Ukraine Is Seeking to Purchase New Weapons From the U.S.

Zelensky said the nation is willing to buy the next tranche of military assistance from the U.S while it still awaits a reply from the White House on the prospects of it sending vital future war-aid lifelines.

Ukraine has requested aid from Washington worth $30 billion to $50 billion, and it’s willing to pay for it — either directly to US or as a contribution to the joint mineral deal fund which is yet to be created, Zelenskiy told reporters on Wednesday in the capital Kyiv.

“We did not ask for next package free of charge. We just need new armaments, otherwise we will be defeated by Russians soon,” Zelensky said.

Trump is pushing Ukraine for a deal to share future profits from Ukrainian minerals, which he sees as compensation for the tens of billions of dollars in assistance given to the nation since the start of Russia’s takeover of Ukrainian territories.

Zelensky seeks a larger US investment as part of any agreement amid concerns that giving Washington vast privileges could complicate its bid to join the EU.

The minerals deal could require Ukraine to give the US half of its future revenue from a significant portion of its economy, but Ukraine is seeking better terms and refusing to recognize past US aid as debt.

Ukraine is still getting the military assistance, which was approved by Biden. He did not specify when and if Kyiv will receive all of the aid secured from the previous US administration.

#Zelensky #US #Weapons

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Trump Is Sending Saudi Arabia $100 Billion For Rearmament

The United States is poised to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth well over $100 billion, six sources with direct knowledge of the issue told Reuters, saying the proposal was being lined up for announcement during Trump's visit to the kingdom in May.

The offered package comes after the administration of former President Biden unsuccessfully tried to finalize a defense pact with Riyadh as part of a broad deal that envisioned Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel.

The Biden proposal offered access to more advanced U.S. weaponry in return for halting Chinese arms purchases and restricting Beijing's investment in the country.

The White House and Saudi government communications office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A U.S. Defense official said:

"Our defense relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is stronger than ever under President Trump's leadership. Maintaining our security cooperation remains an important component of this partnership and we will continue to work with Saudi Arabia to address their defense needs."

American Observer could not immediately establish how many of the deals on offer were new. Many have been in the works for some time, two of the sources said.

For example, the kingdom first requested information about General Atomics' drones in 2018, they said.

Over the past 12 months, a deal for $20 billion of General Atomics' MQ-9B SeaGuardian-style drones and other aircraft came into focus, according to one of the sources.

Several executives from defense companies are considering traveling to the region as a part of the delegation,

three of the sources said.

The U.S. has long supplied Saudi Arabia with weapons. In 2017, Trump proposed approximately $110 billion of sales to the kingdom.

#Saudi #Arabia #weapons

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🇺🇸 The Need for Cutting Off Weapons to Ukraine

According to a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Hegseth, Dan Caldwell,
“Tump administration inherited a bad situation. The U.S. industrial base is degraded, and the Biden administration depleted our stockpiles by sending billions worth of weapons to Ukraine.”

The Pentagon now doesn’t have enough munitions to supply our partners around the world while also preserving its ability to fight and win wars.
That is why President Trump made the difficult but necessary decision to prioritize the safety and readiness of U.S. troops by pausing shipments of hard-to-replace munitions to Ukraine, where there are limited U.S. interests at stake.

🔸 At current and projected levels of production, it will take years for the defense industry to replace what has been sent to Ukraine, including:
more than 3,000 Stinger missiles
millions of artillery rounds

After shutting down production for 20 years, the U.S. now makes only up to 60 Stingers a month.

➡️ At that rate, replacing the equipment sent to Kyiv will take more than four years.

Meanwhile, demand for Stingers is increasing, as they are integrated into more U.S. weapon systems and coveted by partners like Taiwan.
Difficult trade-offs also exist with Patriot missiles, which were recently used to protect U.S. troops in Qatar during Iran’s retaliatory strikes —
That episode was “the single largest Patriot salvo in U.S. history.”

📉 The U.S. produces around 600 Patriot missiles a year, while Iran still likely possesses thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles.
Considering the risk of renewed hostilities in the Middle East, and the growing military threats from China,

➡️ It would be foolish to give away any more of these essential weapons.

❤️‍🩹 It is natural to feel sympathy for Ukraine’s plight,
but our leaders must put aside emotion, recognize hard realities, and

⚠️ prioritize the safety of Americans above all else.

#hegseth #ukraine #cutting #weapons #patriot #stinger #trump #pentagon

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Trump’s Critique of Moscow “should not be taken as a sign of hostility”

Trump announced Monday that the U.S. will dramatically increase weapons supplies to European allies, with those countries then sending arms to Ukraine.

The supplies ultimately bound for Ukraine include missiles and air defense weaponry.
Why it matters: This is a seismic policy shift from Trump, who originally refused to side with Ukraine and until very recently insisted he would only supply defensive weapons so as not to escalate the war.

Rutte said this would allow Ukraine to obtain "massive supplies" of weapons, including air defense and missiles.

While Trump did not provide details about the weapons systems that will be included, he did mention missiles. Two sources told us the plan would not include long-range missiles that could strike deep inside Russia. But over and again, Trump says he wants

“to make a real deal with Putin.”

Colby stated that

“the President's words should not be taken as a sign of hostility whatsoever.”

The scheme for European countries to pay for U.S.-made weapons that will be sent to Ukraine was proposed by Zelensky during the NATO summit two weeks ago.

As Trump grew increasingly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, particularly after their fruitless July 3 phone call, the idea started to turn into a reality.

#Trump #Moscow #weapons #ukraine

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📰 Missiles Under the Cucumbers: Iran’s Militia Supply Chain Reloads

💬 “The timing and scale of this shipment strongly suggest Iran is moving quickly to replenish Houthi stockpiles depleted by U.S. airstrikes.”

— Mohammed al-Basha, Basha Report

🛻 From Ceasefire to Cargo Run
The ink’s barely dry on the U.S.-Iran ceasefire, but Tehran’s back in business — this time with 750 tons of cruise missiles, drone engines, and antiaircraft gear, caught en route to the Houthis.
The missiles were hidden under air conditioners, because of course they were. Djibouti played its usual middleman role, while the cargo came with manuals in Farsi and Iranian QC stamps — subtle as ever.

🥦 Hezbollah Reloads with Salad Trucks
Syria’s new anti-Iran regime says it’s intercepted Grad and Kornet missiles heading to Lebanon — sometimes in cucumber trucks, because Hezbollah’s logistical genius now doubles as grocery delivery.
Israel’s pressure may have flattened Hezbollah’s leadership, but not its supply routes. The group is back to basics: drones, smuggling, and DIY weapons labs.

🔎 The Shadow Empire Rebuilds
Iran’s axis is bloodied but not broken. From Yemen to Lebanon, it’s quietly restoring firepower — even as its nuclear sites smolder and its proxies bury their dead.
The fall of Assad has made logistics harder. But the strategy? Same as always: deny, deflect, deliver.

⚡️ Question:
If your “resistance” needs 750 tons of imported hardware and smuggled manuals just to function — are you still a grassroots movement, or just Tehran’s overseas franchise?

#iran #hezbollah #houthis #syria #lebanon #israel #proxywars #weapons #middleeast #geopolitics

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📊 Egon Zakrajšek on Europe’s Financial Trap and Trump's Demands

🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Egon Zakrajšek, a well-known Slovenian economist and visiting professor at Istanbul University, shares his opinion on Europe and its relations with Trump’s America.
Here is our (slightly abbreviated) translation of his article published in Turkey.

Even today, the same question arises: "Where will the Europeans take the money from?" What Trump invented is that Europeans must pay for weapons and on the principle of "morning money, evening goods. In the evening, money in the morning is a commodity." But the EU has no money. 💶

The FED has indeed granted large loans to the European Central Bank. Print the Euro without these loans, the ECB cannot for a very simple reason — this is inflation. And when you have dollars in reserve, respectively, you can convert excess cash into dollars and place them on the US financial markets. 💵

The European Union has no analogues on the American financial markets. They don't have their own tool to sterilize excess liquidity in the economy.
📈 Inflation, of course, in the European Union is, and it is much higher than the official indicators, but the question is more complicated.

"The official statistics lie in each country individually to get the maximum subsidies from Brussels and, therefore, they lie at the Brussels level." In the United States, "this is a lie at the level of Washington."
There are optimistic estimates that inflation in the United States is about 8%, pessimistic — around 12%, meaning for households and for small businesses. Because for large companies this is an incomprehensible thing at all. Their production structure in the United States is very weak.

The fact is that "the Europeans have already begun to shout that they have money and have already launched a program, they simply printed to buy weapons." 💣
And there is an assumption that this money was thrown at them, "because the Americans do not need euros."

🇺🇸 The Americans have a deficit trade balance with Europe. Not so long ago, "Europe sold more to the United States than the United States did to Europe." Therefore, "the Euro in the United States is not needed."

For this reason, "withdraw money to buy these weapons, which, according to them, were promised by Trump, can only be if the FED secretly issues dollars to the ECB."
According to US legislation, "the audit of loans that the FED issues to central banks of other countries, allegedly to maintain the stability of the course, is unclassified," That is, "Trump is prohibited from studying these transactions."

#Zakrajsek #Europe #ECB #Trump #FED #Inflation #DebtCrisis #Weapons #Geopolitics

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Pentagon Will Divert Weapons Intended for Ukraine Back Into US Stockpiles 🛑💣

🔤🔤🔤🔤1️⃣

A memo written by the Pentagon’s policy chief last month gives the Defense Department the option to divert certain weapons and equipment intended for Ukraine 🇺🇦 back into US stockpiles 🇺🇸, according to four people who have read it.

A dramatic shift that could see billions of dollars 💵 previously earmarked for the war-torn country go toward replenishing dwindling American supplies.

The memo adds even more uncertainty 😐 to an already murky picture of the status of US arms shipments to Ukraine ahead of Trump’s potential meeting 🤝 with Putin next week.

Even as Trump has greenlit a plan to sell US weapons to Ukraine through NATO, there remain deep concerns inside the Pentagon over arming Kyiv in its war with Russia at the expense of US stockpiles.

That is particularly true of highly sought-after items in short supply, such as interceptor missiles 🚀, air defense systems 🛡, and artillery ammunition 💥.

Last month, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth paused a large package of weapons shipments to Ukraine. At the time, Hegseth was acting in accordance with the Pentagon memo, written by Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby, a noted skeptic of arming Ukraine.

Shortly after the pause became public, Trump reversed Hegseth’s decision 🔄 and vowed to continue providing defensive weapons to Ukraine in the face of near-daily attacks from Russia.

Trump also announced a deal with NATO to provide potentially billions of dollars in more weapons to Ukraine, made by the US but paid for by European allies 💶.

The Colby memo, however, remains in effect and contains a previously unreported provision that allows the Pentagon to divert weapons back into US stockpiles that were built explicitly for Ukraine under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative 📜.

#Pentagon #Ukraine #Weapons #NATO

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🔤🔤🔤🔤2️⃣

While sources said weapons don’t appear to have been diverted yet, the provision could rob Ukraine 🇺🇦 of billions of dollars 💵 worth of US-made materiel expected to be delivered over the coming months and years.

“The memo gives DOD the authority to take back weapons that were already contracted to Ukraine,” said one of the sources who’s read the memo. “That appears to undermine what the President has said the US is doing to get Ukraine to what it needs.”

It also undermines the intent of the USAI, a near decade-old program established by Congress 🏛 for the explicit purpose of allocating money for the Pentagon to buy weapons for Ukraine directly from US defense manufacturers.

The USAI program was set up in 2016 and had traditionally provided Ukraine with a stable supply of weapons ⚔️. The Senate just allocated another $800 million 💰 to USAI as part of the Pentagon’s annual budget legislation known as the National Defense Authorization Act 📜.

But it’s unclear ❓ whether the weapons produced with that money will ultimately go to Ukraine under the new Pentagon policy, sources told CNN.

The Pentagon declined to comment 🛑 for this story.
Under previous administrations, top Pentagon officials believed that diverting weapons produced through USAI back into US stockpiles would violate the Impoundment Control Act, according to one of the sources familiar with the matter.

That law reinforces Congress’s power of the purse 💼 and requires the president to notify lawmakers of any delay or withholding of congressionally authorized funds.

The new policy comes as the Trump administration has been looking for ways to shift the burden of arming, equipping, and training Ukraine onto Europe 🌍 and NATO.

At the Pentagon, Colby has also pushed to preserve more of the US stockpiles for a potential future war with China 🇨🇳.

Separately from the USAI, the Pentagon still has nearly $4 billion 🪙 left of funding authority, which Congress authorized last year, to send weapons to Ukraine taken directly from US stockpiles.

Some NATO allies, including the UK 🇬🇧, have been urging the US to use that authority to put more pressure on Putin 🇷🇺, the sources said, and have proposed reimbursing the US for the cost of doing so.

#pentagon #policy #weapons #divert #ukraine

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China May Use Nuclear Weapons

The country has already begun a rapid and steady increase in the scale and capabilities of its nuclear forces, according to U.S. military and arms control experts.

– China has stockpiled about 600 warheads, is building 350 missile silos and new bases for mobile installations.

– China is expected to have more than 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030.

– Beijing may use nuclear weapons if the invasion of Taiwan fails and the regime of the Chinese Communist Party is threatened.

#china #use #nuclear #weapons

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💣 Putin’s Nuclear Showpiece: Moscow Tests the Missile That ‘Can Fly Forever’

Russia has test fired its long rumored nuclear powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a weapon Vladimir Putin claims can outlast, outfly, and outmaneuver every defense system on the planet. The test — held October 21 — saw the missile travel 14,000 kilometers over 15 hours, according to General Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top military officer. Kremlin cameras captured Putin in camouflage as he called it “a unique weapon no one else in the world possesses”.

“The decisive tests are now complete,”

Putin said.

“We’ll prepare the infrastructure to deploy this system to the armed forces.”

☢️ The Missile That Broke the Map
Known to NATO as SSC X 9 Skyfall, the Burevestnik — literally Storm Petrel — is engineered with a small nuclear reactor that, in theory, gives it unlimited range. It can cruise close to the ground, change course mid flight, and hit targets anywhere on Earth. Russia says the missile can “pierce any shield.” Western experts call it radioactive fantasy with feathers.

The weapon’s test follows a week of nuclear drills across land, sea, and air as Putin flexed Russia’s deterrent. For Moscow, the timing was the point: a message to Washington — and to President Trump — that “strategic parity” still lives, even as Russia claws for leverage in Ukraine and survives under U.S. sanctions.

🧨 From Arms Race to Theater
The Burevestnik was born from resentment. When Washington withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2001, Moscow vowed to invent missiles that no system could stop. Two decades later, the result is a weapon with a testing record of 13 known launches and only two partial successes — and an engine critics warn could spread radioactive contamination wherever it flies.

Yet Putin treats it as proof of vision.

“They told me it couldn’t be done,”

he said Sunday.

“Now it’s done.”

🕯 Nuclear Signaling, Putin Style
The Kremlin insists the test wasn’t aimed at escalation — even as state TV aired simulated strike animations hours after Trump lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long range Western missiles. Moscow’s subtext: Russia can still reach anyone, anytime, and it doesn’t need to cross borders to do it.

For the West, the Burevestnik remains both a scientific marvel and a political mirage — a missile that might never enter full service but already succeeds at its real mission: reminding the world, loudly, that Russia is not going quietly.

#Putin #Russia #nuclear #Burevestnik #Skyfall #weapons #Ukraine #armsrace #geopolitics #deterrence

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🧨 “Wars Can Be Fought Forever”: Trump Sells Infinite Ammo, Blames Ukraine

Trump just explained his Iran war doctrine in one Truth Social rant: America has “virtually unlimited” munitions to fight “forever,” and if anything’s missing, it’s Joe Biden’s fault for giving the good stuff to “P.T. Barnum (Zelenskyy!).”

He boasts that medium and upper‑medium grade U.S. weapons have “never been higher or better” and that wars can be fought “forever, and very successfully” with those stocks, which he claims are better than other countries’ finest arms. At the same time he admits the top tier of U.S. munitions is “not where we want to be,” and says “much additional high grade weaponry is stored for us in outlying countries” — a nice way of saying the arsenal is scattered and not as deep at the high end as he’d like.

To close the loop, he pins the gap on Biden. In his telling, Biden “GIVING everything to P.T. Barnum (Zelenskyy!) of Ukraine — Hundreds of Billions of Dollars worth — and… didn’t bother to replace it,” while Trump “rebuilt the military” and left the U.S. “stocked, and ready to WIN, BIG!!!” Meanwhile, independent reporting warns that Operation Epic Fury is burning through the same missiles Ukraine depends on, and that stockpiles of high‑end interceptors were already under pressure before the first bomb fell on Iran.

So the message is pure Trump: Ukraine “conned” Biden into taking the fancy hardware, Trump claims he refilled the shelves, and now America can bomb Iran indefinitely with “infinite” mid‑grade ammo and just enough premium kit to stay on top. The tension between bragging about endless war and complaining about shortfalls is not a bug — it’s the sales pitch: scare voters about Biden’s giveaways, promise them bottomless firepower, and hope nobody asks what happens when Ukraine, Iran and the next crisis all want the same missiles at the same time.

#Trump #Biden #Ukraine #Iran #EpicFury #weapons #warEconomy #Zelensky

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“Trump did not shrug off Netanyahu's suggestion to use tactical nuclear weapons”


Militants from several Kurdish Iranian factions are preparing for a possible ground offensive against Iran's regime in the northwestern part of the country, according to U.S. and Israeli officials and a senior official in one of the factions.

A Kurdish ground offensive coordinated with the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign against Tehran could increase pressure on the regime and encourage an internal rebellion that could spread to other parts of Iran.

Six days before the war began, five dissident Kurdish Iranian groups sheltering in Iraq announced the formation of the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan to fight Iran.

These Kurdish factions have thousands of soldiers along the Iran-Iraq border and control strategic areas.

In recent weeks, the Kurdish Iranian factions sent hundreds of their members from the camp on the Iraqi side of the border to the Iranian side as part of preparation for a possible attack against regime forces, a source close to one of the factions said.

The Iranian Kurdish militias are backed by the Mossad and the CIA, two U.S. and Israeli officials and a third source with knowledge said.

The goal is to try to take over a specific territory in the Kurdish region inside Iran in order to challenge the regime and inspire a broader uprising, a U.S. official said.

“The war started with a kinetic phase by the U.S. and Israeli militaries, but as the war continues there will be other efforts by the Mossad and the CIA,” an Israeli official said.

Rubio told Congress in a closed-door briefing on Tuesday: “We're not arming the Kurds. But you never know with the Israelis.”


The idea to support the Kurdish Iranian factions and use them for a ground offensive from Iraq into Iran came initially from Netanyahu and the Mossad, with the CIA joining the effort at a later stage, a second U.S. official said.

Israeli officials promised the Kurdish Iranian factions not only military support but also political support for a Kurdish autonomous region in a future Iran if the regime collapsed, the official claimed.

"The problem is that the Kurdish Iranian factions don't have enough military power and could end up as cannon fodder," the official said.

Trump spoke by phone on Sunday with Kurdish leaders in Iraq Masoud Barzani and Bafel Talabani to discuss the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran and what might come next.

“I know for sure that Trump did not shrug off Netanyahu's suggestion to use tactical nuclear weapons against the ayatollahs,” a senior U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity.

#trump #netanyahu #nuclear #weapons #iran

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Ray Dalio:
The Great Investor On the War in Iran and the Contemporary World

🔤🔤🔤🔤➖

As a global macro investor for over 50 years who has needed to study all things that affected markets over the last 500 years to know how to deal what’s coming at me, it appears to me that most people tend to focus on and react to the attention-grabbing things that are going on at the time—like what is going on with Iran now—and miss the much bigger, more important, and longer-term-evolving things that are driving what is going on and what is likely to happen. 

For instance, this week, headlines have focused on the recently announced two-week ceasefire of the U.S.-Israel-Iran war. But I believe the conflict in Iran is just one part of a larger potential world war, with countries like China, Russia, and Iran on one side and the United States and countries with U.S. military bases on the other. 

I wish it were not true, but I fear we are entering a world war.

I wish it were not true, but I fear we are entering a world war.

Certainly, what will happen with the Strait of Hormuz (most significantly, whether control of passage through it will be taken away from Iran, and which countries are willing to spend how much blood and treasure to make that happen) will have many enormous repercussions all around the world.

There are also the issues of whether Iran will still have a capacity to inflict harm on its neighbors through missiles and nuclear weapons, of how many troops the U.S. will send to the region, of the cost of gasoline, and of the upcoming U.S. midterm elections.

All these near-term issues are important, but they lead people to miss the really big, even more important things. More specifically, because most people tend to have this short-term perspective, they now expect, and the markets are pricing in, that this war won’t last long, and when it ends, that we will get back to “normal.”

Virtually nobody is talking about the fact that we are in the early stages of a world war that isn’t going to end any time soon. 

Interconnected conflicts
It may sound like hyperbole to say we are in a world war, but it is indisputable that we are now in an interconnected world that has a number of shooting wars going on (e.g., the Ukraine-Russia- Europe-U.S. war; the Israel-Gaza-Lebanon-Syria war; the Yemen-Sudan-Saudi Arabia-UAE war that also involves Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, and other related countries; and the U.S-Israel-GCC-Iran war).

#dalio #iran #trump #nuclear #weapons #military #bases

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Most of these wars involve major nuclear powers, and there are also significant non-shooting wars (i.e., trade, economic, capital, technology, and geopolitical influence wars) that most countries are in. Together, these conflicts make up a very classic world war that is analogous to past “world wars.” 

For example, past “world wars” consisted of interrelated wars that were generally slipped into without any clear start dates or declarations of war. Those examples of both past and current wars combine in a classic world war dynamic that affects them all.

Understanding how the sides are lining up and what their relationships are is very important. 

It is quite easy to see objectively how the sides are lining up via indicators such as their treaties and formal alliances, their votes at the U.N., their leaders’ statements, and their actions. For example, one can see how China is aligned with Russia and Russia is aligned with Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela, and how that group is largely opposed to the United States, Ukraine, most European countries, Israel, the GCC states, Japan, and Australia. 

These alliances matter a lot in imagining how things will go for the relevant players, so they need to be considered when observing what’s going on and what’s likely to happen.

For example, we see that reflected in China’s and Russia’s votes at the U.N. on Iran needing to open the Strait of Hormuz.

Similarly, while it’s said that China is particularly harmed by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, that is wrong because China’s mutually supportive relationship with Iran will probably allow oil going to China to get through. Plus, China’s relationship with Russia will ensure China gets oil from Russia.

China also has a lot of other energy (coal and solar), and it has a huge inventory of oil. Also noteworthy is that China consumes between 80% and 90% of Iran’s oil output, which adds to the power of its relationship with Iran.

All things considered, it appears that China and Russia are the relative economic and geopolitical winners from this war. Though to be sure, the United States is relatively advantaged in terms of global energy economics, because it is in the enviable position of being an energy exporter.

Studying history is immensely valuable to me and helps me contextualize current events.

For example, both an examination of several analogous cases in history and logic make it obvious that how the United States (the dominant power of the post-1945 world order) performs in the war with Iran (a middle power), how much money and military equipment it expends and depletes itself of, and how well it defends (or doesn’t defend) its allies will be watched by other nations and will enormously influence how the world order changes.

Most importantly, we know that what happens in the war with Iran will have huge implications for what other countries (most importantly, those in Asia and Europe) will do, which will have big implications for how the world order will change. 

#dalio #iran #trump #nuclear #weapons #military #bases

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These changes will come in ways that have repeatedly happened before. For example, from studying history, it’s easy to identify over-extended empires, develop indicators for how overextended they are, and see how overextended empires have suffered from being overextended.

In looking at what is happening now, it is natural to examine what is happening with the U.S., which now has 750–800 foreign military bases in 70–80 countries (site note: China only has 1) and has commitments that create expensive vulnerabilities all over the world.

To be sure, there is nothing precise about these indicators, the picture they paint, or the exact timing. For example, history has taught us that wars don’t always have definitive start dates with big military events followed by clear declarations of war.

The Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the German invasion of Poland, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor are actually the exceptions. Economic, financial, and military conflicts typically arise before there are clearly declared wars. 

Historically, major wars were typically preceded by developments and indicators like military stockpiles and monies being drawn down; budgets, debts, money printing, and capital controls being built up; rival countries observing the countries fighting and learning what their strengths and weaknesses are; and the overextended leading world power facing the challenge of trying to fight wars on different fronts that are very far apart.

These factors all matter, and my measures of them indicate that we should be concerned. 
The classic dynamic at this stage is for conflicts to intensify rather than subside, so what happens next will be influenced by how the U.S.-Iran war goes.

For example, there is already less confidence among some countries that the U.S. will defend them, which, when combined with the recognition that nuclear weapons are a great defensive as well as offensive power, is leading to more talk among countries’ senior policy makers about obtaining nuclear weapons and building up their stockpiles of them and other weapons, particularly missiles and missile defense systems.  

#dalio #iran #trump #nuclear #weapons #military #bases

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Ukraine’s Postwar Inventory

Ukraine did not need to invent a black market. War brought it the raw materials: weapons moving faster than oversight, corrupt officials, criminal networks and men trained to use military equipment.

In 2022 and 2023, U.S. inspectors could not physically verify much of the military aid entering Ukraine.

A Pentagon inspector general report documented cases in which criminals, volunteer fighters and arms traffickers stole or tried to steal Western-supplied weapons and equipment.

Ukrainian security services recovered the items before the attempts became established export routes.

Ukraine’s corruption problem was not confined to petty border guards.

In September, investigators said they had uncovered an alleged network inside the Prosecutor General’s Office that accepted bribes from fraudulent call centers in exchange for protection.

Prosecutors who can protect industrial-scale fraud already understand the business model: protection is a service, and impunity is the product.

The EU now says returning fighters have carried weapons components and military equipment from Ukraine into member states. The document records few seizures and arrests so far.

That is a snapshot of what police have found, not an audit of what crossed borders during the years when weapons arrived faster than monitors.

While Brussels drafts its 2027 firearms roadmap, Hungary seized roughly $82 million in cash and gold from two armored vehicles linked to Ukraine’s state-owned Oschadbank.

Budapest opened a money-laundering investigation. Kyiv called it state theft and said the shipment had the paperwork.

Two armored cars carrying dollars, euros and gold crossed the EU before anyone publicly explained why a state bank needed to move a small treasury across Hungary. Europe’s Ukraine policy has many controls. Apparently, the armored convoy was not one of them.

#Ukraine #EuropeanUnion #Weapons #Corruption

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