Posts tagged: Ukraine

Daily Debrief

The War That Turned on Riyadh

A Saudi F-15 down over Marib, an American back channel to the Houthis that gives the kingdom nothing, and oil exports to Europe pushed out to November. Four analysts read the same evidence and arrive at the same place: Yemen is no longer Saudi Arabia's war to win, and Washington is not going to save it.

Geopolitics Iran Saudi Arabia Yemen Dollar Ukraine

September 17, 2026

The Saudis Know They Lost. Europe Doesn't.

A rational actor counts the cost, swallows its pride, and calls its enemy. Europe is about to demonstrate what an irrational one does....

Middle East Ukraine

September 15, 2026

Daily Debrief

Checks the Navy Can't Cash

Anthony Aguilar, Larry Johnson and Nima Alkhorshid watch Ansarallah close in on the Red Sea coast while the Fifth Fleet sits 2,200 miles away, Sean Foo and Andrei Martyanov trace the bill into oil and Treasuries weeks before the midterms, and Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen see Ukraine's southern anchor and its Donbas strongholds giving way ahead of winter.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 11, 2026

Hegemony Is Not a Policy. It Is an Identity.

Washington knows the Iran war is lost and the Ukraine war is lost. It keeps fighting both because ending them would require its leaders to become different people....

Middle East Ukraine

September 10, 2026

Daily Debrief

A Date for Victory, and the Arithmetic Against It

Trump says the Iran war ends the day after the midterms because Tehran cannot hold out. Davis, Macgregor, Johnson and Ritter measure that claim against the interceptor count, the oil price and Iran's record, while on Ukraine every analyst we track now reads the same map.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 10, 2026

Daily Debrief

Iran Called the Bluff, and Moscow Wasn't Buying

Larry Johnson, Matt Bracken and Jacques Baud say Iran's new missiles have left Washington without a military option in the Gulf. Alexander Mercouris and John Helmer say the Witkoff-Kushner visit to Moscow offered threats and a $100 billion inducement, and Russia wanted neither.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 9, 2026

Daily Debrief

The Ladder, the Skies and the Firewall

Daniel Davis, Lawrence Wilkerson and Peter Erickson describe an American war on Iran with no strategy behind it, Alexander Mercouris expects a major Russian strike on Kiev within hours, and an AfD landslide puts Germany's political firewall to the test.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine Germany

September 8, 2026

Daily Debrief

Neither Threats Nor Bribes

Daniel Davis and Larry Johnson describe an American campaign in the Gulf that is widening to tankers with no end in view, Alexander Mercouris breaks ranks to argue that time still favors a superpower, and the envoys sent to Moscow with threats and then inducements come back with a two-day pause.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 7, 2026

Ukraine's Two Spy Agencies Just Turned on Each Other

Ukraine's Spies Shot at Each Other in Kyiv. Chinese Netizens Say They've Seen This Movie Before....

China Ukraine

September 6, 2026

Daily Debrief

Bombing Policy Out of the Desert

Anthony Aguilar and Mark Sleboda put a clock on an American campaign that has never named its objective, Alexander Mercouris watches Ukrainian units trapped by commanders who would not order a retreat, and Steve Hanke and Sleboda disagree about whether the world's pivot away from Washington amounts to anything yet.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 6, 2026

Daily Debrief

Out of Missiles, Out of Money, Out of Story

Alexander Mercouris charts the collapse of Ukraine's air defenses, Larry Johnson finds empty shelves and empty magazines, and Jeffrey Sachs supplies the arithmetic underneath it all. The West is running short of the three things this war requires at once.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 5, 2026

Daily Debrief

Three Fronts, One Direction

Chas Freeman calls the renewed Iran campaign a war without an exit, Alexander Mercouris tracks a simultaneous breakdown across Ukraine, and Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff describe an economic order slipping out of Washington's hands. The reads differ in detail. They point the same way.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 4, 2026

Daily Debrief

The Aging Lion

Seven months into the Iran war, Washington insists Iran is defeated. The analysts we track count the objectives achieved and find none, then follow the bill to a dollar system nobody is allowed to leave.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 3, 2026

Daily Debrief

The Barrage and the Broken Story

Iran struck American bases overnight, and Washington's account of what happened next, total interception, a defeated Iran, a demined Strait, is disputed by nearly every analyst we track. Meanwhile the bond markets, not the briefings, may be telling the real story.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 2, 2026

Daily Debrief

A Strike in Jordan, and a War Already Judged

Iran's overnight strike on a US base in Jordan drew a promise of hard retaliation from President Trump. The analysts we track say the harder truth is that the war's aims are already out of reach, from the Strait of Hormuz to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

September 1, 2026

Daily Debrief

What Half a Year of War Has Built

Patrick Cockburn, Larry Johnson, and Mohammad Marandi assess an American campaign that has left Iran stronger, while Alexander Mercouris and Ray McGovern see Russia deciding Ukraine's war on the battlefield, and Pravin Sawhney watches a new order forming outside Washington's reach.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

August 30, 2026

Sacrificing the Daughters: The Moral Bankruptcy of Outsourced Warfare

As Ukraine faces a catastrophic manpower shortage, the Western push to conscript women reveals the profound moral decay of outsourcing a war of attrition....

Ukraine

August 29, 2026

Daily Debrief

Coercion Meets Its Limits in Ukraine and Iran

Russia turned away the Vatican and the CIA and escalated its air campaign on Kiev, while six months into the war on Iran the analysts we track read the sanctions push as theater. On both fronts, the pressure is outrunning the leverage behind it.

Geopolitics Ukraine Iran

August 29, 2026

Daily Debrief

Six Months In, Washington Has Not Broken Iran

The CIA director made a quiet trip to Moscow this week, at the six-month mark of the war on Iran. The analysts we track read the campaign as having failed to force Tehran to bend, though one tracked voice argues the economic blockade is finally biting.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

August 28, 2026

Daily Debrief

The Iran War Washington Can't End

Six months after the strikes on Iran, the analysts we track describe a sanctions campaign running into the same wall that stopped the bombing — and a secret CIA trip to Moscow that may be trying to trade Ukraine for Iran.

Geopolitics Iran Ukraine

August 26, 2026

Daily Debrief

Washington reaches for the last weapon. The pack says it misfires.

Sixteen tracked voices, one day of war — where they converge, where they collide, and every receipt.

Geopolitics Middle East Ukraine

August 24, 2026

The End of Air Supremacy

For decades, U.S. power meant control of the sky. Ukraine and Iran suggest that era has ended....

Middle East Ukraine

August 18, 2026

A Japanese Combat Unit in Ukraine Alarms China’s Internet

Japanese Fighters in Ukraine? Why China’s Internet Is Buzzing Over a Tiny Unit With Big Symbolism...

China Ukraine

August 16, 2026

The Paper Tiger Complex: Why America Can No Longer Build for War

The limits of American power are no longer abstract. They are visible in depleted inventories, delayed production, and exposed bases....

Middle East Ukraine

August 9, 2026

How Ukraine and Iran Are Becoming One Conflict

The wars in Ukraine and Iran were once treated as separate crises. Increasingly, they look like two fronts in a single, expanding conflict....

Middle East China Ukraine

July 29, 2026

Why So Many Westerners See Russia as Evil by Default

For many in the West, Russia is no longer a country to be understood but a permanent symbol of evil. That shift has consequences far beyond Ukraine....

Ukraine

July 7, 2026

Why Iran’s Hormuz Move Matters Far Beyond the Gulf

Iran says stop. The U.S. says it is open. The world now has to decide whom to believe....

Middle East China Ukraine

June 11, 2026

Russia’s Restraint in Ukraine May Have Been Its Biggest Mistake

Moscow spent years trying to contain the war in Ukraine. The result may have been the opposite: a longer war, weaker deterrence, and a far more dangerous escalation....

Ukraine

June 2, 2026

Why the Next Global Conflict May Not Look Like a World War

The West Is Not Marching Toward World War III. It Is Drifting Toward Something Stranger and More Dangerous....

Middle East China Ukraine

May 21, 2026

Why Putin Announced a China Visit Right After Trump Left Beijing

Trump leaves Beijing. Putin announces he is next....

Middle East China Ukraine

May 17, 2026

The Stories We Refuse to Tell About Ukraine

“Russia invaded” is true. It is also incomplete. And incomplete truths have a way of prolonging wars rather than ending them....

Ukraine

May 16, 2026

In Lebanon, Israel’s Power Meets Its Limits

Israel can devastate southern Lebanon from the air. What it has never proven is that it can turn ruin into lasting control....

Middle East Ukraine

May 5, 2026

What the West Sees in Gaza and Refuses to See in Ukraine

There is a revealing asymmetry in how many Western audiences process modern war....

Middle East Ukraine

April 23, 2026

Ukraine Began the Unraveling. Iran Is Accelerating It

The war in Ukraine exposed the strain on U.S. power. A conflict involving Iran may be showing just how far that erosion has already gone....

Middle East China Ukraine

April 17, 2026

US Stumbles, Russia and China Step Up in the Middle East

The US stumbled in the Middle East. Now, China and Russia are stepping in. Discover what Zhihu users are saying....

Middle East China Ukraine

April 15, 2026

How Long Can a Country in Permanent Crisis Keep Fighting?

Ukraine has defied predictions of collapse. But endurance built on coercion, foreign money, and improvisation is not the same as stability....

Ukraine

April 8, 2026