A number of different stories over the last week emerged from Trump’s War with Iran, illustrating the (downward) trajectory of US power. I will begin with the most farcical: Scott Bessent’s “D-Day” economic campaign against Iran, which descended into absurdity this week. Predictably, the USA cannot afford to do anything material to antagonize China, and wishes not to do anything to hurt Russia, so the first new group to get hit by this awesome new US campaign was….drumroll please…one branch of an Egyptian bank.

Moving from the micro (and in this case it is really micro), to the macro understanding of the whole war, I think what we are seeing is, once again, confirmation that Americans institutionally (and I mean in the government, think tanks, etc) simply do not know how to understand war, or at least they wilfully choose not to understand it. The idea that Trump’s War was somehow trending in the US direction, which was being spouted by a number of analysts and not just Trump administration folk, is based on such a profound misunderstanding of how wars develop, of time, of geography and of US domestic politics, that it is worth going through these points in order to show just how deep the problem is. The USA cannot win this war now; a few days of getting slightly more oil out through the Strait makes no difference to that. All we are seeing is either a quick or a long US defeat—and a long defeat will make things much worse.

Finally, I put together a short primer on the price of crude and diesel oil, after talking with industry people. Hopefully you will find it useful.

The USA Sanctions A Few Branches Of Egypt’s Second Largest Bank!

Sometimes you do have to chuckle at the pickle the US government has gotten itself into. On August 24, Secretary of the Treasury Bessent announced Operation Economic Outcast, which he said was going to be a brutal campaign of economic “asphyxiation” against Iran. The Treasury Department itself called the move an “Unprecedented Campaign Against Iranian Regime on Economic D-Day.”

Well, this week the Treasury Department followed up its bombast with some specific action—and it was underwhelming to say the least. As I said last week, there is one test of whether the US is serious in this campaign, and that is if the US government is willing to sanction Chinese banks and institutions.

Of course, sanctioning China is now something that the USA is far too weak to do. And considering the fact that the Trump administration is trying to rehabilitate Russia, it will never do the second most effective thing it could do to hurt Iran—which is pressure Russia. As such, what the US actually did is sanction (and even “sanction” might be too strong a word) the UAE branches of Egypt’s second largest bank, Banque Misr UAE. Here is the Treasury announcement of the action.

The target was about as weak as one could imagine, and even then the actual sanctions taken against Banque Misr were small beer, to put it kindly. Quoting from the US announcement, what the government is doing is actually only going after a few small branches of the bank in the UAE, not the bank itself. Pay attention to the last sentence in the Treasury Department’s press release on the move (bolded below).

“The rule would also require U.S. financial institutions to take reasonable steps not to process a transaction for a correspondent account in the United States of a foreign banking institution if such a transaction involves Banque Misr UAE and to apply to their foreign correspondent accounts special due diligence that is reasonably designed to guard against their use to process transactions involving Banque Misr UAE. This finding and the accompanying proposed special measure apply only to Banque Misr UAE, as defined in the NPRM, and not to Banque Misr operations in any other country.”

Moreover, these actions do not even go into effect right away—there is a 30-day period of notice first, and the US government could easily (and quietly) walk away from this move in that window. Certainly, the Egyptian government did not seem particularly worried. The Egyptian central bank (CBE) released a statement putting this weak move into perspective, as was reported in this story (see excerpt).

“The CBE affirms that this measure is limited to the bank’s branches in the UAE and only to its dollar transfers,” the statement said.

It added that the measure does not affect any other Egyptian bank and does not extend to the Banque Misr’s operations inside Egypt or to any of its overseas branches.

“The Central Bank of Egypt affirms the strength and resilience of all banks operating in Egypt,”

When it came to actually sanctioning China, it is clear that Trump was stung by the way this weak move was reported. When he was asked in the Oval Office why he did not sanction any Chinese concerns, his response was defensive.

"Who said I'm not? I mean, who said I'm not? You don't know if I'm doing it. Well, I don't have to announce everything, do I?"

This might be the sanctioning China version of “two weeks”, for those of you who understand how Trump wriggles out of difficult questions. Indeed in the same press conference, Trump did his best to defend China from accusations of aggressive spying against the USA.

“Somebody was saying about China, ’What about China? We hear they’re spying.’ We spy on them too. So it goes,”

So, aggressive action against China is not going to happen from the USA. Nor will anything happen to Russia, Iran’s other great supporter. It has to be noted that the US is now going to great lengths to reintegrate Russia into the world economy. Just yesterday it was announced that the US government has invited the Russian finance minister to attend the upcoming G-20 summit in North Carolina.

The US weakness against both China and Russia is obvious. The Chinese indeed are now hoovering up Russian oil from the world market, buying it whenever they can and not in the slightest bit worried that the US will make them suffer for doing so.

Look, the US strategy, if it could be implemented for a long time (maybe it would take years) could indeed create a great deal of pressure for Iran. The reality, however, is that the US is the one with time not on its side (more on that below)

One thing that I have not seen reported anywhere else is that Iran has made as much, if not more, this year compared to last year. This is not because Iran has sold as much this year as last in terms of volume, it is because the price of oil is so much higher that even smaller volumes of sales would have generated about the same income. I have put together this comparison between Iranian reported sales and income generation covering the period of March-August this year and last year at the same time. Note, there is a significant range for the income this year—though the midpoint is approximately the same as last year.

There are some conflicting sources on this—some of the ones I used can be found in this footnote.1

So even if sales are down this year to .6 of the level last year, the rise in prices would have made that difference up. If the Iranians between March-August 2026 sold .7 of the amount they sold in 2025, they would have made more.

All this is a way of pointing out that the US strategy will take time, and actually Iran arguably has more time than the USA (see below). And if the USA cannot actually afford to sanction Chinese and Russian entities working with Iran, the time balance in Iran’s favor will only grow.

Maybe if the US had sanctioned the third largest Egyptian bank…

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US Failure To Understand War Reaches A Crisis Stage

So, Iran is supposedly now losing the war and, in exchange, the USA is winning. This argument is being made more than you might think. This narrative first came from a range of pro-Trump sources for a while. Maybe the weakest argument came, not surprisingly, from a Heritage Foundation member who argued that not only was the US winning the war—but that Trump already won it!

Now, more people are joining this chorus. Maybe the most well publicized was this piece by Brett McGurk for CNN. This argument makes many of the points that can be found in other places. These are that Iran is now losing because of a confluence of reasons, which include.

• The US has a blockade of Iranian oil.

• The US is getting a lot of oil out of the Strait (Trump claims it is open)

• The Iranian economy is imploding

• The price of oil (usually only mentioning crude—which is a tell) is still lower than would be expected (more on that below).

It is/ a fascinating example of how Americans still do not understand war and argue about individual points without examining the process.

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Quick note. Someone asked yesterday in the comments when I would write about European policy again. It was fortuitous timing as I have a piece entitled “A Grand Strategy For Europe”, which I was going to send out today or tomorrow. And, btw, I think there will be some surprising and important developments in this area in 2027, which I will be discussing later.

However, the story of Trump’s deal with the Venezuelan government to loot Venezuelan oil broke in the last few days and I wanted to get a piece on that out first. So the European piece will come after the Midweek Update.

Remember when Donald Trump seized Nicolas Maduro? At that time he defended the move as an attempt to bring freedom and the rule of law to the Venezuelan people. His specific claim explaining the seizure was that the USA wanted “peace, liberty, and justice for the great people of Venezuela.”

Of course that was nonsense. From the moment Maduro went, Trump opted to work with—indeed strengthen the position of—the most corrupt and oppressive elements of Maduro’s government. Indeed, it seems possible that that these elements colluded with the Trump administration in the process of getting rid of Maduro.

If you want to go back and read more about how what Trump was doing was not changing the Venezuelan government, but actually entrenching the worst elements, this was the piece I wrote about it on January 6.

Who Are US Partners In Venezuela?

This meant that the Venezuelan government actually strengthened its more extreme and left-wing elements, including not only the new President, Delcy Rodriguez (Maduro’s Vice President), but most importantly the Minister of Justice for Maduro, Diosdado Cabello Rondon. Rondon is ruthless and has been extensively linked to the drugs business. He was on the US State Department’s wanted list up until the moment Trump became president. If you want to read more about his role as it was seen until then, here is an archived version of his State Department page.

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Well, this is Weekend Update #200. When I wrote the first of these, in November 2022, I certainly did not expect to be producing these close to four years later. I just went back and read my first update, which was quite an experience. I have taken it out of paywall so that anyone can go down memory lane with me.

All I can say is that if you have read these for the past 45 months, you would have had a great deal of discussion of production/logistics and how Trump/populism was shaping US politics and foreign policy. The first story was about the Ukrainian liberation of Kherson, but the next two were about the production war (which most people still do not understand) and how pro-Russian populism in the GOP could be a major problem for Ukraine. Here was how the production section started:

Production. It’s remarkable how time and again the ability to produce is overlooked before a war and then becomes so important during the war. This is partly the case because of the almost always faulty lightning war fallacy, which has one of the sides assume that they are so strong the war won’t last long (another reason the faulty pre-war analysis was so problematic).

And the political section was a warning that if the GOP captured both houses of congress in the upcoming midterm elections, if would be bad for Ukraine as the Republicans had a growing anti-Ukraine wing. It is worth noting that I did not mention Trump by name in the piece, but did mention that there was a “pro-Russian” wing in the Republican Party that looked to be growing in influence.

This is definitely understood in Russia as well, which is why I imagine all eyes are on the US mid-term elections this week. If the Republicans take both houses of Congress, both Ukrainians and Russians will be watching intently to see if the pro-Russian wing of the GOP (Tucker Carlson, MTG, etc) start having some success in influencing policy.

You can accuse me of many things—but at least I have highlighted some pretty important aspects of the war. The war has arguably been defined by Russian and Ukrainian war production and the GOP has gone down a pretty dark pro-Russian road.

And, as I said last weekend, I will keep producing these as long as Russia is invading Ukraine and as long as people still want to read them. As part of that, I set up a special Weekend Update #200 donation link for Come Back Alive. Many of you have already contributed and many of you tried but had trouble having the payment go through. I talked this over with CBA and they said the issue was with banks not approving payments to Ukraine, not on their end. They have tried to improve the situation, so if it did not work the first time, it might work now.

All I can say is thank you for trying!

Now the update this week. I will start with a quick look at the state of the Russian summer offensive (if it can be called that) as we are now closer to the end of the summer than the start. It is notable that when Russia advances, the press screams about a coming Ukrainian manpower crisis and collapse, but when the Russians throw away masses of soldiers for no gain, the reporting often moves on to other things.

Two other stories. First, I know some people were not pleased with my skepticism about the value of the Wildberries attacks and the argument that fuel attacks needed to get priority. I do think what we have seen over the last week supports that case. Finally, Putin had a rather freaky moment this week when he described his view of international relations. It is so disturbing it is worth noting. It involves Orcas, polar bears and a touch of insanity—pure realism from an academic perspective.

Summer Is Ending, The Russian Offensive Is A Failure So Far

As we are only two days from September, it would be worth having a quick update on the Russian summer offensive. In August 2025 this was when the press was full of doom about Ukraine, and was writing about inexorable Russian advances and Ukraine collapsing because of manpower shortages. It was almost exactly 12 months ago that the press was writing about a Russian breakthrough around Pokrovsk, how Ukraine was running out of soldiers, etc.

There was so much reporting about this supposed reality, that the weekend update produced almost exactly a week ago tried to put what we were seeing in perspective and put a little perspective on both the idea of a Russian breakthrough and a Ukrainian collapse (and yes both words were used a great deal).

Here was how that update ended:

The last three weeks have indicated not massive problems with Ukrainian manpower (which are actually being grossly distorted) but more massive problems with how the war is viewed by the press and analytical community. Sadly, there are no signs that it is going to get better—and it matters, because Ukraine will (and in some ways already is) coming under massive pressure to cede land to Russia. It would be far better to report the land war for what it is—a bloody quagmire for Russia, where the Russian state is expending vast resources and losing mass numbers of soldiers for little or at times no gain. Because that is the truth.

This week, as there have been no Russian breakthroughs (ho, ho) there has been much less reporting of the Russian summer offensive and, amazingly, hardly any mention of the Ukrainian manpower crisis which the press wrote about constantly in 2025 and which major analysts were claiming was going to lead to a Ukrainian failure that year.

What we have seen this summer and spring has been a Russian offensive that will go down as one of the most extraordinary and bloody wastes in military history. It is worth looking at the Deep State map of the main areas of the fighting on March 21, 2026 (first day of Spring) and today.

The most notable change is the Ukrainian recapturing of land in the middle of the line (the green area to the east of Pokrovske). There are tiny shifts in Russia’s favor in other places, but you do need to look hard to see them.

What this means is that in all probability the Ukrainians have liberated slightly (and I do mean slightly) more territory from Russia than the Russians have seized—during the Russian spring/summer offensive season. The exact amount is impossible to know, but it is worth noting that both Deep State and the Institute for the Study of War are estimating that over the summer Ukraine has taken more land from the Russians than the Russians have from them—while disagreeing slightly over the specific figure over the last four weeks. During that time, Deep State has Ukraine taking a net of 3 square miles from Russia, while ISW has Russia taking 20 square miles from Ukraine. If you want to see both tabulations in a helpful metric, Russia Matters has put them together here.

And at the same time, Russian troop losses have continued to trend upwards. Over the last four weeks, Ukrainian intelligence has estimated that the Russians have lost 36,080 troops in combat. That is a daily number of 1289, which would work out to almost exactly 40,000 during the entire month of August.

Btw, I just checked and the Ukrainian claim of Russian losses for the last 24 hours was exactly 1,400—so the final figure might be over 40,000.

This is an unsustainable loss rate, unless Russia finds a new way to generate large number of manpower. The Guardian, in a piece published on August 28, estimated that Russia is losing 6000 more troops a month than it can raise. Here is a quote from that piece:

“We estimate that the gap between the number of people Russia is losing to casualties and the number they’re being able to recruit is around 6,000 a month at the moment,” one western official said.

To change the trajectory on those losses Russia will either have to greatly increase the number of soldiers they are recruiting from the rest of the world or Putin will have to enforce a greater mobilization across Russian society. When it comes to recruiting from around the world, Shaun Pinner just released a really interesting piece about how many POWs in Ukrainian custody are coming from outside Russia.

When it comes to internal mobilization, the Ukrainians interestingly still say that Putin is hoping to force more soldiers from the periphery into the army, another 300,000 after the upcoming elections. That remains his plan, they say, because he still does not want to enforce a general mobilization on Moscow or St Petersburg.

This “peripheral” mobilization will not be easy as these areas have already been combed through for soldiers—those forced in now will be the lowest of the low in priority list.

So, the Russians have hardly advanced this summer, have probably lost more land than they have gained in the last few months, are losing considerably more soldiers every month than they can generate, and are facing some pretty serious internal questions about how to find more soldiers.

What we are seeing is a summer offensive of failure.

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Why Fuel Attacks Need To Be Prioritized, An Update

I know not everyone enjoyed my skepticism last weekend about the Wildberries strategic air campaign by the Ukrainians. And certainly the Ukrainian decision makers are not backing away from such a campaign, and they even broadened it this week to include the second largest Russian online retailer, Ozon.

That being said, the important economic signs this week were arguably about the stresses being shown in the Russian fuel system. The most important piece of evidence there is a report that Russian output of refined fuel can now only meet 70% of Russia’s own domestic production. There was an worthwhile report on that in the Japan Times. Here is how that story started.

Russia’s gasoline production fell to about 70% of domestic consumption levels by the end of August after a series of drone attacks forced major refineries to suspend operations, according to two industry sources.

Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure in a bid to curb Moscow’s revenues, creating a fuel crisis that has forced Russia to import petroleum products and maintain sales restrictions across the country.

After a brief respite at the end of July, when some local authorities began easing or lifting restrictions on fuel sales, shortages returned to Russian regions in August.

And there are concrete signs that this shortage is real and spreading. Lines for Russian motorists to buy fuel are back, and in some cases this is real even close to Moscow. Russia seems to be living hand to mouth when it comes to refined fuels, which does not bode well for the Russians with winter approaching.

Overall, this means Russia will have to import refined fuels (very expensive) to just keep its economy and war machine functioning. This has been the situation over the last month. Now it seems to be getting more acute. It is the exact opposite of the first few years of the war, when oil was basically an income generating system for Russia.

Russia having to import fuel to keep functioning also opens up another possible target mix for Ukraine—fuel imports into Russia. This will have to come in by ship (I do not know of any pipelines that run into Russia—but I may be wrong). That means there will be limited pumping systems that can handle oil coming into Russia—and they should be hit.

Ukraine did make some refinery attacks this week. The Ukrainians hit the large refinery at Yaroslavl for instance. And, last night the Ukrainians also reportedly attacked the large KINEF refinery near St Petersburg. This is all good, but the campaign could always be more consistent and with a deeper target set. It must include not just refineries, but ports, pipelines, etc.

The system is showing real stress. It is getting by on quick repairs that are becoming less and less effective. It is Russia’s weak point as it involves everything—income generation, military operations, the functioning of the economy, etc.

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Putin, Orcas, Polar Bears and Insanity

Speaking just the other day to faculty and students at a Moscow University, Vladimir Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine with a truly wild analogy.

“There are killer whales living nearby. They eat these bears up like small fry. Yes, they just attack as a pack – boom! – and tear them to pieces. It’s all very interesting. Yes, that’s the food chain.

Children need to be told about this too, so they understand what kind of world we’re living in and why we are carrying out the special military operation.”

First of all, this is wrong. Orcas do not kill polar bears (at least according to an internet search). However what is even worse is that it makes no sense. Is Russia the polar bear and NATO the orcas? Or is Ukraine the polar bear and Russia (with China and Iran perhaps) a pack of orcas.

And you know the great tragedy of international relations? It is that there are serious scholars, or at least those who some take seriously, who articulate this kind of a “realist” framework as automatic when it is far from it. If there is one thing we can say that has been shown, it is that states do not behave like this by nature. The US actually put together a brilliant alliance system that for 75 years was the exact opposite of a pack of killer whales attacking a polar bear. If it had wanted to, it could have crushed Russia. It did not.

Today’s Europe is also based on the reality that states do not have to do this to each other.

One of the reasons that Ukraine must win this war is to undermine this way of thinking. If Putin wins, with the help of Donald Trump, the orcas might actually start ripping the polar bears to pieces.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.

So, it turns out that D-Day was a really tough warning to Nazi Germany. “Watch out, Hitler!”, the US, UK and Canada were saying (remember—Canada was a close US ally), “We are really, really irritated with you and if you do not start behaving we are going to be super-duper mean to you—just not yet.”

An interesting reading of history, this.

Yet a new “D-Day” is precisely how the administration framed its sanctions announcement this week, presented by Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. Of course a warning itself is too grand of a statement for what really happened. What the announcement revealed (and subsequent Chinese actions have confirmed) is that the USA is too weak now to actually pressure China. Indeed, Bessent admitted that actually bringing in these sanctions against major Chinese companies would be a catastrophe. As such, the announcement was a sign of how weak the USA has become.

Two more stories. There has been a fascinating, predictable and yet hollow attempt by Trump backers to call the war a victory, or impending victory—with not a single strategic achievement to its name. This was to be expected and, btw, will only grow with the elections approaching. Still, it is worth delving into it, to show just how deep the US defeat is. The best sign of a US victory that is actually being offered is that the situation in the Gulf might revert back to that of February 27, 2026. Nice.

The final section is about how the Pentagon is going backwards in its preparation for war. I fear this is going to be a regular part of these updates.

Sanctions Without China Are A Sign Of Defeat

On August 24, the United States, to great fanfare, announced Operation Economic Outcast. This was its much ballyhooed plan to crush the Iranian economy by sanctioning its key enablers. If you want, you can watch the whole press conference during which Secretary Bessent laid out the details of the operation.

The objective was very clear, as Bessent said at the start—to “sever” Iran’s economic connection with the outside world. This was one of his earliest comments.

Our objective is to sever every economic lifeline that sustains this tyrannical regime until Tehran stands alone.

Now if this could be done, it would indeed be economically devastating to Iran. The problem that the USA faces, however, is very simple. Iran’s biggest economic partner (by far) and the state which supplies it with the vast amount of its foreign capital, is the People’s Republic of China. In 2025, the last full year, the Chinese were responsible for purchasing more than 80% of the oil that Iran shipped.

During the war, Iran has continued to ship China significant amounts of oil. Here is a Guardian chart on the shipments that have gone on throughout the war until the end of July.

So actually from the start of the war, for three months, oil shipments between Iran and China were some of the highest on record (and remember prices also rose steeply, so that Iran was making record amounts). Since the US doubled down on the blockade in June, shipments have fallen. However, as oil is still 50% or more expensive that it was in 2025, Iranian income even now is running at a rate that is not too dissimilar from last year.

And the US is obviously too afraid to stop that traffic and offend China—which became more and more apparent as Bessent talked and was asked about the details of the sanctions. When it came to China, the Secretary of the Treasury tried to act tough, but had to admit that not a single significant sanction was being enacted now. Here was the first question and answer that he had about China from the member of the press. Note how Bessent is delaying all harsh action until the future.

Q. Hi, thanks, Secretary. Um, one of the most powerful tools you have at your disposal is the ability to impose secondary sanctions on on banks and financial institutions that facilitate transactions for Iran. Um, Chinese banks uh have often been talk talked about being targeted, but we don’t see any any of those institutions targeted here. Is that something that is coming in this campaign or is is the uh very delicate trade truce with China something that that could prohibit you from, you know, going that far and taking that very big step?

A. (Bessent speaking). Uh we want to make clear to here today that no one is above the reach of US sanctions that if they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money into repression they will be targeted. We find that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy and we are level setting with every country to tell them our expectations. We know who they are. They know who they are. So when the hammer of US Treasury actions falls upon them, they will have no one to blame but themselves

Later a reporter asked about whether these were real sanctions or simply threats, and Bessent lost control of his response and basically admitted that they were pretty empty threats, because to follow through on them (and attack the Chinese) would “blow up the global financial system” (see bold).

Q. You described this as an economic D-Day, but D-Day wasn't a threat of an invasion and the US didn't give a timeline to Germany. So, why not impose the sanctions today?

A. (Bessent speaking). Well, we we are giving everyone the opportunity the to remedy bad behavior. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?

By admitting that these sanctions, if enforced, would lead to a catastrophic situation, Bessent was admitting that they were almost certainly a bluff.

However, the Chinese government decided to put the US in its place immediately. Yesterday they rejected all US interference in their business with Iran. Chinese Foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said China was firmly opposed to what it called "illegal unilateral sanctions" and would take "all necessary measures" to safeguard its rights.

He then went on to tell the US to butt out.

"Cooperation between China and Iran has always been conducted within the framework of international law and should not be interfered with or disrupted."

Indeed, as this Japanese story intimated, the Chinese are delighted about the US being in a strategic box over Iran, and have no desire to help the USA out. Indeed, the Chinese interest is in stringing this out for the USA, as it is weakening America steadily.

It is noteworthy how the press in the Asia-Pacific is far more honest about what is happening here than the US press. There is an extraordinarily self-destructive voice in the US press, desperate to appeal to Trump, which regularly tries to put a very positive gloss on what is happening. As the next story will show, this reached a rather bizarre state in the last few days.

The reality is this. The USA cannot afford to antagonize China, as it is too weak militarily and too economically dependent on China. Moreover, Trump remains desperate to stay in President Xi’s good books. Remember, this is the man who Trump praised lavishly in June for being “very smart” of being of “great stature” and of being “a strong man”.

If the USA will not sanction China, and that looks extremely likely after this week, then it really cannot sanction Iran. This is what a weakened America looks like.

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So, It Turns Out That The US Is Winning!

As I mentioned above, a section of the US press is so desperate to praise and pump up Donald Trump that they are now turning the Iran debacle into a great US victory.

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First an announcement. I will be doing an emergency Substack Live on Canada-US relations with Bob Rae tonight at 1800 UK time/1300 EST. I can think of no one better with whom to discuss the Canadian position at this moment. Here is a link so that you can attend.

A few people have asked me to write something about the US-Canada dispute (which is about far more than trade, it is about Canada’s right to exist as a sovereign state). On the one hand I actually was worried because it strikes me as such a destructive and self-harming move by the US Government that all I would end up doing is string together a series of superlatives about how profoundly stupid this all is. That being said, it is happening and it is more important than people realize. As such, it could be useful to have a piece on what we are seeing and divide it into three sections.

Canada Is Right

The US Cannot (and Should Not) Be Trusted By Any State

Other States Must Act Like Canada

The upshot of all of this is that what Canada is doing is exactly how all states should deal with the USA in its present state (and probably for a while afterwards). The Canadian response contrasts to a year and a half of kowtowing and appeasement of an evil and stupid USA by others, particularly American allies. That latter policy has failed and made things worse. The only positive of what we are seeing now is that, knowing how weak the USA actually is—Canada might win in the end.

We can only hope so.

Canada Is Right

If there was one line that summarized why Canada was right to reject the trade deal with the Trump administration that the latter was trying to foist on it, it was this by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

“We’ve recognized from the start that America has changed. We recognize that sometimes, its signature is written in pencil.”

The “sometimes” is actually too kind.

Canada is faced with a USA that is now fundamentally dishonest and rapacious. Moreover, it is faced with a US government that denies its ultimate right to exist and speaks openly (and regularly) about how Canada should be annexed into the USA. Just to reinforce this latter point, Natalie Harp tweeted about Canada as a state just yesterday.

I actually asked an AI how many times since his inauguration Trump has spoken of making Canada a US state, and it responded: “No one keeps an official tally, and reporters describe it as too frequent to count.”

That being said, even a cursory examination will show that it has happened almost monthly since the start of Trump’s second term. Moreover the threats were regularly tied in with ominous talk of hitting Canada with crippling tariffs if it did not join the USA. Here are just some examples from the first six months of his second presidency:

• 1 Feb 2025 — Trump says Canada should become the 51st state because of “Much lower taxes, and far better military protection.”

• Feb–Mar 2025 — Trump repeated the “Governor Trudeau” jibes and claimed that the US-Canada border is an “artificial line.”

• 11 Mar 2025 — Trump threatened Canada with steel and aluminium tariffs unless it becomes the “cherished Fifty First State.”

• Apr 2025 — asked by TIME whether he was joking, Trump replied: “Actually, no, I’m not.”

• 28 Apr 2025 — Canadian election-day, Trump urged Canadians to “elect the man” who could make Canada “the cherished 51st” with zero tariffs.

• Mar/Apr 2025 — Trump raised Canada joining the USA directly with Carney on their first phone call (Carney later confirmed this).

• 6 May 2025 — In the Oval Office, after Carney said Canada “is not for sale”, Trump replies: “Never say never.”

• June 2025 — Trump on Fox News: “Frankly, Canada should be the 51st state, it really should.”

The negotiations between Canada and the USA can only be seen in that light. The US included such onerous demands on Canada that it can only be seen as an attempt to destroy Canada’s independence and force the country into the USA. These were not trade negotiations in the normal sense; they were attempts to interfere deeply in Canadian internal affairs and basically transfer much of Canada’s ability to govern itself, to Washington DC. There are a number of lists that are circulating that supposedly show these demands, but none are of the quality that I believe that they can be taken as truth. However one thing is pretty clear: the US was actually asking to restrict Canadian sovereignty in these talks.

Add this all together and it is clear how right Canada is in not making a deal with the USA at this time. The Canadians understand (indeed they understood far earlier than other powers) that the USA has changed fundamentally and no deal agreed with the USA is actually a deal—it is simply a short term truce with the Trump administration. The US has a clear goal, the absorption of Canada, and as such all negotiations must be seen in this light.

I am sorry for all these lists, but you need to see how repetitive, threatening and unreliable the US has been in its dealings with Canada to understand this. I can say, in my recent trips, that too many Americans have internalized Trump’s psychopathology. That means that they quickly overlook when he acts horribly and latch onto the moments of quiet. That was really the case over Greenland. When I was in America for a long time this April, many Americans I spoke too looked at the Greenland crisis as a short-term event that passed in January 2026, not understanding that it had had a fundamental and long-term impact on how European states see the USA. It was not over quickly, as the Americans seemed to think.

Anyway, here is a list with the different tariff threats bolded, from only a six month period (April-October 2025).

• April 2025—Automotive Sector Tariffs: Coinciding with the April 2 “Liberation Day” rollouts, the US enacted a threatened 25% tariff on Canadian automobiles and auto parts entering the US market, prompting counter-tariffs from Ottawa on non-CUSMA-compliant vehicles.

• June 2025—Steel and Aluminum Escalation: Trump escalated Section 232 national security metal tariffs, threatening and enacting a doubling of duties on Canadian steel and aluminum from 25% to 50%.

• June 2025—Digital Services Tax Retaliation Threat: Trump threatened to terminate bilateral trade negotiations and impose sweeping retaliatory tariffs against Canada if it implemented its planned Digital Services Tax (DST), leading Canada to withdraw the legislation to preserve talks.

• July-August 2025—General Non-CUSMA Tariff Hike to 35%: Following warnings that Ottawa was not making sufficient concessions, Trump signed an executive order increasing the baseline emergency tariff on non-CUSMA-compliant Canadian goods from 25% to 35%, while threatening a 40% transshipment penalty on goods routed through Canada to evade US duties.

• October 2025—Provincial Advertising Surcharge Threat: In response to a US-broadcast advertising campaign sponsored by the Ontario government opposing American protectionism, Trump threatened an additional 10% punitive tariff and briefly suspended negotiations until the ad campaign was pulled.

Written in pencil indeed.

Canada was being asked to commit suicide by the USA, and had no alternative but to reject that. And the Canadian government is right on the fundamentals. Any deal on the terms being offered would only have been followed up with greater demands later, demands that have one ending point: the ending of Canada as a sovereign nation.

Canada is right

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The US Cannot (and Should Not) Be Trusted By Any State

What the Canadians have discovered is that the USA cannot be trusted. This needs some discussion. All states lie and deceive. That is nothing new. Indeed, one element of successful diplomacy is the effective and well-placed strategic lie. However, if your entire policy is to lie, all the time and with malice, it makes a mockery of international relations.

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I am starting this Weekend Update with a little pre-announcement. Next week will be my 200th weekend update—which is something that rather boggles the mind. As always it will be free, that will never change. However, I was thinking that if you wanted to make a donation to Come Back Alive to mark the moment, that this would be an excellent thing. I was talking with the people from CBA and they have put together this link just for people wanting to make such a donation to mark the 200th Weekend Update.

Come Back Alive: Weekend Update #200 Donation.

The area of CBA being supported in this case will be one of the overlooked areas of the charity, and that is its running costs. CBA usually raises money for its special projects, Dronefall, UGVs, the various training academies, etc. However, what is often missed is the support for the administration of the charity. If you do want to give to mark the 200th WU, I would be delighted. Any amount, however small, will be most welcome.

There will also be a Substack Live with leading voice from CBA not long after Weekend Update #200, and that person will be taking questions from the audience. Please do join us.

Speaking of Substack Lives, as I was so overwhelmed with questions in the AMA session (and then failed to answer them all before going on vacation), I will hold a Substack Live session to take questions this Friday (time to be announced). I will take questions from paying subscribers and do as many as I can. It is the least I could do after the AMA debacle!

OK, let’s get to the update. On Friday I sent out this piece on airpower that caused a little stir. People have called it the anti-Wildberries campaign, which I suppose is partly right. However, the key thing was that it called for focus in airpower and argued that signalling (showing capabilities) is usually a failure and that the best way to use airpower is to deconstruct strategic systems which underpin warfighting.

The article made the point that Ukraine needed to focus continually on Russia’s fuel system (refineries, pipelines, shipping) and that campaigns against Wildberries and the like often have much less strategic effect than understood (in that they do not damage warfighting potential). This week there were a number of examples and arguments about just how vulnerable Russia’s fuel system happens to be and it makes sense to lead on that.

Otherwise, the last piece of the Trump con that started in early July came apart this week, when it was reported that Trump had actually blocked Starlink from helping Ukraine in its campaign to attack Russian communications. Now, as it was a con, this was always going to happen, and it finally was confirmed. What that means, of course, is that the real winner from all this, Vladimir Putin, got more time. In the end, however, there was one glimmer of hope—Ukraine attacked what they wanted to regardless, and might have had success.

Lastly a brief update on the Fedorov situation. He rather controversially called for Ukrainian elections this week—a sign that he knows he is not coming back under Zelensky. It was controversial.

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Ukraine’s Campaign Against Russian Oil Infrastructure Should Be The Focus

On August 21/22 the Ukrainians hit the Russian Novokuibyshevskyi oil refinery in Samara Oblast. This facility is located about 1000 miles from Ukraine. This attack came just one day after the Ukrainians attacked another major refinery in Perm, which is also located about 1000 miles from Ukraine.

It is an indication of a recent uptick and return to refinery attacks, which is sometimes overlooked in the discussion of the Wildberries campaign, etc.

However, as this week showed, not so much in these attacks but in some other data that has been emerging, the campaign on Russia’s oil infrastructure is beginning to have strategic effect. If Ukraine can keep it up, expand it, and hit the same targets multiple times (either preventing repair or degrading quick repairs) Russia’s oil system could head towards failure.

Almost two and a half years ago (yikes, has it been so long?) I summarized both the advantages and challenges of such a campaign against Russian fuel, showing that the key thing was not flashy one off attacks, but repeated attacks to stop repairs and reconstitution.

Here was a summary from that piece.

In other words, don’t get fooled by dramatic pictures. An oil production system can be repaired and slack in the system can be made up for what is temporarily lost in other areas. That’s why I harp on stocks above. Ukraine has to keep this up for a while and attack (and re-attack) numerous facilities for this to work. It is not easy.

Now, the issue Ukraine has faced is from that point it has not consistently and repeatedly hit the same refineries to put them out of action for good. It has ramped up the campaign and then ramped down the campaign, hit new refineries but then, frustratingly, seemed to forget about other refineries that it had earlier hit.

Finally in the last few months, the Ukrainians have started doing what needs to be done. Here is a chart from Bloomberg data that I included in the Friday piece.

Now the attack rate is still not ideal. There was a severe and regrettable decline in attacks on refineries for two months in the Spring of 2026, but the focus on the whole oil infrastructure system is now clearer and the refineries, pipelines, and port attacks are starting to cause a buckling of the system.

When it comes to the refineries, as I tried to say a few years ago, the repeat attacks are finally eating away at Russia’s ability to repair these facilities. Here is a chart I put together of attacks on Russia’s largest 11 refineries this year. I have checked the data, but some of it comes solely from Ukrainian sources (which have been reliable, but I wanted to point that out).

CDU is the central distillation unit—the cracking tank—and if you want to know more about the importance of hitting certain vital parts of a refinery, this piece laid that out almost two years ago, but could be a helpful refresher.

What seems to be happening, finally, is that Russia’s ability to keep repairing these facilities is losing its integrity. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who ran the largest of Russia’s oil companies before Putin forced him out, put together this fascinating thread on what might be going on in Russia’s fuel system and the problems with repair. In a nutshell, the Russians are trying to get by with constant, short term repairs, or patching. However that can only get them so far, and at some point the system will start to fail. When that happens, the results will be pretty dramatic. Here is most of the thread.

This recent pick up in attacks is once again leading to a Russian rationing crisis for fuel. Here is how that has progressed over the last few months looking at numbers of Russian regions with rationing of some sort.

Here is the Meduza article with the most recent update and examples of how this situation is spreading.

Now this is hitting Russian income and that could get much worse. With refinery coming offline, Russia has had to switch to exporting crude (it must keep all the refined fuels for its own consumption) and even having to purchase refined fuels from the world market and import them into Russia.

So it is exporting less profitable fuel and having to spend desperately needed capital importing fuel from the outside. Now, Trump’s War with Iran has provided a cushion for Putin by keeping the prices for crude very high, meaning that states like India and China are buying whatever Russia can sell. However if the refining campaign can be joined by an equally effective Port campaign (remember, the USA is putting pressure on Ukraine to keep oil flowing out of Russian ports) then even this will not work—and Russia’s financial crisis will hit a death spiral. It will have to import expensive refined fuels and be able to ship out much less crude.

This is why this campaign is so important. It is not because it affects Russian morale, or causes inconvenience, it is because ultimately it is the best way to take away the one thing all war machines need—money. Russia without the ability to raise money by exporting fuel is not only not a great power, it is not a medium economic power. It is an economic basket case.

That is why this fuel system should be the focus.

Note—that does not mean the only thing attacked, just always the highest priority. After that I would put communications, armaments production and strategic transport. However going through all this would require another piece.

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The Trump Con Comes To Its Natural Conclusion, More Time For Putin

Guess what? After all that waiting it turns out that Trump decided not to help Ukraine by pushing Elon Musk to let the Ukrainians have Starlink access to attack strategic targets in Russia. The FT had a story on that development this week, which has been summarized in other outlets like this.

This was the second part of the Trump con that has gone on this summer.

The first part, which fell apart a few weeks ago, was that he was going to grant Ukraine a license to build Patriot interceptors. This was all part of the extremely misleading reporting that saturated the press in late July, that Trump was “warming” towards Ukraine, that Trump was so impressed by Ukrainian resolve that he was going to help them, that he was, finally, going to hammer Putin.

Of course none of it was ever true, and the press has moved on after embarrassing itself by writing the same, wrong, stories on the subject. However, here we are, almost two months after the con started and absolutely nothing has changed. No Starlink help for Ukraine, no Patriot licenses, no new large supply of Patriot interceptors—and no prospect of Ukraine getting any of this.

Now this con was brutally effective for Putin. The Ukrainians actually believed there was a real possibility of Trump giving them both Starlink access and Patriot interceptors and a license. They worked for a long time preparing their pitch, put together plans in case they were successful, and invested a good deal of emotional and political energy into their efforts.

And here we are almost two months later and it did not happen, but it should be clear by now that it was never going to happen. They were just, as they have been for the last 19 months, being strung along.

And the beneficiary is the Russians. All this means is we have had two more months of blue smoke and mirrors, with people wondering if Trump might help the Ukrainians, and in the meantime Russia can bombard an almost defenseless Ukraine. This week, for instance, it was reported that Ukraine had “run dry” of Patriot Interceptors.

The effects of being defenseless to Russian (and North Korean) ballistic missiles, which is what this means, is now crystal clear and getting worse by the week. Ukrainian civilian casualties are trending steadily upwards as the Russians can launch mass attacks knowing some of their missiles will definitely get through and other systems can therefore deal with overwhelmed Ukrainian air defenses. This was how Ukraine’s foreign minister summarized the situation for July 2026.

In July alone, Russia killed at least 437 civilians and injured 2,610 across Ukraine — the highest monthly civilian toll since May 2022. 17 children were killed and another 166 injured, the highest monthly number of child casualties since April 2022.

Having more time to do this is Putin’s key objective—which is why the con is so devastating. Most importantly for the Russians, Putin wants to have all the winter of 2026-2027 to bombard a defenseless Ukraine—to make last winter’s terrible bombardment with its heat and power outages, seem mild in comparison. This is now being admitted by Ukrainians. This week, Serhii Kyslytsia, First Deputy Head of Zelensky’s Presidential Office was quoted as saying.

"Putin has no desire whatsoever to sit down at the negotiating table now, and after winter begins and until it ends, that is, at least until mid-March, he will have even less motivation. Because he believes that Ukrainians are not strong enough as a nation to survive this winter."

This is why it is vital to call what we are and have always seen as a Trump “con”. It is why, for months, I have trying to communicate that this is all about leaving Ukraine as exposed and vulnerable as possible in the upcoming winter. Now, the Ukrainians are admitting that publicly itself. And that is why I wrote two days after the Patriot license con was announced that all that was really happening was that Ukraine was being set up to have the crap kicked out of it this winter. Here is a quote from that piece.

The fact that Russia seems to be upping its strike rate with three attacks on Kyiv in six days, just as it is clear that Ukraine is running out of Patriots interceptors, shows how the Russians are aware of the help Trump has and will continue to provide for them. For at least a year, if not longer, they can do a great deal of damage with their ballistic missiles knowing that the Ukrainians have few options to shoot them down. That is a massive strategic gift that the USA has given to Russia. Trump has provided Putin at least one more whole winter, and possibly two or three (the Japanese after many years of licensing are only making 30 Patriot PAC-3 interceptors, the ones Ukraine needs, annually), to attack what he wants.

In other words, it is not harmless optimism to act like Trump might help Ukraine, it is falling for a deadly, pro-Putin maneuver that is and will increasingly lead to Ukrainian suffering.

And it delays Ukraine doing what it should and restrains Europeans from doing what they could. We have had one example this week. One of the reasons the Ukrainians were desperate to get Trump to give them Starlink access because they wanted to attack a new Russian sattellite that is about to go into operations and could give the Russians much greater accuracy within Ukraine (where they do not have Starlink). They believed that they needed Starlink to do this effectively.

Actually, they might have been wrong on this. A week ago, probably understanding that US aid was not going to be forthcoming, the Ukrainians attacked and seem to have heavily damaged the facility being prepared to deploy this new Russian system.

The Ukrainians must stop investing any hope and effort in getting Trump to support them. They must stop falling for the con, and the western press should at least stop pretending the con is not happening, to help them make that choice.

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Fedorov Calls For Ukrainian Elections

For now the situation with Mykhailo Fedorov, the one time and excellent Ukrainian defense minister, seems to have reached a new equilibrium. The Ukrainian parliament (Rada) has approved Yevhenii Khmara as his replacement. So legally we have a successor and for now Zelensky seems determined to keep Fedorov away from power. That seems unlikely to change for a while.

Fedorov is obviously frustrated and this week, while his replacement was being confirmed, made an audacious, and probably misconceived political gambit. He called, in a Youtube video, for a new Ukrainian election.

While I can understand his frustration, it was, from what I am hearing from Ukrainians I trust, a major mistake. An election is not going to happen now, not least because Ukraine cannot protect itself from Russian missiles, which would make any campaign a possible death trap. Moreover, Ukrainians do not want an election until and unless there is a lengthy stop in the fighting that will allow for a real campaign. Even some of Fedorov’s supporters were surprised, therefore, that he made this move.

So two things can be true. Fedorov can still be an excellent defense minister (and Ukraine would benefit from having him in post) and it can still be a major mistake of his to call for elections.

The one upshot of this is that, for now, the issue is settled. He is not coming back.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.

This piece might be a little technical. It is about conceptions of air power, and in particular how states are using it now (particularly the USA and Ukraine). It is built on the ideas that I have mentioned in a number of places before, from books to articles, but not brought together in this way. I hope that it makes sense.

The piece is built around the idea that the US has (once again) revealed that it does not understand how to use air power, and as such has terribly bungled a war—and ended up weakening itself. It then moves on to Ukraine. I would say Ukraine shows signs that it grasps how to use air power better than the USA—though those signs are not as clear as many would have thought. There has been, at times, an overly celebratory discussion of the Ukrainian use of air power—when their campaign is, imho, more uneven than people realize. By that, I mean that to this point they might have been able to achieve more if they had used their air power more methodically. By looking at the Ukrainian air campaign against the Russian company Wildberries, I will try and provide some illustration of what I mean.

The USA Does Not Understand Air Power

The US is not alone in this, but it is painfully clear that the USA, and this includes both the Trump White House and the Pentagon, fails to grasp what air power can do and crucially what it will struggle to do effectively. The bombing of Iran, arguably the largest bombing campaign since the Vietnam War, has failed utterly to achieve anything strategic and indeed the country that has been bombed (Iran) is arguably in a stronger position since the US started the war.

That is an extraordinary thing. The USA was able to launch this campaign at a time of its own choosing, with close to air supremacy, with the aid of the Israeli Air Force, and with some of the most accurate and destructive weapons systems on the planet. And yet, after somewhere close to 15,000 different targets were attacked (at the time of the April ceasefire this figure was 13,500, and there were almost two weeks of bombing in July so I am estimating something close to 15,000 now).

It even had the new advantage of AI targeting, about which much was boasted early in the campaign (though far more was promised than delivered).

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So, the USA could target almost anything it wanted—and it certainly did not hold back using some of its best munitions in doing so.

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The USA in many ways has not been a serious country during this entire Iran War. It started it without a strategy, with no match between ways, ends and means, and it has been going downhill since then. It is now fighting this war simply because it has no idea what else to do, and does not have the courage to admit that it has failed.

And this week stories came out that indicated that things are heading in the wrong direction. The President is shaping the military in his own image, which means corrupt, gaudy and heading towards bankruptcy. What we are seeing is not just weakening the USA now, it will weaken the USA for years, maybe decades going forward. The only way to keep it from spiraling out of control is for drastic action now, which is to put much of the military in cold storage until a new administration takes power. More on that below.

Also, a quick note. I often say the “USA” instead of the “Trump Administration”, and that can make some people upset. They say, and I understand the emotion behind this, that what we are seeing is Trump in action, not the USA. However, as I think I have said before, blaming Trump and absolving the country seems to me at least to be dangerous and wrong. The American people chose Trump as their leader by solid majorities in the electoral college and a clear plurality in the popular vote. And they did this almost four years after he tried to block a free and fair election from being finalized on January 6, 2021. The American people have also voted for the Congress that approved his Cabinet members and is allowing him to do what he is doing.

This is the US government, chosen willingly by the American people, in action. Not acknowledging that is dodging the reality that the American people are ultimately responsible for this. So, I will keep referring to the action of the administration as that of the USA—because it is the truth and it is important to ultimately remember why this came about. America chose to do this to itself.

And that means the American people ultimately chose to make the USA not a serious country. Understanding that is maybe the key step to changing the situation.

The USA Is Engaged In A War With No Purpose

The USA is still engaged in a war (a blockade is an act of war) which has not the slightest purpose beyond the ego of the commander in chief. The war has already weakened the country and the longer it goes on, the weaker the country will become.

Over the last week, the pointlessness and lack of direction of the war was once again made brutally clear. First it was said that in Trump’s desire to get out of the war with something, he was willing to give up any nuclear demands and focus on reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Here was what the White House was leaking on the question to the Wall Street Journal just over a week ago.

Then two days ago he came out with this.

Of course, Trump cannot even get the Strait open (in other words a return to the situation on February 27, 2026, before he started his war of choice), so he is just blustering about seizing the Strait for the USA.

The USA, btw, would be too weak to hold the Strait in a war for very long. It would have to mobilize many more forces, would run out of some advanced munitions, and in the end would be forced out—if it actually tried to do this (which it will not).

Actually, Trump is frozen. He has his blockade, which will take months and months to have effect and which Iran has already started finding ways around. Moreover, the Iranians are rebuilding their military far faster than the USA thought possible. And the Russians are sending in military supplies to the Iranians, and we can assume the Chinese are as well.

Every day this goes on, it is Iran that has greater strategic choices and it is Iran, not the USA, which is actually contemplating escalation. Indeed, there are multiple reports of this Iranian planning, including escalation into Europe.

So, while Trump has already exhausted the US military (more on that below) and has to abandon the vital western Pacific because he has bungled things so badly, Iran is rebuilding and planning on expanding the war. And, once again, former US partners in the region can see how weak the USA has become and are planning on a very different future. Oman, which has provided the US Navy with very useful support in the past, is clearly exploring cooperating with Iran in the Strait. Trump’s response to this, a situation he caused, was to threaten to bomb Oman! Indeed, the threat that he made towards this one time US friend was to “bomb the shit out of them.”

If the USA were a serious country, it would realize it has lost this war (actually it would not have started it). And having lost, it is best to get out of it ASAP, as each day it lasts, as I’ve been trying to get across for months now, weakens the USA and strengthens Iran.

The US was strongest on February 27, 2026 and has put itself in a weaker position every day since. In other words, the USA is not a serious country strategically.

Note: I am not holding back in the last two sections, so will reserve these for paying subscribers. The rot in the US military, which we saw reach a new high point this week, means only drastic steps can stop the decline. So there are two more sections, one on what is happening in the military and then a proposal to try and stop the bleeding.

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The US Military Is Fast Becoming An Unserious Organization

This week highlighted how the US military is fast becoming a farcical organization, as it contorts itself, with little opposition or even resignation out of principle, to the destructive impulses of the President.

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Well, I have a piece written on US and Ukrainian visions of airpower, and through that an analysis of the Ukrainian campaign on the Russian company Wildberries, but that now must wait until later in the week. The developments over the weekend about how (and even if) the US can exert military power in the Western Pacific have opened up the question of whether the American Age in this most vital of areas is now over—with no chance of resuscitation. This actually comes not long after this piece on the end of the American Age in the Middle East—or at least the Persian Gulf.

US power in the western Pacific has rested on three main pillars for the last 80+ years: US military might, US allies, underpinned by US economic power.

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This update will focus on the role of allies in the Russo-Ukraine War (which was the fascinating and distressing story of the last week). Ukraine’s allies (I use that word knowing it is loaded) should have helped Ukraine win the war by now. They are much richer, more technologically advanced, and, one would think, actually invested in Ukrainian victory—at least from a European perspective. And yet Ukraine’s allies have always tried to finesse their help, to limit it in certain perplexing ways that have forced Ukraine to fight a war that it did not wish to fight, and right now have left Ukraine extremely vulnerable in one area.

Russia’s allies, on the other hand, have actually offered Russia support that has allowed Russia to fight the war that Russia has wanted to fight. They have offered things such as Iranian drone technology (the Shahed which is the foundation of the Russian Geran), massive Chinese purchases of Russian oil and increasingly critical component supplies, and of course North Korean mass supplies of artillery shells, front line soldiers and now ballistic missile forces. These North Korean forces show that one does not have to have a large economy or wide technological base to be an extremely helpful ally. North Korea is providing effective forces to actually fight for Russia—which is far more than any of Ukraine’s partners have done.

Note: I am sending out on Saturday as I am nearing the end of my holiday and still recovering from a little illness. I will be back to more normal service on Monday and start taking part in the comment section discussions again. Thanks for the forbearance over the previous week.

This brings up the question of what exactly is the USA in this war? This week we got a very clear answer to that question. The US is using its leverage over Ukraine to help Russia. It does not have to do this, it chooses to.

Finally, the Ukrainians made a specific announcement about how much territory they have liberated over the last few months, and it is worthy of note, even as the reporting of the war has gone back to being quite pessimistic about Ukraine.

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Russia’s Allies Are More Helpful Than Ukraine’s

Over the last 10 days, reports have increasingly come in about North Korea’s plan to help Russia by deploying a significant ballistic missile strike force to aid Russia in its ranged bombardment of Ukraine. Ukrainian intelligence was most specific about the plan on August 5, when they named the location of the unit and the type of missiles that were being sent. Their specific claim was that the first North Korean ballistic missile forces being sent would deploy near Voronezh and contain 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers.

President Zelensky from that point on added more to that discussion and expanded on what the Russians were expecting from the North Koreans—saying that in the end 30,000 or even 50,000 additional North Korean troops and their supplies could be on their way to help Russia.

Note—Zelensky did not provide a source for these latter claims or a list of the kinds of units that would be sent.

Then, the next day, Zelensky was more explicit when he actually ascribed a specific ballistic missile attack to North Korean forces. He said that the previous day’s Russian missile assault on Zaporizhzhia had been at least partially undertaken by North Korean missile forces. This attack killed 9 people.

The Ukrainians are a little stupefied at how their partners, particularly in Europe but also in Asia, are trying not to engage in this story. To them it is an extraordinary development that serving North Korean units and their North Korean missiles will now take part in an assault on Ukrainian cities and civilians. They were hoping that this would lead to a major European response.

When it comes to Asian countries, specifically South Korea and Japan—who are the ones most threatened by North Korea—the Ukrainians were hoping that they would get more support. Zelensky indeed tied up together what he saw as the European and Asian interest in helping Ukraine oppose this move, during his evening address on August 10 of last week. Apologies for the long excerpt.

This is the first time in Russia’s history that they no longer have a secure strategic rear. For the first time, they cannot wage war without reinforcements from North Korea. They are now preparing to deploy an additional North Korean contingent on their territory. They have received, just imagine, additional ballistic missiles from North Korea. And everyone around the world must understand what this means. This is not only about the lives of people in Ukraine, and not only about the threats we face. North Korea’s ballistic missiles and their other weapons are being improved through its collaboration with Russia. The more North Korean strikes there are here in Ukraine, in Europe, the more their missiles and soldiers are used, the more they correct their shortcomings and blind spots, the greater the danger will later be for Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and other countries in the region.

Depressingly, of course, the response by Ukraine’s partners has been to downplay or even not engage at all with this question. South Korea had one official who (reportedly) said that this would be an illegal move by North Korea—but who also made no concrete pledges of aid. Everyone else just remained quiet.

In some ways, of course, this should not be a surprise. North Korea, like Iran, provides Russia what it can in direct military aid with no strings attached. Russia’s allies want it to win and believe that their military support should be used how Russia wants it to be used. That has extended to the thousands of North Korean forces who actually fought and died under Russian command retaking parts of Kursk Oblast.

And, in exchange, such allies get a great deal back. Russia has been a major support to Iran during its war with the USA (helping Iranian targeting of US forces) and Russia has, reportedly, provided a great deal of technological help to North Korea to improve its missile forces.

You can see the horrible benefits in such an alliance. North Korea helps Russia by sending troops in 2024, Russia helps North Korea improve its missiles. North Korea deploys some of those improved missile forces to Russia to attack Ukraine.

Rinse and repeat.

We can also say that Russia has accrued great benefit from all its support for Iran—in helping waste amazing amounts of US ordnance, force US forces to pull back from the Persian Gulf, and overall weaken the US presence in the Middle East.

The contrast with what Ukraine’s allies do could not be more stark. They have constantly tried to limit what Ukraine gets and even how they use what they have (more on that). They have used aid not only to help, but also to try and control and limit Ukraine. In doing this, they have helped transform this war into a longer, bloodier affair than it needed to be.

And they have done this by completely misreading the situation. They always wonder whether Russia will get hurt too much, whether what they give might actually be so effective that Putin will get angry, that arming Ukraine effectively might, weirdly, make reaching a “peace” deal more difficult.

Russia’s allies, on the other hand, give what they can and get what they can and let Russia fight its war. It has been brutally effective.

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Actually, The USA Is Quite A Good Ally For Russia

When I write, as I often do, that Trump has aligned the USA with Putin and is helping the Russian war effort, one of the regular retorts is that this cannot be true because the USA is still selling (very small) amounts of weapons to Ukraine through PURL. How could the USA allow any weapons to go to Ukraine, it was said, if it was more set on helping Putin?

This week, I hope, the answer to that question was made very, very clear—even to the greatest of skeptics. The USA has kept dribbling small amounts of military support for Ukraine because it gives the USA a great deal of leverage, the ability to both shape how Ukraine fights its war and even how European states prepare.

For instance, by continuing to provide a small number of Patriot interceptors to Ukraine through Europe, the Trump administration forces the Ukrainians to dance more to the US tune (and regrettably has slowed down the process of European states developing a European-only advanced air defense system). As long as there is no replacement, Ukraine will bend over backwards for even the prospect of more Patriots.

And we just had a brutally efficient example of what the US can do with that leverage. The Ukrainians for much of the last year have waged a ranged air-sea campaign against Russia’s ability to export oil through the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk (also the main Russian naval base on the Black Sea now that the Ukrainians have isolated Sevastopol). The USA, however, decided that they wanted that campaign weakened. At the start of August, according to the FT, VP JD Vance asked Zelensky to halt all Ukrainian campaigns on non-Russian tankers using the port and much of the infrastructure. Here was how another story summarized the move.

Washington was concerned that Ukraine could further destabilise oil markets and harm US companies by striking tankers carrying oil transported by pipeline from Kazakhstan to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal at the Russian port of Novorossiysk.

Vance asked President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt the attacks during a phone call on 31 July.

Since then, Ukraine has not struck tankers near the CPC terminal.

The officials said Ukraine has agreed not to strike CPC infrastructure facilities or non-Russian vessels, provided that the vessels are not subject to Ukrainian sanctions and are not carrying Russian oil or other Russian cargo.

The “non-Russian” designation is meaningless, as the shadow tanker fleet that the Russians are using to move their oil is deliberately non Russian-flagged, to avoid sanctions. So, the USA was basically telling the Ukrainians to stop what had been a very effective campaign to help Russia.

The oil price argument is also really unconvincing. The US could have done this before had they really cared about the price of oil. They are doing it now, imho, because Putin desperately needs money.

And the Ukrainians clearly felt that there was no alternative but to agree to this very pro-Putin request by the US Government. You can even see the way Patriot supplies might have been part of this process. On August 8, Zelensky made his announcement that Ukraine had been offered a very small monthly supply of Patriot interceptors going forward—while admitting that the number was grossly insufficient for Ukrainian needs.

The USA keeping Ukraine dependent on Patriots means that even a small number gives the US leverage, and in this case that leverage can be used to do a massive favor for Vladimir Putin—a favor that the Ukrainians were sadly forced to start giving right away.

If the US really cared about the global price of commodities, it might urge the Russians to stop attacking Ukrainian grain shipments in and out of Odesa, which is an effective and growing Russian campaign. As the New York Times, recently reported, this campaign could affect food prices worldwide very soon—leading to a real cost spike to consumers.

Coming at the start of the harvest season, the Russian campaign in Ukraine, which is a major producer of grains like wheat, corn and barley, could throw global food supply chains into turmoil. In 2022, during the first months of the full-scale war, Russia established a blockade of Ukrainian ports, causing a spike in global food prices and placing an estimated 70 million people at increased risk of acute food insecurity.

Thus Russian caused inflation seems fine for the USA these days, however, Ukrainian caused inflation gets an official request for a Ukrainian retreat.

Too often the Trump administration can be dismissed as bumbling incompetents. However, when it comes to helping Russia they can be brutally effective—as we have seen over the last few days. The US has achieved major leverage over Ukraine through a brutal rationing of access to Patriot interceptors. If they cut that off entirely—it would actually have been worse for Russia.

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Ukraine Is Slowly But Steadily Liberating Territory

We are now more than halfway through the summer season, and in the past this is often when reports about the successes of Russia’s summer offensive would be heating up in the western press. This was, for instance, when the stories about the imminent fall of Pokrovsk started circulating in 2024 (it actually took the Russians another year to take the city) and last summer at this time the reporting was all about the manpower crisis that Ukraine was facing which was going to lead to even greater Russian advances.

I say that because this year, the reports are not about steady Russian advances, but actually of some Ukrainian ones. Three days ago, the Ukrainian high command gave an update on its offensive actions so far in 2026. Zelensky summarized these in his evening address on August 12.

The offensive operation, which lasted from January through August of this year, was carried out by warriors of the Airborne Assault Forces and other units involved. Its main objective was to disrupt the Russian occupiers’ plans for further advances and push Russian forces beyond the administrative border of the Dnipro region.

Thanks to the active operations of Ukrainian defenders, significant losses were inflicted on the occupation contingent. Russian losses amount to at least 9,550 killed and more than 6,600 wounded. Ukraine’s “exchange fund” was also replenished.

Over the course of the operation, 745 square kilometers of territory were liberated, and 26 villages in the Dnipro, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions were returned to Ukrainian control.

Note: The Institute for The Study of War claims using a very conservative estimate that Ukraine has liberated between 600-700 square kilometres—which is not that much lower.

How Ukraine has done this will only be made completely clear later—but it seems a sign that their growth of using highly trained and motivated soldiers in small numbers, with strong technological support, is working. They can find short windows when Russian drones are either disabled or not in an area. They can provide their own soldiers with constant support and intelligence updates so that they will not be surprised or caught unprepared. And they can methodically work their way into Russian lines, take small amounts of territory, and remain safe.

This was something I went into in detail with General Havrylov in December 2025. Here is a podcast with us both:

And here is a written piece with a description of Ukrainian tactics to try and take the initiative—the ones that seem to have been working over the last few months.

Now, these areas being liberated are still relatively small. However, the Ukrainians seem to be able to do this now and not suffer the kinds of casualties that would have been incurred before. That is worth acknowledging.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone.

Well, things are plodding along with Trump’s War, and in the end they will continue to do so based on a calculation that only Trump can make. This war long ago lost all strategic purpose for the USA. The Iranian regime was not overthrown (it has arguably been strengthened), US alliances in the region have been weakened, US forces have already been withdrawn from key military facilities, many of which have been so damaged that they might never be repaired.

In other words, the strategic results are pretty clear regardless of the text of any further MOU between the parties. However, that does not mean the war will end. That event will happen when Trump makes one major calculation—and so far he is not there.

Then there will be one other larger story about the state of the US military, which is worrying. A combination of great arrogance in its abilities and lately incompetence and corruption in how it has been run, has left the US military in the worst shape in its post-1945 existence. Considering the massive amounts of money that have been spent on it, the US military is arguably in its worst state ever. Sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln for instance, seem to be paying the price for the incompetence and strategic failure of the US government (see below).

Can He Keep It Going Through The Election?

This is now quite a fascinating question that needs to be debated. I have been of the view, as regular readers will know, that Trump will have to find someway to extricate himself from the war he started, before the US midterm elections on November 3, 2026. My reasoning was that the war was so unpopular and the longer it goes on the longer gas prices remain high (and inflation overall remains higher), so that for political sake he would need to get out before the vote.

That was the whole premise of this piece written back in April—that Trump would need to do something to try and mitigate the effect of the war on the upcoming elections.

Well, it seems now that he might be willing to push the blockade for longer than I anticipated, even up until or through the midterms. There are now fewer than three months until the vote, and because of how ineptly the Trump administration has handled itself to this time, it seems the Iranians are the ones who believe that time is on their side. The US, with its extraordinary mixture of extreme bombast and open desperation, seems to have convinced the Iranians that they can wait and get the terms they want—even with the blockade going on.

The signs of that this week were pretty clear. Trump, having earlier tried to control himself a returned to bombast and nonexistent victory claims. He said at one point that the Iranians will now be expected to provide compensation payments to the USA, and repeated this threat to “keep” the control over the Strait of Hormuz.

The Iranians, otoh, using both official and unofficial channels, let it be known that they were happy to wait. And thus it will go on until Trump makes the calculation that accepting a deal that makes it very hard to claim victory (which is where we are at) is better than having a vote while the war is going on.

This is the rub. He thought earlier that he could get some kind of deal that would allow him to tell the American people that he had won—some kind of new nuclear statement or a clear Iranian commitment not to charge “tolls” on the Strait (these really are now the two issues that seem to be taking all his attention).

Recently, reports are that he no longer even cares about getting a nuclear deal, viewing that as unlikely, so he would settle for a deal on the Strait of Hormuz. However, clearly he cannot get anything close to what he needs to declare victory even in this one area, so would rather run the risk of keeping the war going than accept that reality. In other words—Iran is giving him nothing at all.

In some ways that is the exact same situation that he has been in since March—once it was clear that the quick victory he had assured himself was going to happen. I was amused to see the host of articles in the press this week about how Trump was desperate to get out of the war, but that Iran would not let him.

I wrote exactly that on April 1—with all the same reasons being given now in the press.

The one change since March is that Trump seems willing to press on closer until the election without a deal than seemed likely at the time—not that his basic position on wanting out has changed (he desperately wants out). That is fascinating. The change seems to be that he believes that if there is no fighting (more on that below) but that the blockade keeps going, he will not politically suffer any more than he has—that he can keep the price of gas from rising too much, that his base will support him no matter what.

Which is why the White House narrative pivoted hard this week to try and argue that Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz was, really, no big deal. Secretary of the Treasury Bessent claimed that workarounds are being implemented. The administration also started talking about 8-9 million barrels a day getting through the Strait.

Note: the reality has to be far far below this. Before the war about 130-140 tankers transited the Strait daily, now we are seeing fewer than 10.

Of course, one thing that Trump has going for him is that the oil markets have internalized his months of statements that a deal was imminent, and while the price is rising, it is below what people would have expected at this time. If the markets conclude, however, that he really will keep this going through the election, that will be another story.

So it is fascinating. Iran has decided to give Trump nothing with which he can politically claim victory and right now that is keeping this war going—maybe through the US elections (which I did not see happening).

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The State Of The US Military Is Pretty Distressing

A range of stories this week made it clear that the US military is, if anything, in worse shape than people understood. The rot that has set in for a while is, if anything, accelerating. When I wrote about the “rot” in both The Atlantic and this Substack right after Trump started his war, I received some real pushback.

I think one of the basic problems is that Americans have been conditioned to hold their military in such high regard, that admitting its shortfalls is seen almost as unpatriotic (when actually it is the most patriotic thing an American can do). Blindly supporting a military while it is visibly degrading is not patriotism, it is self harm.

This week there were a few painful examples

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Lately there has been a great deal of discussion of how the USA has run down its stocks of certain classes of advanced military equipment. I know, as I have been a part of that debate starting here, and also in the Atlantic. This expenditure of ammunition is indeed shocking, and even before the latest Trump escalation in July had led to dangerously low stockpiles in certain areas; stockpiles so low that, I for one, do not believe that the US military will be capable of fighting a major war for years.

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At first I wondered for a while why so many people started to read this Substack. I figured with all the newspapers and media outlets out there, that it would only generate interest from those with what might be called niche interests—logistics, military technology, hardcore military history, etc. However, what I have discovered, which is not enlightening, is that the actual reporting of war and politics these days in most media outlets can be incredibly weak. The system often seems broken—reporting White House inspired narratives that have no basis in fact as actual events, and replacing rigor with herd behavior.

The latest batch of stories, in many of the major outlets, about Trump now pivoting to support Ukraine and of him definitely agreeing to give Ukraine a license to build Patriot interceptors (or indeed whole Patriot systems), showed better than anything how this process worked. The White House and MAGA supporters of Ukraine (who actually constantly betray the Ukrainians) want to get this narrative out for certain politically beneficial reasons. They started spreading the story and the press ran with it. The result was a dishonest narrative spread far and fast—and it actually became the common wisdom, when it was not true.

The White House could also use the press to spread such stories because they have understood just how weak and pliant much of the media is. Doing what I have done over the last few years has been learning experience (and not it a good way) about how much of the media (and much of the think-tank community) works. The key thing in both worlds is not being accurate or truthful as much as it is gaining access to power and being seen to be smart. Access and perceived intelligence—usually drastically greater than real intelligence—is the currency of these worlds.

Thus to maintain access, some reporters and commentators will say exactly what the White House wants, time and again, even after the White House narrative has been shown to be nonsense (many times). When it comes to think tanks, many are not interested in attempting even-handed or rigorous research; instead, they want to impress funders and also maintain access, and thus they publish crap to appeal to power and maintain their perceived viability (in most cases they have none). This means that much of what is produced in think-tanks is of laughable quality, meant to signal access and support, not to actually analyze a problem or policy.

In other words, the output is often weak, shallow and even deceptive at times. And we have seen that in spades over the last few weeks. The output also hurts. Last week I showed how listening to that narrative has hurt Ukraine—how having hope that the narrative about Trump changing his mind and aiding them has helped Putin bombard their cities. This week I thought it would be worthwhile to talk about how such a con takes place and can be so widely amplified.

Also, a quick note for subscribers. I have not replied to messages in the last two Substacks because I am both supposed to be on holiday and I have come down with a bug of a sort which has wiped me out. It means that once I write a piece and send it out, I’m quite shattered. Apologies.

Anatomy Of A Con

Donald Trump has known from the moment that he became president again that Ukraine was desperate for Patriot missiles. Indeed, he knew it so well that he used that information to both boast about his own power and also to abuse the Ukrainians as supplicants. Remember, he loves things that make him seem powerful, and knowing that the Ukrainians were desperate for Patriot interceptors as the Russians were bombarding their cities and people, is exactly the kind of thing that turns him on.

How can I say that? Well, he went to great lengths to tell the world—not in a way that somehow politically helped him, but just because he could. Lets start with examples from very early into his second term:

Examples of Trump Knowing How Desperately Ukraine Needs Patriots

14 April 2025 — Oval Office

Just before Trump was down to meet with El Salvadoran president Bukele, he was asked whether he had spoken to Zelensky about his offer to purchase more Patriot batteries, Trump replied:

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s always looking to purchase missiles. You know? He’s against—listen, when you start a war, you got to know that you can win the war, right?”

He continued on to insult Ukraine by saying that you don’t start a war against somebody twenty times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles—implying that Ukraine decided to start the war.

25 June 2025 — NATO summit press conference

The clearest “I know what they want” statement by Trump about Ukraine’s desperate need for Patriots, and crucially it is an unprompted elaboration rather than a yes/no answer. Asked by a Ukrainian reporter, whose husband was serving in the Ukrainian army, about giving Ukraine Patriots, Trump responded:

Good. So let me just tell you, they do want to have the anti-missile missiles. Okay. As they call them, the Patriots. And we're going to see if we can make some available. They're very hard to get. We need them too. We were supplying them to Israel and they're very effective, 100% effective. Hard to believe how effective. And they do want that more than any other thing, as you probably know.

13 July 2025 — Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland

Asked whether he would still send ten entire Patriot systems, which had supposedly been promised, Trump said he hadn’t agreed on the number yet but that he understood that Ukraine “desperately” needed them.

Btw, this exact time was part of the con when Trump was acting all angry at Putin, and talking about getting tough on Russia—only to turn around and roll out the Red Carpet in Alaska a few weeks later.

In other words, it is clear that Trump knows how much Ukraine desperately needs Patriots and how much leverage that gives him—and he is enjoying it.

However what the US actually does in 2025 and 2026 is regularly slow down and even stop Ukraine from getting promised Patriots. Here are some examples.

Examples Of The Administration Cutting Patriot Supplies To Ukraine

March 2025 — blanket aid suspension

After the ambush of Zelensky in the Oval Office, the administration paused all aid to Ukraine, including Patriots in transit or already in Poland, until Ukrainian leaders showed more “appreciation”, with a White House official saying they were “pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution.” Intelligence sharing was cut too.

July 2025 — the DOD halt

Dozens of Patriot interceptors, (as well as thousands of 155mm rounds, 100+ Hellfires, 250+ GMLRS, plus Stingers, AIMs and grenade launchers) were halted on their way to Ukraine. Note the timing just before Trump goes to great lengths to say how much he knows Ukraine needs Patriots.

This kind of cat and mouse game with the administration tormenting Ukraine over Patriots continues for the entire year. And then Trump’s War with Iran breaks out and Patriot deliveries practically stop. For all of 2026, according to Zelensky, deliveries of Patriots to Ukraine were running at a paltry one-third level of the reduced flow of 2025.

It is important to understand the timeline—as it shows that the Patriot shortage was known in the administration from the start, was used to damage Ukraine multiple times, and in the end resulted in far fewer Patriots for Ukraine than was promised.

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Trump Promises A Patriot License As Part Of The Con

Now, move back to exactly one month ago. On July 9, Trump promised Zelensky, surprisingly to some, that he would allow Ukraine to have a license to make its own Patriot interceptors (or indeed whole Patriot systems). Now this was a big part of the con—and it was a con.

First, there had been no preparation for this move at all—the defense companies involved had not been informed and allowed to prepare. In other words, the promise was not substantial, it was a tactic.

Second, Trump was feeling pressure because all of his boasting about Russia being powerful and crushing Ukraine was looking decidedly silly as Ukraine was striking back.

Third, Trump did not want to give Ukraine Patriots interceptors at that moment, because he knew that Ukraine was basically out—and this gave Putin an opportunity to bombard Ukraine with impunity. So he could dangle the license idea and keep Ukraine from getting the interceptors it needed at that moment.

In other words, it was an empty promise, with no substance behind it, the upshot of which was to delay any help for Ukraine for a considerable period. It was a political maneuver to serve Trump’s needs and help Putin while making it seem like the US was about to help Ukraine. It was a con.

The Press Goes Wild About Trump Now Siding With Ukraine

If you look back at the reporting about Trump and Ukraine from July 9 until just a few days ago, you will see the real political advantages Trump accrued from the con. Even though he had no intention of allowing Ukraine to build Patriots, this move, fed by anonymous White House sources, as always, was that this move was part of Trump pivoting to Ukraine, of Trump being “wowed” by Ukrainian achievements or even, most hysterically, of Trump being finally frustrated enough with Putin to be willing to hurt Russia (this btw was about the fourth time that Trump had “finally” been so frustrated by Putin). The stories appeared in almost all the major press, and they were so shockingly similar in tone and content that you can only see how a certain narrative was being pushed.

This is what I mean about being cynical about the level of reporting that is being sent out. It is parroting lines, not rigorous analysis.

Here are three examples from major outlets from the last four days of July—and what is particularly freaky is that all the headlines have almost exactly the same phrasing. That is a lot of warming.

Wall Street Journal

The Economist

Semafor

Thankfully for it, the New York Times adopted the same narrative language, but did at least present the warming as a question, not a definite.

So, overall, the con had worked a charm.

The Con Culminates And The Patriot License Is Shown To Be Nonsense

Of course all good things must come to an end—and all good cons too. On July 31, 2026, after this final rush of press stories about how pro-Ukraine Trump was becoming, Trump pulled the rug out completely from under Ukraine. He started musing publicly about how he might not, after all that, give Ukraine a Patriot license.

Moreover, it turned out that Trump, precisely when we were told that he was warming towards Ukraine, had nixed an emergency request from Zelensky for interceptors as the Ukrainians basically had none.

So not only was Ukraine not going to get the license, it was being strung along on getting any new missiles. This has left the Ukrainians desperate, as they really are defenseless against Russian ballistic missiles. Zelensky is now left trying to sell the idea of Ukraine eventually receiving a tiny number of new interceptors, maybe just old PURL ones, as something.

He was conned.

Conclusion

The power of a Trump con is that people want to believe it, and because the press is so supine and willing to spread White House stories uncritically, they amplify it. Yes, Ukrainians really did believe that Trump was warming to them—not just because they wanted to (and they did) but because they were being told this constantly by the American press. There was nothing but hot air and dreams (and a desperate desire to retain access to Washington sources) behind all the stories about Trump moving over to Ukraine’s side.

The con worked a charm—though if there was a press with the willingness to confront White House narratives and point out that repeatedly Trump had served Putin’s interests, it might not have been so damaging.

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The Overreaction In the Press: Ukraine Has Not Gone From Winning To Losing

The con anatomy was rather long (and I am rather unwell) so this update will have only one other story. However, later in this week I will have a piece on the Ukrainian strategic bombing strategy, particularly the wildberries campaign (of which I have rather mixed feelings as I have made clear). So that is coming.

However, I did want to remark on another narrative shift. With Trump having maneuvered so effectively that Ukraine is now defenceless against ballistic missiles, there have been arguments that the whole idea that Ukraine was taking some of the initiative in the war was somehow flawed, and that Putin was regaining the initiative. There was this piece in the Spectator, for instance.

This is an overreaction. On the battlefield, the basics of the situation still favor the Ukrainian strategy of causing massive Russian casualties while saving their own lives (which hopefully is even gaining ground under General Drapatyi). And the data supports this. ISW’s most recent update on the Russian summer offensive (it is already into August—so much of the summer is gone) shows Russian advances are miniscule, far below the small advances of 2025, and Russian casualties are now more than 40,000 a month. It is Russia that is still struggling to generate soldiers to replace losses—and that means that the idea of Russia having a societal wide mobilization is being discussed more and more.

Ukrainian mid-range strike continues to hammer Russian logistics in occupied Ukraine. The Ukrainians seem to have “fire control” now on the highway into Crimea. So the Russian army is struggling, suffering massive losses and its logistic situation is getting worse, not better.

In long range strike, when Ukraine focusses on refineries, they can still do great damage. That means that Russia is still going to generate less income going forward and that will hurt the Russian war machine.

So yes, Ukraine is going to suffer a great deal in the coming months through civilian losses and some successful Russian strategic attacks—thanks in part to how the USA has conned the Ukrainians. That is undeniable. However, the Russian military is still failing badly this summer—and that will not change.

Keep that in mind.

Have a good rest of the weekend everyone. I am back to bed.

I felt the need to write this piece because of the extraordinary strategic failure of the USA in its war against Iran. I gave an interview about this to NPR’s All Things Considered, yesterday on precisely this topic. You can listen to it here. In the interview, I said I did not think people quite understood the gravity of what we had seen in Trump’s War with Iran. The USA, reportedly a superpower and the technologically dominant force of its day, had lost the war in record time, had exhausted supplies of vital munitions that it could not replace for many years, and was now haggling over the terms of its own defeat.

Though I did not have time to go into it then, it also made the early Pentagon boasts about how the US was fighting amongst the most ill-considered statements in history. We heard for months about how the US was imposing itself, obliterating Iranian military power, crushing Iran’s industrial base, etc,.

All of it was nonsense. I thought, therefore, it would be good to visit one area where such boasts were being made just a little while ago, both about the US bombing of Iran and also the Ukrainian attacks on Russia. A while back we were hearing about how AI was being decisive for both—when actually it was not. AI, or Autonomous systems, is I would argue absolutely the future of war, but it will require investment, planning and sober heads. For now, beware the extreme boasts.

AI Failed Against Iran

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Well as Trump’s War with Iran has now gone on for almost six months, certain realities are obvious. These realities mean the USA has lost the war, that Iran will emerge, in the short term at least, in a stronger position and that, most likely, the wider Persian Gulf region will be altered strategically, perhaps forever. I say these “realities” because even though the negotiations (of some sort) are still going on, the war has already caused some dramatic changes that cannot be undone quickly—if at all. And those changes are heralds of what is to come, not roadblocks on the way back to what was.

This is momentous. Since the end of World War II, or at least since the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, the USA has become the dominant outside security player in the region. It overthrew governments, it made massive military sales (more on that below), it established military bases and it also fought shorter wars (First Gulf War) and decades-long wars (War on Terror/Afghanistan) to impose its influence.

The USA even had one of its most important, if less well-known, foreign policy doctrines aimed precisely at the region: the Carter Doctrine. Announced in the State of the Union address in 1980, the Carter Doctrine made it American policy to resist any other power interfering with trade into and out of the Persian Gulf and stated that the USA would use military force to keep the Gulf open.

It is ironic, then, that the USA, in using military force, caused another power to close the Gulf and led to the demise of its own doctrine.

For the states of the region, this is also a transformational development that will (or at least should) lead to massive changes in their security architecture. For many decades, as I laid out in this Atlantic article from a few days ago (gift link here), they based their security on making vast and expensive purchases of military equipment from the USA, housing US military forces, and acting as US allies. That entire paradigm is gone.

What we are seeing is that relying on the USA (or really any other power) for your security is a mug’s game. You cannot buy security in the modern world, you have to have some ability to make it for yourself. Here is a short excerpt from the piece.

I will write more about how states might go forward from here, but this update will be on already what has happened: how the American Age is already drawing to an end in the Persian Gulf. It will do that through a few points, which added together show a reality that I do not see changing, regardless of how the US and Iran eventually end Trump’s War.

The US Is Running Out Of Advanced Munitions: It Will Take Years To Recover

The most terrifying logistics percentage of Trump’s War came out this week. It was claimed that the USA had already used up nearly “80%” of its advanced missile interceptor stockpiles. This is shocking. It not only makes a mockery of all of Trump’s threats to escalate—it means that the US cannot defend its friends and allies in the region (if it has any left).

This was part of a cascading series of stories about the sorry state of US military supplies—which are not hitting systems no one was talking about previously. One of these was that the US was almost out of the well known ATACMS long-range rocket artillery system (which was of vital importance to Ukraine in 2022 and 2023). Reuters broke that story on August 4, and here was how one outlet summarized it.

The U.S. Army has used up much of its stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to three people familiar ⁠with the data, raising concerns about the military’s readiness for future conflicts.

The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “virtually all” of these weapons, according to two of the sources.

The fact that the US is blowing through its ATACMs stocks is doubly indicative of the crisis America is facing. ATACMs was going to be phased out in favor of newer weapons. However, the US was so desperate for long-range precision strike against Iran that they had to turn to them. Now they are gone (which further hurts Ukraine too it should be noted.

Btw, if it helps, here is a list of all the systems that the US is running very short on. Its extraordinary how the country has destroyed its strategic position in fewer than six months.

Air and missile defence

• Patriot (PAC-3 / PAC-3 MSE Interceptors) — Ground-launched interceptor against ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and aircraft.

• THAAD — Ground-launched interceptor for ballistic missiles at higher altitudes and longer ranges than Patriot, and the system with no substitute below it.

• SM-3 — Ship-launched (Aegis) interceptor for ballistic missiles, hitting them outside the atmosphere.

• SM-6 — Ship-launched interceptor used mainly against aircraft and cruise missiles, with secondary anti-ship and terminal ballistic-missile roles.

Long-range strike

• Tomahawk (TLAM) — Ship- and submarine-launched cruise missile for hitting fixed ground targets.

• JASSM-ER — Stealthy air-launched cruise missile with a 1,000-lb payload, fired from bombers and fighters at standoff range.

• PrSM — The Army’s new ground-launched ballistic missile fired from HIMARS/MLRS, range beyond 500 km. The one replacing ATACMS.

• ATACMS — The older, shorter-range (300 km) predecessor to PrSM, fired from the same launchers, and the system supplied to Ukraine for strikes into Russia.

These, btw, are the systems for which the reports are strong. There are rumors that there are worrying shortages across the board.

It will take years, maybe more than a decade, to make up for this extraordinary shortfall. The US has neutered itself as a strategic force already in this war. That will have global ramifications.

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The US Is Already Withdrawing Forces From The Region: It Just Does Not Want To Talk About It

The USA cannot protect its forces against Iranian strike, as cheap and less advanced as that strike is compared to American capabilities. The upshot of this weakness (and indicative of why the US is running out of anti-air systems) is that the USA is already pulling its forces out of the Persian Gulf—in some cases precipitously.

The Wall Street Journal five days ago wrote a detailed story about how this is effecting Kuwait. The US has made Kuwait a major base for its influence in the region since the First Gulf War in 1991, but the results of Trump’s War (if you remember the first mass casualty hit by the Iranians was on a US facility in Kuwait) has caused the US to pull many of its forces out of the country already.

Trying to sugarcoat the pill, the WSJ says the USA is “rethinking” its defensive posture in the region, but the truth is that is has been forced to pull out precipitously because it cannot protect its forces and it is struggling to protect the Kuwaitis.

This recent report comes after months of reports of withdrawals from other facilities—leaving many US bases in the Gulf supposedly empty. There was this story from March in the New York Times for instance.

So what are the states in the region seeing? They see that the US is unable to protect its own troops, let alone them. And what does that do? It makes those states understand that being too close to the US could actually be a strategic liability.

Jordan is an interesting case in that regard. Supposedly some of the US forces that were withdrawn from the Gulf have been redeployed to Jordan—and lo and behold Iran starts attacking Jordan regularly as it did last week. Now Jordanians are starting to question the role of the USA in their lives.

The USA Is Already Losing The Faith Of The State’s In The Region

As I mentioned above, the entire security architecture that was constructed by the states in the Persian Gulf and wider Middle East, will have to be entirely remade. There are signs that they already know that. The US, is showing its weakness so dramatically and in adding to that its unreliability and fickleness, is compelling the states to think more regionally.

For the last few months there have been reports of states, such as Saudi Arabia, “hedging” on their previous strategic calculations. This is a polite way of saying “losing confidence” in the USA and rethinking their position. For decades the Saudis spent eye watering sums building up their military with US equipment and relying on the US as the ultimate guarantor of its security. Now it can see the US not only cant protect it from Iran, it can barely help fight the Houthis in Yemen.

Other states are starting to think more regionally as well when it comes to the future (which is btw, no bad thing at all). Look, we need to be honest about what we have seen here. The US is already running out of weapons, it is already pulling forces back, it is already discrediting itself. The states in the region are only acting rationally in looking at a very different future, one that relies as little as possible on the whims of a declining and fickle USA.

Expect a lot more on this going forward.

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Note On The Negotiations For Paying Subscribers

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Hi All,

People love to talk about war: how militaries behave, what weapons and tactics they use, how they are being commanded, and how the battles are progressing. However, the central question of war is usually/often ignored as boring or indecipherable. And that is: how do you pay for a war?

Wars are obscenely expensive, usually costing far more money than people can imagine before they start. Finding such funds usually requires a combination of hard work and brute force. Even then it is a struggle. Russia, for instance, has spent most of its sovereign wealth fund and liquidated the vast majority of its gold holdings to fight Ukraine, in what was supposed to be a week-long war.

I was struck by this question because the cost of Trump’s War is usually overlooked in the strategic discussion of whether Trump can or should escalate, and whether such a decision might turn Trump’s war into a longer-term conflict. In actuality, the question of how this war can or should be financed needs to be addressed first. One of the determining facts which will determine the length of this war could be that the USA is far more under the gun financially than it was at the start of any war in its history. That alone might prevent the US from escalating or lengthening the war—even if Trump wanted to do both.

If I may, I would like to go back to one of my favorite pieces of the year so far, which struck some people as a little out of left field. It was how in geopolitical and economic terms, we may have forgotten what it was like to deal with a real financial crisis.

The argument in the piece was that over the last 20 years we have had one way to deal with any crisis, be it the 2007-8 financial meltdown, the Covid pandemic, etc., and that was through massive deficit spending. We could, and did, throw masses of money at any problem. At the same time, the US fought its long War on Terror, which lasted through the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. All of this borrowing helped get the USA (and the rest of the world) through these crises, but of course it came with a time limit. We have been incredibly lucky (in the short term) over the last twenty years in that for much of the time interest rates were exceptionally low. At some point the borrowing has to stop, and I do not believe people understand this and are prepared for it.

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Note: Paul Krugman wrote an important Substack on a related theme four days ago entitled: The Bond Market Doesn’t Like Bullshit. It’s worth a look.

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Before I start, I have two announcements. First, I did a Substack Live on Thursday with Ivanna Ryzhkova of Come Back Alive. Ivanna was a combat medic in the Ukrainian Army starting right after the full-scale invasion and now works as part of CBA’s program which assists in the training of this much needed group of professionals (who save lives …

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