces would fare in a fight against adversaries such as Russia and China, particularly now that the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict has turned the Russian military into the deadliest fighting force on the planet. The Atlantic concludes that “in a two-front war, the side most likely to prevail may be the one that acts with common purpose and stays united”. It would seem NATO didn’t learn from the strategic mistakes of its Axis predecessors, because that’s precisely what’s going to happen if it continues with its aggression against the entire world, which will have no other choice but to unite.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
China’s first 100-bcm Bohai gas field Phase I fully online, with daily output topping 5,200 tons
Global Times – August 9, 2026
The first phase of the Bozhong 19-6 gas field, China’s first 100-billion-cubic-meter gas field in the Bohai Sea, has entered full operation, with daily oil and gas output surpassing 5,200 tons, CNOOC Tianjin Branch announced on Sunday. The project is of great significance for optimizing the regional energy structure and supporting high-quality economic and social development, the People’s Daily reported.
China’s natural gas reserves are unevenly distributed, with more in the west and less in the east. As the largest offshore gas field in eastern China, the project has so far produced more than 2.8 billion cubic meters of natural gas and serves as an important force in ensuring a stable natural gas supply for the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Bohai rim area.
Coming fully online during the critical peak summer demand period, the Phase I project further meets the energy needs of regional residential life and industrial production, said the report.
Located in the central Bohai Sea, the Bozhong 19-6 gas field has proven natural gas geological reserves exceeding 200 billion cubic meters and proven petroleum liquid geological reserves of more than 200 million cubic meters. The field is buried at depths exceeding 5,000 meters, with widely distributed but complex oil and gas reservoirs and densely fractured buried-hill formations.
“The full commissioning has not only verified the capability to develop deep and complex oil and gas reservoirs in the Bohai Sea, but also further enhanced the self-sufficiency of natural gas supply in eastern China,” Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
The Bohai Oilfield, where Bozhong 19-6 is located, is China’s first ultra-large offshore oil and gas field with an annual output capacity of 40 million tons. In the first half of this year, its oil and gas output exceeded 21 million tons, setting a new record high, the People’s Daily reported.
Drilling operations for Phase II of the gas field have fully commenced, which will further enhance the role of offshore oil and gas in supporting China’s domestic energy supply.
China has implemented a new round of strategic actions for oil and gas exploration and development in 2026. It will continue to increase investment in exploration and development to ensure that annual domestic crude oil production remains stable at more than 200 million tons and that natural gas output continues to rise, according to a report released by the National Energy Administration.
The report shows that from 2019 to 2025, China added 17 oil fields with reserves of more than 100 million tons and 34 gas fields with reserves of more than 100 billion cubic meters. The average annual newly proven geological reserves surpassed 1.4 billion tons of oil and 1.5 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, representing increases of 55.0 percent and 58.7 percent respectively compared with 2018.
Shale oil and gas as well as coalbed methane accounted for 22 percent of the newly proven geological reserves during the period, becoming important strategic replacement resources. Over the past seven years, China has added 150 million tons of new crude oil production capacity, achieving a stabilization and recovery in crude oil output. In 2025, production rose to 216 million tons, setting a new record high, said the report.
While implementing a new round of strategic actions for oil and gas exploration and development, China’s oil and gas industry will foster new drivers of growth through scientific and technological innovation, deepen the integration of artificial intelligence with exploration and development, and promote the integrated development of oil and gas with new energy, thereby providing important support for building China into an energy powerhouse, the report noted.
China to launch regular shipping to Europe via Russia’s Northern Sea Route – Rosatom
RT | August 8, 2026
China will launch regular container shipping to Europe via Russia’s Northern Sea Route (NSR) this month, with eight voyages planned through October, Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev has said.
The Arctic shipping route runs mostly through Russia’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zone and relies on Russian port infrastructure and icebreaker fleet. Rosatom, Russia’s state atomic energy corporation, is principally responsible for the route’s development.
Chinese firm Sealegend Shipping sent its first freight shipment through the waterway to Felixstowe Port in England late last year, making the voyage in 20 days. A voyage via the Suez Canal would have taken around 37 days, Likhachev told reporters on Friday.
“Today, we are taking the next step. The Chinese shipping company Sealegend Shipping is indeed planning to launch the first regular route to Europe, and Rosatom has already issued permits for seven vessels to transit the NSR,” the Rosatom CEO said.
While prior container shipments were largely experimental or one-off in nature, this year’s program envisions weekly voyages from August to October, ice conditions permitting, he said.
The growing demand for shipping through the NSR comes amid a “permanently difficult situation” in the Persian Gulf, he said. The Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries around a quarter of seaborne oil and LNG trade, has remained largely closed since the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February.
According to Likhachev, Chinese container traffic via the NSR has grown markedly in recent years, more than tripling from 2023 to 2025. Today, bilateral shipping between Chinese and Russian ports makes up 15% of all traffic through the passage. Total cargo traffic between Russia and China is expected to reach 20 million tons by 2030, he added.
India and Russia are also working to finalize a pact on maritime cargo cooperation along the NSR.
The Arctic shipping route remains the shortest maritime passage between the Asia-Pacific region and northern Europe. Russia, which operates the world’s largest icebreaker fleet of more than 40 conventional and nuclear vessels, is investing in the NSR with the aim of making it a pivotal global trade artery.
The route’s significance as “the safest, most reliable, and most efficient” path is growing more evident amid disruptions caused by conflicts around the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this year, adding that Moscow is working to strengthen Arctic logistics on a “massive scale.”
The Galling Gallium Chokehold: Why the US Cannot Produce Precision Missiles and Fully-Functional F-35s
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR21 | August 3, 2026
Kudos, again, to Kevin Wamsley of Inside China Business. Based on his latest podcast (see below) I did some additional digging. The substance of his video briefing is shocking and alarming, at least for US policymakers and weapons manufacturers. There is a single thread running from the empty nose cones of America’s newest stealth fighters to the laboratories where China is building the internet of the 2030s. That thread is gallium — a soft, silvery byproduct of aluminum refining that almost no one outside a materials-science department thinks about, and that the United States does not produce at all.
A metal America stopped making
The top line from the US Geological Survey is stark: the United States has had no primary domestic gallium production for decades, and its net import reliance sits at 100 percent. China, by contrast, controls the overwhelming majority of global output — figures commonly cited run from 94 to 98 percent of raw production. The reason is structural, not incidental. Gallium is extracted as a byproduct of bauxite and zinc processing, industries China dominates. A country cannot simply decide to make gallium; it must first build the aluminum and zinc industries that yield it, then the extraction, refining, wafer, and packaging lines on top. That is a decade-plus undertaking, not a budget line.
This dependency became a weapon in December 2024, when Beijing banned exports of gallium, germanium, and antimony to the United States, explicitly prohibiting sales to US military end-users. It was retaliation for American semiconductor export controls, and it landed on a Pentagon that, by the USGS’s own accounting, had no gallium in the National Defense Stockpile to fall back on.
One crucial update the alarmist version of this story often omits: in November 2025, as part of a broader trade truce between Presidents Trump and Xi, China suspended the civilian portion of that ban until late November 2026, moving those exports to a licensing regime. But the suspension came with a catch that matters enormously — the prohibition on exports to military end-users stayed in force. So the civilian supply reopened on Beijing’s sufferance, revocable at will, while the weapons-makers remained cut off. The chokehold didn’t release; it was repositioned.
The fighters with counterweights where radars should be
The most vivid symptom of this dependency is also the most easily misunderstood. It is true — confirmed through photographic evidence and industry reporting, though initially denied by the Department of War — that F-35s built from Lot 17 onward are being delivered with counterweights, literal ballast, in their nose cones where radars belong. Reporting has put the number affected in the hundreds.
But the cause is more tangled than “China cut off the gallium.” The immediate culprit is the delayed development and certification of the AN/APG-85, the next-generation radar meant to replace the older AN/APG-81. The APG-85 is built on gallium-nitride (GaN) technology, which delivers far higher power and better thermal efficiency — and demands roughly 82 kilowatts, forcing structural, cooling, and power redesigns to the aircraft’s forward fuselage. Jets from Lot 17 were redesigned to accept the APG-85 and can no longer take the old APG-81. When the new radar slipped, those aircraft had nowhere to turn but counterweights.
Gallium supply is the aggravating factor layered beneath that engineering delay: GaN radars use far more gallium than their predecessors, the DLA has struggled to source it as Japan and Germany lack the capacity to fill the gap, and prices have surged. The honest framing is that America faces a radar-development problem and a materials problem, and China’s monopoly sits underneath both. Meanwhile, China has moved its own J-20 fighter to a next-generation radar reportedly built on the same GaN technology — the qualitative gap the APG-85 was meant to open is instead narrowing.
The vulnerability extends well past one airframe. Gallium nitride underpins the high-power jammers on the EA-18G Growler, the F-35’s own electronic-warfare suite, and the large ground-based radar arrays of the kind destroyed during the fighting in the Persian Gulf. The Pentagon’s supply chains reportedly touch Chinese suppliers across a vast share of weapons components — the dependency is systemic, not a single point of failure.
The same monopoly, pointed at the future
Here the story turns from defense to something larger. The same industrial base that lets China throttle radar production also lets Chinese researchers race ahead on the technology expected to define the next quarter-century of connectivity: 6G.
The headline achievement is real and was published in Nature. A team led by scientists from Peking University and the City University of Hong Kong built what they describe as the world’s first “all-frequency” 6G chip — a device roughly 11 by 1.7 millimeters that integrates the entire wireless spectrum from 0.5 to 115 gigahertz onto a single chip. That span previously required nine separate radio systems. In testing it exceeded 100 gigabits per second on a single channel, which independent write-ups translate to roughly 500 times the real-world speed most users get from 5G today, and it can retune across 6 gigahertz of spectrum in 180 microseconds to hop clear of interference. The researchers built it not from gallium but from thin-film lithium niobate, using a photonic-electronic design, and they intend to shrink it into plug-and-play modules for phones, base stations, drones, and IoT devices.
The strategic point survives the technical correction. Whether the enabling material is gallium in a radar or lithium niobate in a transceiver, the pattern is the same: China increasingly controls both the raw inputs and the pipeline of scientists and engineers turning them into deployable systems. And 6G’s importance is not really about consumers. Few individuals need to download a library of films in seconds. The demand comes from industry — precision robotics, advanced manufacturing, private industrial networks, integrated sensing, low-altitude drone economies — the very sectors where China has already built commanding positions. 6G’s promised leap in speed, latency, and integrated sensing is a boon precisely to the industrial base China is busy consolidating.
The standards are the prize
There is one more dimension that outlasts any single chip. 6G has not yet been standardized worldwide; the global protocols are still being written, precisely because the systems are still being built. Standards bodies — 3GPP, the ITU, the O-RAN Alliance — are only now moving 6G from research into formal specification, with first specs targeted around 2029 and commercial networks around 2030. Whoever builds the working systems first shapes the standards everyone else must adopt.
The Trump administration has recognized the stakes, declaring 6G foundational to U.S. national security, foreign policy, and economic prosperity, and setting a policy of American leadership — directing work on spectrum, commercial applications, and diplomatic coalitions to back the U.S. position. The Boston Consulting Group projects that 5G’s roughly $1 trillion in economic output could grow toward $18 trillion by 2035, with 6G enabling entirely new enterprise models and large-scale AI across manufacturing, cities, healthcare, and public safety.
But intent collides with the same wall. The United States cannot lead in building what it cannot supply. Leadership in 6G requires the mining, refining, fabrication, and — above all — the tens of thousands of trained engineers applying the technology at scale. China is doing that work now. America is still debating how to start.
The bottom line
Strip away the hyperbole and a hard core remains. Today, U.S. contractors cannot reliably put advanced radars on hundred-million-dollar aircraft, in part because China controls a metal America stopped producing forty years ago. Ten years from now, on current trajectory, anyone who wants the best phones, drones, or robots may find the critical components — and the standards they run on — routed through that same country. Supply chains are the whole game, and so are the researchers who turn raw materials into markets. That is the argument, and the uncomfortable part is how much of it is simply true.
Here is Kevin’s video:
Beijing blacklists 14 EU firms after Brussels targets Chinese companies in latest Russia sanctions package
The Cradle | July 25, 2026
Beijing prohibited 14 EU companies from obtaining Chinese dual-use goods on 24 July, targeting Europe’s defense industry shortly after the EU included 14 Chinese and Hong Kong firms in its 21st sanctions package against Russia.
Announcing the measures with immediate effect, the Chinese Commerce Ministry called the bloc’s conduct “egregious” and demanded the EU “immediately correct its wrongdoing, eliminate the egregious impact, and safeguard the overall interests of China–EU relations with concrete actions.”
The restrictions cover dual-use items, goods, software, and technology with both civilian and military applications, including rare earth elements used to build drones and chips.
Parties outside China are also barred from transferring Chinese-origin dual-use goods to any listed entity, though exporters may request permission in exceptional cases or when a shipment is deemed “truly necessary.”
Rheinmetall leads the list, alongside Polish electronics producer Vigo Photonics, Italian electric motor manufacturer Lafert, French drone developer Cavok UAS, Czech truckmaker Tatra, Dutch naval engineering firm IHC Merwede, and several optics and laser companies.
Germany and France each have three entries, Italy and Poland each have two, and the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Lithuania each have one.
China’s mission to the EU lodged a formal protest, voicing “strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition” to the measures and rejecting attempts by the bloc to place responsibility for the war in Ukraine on Beijing.
It added that China “firmly opposes the EU’s unwarranted listing and sanctioning of Chinese companies and citizens.”
The 21st package subjected 51 entities to tighter export curbs on dual-use goods and technologies over their support for Russia’s military and industrial complex.
Companies based in India, Turkiye, and the UAE were listed alongside those from mainland China and Hong Kong.
Brussels targeted small trade and logistics operators in port cities like Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Dalian, while Beijing focused on Europe’s defense industry.
Cui Hongjian, a former diplomat who heads European studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the South China Morning Post (SCMP) that the disparity does not make the response any less reciprocal from Beijing’s perspective, noting that successive EU packages have named far more Chinese firms overall than China has named in return.
“Since this whole episode arose from the Russia-Ukraine war, I think it’s understandable that China is now pointing its retaliation at Rheinmetall,” Cui said. “From Beijing’s point of view, if it’s going to retaliate, the retaliation has to bite.”
Prevent the Great War
By Israel Shamir • Unz Review • July 24, 2026
A couple of weeks ago, in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, there was a NATO conference that sought yet more rearmament and militarization, steps that must inevitably lead to a new Great War. As an answer to this NATO conference, 200 ministers, members of parliament, ambassadors, politicians, activists, journalists, retired generals, academics, diplomats, military personnel and experts from many countries gathered in Ankara last weekend to prevent NATO’s new Great War. Among them were a few of our fellows, Unz Review writers, notably Larry Johnson and Scott Ritter.
The Alliance to Prevent the Great War concluded that the threats that could lead to a Great War originate from the United States, the EU and Israel. The US and Israeli attacks on Iran, NATO’s build-up of military power in Ukraine and the deployment of proxy forces against Russia, Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the attacks on Lebanon — these are regional wars that carry the risk of triggering a Great War.
NATO, as an instrument of US hegemony, poses a threat to world peace. The countries targeted by NATO, foremost among them Russia, do not pose a threat to Europe. The militarisation of Europe should be stopped. The course towards confrontation between NATO and Russia must be reversed. The escalation of the conflict poses a direct threat of nuclear war. Western leaders must not cross Russia’s ‘red lines’, provoke or ‘test’ the strength of the Russian people and their president. Conference participants stated that arms supply to Ukraine must cease. Further arms supply to Kiev will sooner or later lead to an expansion of military operations in Europe.
In short, the Alliance to Prevent the Great War calls for the strategic union of four states: Russia, China, Iran and Turkey, against the US, EU, and Israel. Never before has Israel been considered such an enemy – not by Russia, neither by Turkey. Putin in his first visits to Israel tried to befriend the Jewish state, saying that there are more than a million ex-Soviet citizens in Israel, speaking Russian and maintaining family ties with Russians in Russia. However, recently Israel has become a stage for anti-Russian emigres with a strong sympathy for an independent Ukrainian state. These are mainly Soviet Jews who were born in the Ukraine, or their ancestors were from the Ukraine, and it turned them towards the Ukrainian statelet of Mr Zelensky.
Many Soviet Jews were extremely pro-American. A Russian writer Viktor Pelevin wrote once that a modern cultural Jew—whether living in Moscow or New York—often faces a subconscious dilemma, unable to definitively answer whether they are primarily a patriot of Israel or a patriot of the United States. The support of Ukraine by Israel spoiled its relations with Russia, though Israel tried to hide its pro-Ukrainian stance. A Russian-Israeli journalist Artem Kirpichonok wrote (tongue in cheek) of Israel’s contributions to the Ukraine war:
1. Israeli anti-tank weapons have been transferred to Ukraine via NATO countries. With their help, a column of Russian troops near Kharkiv has already been destroyed.
2. ‘Volunteers’ – veterans of Israeli special forces – have been deployed to Ukraine. As MP Gerashchenko stated: ‘The best of the best. They, too, want to take part in the struggle of light against darkness. Shabbat Shalom!’
3. Doctors and hospitals have been deployed to assist the Ukrainian army and the civilian population.
4. 76 per cent of Israelis support Ukraine (i.e. everyone except the Arab minority)
5. The renowned Israeli thinker Yuval Noah Hariri noted in a television interview that Putin believes Ukrainians are Russians, and that only a handful of Jews who have taken over Ukraine are preventing them from pelting Russian tanks with flowers. Thus, Putin is a psychopath and an anti-Semite.
9. Religious circles emphasise the fact that Putin launched a war against the Jew Zelensky on the eve of Purim and will therefore inevitably suffer the same fate as Haman and Stalin.
Turkey was once rather friendly to Israel, but Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara boat that carried Turkish volunteers to Gaza spoiled it. Israel’s genocide of Gaza turned the people of Turkey against Israel, while Israeli objections to the US sale of jets to Turkey added to the enmity. And finally, Israeli officials claiming that “Turkey is the next Iran” firmly shut this door forever. Thus has Israel been doing its part to get Russia, China, Iran and Turkey together into a strategic union. Still Turkey remains a member of NATO, and President Trump calls President Erdogan “his best friend”.
Russian relations with Iran are very good, and could be described as “strategic”. The Alliance to Prevent the Great War stated: “One of the factors that undoubtedly prevented the United States and Israel from using nuclear weapons in their attacks against Iran was the nuclear umbrella provided by Iran’s partnership with Russia and China. Had a strategic alliance between Turkey, Russia, China and Iran already been established, this would have made an American-Israeli attack on Iran impossible from the outset.”
What should be done with NATO? The Alliance to Prevent the Great War ruled:
It is not the reorganisation of NATO, but its abolition, that would serve global security. European countries would thereby also be freed from the new and onerous burden imposed by the United States on NATO members.
Among interesting speakers there was Prof Dr Ulrike Guérot of Germany. A renowned political scientist, Prof Guérot presented a radical vision for the future of Europe. Arguing that NATO has completed its historical mission, Prof Guérot stated that Europe must break free from American hegemony, transition to a neutral stance, and build its future with Eurasia, particularly with Turkey. Giving extensive space to the war in the Ukraine in her speech, Prof Guérot claimed that this conflict is a proxy war that has been prepared for a long time. Criticizing NATO’s eastward expansion policies, the political scientist argued that NATO has ceased to be a security alliance and has become an element of tension, stating: “We did not tear down the Berlin Wall; we merely moved it a thousand kilometres to the East, to Kiev. We are building a rigid NATO line and dividing the European continent.”
Prof Guérot proposed a concrete model of cooperation to reduce Europe’s dependence on the United States. She argued that a strong tripartite cooperation mechanism established between Paris, Moscow, and Istanbul could build a lasting order of peace and independence on the continent.
Responding sharply to Israel’s policies toward Gaza, Prof Guérot described the silent collaboration and ongoing arms support of the European Union as a “deep shame.” Probably Israel VS Palestine is the deepest bifurcation point between the US and the rest of mankind. While the world supports Palestine, President Trump stands for Israel, and he does not care about genocide. I think it will be his undoing.
Our Scott Ritter said: “To be honest, what happened in Ankara (the NATO conference) was an affront to Turkey’s sovereignty. We must never forget that the countries gathered in Ankara are not Turkey’s friends. Not a single one of them. Neither the United States, nor France, nor Germany, nor the United Kingdom, nor other NATO members, nor Greece.”
What took place there was nothing more than a grand political spectacle. It was a large-scale political charade staged to drag Turkey into NATO’s adventure in Ukraine and to exploit Turkey’s strategic position – painstakingly built up by President Erdogan over the last decade – in Europe’s interests and to Turkey’s detriment.
People need to understand this: everything NATO does – frankly, everything the United States does – runs counter to Turkey’s interests. Because Turkey has never been a priority. Neither for the United States nor for NATO.
NATO has used Turkey for its own interests from the very first day of its accession to the alliance. Turkey was drawn into the alliance to ensure the security of NATO’s southern flank. But that task effectively came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now they are trying to drag Turkey into an even greater quagmire: Ukraine. They want Turkey to become an active participant in a war that has dragged on for far too long, has resulted in far too many casualties, and seems unlikely to end as NATO intends – namely, with a strategic defeat for Russia.
So why did President Erdogan allow NATO’s conference to be hosted in Ankara?
I think the answer lies in the Turkish economy. I think President Erdogan was hoping to create an atmosphere of goodwill by hosting Western countries in Ankara, which could have yielded positive results for Turkey. However, I believe he will be disappointed in this regard.
On the contrary, I believe that in the coming period Turkey will continue to develop relations with Russia, China and, increasingly, Iran. This is because Turkey will realise that working together with these countries, which oppose American global hegemony and NATO’s subservient role within that hegemony, is the right path for its own future.
Larry C. Johnson said: “The Ukraine war is not simply a war between Ukraine and Russia. The West is waging a ‘NATO proxy war’, using Ukraine against Russia.”
European leaders are facing a crisis of confidence in their own countries. Examples of this include Germany’s deindustrialisation, the Volkswagen crisis and the economic downturn.
NATO’s stockpiles are depleted; factories cannot cope with the workload.
The war in Ukraine is currently ‘the most dangerous flashpoint in the world’. NATO’s preparations for direct war are increasing the risk of nuclear escalation, and Russia has reached the point where it could deploy tactical nuclear weapons.
Germany was also represented by Admiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, the man who commanded the German Navy and retired to avoid fighting Russians. He said:
My name is Kay-Achim Schönbach. I am a retired Vice-Admiral of the German Navy, and until 2022 I served as Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy.
As a citizen of a European country and as a German, I can only express my deepest concern on this matter. Not since the dark and dangerous days of the Cuban Missile Crisis have we been so close to an escalation that could lead to a major war in Europe. And I do not believe I am the only one to have reached this conclusion.
The war in Donbas, in particular, has shown us that ignoring the historical context and failing to undertake a more in-depth and, above all, impartial examination of the causes of the conflict has been one of the fundamental factors that made this armed conflict possible.
The wars in Eastern Europe could have been avoided. We know this. We all know this.
Drawing on my own experience, I can say with confidence today that diplomacy based on mutual respect and conducted on an equal footing provided all the necessary means to prevent this smouldering conflict from escalating into a full-scale war. And I do not think I am the only one who shares this view. However, we must all acknowledge that the influential players in the international system had ample opportunities to resolve this conflict. Perhaps there was no complete agreement on every detail, but they managed to prevent the conflict from spiralling out of control.
The Admiral explained this behaviour of his superiors by “moralising and misguided idealism”, in my view this is too optimistic an explanation.
The Greek journalist Dimitris Konstantakopoulos chaired one of the sessions. Konstantinopoulos stated that Europe’s sanctions against Russia are not sustainable. Issuing a warning, the Greek expert assessed the situation as follows: “Both in Ukraine and in Western Asia, we are heading towards a very dangerous situation which, if it escalates, could even lead to nuclear war. That is precisely why we must de-escalate tensions, and I fear that very few political forces in Europe realise this. This makes the situation extremely dangerous.”
The Greek expert noted that the sanctions imposed by Europe have not worked. Konstantinopoulos said: “The sanctions have proved ineffective. However, if you wish to achieve the United States’ long-term strategic objective, they have proved effective: namely, to separate Europe from Russia (and the former Soviet Union in the past) and make Europe entirely dependent on the United States. If that was the aim of the sanctions, then they have achieved it. Incidentally, I believe that the entire operation in Ukraine — by which I mean the 2014 coup, because the Ukrainian issue did not begin with Russia’s intervention in 2022 but many years earlier — all this Western aggression in the territories of the former USSR was planned. It was a pre-emptive policy aimed at preventing a potential alliance between Europe and Russia, or, as the former French Prime Minister de Villepin put it, between Europe, Russia and China.”
It takes more than a conference to stop the coming Great War. Still, the Alliance to Prevent the Great War was a very useful discussion of the possible ways to do it. And surely much better than NATO’s own conference of trial balloons for their future war crimes.
US Benefits From Oil Supply Disruptions in Strait of Hormuz – Ex-UK Ambassador
Sputnik – 23.07.2026
The United States benefits from oil supply disruptions caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Craig Murray, a Scottish political activist and former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, told Sputnik.
“The Americans are not unhappy with the disruption of oil supplies. They actually like the disruption of oil supplies because it benefits their own oil producers,” Murray said.
The blockade of the strait is not a big problem for the US, a net oil exporter, as the Americans do not get much oil from the Strait of Hormuz, the ex-diplomat said. It is a problem for China and India, which the US sees as competitors.
“So if they are damaged, that is good from the American perspective,” he added.
Murray compared the Hormuz blockade with the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline, which carried Russian natural gas to Germany and on to other EU countries.
“It did huge damage to Germany and European economies, and the Americans were quite happy. For them, closing the Strait of Hormuz is like blowing up Nord Stream: it damages industrial competitors and energy-exporting competitors,” Murray said.
The US has renewed strikes against Iran since July 8, claiming they are in response to Iran interfering with commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. US President Donald Trump suggested on July 13 that the US could become a “guardian” of the strait in exchange for a 20% fee on cargo shipped through the waterway.
China hawks are losing the public opinion battle
Despite a Beltway push for confrontation, polls show that average Americans want a normal relationship with Beijing
By Frank Yuwen Chen | Responsible Statecraft | July 22, 2026
It sometimes seems easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Washington’s anti-China obsession.
Congressional Republicans, on one side, are championing a staggering $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget that would cannibalize domestic programs to “deter China.” Meanwhile, many of their Democratic colleagues are attacking President Donald Trump due to his apparent lack of enthusiasm for confronting China.
Yet under the surface, a crack is widening between how Beltway elites talk about China and how ordinary Americans view the U.S.-China relationship. In particular, younger Americans are roundly rejecting tough-on-China politics. Over time, this chasm will challenge the very foundation of Washington’s indefinite strategic competition with Beijing.
While the Blob whips itself into an anti-China frenzy, Americans are backing away from the so-called “China consensus.” Over the past two years, national surveys by reputable pollsters have consistently found that Americans are warming up in their views on China and seeking closer ties between the two superpowers. There are reasons to believe this trend will continue.
Indeed, as Americans increasingly struggle with affordability, AI dislocations, and the rising cost of a possible forever war in the Middle East, Beltway China hawks — fixated on commandeering ever more national resources to confront Beijing — are revealing themselves to be a self-sustaining industry detached from both public sentiment and material reality. This gap creates political space for a more grounded and productive approach to U.S.-China relations.
Americans across the political spectrum are moving on from endless China-bashing. Their opinions about China, after years of declining, are meaningfully recovering. Gallup shows China’s favorability climbing 19 points and unfavorability dropping 23 points between 2023 and 2026. Polls from Pew and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs/Ipsos found similar warming trends. Though Republicans are still more hawkish towards China than independents and Democrats, even their views have appreciably moderated.
Concurrently, Americans support closer ties with the rival superpower. The Chicago Council/Ipsos and the Searchlight Institute/Hart show most Americans now favor improving relations and cooperating with China (53% in Ipsos, 50% in Hart) over limiting China’s power (44% in Ipsos, 40% in Hart), a sharp reversal from recent years’ antagonistic attitudes.
Overall perception of China remains negative, with 61% of Americans telling Gallup this year that they had an unfavorable view of the country. But crucially, the “enemy” framing has crumbled. Pew and YouGov surveys show double-digit declines in percentages of Americans calling China an “enemy” over the past two years. Instead, Americans are developing more nuanced views. A characteristic 2026 NPR/Chicago Council/Ipsos poll found Americans more likely to describe China as a “rival” (37%) than an “adversary” (21%); 18% of respondents described Beijing as a “partner.”
Notably, most Americans still see China as some form of threat. Hawks may welcome this as evidence of popular backing for their tough-on-China agenda, but that would be a grave mistake. While public perception of China as a threat is still broad given a decade of hawkish narrative dominance, that perception is increasingly shallow.
From 2023 to 2025, The Economist/YouGov found fewer and fewer Americans describing China’s various threats as “immediate and serious.” Polls by the Institute for Global Affairs/YouGov and the Chicago Council/Ipsos also reveal that Americans view China’s threats as “moderate” rather than “severe.” Indeed, IGA/YouGov found that only 3% of Americans worry about competition with China in their daily lives, underscoring how abstract the “China threat” is for most people. Americans may continue to hold unfavorable opinions of China, but there is little indication they will accept the enormous costs needed to contain China.
Stark generational divides — fueled by radically different life experiences and information environments — are propelling this opinion shift. Throughout all surveys, across party lines, adults under 45 and especially those under 30 simply do not see China as an adversary, ideological nemesis, or existential threat
An illustrative 2025 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace/YouGov study found that 52% of Americans over 65 say China surpassing the U.S. in global power would make their lives worse; however, those under 30 completely disagree, with 73% saying their lives would not worsen. Even on the right, younger Republicans are much more dovish towards China than their older counterparts. The Manhattan Institute found that 45% of Republicans under 50 see China as a global power to cooperate with, and only 24% see it as an adversary; that ratio transforms to 18% vs. 67% for Republicans over 65.
This shift is not occurring in a vacuum. Americans’ warming views on China coincide with China’s rising global approval, which has overtaken that of the U.S. Simultaneously, Americans increasingly accept the fact of multipolarity. Contra Beltway consensus, Americans now want the U.S. to either share leadership roles with other powers or drastically scale back international involvement rather than clinging to global dominance. These mutually reinforcing trends further deflate any popular enthusiasm for the hawks’ grandiose project of leading a global coalition to take on China.
What explains this unmistakable change in public opinion? Americans are not becoming pro-Beijing; they have simply become skeptical of Washington’s interminable crying wolf about China. Meanwhile, they see that their own government, which frames confronting China as essential to safeguarding American democracy and prosperity, consistently ignores their democratic will and increasingly fails to meet their basic needs.
The rapprochement Americans want is not about capitulating to China, as some hawks claim, but smart pragmatism. More and more voters recognize the reality of China’s rise and want peace and mutually beneficial outcomes, not ideological crusades the country can’t afford and is unlikely to win.
Skeptics of this public opinion shift may attribute changes only to Trump’s reshuffling of U.S. foreign policy priorities and the backlash against him, expecting faith in U.S. hegemony to recover and robust strategic competition against China to return once Trump leaves office. But that would be foolish.
While those factors (along with fading COVID-related hostilities) certainly played a role, they can’t explain, for example, why Democratic voters — who oppose nearly everything Trump does — still predominantly support improving ties with China despite the fact that Trump is the one driving that approach. Nor can they explain the stark generational divides, and why younger Americans across party lines simply refuse to see China as an enemy.
Rather, Americans’ rejection of Beltway China hawkishness is likely driven more by bigger forces like young people’s near-total disillusionment with the American dream and American exceptionalism, growing weariness with U.S. hegemony, mounting constraints on America’s ability to coerce China, and increasing acceptance of China’s still-rising power. Public sentiments may fluctuate, but these structural trends will persist.
If policymakers ignore these trends and insist on an unrealistic grand strategy centered on confronting China, they risk not only profound policy failures but also a dangerous democratic deficit. As the “guns vs. butter” tension heightens and politicians choose sustaining militarism over addressing worsening domestic needs, populist anger and political instability will only intensify.
But the good news is that the political space for averting a “New Cold War” with China is real and growing. If the U.S. wants to focus on domestic regeneration, it needs to secure a peaceful and productive relationship with China.
The lane is wide open for a potent vision of renewal that promises to shift Washington’s focus away from dominating the world and confronting China and toward solving urgent problems and bettering Americans’ lives at home, offering voters tangible benefits from peace and cooperation. The question is whether any political coalition — particularly after Trump leaves office with his improvisational détente with China still unfinished — will have the courage to occupy it.
Frank Yuwen Chen is a China analyst and media strategist. He is currently Manager, US-China Relations at ReThink Media. He researches international political economy, US-China diplomatic history, domestic politics of US foreign policy, and the future of US-China relations. Previously, he had extensive experience leading media and digital strategy for political campaigns and nonprofits.
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From the Archives
A short history of British torture
ICC | December 2005
When the House of Commons was debating how much to increase the time limit for detention without trial the question of torture came up. Officially this was limited to the nice considerations of whether it was all right to send people to places where torture is used and whether Britain can use information collected by the use of torture in other countries. This discussion gave an impression of democratic Britain as the home of civilised behaviour where the very idea of torture is repugnant to our legislators – unlike, say, the US with its secret CIA jails… In reality, the British state has a long history of using and developing a whole range of torture techniques. … continue
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