THINK TWICE, STAN

    TRUMP, IRAN, AND THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL As the previous post was being published, American warplanes were already moving into strike positions near Iran's nuclear facilities. Yet nothing has changed strategically. The possibility of a direct U.S. entry into the conflict was discussed in the prior analysis – with the hope that it would not happen  - precisely because it was already evident that Israel could no longer wait - and that the deadlines may have been set deliberately to distract. What has changed, fundamentally, is that the U.S. has passed the bifurcation point: the moment when it could still decide whether to enter the war directly or leave Israel to face the consequences alone. Washington opted to strike, calculating that a catastrophic Israeli defeat would be too costly. The U.S. now needs to exit this crisis quickly, preserving face for itself and for Israel - ideally, with a headline-grabbing "victory" over Iran's nuclear program. Trump imme...

  Trump’s Caution and Tehran’s Cards:  Why the U.S. Still Holds Back - Or Not Really? C ontrary to widespread fears - and at times near-panic - sweeping across the globe, the United States has yet to enter the Israel-Iran conflict directly. It still can though. Acting, as always, not in accordance with classic geopolitical doctrine but rather in the style of a televised drama, Donald Trump first stirred alarm, only to then announce with perfect innocence that he has no desire to go to war. Yet despite the rhetoric, the U.S. has been quietly amassing enormous military power in the Middle East. The buildup continues, but the battlefield remains frozen. Why? One possibility is that Tehran, unlike its adversaries, still hasn’t revealed its most dangerous cards. While Israel and the U.S. appear increasingly transparent in their strategies, Iran continues to keep both known and unknown options close to the chest - creating uncertainty that may prove pivotal. Let’s begin with th...

  Israel’s Assault: Russia’s First Impressions A few days after Israel’s surprise strike on Iran, the contours of the operation’s initial success have come into sharper focus. It’s now evident that the effectiveness of the first wave was made possible not by air power alone, but by an elaborate network of sabotage teams and advanced planning. At the same time, Iran’s military capabilities remain intact, and Israel is under daily retaliatory missile fire.   T he key factor in Israel’s early success was the coordinated use of special operations units inside Iran. These teams deployed compact guided missiles and loitering drones - closely resembling the systems currently being used by both Russia and Ukraine. Their primary targets were Iran’s air defense assets, which had previously allowed Tehran to track enemy aircraft with passive detection systems while limiting radar emissions to moments of missile launch - mirroring Ukraine’s own strategy. Despite this layered defen...

  America’s Factor: Israel, Iran, and the Real Battlefield of U.S. Geopolitics Let’s be clear from the start: analyzing the effectiveness - or lack thereof - of Israel’s recent strikes on Iran is an exercise in futility. Israel’s pronouncements of “total success” reflect more desire than fact. Iran’s counterclaims - that only minor damage was done to non-military sites and that civilian casualties were minimal - are standard wartime signaling: reveal as little as possible to the adversary, while presenting the attacks to the public as both senseless and brutal, yet militarily inconsequential. When the roles are reversed, Israel does the same. Whether the operation was a complete triumph or a complete failure is ultimately irrelevant. It was merely one episode in a conflict that did not begin yesterday, though last few days marked its escalation into a new and dangerous phase. In this context, Israel is not a sovereign actor but a pawn - an unvoiced instrument of escalation. The...

  A Not-So-New But So Dangerous Slogan of the West’s “Victim Economy” When the NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said, "If you don't spend that 5% (on defense), you'll be able to keep your National Health Service... but you'd better start learning Russian. " It wasn’t a warning. It was a marketing slogan for the West’s new economic paradigm - one where citizens are expected to pay, not for prosperity or security, but for the right to feel heroic in a battle against media-designated evil. The evolution of the Western political narrative - from pandemic management to the Ukraine conflict, and now to the Israel-Iran - has taken on a distinctly theatrical tone. What was once framed as pragmatic policy or “values-based leadership” now resembles a collective psychodrama, playing out along the classic lines of the “drama triangle”: victim, aggressor, savior. The key feature of this new phase is what might be called Churchillization : political leaders no longer p...

Follow the Money: What the West’s Treatment of Russian Assets Reveals About Ukraine’s Fading War Gamble In the early days of the conflict, Western leaders loudly declared that Russian assets would soon be confiscated. These statements, made in March 2022 at the onset of the Special Military Operation, came from a wide range of political figures - most of whom are now out of office, and many who have exited politics entirely. Meanwhile, the Russian assets in question remain untouched. They are frozen, inaccessible to Moscow, and still a subject of rhetorical threat. Western politicians occasionally renew the promise of confiscation, and in the meantime, the West is more than willing to use the income generated by these assets. Yet the process of formal seizure has never actually begun. In March 2022, under the framework of the initial Istanbul negotiations, Russia was offered essentially nothing. Not even Crimea was to be immediately recognized as Russian territory by Ukraine - th...

A WAR OF THE POOR   T he political elite of Ukraine not only sends its own people abroad but also profits from its position of power by organizing convoluted schemes to evade military conscription. For example, high-ranking government officials can register other men as personal drivers or as members of volunteer organizations that enjoy clear freedom of movement. Doctors continue to issue fake medical certificates either claiming fitness for service or indicating serious illness. Owners of "critical" enterprises - who have the legal right to exempt their employees from mobilization - can include so-called “phantom workers” on these survival lists. Border guards may simply “let someone through” as part of a “special arrangement” if they are leaving the country illegally. Staff at military enlistment offices can delete names from the draft registry or allow men to avoid conscription altogether without a summons. Prices for such services are constantly rising and can reac...

    The Strategic Deadlock of the West: How the Ukraine Conflict Has Reshaped Global Geopolitics   A Dangerous Threshold The years 2025 and 2026 are shaping up to be a geopolitical turning point. These are the years when what many now see as a Russian victory over the West begins to lock in — and when the West, running out of steam, starts making last-ditch efforts to turn history around.  The stakes couldn’t be higher: we’re facing the very real risk of a full-blown European war, and even a global military showdown that could involve nuclear weapons. We haven’t been this close since the Cold War. Some still want to believe that “Ukraine isn’t over,” but the strategic picture has shifted. Yes, battles are still raging. Cities are being leveled. More people will die. But geopolitically, the game is already decided. The West, in effect, has asked for a way out. The End of Illusions: Ukraine as a Spent Proxy Western powers still speak in the language of ultima...

  Ukraine as Anti-System: The Geopolitical Danger No One Wants to Confront We often hear that Ukraine was created as an “anti-Russia.” That’s true. But it’s only part of the truth. Ukraine as anti-Russia is just a subset of a much broader and more dangerous reality: Ukraine is an anti-system. T his doesn’t mean there’s no order in Ukraine. On the contrary - there is a kind of order. But it is a reverse order, an inverted structure in which everything functions against the logic of a normal state. What would be suppressed in a healthy society is encouraged in Ukraine. What should be protected is systematically destroyed. Corruption, theft, falsehood, and decay are not unfortunate by-products. They are the mechanism itself. Western observers often fail to grasp this. They acknowledge Ukraine is corrupt-perhaps even more so than most countries - but assume this is a problem  within  the system, one that can be reformed with the right incentives. They miss the esse...