Russia: The Vulnerable Sick Man of Eurasia

Popular history credits Russian Czar Nicholas I with describing 19th-century Ottoman Turkey as “The Sick Man of Europe.”

British envoy Sir George Hamilton’s full quote lacks the headline’s memorable pop: “We have a sick man on our hands, a man gravely ill …” The czar added that it would be dreadful if sick man Turkey slipped away “before the necessary arrangements are made.”

In 2025, hard facts say Russia is The Sick Man of Eurasia — ripe for exploitation by actors making calculating arrangements.

Yes. Arrangements are being made.

Read the entire essay.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The Simultaneous Strategic Bombing Strike on Iran, an operation 30 years in the making.

The 509th’s raid was three decades in the making. In 1996, the U.S. experimented with deep penetration conventional bombs and timing attacks so the second bomb struck milliseconds behind the first. A second bullet in the first bullet hole, one-two punch. In September 1996, I wrote a column mentioning the tests. The potential target: Libya’s chemical weapons stash hidden under a mountain. The 509th’s MOPs delivered these one-two punches.

Add submarine-launched cruise missiles that arrive in sync with the bombs and the result: strategic “time on target”.

THE PREDICATE FOR TRUMP’S ABILITY TO DEMAND A CEASEFIRE: The U.S. Air Force 509th Bomb Wing’s jaw-dropping raid on and likely destruction of Iran’s most critical nuclear weapons facilities — located in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

MOP. Massive Ordnance Penetrator. But there are other bombs…

Later:

Trump’s ceasefire began awkwardly. After a Trump F-bomb tantrum, Israel agreed to observe the ceasefire, though it meant giving up its air supremacy. With another five days Israel could have taken out scores of regime-maintenance targets — thug forces protecting ayatollahs and assets that can threaten Persian Gulf oil tankers. Sample targets: Iranian Republican Guard Corps leaders; speedboats, stored naval mines and anti-ship missiles the regime could use to close the Strait of Hormuz.

More:

The following paragraph comes from a Creators Syndicate column I wrote analyzing a potential U.S. strike on Iranian nuclear sites. The publication date is Aug. 4, 2010, during the Obama administration: “The (U.S.) claim is destroying these (Iranian) sites would seriously disrupt the (Iranian) bomb project. A ‘simultaneous strategic bombing strike’ (SSBS) on the facilities is one U.S. attack option. In a short time frame, aircraft, cruise missiles and perhaps ballistic missiles with conventional warheads would deliver hundreds of precision weapons, hitting nuclear targets and air defense sites. Follow-up raids could continue for weeks. Special operations commandos would enter Iran, collecting intelligence, providing target data and possibly attacking very high-value targets.”

The predicate to that military scenario paragraph? From the same column: “When ‘Meet the Press’ (earlier in the week) asked Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (Admiral) Mike Mullen if the Pentagon had a plan for attacking Iran, Mullen replied, ‘We do.’ He added, ‘Military actions have been on the table and remain on the table …’ Mullen tempered his response by emphasizing an attack is always an ‘option.’ Mullen kept his hypothetical saber stroke in a diplomatic sheath by emphasizing the U.S. regards military action to destroy Iranian nuclear capabilities as an “option.””

And hysteric House Democrats want to impeach Trump for superbly executing an option Obama administration officials publicly acknowledged? We witness the dregs of war.

The dregs of war…Tell AOC I wrote that. Dreg, not dog.

Read the whole thing. Creators title sums it: Simultaneous Strategic Bombing Strike, 12 Day War and Mid-East Peace?

ANOTHER THOUGHT: Let US Bombs Destroy Iran’s Fordow Uranium Plant — Not Israeli Nukes.

I wrote this column Tuesday night. It’s drawn some heated but interesting reactions. Here’s the lede:

The Israel-Iran War Over Nuclear Weapons could end with a nuclear blast. Why have a reluctant Washington send two American B-2 stealth bombers each dropping a 30,000-pound (15-ton) Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) conventional bomb destroy Iran’s buried Fordow uranium enrichment facility?

Israel has nuclear weapons, everyone knows that. One well-placed Israeli nuke — say, 5 kilotons? — could penetrate and shatter Fordow, and, with a seismic shudder and internal structural collapse, end the ayatollah dictatorship’s 35-year pursuit of nuclear munitions.

Is this a plausible scenario?

A plausible military scenario requires the technical capability to execute the central mission. Israel has the nuclear capability and the delivery systems (likely aircraft). The U.S. has the conventional weapon capability and delivery system (B-2). Israel has also achieved air superiority over Iran — combat aircraft can fly almost anywhere.

War, however, is politics using violence. That’s what Carl von Clausewitz thought. The usual interpretation: Political goals should direct and restrain violent capabilities.

Oh, but those human beings who just know they are on a glorious mission of conquest, and maybe God or the gods or history or Karl Marx is on their side!

Ayatollah Iran exemplifies this Divine Conqueror delusion. Iran calls little Israel a “one bomb state.” The Tehran quip states a goal, one with violent direction. If Iran had a nuclear weapon, the Islamic revolutionary regime’s destructive record of war, terror and crimes against humanity tells sane humans an unrestrained megalomaniacal ayatollah would target Tel Aviv for nuclear immolation.

Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons — not yet. If they had one, it would have been used in the last five days.

However, as long as Fordow exists, the ayatollahs can continue to enrich uranium to weapons-grade, and, when this fracas ends, begin a new nuclear weapons quest.

A little later:

The fact Israel hasn’t nuked Fordow is a definitive statement about Israeli national values, current intentions and positive future goals. Put simply, Israel stands with Earth’s constructive nations. Enrich your wallets, not your nuclear weapons. Let’s make a deal.

Hope you’ll read the wholte thing.

New Model Trojan Horse – Ukraine’s Drones:

Bravo to Ukraine for its “New Model Trojan Horse.”

Homer’s Greek warriors slipped from a wooden horse to open Troy’s gates and start the bloodbath that ended a 10-year war.

Ukraine cleverly and stealthily shipped wooden crates deep inside Russian territory, 1,500 kilometers into Siberia. The truck-borne crates were finally positioned a short suicide drone flight from scores of Russian bombers parked on airbases –airbases no doubt protected from long-range aircraft and missile attacks, but unprepared for a “close in” drone attack.

MORE:

The tech was vital, but it wasn’t the decisive factor — like Israel’s Grim Beeper operation, stealth made Ukraine’s drone victory possible.

Could U.S. strategic bomber bases suffer a similar attack? Of course.
From a column I wrote in late December 2024 (and quoted in this June 3 column:

Here’s the gist of the December 2024 column’s scenario:

“I’m by Dyess Air Force Base, Abilene, Texas. You’re outside Ellsworth AFB, Rapid City, South Dakota. The drones pass right over us. They’re both the size of a two-seat Cessna and they carry bombs with small, smart, cheap and individually targetable munitions. In the next 45 seconds, the drones fly over the airbases. Their munitions disable a half-dozen B1B Lancer strategic bombers — six at each airbase.”

As a footnote, a link to the December 2024 column: The Next Pearl Harbor: Close-In Drone Swarm Attacks Launched From US Soil?

UPDATE: The run-on words (Greekwarriors, etc) are being corrected by the StrategyPage webmaster.

WHAT DOES PUTIN VALUE?: Dealing Don and Bad Vlad Head for a Showdown

Understanding value in a straight-up deal creates cooperation or a walk-off no deal.

War is not a straight-up deal.

Check it out.

RELATED: Commerce over chaos!

Loose Lips Sink Ships? Naw, Loose App Links to Security Lapse: Consequential Mistake?

The news hook title isn’t as crisp as World War II’s “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” It does send the relevant 21st-century message that digital communication systems have security flaws enemies can exploit to gather critical information.

WWII’s brilliant rhyme warned that loose talk in a New York bar could tell Nazi spies where to position U-boats to intercept convoys. My update repeats warnings everyone using a cellphone or email should already know: someone or some device can be monitoring your communications.

A little more:

On March 25, CIA Director John Ratcliffe told the Senate Intelligence Committee that when he became director, he was given a phone with Signal pre-loaded. He was briefed that Signal was “permissible” for work use, and “That is a practice that preceded the current administration to the Biden administration.”

Did the Biden administration discuss sensitive national security information on the phones? Who knows. I doubt Communist Chinese intelligence will tell us.

Did the Biden administration provide the Trump administration with Signal apps that included Goldberg’s contact information? A fair question to ask for those demanding a thorough investigation.

Matt Margolis of PJMedia writes, “This has all the hallmarks of a deliberate setup.”

I suspect an inadvertent mistake, but Margolis has a point given the corruption we’ve witnessed in the CIA and FBI. Russia Russia Russia was a hoax.

A bit more:

Signalgate is/was a mistake. A destructive mistake? No. It may simply be an accidental leak to media. But it must be thoroughly investigated, and that includes public testimony from Mr. Goldberg — under oath so he risks perjury charges.

Suggest you peruse the entire essay.

BREAKING: Ukraine War: The Peace Ball Is Now in Putin’s Court:

Late on March 11, the Trump administration announced Ukraine had agreed to a 30-day ceasefire in the Russia-Ukraine War.
A joint American-Ukrainian statement said the U.S. will “immediately” resume full intelligence sharing and military-security aid to Ukraine. The Trump administration also said Ukraine had agreed to the strategic minerals deal President Donald Trump offered as payment for U.S. financial and material support.

Trump makes the case that the deal serves as an informal security guarantee for Ukraine — meaning the minerals-for-support deal tells Moscow the U.S. has a strategic interest in peace, in Ukraine’s political existence, in Ukraine’s economic viability and in its independence from Moscow’s destructive absorption and totalitarian corruption.

The deep logic behind Trump’s deal is based on historical common sense that even a megalomaniac like Russian dictator Vladimir Putin should grasp: Peace empowers genuine economic viability and sustainability.

Why? War kills workers and consumers (human beings), destroys railroads and sinks ships (disrupts economic supply chains) and, in the case of U.S. access to Ukrainian strategic minerals in which it now has an international agreement ownership interest, presents Putin with the threat of U.S. economic sanctions and — the clincher — possible armed conflict with the U.S. if he continues to wage war.

Suggest you read the entire column.

…

America’s Self-Inflicted Strategic Threat

Dig.

The political hacks opposing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are laughable — until you realize these hysterics present a serious threat to U.S. national security.

President Dwight Eisenhower’s no longer with us, but we have his National Security Council 162/2 report, dated Oct. 30, 1953. Once top secret, it’s now on the internet.

Ike’s West Point gut told him America faced a long and dreary strategic siege, and to pay for the win, we needed wealth — meaning a long-term productive and growing economy.

MORE:

2022’s hyperinflation and government budget excess exacerbated Washington’s debt problem. Now inflation is embedded in all U.S. economic action, to include military preparedness. Did Joe Biden do it? Yes.

But he did it in league with a criminal enemy: America’s embedded bureaucratic state, an unelected and predominantly Democratic Party caste addicted to self-serving, reckless spending and — until the Trump administration’s DOGE — immune to audit.

Bottom Line: “The unelected bureaucratic state has lost track of five defense budgets.”

RTWDT. Read the whole damn thing.

SHAPING OUR CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL HELLSCAPE: The Biden-Harris Afghanistan Bugout 3 Years On

August 2024 marks the third anniversary of the Biden-Harris administration’s most consequential international policy action: the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.

Why Biden-Harris? Vice President Kamala Harris has said on several occasions she was “in the room” — meaning in the decision loop — when Joe Biden ordered a withdrawal based on the calendar and not on battlefield conditions. “Completely out by 9/11” is a sound bite, a political bumper sticker. It isn’t clear-headed senior leader strategic guidance for a military withdrawal from a complex war zone.

Read the entire essay.

SPEAKING OF NATIONAL DEFENSE: Let’s Kick-start US Naval and Commercial Shipbuilding

U.S. MILITARY IN DECLINE: America’s Airpower Is at Risk

In July 2014, I wrote a column that included this troubling paragraph: “With a few teeth-clenching exceptions (the Korean War’s MiG Alley battles), since 1944, American land, sea and air forces have enjoyed the military and diplomatic benefits of U.S. air superiority. Unfortunately, in 2014 there are strong indications that America’s air advantage is diminishing.”

On July 29, 2024 (10 years later), Air & Space Forces Magazine online interviewed U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. Slife. This Ukraine war-informed quote struck home: “We used to make the claim that since 1953 no American has been killed by air attack. We can’t make that claim anymore,” Slife said. “It calls into question, ‘What does air superiority actually look like?’ [Does] it look like 30,000 feet over the Yalu River (Korea) in 1953 or does it look like below 3,000 feet with quadcopters with a hand grenade slung to the bottom of them? I think the answer is: It’s all of the above.”

Check it out.

FROM LAST WEEK: Biden’s ‘Different Picture’ Ploy Put Freedom at Risk Did it ever. The direct quote from Joe that describes the entire Biden Administration: “And there’s a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.”

HOMELAND DEFENSE FOULUP: Secret Service Misses the Assassin in Plain Sight

“See something, say something.” After the 9/11 disaster, that phrase served as a terse marching order for alert American citizens willing to help stop terror attacks on U.S. soil.

“See something, say something” is superb national security advice. 9/11 demonstrated America is under attack. Every citizen can contribute to the defense effort.

On Saturday, July 13, several alert citizens attending a presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, saw a young man lurking near a building adjacent to the fairground where presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump intended to deliver a speech. The young man was later seen on the building’s roof.

Local and Global Security Point 1: Per 9/11, concerned citizens on the ground provided The See. Several informed law enforcement officers. Hence Point 2: Citizens provided The Say.

Bottom Line: “Mayorkas and Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle failed to execute fundamental duties. They should resign immediately.”

But read the entire commentary.

SO NOW THE HATERS TRY TO KILL PRESIDENT TRUMP: Remember June 2017? A Bernie Bro launched a terror attack, trying to kill congressional Republicans en masse. James T. Hodgkinson. Don’t hear much about him. We should. I wrote this for The Spectator: The Left-Wing Terrorist’s Capitol Hill Coup d’Etat

UPDATE: I just saw Glenn’s recollection. James T. Hodgkinson won’t be erased.

STRAIGHT, NO CHASER: A Trump NATO? The 3% Solution

If you want peace, prepare for war. The maxim is attributed to Scipio Africanus, the Roman general who defeated Hannibal — but Plato mulled the idea.

If they want peace, for the next 10 years NATO nations and their Pacific allies must spend 3% of GDP on defense. Current U.S. defense spending? About 3%.

I wrote this essay Tuesday. As for Biden’s press conference this evening, he lied about his strong support for Ukraine. Recall Biden thought Russia would blitz Ukraine and he wanted Zelenskyy to flee. Zelenskyy replied to the effect, “I need ammunition, ‘not a ride.” Will the mainstream media call him on his lie?

THE BIDEN MOMENT: Biden Administration policy failure, The Propaganda Press and American disintegration.

The June 27 televised Biden-Trump debate fully exposed America’s and the Free World’s most grave strategic weakness: dominant mass media organizations that fail to hold their favored government, economic and media elites accountable for policy failures.

Strategic weakness — that’s a Washington wonk way of saying “a social, political or military flaw a dedicated enemy of America identifies and then exploits over time” with the goal of weakening or destroying the U.S.

MORE:

A dysfunctional president of the United States is a high order defense problem in a world of nuclear weapons, ICBMs, wealthy enemy states (China) and suicidal terrorists.

MORE:

The Biden Moment of one policy failure after another has been a disaster for U.S. defense.

MORE: America’s “most insidious threat is China’s “disintegrative warfare.” In a disintegrative war, a “unitary belligerent becomes increasingly fragmented by secessions.”

Is Biden’s America increasingly fragmented? Read the whole column.

HEH: Or hah. Biden’s lies begin with Afghanistan. Really. Media perception? BS. Even Reuters nails his Delaware fraud bottom.

TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE LIVE ON CNN: Biden’s border catastrophe has made our backyards battlefields.

I WISH I WERE DRUNK BLOGGING*: First five minutes of first quarter of the…debate: Biden word fumbles, and word fumbles — a babbling wreck. Or has CNN allowed a cheap fake?

*looking for a good pinot noir…

NATIONAL SECURITY IS THE DECISIVE QUESTION IN EVERY PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE…Or It Should Be: No Debate: Biden’s Damaged US Security, International, Domestic and Economic

After 3 1/2 years of economic, military, diplomatic and social policy mayhem, the facts speak: Joe Biden, his handlers and their feckless media apparatchiks have severely damaged America’s physical security, both international and domestic. It will take years to fix the harm of Bidenomics — and the economic wreckage makes addressing the international (e.g., military) and domestic (e.g., police) security issues more difficult.

Biden’s Afghanistan bugout encouraged our enemies:

We now know Biden knew early on his bungled withdrawal had become a catastrophe. On Aug. 31, 2021, Reuters published the transcript of a July 23 telephone exchange between Biden and Afghanistan’s then-President Ashraf Ghani. Biden told Ghani that “… the perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan, I believe, is that things aren’t going well in terms of the fight against the Taliban. And there’s a need, whether it is true or not, there is a need to project a different picture.“

Sheesh. “Whether true or not.” The Reuters report is decisive evidence — of Biden lying to the American people and our allies.

“…Which brings us to the porous U.S. border — which turns our backyards into battlefields.”

CNN debate moderators — take note.

My latest Creators Syndicate column.

THE 8 NABBED TAJIKS ON THE TERROR LIST: Biden’s CBP App Lunacy Fuels War on American Civil Society. Yup. One of the eight nabbed terror suspects used Biden’s app to request asylum. Could be that’s how he was caught, but he never should have entered the U.S. The app gave one potential terrorist “entry privilege.” My term.

For Americans concerned about the security of their communities and nation, the breaking news on terrorist infiltration is terrifying — and ought to guide future defense policy.

On June 11, the federal government announced Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested eight illegal aliens from Tajikistan. Tajikistan is a predominantly Muslim Asian state bordering Afghanistan and a former Soviet Socialist Republic.

The feds believe the Tajik men have ties to the Islamist terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. ISIS has a presence in Afghanistan and probably a base.

ICE arrested the suspects in three urban areas: New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. According to two media reports, the men entered the U.S. via the U.S.-Mexico border. L.A. is near Mexico. Philly and New York? No.

Check out the column.

FLOATING TARGET OFF GAZA: Pier Pressure On Gaza’s Shore — And In Michigan

SUMMARY: The Biden administration wants to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza to save the lives of Palestinian civilians. The Biden administration wants to use a complicated military structure/system called JLOTS — acronym for Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore — to pull it off. JLOTS is a floating, temporary pier for bringing supplies from big ships to a port-less shore. Suffering Gazans could be succored by land through Egypt. Gazans could be supplied through Israel. But Hamas stands in the way. So why the pier posturing? The floating piers are campaign photo-ops for Michigan Muslim voters.

Read the entire column.

VERY RELATED: The pier has deployed “amid security concerns.”

THREE INVASIONS ON THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S WATCH: They approach near-simultaneous crises.

Three invasions with extraordinary global impact and history-shaping consequences have occurred since January 2021 — the month Joe Biden became America’s president and his administration began directing U.S. foreign and federal domestic policy.

The invasions in reverse chronological order:

1. Hamas’ October 2023 genocidal invasion of Israel. Hamas is committed to Israel’s elimination, which means committing genocide.

2. Vladimir Putin-led Russia’s February 2022 all-out conventional attack to seize Ukraine.

3. The illegal alien disruption and “political transformation” invasion that began in spring 2021 after Biden, by presidential directive, effectively ended U.S. border controls.

My latest Creators Syndicate essay.

VERY RELATED: Communist China’s TikTok War To Disintegrate America

TIME FOR ACTION: Time To Punish Iran’s Ayatollah Regime For Its War On The World

Since the 1990s, Iran’s Khomeinist regime has waged a global Aryan nationalist holy war.

Iran is Aryanistan. Land of the Aryans. Check it out. The Iran Aryans despise Semites; Arabs and Jews are Semites. Ishmael, Arab progenitor, was a son of Abraham. That’s one deep reason Donald Trump’s Abraham Accords had traction.

Khomeinist refers to followers of Khomeinism, the violent ideology of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who toppled the Shah in 1979. Khomeini was a bitter old man who liked to write love-laced pleasure-enthused Persian poetry when he wasn’t despising Western civilization.

Failed artist turning to revolution — that’s a deadly history. Karl Marx was a failed German poet. Marx wanted to be Novalis (a brilliant German Romantic poet and polymath — check him out). Adolf Hitler (a self-proclaimed Aryan Fuhrer) was a failed painter. I’m told Khomeini’s poems are ersatz Omar Khayyam but at times show signs of merit.

More:

At some point, the Iranian regime itself must suffer a heavy and deadly military blow.

One option: a “simultaneous strategic bombing strike” (SSBS, first described by StrategyPage.com in 2003). In a short time frame, aircraft, cruise missiles, drones and perhaps ballistic missiles with conventional warheads deliver hundreds of precision weapons, hitting regime nuclear targets, Iranian Al-Quds special forces and Revolutionary Guard command and control facilities, air defense sites, ballistic missile sites and intelligence agency facilities.

Of course, the President must give the order…

RELATED: Houthi Smack Down. (Podcast)

STRATEGYPAGE: Jim Dunnigan’s Annual Wars Update.

January 1, 2024: This is our annual summary of current war zones and an overview of where it is all heading. After this overview there is the alphabetical list of the war zones and a quick summary of how the local mayhem has been proceeding. Since we have been covering this sort of thing for over twenty years now, there are many war zones that have gone quiet. We left most of those in summary, with a note that those wars had gone dormant, and maybe extinct. History shows that dormant is more common than extinct. Forever wars, or at least multi-century ones, are an ancient tradition.

The update is long — but it is diverse and inclusive.

IT COULD BE A VERY LONG YEAR: Six Strategic Challenges For 2024

…Challenge No. 6: America’s Southern Front. In 2023, “flailing states” (states immersed in anarchic violence that spills over political borders or states unable to control their own borders) were challenge No. 2. America’s southern border crisis has created a hybrid war front –California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are a hybrid-war front line.

In fiscal year 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol apprehended 736 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) on terror watch lists along the southern and northern U.S. borders. Fact: there were 1.7 million illegal alien gotaways. If two or three out of a 1,000 gotaways are KSTs, that’s 3,000 to 5,000 violent enemies infiltrating America’s home front.

Mass terror attack on the home front? To stop it takes aggressive deterrence — by smart and courageous leaders.

My latest Creators Syndicate column. Check out the other five.