The West’s spree of “shadow fleet” seizures might finally be coming to an end after what Putin just told his Pacific Fleet commanders during his visit to the Russian Far East. As he phrased it, “We can see that the officials of some countries are attempting to restrict the movement of our economic operators’ vessels by peaceful means in violation of International Maritime Law, but recently it occurred to them that they can seize our vessels and sell our looted property. This is nothing short of piracy and plunder.”
He then threatened that, “If this happens, we will have to reciprocate – not necessarily in the waters where they plan to raid our own ships but anywhere we consider necessary or reasonable, including in the Pacific Fleet’s area of responsibility.” Pacific Fleet Commander Adm. Viktor Liina told Putin during his turn to speak that “Between April 24 and August 6, 2026, a total of 1,001 vessels transited the exclusive economic zone of the Russian Federation along the islands of the South Kuril chain alone.”
He added that “Of these, 379 sailed under the flags of unfriendly states, including 273 bulk carriers and 71 tankers, among which were 26 vessels from the United Kingdom and 9 from France. Simultaneously, Western states are actively enlisting vessels flying the flags of third countries to transport cargo in their interests. In essence, this constitutes their own shadow fleet. We possess the necessary forces to inspect and detain vessels belonging to unfriendly states and their shadow fleet”.
Putin’s threatened tit-for-tat seizures of foreign vessels came half a year after his senior aide Nikolai Patrushev told local media that “If we don’t respond firmly, the British, French, and even the Baltic states will soon become so brazen that they will attempt to completely block our country’s access to the seas”. The Chairman of the Maritime Board then suggested “permanently stationing significant forces in key maritime routes, including in regions remote from Russia, ready to cool the ardor of Western corsairs.”
In retrospect, ever-cautious Putin gave the West the chance to stop its policy of seizing Russia’s “shadow fleet” vessels so as to avoid any reciprocal escalation that could accidentally risk sparking World War III, but this was misinterpreted by them as weakness and only emboldened them. Likewise, the same can be said about Russia holding back on its late-May threat to carry out “systematic strikes” against Ukraine, in response to which Ukraine launched a Western-backed “war of attrition” against Russia.
The self-evident existential stakes of eschewing any reciprocal escalation as Ukraine systematically attempted to deindustrialize and demilitarize Russia with Western support finally convinced Putin to mildly “escalate to de-escalate” in Kharkov and Odessa Regions. This represented the first time that he’s consistently done so since the special operation began, which then arguably emboldened him to now seriously consider doing the same at sea in response to any future seizure of his “shadow fleet” vessels.
To be clear, Putin conditioned Russia’s tit-for-tat seizure of foreign vessels on being “anywhere we consider necessary or reasonable”, so it’s possible that Western vessels will avoid Russian waters and take care to also avoid the Russian Navy wherever they may be in the world. This means that tit-for-tat seizures shouldn’t be taken for granted despite his threat, but the significance rests in Putin once again “escalating to de-escalate” in a bid to restore deterrence, which he had hitherto been reluctant to do.
By The Grayzone & Kit Klarenberg, The Grayzone, 7/26/26
One has to ask: Why are knuckleheads like this allowed to have access to the highest echelons of power in the UK? And why are they taken seriously at all? – Natylie
Leaks reveal failed journalist Paul Mason secretly advised ex-Prime Minister Keir Starmer, his Defence Secretary and now-Chancellor John Healey, and top aides on important security matters.
Mason’s belligerent pronouncements on the need for Britain to “deter” Russia through a massive military build-up influenced Labour’s policies and rhetoric.
Mason was secretly working with notorious British military intelligence operative Chris Donnelly to turn Labour toward a hardline position on Russia and defense spending.
Since the Ukraine proxy war erupted, Donnelly has secretly guided London on escalation strategies, including attacks on Kerch Bridge, and the creation of Gladio-style terrorist armies in Ukraine.
All along, he and Mason have fed lines to Healey and other Labour frontbenchers on the conflict, while advising how Britain should respond to political and military developments, even authoring key speeches for Healey.
Healey has consistently pushed for Britain to prime itself for direct conflict with Russia, even resigning over Starmer’s supposed refusal to increase defense spending. Leaked emails indicate these positions were influenced by Mason and Donnelly’s covert influence. As Chancellor, Healey can now fund their apocalyptic vision.
John Healey, whose dramatic June 11 resignation as Britain’s Defence Secretary precipitated Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s fall, has returned to government as Chancellor under newly-anointed premier Andy Burnham.
Healey’s departure was triggered by Starmer and his administration being “unable” and “unwilling” to “commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country,” making Britain “less safe.” This followed four years in opposition, then two in government pushing for more militaristic stances on Russia, and demanding ramped up state spending on defense. As Chancellor, Healey now has the chance to fund Britain’s military to the hilt at the expense of the country’s already hollowed-out social sector.
Leaked emails reviewed by The Grayzone reveal how Healey’s militaristic stances on Russia were secretly influenced by a brain trust consisting of the former celebrity leftist and failed journalist Paul Mason, and the scandal-stained British intelligence veteran Chris Donnelly.
See the leaked email communications between Paul Mason, Chris Donnelly, John Healey and other advisors here.
Mason and Donnelly exploited their high-level access to Healey to foment wider support within the Labour party, and Starmer’s government, for the most aggressive policies possible on the Ukraine conflict. Along the way, Donnelly consistently advised Healey to support dangerously escalatory actions, arguing if Moscow was provoked as a result, then “so be it.”
Donnelly is most notorious as the founder of the Integrity Initiative, a covert information warfare network spanning Europe, encompassing networks of pro-war influencers and journalists, and dedicated to the mission of flooding Western media with anti-Russian propaganda.
For his part, the self-described “antifascist” Mason now cools his heels at a NATO-funded think tank after burning out as a maverick lefty correspondent for Channel 4 and the BBC. Mason’s public image as a celebrity leftist imploded after The Grayzone exposed him as a security state collaborator who covertly pitched the UK government on his own Integrity Initiative-style propaganda network, while furnishing British officials with a bizarre “mind-map” of the antiwar left containing targets he sought to neutralize. Those targets included this publication, which Mason plotted to sue for our factual reporting on his machinations.
Emails reviewed by The Grayzone show both figures were in continuous contact with Healey from 2021 onwards, providing him with advice on how to escalate conflict with Russia and increase the defense budget, while angling for plum appointments as national security advisors.
Advising Healey to ignore “alarmist” talk of nuclear war
In his resignation letter, Healey took aim at Starmer’s “defence investment plan,” declaring it to be “well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time.” He stated it was “imperative” to “speed up the readiness” of Britain’s military to fight within two years, to be prepared to wage all-out war on Russia by 2030. Healey is now ideally placed as Chancellor to finance these objectives, when London is already committedly on the warpath.
Five days before Burnham took office, it was announced the British government would soon encourage citizens to “stockpile food, water and medicine to prepare for war.” A countrywide “national campaign to get the country ready for conflict will also include a multi-day crisis response exercise next year.”
The campaign seemed to embrace advice Donnelley had been providing to Healey since April 2022, when he emphasized the “urgency” of “moving to the kind of wartime footing needed to prosecute” the Ukraine proxy conflict “successfully.” In those exchanges with Healey, Donnelly demanded “a big rethink” by the British government “on spending, forces, posture, readiness.”
At the same time, as The Grayzone first revealed, he was secretly furnishing the Ministry of Defence with blueprints for a campaign of state terror against Russia for the Ministry of Defence. These included a plan to bomb the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland – a proposal that was executed by Ukrainian intelligence operatives on October 2022. Donnelly’s long-held fantasies of exploiting Ukraine as a beachhead for a Western-wide war on Russia are now a reality.
As the conflict broadens, threatening to involve new NATO partner states, Donnelly believes there is nothing to fear. In fact, he used Healey as his channel for encouraging the Labour Party to adopt his escalatory master plan.
Around the time when Donnelly’s Kerch Bridge plot was being executed, he was secretly counseling Healey and Labour to avoid “alarmist” public discussions about nuclear war, for fear such careless talk could “stop our support of Ukraine.”
Donnelly’s covert role as counselor of Labour’s most influential defense officials appears to have brought Britain closer to the brink of direct conflict with Russia. Exposing the private discussions that led the country to this perilous point is clearly in the public interest.
Healey recruits Mason and Donnelly to get tough on Russia
In August 2021, the UK Spectator’s gossip columnist revealed that Paul Mason was providing private consultancy services to Healey. The leaked emails seen by The Grayzone now demonstrate that Mason’s influence on Healey went much deeper, revealing that the former celebrity leftist gained access to Healey’s key advisors, defense and foreign policy apparatchiks close to Starmer, and Starmer himself, first while in opposition, then in government.
In fact, Mason had been privately contracted in January 2021 by Healey to help build the “core narratives” of Labour’s defense policy.
This included constructing detailed positions on NATO, the “Russia threat”, industrial strategy, embedding the military “further into civil society,” Britain’s nuclear deterrent, “special relationship” with the US, and the ever-crucial question of defense spending. Mason’s outputs included a “speech, three articles and core Labour narratives for external/internal use” to be delivered within weeks. The impact on Labour’s rhetoric and policies on military and war matters was immediate.
In early February 2021, Healey delivered a controversial, Mason-influenced speech in which he implicitly attacked Corbyn’s personal opposition to NATO membership and nuclear weapons, declaring Labour’s commitment to both “unshakeable”. Over prior weeks, Mason had forwarded a number of briefings and speech drafts to Healey, directly channelling Chris Donnelly’s thinking and rhetoric. Eerily foreshadowing Healey’s grounds for resigning as Defence Minister, these materials called for investing significantly in London’s ability to “deter” Russia, and “[taking] seriously the expansion of Britain’s defence industrial capacity.”
Mason advocated Healey conduct “briefings and engagement with Labour MPs, think tanks and influencers,” to “create a ‘script’ from which” Labour’s defense messaging would emerge. However, Healey’s comments rankled Labour’s remaining Corbynite lawmakers. Kim Johnson MP formally emailed him saying she was a “little concerned” the party had apparently “shifted position” on NATO and nukes “without any debate or discussion” with parliamentarians. “Do you have any plans to communicate with MP’s/Lords[?]” she enquired.
Healey forwarded her email to Mason, who dismissed Johnson’s suggestions Labour had “shifted position.” He argued Healey’s comments simply reflected how “we are shutting down the possibility” Labour could support unilateral disarmament, or go “anti-NATO”. Mason was avowedly “keen to have this argument out overtly” with opponents of nuclear weapons. He also provided “confidential” feedback from Donnelly, who praised Healey’s “really excellent” speech. “There is a lot here I can help on,” Donnelly wrote, including “acquisition,” and the necessity of “culture change” within Britain’s military.
Donnelly encourages ‘so be it’ attitude on provoking nuclear war
Mason concluded by telling Healey, “I want to set up a meeting with me, you and [Donnelly],” which the Shadow Defence Secretary said he’d “very much like.” After a personal rendezvous brokered by Mason, Donnelly began regularly sending briefings and papers to Healey through private channels, often circumventing his formal advisors. His deranged prescriptions were particularly pronounced in a January 2022 exchange with Healey, inspired by then-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace indicating Britain “would be open to supplying further ‘defensive’ weaponry” to Kiev.
At this time, the drums of proxy war were beating with growing intensity in Donbass, where Kiev was preparing an offensive against the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. Healey personally requested Donnelly’s “advice on what sort of weapons or systems might be considered or requested” for Ukraine, given Wallace’s comments. Donnelly bluntly declared, “what Ukraine needs most of all is long-range strike” capability.
But in a rare display of prudence, the Shadow Defense Secretary pushed back on his secret advisor’s proposal. Healey noted that supplying Kiev with long-range missiles would represent “a big policy change” and “provocation to Putin.” He observed how the “long-term security risk” of Ukraine possessing and developing such offensive weaponry was the “primary problem for Russia.” Healey angsted, “if diplomatic route does not deliver then Putin only has military options, and may consider the costs of inaction now would be greater than the costs of military escalation.”
Donnelly dismissed Healey’s concerns about provoking Russia into a wider war. He suggested Putin was actually unconcerned by “military issues,” and “the real threat [to Russia] is Ukraine choosing to become a Western-style liberal democracy.” Donnelly insisted that Moscow’s resistance to NATO simply stemmed from the prospect of Kiev “being free to choose a different path.” This was supposedly “the most likely thing to cause spontaneous popular uprising” against the Kremlin, hence Putin’s NATO worries.
Donnelly then thundered for providing Ukraine with long-range missiles, consequences be demanded. “If that is provocation, so be it,” he proclaimed.
By October 2022, with the proxy war against Russia in full swing, a Healey aide fretted about the possibility of a nuclear exchange. He solicited Donnelly’s “thoughts on what Labour should say publicly about the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons by Putin,” and what the party’s “talking points should be” on the matter.
Donnelly responded by cautioning against discussing nuclear war “in an alarmist way,” as this could “intimidate the West into capitulating” and “stop our support of Ukraine.” He claimed NATO would simply “destroy Russian forces in Ukraine with conventional weapons,” thus averting nuclear war altogether.
Mason: Gen Z ‘will fight’ Russia, through conscription if necessary
By January 2024, Russia and Ukraine were still locked a full-blown war, hundreds of thousands of men were dead, and Mason was still on the line with Donnelly, plotting an even greater escalation.
In an email exchange with Donnelly, the faded journalist declared that “in confidence,” he was “hoping to work for John Healey soon,” now in a formal capacity. Mason cautioned, however, that “I have to be careful what I say in public from now on if I become [Healey’s] adviser.”
Behind-the-scenes, Mason was spinning out unhinged proposals to precipitate a “big expansion” in Britain’s military reserves. This included “recruiting tech nerds and putting them at or close to the front line,” to boost London’s drone and electronic warfare capabilities.
Ever the social justice warrior, Mason was also preoccupied with compelling more women to pursue technology and science degrees, preparing them for “defence and nuclear jobs.” Among his bold ideas was creating “new kinds of units” within the British Army, such as “Women only artillery? Muslim-only units?”
While Mason’s ideas ran the gamut of half-baked liberal interventionist ploys, he “firmly” believed Gen Z “will fight” in a future war with Russia. And he was just the man to make military service cool again. “Motivating them is a big cultural challenge and something I want to focus on” with Healey, Mason mused.
But if jumping the trenches in a potentially apocalyptic land war against Russia did not appeal to the sensibilities of extremely online Gen Z’ers – who state in large numbers that they would never fight for their country – they would have to be press ganged into service.
“I am in favour of a big expansion in [British Army] reserves and a cultural change to make it happen – with conscription as a last option,” Mason explained.
He added that the prospect of working directly alongside then-Defence Secretary Healey was fueling his repeated failed attempts to enter parliament. However, Mason didn’t give much to his chances, as “Labour are very factional and I’m in the wrong faction.” In response, Donnelly said it would be “wonderful” if Mason worked for Healey, “even more so” if he was the Defence Secretary’s parliamentary private secretary, as an MP, because “we definitely need you in parliament.”
Two days later, Donnelly forwarded a “Guide to Leadership Change in Russia” to Healey. It was privately produced by his employer, shadowy intelligence cutout Earendel Associates. The firm has served as a front for Donnelly’s construction of secret Ukrainian terror armies. Its report outlined scenarios for removing Putin from power, including “decisive military reversal or defeat in Ukraine.” It dismissed any suggestion a palace coup in Moscow would produce “significant and lasting dysfunctionality of state institutions,” or the country’s outright “breakdown”.
In response, Healey gratefully praised the “really excellent paper.” He said its “well referenced” arguments for regime change in Russia needed “to be taken to the heart of UK (and especially US) leadership thinking.” Healey may have had an opportunity to personally do so subsequently.
On July 4, Labour was elected with a historic parliamentary majority. Within days, Healey and Starmer appeared at that year’s NATO summit, pledging Britain would be the “leading European nation” in the alliance, and Ukraine’s “most reliable ally.”
Britain ‘adapting as war requires’ at Donnelly’s demand
While the victory in London filled Mason and Donnelly with hope for expanding the Ukraine proxy war, subsequent developments in Washington threatened their ambitions.
On November 8 2024, a “depressed” Donnelly emailed Mason to commiserate over Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential election a night prior. He lamented that Trump, who had campaigned on a pledge to negotiate an immediate peace between Ukraine and Russia, will be out to change things in a big way,” potentially meaning “serious danger for Ukraine” and “a very big shake up for NATO.”
In response to Trump’s triumph, Donnelly suggested Britain’s national defence and security, including “industrial and procurement systems,” required “fundamental restructuring.” He enquired, “do you think anyone in government realises this?”
Mason responded, “I think John Healey does.”
He went on to complain that “Starmer does not have any political geostrategists in his team.”
Naturally, Mason saw an easy way to fix the problem. It entailed Starmer hiring him to guide the war effort.
“That’s something I could remedy if they would let me but they don’t,” he commented.
Mason said he was working with the Tony Blair-linked think tank Progressive Britain to build “a pro-defence/UK strategic interest lobby” among the Parliamentary Labour Party. They also founded a now-defunct outfit called Labour Friends of Ukraine to push for more spending on weapons.
Mason signed off, “what’s the three things I should push in face to face contacts with Labour?”
Donnelly was “very glad indeed” to learn Healey agreed with him that Britain’s national security required “fundamental restructuring.” Donnelly had “heard nothing from him since just after” the July general election. He went on to state, “the most important thing to get across” to Labour parliamentarians was how Britain’s “national governance system” is “dysfunctional”.
Until being “fixed” according to Donnelly’s specifications, he believed “the government will be unable to develop and implement the policies and strategy we need to face what’s coming.”
Deploying another series of buzzwords for massive increases in military spending, Donnelly called for “fundamental reform” of all Britain’s military structures, including commissioning and industry, to make them “permanently adaptable” as “war absolutely requires.” Donnelly warned any increased defense spending would be wasted without these reforms in place, “and we will be completely screwed.”
Healey’s resignation as Defence Minister and reassignment to the Chancellor of the Exchequer under a new Labour administration appear to have secured one the key goals which Donnelly and Mason have lobbied for behind the scenes.
The war will go on. And if it turns nuclear, then “so be it.”
George Beebe is the Director of Grand Strategy for the Quincy Institute. He spent more than two decades in government as an intelligence analyst, diplomat, and policy advisor, including as director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and as a staff advisor on Russia matters to Vice President Cheney. He is the author of “The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe” (2019).
Over the course of a few short weeks, a grim new reality has taken shape in Ukraine.
Russia has shown that it need not conquer and occupy Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coastline to turn that country into the equivalent of a landlocked state. It need only deny access to Ukraine’s critically important Odessa port complex, something it is doing quite effectively through air and missile strikes on port facilities and approaching ships.
That reality will probably not amount to a knock-out blow in the ongoing war. But it is likely to have a profound impact on Ukraine’s already gloomy post-war prospects — and, by extension, on the contours of a new European security landscape in the current conflict’s aftermath.
Only a handful of months ago, Russia was conducting few military operations against Odessa. Early in the war, attacks by Russia and Ukraine on merchant shipping in the Black Sea had threatened to choke off agricultural exports vital to world markets. Under pressure from India and other key partners in the Global South, Moscow agreed to the so-called “Grain Deal” with Ukraine, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, to allow unimpeded commercial exports from the region.
For some four years thereafter, the Odessa port system remained open to Ukrainian imports and exports, handling some 90% of Ukraine’s agricultural trade. Russian hardliners bristled at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s refusal to attack Ukraine’s vital but vulnerable port, grumbling that Putin seemed more interested in avoiding rifts with Global South states than defeating Ukraine.
Several factors have combined to change this picture. One was the evident failure of the West’s campaign to turn Russia into a pariah state, a brainchild of the Biden administration that had magnified the importance of the Global South to Moscow as a means of avoiding international isolation. A second has been the depletion of Ukrainian air defense interceptors, which has left Odessa largely defenseless against Russian ballistic missiles and allowed bomb-carrying aircraft to operate in closer proximity to the port complex, increasing the accuracy and destructiveness of Russian air strikes.
Ironically enough, perhaps the most important factor was Ukraine’s own “40-day influence campaign” announced in late June, which included long- and medium-range drone strikes on energy infrastructure in Russia and merchant shipping in the Sea of Azov. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the campaign was aimed at “influencing the aggressor state in order to compel it to end the war.” President Trump described it more plainly as an “escalation that we hope will lead to peace.”
In practice, however, the escalation allowed Russia to deflect Global South criticism for violating terms of the Grain Deal by arguing it was Ukraine that had kicked off the recent cycle of shipping and port attacks.
The near-term effects have been disturbingly clear. Since July 22, the Russian military has effectively closed the Ukrainian port complex in and around Odessa to all shipping. The loss of its remaining deep-water ports is already having a devastating effect on Ukraine’s agricultural exports — the backbone of its economy — which officials warn may plummet by 50% in the coming months because alternative land, rail, and river routes have much less capacity and are much more costly.
The damage to Ukraine’s economy probably will be manageable in the near term so long as Europe steps up its flow of aid. But the impact of Odessa’s closure on Ukraine’s post-war prospects may prove to be much more profound.
It has long been assumed in both Washington and Europe that the main alternative to a compromise settlement of the Russia-Ukraine war is the transformation of Ukraine into a “steel porcupine.” The concept envisions a heavily armed and fortified Ukraine that can serve as a barrier to further Russian aggression and allow the hot war to settle into a stable, frozen conflict.
Proponents of this vision dismiss prospective “land for peace” deals with Moscow and oppose any quantitative or qualitative limitations on Ukraine’s military — points that Russian officials say are essential to any peace deal — arguing that such concessions would “reward Russian aggression” and prevent Ukraine from becoming an Eastern European variant of Israel, a “Major Non-NATO Ally” that punches well above its weight-class in regional affairs and serves as a keystone of broader European defense plans.
However, if Russia can use air and missile attacks to deny Ukraine the use of its port facilities, it can also prevent Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and economic revitalization. Just as merchant ships will not risk Russian attacks to enter Odessa, construction firms are unlikely to risk Russian airstrikes in attempting to build or repair bridges, roads, factories, ports, and other vital infrastructure. Nor will investors risk hundreds of billions of dollars if Russian missiles and bombs can destroy any Ukrainian reconstruction project in a matter of hours.
Without large-scale economic reconstruction and the jobs and stability that would follow, few of the millions of Ukrainians who fled the war (most for Europe but many for Russia) will return. Absent mass repatriation, Ukraine is likely to enter a demographic death-spiral. By Ukrainian officials’ own admission, a population that approached 52 million people when the Soviet Union broke up now stands at between 22 and 25 million people, and nearly half of them are retirees.
According to one estimate, Ukraine’s working age population – the backbone of both its civilian economy and its military — could lose an additional third by 2040. The number of children, the embodiment of Ukraine’s future, could decline to half its pre-war level.
This raises an obvious but under-discussed question: How can an aging and dying Ukrainian population, lacking a strong economic base, serve as a “new Sparta” countering a nuclear-armed Russia that is seven times its size?
The closure of Odessa should highlight two salient points for Western leaders. First, neither Ukraine nor the West can eliminate the threat of Russian air and missile strikes through military means alone. Second, Russia will have strong reason to continue them, even after it eventually halts large-scale ground operations, if the Kremlin worries that the West will otherwise turn Ukraine into a safe haven for threatening Russian security.
As a result, the alternative to an uncomfortable compromise settlement of the war will not be a steel Ukrainian porcupine. It will be a weak and dysfunctional rump state that ill-serves Ukrainians and undermines Europe’s broader security.
First a follow up– “The NDAA doesn’t ‘merge’ the US & ‘Israeli’ militaries. Why? Because there is ZERO equivalent law in ‘Israel’. ‘Israel’ gets everything—US data, joint R&D, and supply chain integration. The US gets no matching access to IOF bases, factories, or decisions. It’s an official one-way takeover.”
Introduction
Ray McGovern recently recalled John F. Kennedy’s admonition that a nuclear power should never be put in a position where it must accept humiliating defeat or use nuclear weapons. But what if the nuclear power puts itself in that position? US foreign policy is directing the proxy wars against Russia and on Iran. The US appears to be losing both wars. This means the US must either compromise, accept defeat, or turn to nuclear weapons. The result of using nuclear weapons would be WW3, and the US homeland would not be spared.
This Substack has argued that the goal of US foreign policy, through both Republican and Democratic Administrations, has been to maintain US global dominance and to prevent any challenge to that dominance. On the issues of US Militarism and Military Keynesianism, the US has been ruled by a “Uniparty” funded by the same interests. The US is also burdened by both Neoliberalism that has distorted the US economy, and by Neoconservatism (Neocons) who have pushed the wars on Russia and in the Middle East. Both ideologies are infected by Zionism.
How the Uniparty political dynamic works was clearly illustrated this week when House Democrats voted to direct President Donald Trump to end his illegal war against Iran, when just a day earlier Democrats gave up their best chances to force Trump’s hand after six Democrats provided the decisive votes to pass the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Six Democrats rescued the bill after seven Republicans defected, leaving GOP leaders unable to pass it with Republican votes alone. The bill passed 216–212 thanks to the 6 Democrats. This is not the first time this has happened.
This is how the “Uniparty Kabuki Theater” operates in DC. The pretense that US militarism and these forever wars do not have bi-partisan support is designed to fool political partisans and allow the US to continue these wars of choice. Until the Uniparty era is ended, the risk that the US will resort to using nuclear weapons, rather than compromise or admit defeat, will persist.
The US no longer has the industrial capacity needed to support these wars of choice. Fifty years of neoliberal economic policies, decades of neocon wars and the rise of a FIRE economy has destroyed US industry and industrial expertise. FIRE stands for Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate. Remember the triple issues to be addressed and reformed if our country is to survive; Monopolization, Financialization, and Militarism. This is assuming reform is still possible without collapsing the US economy.
This is not a matter of “good versus evil” as the DC establishment would have us believe. Neither Iran nor Russia are inhabited by “evil people” nor are they led by “evil” leaders. Instead, all of us should be thankful for the patience and restraint shown thus far by the leaders of both countries.
Threats Do Not Win Wars
To its credit, the Trump administration did attempt to end the war on Iran by agreeing to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Unfortunately, enormous concessions were required on Trump’s part to get the Iranians to agree. When the terms of the MOU were revealed, they were so astonishingly one-sided and favorable to Iran that the document was widely described as tantamount to an American surrender. That was the overwhelming verdict of observers, whether supporters of the war or its opponents, whether Americans or Israelis, all of whom generally described the document in such humiliating terms. Outraged Neocon hawks ferociously denounced Trump, even doing so on his own beloved Fox Newsnetwork. This forced Trump violate the terms of the agreement and resume the war.
Now, an obviously frustrated President Trump has been relegated to making constant threats given the failure of US strategy. Just this week Trump made escalatory threats against nuclear and civilian Iranian targets. Trump added later that the US would destroy an Iranian bridge or power plant each time Tehran’s forces targeted a ship in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump also on Thursday warned the Houthis and Iran that they would face “major military punishment” if the attacks continued and later said “any and all damages done” to ships and cargo “will be paid for by Iranian Money that the United States has in its possession, and control.”
Even if the US tries to bomb Iranian energy infrastructure, attacks on the grid would have limited effects due to decentralization. From Global 21: “To obliterate both the electrical and oil sectors, multiple waves of missiles and guided bombs would be required against each of these targets. We are talking about 6,000 to 10,000 projectiles.”
“The Iranian electric grid is one of the most decentralized in the world, with around 130 to 150 large power plants, primarily gas-fired thermal plants. No single facility dominates large portions of the country’s electricity generation. The largest plant, Damavand near Tehran, has a capacity of approximately 2,868 MW, only about 2.9% of total installed capacity.”
“To effectively paralyze Iran’s electricity supply, an adversary would also need to target the transmission and distribution network, which stretches over 133,000 kilometers, and exceeds 1.3 million kilometers when rural and urban lines are included.”
“Adding Iran’s oil and derivatives infrastructure makes the challenge even greater. This sector includes approximately 350 to 400 main facilities distributed among processing, storage, and export units. These comprise 9 main refineries, 66 drilling platforms, and more than 10 large complexes, occupying a combined area of over 500 km² spread across Iranian territory”.
“To obliterate both the electrical and oil sectors, multiple waves of missiles and guided bombs would be required against each of these targets. We are talking about 6,000 to 10,000 projectiles, attacks that would take weeks. The ammunition simply does not exist in the American arsenal available today, except for short-range bombs. Those short-range bombs would force aviation deeper into Iranian airspace, significantly increasing aircraft losses.”
But the Trump team may go even more directly after the means of survival in Iran, as in water and grain stores. From Brett Erickson on Twitter: “My concern about Trump’s (apparent) willingness to escalate here is what the most likely escalation pathway is”.
“This isn’t about “reopening the Strait of Hormuz”, this is about terrorizing the Iranian civilians. Plain and simple.”
“My concern, however, is that he won’t stop here. Many of the most vicious Iran Hawks, the very same people that have overwhelmingly driven our Iran strategy thus far, are pushing for Trump to go much further.”
“They’re calling for Trump to strike water storage facilities. Wheat storage. To bomb vital economic infrastructure in Iran that would devastate the civilian population. To force inflation to skyrocket, the Rial to collapse, unemployment to wreak havoc.”
“This continued escalation is worrisome to markets,” said Bill Campbell, a portfolio manager at DoubleLine. “Oil is spiking at a time when things are much more precarious.” …. “Last time around I was more confident there was an off-ramp for President Trump. This time around it feels much more serious,” he added….
Trump has abandoned his practice of trying to reassure markets with “A deal is nigh!” patter either directly or through anonymous sources to Barak Ravid of Axios. He is instead using Axios to signal his commitment to more violence against Iran, with no consideration for collateral damage. From Exclusive: Trump “close” to decision on “massive attack” on Iran: “President Trump told Axios on Thursday that he’s seriously considering restarting major combat operations in Iran— including strikes that would be bigger than the ones carried out during Operation Epic Fury.”
The war on Iran has the feeling of “Déjà Vue Biden” after the Neocons were unable to end the failed Ukraine war, and now an increasingly frantic Trump and his Neocons are equally pushing the war on Iran despite a failed strategy. These two old decadent men were pushed by an irresponsible apparatus to double down on their mistakes. Meanwhile, even the CIA assesses that Trump’s nightly bombing campaign is completely failing to move Iran.
The Strait of Houmuz
𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝗻-𝗻𝗲𝗴𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲: “The strait was never about America’s fuel. It is about America’s POWER and naval supremacy at sea, and on that ledger it is non-negotiable”.
“One. Naval supremacy itself. For 75 years the US Navy’s core claim has been that it CAN and WILL keep any sea lane open at will. If it cannot reopen Hormuz to what it was before the war, that claim is broken in front of the whole world. The day America is seen to fail at a chokepoint is the day the actual decline of its command of the seas begins, visibly, everywhere at once.”
“Two. The USD dollar. A contested strait lets Iran keep selling oil priced in Chinese yuan or barter or anything outside the dollar system entirely. Every barrel settled in yuan or anything else is a small hole in the reserve currency that underwrites American superpower status. Left open, that hole widens, and others follow through it. “
“Three. The credibility of the guarantee. Every ally that shelters under American protection is watching one test. Can Washington still deliver? Fail at Hormuz and the Gulf, Asia and Europe all quietly begin pricing a world where the guarantee is soft. This is also why Europe is on the sideline waiting and watching… Four. The precedent. If Iran, a mid-power, can close a chokepoint against the US Naval superpower and make it stick, every rival with a strait of its own takes note. Bab al-Mandeb. Malacca. The lesson travels instantly and it has”
The US Does Not Have the Industrial Capacity to Sustain These Wars
According to the Financial Times: Europe and the US would have to invest $23.6 trillion over the next 25 years to “end their reliance on China in critical industries such as manufacturing and technology, and to replicate China’s infrastructure, research, software, manufacturing and supply chain advances. Meanwhile, during those 25 years, the Chinese will have advanced into another stratosphere entirely.” The conclusion: the west can no longer win the race for industrial competence. This is an indictment of militarism and the entire strategy behind US foreign policy and NATO, especially since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The US and NATO spent too much on militarism and war, and too little on planning, infrastructure, and developing human resources.
Five decades of US neo-liberal deindustrialization destroyed the very foundation of the industry and manufacturing needed to support US global dominance. What neoliberals failed to consider as they off shored US manufacturing was; for every industrial job lost, another 2 jobs would also be lost, along with the skills. The result, entire supply chains decayed or were transferred abroad while industrial machinery and plants rotted away. Neoliberalism threw away what took decades to build.
This entire neoliberal off shoring fiasco was designed to increase corporate profits at the expense of labor. The result has been the destruction of both the US industrial base and the knowledge base of US labor that is needed to rebuild.
US corporate management is indoctrinated to believe that labor is just a cost factor. The impact of this indoctrination can be seen in the decades of layoffs, wage cuts, union-bashing and the crushing of real wages. The effort to rebuild the US industrial base now confronts, not only the cost, but a skills and a wage gap. The “old hands” who could have handed knowledge over to the younger workers have either retired or been let go decades ago. The US education system is not designed to teach the skills that would be needed to construct the new factories. Elon Musk promises to build robots to do the job but who will run the robots?
Let’s look at the impact on weapons systems: Here’s CBS News: Rapid pace of interceptor and precision-guided weapons use worries Trump administration: “Washington — The rapid pace at which the U.S. is expending some of its most advanced air-defense interceptors and precision-guided weapons in the Middle East is a point of great tension inside the Trump administration as President Trump’s war with Iran ratchets up again, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials familiar with internal assessments. And it’s raising broader concerns about America’s readiness for a potential conflict in the Indo-Pacific. The dwindling stockpiles of defensive interceptors and long-range missiles have become a pressure point for top military and civilian leaders who are weighing the demands of the war with Iran against maintaining readiness to deter other adversaries, including China.”
—the U.S. cannot sustain the rate at which it expended precision munitions early in the campaign against Iran. The defense industrial base is not equipped to produce missiles rapidly enough to replenish munitions that have been fired or transferred to U.S. Central Command,
…..One partner country told CBS News there is a need for a pause in fighting, particularly given the intensity of Iranian strikes that have been battering Kuwait and Bahrain……
….Taken together, the numbers suggest that the central problem is not simply cost but time. Many of the weapons being fired in weeks or months cannot be replaced for years.
The US/Ukrainian Drone and Kerosene Drone War against Russia
Ukraine, with US targeting support, is sending hundreds of drones into Russia every day. While many are being shot down, Russia is a huge country so many still get through. Some of these drones are loaded with kerosene and are designed to start fires. One of the targets has been the e-commerce warehouses of Russian e-commerce company, Wildberries, as well as other warehouses. Several warehouses have burned.
My good friend, Regis Tremblay now lives in Yalta, Crimea. He reports almost daily drone attacks from early evening until dawn keeping everyone awake. The strikes included power stations and have resulted in fires and a loss of power. This is a new development in this part of Russia. Regis is very concerned about the direction of the war and the reaction of the Russian public to these drone attacks.
Reports indicate that many of the Russian refineries struck weeks and months ago are now being brought back into operation, with Russia’s fuel issues improving in many regions, which Putin himself has announced. The same goes for the “Crimea isolation” operation, as Russia is creating redundant roadways and repairing damage to allow normal traffic and cargo flows to resume. In fact, Reuters reports that Russian oil and gas revenue is up 60% year to year.
Reports also show the Russian military advancing in the Donbass and across Ukraine. This indicates that the US and Zelensky are using the drone war to try and increase civil discontent against President Putin. The risk is that instead Zelensky will ignite more fury against Ukraine amongst Russia’s civilian population, hardening—rather than dissolving—their morale.
Ukraine is only able to effectively reroute 1/5th or 1/6th of the cargo from these ports, implying major economic losses to the Ukrainian state which has become one of the primary issues of debate.
Despite all these spectacular drone attacks, the question remains; is Ukraine down to its last few cards, and it is using them out of desperation?
US Bases are Vulnerable
By utterly destroying all the US military bases inside its missile range, Iran has exposed a weakness that will cost the US dearly: Iran has now showed that those bases are not only vulnerable, but they are also an immense liability for the host countries. The war on Iran has shown that their existence is not to protect the host countries, it is to support US interests. The US military was apparently so convinced that no one would dare to attack any of its foreign bases that it failed to provide them with any kind of defense systems.
The US has some 800 foreign military bases around the world. Are they all completely defenseless?
What about what domestic bases? Are they defended by impressive systems or is the US mainland also defenseless? If so, what are these billions being spent on?
Momentum is Waning
Bloomberg has pointed out that momentum stocks are beginning to sell off while the broad market continues to rise.
When Jeremy Grantham was asked for signals of an imminent bubble bursting, he told us back in June that “one of the most reliable things to watch out for is when leaders of the previous bull market start to underperform while the overall market continues to rise. As he described it, this pattern reflects a shift in investor behavior — one where participants remain invested in the overall market but are shifting out of the riskiest stuff and into safer, more-established companies, which temporarily masks the underlying weakness in the headline index.”
