Trump continues to be seized by the delusional view that his Israeli-centred vision could all be accomplished merely by ending the genocide in Gaza. The big issue emerging from the U.S.’ 22 June strike on Iran – second only to ‘wither Iran?’ – is whether in Trump’s calculus he can ‘rhetorically impose’ the having “obliterated”... Read More

The big issue – second only to ‘what next in Iran’ and how they might respond — says Michael Wolff (who has written four books on Trump), is “how the MAGA is going to respond”: The signal from Hegseth (‘we are not at war with the Iranian people – just its nuclear programme’) clearly reflects... Read More

The ‘long war’ to subvert Iran, weaken Russia, BRICS and China is on hold. It is not over. At one level, Iran plainly ‘won’. Trump had wanted to be regaled with a reality-TV style, splendid ‘Victory’. Sunday’s attack on the three nuclear sites indeed was loudly proclaimed by Trump and Hegseth as such – having... Read More

Trump sided with the Israelis, asserting that Iran was ‘very close’ to having a bomb, and added that he didn’t care what Gabbard thinks. The sudden claim of Iran being very close to a bomb (that seemingly jumped out of ‘nowhere’ to leave Americans puzzling how could it happen that – in the blink of... Read More

Confidence is everything. And that ‘capital’ is being eroded rapidly. The Musk versus Trump fallout (at least for now) has a distinct ‘made for television’ quality to it. But do not be deceived by the entertainment content. The spat illustrates a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the MAGA coalition. It is quite possible that... Read More

The silence of the bears will soon be ended and we will know more about Russian resolve. Russia’s leadership is in ‘conclave’ determining its riposte. Trump has been silent for two days. Unprecedented. In the last days, Ukraine and its facilitators attempted a massive attack on Russia’s strategic nuclear bomber-force; succeeded in collapsing two bridges... Read More

Should China succeed, the U.S. would lose its ‘magic weapon’ of monetary dominance. So spoke the French historian and philosopher Emmanuel Todd in his April Moscow lecture, From Russia With Love. This American awareness of defeat, however, contrasts markedly with the Europeans’ surprising lack of awareness – rather it is denial – at their defeat:... Read More

Hector is tricked into combat and killed beneath Troy’s city walls. Trump might well heed the moral to The Iliad story. Presentation at the XXIII International Likhachev Scientific Readings, St Petersburg University of Humanities and Social Sciences, 22-23 May 2025 – Transforming the World: Problems and Prospects’, XXIII International Likhachev Scientific Readings, St Petersburg Last... Read More

The new era marks the end to ‘old politics’: The Red vs Blue; Right vs Left labels lose relevance. Even the need for transition – just to be clear – has only just begun to be recognised in the U.S. For the European leadership however, and for the beneficiaries of financialisation who haughtily lament Trump’s... Read More

This Trump transformation of America was intended to be rebuilt as America First. The story, both on Ukraine and Iran, is that President Trump wants a ‘deal’ – and both deals are available – yet he seems nonetheless to have boxed himself in. Trump presents his Administration as being something rougher, meaner, and far less... Read More

All of Kellogg’s underlying assumptions lacked any basis in reality. Yet Trump seemingly took them on trust. Political warfare in Washington is endemic. But the body count at the Pentagon has started to rise precipitously. Three of Secretary of Defence Hegseth’s top advisors were placed on leave, and then fired. The war continues, with the... Read More

The key MAGA issue is not foreign policy, but how to structurally re-balance an economic paradigm in danger of an extinction event. Trump clearly is in the midst of an existential conflict. He has a landslide mandate. But is ringed by a resolute domestic enemy front in the form of an ‘industrial concern’ infused with... Read More

Trump’s actions were neither ‘spur of the moment’, nor whimsical. The ‘tariff solution’ had been pre-prepared by his team over years. The Trump ‘shock’ – his ‘de-centring’ of America from serving as pivot to the post-war ‘order’ via the dollar – has triggered a deep cleavage between those who gained huge benefit from the status... Read More

What is understood now is that ‘we’re no longer playing chess’. There are no rules anymore. Trump’s ultimatum to Iran? Colonel Doug Macgregor compares the Trump ultimatum to Iran to that which Austria-Hungary delivered to Serbia in 1914: An offer, in short, that ‘could not be refused’. Serbia accepted nine out of the ten demands.... Read More

A U.S. economic ‘re-balancing’ is coming. Putin is right. The post-WWII economic order ‘is gone’ The post-WWII geo-political outcome effectively determined the post-war global economic structure. Both are now undergoing huge change. What remains stuck fast however, is the general (Western) weltanschauung that everything must ‘change’ only for it to stay the same. Things financial... Read More

Does Trump see Iran through some disturbed optic – that in destroying Iran, he is bringing about peace through strength? The phone call on 18 March between Presidents Trump and Putin has happened. It was a success, insofar as it allowed both sides to label the result as ‘positive’. And it did not lead to... Read More

A geo-political reading of Israel’s incipient civil war Israel is deeply fractured. The schism has become bitter and heated as both sides see themselves to be in an existential war for the future of Israel. The language used has become so venomous (particularly in reserved channels in Hebrew) that calls for a coup and for... Read More

If Europe pretends to replace the U.S., it is going to be extremely expensive, very politically costly, and it will fail. President Trump wants Ukraine settled, full stop. This is so that he can move ahead quickly – to normalise with Russia, and begin the ‘big picture’ project of setting a new World Order, one... Read More

Ostensibly, it is not in Europe’s interest to mount a concerted resistance against the U.S. President over a failed war. They (the Euro-élites) don’t have a chance: “If Trump imposes this tariff [25%], the U.S. will be in a serious trade conflict with the EU”, the Norwegian Prime Minister threatens. And what if Brussels does... Read More

Trump does not buy into the primary lie intended as the glue which holds this entire EU geo-political structure together. The bits are falling into a distinct pattern – a pre-prepared pattern. Defence Secretary Hegseth at the Munich Security Conference gave us four ‘noes’: No to Ukraine in NATO; No to a return to pre-2014... Read More

It was obvious from the slow descent of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, stepping down the stairs from his aircraft, watching his shoes until they hit the ground in Riyadh, that the US side in Tuesday’s talks lacked a confident mandate from the White House for negotiations with the Russians. Rubio was there –... Read More

“This is Putin and Trump’s world now”. Trump and his team have been busy dismantling – and exposing to public view – the mechanism to the all-encompassing narrative control machine which has been shown to be both authoritarian and industrial in its global scope. The Musk investigations have begun to peer into the USAID complex.... Read More

Putin hinted this week that the Ukraine conflict could end in weeks, so Trump may not have a long wait. How to do the impossible? America is instinctively an expansionist power, needing new fields to conquer; new financial horizons to master and to exploit. The U.S. is built that way. Always was. But – if... Read More

The idea of inflicting “strategic defeats” on Russia has been a cornerstone of U.S. policy for so long a time that it transcends party lines Trump’s rhetoric about Russia having lost 1 million men in the Ukraine conflict is not just nonsense (the real number not even reaching 100,000), but his resort to it underlines... Read More

The ‘strange defeat’ is that of Europe’s ‘curious’ inability to understand Ukraine or its military mechanics. The essayist and military strategist, Aurelien, has written a paper entitled: The Strange Defeat (original in French). The ‘strange defeat’ being that of Europe’s ‘curious’ inability to understand Ukraine or its military mechanics. Aurelien highlights the strange lack of... Read More