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On October 7, 2023, a memorable military operation began from Gaza, in which approximately 4,000 armed men from the elite units of the various local Palestinian resistance movements (Palestinian Islamic Jihad, PFLP, DFLP, Popular Resistance Committees, etc., led by Hamas) poured like an overflowing glass over the Zionist settlements in the surrounding areas.

The action was simultaneously a response to the intensification of expropriations of Palestinian families in the West Bank, the growing pressure on the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the appeasement policy of the Arab countries. It aimed, through the capture of Israeli military personnel (active and reservists), to force the Zionist entity into a war of attrition that could lead to significant exhaustion of Israel, internally and externally, and to a reassertion of the Palestinian State question.

Apparently, one of the expectations of the Hamas leadership was that Hezbollah and Iran, and perhaps the military organizations of the West Bank, would also engage, briefly and sustainably, in the conflict with Israel. For a series of reasons – entirely different for each of the actors – this did not happen, except in the case of Hezbollah, and only in a limited way until the ground invasion of Lebanon, and in the case of Iran, also in a limited way during the 12-Day War.

The event led to cataclysmic transformations in the Middle East that we can already describe, and to a panorama that may be disconcerting for many who predicted a scenario of total Zionist victory.

It is not our intention to provide a detailed description of the processes that were initiated by the Gaza War, so we will only attempt to summarize each of the scenarios in their main events and current panorama.

As for Gaza itself, its population was the victim of ethnic cleansing. The death toll, if we add all causes, may reach 200,000, that is, 10% of the population of the Gaza Strip. A significant part of the Hamas leadership, in turn, was assassinated during the war. Israel, however, was defeated in the conflict, considering that it failed to achieve its objectives of destroying Hamas, permanently occupying the entire Gaza Strip, and displacing the Palestinian population. The material and social damage to Israel, in turn, was immense. 60 billion dollars in general economic losses, increased internal social tensions, and total – perhaps irreversible – destruction of Israel’s international image. Furthermore, unable to defeat Hamas, Israel was forced to accept a peace agreement imposed by the US. Meanwhile, Hamas continues with approximately 12,000 active fighters and another 15,000 young recruits in training, so that it will soon return to approximately the same level of strength as before October 7, 2023.

On the Lebanese front, the conflict led to the displacement of more than 1 million Lebanese from their homes, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, and some other leaders of the movement, the political destabilization of Lebanon, and involved the ground invasion of the country by the State of Israel, which, however, also failed to achieve its objectives of forcing the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah, in turn, which was significantly degraded between 2023 and 2024 for trying to operate as regular armed forces, returned to insurgency warfare and, with the increased use of drones and new technological tools, blocked Israel’s advance in 2026.

As for Syria, we witnessed the collapse of Bashar Al-Assad’s government and the takeover of the country by terrorist militias linked to Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other extremist groups, which led Ahmed Sharrah to the presidency. Israel took advantage of the moment to destroy most of Syria’s military hardware and occupy a security belt around the Golan Heights, establishing a tenuous alliance with the Druze tribes and militias of the region. The fall of Assad imposed difficulties on Hezbollah’s logistics, which relied on Syria for the transit of equipment coming from Iran. If Israel expected free passage through Syria, however, the situation is made more complex by the fact that the region is disputed, as an area of influence, with Turkey, so that tensions between both countries continue to increase.

The Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian scenarios allowed one to say, in early 2025, for example, that Israel would be advancing significantly in its objectives outlined in the Oded Yinon Plan of destabilizing and fragmenting neighboring countries to facilitate the construction of Greater Israel. We would have here, at that moment, the collapse of the Shiite Crescent strategy and of Qassem Soleimani’s geopolitical project. When we add the Iraqi and Iranian scenarios, as well as the general context of the Middle East, the situation changes significantly.

Because in the space between the 12-Day War and the Iran War, we saw the collapse of US regional power in the Middle East, the rise of Iran as the main contender for regional hegemony, and Israel’s retreat to a more defensive and rear-guard position.

Signs that the Israeli project was more fragile than it seemed at first glance appeared already in the conflict with Iran in 2025. Unable to defeat Iran, which was pounding Israeli defenses and infrastructure with swarms of drones and missiles, Israel had to appeal for help from the US, which carried out a largely symbolic airstrike against empty nuclear facilities in Iran. This did not go unnoticed.

The new round of conflict in 2026, beginning at the end of February, despite starting with the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led to the elimination of a good part of US bases in the Middle East, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the destruction of Israeli air defense capabilities, the evacuation of US troops in Iraq, and the destruction of the myth of the US’s incontestable military superiority.

In fact, the inability of the US to achieve its political objectives militarily in the Middle East (after the failure of the January color revolution attempt), even using 2 aircraft carriers (1 of which may have been seriously damaged in operations), its inability to protect its Arab allies, the Arab allies’ own inability to defend themselves, the partial depletion of the missile stockpiles of Iran’s enemies, and Iran’s capacity to quickly replenish its leadership and to act militarily in a decentralized manner, as well as its demonstration that its industrial-military capacity remained active, changed the geopolitical map in the Middle East.

To some extent, today, it is Iran that calls the shots. The evacuation of Iraq by the US reopens the country to the penetration of Iranian influence, which puts at risk even Ahmed Sharrah’s domination of Syria.

To circumvent Iranian control of Hormuz, the Saudis have been experimenting with using the Red Sea and land routes. If these efforts were successful, the importance of Hormuz would diminish and, with it, Iran’s bargaining power. The problem is that, exactly when this began to happen, the Yemeni Ansarullah entered the board, initiating a large-scale military operation to defeat the rebels supported by Riyadh. The Saudi response to the Houthi advances led to the partial closure of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and attacks not only against ARAMCO facilities, but even against Saudi oil wells.

If we return to the Israeli geopolitical panorama, finally, the country still finds itself with a Palestinian problem in Gaza, Hezbollah active in Lebanon, unable to advance in Syria because of the Turkish threat, and with its defensive military capabilities considerably reduced.

Far from the “Pax Judaica” and “Greater Israel,” we are seeing the repositioning of geopolitical actors, and the actor in the most advantageous position is, today, Iran. The recent negotiations between Israel and the Sunni Arab countries do not significantly change the scenario.

3 years after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, therefore, it is not possible for us to say whether the objectives of Ismail Hanyeh and Yahya Sinwar were achieved, but it is impossible to deny that Hamas’s boldness completely changed the map of the Middle East, prevented the Palestinian cause from falling into oblivion, and hindered the normalization of relations between Israel and Muslim countries.

NATO’s full Military Committee just visited Kiev. They’re studying Ukraine’s war as their own testing ground.

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Everyone off on a trip to Kiev

On 6 October, Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, arrived in Kiev with military representatives from all thirty-two Allied nations. He wrote this himself on X: the delegation was there to reaffirm its ‘unconditional support’ for Ukraine. ANSA reported the news as an official visit. A strategic signal aimed at Moscow as well.

First, the facts. The Military Committee assists and advises the Atlantic Council, the Defence Planning Committee and the Nuclear Planning Group; its role is to set military policy and strategy. It was invited by the new Supreme Commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Mykhailo Drapatyi. The Committee returned to Kiev in full force after eight years, and the meetings with Drapatyi and the Ukrainian General Staff served to obtain a first-hand assessment of the battlefield, to discuss Kiev ’s military priorities and to bring to the Alliance the lessons learnt from over four years of high-intensity warfare. Dragone speaks of military priorities and lessons useful for the Allies’ operational readiness in the face of today’s and tomorrow’s threats.

Now for the interpretation, which must be kept distinct from the facts. A body that advises the Nuclear Planning Group does not travel through a country at war merely to make gestures of solidarity. It goes to gather information and to calibrate its own preparedness against it. The flow described by the sources runs in both directions: from Ukraine to the Alliance as operational experience, and from the Alliance to Ukraine as guidance on priorities. When the military leaders of thirty-two states sit down with the General Staff of one of the belligerents to assess their own readiness in the context of the ongoing war, that war ceases to be an external affair. It has become the Alliance’s testing ground.

This sequence confirms the direction. On 3 June, the North Atlantic Council met in Kiev , and the NATO-Ukraine Council was held there for the first time. In October, it is the military’s turn. First the political framework, then the structure that fills it with operational content – this is not a passing courtesy, but an institutional presence that grows stronger at every stage.

Then there is the statement that shifts the discussion beyond Ukraine. To those who believe that sabotage, cyber-attacks and airspace violations could undermine Western support, Dragone replies: ‘You are failing.’ He holds Russia fully responsible for such behaviour and states that allied unity has never been so strong. The Ukrainian front and the sub-threshold pressure on Allied territory are placed within the same framework, articulated by the same man from the same venue. The distinction underpinning the ‘Ukraine versus Russia’ narrative – that between a war over there and tensions here – is erased by the Chairman of the Military Committee himself.

Images, symbols and meanings

The image remains. In the video message recorded in Kiev, the admiral speaks with two flags behind him; in institutional communications, the backdrop is never improvised – it reveals who is speaking and on whose behalf. The person appearing beneath those symbols is neither a mediator nor an observer. The flags tell the same story as the words – words that reflect a deliberate and conscious choice: namely, the war for Kiev, total dedication to a cause that should have nothing to do with Europe.

The serious objection is another, and it must be acknowledged. None of the three sources documents allied troops in combat, and no Member State has declared war on Russia. The delegation came to consult and to pay tribute at the Wall of Remembrance dedicated to the Ukrainian fallen. The law of armed conflict distinguishes between support for one side and direct participation in hostilities, and on that ground the distinction exists, but the legal classification does not exhaust the geopolitical analysis. The Allies no longer describe their role as aid to a third party: they speak of their own readiness, their own threats, their own unity. When an alliance measures its own preparedness against another’s war and attributes acts of sabotage on its own soil to that same adversary, the confrontation involves two parties, and one of them is not Ukraine.

The assessment, then. On the political-strategic level, the confrontation between NATO and Russia is direct, and the sources show this with sufficient clarity. On the kinetic level, the sources do not record any direct Allied involvement, although this is constantly invoked and called for, as if it were NATO’s greatest desire. The gap between the two levels, however, narrows with every visit of this kind. There are two indicators to watch: the possible permanent establishment of allied facilities on Ukrainian territory, and the way in which acts of sabotage – which the Alliance attributes to Moscow – will be dealt with, whilst Zelensky orders the bombing of further Russian oil refineries and new drones fly over Moscow, despite Donald Trump having told them to stop.

Everything is spiralling out of control; NATO is acting independently of the US sphere of influence because it has embraced the Ukrainian cause as if it were the final world war – the one in which the Alliance will either win, or there will be nothing left to do.

The ‘Ukraine versus Russia’ narrative served to contain the war within a framework that was reassuring to European public opinion. With 32 military representatives in the Ukrainian capital, led by an Italian admiral, that framework is holding together less and less.

Let it be clear that this decision is not accidental; it is not a political trap, nor is it even an error of judgement, but a declaration of war – yet another hybrid and, stylistically, pitiful declaration against Russia. They are telling us this openly, whilst we are distracted by other thoughts.

It remains to be seen whether governments will tell their voters this. And it also remains to be seen whether the brave four-star generals will realise a wise truth that the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz wrote in his manuals: “The mistake lies not in making a misstep, but in failing to recognise it and in seeking to defend it at all costs”.

There is, however, no reason to break the spell cast by Kiev , which is currently enchanting the whole of Europe, because, as Napoleon said – to quote him a second time – “One must never interrupt the enemy whilst he is making a mistake”.