Ottantuno anni fa, alle 8.15 del mattino, Hiroshima. Stamattina, alla stessa ora, cinquantamila persone in silenzio nel Parco Memoriale della Pace e un sindaco che accusa i governanti del mondo di considerare ancora la deterrenza nucleare un approccio realistico. In prima fila, per la prima volta da capo del governo, la premier giapponese Sanae Takaichi: la stessa il cui ministro della Difesa ha dichiarato tre settimane fa che Tokyo «non può più evitare» di discutere la questione nucleare. La tesi della puntata: l’anniversario di Hiroshima e Nagasaki non è memoria, è cronaca. I due Paesi sconfitti nel 1945 si riarmano, il Trattato di non proliferazione esce dalla terza conferenza di revisione consecutiva senza un documento finale, Washington firma con Riyadh un accordo che apre all’arricchimento dell’uranio proprio mentre bombarda Teheran per negarglielo, e l’Italia programma diciannove miliardi aggiuntivi per la difesa nel prossimo biennio. AFFRONTIAMO INSIEME Il libro bianco della Difesa giapponese e la messa in discussione dei tre principi non nucleari Berlino, la deterrenza francese e il riarmo per interposta persona L’accordo 123 con l’Arabia Saudita: senza Gold Standard, senza Protocollo aggiuntivo AIEA Hormuz, il blocco che non si scioglie e chi guadagna dall’oscillazione del greggio Il conto italiano del riarmo: 33,9 miliardi reali contro 45,3 dichiarati alla NATO IN STUDIO Alberto Bradanini, ambasciatore d’Italia a Teheran dal 2008 al 2012 e a Pechino dal 2013 al 2015, presidente del Centro Studi sulla Cina Contemporanea. Margherita Furlan, giornalista, fondatrice e direttrice di Casa del Sole TV, autrice di «BRICS Scacco Matto». Conduce Jeff Hoffman. I LIBRI DEGLI OSPITI Alberto Bradanini, «Cina. L’irresistibile ascesa», Sandro Teti Editore, 2022 Alberto Bradanini, «Cina. Lo sguardo di Nenni e le sfide di oggi», Edizioni Anteo Alberto Bradanini, «Oltre la Grande Muraglia», Egea, 2018 Margherita Furlan, «BRICS Scacco Matto», La Casa del Sole Edizioni (disponibile in italiano, inglese e russo) SOSTIENI CASA DEL SOLE TV Casa del Sole TV è un progetto di giornalismo indipendente autofinanziato: nessun editore, nessun partito, nessun padrino politico. Per donazioni: IBAN: IT63P0326822300052392596590 Intestato a: La Casa del Sole Edizioni Causale: Donazione Casa del Sole TV Membership YouTube:    / @casadelsoletvchannel   — Analista Multipolare €5/mese — Inviato della Verità €15/mese — Architetto del Futuro €25/mese SEGUI CASA DEL SOLE TV YouTube: @CasadelSoleTVChannel #iran #guerra #nucleare #hiroshima #casadelsoletv #spesamilitare

L'articolo ☢️ NUCLEARE, NON SOLO RICORDO | LEVANTE proviene da Casa del Sole TV.

For decades, the US has maintained an unassailable lead in aircraft carriers.

The US currently operates 11 flattops, all of them nuclear-powered. China is a distant second with three aircraft carriers, none of them nuclear-powered.

The US operates roughly half of the world’s true aircraft carriers. However, for years, the security analysts in Washington have been wargaming for a nightmarish scenario.

What if the US’s carrier fleet is not a force multiplier, but a strategic vulnerability? Or, to put it another way, can Beijing sink the US Navy’s aircraft carriers?

These questions have assumed significance ever since China claimed to have developed anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs), the DF‑21D and DF‑26B, also known as “carrier-killers.”

These ASBMs are part of China’s broader A2/AD (Anti-Access and Area Denial) architecture intended to push U.S. carrier strike groups (CSGs) beyond the first island chain.

In the last decade, several wargames, research studies, think‑tank reports, and opinion columns have wondered whether carriers are becoming obsolete, the new battleships – large, complex, and expensive systems – but vulnerable to cheap, long‑range missiles.

But a new Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) research paper has flipped the script: if US carriers are vulnerable, why can’t Washington also hold China’s new carriers at risk?

Are Aircraft Carriers Becoming Obsolete? 

In 2023, the South China Morning Post reported that researchers at North University of China claimed that it took an average of only 24 hypersonic missiles to sink the USS Gerald R. Ford and its five escort ships across 20 simulated battles.

From an economic point of view, that would imply that for every $1 China spends on new classes of low-cost hypersonic missiles, it could destroy $10,858.59 worth of U.S. capital ships.

A British study published in 2024 found that their carriers – the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales – were similarly at risk.

Not just think tanks, even senior US government figures have expressed similar fears.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a recent podcast interview: In wargames against China, ‘We lose every time.”

The secretary went further, linking US defeat to the vulnerability of aircraft carriers: “We know what our real capability [is]…If our whole power projection platform is aircraft carriers and the ability to project power that way strategically around the globe . . . and if 15 hypersonic missiles can take out our 10 aircraft carriers in the first 20 minutes of a conflict, what
does that look like?”

But if US carriers are so vulnerable, why can’t Washington bring China’s expanding carrier fleet within its firing range?

China’s Expanding Carrier Fleet

After the US, China has the world’s second-largest carrier fleet.

Beijing currently operates a fleet of three aircraft carriers. China launched its third carrier, Fujian (Type 003), an 80,000‑ton supercarrier capable of launching a mix of over 50 fourth- and fifth-generation fighters, and key enablers such as KJ-600 airborne early warning and control aircraft.

China also launched Sichuan (Type 076), a 40,000‑ton amphibious assault ship also suspected of serving as a drone carrier capable of using an electromagnetic (EM) catapult to launch GJ-11 stealth unmanned combat aircraft.

A fourth carrier (Type 004) is undergoing construction. Satellite imagery suggests that this will likely be China’s largest and first nuclear-powered carrier.

China plans to construct six additional aircraft carriers by 2035, bringing its total carrier force up to nine, according to the Department of War (DOW).

China’s growing carrier fleet is a force multiplier; however, it could also become a strategic vulnerability.

The Vulnerability of the US Aircraft Carriers

China recognized early that the US ability to project force globally rests on its fleet of 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. It also recognized that it would be decades before it could match Washington in carrier fleet strength.

Therefore, China focused its energy on developing weapons systems that could negate the US advantage and developed anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMs).

Recent pieces have argued that Chinese hypersonic and ballistic missiles, supported by an increasingly sophisticated space‑ and AI‑enabled “kill web,” could force US and allied carriers so far offshore that their air wings become operationally irrelevant.

For example, the YJ-21 is a Chinese air-launched medium-range ballistic missile specifically designed to strike high-value assets such as carriers. This missile can be launched from fighters and unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) and uses redundant guidance systems that make it difficult to jam; a variant can be fired from Type 055 destroyers, though this may have been the YJ-20.

Combined with older missiles such as the DF-26, colloquially known as “carrier-killers” with a range of up to around 4,000 kilometers (km), and the DF-17, which has a shorter range of up to around 2,500 km but is designed to strike high-value assets and evade US interceptors (e.g., THAAD and Patriot), China has an arsenal of systems capable of hypersonic speeds that can hold carriers at risk up to 2,500 miles away.

However, the current discussion in Washington often frames carriers as unique to the United States and uniquely vulnerable, while underplaying the fact that China is now building its own large-deck, network‑enabled capital ships that are at least as targetable as the U.S. ships China aims to threaten.

How the U.S. Can Make China’s Carriers Vulnerable?

According to the CSIS paper, Washington could follow a five-pronged strategy to make China’s growing carrier fleet vulnerable.

(1) Subsurface ambush operations: China’s Achilles’ heel at sea remains anti‑submarine warfare (ASW).

“Despite various improvements, PLAN surface ASW, fixed‑wing ASW, and undersea sensing are still patchy compared with U.S. and Japanese capabilities, particularly in noisy littorals and chokepoints,” it said.

A cost‑effective way to threaten China’s carriers is through a layered subsurface screen built around the following assets:

■  U.S. nuclear attack submarines (SSNs) operating at range.

■  Allied diesel-electric submarines from Australia, Japan, South Korea, and potentially the Philippines, including submarines equipped with air-independent propulsion where available.

■  Shared undersea sensing networks and common heavyweight torpedoes, enabling coordinated ambush of PLAN carrier groups in transit corridors rather than near the Chinese coast.

■  Shared unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) capable of both conducting intelligence collection and limited strike missions against PLAN ships.

The key is to turn the “undersea domain into a continuous threat envelope that forces Beijing to invest heavily in escorts, ASW aviation, and fixed sensors simply to move carriers out of its home waters.”

Further, this approach also leverages existing areas of production and operational excellence from various U.S. allies, making implementation faster and cheaper than more novel approaches.

(2) Land-based maritime strike networks: China’s A2/AD system is, in part, a land‑based missile problem. The United States and its regional partners can mirror that logic by building a distributed, multinational anti‑ship missile network on land from Japan through the Philippines and, where politically feasible, into the South Pacific and even around key maritime terrain globally, including the following:

■  U.S. Marine Corps and Army units fielding Navy-Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) missile systems, Mid‑Range Capability (i.e., Typhon batteries), and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSMs) adapted to strike ships and a host of information warfare systems (e.g., cyber, space, electronic warfare, and inform/influence activities) stationed as a
littoral rotational force.

■  Australian, Japanese, and potentially Philippine coastal missile batteries (e.g., upgraded Type 12, BrahMos, and naval strike missiles) integrated into common fire control and ISR architectures.

■  Pre‑negotiated access, dispersal sites, and logistics arrangements to ensure these units can survive Chinese Air Force and Rocket Force (PLAAF/PLARF) strikes and continue to generate maritime fires.

Such a network can threaten PLAN carriers during deployment, not just at the point of conflict.

Moreover, “the mere expectation that upon entering the Philippine Sea, carriers such as the Fujian or Sichuan will face dense, land‑based anti‑ship fires backed by allied ISR raises the perceived risk of using them as front‑line tools of coercion.”

(3) Long-range air and space-enabled fires: The United States and its allies can conduct long-range strikes using a mix of bombers, fighters, and maritime patrol aircraft:

■  U.S. Air Force bombers and Navy aircraft armed with anti-ship missiles, such as LRASM and future hypersonic anti-ship weapons, connected to a complex battle network that both supports the attack and degrades enemy sensors.

■  Allied F‑35 fleets (from Australia, Japan, and South Korea) using low‑observable sensors to contribute to the maritime picture and deliver their own long‑range anti‑ship munitions.

■  A mix of kinetic and non-kinetic attack vectors with a conscious emphasis on mission kills, specifically by degrading flight‑deck operations, destroying aviation fuel and ordnance handling, or disabling key escorts and logistics ships supporting the carrier, rather than only aiming for catastrophic hull loss.

This approach is particularly suited to large military powers such as the United States but can be partially adopted by states with smaller budgets by investing in a limited number of fifth‑generation or advanced fourth‑generation aircraft plus modern anti‑ship missiles.

(4) Cyber-electromagnetic disruption: PLAN CSGs are nodes within a broader battle network. Their combat value depends on complex links to off‑board ISR, satellite navigation, command networks, and electromagnetic attack and defense platforms.

By disrupting the carriers’ connections to this broader network, the United States and its allies can deny the PLAN access to the enablers that make its forces more combat-capable.

Rather than treating ships solely as physical targets, U.S. and allied planners should prioritize EM and cyber operations.

(5) Unmanned swarm and port-denial campaigns: The Ukraine war has shown how even a state with a modest navy can use unmanned surface vessels (USVs), unmanned aerial vehicles, and shore‑based missiles to attrite a larger fleet.

Ukraine has successfully forced Russia to pull major units out of Sevastopol and turned the Black Sea into a contested battlespace.

While the terrain of the Pacific is not identical to the Black Sea, a similar logic can be applied to PLAN carriers, especially in the first island chain.

Swarms of relatively low‑cost USVs and loitering munitions can attack ships in port, logistic hubs, and fixed defenses, driving carriers to relocate to more distant, less convenient bases.

The central idea is to make a carrier’s routine employment around Taiwan, the South China Sea, or beyond the first island chain appear prohibitively risky.

By following these steps, the U.S. and its allies could blunt the advantage of China’s growing carrier fleet.

While China has for years invested in AA/AD vectors to make the U.S. carriers vulnerable, Washington could flip the script and make Beijing’s own carriers equally vulnerable.

• Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee  News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK. 
• He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com

The post U.S. vs China’s Aircraft Carriers: New Report Shows How America Can Turn the Tables on “World’s Largest” Navy appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

This story originally appeared in Professor Richard Wolff’s Substack on July 21, 2026. It is shared here with permission.

Deeply divided by nationalism and deprived of its vast colonies by the last century’s catastrophic two world wars, Western Europe has been in decline ever since. Recently, that decline has become drastic and desperate as Western Europe falls ever further behind — economically, militarily, and politically — today’s two superpowers: the US and China. Mediocre and unpopular leaders reflect Western European decline. They bet and built their careers on accepting junior partner positions vis-à-vis the United States. But Europe’s decline now threatens to split Europe apart. Inside each nation, rich and powerful minorities use their social positions to sustain their wealth and power while the masses bear most of the burdens of decline offloaded onto them by the rich and powerful. The problems flowing from these cumulative developments are approaching points of social explosion. Despite the lessons taught by the two world wars, many Western European leaders once again provoke and prepare for a war, this time against Russia, notwithstanding the awful risks of nuclear weapons. One key question to ask: why is this happening?

From 1945 to 1990, Cold War set Western European nations against the USSR and its Eastern European allies in many ways and on many levels. Yet that war remained cold. In 2026, after more than three decades of post-Cold War peace, a military war between a largely unified Europe (East and West) and post-Soviet Russia seems imminent. Such a war has been prepared by NATO’s growth, its moving eastward toward Russian borders since 1990; by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine; and by the escalations of their hostilities by both Russia and Ukraine since that invasion. War between much of Europe and Russia now looms.

US President Donald Trump used both his presidential terms to distance the United States from its European allies in NATO. Among his provocative, unilateral statements and actions were heavy tariffs on imports from European countries. In exchange for some reduction of those tariffs, Trump demanded and obtained tribute from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (over $1 trillion in committed purchases of liquified natural gas plus investments by Europe in the United States). He also reduced US support for the war against Russia in Ukraine. That war thus became a mostly European project.

As the US withdrew from its former close alliances with Europe, the latter’s leaders developed an increasing hostility toward Russia. They demonized the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin. Where Trump notably lessened hostility to Russia, his European counterparts intensified theirs. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Europe and the US rushed to bolster Ukraine’s defense beyond the huge assistance they had already provided to Ukraine since at least 2014. After February 2022, Europeans provided Ukraine with still more support in finance and weapons. By 2026, many observers in Europe and Russia and beyond predicted a Russo-European war as imminent. Our goal here is to explain why this dangerous situation arose.

World Wars I and II fatally weakened capitalist colonialism. The British, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Russian and Japanese colonialisms had especially escalated competitive clashes into two catastrophically self-destructive wars. This allowed movements of the colonized people finally to defeat the weakened colonizers and win political independence. The different anticapitalist movements that had blossomed earlier in 19th century Europe allied themselves with anticolonialism especially in the Soviet revolution of 1917 and the Chinese revolution of 1949. A complex, shifting relationship between anticolonialism and anticapitalism continues to evolve in both the Global South and the former colonial powers.

As the sole heir of all other capitalist colonialisms, the US led and organized capitalism’s counteroffensive against the USSR, socialisms and communisms generally, and their alliances with anti-imperialism in particular. It did so by mobilizing Western Europe, Canada, and Japan as major subordinates in a globally hegemonic bloc.

The private capitalist classes atop each colonialist nation had understood the colonies’ importance for their profits and thus for their imperial economies. They went to war in large part to retain their colonies. After the two world wars, they faced, separately and together, momentous challenges to their existence. As their empires dissolved in wars of independence, capitalists’ profits and their national economies were threatened. Worse still was a potential alliance linking ex-colonies, the Comintern nations, and those capitalists’ own domestic socialist and communist parties and unions. Fearing such developments, nothing less than the survival of 20th century European capitalism seemed at stake for European capitalists and their supporters.

To undo this threat, Western Europe appealed to the post-World War II global hegemon: the United States. Within a few years of 1945, the US had scooped up much of what European and Japanese colonialisms had lost. US capitalists moved into newly independent ex-colonies to widen and deepen their economic dependence via the dollar as world currency, through both US trade and investment. European capitalists had to settle for positions as junior partners of their US counterparts, or else lost everything. Europe as a whole followed suit and became the junior partner of the US in most other dimensions (NATO, geopolitics, financial and cultural institutions, etc.).

Keynesian economics added a scientistic rationale — using monetary and fiscal policies to moderate business cycles — to the political necessity of welfare state expenditures.

As the sole heir of all other capitalist colonialisms, the US led and organized capitalism’s counteroffensive against the USSR, socialisms and communisms generally, and their alliances with anti-imperialism in particular. It did so by mobilizing Western Europe, Canada, and Japan as major subordinates in a globally hegemonic bloc. The US could do this because it had suffered far less than any of the other capitalist colonial nations from the two world wars. Indeed, World War II had extracted the US from capitalism’s worst ever crash. Its economy was stronger in 1945 than it had been for many years, whereas in all the former colonizing nations the reverse was the case. That economic strength contributed to its dominant military power.

US hegemony defined itself as a moral crusade against a great evil, the USSR (equated with communism). The US was “the leader of the free world” pitted against an unfree world — the USSR, Eastern Europe, and, after 1949, China. The latter were all demonized as anticapitalist dictatorships, which made them enemies of “democracy” as championed in and by the free world. On that basis, US hegemony followed as the necessary condition to “contain” the unfree world, to prevent its spread. The US-led “free world” could and would guarantee containment by means of global military bases, the world’s greatest military arsenal, ideological campaigns, political isolation, and economic discriminations. The world thus entered into a Cold War between 1945-1990 punctuated by military — hot — wars when the US deemed them necessary (for example, in Korea and Vietnam).

US hegemony also included domestic campaigns inside both Europe and the US aimed at containment. Those campaigns all featured two parts. One was a set of “welfare state” or social democratic benefits for working classes. Leading politicians in North America, Western Europe, and Japan installed those benefits. Many feared that not doing so would influence working classes toward socialism and communism. In the US, this meant perpetuating the 1930s New Deal into the 1970s. Successive leaders, Republican as well as Democratic, added Medicare to Social Security, regularly raised minimum wages, gave special attention to the non-white and non-male victims of systemic discrimination, subsidized higher education via massive public institutions, and subsidized home ownership loans. Such state interventions delivered a much less harsh life for working classes than any prior private capitalism had ever done. Keynesian economics added a scientistic rationale — using monetary and fiscal policies to moderate business cycles — to the political necessity of welfare state expenditures.

capitalists supported government social welfare spending because it came not from more taxes on them, but rather from national budgets’ defense savings. The latter were benefits from European subordination to NATO and its US leadership. That subordination included mostly endorsing US hostility toward the USSR, China and all things “communistic.”

The other part of these containment campaigns involved widespread purges of Communists, socialists, and their “fellow travelers.” In the US, a ferocious “anti-communism” project “cleansed” labor unions, schools, mass media, and government of leftist employees. Capitalist employers’ organizations and many individual capitalists collaborated with the state’s repressive campaigns. They mobilized behind Sen. Joseph McCarthy for a few years. His was a particularly extreme version of the old American political style of demonizing political opponents, foreign and domestic, as “of the devil.” The US House of Representatives established an “Un-American Activities Committee.” Such campaigns’ ostensible objective was to destroy the Communist Party. Mass media circuses, newspaper headlines, arrests, prison sentences, deportations, and getting witnesses to betray others — resulting in losing their jobs — were their means. Guilt by association targeted both socialists and independent left-leaning citizens. Purges identified many victims by citing their activities before 1945. It made little difference that at the time those activities (in unions, political parties, schools, churches, and civic associations) were both legal and often patriotically anti-fascist. The systematic repression of the US left after 1945 left deep political scars.

Western Europe dutifully undertook a similarly two-sided project. However, social conditions there imposed different qualities on it anti-Soviet and domestic anti-left campaigns. Europe’s pre-1945 history gave communist and socialist parties and their millions of members much greater social approval than existed in the US. Leftists’ roles in resisting fascism before and during World War II — often heroic — gave them genuine, widespread popularity. They could defend their political views, and themselves, in ways their US counterparts could not. European welfare states were more generous and lasted longer than their US counterparts.

While nothing quite like McCarthyism swept Europe, most Western European nations joined NATO and aligned their foreign policies to the US-led containment agenda. Their defense budgets and capabilities declined, and they relied instead on US military protection. What each European state saved by means of small defense budgets it could then use to provide public services for their working classes. The latter might otherwise have required higher taxes on corporations and the rich (and not only or chiefly on working people). European capitalists supported their welfare states partly because they endorsed containment. Equally important, capitalists supported government social welfare spending because it came not from more taxes on them, but rather from national budgets’ defense savings. The latter were benefits from European subordination to NATO and its US leadership. That subordination included mostly endorsing US hostility toward the USSR, China and all things “communistic.”

For the last 75 years, European politicians who hesitated to embrace the positions and tones consistent with the US-European “consensus” on foreign and domestic policies saw their career opportunities threatened or destroyed. The British sought and found a special role as the closest friend and imitator of the US in this consensus. The rest of Western Europe sometimes mocked Britain’s fawning subordination, but many jealously and secretly approximated it. European capitalists looked longingly at the US’s steadily shrinking welfare state programs that facilitated tax cuts on corporations and the rich. However, those non-Anglo Europeans accepted the political limits that rendered matching the US and UK impossible. They could only hold back the domestic power of their working classes by providing generous social welfare policies. The same was required to make Western Europe a consumerist bulwark against Russia, thereby to contain it and its Eastern European allies.

Breaking from those limits only became thinkable when it was made necessary. This happened when Trump ended the post-1945 US-Europe deal. His “friendliness” with Russia underscored his evident contempt for Western Europe as a junior partner/dependent that was too costly to carry anymore. His trade and tariff wars, pointedly, did not exempt Europe. The tariffs particularly shocked Western European capitalists who had concentrated during reconstruction (1945-1975) on producing goods and services that could compete in the rich US market. The tariffs also occurred just when Trump reduced support for Ukraine in its war with Russia and sharply criticized NATO. For shocked Western European leaders, Trump broke the US-European deals of the post-1945 world.

Chinese competition added strains to the European and US economies, which were already struggling to cope with the declines of their empires.

Ever since 1945, Western European capitalists had set themselves to rebuild their economies by producing goods and services of better quality and/or cheaper than the US output that dominated both the US and other markets. This included some investments in their former colonies, rendering them economically dependent notwithstanding their political independence. The latter became more performative than substantive. It remains that way in many areas. The crucially important exception was the spectacular economic growth of the People’s Republic of China. China’s growth changed everything, and continues to do so. It is transforming the world economy as it takes an ever more powerful place therein.

China’s still-export-driven manufacturing economy competes globally and ever more successfully with what remains of manufacturing in the US and in Europe. China competes, as well as an importer of energy and other inputs. Chinese competition added strains to the European and US economies, which were already struggling to cope with the declines of their empires. Europe already had had a century of decline, whereas the US was new to decline, with many of its citizens steadfastly committed to denial as their coping mechanism of choice.

Western European capitalism had partly offset its decline first by post-war reconstruction, then by explosions of consumer credit. Then, and especially after 1989, Europe welcomed waves of cheap immigrant labor while expanding eastward to re-absorb Eastern Europe into its economic operations, much as it was doing with its former colonies. Pushing NATO eastward and expanding EU membership were the chief mechanisms to accomplish Western Europe’s capitalist neocolonialism. Fantasies swirled about extending those mechanisms eastward to include Russia, perhaps dividing it up into smaller states as manageable as the Eastern European states were. If somehow achieved, that could give Western Europe an immense new geographic expanse to economically colonize. Trump, too, engaged parallel fantasies in his neocolonial gestures toward Panama, Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, Cuba, and Mexico.

Pushing NATO eastward and expanding EU membership were the chief mechanisms to accomplish Western Europe’s capitalist neocolonialism.

The great break in post-World War II US-European relations came with Trump’s combination trade and tariff war designed to “make the US economy great again.” Trump had effectively dedicated his second presidential term, begun in January 2025, to waging this economic war. Another part of that war was a broad turn away from neoliberal globalization and toward a systematic economic nationalism (“America first”). Trump’s blunt message was disengagement. Europe could no longer count on the US to provide it with military protection. Trump depicted Europe as an ally who had betrayed and cheated the US economically. He demanded payments as compensation. Those took the form of buying US liquified natural gas (LNG) for its energy needs plus committing to invest $700 billion or more in the US over a few coming years. Von der Leyen formally acceded to Trump’s demands. Such payments amounted to either tribute or reparations, depending on one’s viewpoint.

Europe’s required purchase of US LNG emerged from the Russia-Ukraine war. The economic sanctions of that war (since February 2022) plus the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines (in September 2022) sharply reduced and then ended the flow of cheap energy from Russia into Germany and other parts of Western Europe. Desperate for access to energy, Europe turned increasingly to imports from elsewhere — and especially from the US — at a much higher cost. Meanwhile, steadily growing trade competition from China and more rapid technical innovations achieved in China and the US further squeezed the European economy.

The shock of Trump’s abandonment of Europe as the US economy’s junior partner accelerated Europe’s decline. Once it had been the dominating center of a planet it had colonized. Now it had fallen to a poor third place in a world economy increasingly dominated by what had once been the poor corners of that planet. On one side stood the declining but still strong US; on the other the rising People’s Republic of China. No wonder the Ukraine war drove Russia to declare its identity shifting from European to Asian.

Europe’s political leaders reflected and exemplified its decline. Burnham, Macron, Merz and Meloni especially — like most of their predecessors after 1945 — had built political lives around loyalty and subservience to the post-World War II deal with the US. They relied on the military, financial, and ideological support from the US, on NATO, on the IMF, the World Bank, and myriad NGO missionaries for US “democracy.” They championed their “close alliance” with the US as a key cause of Europe’s prosperity and peace after 1945. Betrayed by Trump, they were forced by Europe’s decline to pay tribute with monies therefore not available to offset that decline. Trump pointedly forced them to begin financing the huge costs of developing their own military defense (already far behind the military capabilities of the US, on one side, and the China-Russia alliance on the other).

European voters know their social democracy and their peace are fragile. Trump’s betrayal threatens both.

Given the deep personal opportunism cultivated in Western European leaders by their subordinate (to the US) situation, they grasped that Trump’s betrayal threatened their careers. Trump’s repeated insults of and disdain for Western Europe risked provoking European voters to turn against leaders seen as slavish toward Trump’s US. Those leaders’ alarm only deepened as much of the US employer class seemed quite supportive of Trump’s anti-Europeanism. Perhaps their greatest fear lay in the possible reactions of European voters once they understood that Trump’s betrayal posed serious economic dangers for them. Voters might ask where the money would come from to finance European rearmament when the US defense umbrella closed. If enhanced, would budget allocations for the military diminish outlays for mass public social services, raise their taxes, or both? Europeans began to wonder out loud whether the Ukraine-Russia war being fought to the last Ukrainian might prefigure a US war with Russia/China fought to the last European. European voters know their social democracy and their peace are fragile. Trump’s betrayal threatens both. How that plays out in European politics provides new opportunities for the left and the right and existential threats to the traditional centrist pro-US political leadership trying desperately to retain power.

Nationalist politicians on the European right see their opportunity. Office-holding conservative leaders (like Burnham, Macron, and Merz, for example) can be voted out via guilt by subordination. They perpetuated the post-World War II programs that made Europe vulnerable to its current economic decline because of their subservience to the US. Western European opportunism now incites the suspicion that maybe it bet on the wrong horse. A similar suspicion now arises in some of the Gulf States in the wake of the US-Israel war on Iran. Having “invited” US military bases to be constructed on their land for security, they now see that those bases actually achieved the opposite. The bases and their host nations have become endangered targets vulnerable to Iranian drones and missiles.

Anticapitalist politicians on the left also see an opportunity. The US was a partner who mostly pushed Europe to the right. The US undid its New Deal sooner and took that undoing further than the Europeans dared to even try to do to their welfare state. 

Among the results of Europe’s left: it abolished the death penalty when the US pointedly did not. Military adventures, including Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine and Iran, were always started, led, and driven by the US with the Europeans marginally along as “coalitions of the [barely] willing.” Left politicians in Western Europe kept seeking to secure, if not advance, social democratic goals and policies. One way to do that was to limit the US connection as a context for more socialistic development in Europe. The European left positions itself as the way for the mass beneficiaries of the social democratic state to protect it from a US-connected old leadership that always seems to threaten social democracy. Europe’s left likewise rejects the nationalist right politicians because of their pro-capitalist, anti-worker and anti-immigrant tendencies.

Europe’s old US-linked political leaders have now found a way to arrest, or maybe even reverse, Europe’s frightening decline. It is the only way to do that they can see or imagine. That way can, they believe, both keep them in power in the short run and give them a new economic growth opportunity in the longer term. That way provides a convenient public justification for shifting state budget expenditures from public social services to big-business defense firms, from social democracy to pro-employer (pro-capitalist) austerity. By minimizing any extra taxes upon their employer classes, Western European leaders serve them very well. They will cover the costs of rearmament and tribute obligated to the US by diverting funds from the welfare state plus state-guaranteed borrowing plus heightened mass-based taxes, if needed, on working classes. Domestic austerity will be intensified across Western Europe while wages are brought downward toward southern and eastern European levels.

The same Western European leaders who criticize Trump lusting after Denmark’s Greenland indulge parallel lusts after Russia’s geographic expanse.

Europe’s leaders believe they can accomplish this by pumping up mass anxiety and fear around urgent preparations for a war against Russia. To that end, they demonize Russia beyond even the levels achieved against Stalin and Stalinism during the Cold War. Those leaders hope that an adequately terrified Europe will keep voting for them for a while. Longer-run hopes entail imagining Russia’s military defeat and consequent de jure or de facto dismemberment. The resulting subunits of old Russia would then offer Western Europe a new colonial opportunity, a vast expanse for profitable investment to obtain food, raw materials, and possibly workers to rejuvenate Western European capitalism. The same Western European leaders who criticize Trump lusting after Denmark’s Greenland indulge parallel lusts after Russia’s geographic expanse.

All wars are overdetermined by both domestic and international causes intertwined. Europe’s current drone and missile warfare against Russia escalated from the Russia’s “special military operation” against Ukraine that began in 2022. Its local overdeterminants began earlier. Local concerns woven into global shifts — NATO toward the east and China toward the west — shaped Russia’s changing international position, concerns, and “red lines.” The whole world watches as China, Russia, and their allies square off against the US and whatever allies it retains. The world sees the wars in Ukraine and Iran today as conflicts among proxies of the two great powers of our time.

The danger inherent in both wars is that Europe or the US or Russia or Israel might resort to nuclear weapons if “existentially” threatened. The question is whether global masses and leaders can recognize the danger. This essay is one effort toward that recognition. The solution is a serious commitment to international collaboration. What began as the League of Nations and was rebuilt as the United Nations needs still another incarnation with real powers and real global respect. Otherwise we risk World War III and its mad, mutual assured destruction.

Ukraine is staring down a new and deeply unsettling threat: a possible North Korean missile unit deployment to western Russia amid a lack of anti-ballistic interceptors in its arsenal. 

North Korea is preparing to deploy a missile unit to western Russia, according to a Ukrainian military intelligence official, marking a significant escalation in the conflict.

Andrii Cherniak of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR) told Reuters that the deployment involves Russia’s 112th Guards Missile Brigade and about 90 North Korean personnel based in the Voronezh region, which borders Ukraine.

While the exact composition of missiles will be finalized during senior-level talks next month, Pyongyang has already sent a new batch of 40 KN-23 and KN-24 missiles and personnel ​to Russia, the GUR official claimed.

Further, he noted that the unit could eventually field up to 120 short-range ballistic missiles along with six launchers.

An informed source reportedly told Reuters that the United States was aware of the plan but did not provide further details.

Designed to evade missile defenses by flying on a lower, “depressed” trajectory that reduces radar detection, the KN-23—resembling the Russian Iskander—has a range of 800-900 kilometers.

Previous reports indicated that Moscow had allegedly modified the missile to enhance its accuracy.

Meanwhile, the KN-24 has a comparatively shorter range of about 410 kilometers and employs a quasi-ballistic or depressed trajectory with possible in-flight maneuvers, making it harder to intercept.

GUR’s claims could not be officially verified, and the Pentagon has not made a statement acknowledging any such intelligence reports. Nevertheless, the GUR’s assessment comes days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Russia used a North Korean missile for a strike on July 30, which killed five members of a family.

Although Russia has previously used North Korean ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian reports hinted that Moscow might have received a fresh supply.

Earlier, Pyongyang had reportedly delivered more than 100 short-range ballistic missiles (primarily KN-23 and KN-24), millions of artillery shells, over 120 long-range self-propelled artillery systems, and more than 120 multiple rocket launch systems. Additionally, it had deployed an estimated 11,000 troops for the Ukraine war, of whom approximately 2,300 were killed in combat.

While the US and NATO are on the ground in Ukraine, studying the realities of modern warfare and using those lessons to develop the next generation of military technology, North Korea, Iran, and China are also closely observing the conflict to refine their own weapons and military doctrines.

Why is Ukraine Alarmed

Russia has been exploiting gaps in Ukraine’s air defenses to launch frequent ballistic and hypersonic missile strikes.

On August 4, Russia conducted a major overnight attack with drones and ballistic missiles that killed 17 people. Ukrainian forces intercepted 98 of 115 drones but failed to shoot down even a single ballistic missile, as recently reported by the EurAsian Times

Having run out of Patriot interceptors, which are the only reliable defense against ballistic missiles, Ukraine is practically left defenseless.

Ukraine has been pleading with its allies to supply more Patriot batteries and interceptors, which remain among the few weapons capable of countering ballistic missile threats such as North Korea’s KN-23 and KN-24 and Russia’s Iskander.

“Ballistic missile interceptors could have saved the lives of those killed today,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media after the August 4 strike. “It is very important that our partners understand that delays in supplying them, or an unwillingness to provide anti-ballistic systems, lead directly to such horrific casualties and destruction.”

Notably, the US has been sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine, among other weapons and munitions—including through the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List (PURL), a new system wherein NATO nations pay for the transfer of weapons from the US. However, recent reports suggest that the US has expended a massive chunk of its own Patriot interceptors in the Ukraine war, eroding any space to make fresh deliveries to Kyiv.

Meanwhile, other NATO allies remain wary of aiding Ukraine with Patriots amid heightened security threats and long production timelines.

The Patriot shortage has allowed Moscow to use ballistic missiles with near impunity, creating a dangerous “window of vulnerability” for Ukraine that will only expand with North Korea’s deployment. In fact, experts fear that the situation will get increasingly challenging as winter approaches, which is when Russia intensifies attacks on Ukraine’s power grids.

The expanding Russia-North Korea partnership also carries broader geopolitical implications for Ukraine after nearly five years of war.

“Kyiv is rattled not because North Korean missiles are more advanced than Russia’s Iskander, but because they signal a deeper, more dangerous geopolitical alignment—and their sheer volume and indiscriminate use are overwhelming Ukraine’s already strained defenses. This isn’t just about weapons—it’s about the normalization of new military collaboration and geopolitical alignment. Russia’s use of North Korean missiles also suggests Pyongyang has replenished Moscow’s arsenal, enabling intensified bombardments as Russia seeks to break Ukrainian morale. For Kyiv, each KN-23/24 impact is both a physical and symbolic blow,” Air Marshal G.S. Bedi (retd) told the EurAsian Times.

Notably, North Korea’s short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) are believed to be less accurate compared to their Russian counterparts. A previous Ukrainian state prosecutor’s report stated that about half of the KN-23s launched by Russia between late December 2023 and late February 2024 veered off course and sometimes exploded midair.

Moreover, strikes launched using these missiles have caused large-scale civilian casualties.

Nonetheless, the deployment of North Korean missiles will give Russia what it needs to overwhelm and batter Ukraine: volume.

This allows Moscow to reserve more precise systems such as the Iskander for high-value targets while using KN-23 and KN-24 missiles against population centers and infrastructure to increase pressure on Kyiv.

Interestingly, during a meeting of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly announced that his country will destroy Russian missile launchers to reduce attacks on Ukrainian cities.

“Our military knows they must destroy the enemy’s launchers to reduce strikes on Ukraine, its critical infrastructure, and civilians. They are working on this and will continue to do so,” Zelenskyy said.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

The post North Korea’s Missiles Are Moving West — 120 of Them May Head Toward Ukraine Amid Kyiv’s Plea For Help appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

A Levante questa sera, mercoledì 5 agosto 2026, live alle 18,30, Margherita Furlan dialoga con Antonio Mazzeo e Paolo Borgognone.
Washington annuncia di essere a poche ore da un’intesa provvisoria di sessanta giorni sulla riapertura dello Stretto di Hormuz. Nelle stesse ore un’inchiesta di Reuters rivela che cinque mesi di guerra hanno prosciugato quasi per intero le scorte americane di missili tattici a lungo raggio. E a Roma, dentro l’ambasciata degli Stati Uniti, si chiude il settimo round dei colloqui fra Israele e Libano.
Tre notizie che i telegiornali raccontano separate. Le leggiamo come un solo movimento: la potenza egemone consuma, l’Europa paga, l’Italia presta il territorio. Il magazzino è vuoto, e la diplomazia improvvisa di Washington somiglia molto a un inventario.
AFFRONTIAMO INSIEME
L’accordo su Hormuz e chi tratta davvero con chi: Teheran ribadisce che il negoziato è con l’Oman e non con Washington
L’inchiesta sugli arsenali americani esauriti e cosa significa per la deterrenza verso Russia e Cina
Le comunicazioni di Giorgetti alla Camera: 21,7 miliardi per la difesa e 14,4 per l’energia, con la flessibilità energetica incastrata dentro la clausola militare
I 14,9 miliardi del fondo europeo SAFE, prestiti da restituire, e lo scontro sul mandato parlamentare
Roma sede del negoziato Israele-Libano mentre l’Idf costruisce nuove basi nel sud del Paese dei cedri
Cosa resta della tradizione di sovranità mediterranea da Mattei a Moro a Craxi
Perché la borsa festeggia insieme la pace sullo Stretto e il titolo della prima azienda italiana della difesa
LIBRI DEGLI OSPITI
Antonio Mazzeo
La scuola va alla guerra. Inchiesta sulla militarizzazione dell’istruzione in Italia, Manifestolibri
I padrini del ponte. Affari di mafia sullo stretto di Messina
Sicilia armata. Basi, missili, strategie nell’isola portaerei della NATO
Il MUOStro di Niscemi. Per le guerre globali del XXI secolo
Paolo Borgognone
Populismo e «democrazia illiberale», Il Cerchio, 2023
La dottrina Stranamore, La Vela, 2022
Goodbye globalism!, Il Cerchio, 2022
Storia alternativa dell’Iran islamico, Oaks Editrice, 2019
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#geopolitics, #war, #news, #iran, #hormuz, #trump, #putin

L'articolo 🔴 MAGAZZINO VUOTO | LEVANTE proviene da Casa del Sole TV.

Mi ha colpito un articolo del Sussidiario che racconta la tragedia consumatasi a Ceuta nei giorni scorsi, ma che, pur centrando un pezzo di verità, lascia scoperti molti altri fattori ...

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In una democrazia liberale chi condiziona l’opinione pubblica e condiziona il processo elettorale. Chi controlla i media, controlla il potere e i suoi meccanismi. In una democrazia liberale la guerra psicologica e mediatica e permanente e le nostre menti sono il terreno di conquista. Non solo il cinema, ma anche le serie TV, i social network, la musica, hanno un ruolo sempre più centrale nella costruzione del frame, del mito e dei modelli sociali che, specie nelle società post-ideologiche, si sono sostituiti alle grandi ideologie. In che modo avvengono i condizionamenti e qual è l’obiettivo ultimo delle campagne mediatiche che caratterizzano la nostra epoca? Ne parliamo con il film-maker Federico Greco, autore di Guerra e Potere e Guerra e Cinema (edizioni Poet&Sailors), in un’intervista esclusiva per La Casa del SoleTV, condotta da Clara Statello. Guarda tutta l’intervista e scrivi nei commenti la tua opinione. Se ti piace il nostro lavoro di informazione lascia un like, condividi il video e iscriviti al canale. Seguici su tutti i social e sul nostro sito casadelsole.tv e sostienici con un supegrazie. #cinema #potere #guerra #citizenvigilantes #ilcapodeicapi #aranciameccanica #stanleykubrik

L'articolo Cinema, mito e potere: come ci preparano alla guerra proviene da Casa del Sole TV.

I due fronti di guerra si stanno saldando in un unico scenario. Mentre accade, l’informazione si sfarina, gli algoritmi decidono cosa vediamo e la Casa Bianca corteggia apertamente i signori del tecnofeudalesimo. Il caos non è un incidente: è la condizione in cui il giudizio individuale smette di funzionare. Ne parliamo con Michele Putrino, scrittore, studioso di stoicismo, editore del canale «Scuola Stoica». Al centro il discernimento: la capacità di leggere il reale senza farsi travolgere, quando l’intelligenza artificiale promette di pensare al posto nostro e la paura resta lo strumento di governo più economico che esista. Discernimento e lettura della realtà Tecnofeudalesimo e nuovi signori della rete L’intelligenza artificiale e la delega del giudizio Allenare il cervello LIBRI DI MICHELE PUTRINO Liberi dalla paura. Gli insegnamenti di un’antica dottrina per liberarsi dal controllo del sistema (Uno Editori, 2021) Manuale di resistenza al potere. Come non farsi manipolare e vivere sereni (Uno Editori, 2019) SOSTIENI CASA DEL SOLE TV Giornalismo indipendente autofinanziato. IBAN: IT63P0326822300052392596590 Intestato a: La Casa del Sole Edizioni Causale: Donazione Casa del Sole TV Membership YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@CasadelSoleTVChannel Analista Multipolare €5/mese | Inviato della Verità €15/mese | Architetto del Futuro €25/mese BRICS Scacco Matto di Margherita Furlan, disponibile in italiano, inglese e russo. #Stoicismo #MichelePutrino #Discernimento #TecnoFeudalesimo #IntelligenzaArtificiale #CasaDelSoleTV #JeffHoffman #Geopolitica #ScuolaStoica #GuerraCognitiva

L'articolo Putrino: coscienti o schiavi proviene da Casa del Sole TV.

Financial sovereignty has gradually moved from specialists’ attention to the forefront of strategic economic discussions. Over the past decade, BRICS countries have made substantial progress in developing alternative settlement mechanisms, expanding the use of national currencies in bilateral trade, and strengthening institutional frameworks for financial cooperation. These achievements are tangible and significant.

Yet, as the transformation of the global economy continues, new priorities are emerging. The structure of cross-border economic activity has changed. While interstate and corporate transactions remain vital, a growing share of cross-border payments now involve individuals: tourists, students, medical travelers, remote workers, freelancers, and small entrepreneurs. Importantly, these actors are not only beneficiaries but drivers of economic integration.

The existing international financial architecture was designed in a different era and for different purposes. Serving the global economy, it has been primarily focused on large-scale institutional and trade-related flows. Its retail dimension—money transfers of people moving across borders—has received far less attention.

This gap is becoming increasingly relevant for BRICS.

The task is to complement existing systems with new mechanisms that would comply with contemporary human mobility and economic exchange.

 

Why the Present International Financial Infrastructure Is No Longer Fully Effective

The international payment systems that dominate today were developed during the period of unipolarity and relative geopolitical stability. They have facilitated decades of global economic growth. However, the world has changed. Emerging economies now account for a significantly larger share of global production, consumption, and trade. New economic corridors have appeared across Eurasia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

Cross-border transactions have become more varied. Alongside traditional corporate financial flows, there is a substantial volume of citizen-to-citizen and citizen-to-business transactions. A student paying tuition abroad, a tourist purchasing services in another country, a freelancer receiving payment from an overseas client are not marginal financial activities; these money transfers amount to hundreds of billions of dollars annually and involve hundreds of millions of people. However, individuals often face practical difficulties in getting access to their domestic financial resources while traveling or doing business abroad. These difficulties are a natural consequence of a system that no longer fully aligns with the realities of a multipolar and highly mobile global economy.

Meanwhile, recent technological developments have demonstrated that many of these difficulties can be overcome. National payment systems such as Russia’s MIR, India’s UPI, China’s digital payment ecosystems, and Brazil’s PIX have proven efficient and secure for large-scale retail payments processed within domestic contexts. What is lacking is a framework for connecting these national systems across borders in a seamless and user-friendly manner.

Some digital platforms demonstrate high technical feasibility for cross-border transactions. For example, while staying in the United Arab Emirates, users of the Russian Yandex application can access transportation services abroad with payments processed through their domestic accounts in Russia and currency conversion occurring automatically in the background. This shows that the technological barriers to broader integration are much lower than is often assumed. The challenge is not technological but institutional: it lies in the lack of agreement on common standards, settlement procedures, and governance mechanisms.

 

From States to Citizens’ Financial Connectivity: The Rationale for a BRICS Card

BRICS countries’ financial cooperation has been focused on state-level issues: local-currency trade settlements, alternative payment messaging systems, reserve diversification, and development finance. These efforts are essential and should continue, but further integration may require an additional focus—one that would bring the benefits of financial cooperation directly to citizens. This is where the idea of a BRICS Card becomes relevant.

The rationale is straightforward. Economic integration is sustained not by governments alone but also by millions of daily interactions between individuals: tourists spending money, students paying for accommodation, entrepreneurs purchasing services, workers sending remittances. When these interactions are hindered by financial friction, the full potential of economic integration remains unrealized.

Such an ecosystem would not seek to replace national currencies, nor would it require a supranational central bank. It would enable citizens of participating countries to access their domestic financial resources when traveling or conducting business across the BRICS space, using local currencies and domestic banking relationships. A BRICS Card would be the visible, user-friendly instrument that makes this connectivity tangible.

The core principle is interoperability, not uniformity. Each participating country would retain full control over its monetary policy, banking regulation, and financial supervision. The common layer would handle the automatic conversion, settlement, and clearing of transactions according to agreed rules. For an individual, using a BRICS Card would be similar to using a domestic payment card at home—familiar, convenient, and predictable.

This approach has several advantages: it is built on existing infrastructure rather than requiring costly new systems; it respects national sovereignty while enhancing connectivity; and it focuses on practical utility rather than geopolitical symbolism. The BRICS Card is not a political statement; it is a practical tool.

 

Potential Benefits for Key Economic Sectors

A common payment mechanism embodied in a BRICS Card could have positive effects for further growth and smooth operation of several sectors.

Tourism and Business Travel. BRICS countries include some of the world’s most popular tourist destinations and major sources of outbound tourism. A BRICS Card would facilitate seamless payment access for travelers, reducing administrative burdens and making travel more convenient, potentially encouraging greater flows of visitors within the BRICS space.

International Education. Thousands of students from BRICS countries study in other BRICS nations. Tuition fees, living expenses, and family remittances all require cross-border payment instruments. A unified BRICS Card would simplify the necessary procedures for students and educational institutions alike.

Medical Travel. Healthcare services are an increasingly important area of cooperation, with patients traveling to specialized clinics across BRICS countries. At moments when financial certainty is particularly important, having a reliable BRICS Card that provides direct and reliable access to domestic funds would be a tangible benefit.

Digital Services and Freelancing. The growth of remote work and digitally delivered services has created new opportunities for professionals to offer their skills across borders. A BRICS Card would reduce friction for these workers, allowing them to focus on their activities rather than on payment logistics.

Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). For smaller businesses, international expansion is often complicated by payment-related challenges. A BRICS Card would lower these barriers, making it easier for SMEs to access customers and partners in other BRICS countries, thereby broadening the base of economic participation.

 

Existing Foundations for Creating a BRICS Card

The creation of a BRICS Card would not require a single dramatic leap. A phased approach is both more realistic and more likely to succeed.

The initial stage could embrace tourism and business travel among a limited number of participating countries, and be based on the use of existing national payment systems and bilateral agreements on settlement procedures. The BRICS Card could first be issued as a co-branded card linked to national systems like MIR, UPI, or PIX. The next stage could expand to include educational payments and medical services. Later stages could incorporate digital commerce, freelancing, and small-business transactions.

The technical foundation for this already exists. Russia’s MIR system, India’s UPI, China’s digital payment platforms, Brazil’s PIX—are all proven technologies capable of handling large volumes of transactions securely and efficiently. The task is to establish common technical standards, agree on settlement rules, and develop a governance framework that would ensure transparency, security, and consumer protection for the BRICS Card.

There is also the necessary institutional foundation for issuing and operating a BRICS Card. The New Development Bank has accumulated ample experience in facilitating multilateral financial cooperation. Commercial banks with cross-border operations are increasingly active in BRICS markets.

A BRICS Card would not need to be exclusive. It could operate alongside existing international payment networks, offering an additional opportunity for those who would like to use it. The goal is not to create a closed system but to expand the range of available options, thereby enhancing consumer choice and financial resilience.

 

Addressing Challenges and Potential Concerns

Issuing and operating a BRICS Card is a challenging task that may naturally raise concerns.

Technological feasibility. As noted above, the necessary technology already exists in the form of national payment systems that process billions of transactions annually. The missing element is not new technology but agreement on interoperability standards—a matter of coordination, not invention.

Regulatory and legal harmonization. Different countries have different rules regarding banking, data protection, anti-money laundering, and consumer rights. These differences are real but manageable. International payment systems have successfully navigated such differences for decades. The same principles of mutual recognition and common minimum standards could apply to the BRICS Card.

Geopolitical considerations. Some BRICS members face sanctions or other external restrictions. Others do not. The BRICS Card would be designed as a voluntary, complementary layer of infrastructure. It would not require countries to choose between existing and new systems. Participation would be based on mutual benefit, not political alignment.

Trust and security. Any payment system must be reliable, transparent, and secure. This requires robust governance, clear dispute resolution mechanisms, and strong data protection. BRICS countries already have regulatory institutions capable of providing such oversight for the BRICS Card. The challenge is to coordinate them effectively.

None of these concerns is insurmountable. They are the same types of challenges that every successful international payment network has faced and overcome. What is required is sustained dialogue and a willingness to find practical solutions.

The BRICS Card as an new mechanism would not replace national currencies, challenge monetary sovereignty, or seek to undermine any existing financial network. It would simply make life easier for hundreds of millions of people: students, tourists, medical travelers, freelancers, entrepreneurs acting across the BRICS space.

The technological base is available. The economic rationale is clear. The institutional foundations are already being laid. What remains is the political will to move forward—not in opposition to anything, but in commitment to the shared interest in deeper, more inclusive, and more practical economic integration.

For BRICS, which collectively represents nearly half of humanity, taking this step would be a natural progression from trade settlements to human connectivity. That is what economic integration is ultimately about.

Nearly a century before the Vietnam War, the United States undertook one of its first military interventions in East Asia. It was not a full-scale campaign, and it lasted only a single day. Its opponent was not a modern army but the indigenous Paiwan people of southern Taiwan. Yet the expedition exposed a problem that would become familiar in later conflicts: the limits of military power against an elusive enemy fighting on its own terrain. Known as the Formosa Expedition of 1867, this little-remembered operation ended in an embarrassing defeat for the United States Navy.

United States Marines and sailors attacking the Paiwan natives of southern Taiwan. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A month after the collapse of the France–Germany–Spain Future Combat Air System (FCAS) fighter program, the outlook for France’s Rafale F5, the next major upgrade standard of the Dassault Rafale multirole fighter succeeding the F4, has itself grown uncertain.

The French Air and Space Force has indicated it would rather receive additional F4-standard jets sooner than wait for the more advanced F5 variant.

The Chief of Staff of the French Air and Space Force, General Jérôme Bellanger, told senators that his force needs more Rafales well before the fighter’s next standard, the F5, becomes available.

Taking more Rafale F4-standard jets, which Bellanger described as a very capable fighter, would be preferable to waiting for the F5.

While Bellanger did not directly mention the Russia-Ukraine War and fears of the war spreading to Europe and NATO, he did suggest that changed geopolitical circumstances necessitated greater fighter fleet strength sooner.

General Jérôme Bellanger appeared before the Senate foreign affairs, defense and armed forces committee in May, during hearings on the bill updating France’s 2024-2030 military programming law. However, the whole session was held behind closed doors, and transcripts of the meeting were released only in the first week of August.

France’s updated 2024-2030 military programming law, which was adopted by the Senate on July 1, 2026, defers the delivery of 20 Rafale fighter jets from 2031-2032 to 2033-2034, so that the aircraft could be delivered directly to the upgraded F5 standard.

Rafale F5 Standard

France’s planned Rafale F5 standard will be armed with ASN4G hypersonic nuclear missiles and STRATUS RS missiles for suppressing enemy air defenses and for anti-ship warfare, will be powered with a domestically produced, high-thrust T-REX engine, and will feature Manned-Unmanned Teaming (MUM-T) with loyal wingman drones, including plans for a stealth combat drone by 2035.

France’s defense procurement agency, the Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), notified MBDA on June 2, 2026, about the framework agreement for the implementation and development contract for the ASN4G (Air-Sol Nucléaire de 4ème Génération), the country’s fourth-generation nuclear-armed hypersonic cruise missile.

The DGA has set a target of 2035 for the missile’s induction, adding that it will be carried by the Rafale F5 and integrated into both the French Air and Space Force’s Strategic Air Forces (FAS) and the Navy’s Nuclear Air Force component.

Meanwhile, the M88 T-REX is an advanced higher-thrust military turbofan engine developed in France by Safran Aircraft Engines to power the Dassault Rafale F5 fighter jet. Officially unveiled at the Paris Air Show in June 2025, it provides a 20% power boost over the standard M88 engine.

“F5 variant of Rafale will have more powerful engines, improved survivability and data links, and will be accompanied by an unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV) weighing more than 10t,” Dassault Aviation’s chief executive Officer, Eric Trappier, recently said in an interview.

The Rafale F5 standard is targeting initial operational service capability by 2030. However, integration into the French Air Force and Navy could happen around 2033-2034, with integration of ASN4G hypersonic missiles expected only by 2035.

The aircraft combat fleet target, as per the 2024-2030 military programming law, is unchanged at 225 aircraft by 2035: 185 for the French Air and Space Force and 40 for the French Navy.

However, Bellanger told the Senate that he would need the aircraft sooner, even if they’re of the F4 standard.

“I am going to need more aircraft quickly,” Bellanger told the committee. “If we are not in a position to produce the F5 standard before 2033, we will have to choose the F4, which is already a very fine aircraft, unless the operational contracts of the Air and Space Force on the fighter segment are revised.”

Notably, Bellanger is not alone in demanding more F4-standard Rafale jets sooner, instead of waiting for the F5-standard aircraft.

The Senate committee itself has questioned the design to postpone the induction of 20 Rafale jets so that they can be inducted directly in F5-standard.

It cited the tremendous pressure on the Rafale fleet of the French Air Force, the advanced age of the Rafale Marine aircraft, and mounting operational commitments constraining aircraft availability, according to reports.

Warning that the postponement could widen the capability gap at a critical time, the Senate committee said that the decision seems to be motivated more by budgetary considerations than operational choices.

Notably, in June this year, nearly 80% of the French fighter fleet was airborne at the same time for the first time ever.

Bellanger attributed it to Operation Poker, the quarterly Strategic Air Forces nuclear raid exercise, and intensive deployments in the Near and Middle East, where French Rafales were helping defend Gulf countries against Iranian drones and missiles.

French Rafales are also deployed into Eastern Europe as part of the Baltic Air Policing mission.

In June this year, two French Rafales were scrambled from Siauliai Air Base in northern Lithuania and met up with Gripens to jointly intercept a group of six Russian aircraft, including a Su-35.

Lithuania | Interception of 6 aircrafts within the Baltic air space
 
Scramble of two Rafale aircraft of the Baltic Air Policing 71 detachment, based in Šiauliai , in order to escort aircrafts operating in the Baltic responsibility area.
 
  Visual… pic.twitter.com/eDMIBB7xBI

— The Joint Staff – Military operations (@FrenchForces) June 4, 2026

“We are overusing the Rafale,” Bellanger said. “Versatility does not mean ubiquity.”

Another reason for overusing the Rafales is France’s expanding nuclear posture.

Earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron unveiled the “forward deterrence” nuclear doctrine, proposing to expand France’s independent nuclear deterrent umbrella across Europe.

However, this “forward deterrence” nuclear doctrine would put additional pressure on the Rafale fleet.

Bellanger said that the larger arsenal announced by President Emmanuel Macron at Île Longue in March would “mechanically” force France to reconsider the number of nuclear-armed Rafale B, the single-seat Rafale C assigned to protect them, and potentially its tanker fleet, which remains capped at 15 A330 MRTTs under the updated law.

This would be a major issue for the next programming law, he said, adding that “many more” aircraft would be needed.

“If we expand the nuclear arsenal, it is not so the weapons can sit in storage,” Bellanger said.

Another issue is the tremendous pressure on Dassault Aviation to deliver on its large Rafale orderbook.

France currently has nearly 165 Rafales in its fleet, 41 in the French Navy, and 124 for the French Air Force.

France has a target of 225 Rafale jets by 2035. So Dassault will have to deliver around 60 more Rafales in the coming years.

However, Dassault also has to deliver 165 Rafales for export customers, including India, Egypt, Qatar, Greece, Croatia, the UAE, Serbia, and Indonesia.

This does not include the 100 aircraft that Ukraine has shown intent to acquire, nor the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) proposal for 114 Rafale aircraft, which is currently under active consideration by India’s Ministry of Defense (MoD). If these two deals go through, the numbers will be even more significant, around 380 for export customers and 60 for France.

For perspective, Dassault delivered 26 Rafale fighter jets in 2025, one more than its target of 25. Of the 26 Rafales, 15 were for export customers and 11 for the French armed forces.

A year ago, the Rafale production rate was 2 aircraft a month (24/year). The same has now been increased to 3 per month (36 per year), with plans to increase to 4 per month (48 per year) to handle a growing backlog of orders.

Meanwhile, France’s existing Rafale fleet is working at full capacity, its Rafale Marine fleet is aging rapidly, and the current geopolitical environment and France’s expanding nuclear posture demand more Rafale aircraft sooner rather than later.

Under these circumstances, Bellanger feels that more F4-standard Rafales sooner is preferable to fewer F5-standard Rafales at a later date.

• Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK. 
• He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com

The post Rafale F5 in Doldrums After Collapse of FCAS 6th-Gen Program; French Air Force Pushes for More F4 Jets appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) has permeated our workplaces, where many employers have sought to boost productivity, cut labor costs, and eliminate jobs via the technology. A 2025 Pew Research Center poll found that 1 in 5 workers now use AI in their jobs.

Organized labor’s response to the AI has been fraught. Where some see an inevitable shift that simply needs to be regulated and could potentially even create jobs, others see a dangerous trend that will result in further job losses along with a variety of other problems.

The tension is succinctly summarized by a recent Politico headline: “Voters fear AI. Unions want the jobs.”

The ongoing debate over data centers encapsulates this tension. Across the country, community members have spearheaded efforts to block their construction over concerns about water depletion, higher utility bills, noise, and air pollution.

In March, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) introduced the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Data Center Moratorium Act, which would institute a pause on data center construction until federal safeguards can be established. “We need serious public debate and democratic oversight over this enormously consequential issue,” said Sanders in a statement on the bill. “The time for action is now.”

The legislative effort is backed by multiple unions including National Nurses United (NNU), the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and the Association of Flight Attendants. “The unchecked explosion of AI data centers is a public health crisis, an environmental crisis, and a workers’ rights crisis,” declared NNU co-president Jamie Brown at a press conference announcing the bill.

However, there are also many unions that oppose any moratorium on data centers, particularly building trade unions that believe such construction can stimulate economic growth for struggling communities and provide members with work.

“We need the guardrails on AI, we just don’t think that a moratorium is the way to get there,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told Punchbowl News in June.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) is even calling on members to contact their congressional representatives and make social media posts connected to the issue. “I’m a proud IBEW member and I oppose any bans on data center construction since these bans would eliminate good-paying union jobs,” reads suggested text for a social media post.

In June, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appeared at the groundbreaking ceremony for Oracle and OpenAI’s planned 1.4-gigawatt data center in the state’s Saline Township. Alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Whitmer told the assembled crowd that the state was setting an example for “the rest of the world” by ensuring the “responsible adoption” of AI.

The project was opposed by many residents and local lawmakers. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) called it “disgusting” and said she was “disappointed” with Whitmer, while Democratic State Rep. Dylan Wegela of Garden City said it was a “complete betrayal of the working class” and that the governor had sold out “Michigan to big tech billionaires.”

However, the data center was backed by North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU), and its president, Sean McGarvey, was present at the groundbreaking. “America’s ability to lead in the next era of innovation depends, in part, on America’s ability to build, and our members are proud to be helping make that future possible,” he told the crowd.

Speaking to Politico in June, Senator Sanders’s chief political adviser, Faiz Shakir, said that the data center jobs heralded by certain unions won’t necessarily establish lasting occupations.

“It’s fine to say that [data centers will] be built with good-paying union jobs now — and I hope that that’s the case — but what we’re also looking for on behalf of the working class of America is long-term sustainability of jobs,” he said. “It doesn’t help a lot in our view if you have a short-term infusion of good, union paying jobs at the cost of the decimation of many, many long-term jobs.”

Support for AI within organized labor is receiving a boost from AI companies themselves. Last year, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) announced that it would create an AI training hub in New York City via $23 million from Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

“The industry funding is part of a drive by U.S. tech companies to reshape education with generative A.I. chatbots,” noted The New York Times. “These tools, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot, can produce humanlike essays, research summaries and class quizzes.”

AFT President Randi Weingarten said the academy was inspired by the work of other unions, like the United Brotherhood of Carpenters, and that the idea for the National Academy for AI Instruction sprang from a partnership established between Microsoft and the AFL-CIO in 2023.

“AI holds tremendous promise but huge challenges — and it’s our job as educators to make sure AI serves our students and society, not the other way around,” declared Weingarten. “The direct connection between a teacher and their kids can never be replaced by new technologies, but if we learn how to harness it, set commonsense guardrails and put teachers in the driver’s seat, teaching and learning can be enhanced.”

The way Weingarten is selling the hub is seemingly at odds with that of Roy Bahat, who first proposed the idea. In a LinkedIn post made shortly after the announcement, Bahat, who heads the venture capital firm Bloomberg Beta, essentially admits that the center can serve as a test case for applying AI more broadly — or, as Nolan Higdon put it in Truthdig: “Teachers are guinea pigs in Big Tech’s broader project to reengineer labor, one profession at a time.”

“If we can figure out how teachers should teach with and about AI, we can affect the lives of millions of educators, and millions and millions of young people,” explains Bahat in the post. “And if we can figure out how to train teachers on using AI, maybe we can figure it out for other occupations.”

The training hub, and union leadership’s wider connections to AI, have sparked criticism from labor activists and rank-and-file members.

“Using AI compliments, intensifies, and accelerates privatization of the public sector, and that’s in addition to any harm that it’s doing to work.”

“Using AI compliments, intensifies, and accelerates privatization of the public sector, and that’s in addition to any harm that it’s doing to work,” author and teacher union activist Lois Weiner told Truthout. “The labor movement should be contesting the idea that the imposition of AI is inevitable. That’s the labor movement’s responsibility.”

“What makes this so disturbing is that it raises fully the problem of union democracy,” she added. “These decisions were made without informed debate with union members. They have a moral responsibility to community and the kids we serve to have a voice.”

Trevor Griffey, a labor historian, lecturer at UCLA and UC Irvine, and vice president of legislation for AFT Local 1474, told Truthout that, since the collaboration was established, the AFT national has focused too much on trying to help teachers adapt to AI, and too little on organizing worker power in school districts. He believes unions should go on the offensive and push for deeper reforms, as AI is already having a dramatic impact. He points out that groups like the California Federation of Labor Unions are trying to bring together statewide unions in California to lobby on a range of bills targeting the dangers of Big Tech.

“The question is less where unions stand on AI or other forms of technology, and more how they organize to resist the unsafe and unethical use of automation at work,” he told Truthout. “Unions need to invest in strategic research and organizing to support workers most likely to be negatively impacted by employers’ adoption of AI-powered technology — both at work, and in building political power sufficient to prevent the unethical and unsafe use of new technology. Beyond just regulating AI, unions should push for full employment and/or universal income policies to mitigate the disruptions to people’s lives that AI-related layoffs are already having.”

These sentiments were echoed by Vishal Reddy, a union negotiator for nursing home workers and the executive director of WorkFour.

“Unions at the local, international, and federation levels need to put real money and organizing capacity into figuring out which affirmative AI-related demands — four-day workweek, UBI [universal basic income], AI dividends, and so on — actually resonate with a wide swath of workers,” he told Truthout. “Just like in bargaining, we want to know which affirmative policy would be most deeply and widely felt, so we can prioritize it in the fights ahead, including May Day 2028.”

“That means cross-union convenings, issue campaigns, commissioned polling and research, and real resourcing behind the bargaining fights where these policies are already surfacing,” Reddy added. “For example, if a fight over a 32-hour workweek is on the table somewhere, that’s exactly where the labor movement should be throwing its weight.”

Il governo prepara per settembre una variazione di bilancio di dimensioni paragonabili a una legge di bilancio. La quota maggiore va alla spesa militare, coperta con nuovo debito: SAFE o titoli di Stato. Il resto è una partita di giro sulle accise che non produce un euro di risorse nuove. Nel frattempo il risiko bancario consegna a un gruppo con azionariato dominato dai grandi fondi il secondo polo bancario europeo, e la politica estera fabbrica un avversario simbolico a costo zero: la Spagna. Tre movimenti, una sola logica. Ne discutiamo a Levante, martedì 4 agosto, con Alessandro Volpi e Francesco Dall’Aglio. Conduce Margherita Furlan. IN QUESTA PUNTATA Le due guerre aperte e la crisi di Ceuta: oltre cinquantamila ingressi nell’esclave, la sospensione di Schengen decisa dall’Italia verso un altro Paese fondatore, il Consiglio Affari Interni straordinario. Chi guadagna dallo scontro fra Roma e Madrid, e qual è la posta reale sullo Stretto di Gibilterra. Lo scostamento di settembre: 0,9 per cento del prodotto alla difesa, finanziato interamente a debito; 0,6 per cento di partita di giro sulle accise mobili. Che cosa significa coprire spesa militare con emissioni nuove, e perché il riarmo è oggi l’unica spesa pubblica che l’Europa considera legittimo finanziare a debito. Il credito passa di mano: dopo il ritiro di Banco Bpm resta sul tavolo l’Opas di Intesa Sanpaolo su Mps da 30,6 miliardi. Il premio vero non è la rete del Monte: è Mediobanca e la sua quota in Generali. La stessa geometria azionaria già vista in Unicredit e nell’Opas Poste-Tim. La favola della spesa pubblica: chi invoca la motosega alla Milei dimentica che l’istruzione è scesa dal 4,5 al 3,9 per cento del prodotto e la sanità dal 7 al 6,3. E che il servizio sanitario nazionale è finanziato in larga parte da imposte indirette, cioè senza alcuna progressività. Il perimetro del dicibile: la politica statunitense dei visti, le revoche a chi scrive articoli di opinione, i dinieghi motivati con la sicurezza nazionale. Quando la critica a uno Stato terzo diventa criterio di ammissione a un Paese. I LIBRI DEGLI OSPITI ALESSANDRO VOLPI La guerra della finanza. Trump e la fine del capitalismo globale, Laterza, 2025 I padroni del mondo. Come i fondi finanziari stanno distruggendo il mercato e la democrazia, Laterza, 2024 Nelle mani dei fondi, Altreconomia, 2024 L’America secondo Trump. Prospettive economiche e scenari globali, Edizioni La Vela, 2024 FRANCESCO DALL’AGLIO Oppenheimer, Putin e altre storie sulla bomba, ad est dell’equatore, 2023 (curato con Carlo Ziviello) SOSTIENI CASA DEL SOLE TV Casa del Sole TV è un progetto di giornalismo indipendente autofinanziato, senza editori, senza partiti, senza padrini politici. Per donazioni: IBAN: IT63P0326822300052392596590 Intestato a: La Casa del Sole Edizioni Causale: Donazione Casa del Sole TV Membership YouTube:    / @casadelsoletvchannel   — Analista Multipolare €5/mese — Inviato della Verità €15/mese — Architetto del Futuro €25/mese I LIBRI DI MARGHERITA FURLAN BRICS Scacco Matto (disponibile in italiano, inglese, russo), La Casa del Sole Edizioni SEGUI CASA DEL SOLE TV YouTube: @CasadelSoleTVChannel #guerra #finanza #ceuta #news #geopolitics

L'articolo 21 MILIARDI IN ARMI | LEVANTE proviene da Casa del Sole TV.

One of the two US Air Force’s KC-135R Stratotankers that collided mid-air earlier this year during hostilities with Iran is now flying with a replacement vertical stabilizer sourced from another aircraft.

During the height of the clash between the US and Iran, two USAF KC-135 refuellers collided mid-air in friendly airspace in Iraq in a freak accident on March 12, 2026. 

One of these tankers, call sign Zeus 95, was unable to recover from the impact and crashed close to Turaibil on the border between Iraq and Jordan. Meanwhile, the other aircraft managed to steer away and land safely at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel—the hub of USAF’s aerial refueling capability during the conflict—despite sustaining damage to its vertical stabilizer, or tail, as previously reported by the EurAsian Times.

“U.S. Central Command is aware of the loss of a U.S. KC-135 refueling aircraft. The incident occurred in friendly airspace during Operation Epic Fury, and rescue efforts are ongoing. Two aircraft were involved in the incident. One of the aircraft went down in western Iraq, and the second landed safely. This was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on the day of the tragic accident.

As it turns out, the surviving KC-135 has been repaired by cannibalizing the vertical stabilizer from another aircraft of the type. It was spotted at RAF Mildenhall, UK, during its transit from Israel to the continental US, featuring two distinct serial numbers: although the fuselage itself carried 63-8017, the original serial number, the tail bore 63-8002, as seen in photos shared by UK-based aviation photographer Havoc Aviation.

The U.S. Air Force KC-135 "Stratotanker" that survived the fatal midair collision with another KC-135 over Iraq in March is now en route towards the United Kingdom, likely beginning its return to the United States.

Based on the extensive structural damage sustained in the… pic.twitter.com/1aHcRvPXhg

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) August 2, 2026

According to reports, the donor aircraft had previously served with the 22nd Air Refueling Wing and was last noted at the KC-135 depot at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, where it appears to have entered retirement or storage. The repair work was apparently carried out at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, which recently made headlines for refusing to accommodate additional USAF tankers amid overcrowding.

This repair approach—using a donor component from another airframe—is an established practice for returning heavily damaged aircraft to service.

Earlier, the USAF successfully reassembled two damaged F-35 stealth fighters into one Frankenbird. One of the F-35s was damaged in a catastrophic engine fire at Eglin Air Force Base in 2014, whereas the other was damaged in a nose-gear collapse at Hill Air Force Base in Utah in 2020. The team developed specialized tooling, supports, and other equipment to assemble and connect the aircraft components, as you can read about here.

Similarly, the B-2 Spirit of Georgia, whose wing composite was severely damaged after it suffered a landing-gear collapse at Whiteman AFB in 2021, was later repaired by equipping it with an 8×4-foot donor composite skin panel from Test Article 0998.

Nevertheless, the KC-135 with two different numbers at RAF Mildenhall remains a unique sighting, particularly as the mid-air crash occurred during intense combat and killed six crew members.

Iran’s proxies in Iraq claimed responsibility for the attack as soon as the crash was announced by official channels. 

“In defense of our country’s sovereignty and its airspace violated by the aircraft of the occupation forces, the mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted, with appropriate weaponry during the past twenty-four hours, a second aircraft of the KC-135 type belonging to the American occupation in western Iraq. Its crew managed to escape with it after it was hit, and it made an emergency landing at one of the enemy’s airports,” the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI), an umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias, said in a statement at the time. 

The claim was unsurprisingly amplified by Iranian state media and others, though CENTCOM immediately refuted it. 

USAF Has Lost Many KC-135 Tankers 

The KC-135, introduced nearly 70 years ago, remains the most numerous aerial-refueling aircraft in US service and the backbone of the tanker force. It enables long-range operations by fighters, bombers, and other aircraft of the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and allied nations.

Ben Gurion Airport became a major forward operating location for both KC-135s and newer KC-46 Pegasus tankers before and during Operation Epic Fury. The concentration of refueling and cargo aircraft there grew substantially as the conflict continued past the April ceasefire, at one point reaching 70–75 aircraft and prompting Israeli authorities to press for a drawdown to protect commercial airline operations.

However, for the one KC-135 that the USAF managed to restore, it has lost many others during its high-tempo war with Tehran.

Following the fatal accident on March 12, media sources on March 14 stated that an Iranian missile and drone attack had destroyed five KC-135s while they were on the ground at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. The refuellers were parked in the open on the apron, making them “sitting ducks” for Iranian missiles and drones, because the base, which is roughly 600 kilometers from Iran, lacked shelters for large planes like the KC-135.

Due to a lack of clear information from CENTCOM, the extent of damage to each tanker remains unknown. 

In fact, the latest arrival of the KC-135 at RAF Mildenhall was the third of a damaged tanker at the British facility, according to reports.

The Mildenhall transit of 63-8017 marks at least the third appearance of a battle-damaged KC-135 at the British base.

On April 12, 2026, KC-135R 59-1444 arrived covered in temporary battle-damage-repair patches before continuing to the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex at Tinker AFB. On May 23, 2026, Alaska Air National Guard KC-135R 63-8028 of the 168th Wing arrived with shrapnel repairs on its tail and flaps and without its refueling boom.

The substantial damage to the USAF’s KC-135 aircraft in the Middle East has spurred discussion about the attrition and pressure on the aging tanker fleet during high-tempo operations. As of now, parts cannibalized from boneyard-decommissioned aircraft are essential to the KC-135 fleet.

• Contact the author at sakshi.tiwari13 (at) outlook.com
• Follow EurAsian Times on Google News

 

 

The post U.S-Iran War: Freak Mid-Air Crash Survivor KC-135 Stratotanker Flies Back Home with Donor Tail appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

Summary

• Marine Le Pen’s candidacy for president means Europeans should brace for the possibility of a France wholly different to the one they know.
• A Rassemblement National government would be hostile to the EU and a disruptive partner on numerous issues facing Europe; including on Russia, enlargement, climate and migration.
• The party is divided over whether and how to work with other right-wing parties in France; and how to position the country within Europe and the Western alliance.
• Le Pen is likely to work in a “duo” with party leader, Jordan Bardella, but there are notable differences between their outlooks. Europeans should pay attention to these.
• European political leaders would struggle to influence a Le Pen-led government, but nor should they expect a unified European far-right to emerge. They would be wise to begin their preparations now.

Note: This policy brief is a second edition of an earlier paper published on June 9th 2026. It updates the prior analysis in light of Marine Le Pen’s confirmation that she will run for the French presidency.

The restoration of a matriarch

In the early hours of November 2nd 1976, a bomb exploded outside the Paris home of the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and his family. The perpetrators were never found. His youngest daughter, Marine, 8 years old at the time of the attack, later seethed that the family was not shown “the slightest sign of solidarity or compassion” by the French authorities. Today, as Marine Le Pen launches into her fourth—and most competitive—bid for France’s presidency, that quote reveals something of the woman who might soon occupy the Elysée Palace. If she wins, European policymakers will need to understand this self-defined outsider and how her family’s and party’s long years in the political wilderness shape her domestic and international agenda.

That insurgent self-perception may seem odd now. After all, the National Rally (Rassemblement National, RN) is far ahead in polling for the first round of the election, is accepted by an increasing share of French polite society, and is close to some of the country’s most powerful economic elites. But it still explains why the rest of Europe should brace for the possibility of a French president who sees herself as a rebel against the country’s and the EU’s established norms and institutions. As this paper will argue, a Le Pen presidency of France would be a significantly more formidable challenge to European orthodoxies than Giorgia Meloni is in Italy or Viktor Orban was in Hungary.

*

Only one thing is certain about the result of France’s presidential election next year: President Emmanuel Macron’s decade in power will come to an end. Who replaces him is an open question, with any number of conceivable outcomes. The exact field of candidates is not yet clear, not even in Macron’s centrist camp, where two former prime ministers—Édouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal—are vying for primacy. French presidential election campaigns are often volatile; both those in 2017 and 2022 saw major shifts over the half-year before polling day. But current polling suggests that the RN party candidate is on track to win the first round, on April 18th 2027, and to enjoy good prospects in the second, due on May 2nd.

The RN went through months of speculation over who would represent it at the presidential election. In March 2025, Marine Le Pen was convicted of embezzling European parliamentary funds and received a five-year ban on standing for election. Over recent months, Jordan Bardella, the RN’s untested young leader and Le Pen’s protégé, was talked about as the party’s best hope.

On July 7th 2026, however, the Court of Appeal reduced Le Pen’s ineligibility penalty, which enabled her to run. It also required her to serve a year of house arrest with an electronic ankle tag. That evening, Le Pen announced that she would seek the presidency and would appeal to the Court of Cassation. The penalty is suspended until France’s highest court rules on the case, which could take place as late as April 2027.

Her candidacy has significant implications for the rest of Europe. Le Pen is an experienced campaigner and an established (though also divisive) figure in France. Her bid for the presidency is perhaps more likely to survive the heat of the campaign than a Bardella run would have. The fact that she is the candidate probably increases the chances of the French far-right coming to power for the first time since Marshal Pétain, the puppet leader of Vichy France.

Le Pen is marked by the RN’s long years in the wilderness. She believes in radical solutions. As president, she would likely be a confrontational and abrasive force in Europe.

To reiterate, the outcome of the election remains wide open. But the scale of the potential rupture of a Le Pen win means policymakers elsewhere in Europe must both understand the RN and prepare for that eventuality. To that end, the authors of this paper have extensively researched the party’s Europe and foreign policies. The following study is based on in-depth interviews with an array of senior RN figures and external experts as well as analysis of the party’s speeches, legislative proposals, voting records and electoral programmes. The result is a series of five theses about what a Le Pen win next year would mean for Europe.

Understanding an RN presidency

Point 1: Marine Le Pen’s candidacy reaffirms her primacy inside the RN, although her duo with Bardella will endure

Marine Le Pen’s decision to run for president despite her upheld conviction—and in contradiction of her own prior statements—is a reminder of her centrality to the RN. She is still the party’s dominant leader. The decision also dispelled the illusion that Bardella constitutes a real alternative to her leadership. It showed that today’s RN is still Marine Le Pen’s inheritance and achievement.

The party was founded as the National Front (FN) in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, along with French former members of the Waffen-SS and other nostalgists for colonial French Algeria. It drew together different threads of the far-right. For decades most French citizens considered it beyond the pale. When Jean-Marie Le Pen narrowly made it into the second round of the 2002 presidential election, it shocked both France and Europe. He was roundly defeated by 82% to 18% by then-president Jacques Chirac.

Taking the reins of the party from her father in 2011, however, Marine Le Pen pursued a strategy of “dédiabolisation” (“detoxification”). This saw her expel Jean-Marie from the party in 2015 over his racist and anti-Semitic comments. After her resounding defeat to Macron in 2017 she intensified the process, renaming the party and dropping its commitment to “Frexit” (leaving the EU).

In 2019, she appointed a fresh-faced young activist from a deprived Paris suburb to lead the RN’s campaign for the European Parliament election. Jordan Bardella delivered the party’s first ever first-placed result in a national election and was rewarded with the RN presidency in 2021. He would play a central role in the party’s 2022 presidential campaign—a much closer contest—and in its triumphant win in the 2024 European vote. Le Pen further empowered Bardella when she announced he would be her choice for prime minister. When it looked like she might be banned from running, Bardella became her natural replacement as a presidential hopeful.

Nevertheless, despite Bardella’s rapid rise and growing public profile, the RN remains firmly in Le Pen’s hands. For nearly half a century, the promotion of family members, such as Marine Le Pen’s niece Marion Maréchal, and significant turnover among the lower levels of the party has kept power within the Le Pen clan. Many of the party’s cadres remain more loyal to her than to Bardella, and were determined that she should run rather than him.

Now that the party is back behind its leader, Le Pen will continue to highlight the duo she forms with Bardella—as she did on prime-time television when she launched her campaign. She once again promised to make him prime minister if she becomes president. Running a “ticket” for the French presidency is unprecedented and anathema to the function. But it has a distinct advantage: broadening her voter coalition while keeping the party together.

Le Pen’s own political base has two main parts. First, an anti-elite and disaffected working- and middle-class electorate in the northern post-industrial Pas-de-Calais region that she has represented since 1998 (as a councillor, MEP and in the National Assembly), And, second, a chain of strongholds along the Mediterranean coast, which adhere to long-term RN positions hostile to immigration and taxes.

By contrast, Bardella appears more economically liberal and temperamentally closer to other parts of the French right, including the conservative flank of the Republicans (LR, the rump centre-right force) and culturally reactionary forces like Éric Zemmour’s far-right Reconquest. He is also more engaged with the wider European right, especially Meloni in Italy. Within the RN itself this aligns him more with a more bourgeois and younger new electorate.

Over the last year, Bardella had even started to sand down some of the party’s most abrasive ideas. Where Le Pen cleaves to some of the party’s old Putin-friendly instincts on Russia, he has spoken in defence of Ukraine’s sovereignty. He also broke from Le Pen on pensions reform, suggesting dropping the fixed retirement age and moving to a more contributory system. Where Le Pen went to Budapest to help out an embattled Orban, he struck a friendly tone towards Germany and even met with the country’s ambassador in Paris. All this created expectations in Brussels and other EU capitals that a President Bardella might be closer to the bloc’s economic orthodoxies and more open, at least, to compromises.

Le Pen’s candidacy firmly relegates him to a subordinate position within the party. Gone, too, is the spectre of a somewhat more conciliatory RN presence in the Elysée Palace if the party wins power next year. “Bardellism cannot exist, as it is ultimately Marinism”, Jean-Philippe Tanguy, a senior RN figure, has said. The reassertion of Le Pen’s primacy within the RN thus makes the party both more likely to take power and more likely to disrupt the rest of the EU and its foreign policies if it does.

Point 2: An RN presidency would be a rupture in French and European politics

France is a highly centralised state, and its president wields executive power more akin to an American president than to counterparts in its European neighbours. The country also remains a pivotal power in Europe as one of its two nuclear-armed countries and half of the Franco-German motor that long drove the European project.

News of an RN win would therefore send shockwaves around the continent, stunning the mainstream. It would also lift the spirits of much of Europe’s radical right after a difficult 2026 in which its pre-eminent governing leader, Orban, lost power and its links with Trump turned out to be liabilities. After all, the RN has been unapologetic in its support for fellow “patriots” across Europe. Le Pen campaigned for Orban, and Bardella has engaged closely with Meloni and her government in Italy and Nigel Farage’s Reform in the UK.

Farther afield, the RN has been increasingly welcomed by fellow nationalists like Israel’s Likud government, which hosted Bardella and other far-right leaders in 2025. The Trump administration has professed its own commitment to supporting “patriotic parties” and would react favourably to an RN win. This is despite Bardella’s and Le Pen’s efforts to cool their party’s earlier enthusiasm for the US president.

The RN would revel in the sense of rupture. In private, party leaders compare their potential accession to power to left-winger François Mitterrand’s historic victory in 1981—which they see as the only true political change France has undergone in the last 50 years.

*

Thus empowered, the RN would want to enact its programme. Although foreign and defence policy may not be its top policy priority, “fixing” France’s relationship with the EU is bound to be one.

In its 2019 and 2024 European election campaign manifesto, the RN suggested transforming the European Commission into a mere secretariat of the EU, leaving legislative initiative only to the European Council. The party decries attempts to expand qualified majority voting, refuses any new transfers of competencies on foreign and defence policy to the commission—and seeks European allies in that endeavour.

The RN is vehemently against EU common taxation and borrowing. Both Le Pen and Bardella have proposed slashing the French contribution to the EU budget (by “between €2bn and 3bn”, as Bardella suggested, equivalent to 9-14% of the French payment in 2024). RN MPs have already put forward several amendments to the budgetary laws to that effect. In July, Bardella has even advocated reducing the contribution by half. In place of European joint spending, the party wants the creation of a sovereign wealth fund to back “sovereign industries” in defence, technology and energy.

The party’s antipathy towards NATO means it plans to prioritise national-level defence instead. The RN has committed to maintaining current defence spending, but argues this should support France’s own military-industrial infrastructure first and foremost. Even if it has paused an earlier plan to leave NATO’s integrated command, at least for “as long as the war [in Ukraine] goes on”, Le Pen revived the idea as recently as May 2026.

The strictly national principle applies to energy too. The RN has promised to lower French energy costs, notably by breaking from EU-wide electricity pricing (which often depends on gas prices less relevant to France’s nuclear-heavy energy system) and thus allegedly reducing the French retail price. And, despite claiming to be concerned about the consequences of climate change, the RN is relentless in its opposition to the European Green Deal and its insistence that French nuclear energy should exempt the country from EU climate strictures.

Overall, if Le Pen were to become president, the RN’s highly disruptive European agenda would inevitably put France on a path to confrontation with European partners and institutions. As the fight against the EU is both a symbolic and a policy priority for the RN, other European leaders may have to find a way to negotiate on some of the demands—that for a budget rebate, for example—in order to prevent French vetoes.

Point 3: The RN’s inexperience and lack of interest in foreign policy would make France an erratic partner, especially in a crisis

Europe’s best hope, in the event of a Le Pen presidency, may reside in the fact that foreign policy would not be the top priority for the RN in power.

First, the RN’s foreign policies often remain vague or only partially formed. Despite its long-standing presence in the French political landscape, the party has no national governing experience and only in 2022 won a significant share of seats in the National Assembly. With little network among the French diplomatic establishment, RN leaders have rarely engaged closely with foreign policy debates. The party prefers to hide behind references to General de Gaulle’s pro-independence foreign policy to justify criticisms of the EU or NATO without being too specific.

According to RN insiders, the party’s foreign policy decisions emanate from private discussions between Le Pen and Bardella, with the occasional counsel of the advisory group Les Horaces. If she attains power in 2027, Le Pen may seek to attract more experienced figures from the traditional right (from LR or UDR) or from the military to lead on top foreign policy positions.

Second, the RN is clearly prepared to change its tone on international topics when political expediency dictates. RN figures privately insist that foreign policy cannot win it elections, but can lose it ones. They blame Le Pen’s defeat in April 2022 on her failure convincingly to pivot away from Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two months earlier.

The party abandoned Frexit after the UK’s Brexit turned out to be a disaster. It curbed its old openness to strongmen such as Putin (repaying a contentious loan to a Russian bank in 2023) and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. In recent years, it attempted to erase its anti-Semitic past by adopting a strongly pro-Israel line. Since February 2022, the party has walked a tightrope: paying lip service to Ukraine’s right to self-defence while criticising sanctions against Russia as costly to French consumers and opposing some military aid to Kyiv as escalatory. Having greeted Trump’s re-election in 2024, the party has become a nimble critic as his erratic foreign policies have made alignment with him a political liability.

It is safe to assume, then, that, even with Le Pen as candidate, the party will tend towards orthodox language on most foreign policy ahead of the election. It has a vested interest in a campaign that focuses on topics such as immigration, crime and purchasing power (where the party is most confident), rather than one that debates France’s role in Europe or global geopolitics (where it is more uncertain and, in some cases, divided).

And even if the party wins power, the domestic agenda will likely come first. This can be summarised as: countering cultural and industrial decline by pursuing “national preference”. In policy terms it would include harsher law-and-order measures (especially on migration and crime), trade protectionism and efforts to reverse green policies in the hope of revitalising industry, and prioritising French nationals over foreigners in accessing welfare or public services. European partners should reckon on an RN presidency being most intransigent on EU matters related to those domestic priorities—and possibly being more open to negotiation in other areas.

In sum, however, they should expect a Le Pen foreign policy that is unclear, evolving or even contradictory. Under her leadership, France would take few initiatives and rather behave as a blocker. For example, it is hard to imagine an RN president responding decisively to a security crisis on Europe’s eastern flank. If under pressure from EU member states to be tougher on Russia, she would likely seek concessions and negotiations rather than further action.

If it does anything proactively, such a presidency would concentrate on disentangling France from EU policies that contradict its domestic goals. At best, the RN’s lack of interest and inexperience may be an opportunity for other European governments to shape some of the outcomes, as long as they keep their expectations low.

Point 4: How broad and how European? The strategic debates running through the RN

Today’s RN is infused by two strategic debates that would shape Le Pen’s tenure as president.

Movement or coalition?

The first has to do with the RN’s political identity: the party is struggling to determine whether it seeks to forge an union des droites (union of the right) or whether its outsider populist status remains its core identity.

In the long years the FN and the RN spent on the political margins, the Le Pens’ “neither left, nor right” approach appealed to disillusioned voters who rejected all forms of politics. It acknowledged the cordon sanitaire between the mainstream right and their parties. Even back in the FN days, Jean-Marie Le Pen crushed several internal attempts to unite the right. Marine Le Pen remains firmly opposed to any such efforts today.

But the RN’s proximity to power is challenging its outsider identity. Proponents of a union of the right are multiplying. One is Eric Ciotti, the mayor of Nice and former president of LR, who decided to join forces with the RN ahead of the 2024 snap legislative election. This created a major clash with his party and ended with the foundation of a new outfit (the Union of the Right for the Republic, UDR). The union of the right has also been promoted by Maréchal. She quit the RN in 2021 for Zemmour’s Reconquest, though has since drawn back towards her aunt’s party.

If she is elected, it is unclear how Le Pen will position herself towards other right-of-centre French parties. Her instinct seems to be that working with them would dilute the RN and prevent it from conducting truly disruptive policies. Given her aversion to compromise and her long years of ostracism by the mainstream political class, Le Pen would struggle to extend a hand to others to form a majority in the National Assembly.

She may, however, continue using Bardella as a useful bridge to other parties of the right, at both national and European levels. In an interview with Le Figaro after Le Pen’s official launch of her presidential bid, he insisted that, as prime minister, he would seek to gather the right-wing electorate back to his party in order to build a “solid majority”.

It is reasonable to expect that, if Le Pen allows Bardella to forge these links at home, she will let him do so abroad too. If so, Bardella would continue building alliances with the European right spanning conservatives and various families of the radical right, likely with immigration as a focal point. The RN has already demonstrated its ability to build coalitions with other far-right parties and the European People’s Party to advance tougher migration legislation in the European Parliament. It would likely continue to do so if elected. Bardella has indicated that he would share this agenda with leaders such as Meloni and German chancellor Friedrich Merz and seek to work with them.

Rival futures

The second faultline within the RN today is between rival conceptions of national sovereignty, a point that came across especially strongly in the authors’ interviews with senior party figures. Le Pen and the “old guard” around her have long held the view that France must resist Anglo-American hegemony and EU technocracy alike. They treat Washington and Brussels as equal threats to French autonomy.

Yet a new generation around Bardella—having come of age against the backdrop of the 2015 terror attacks in Paris and the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine—has adopted an identity-based sense of Europeanness. It acknowledges the need for European cooperation against common threats, as long as this cooperation is “chosen”. It is inclined to invoke a shared Western and European cultural affinity.

For example, on Russia and Ukraine, Le Pen and the old guard have continued to blame NATO’s enlargement for “provoking” Russia. This fits their antipathy to Washington and Brussels. Their old ideological affinities with Moscow as a counterweight to American hegemony allow them to imagine a future in which Russia might even be a partner in a multipolar order once the war ends. But Bardella has admitted the “naivety” of Europeans in the face of the Russian challenge. Despite a less-than-keenly pro-Ukrainian voting record in the European Parliament, he has also spoken in favour of Ukrainian national sovereignty and against Russian imperialism.

These debates will continue within the RN—especially because Le Pen has been unwilling to sweep aside Bardella’s “union of the right” and rhetorically “pro-Ukraine” positions. For as long as she wants the electoral breadth he brings, the tension will persist.

Point 5: The likeliest outcome of an RN presidency would be a more isolated France in a weaker EU

The disruptive nature of RN policies towards Europe means France’s relationship with European partners would deteriorate over time.

At first, the RN would likely seek to reassure the financial markets and its international partners. Victory for the party may be accompanied by protests and strikes, and the new government would face economic limitations like France’s high levels of debt. In this context, Le Pen may want to project stability. Nevertheless, the RN has promised to engage on a number of priorities that will put it at odds with other European governments—including those led by the right—as well as EU institutions.

Opting out of the EU-wide electricity pricing could push up prices for other member states; quitting the migration pact would put greater pressure on others; curbing the French contribution to the EU budget would force others to pay more and possibly trigger an infringement procedure. More generally, Paris governing in a spirit of French exceptionalism would roil Europe’s collective efforts on common challenges.

Enlargement could prove an especially inflammatory topic. Plenty of European governments have concerns about bringing Western Balkans countries, Moldova and especially Ukraine into the EU. But if the RN wins the French presidency, it will be the most outspokenly opposed government among major European states. It has warned that enlargement would ruin French agriculture and suppress French wages; intensify the EU budgetary demands on France; and further centralise power within the EU at the cost of individual states. The accession of Ukraine, with its vast agricultural industry, particularly alarms the RN.

The long-term result of these trends would likely be some degree of French isolation. The party’s policies and instincts would set Le Pen up for conflict with the European Commission—but also with other national governments, including right-wing counterparts. Although others in the EU might conceivably come around to RN doubts about enlargement, the insistence on French national priority will alienate even ideologically sympathetic forces elsewhere.

Tensions could emerge with other far-right leaders, such as Meloni, over issues like migration. Despite broad ideological alignment on reducing migration, the RN prioritises national sovereignty over the management of borders and migration flows. By contrast, Brothers of Italy has advocated greater EU coordination and burden-sharing. As a result, a cohesive far-right alliance at the EU level should not be taken for granted. If these conflicts escalate, an “empty chair” moment, where France simply withdraws from EU meetings as it did under de Gaulle in 1965, is not unthinkable.

At a time when nationalist parties are rising in other major EU states, including Germany, an RN presidency could encourage unilateralism there too. The result could be doubly paradoxical: a lonelier right-wing France in a more right-wing Europe, and a more nationalist France more exposed to the interference of external powers like China, Russia and the US.

How the rest of Europe can move into “brace position”

As the rest of Europe faces up to the possibility of President Le Pen, the risk is that leaders and other policymakers bunch around one of two poles: complacency (the over-confident belief that she could simply be “handled” like any other challenging leader); and panic (the fatalistic assumption that an RN-led France would automatically mean the beginning of the end of the European project). Of the two courses, the first—the assumption of business as usual—currently looks like the greater risk. But neither is advisable.

This paper has shown that an RN win is a real possibility and would herald great disruption for the EU and its place in the world. It has argued that a Le Pen presidency would see itself ultimately as a radical insurgency against the French and European establishment. But it has also explored some of the complexities and shed some light on how the rest of Europe should think about them. In particular, leaders elsewhere on the continent should:

Abandon all precedents when thinking about an RN-led France

As president, Le Pen would be as fundamentally rooted in French traditions and peculiarities as equivalent leaders are in those of their countries. Trump’s America is simply too different to be closely relevant to France, despite the executive power both presidents wield. Orban’s Hungary does not fit either, with its distinctive tale of state capture and subordination to kleptocratic interests. Meloni’s Italy, meanwhile, is a complex story of creeping authoritarianism at home but emollience internationally. A Le Pen presidency would bear passing resemblances to each, but be sui generis.

Seek to understand the party and its instincts

Le Pen is a familiar figure, but her party has never held national power before and has evolved over time. Knowing how it ticks will be essential. This should lead decision-makers to engage with the party now, including by pursuing carefully calibrated efforts to meet with its senior figures to assess their true intentions. The decision of the German government to make contact with Bardella, for example, was the right one—though Europeans should be wary about reading Le Pen’s positions and instincts via Bardella and his circle.

Brace for a wider, but not necessarily more unified, European right

An RN win would be significant for Europe’s far-right. But ECFR’s research points firmly away from the idea of a coherent and durable European “union of the far-right” of any sort. The radical right has an emphatic sense of momentum, but that is not the same thing as a common project. Indeed, dismantling European integration is likely to generate conflicts over budgets and policies on issues like borders, energy, industry and defence—even between governments of similarly nationalist ideological hues.

Manage expectations when seeking to work with an RN-led France

Even in today’s more plural Europe, France is too big and too important to be circumvented entirely in a world of predators. Perhaps there would even be some limited common ground (most likely to be around defence, geoeconomics and building strategic autonomy). There could even be the possibility to mould a party that is still uncertain about its exact foreign policy agenda. But, especially under Le Pen rather than Bardella, this would still be a significantly less predictable, less collegiate and less European France than the one partners have known under Macron.

Prepare to deploy all the arts of European and international politics

An RN-led presidency would be complicated and disruptive. It would call for real diplomatic skill and political leadership in the EU and the rest of Europe, especially in powerful states like Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and, outside the bloc, Britain. In some cases, the task at hand might be to moderate France and bind it into groups of other states on matters of common and agreed interest. In others, it would be to build coalitions of the willing where France was reluctant to join. This would be a good time to deepen relationships between Brussels, Berlin, Rome, Warsaw, Madrid and London, as well as other capitals.

The other futures

Europeans prepare for the possibility of Le Pen as president of France, they should keep in mind that an array of outcomes is still possible. There is also a significant chance of a moderate candidate making it to the second round and rallying the republican front once again against the RN. And in today’s volatile and fragmented French politics, there is even the possibility of a far-right against far-left runoff. But polls are polls, and probabilities are probabilities. This paper is a response to one major possibility among several—and an urgent call to France’s European partners to be ready.

About the authors

Célia Belin is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of its Paris office.

Jeremy Cliffe is editorial director and senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He co-heads the New Politics Project within the European Power programme.

Camille Lons is a policy fellow and deputy head of the Paris office at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Constance Victor is the Paris office coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Acknowledgments

We would like to start by thanking ECFR colleagues, including Piotr Buras, Teresa Coratella, Agathe Demarais, Janka Oertel, Nicu Popescu, Jana Puglierin, Marta Prochwicz Jazowska, Herman Quarles, Jeremy Shapiro, Vessela Tcherneva and Pawel Zerka who gave thoughtful comments on various drafts. We would also like to thank Zineb Bouziane for her thorough research support in the earlier stages of this project.  

We are grateful to experts such as Catherine Fieschi, Jacob Ross and Victor Mallet for engaging with us and offering constructive feedback. We also would like to acknowledge the politicians, journalists and thinkers we interviewed over the course of this research; while we respect their anonymity, we thank each of them for their time and insights.

The task of editing the two editions of this paper fell to Kim Butson and Adam Harrison and we are grateful for their time and dedication in bringing it to completion. Thanks also go to Chris Eichberger for offering beautiful visuals to complement our work.

Source

Japan must reinforce and transform its defense capabilities with a stronger “sense of urgency and crisis” than ever before, Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi said Tuesday, as Tokyo released its annual white paper that once again flags risks from China, North Korea and Russia.

In the preface to the 598-page Defense of Japan report, Koizumi wrote that the security environment surrounding the country is now the most severe and complex since the end of World War II.

He pointed to the rapid military build-ups by Beijing and Pyongyang, their expanding cooperation with Moscow, and the new forms of warfare demonstrated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, warning that a serious crisis capable of shaking the postwar order cannot be ruled out in East Asia.

Japan is already accelerating its military modernization. Defense spending has been pushed higher, with the budget for the current fiscal year exceeding 9 trillion yen for the first time, while Tokyo deepens security partnerships across the Indo-Pacific.

Missile launchers are being stationed on remote southwestern islands closer to potential flashpoints, the Self-Defence Forces are moving to field longer-range “counterstrike” weapons that could hit targets beyond Japanese territory, and rules restricting arms exports have been loosened to allow greater transfers of equipment and technology to like-minded partners.

In the Indo-Pacific, “not only are China and North Korea further strengthening their military capabilities, China-Russia and Russia-North Korea are also reinforcing their cooperation,” he also added.

The new white paper said China was “intensifying its activities” in the region around Japan, “extending beyond the so-called first island chain to the second island chain”.

It listed a series of incidents in 2025, including activities by Chinese aircraft carriers and the “unusual close approach” by Chinese aircraft to Japanese planes in two incidents in June and July.

Japanese jets scrambled 595 times in the year to March 31, 2026, including 366 sorties against Chinese aircraft and 214 for Russian planes. This compares to 704 the previous year and was the fewest since at least 2021.

Japan decided in April to lift its self-imposed ban on weapons exports, but the white paper highlighted issues in the country’s production base that could jeopardize procurement and innovation.

Koizumi also said that he and US counterpart Pete Hegseth had “exchanged candid views” on the “unwavering” US-Japan alliance, while also increasing security cooperation with the Philippines, Australia and South Korea to realize a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”.

“As the security environment becomes increasingly and rapidly severe, what is required now is to strengthen resilience against crises all across the entire Indo-Pacific region,” Koizumi said.

“In order to do so, Japan will build and expand multilayered networks among allies and like-minded countries, and enhance interconnectivity with like-minded countries and others in every area.”

Meanwhile, China has repeatedly voiced concern at what it sees as a return to “new militarism” by Tokyo.

After World War II, Japan adopted a pacifist constitution in 1947, with Article 9 renouncing war as a sovereign right and prohibiting the maintenance of military forces, seeking a peaceful global order.

“Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized,” reads Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution.

Japan, the only victim of a nuclear attack in history, also adopted the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” of non-possession, non-production, and non-introduction of atomic weapons. Even though all five victors of the Second World War built their nuclear weapons.

Japan relinquished wars of aggression, militaristic societies, and the production of nuclear weapons. In the post-war era, Tokyo directed the nationalistic impulses of its country toward becoming an economic powerhouse and technology leader.

Japan became the world’s second-largest economy in 1990 after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

China’s military muscle-flexing in the South China Sea, North Korea’s missile proliferation, and Japan’s strained ties with Russia, especially after the Ukraine invasion, are forcing Japan to shed its post-war inhibitions and adopt a more assertive defense role.

Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe played a critical role in Japan’s transformation. Abe had raised the prospect of the country hosting US nuclear weapons facilities on Japanese soil, boosted defense spending, and called for a strong foreign and security policy.

Under Abe, Japan passed legislation allowing the Japan Self-Defense Forces to engage in overseas combat missions. Essentially, this bill allows Japan’s armed forces to help defend its allies, like America, even if Japan itself isn’t under attack. The Japanese Constitution, following the devastation from the war, previously limited Japan’s forces to self-defense within its borders.

In December 2024, Japan approved a 9.4% increase in defense spending for FY2025. This marked another record figure for the 11th year in a row for Japan’s national defense budget. Japan, which has historically spent less than 1% of its GDP on defense, has also promised to raise it to 2% of its GDP by 2027.

This defense spending hike was part of the Defense Buildup Program, which outlines US$273 billion in defense spending over the five-year period through FY2027.

Japan is also building alliances with China’s competitors. It has developed and promoted military ties with several countries in and beyond the Indo-Pacific region. It has strengthened security cooperation with Australia and India—both members of Quad alongside Japan and the USA—through high-level dialogues, joint military exercises, intelligence sharing, and mutual access to each other’s military facilities.

In December 2022, Japan announced a joint program with Italy and the United Kingdom to develop a new sixth-generation combat aircraft—the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP).

Japan is developing two hypersonic weapon concepts: the Hypersonic Cruise Missile (HCM) and the Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile (HVGP), as well as long-range missiles.

Japan’s Ministry of Defense (MOD) also conducted flight tests for its island defense hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). Four test launches were conducted at a site in California, with one launch in August 2024, two in November 2024, and one in January 2025.

Japan’s new 10kW-class high-power laser electronic warfare (EW) vehicle recently entered service to counter aerial and missile threats, including hostile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and low-altitude missile systems.

Meanwhile, Tokyo announced on July 30 that it had test-fired a Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile from one of its warships, the Aegis guided-missile destroyer JS Chokai (DDG-176), for the first time.

Additionally, Tokyo fielded the Type 25 Hyper Velocity Gliding Projectile, its first indigenous hypersonic boost-glide weapon, following successful California flight tests and domestic deployment drills that included loading launchers onto ships and aircraft.

In late July, an F-2 fighter conducted the first captive-carry flights of the air-launched Improved Type 12 (Type 25) long-range missile at Gifu Air Base, validating integration ahead of planned service in 2027.

Separately, a 100 kW-class shipboard laser system began sea trials aboard the test ship Asuka in late 2025, targeting drones and projectiles. Japan also conducted its first anti-ship missile live-fire on domestic soil in June 2025, firing a Type 88 from Hokkaido.

These developments highlight Tokyo’s push for stand-off strike and layered defenses amid regional tensions.

Mail us at: editor (at) eurasiantimes.com

The post Japan Vows Major Military Build-Up as Threats from China, North Korea and Russia Surge – Defense Chief appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.

For citation, please use:
Bespalov, A.S., 2026. World Map: To Each Their Own? Russia in Global Affairs, 24(3), pp. 224–228. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-3-224-228

 

For fifteen years until its collapse, the Soviet Union regularly published a popular science series titled Looking at the Political Map of the World. Issued monthly, these brochures examined current events in specific countries or regions and offered historical context. They served as an excellent companion to the world map itself, which, amid ongoing decolonization, was updated almost annually. Attention was also paid to long-established countries, both near and far. Soviet citizens had many opportunities to deepen their knowledge of political geography.

This legacy of basic geographic knowledge—shared with other European countries[1]—may be why stories of cartographic blunders in U.S. media[2] remain so popular in post-Soviet Russia.

But there is one thing that even a strong geographical culture does not resolve. The political map of the world has never been universally accepted: a map depicts the globe, but also the official viewpoint—even the political philosophy—of its country of origin. Perhaps the most basic manifestation of this is map-centering. Western and Russian maps are typically centered along the prime meridian, though in post-war Soviet and contemporary Russian cartography, the Moscow meridian has been used. Maps published in the United States sometimes center the axis on America, splitting Eurasia in two, while Chinese maps are generally centered on the Pacific Ocean.

But the depiction of national borders carries even greater political resonance.

The first post-war generation of West German schoolchildren grew up with maps showing Germany within its 1937 borders, with the GDR labeled a “Soviet occupation zone” and East Prussia as being “currently under Soviet/Polish administration.” During the Cold War, American maps noted that the United States did not recognize the incorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the USSR, yet still depicted the Baltic republics as part of the Soviet Union. For eighty years, Indian maps have shown the entire former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of India, while Pakistani maps claim it as their own. Incidentally, Soviet maps were much closer to reality on the Kashmir issue, as they showed the 1949 demarcation line. Yet Korea remained formally unified on Soviet maps until the establishment of diplomatic relations between Moscow and Seoul in 1990. Countries that do not recognize Israel depict it as Palestine. The list goes on.

The first decade of the 21st century saw a qualitative leap in cartography, as it was revolutionized by the Internet. In 2005, Google Maps set a new standard for mass geographic media. It combined three key components: vector maps (borders, names, roads, points of interest), satellite imagery, and interactive features (route planning and, later, the ability to correct and add data). In showing national borders, Google initially took a technological approach, prioritizing functionality and navigational accuracy. But by the end of the decade, its product had gained such widespread popularity and authority that it began to influence military and political realities.

In October 2010, a Nicaraguan detachment landed on Costa Rica’s Calero Island and began dredging the San Juan River—acting, according to the Nicaraguan commander, based on Google Maps. The ensuing diplomatic conflict was later dubbed by the media “The First Google Maps War,”[3] but, fortunately did not escalate into real war, and was resolved in court in Costa Rica’s favor. After this and several other incidents, Google, a U.S.-based company, changed its approach to depicting borders. Recognizing their explosive nature and facing the demands of national laws, Google abandoned the idea of a ‘single map for everyone’ and adopted a localization strategy. In disputed cases, Google Maps now shows different borders (depending on the user’s location) or uses dotted lines. The same applies to place names: in 2025, Google quickly reacted to President Trump’s executive order, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America—for U.S. users.[4]

This localization policy has proven an elegant solution, allowing the company to largely avoid conflicts with the authorities of countries where it operates, although this does not always prevent scandals. Russia’s Yandex took a similar approach, displaying international borders in accordance with national legislation—until the summer of 2022. At that point, regulatory and sanctions risks drove Yandex to remove state and administrative borders, officially presented as a “shift in focus to natural features.”[5] Other Russian online map services—2GIS and VK Maps—have followed Yandex’s example, though the latter still shows administrative borders.

While American companies have adopted a localized approach to borders, and Russian ones hedge by displaying none at all, Asian companies strictly adhere to their own governments’ policies. South Korea’s Naver Maps, for instance, not only indicates the Liancourt Rocks (claimed by Japan) as South Korean territory but, driven by patriotic considerations,[6] provides unique content, such as underwater photos. However, Naver, like its competitor Kakao Maps, lacks global coverage.

The same cannot be said for the Chinese map service Baidu, which presents all users worldwide with a ten‑dash line in the South China Sea and with China’s claimed border with India. Moreover, Baidu’s map not only fails to reflect the results of the 2005 demarcation of the Russian‑Chinese border, but also draws the Russian‑Japanese maritime border north of Iturup Island, labeling the Southern Kuril Islands as “Russian‑occupied” (俄占). Apparently, the borders are depicted as they were defined by the cartographical agency in 1989, and an update is dependent upon demarcation with other states.[7]

But at least Chinese users can see some version (even an outdated one) of their country’s border. Demand for the same is clearly present in Russia, and online maps’ importance casts doubt on Russian companies’ attempt to ‘stay out of politics.’ Users have already developed their own solutions, adding custom map layers on top of Yandex, whether for military analysis[8] or genealogy.[9] It would be a step in the right direction to provide Russian online maps with a standard toggleable ‘borders’ layer, with a choice of historical period.

This article is an edited version of the paper written for the Valdai Discussion Club, https://valdaiclub.com/a/highlights/political-map-of-the-world-to-each-their-own/

For citation, please use:
Trenin, D.V., 2026. The Wars of Our Time. Russia in Global Affairs, 24(3), pp. 10–27. DOI: 10.31278/1810-6374-2026-24-3-10-27

 

It is said that generals always prepare for the previous war. This does not mean that the military is incapable of preparing for the future; while inertia is indeed as common among soldiers as it is among civilians, the price is much higher. Rather, it means that war’s technological and political character changes constantly—and cardinally, with every world war—even as it remains fundamentally the armed imposition of one’s will on the enemy.

Today we are witnessing a transition from mainly mechanized to increasingly digital warfare. The military is usually first to employ scientific and technological advances. Various digital technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) and its databases, robotics, cyberwarfare, and space weapons will increasingly define war, radically modifying tactics and strategy.

This new character of war signifies the end of 500-year-long Western dominance and 40-year-long U.S. hegemony. A new world order, often called multipolar, is nearing. It will feature powers of various sizes and civilizations, with various understandings of world order. But before considering how to harmonize these different understandings, we should remember that the transition to it will involve fierce struggle. In the 20th century, the emergence of a new world order triggered two world wars. A third one was avoided because the two main belligerents recognized mutually assured nuclear destruction.

In the mid-2010s, the world entered a new stage of transition, functionally analogous to a world war. To avoid confusing analogies and numbering, this can be termed a new world war with 21st-century features. This war is already underway, consisting of multiple lengthy and intermittent wars, which will produce intermediate results and eventually a final balance. These wars are being fought openly in Eastern Europe and in the adjacent seas, in the Middle East, and (as special operations) in Latin America. But the biggest conflict is brewing in East Asia and the Western Pacific. The stakes in the new world war are so high that it will likely be lengthy, and be fought brutally and resolutely, affecting the entire world. We have entered an era of long wars.

 

Digital War

In the age of information systems, crucial battlefield importance is logically held by the real-time integration of reconnaissance, detection, targeting, and fire. This is most strikingly exemplified in the ‘drone revolution’ that has upended warfare. This phenomenon has been thoroughly analyzed by General of the Army Yuri Baluyevsky and Director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies Ruslan Pukhov (Baluyevsky and Pukhov, 2026).

Essentially, a wide belt of total destruction, extending 20-30 km from the front line—where any platform and even individual soldier will be certainly destroyed by FPV drones—has eliminated the crucial principle of force concentration to break through the enemy lines. On the contrary, dispersing forces has become the rule. War of maneuver with tank breakthroughs has given way to infiltration of the enemy’s position by two or three soldiers. The ‘front’ is actually a gray zone, where the opponents often hold points behind each other’s lines, jutting into one another. The siege of a small fortress city may last months.

Modern warfare now encompasses everything from hand-to-hand trench combat to piloting systems far from the battlefield. Swarms of drones with a range of 100-300 km turn the enemy’s operational rear into an area of constant danger. The almost complete transparency of the entire theater of war, obscured only by the weather, makes it almost impossible to use another important principle—surprise. The ‘fog of war’ has almost dissipated, except for the real fog that sometimes hides troops’ movement from the all-seeing eye of the reconnaissance drones.

Moreover, drones with hundred- and even thousand-kilometer ranges can hit targets deep behind enemy lines that once could be reached only by long-range missiles. Ukrainian UAVs from the Baltic Sea reach the Ural Mountains, and Iranian UAVs reach British bases in Cyprus.

The drone revolution has largely devalued traditional combat platforms. Tanks designed to break through the front line and conduct direct fire are now useful mainly as self-propelled artillery systems, and have themselves become targets for long-range attacks. Artillery guns, especially those using precision-guided munitions, remain in service, but are less cost-effective. Instead of aerial dogfights, air defense systems face off against ballistic and cruise missiles. Warships are struck by sea drones. Air defense systems, designed to shoot down enemy planes, are forced to use expensive interceptors against relatively cheap drones. The importance of electronic warfare, space communications, and surveillance has increased tremendously.

 

Regionalization of Local Conflicts

Technological advances have made the theater of war practically boundless. Today, one should speak not of a conflict in Ukraine, but of a conflict in Eastern Europe. Kiev is an instrument of NATO countries’ common policy. Russia conducts strikes across all of Ukrainian territory, and Kiev against dozens of Russian regions, using Baltic and Finnish territory. The Kiev regime carries out acts of sabotage and terrorism deep inside Russia, with the help, support, and control of Britain and other NATO countries. Ships carrying Russian oil and LNG face piracy in the Black, Baltic, and Mediterranean Seas. In Operation Cobweb, Ukrainian drones attacked Siberian airfields. Similarly, Israel attacked Iranian targets during the Twelve-Day War. The “quiet” cyberwar goes on non-stop. This creates the obvious and real risk of pushing the Ukraine conflict towards a regional war between NATO and Russia.

In the Middle East, conflict has expanded from the local level—Israel and its neighbors (Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and earlier Egypt)—to the regional level—Iran, Yemen, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and even Turkiye and Cyprus. The Persian Gulf, and the Red and Arabian Seas, have become warzones. An American submarine sank an Iranian frigate 2,000 miles away from Iran, off the coast of Sri Lanka.

In response to the U.S.-Israeli aggression, Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz for the first time ever, and its allies in Yemen may close the Bab el-Mandeb. Tehran launched missiles at the American military base on Diego Garcia 4,000 km away. Despite Israel’s dense air defenses, almost all of its territory—more or less effectively protected during previous wars—has been struck by missiles and UAVs. 2026 essentially saw much of the Middle East being drawn into a regional war between Israel and the U.S. against Iran and its allies.

Thus, the technological revolution has changed war dramatically. Improved intelligence capabilities and military technology have increased the accuracy of strikes enormously, with distance from the front line no longer playing a decisive role; the theater of war has expanded significantly, covering not only the territory of the belligerents (other than the U.S.), but also targets outside them. Moreover, there is an increasingly clear connection between certain conflicts, particularly in Ukraine and Iran. 

According to media reports, the operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife was prepared with the help of AI (Wall Street Journal, 2026). AI was also reportedly used to select targets in Iran (Gustafson and Kosslyn, 2026).

However, many elements of traditional war remain relevant. Wars have not become bloodless computer games: hundreds of thousands of people are fighting on both sides of the front line, including in close combat in the trenches with the use of cold steel, with losses in the tens or hundreds of thousands. The difference between the front and rear has blurred significantly, but has not disappeared: war and peace have learned to exist side by side. And not all modern military conflicts are as fast-moving as the U.S.’s Operations Desert Storm (1991) and Shock and Awe (2002) in Iraq, NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia (1999), or Russia’s five-day war to impose peace on Georgia (2008). The Ukraine conflict is of particular importance in this regard.

 

A War of Attrition

After a brief period of maneuver, the war in Ukraine turned into a war of attrition. There are no large-scale offensives or frontline breakthroughs into operational depth. The main method of warfare, along with the grueling offensive on the ground (grinding down the enemy), is constant pressure to exhaust the enemy’s front line and, increasingly, rear. The Russian army’s main task is not so much seizing territory (although Russian troops have held the initiative and gradually pushed forward since 2024) as bringing the enemy to collapse by eliminating his manpower and materiel and by destroying or crippling his military-industrial infrastructure, energy systems, logistics routes, control centers, etc. The goal is to drain the Kiev regime’s resources, disorganize its rear, and convince its Western sponsors that the Ukrainian ‘asset’ is worthless.

The enemy also opted for a strategy of exhaustion, trying to “inflict a strategic defeat on Russia”—first by undermining its economy and finances, and then by preventing Russia from winning the war. Since 2014, the collective West has imposed an unprecedented 30,000 sanctions on Russia and seized the half of its foreign exchange reserves that were kept in Western jurisdictions. Sanctions are an economic war of attrition, especially in a globalized economy.

As part of the ‘infrastructure war,’ in the first months of the Special Military Operation, the enemy blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. Later, the Ukrainians blew up onshore gas and oil pipelines (including Druzhba) connecting Russia with European countries. According to Russian intelligence, Kiev also plans to destroy the Black Sea’s Blue Stream and Turkish Stream gas pipelines.

Nuclear power facilities have no immunity against strikes, either. The Zaporozhye NPP, controlled by Russian troops, is constantly shelled by Ukraine. Other Russian nuclear power plants, especially in Kursk and Smolensk, have also been struck by Ukrainian forces. In turn, Russian forces have attacked electrical substations transmitting electricity from Ukrainian nuclear power plants to consumers—harming the Ukrainian rear, but not creating any risk of radioactive contamination.

In 2025, the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran to destroy its nuclear program, damaging several sites’ infrastructure but leaving the Bushehr nuclear power plant untouched. Yet its grounds were struck in 2026, to which Tehran responded with an attack on the Israeli Nuclear Research Center near Dimona.

While Western countries set price ceilings on Russian oil and piratically seized tankers, Ukrainian aerial and sea drones attacked Russian oil refineries, marine export terminals, oil tankers, and LNG carriers. The goal was stated openly: to reduce Russia’s energy exports and thus its budget revenue.

The situation is similar in the Middle East conflict. With the same aim in mind, Western countries imposed price ceilings on Iranian oil, sanctions against its buyers and against ships carrying Iranian oil and petroleum products, and illegally stopped and arrested such vessels. In response to the U.S.-Israeli aggression in 2026, Iran attacked oil refineries, LNG plants, and other energy infrastructure in the Gulf states with U.S. military bases, and also took control of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz. In the Red Sea, the Iran-allied Houthis have threatened to attack Israel- and U.S.-linked ships, endangering transit through the Bab el-Mandeb and Suez Canal. The infrastructure war in the Middle East has also spread to digital facilities, such as data centers in Bahrain and other Gulf countries.

In the asymmetric war between the U.S./Israel and Iran, Tehran leaned heavily on economic weapons. By closing the Strait of Hormuz and attacking the energy facilities of Gulf states hosting U.S. military bases, Tehran sought to impose economic pressure on the U.S. and its allies, making them back down.

Another version of the war of attrition is unfolding in Latin America. The U.S. imposed a blockade on Cuba after the Cuban Revolution in the early 1960s, expanding it in 2026 to oil imports from third countries, basically leaving the country without fuel and electricity. The U.S. President announced that these actions seek to replace Cuba’s government and political course with pro-American ones. Similarly, the U.S. blocked Venezuelan oil exports to force a change in policy.

 

The War of Annihilation—Massive and Individualized

Not all modern wars are wars of attrition. Israel’s response to Hamas’s massive terrorist attack on civilians was intended to completely eliminate the threat from this Palestinian group. Israeli strikes killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza in 2023-2025, condemned by many throughout the world as genocide. More than 3,500 Iranian civilians were killed during the 40-day U.S.-Israeli aggression against Iran in the spring of 2026.

However, mass killing of the enemy’s civilian population is certainly not new. World War II involved numerous cases of deliberate extermination of civilians not only by the Nazis, their allies, and the Japanese, but also by U.S. and British carpet bombings of German and Japanese cities, and by the U.S. atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Israel is also known for assassinations. Since 2023, the Israeli intelligence agencies have killed many senior figures of Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon, Gaza, and beyond, including Tehran. Even before Israel’s first attack on Iran in 2025, a number of high-ranking Iranian military advisers were slain by Israel in Syria.

At the beginning of the Twelve-Day War against Iran in June 2025, Israeli agents liquidated dozens of high-ranking Iranian civil and military officials, as well as nuclear physicists. The incumbent Iranian President was also among the targets.

At the outbreak of the new aggression in 2026, Israeli missile strikes killed 49 Iranian top officials, including Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—not an already-deposed leader like Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi, or a terrorist like bin Laden, but the recognized chief executive of a UN member state. And it came less than two months after the Americans forcibly seized the legitimate head of another state—Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

The action against Venezuela repeated—on a new technological level—the 1990 operation against Panamanian President Manuel Noriega, who was also captured and sent to an American prison. U.S. intelligence agencies have developed targeted killing, particularly during the post-9/11 War on Terror. President Barack Obama personally gave many orders to eliminate—usually with drones—individuals designated by the U.S. as terrorists. In 2020, President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani.

The Ukrainian security services also use terrorist methods in the ongoing war. In 2024-2026, they attacked four senior Russian generals in Moscow and executed or attempted the assassination of several prominent Russian public figures, journalists, philosophers, and writers. At the end of 2025, Ukrainian UAVs carried out a massive attack on the Russian President’s residence in Valdai, in which NATO intelligence services were apparently involved per evidence cited by Russian officials (RG, 2025).

Israel, the U.S., and NATO-supported Ukraine have broken with the understanding, which dates to well before the Cold War, that political and military leaders generally enjoy unspoken immunity during hostilities. Notably, according to Naftali Bennett, Israel’s Prime Minister at the time, President Putin guaranteed Vladimir Zelensky’s safety in April 2022 (RBC, 2023). Yet eliminating an enemy commander on the battlefield has often been a desirable goal, and killing the opposing political leader was considered one of the shortest ways to win the war or at least avoid defeat.

Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure have been practiced not only by Israel and the U.S., but also by Ukraine since the outbreak of the crisis in 2014.

21st-century wars are multifaceted and multidimensional. Even in the past, the physical battlefield—the theater of operations—was never the only dimension of military conflict, but now the other dimensions have grown so much as to cardinally change things. Economy and finance; technology and resources; information and psychology; cyberspace and outer space—the list of battlefields is far from complete.

 

The Nature of War

Statesmen and their advisers sometimes also prepare for the previous war, which often makes for a shocking exposure to the new reality, especially for those who were convinced of peace’s inevitability and deterrence’s absolute reliability. But wars have permeated all of human history, and an era of new—qualitatively different—major wars has now begun after eighty years of peace between the great powers.

The Cold War proceeded, under the nuclear sword of Damocles, through local wars on the periphery of the superpowers’ global confrontation. The end of the bipolar confrontation was immediately followed by an approximately 10-year period of interethnic conflicts in disintegrating or failed states. Those conflicts were accompanied by external interference and peacekeeping operations, as well as by military interventions (in the Balkans and Middle East) to establish a new unipolar (U.S.-centric) world order. Terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 ushered in a period of counter-terrorist operations and the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, with the aim of reconstructing them along Western lines. But by the middle of the 2010s, contradictions between the great powers had resurfaced again. The ‘unipolar moment’ had ended.

Modern wars reflect the crisis of the post-Cold-War U.S.-centric world order and of the West’s lengthy global dominance. By provoking wars (in Ukraine) and initiating them (in the Middle East), the U.S. has launched a counteroffensive against its opponents (Russia, Iran) and competitors (China, BRICS, the EU, and the Arab Gulf states). The Trump administration’s goal is to force a new (illiberal) model of global hegemony upon the world. But unlike the previous (globalist) hegemony, this one does not rest on ideological dominance, political leadership, or norms. Rather, it implies the supremacy of U.S. power beyond the framework of a political order.

In their current wars, the Americans are exploiting their allies more than cooperating with them, activating them on the geopolitical ‘front line’ in Europe (Kiev and NATO), in the Middle East (the Gulf states), and in Asia (Taiwan, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea). The U.S.’s long-term ‘protection’ of these countries is now driving them into collision with their larger neighbors, threatening their devastation or even destruction.

Notably, unlike in the Cold War, the other side—Russia, Belarus, China, Iran, and the DPRK—is not yet inclined to create a military alliance to concertedly respond to the U.S.; Moscow, Beijing, and Tehran are ready to fight only for their own interests. The only military alliances are Russia–Belarus and Russia–DPRK. India has taken a decidedly neutral position, developing strategic partnerships with the U.S., Russia, France, and other EU countries, as well as with Britain, and Japan. The Collective Security Treaty Organization’s members, other than Belarus, also remain neutral.

 Since 1945, wars have not been declared. Even diplomatic relations are often maintained (embassies are simply evacuated), and martial law is eschewed (to preserve peacetime conditions for civilians as much as possible). It is especially ominous that diplomatic negotiations are not just conducted in parallel with undiminished military operations, but have been used by Washington and Tel Aviv as cover for new attacks. During the Cold War, attacks were feared under the guise of military exercises, but in 2025 and 2026 they began under the guise of peace talks.

War and peace coexist in the same place and at the same time. The parties simultaneously fight and trade with each other. Gas and oil pipelines, running from Russia to the EU through Ukraine, kept operating long after February 2022. The U.S. President almost simultaneously announced his intention to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages” and to lift sanctions on Iranian oil exports (to mitigate the war’s damage to world energy markets).

 

Nuclear Weapons

This growing relativity of peace signals the approach of a direct conflict between the leading powers. Nuclear deterrence has been critically weakened at the strategic level. States now pursue objectives that would have been unthinkable during the Cold War: in the case of the West’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the objective is the strategic defeat of a nuclear superpower (Russia) in its most sensitive strategic region. In the case of Iran, the objective is not only the complete elimination of its nuclear program, but also its missile-disarmament, subversion, and dismemberment.

Deterrence is weakening mostly because of the disappearance of the salutary fear that kept the Cold War cold and warded off a nuclear apocalypse. The leaders of European states—from large (Germany) to small (Estonia)—now make dangerous provocations, as if they did not care about the consequences for their own countries and people, should Moscow respond to such provocations.[1] This indicates European politicians’ mental derangement and, even more so, their ‘post-national syndrome:’ the elites have no homeland.[2]

The paradoxical reaction of people in European countries is also quite interesting. Influenced by their government and media propaganda, they simultaneously hallucinate non-existent threats (a Russian invasion of NATO countries) and remain blind to the very real possibility of their leaders’ actions pushing Moscow to use force against NATO.

As a result, strategic stability—in its broad geostrategic meaning, rather than in the narrow and obsolete sense of disincentive for nuclear attack—has been seriously undermined. In 2025 alone, the nuclear-armed U.S., UK, and France waged a protracted proxy war against nuclear-armed Russia in Ukraine;[3] nuclear-armed India and Pakistan briefly clashed directly; and nuclear-armed Israel and the U.S. attacked a ‘near-nuclear’ Iran. The DPRK did not enter into conflict with the U.S., but sent its troops to help Russia liberate the part of Kursk Oblast that had been occupied by Ukraine with the West’s support. Only one nuclear power out of nine—China—remained in a state of relative peace, a more ‘regular’ confrontation with the U.S.

All of these wars were/are fought under the threat of nuclear weapons. Their use—as the previous fear diminishes—becomes more likely. But the view in the 1960s-1980s that any nuclear use would inevitably lead to mankind’s destruction[4] is being supplanted by the view that a general nuclear war is impossible (as no one would initiate it), yet the consequences of a limited nuclear war would not be disastrous.

This has boosted the popularity of nuclear weapons as a means of preventing an attack. Possession of nuclear weapons is considered the only real safeguard against external aggression, as clearly evidenced by the U.S.’s diverging policies towards nuclear-armed North Korea, non-nuclear Iran, and Iraq and Libya, which voluntarily abandoned their nuclear programs. In 2026, following the U.S.-Israeli attack, Iran’s parliament raised the issue of withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Renewed interest in nuclear weapons has also been bolstered by the Trump administration’s de facto refusal to provide nuclear guarantees to U.S. allies. Europe is discussing ‘extended deterrence’ based on France’s nuclear forces or, as they say in Germany, some kind of ‘European nuclear capabilities.’ Poland, Greece and Estonia have declared their readiness to deploy allied nuclear weapons on their soil; Sweden is holding consultations with the UK on a nuclear umbrella that supposedly can protect it.

But it cannot. Britain needs U.S. permission to use nuclear weapons. France’s arsenal is under its own control, but is unlikely to be used except in defense of its own vital interests. In the 21st century, there is probably no country that would sacrifice itself for an ally. The only instance of truly reliable extended nuclear deterrence is Russia’s guarantee to Minsk. But Russia and Belarus are a Union State, not only a military alliance.

In Asia, the situation is also changing, though not so noticeably. Japan has not made any statements yet, but according to some experts, the country could create a nuclear weapon very quickly (Report, 2023). In South Korea, which also has a venerable civilian nuclear program and missile capabilities, some top officials have in the past stressed the necessity to develop nuclear weapons, but so far Seoul has settled for an agreement with the U.S. on a nuclear consultative mechanism. Among U.S. clients, the idea of obtaining nuclear weapons is popular in Taiwan and Ukraine, but China and Russia strongly oppose it and are ready to prevent it.

In the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia, a large and wealthy regional power, and Pakistan, the only Muslim state with nuclear weapons, seem to be forming an alliance. The Middle East may see further nuclear proliferation. Israel became a nuclear power at the turn of the 1970s. Iran, which under Khamenei sought only the capability to produce nuclear weapons, is now contemplating secession from the NPT given U.S.-Israeli aggression. Other possible candidates for the nuclear club include Saudi Arabia and Turkiye.

So, nuclear non-proliferation, one of the final remaining pillars of the former bipolar world order, is collapsing along with nuclear arms control, which formally ended with the expiration of the extended Russian-American START-3 Treaty in February 2026.

 

Coalitions

During the Cold War, World War III was envisioned as a clash between the two opposing blocs. But when the Soviet-American confrontation ended, there remained only one permanent military alliance: NATO, led by the U.S. Since then, the alliance has doubled its members and fought in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Libya. However, the 2003 campaign in Iraq involved the ‘Coalition of the Willing.’ The Ukraine conflict, too, initially spurred the creation of an informal coalition of about 50 states, whose representatives regularly met at Rammstein Air Force Base in Germany to plan and coordinate military support for Kiev.

In contrast, not only did Russia’s bloc (the Warsaw Treaty Organization) collapse, but all of its members—along with several former Soviet republics—joined NATO or at least cooperate with it closely. Ukraine has become a belligerent Anti-Russia. Even the members of Russia’s Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) have largely assumed neutrality regarding the Ukraine conflict.

A new and positive factor for Russia, compared to the Cold War period, is the development of partnerships with major countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Moscow’s leading partners in BRICS and the SCO—primarily China and India—cooperate with Russia, but are careful to ensure that this does not harm their extensive and close relationships with the U.S. and Europe. Belarus and North Korea have become Russia’s only real allies in its showdown with the West. 

However, Donald Trump’s return to the White House has deprived NATO countries of the illusion of guaranteed U.S. military assistance in the event of a conflict. To avoid a direct military clash with Russia, the U.S. is shifting responsibility for Europe’s security onto European countries. The U.S. is acting similarly in its construction of an anti-Chinese coalition out of its Asian allies.

While Russia is directly fighting against Ukraine, this is actually a broader war with the Western coalition, even as Russia strengthens its military integration with Belarus within the Union State and receives real military support from the DPRK. In the Middle East, Israel is trying alone to destroy Hamas in Gaza, pro-Iranian Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, but has managed to harness the power of its U.S. ally against Iran. Military tensions between China and Taiwan are growing in East Asia; but, again, this is only the first level of the broader conflict: China versus the U.S. and its Asian allies (Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and the Philippines).

 

What Kind of Wars Should Russia Prepare for?

Modern wars reflect a crisis of world order. The rise or revival of new regional or global centers of power has inevitably prompted the former hegemons to contain their growth and strengthen their own position.

The military threats to Russia are diverse, but their general nature is obvious for the foreseeable future: to weaken and, if possible, destroy Russia. The most serious risk is a military clash with NATO in Eastern Europe, the Baltic, or the Arctic. For the first time since World War II, Europe is becoming the main threat to Russia. If Ukraine survives as a separate state, it may provoke a European war and take an active part in it. The threat of Transnistria unfreezing appears quite real. Germany, Poland, the UK, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, Finland, and possibly Romania may also actively oppose Russia. The U.S. will keep to the rear, but will extensively support the Europeans. The risk of direct war with a European coalition, unthinkable until just recently, should be neither ignored nor downplayed.

Russia’s opponents will also seek to open new fronts against it, exploiting disagreements with its southern neighbors, but Western attempts to draw Georgia into war against Russia were stymied by Tbilisi’s firm focus on its national interests. Nevertheless, Georgia’s relapse into Saakashvili-like gambles could be possible under a different government. Armenia is ‘peacefully’ drifting away from Russia towards the West, but bilateral tensions are noticeably growing and may eventually lead to provocations against Russia’s base in Gyumri. European countries, especially Britain, will also spin intrigues against Russia in Central Asia.  

Objectively, Russian and Turkish interests run up against one another in the Caucasus, Black Sea, and Central Asia, but the two countries’ relations are fairly stable. A military conflict is avoidable, and pragmatic cooperation is possible. Russia will need special attention, tact, and understanding of Turkish motives.

In Asia, Russia risks being drawn into a confrontation between China and the U.S. (and its allies). Politically, Moscow will naturally side with Beijing and provide it with economic and military-technical support if the West imposes a blockade. Yet Moscow need not directly involve itself in the conflict—China is a strong military power with an increasing nuclear capability.

Beijing’s position on the conflict in Ukraine can serve as a guideline for Russia. Russia will have to provide direct military assistance to North Korea in the event of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula, but the likelihood of an attack by the U.S. and its allies on the nuclear-armed DPRK is extremely low. Even less likely, though not impossible, is a direct military clash between Russia and Japan. The greatest danger to Russia and the whole world would come from a military conflict in East Asia among the U.S., China, Japan, and the two Koreas. This could easily draw Russia in, too, but many will seek to avoid such an apocalyptic scenario.

The foreign policy doctrine of Russia, as a civilization-state, logically implies not only protecting the country and its interests, but also ensuring the rights and interests of Russians living abroad. Russia is also the guardian and guarantor of the geopolitical balance in Northern and Central Eurasia. Russia’s military might thus guarantees its own existence and forms the cornerstone of stability throughout much of the planet’s largest continent. As the struggle for the new world order intensifies, our country’s position and strategy will be crucial for determining it.