"Judging by the metrics of conventional conflict, Iran is not faring well against the United States and Israel. Its adversaries are destroying crucial targets in Iran, killing its commanders and degrading its military assets. But these are the wrong measures for assessing Iran’s position in the war. The right measure is not even an assessment of whether Iran is absorbing punishment well—which it is. The question that will matter when the fighting ends is whether Tehran is achieving its strategic objectives. And on that count, Iran is winning.

This outcome is not accidental. Tehran has been preparing for this war for nearly four decades, since the new revolutionary government faced its first major military test in the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted from 1980 to 1988. And it is now executing a strategy that has managed to neutralize key U.S. and Israeli air defense batteries, severely damage U.S. military bases in the Persian Gulf, inflict substantial economic pain, and drive a wedge between the United States and its Gulf allies. The Iranian regime, in other words, is not just surviving the U.S. and Israeli bombardment. The serious economic and political problems it is creating for its adversaries are, on a strategic level, giving Iran the upper hand."

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/irans-long-game#

#Iran #USA #Israel #Trump #Militarism #War

"[T]he United States is now acting like a predatory hegemon, exploiting positions of leverage built up over decades to exploit allies and adversaries alike. This zero-sum approach to nearly all relations with others includes a deep hostility toward most international institutions and norms, deliberately erratic behavior, and a tendency to treat other foreign leaders with ill-disguised contempt while expecting demeaning acts of submission and fealty from most of them. As the fallout from the war in Iran spreads throughout the region and around the world, it underscores that the administration either didn’t understand how its actions would affect other states or simply didn’t care.

Which brings me to the third problem: U.S. foreign policy is now in the hands of a remarkably incompetent set of officials, from the president on down. International influence depends on many things, but one of the key ingredients is other states’ belief that the people they have to deal with are smart, well-informed, and generally know what they are doing. At this point, does anyone in the higher echelons of the Trump administration merit that description? Not that I can see. Conducting foreign policy is a difficult business, and no government gets everything right, but this administration commits own goals on a weekly basis while insisting that it is infallible.
(...)
The bottom line is that the rest of the world is going to be dealing with a powerful, probably predatory, and highly erratic United States for at least three more years and probably longer. If that is the case, then what should other countries do, bearing in mind that the United States is not the only dangerous predator out there (and for some states, more immediate dangers lie closer to home)."

https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/26/united-states-trump-rogue-state-iran/

#USA #Trump #Militarism #Geopolitics #Hegemony #Imperalism #RogueState

"Left unreported: According to a financial disclosure, Michael, a former Silicon Valley executive, holds millions in stock in an Anthropic competitor, Perplexity AI, as well as additional investments in other AI, cryptocurrency, and robotics companies with business before the Pentagon.

By designating Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” the Pentagon could damage its commercial business and government contracting prospects, benefitting rivals like Perplexity AI.

Michael pledged in his disclosure to not participate in any matters that have “a direct and predictable effect on my financial interests.”

A one-time Uber senior vice president, Michael also recently held investments in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, whose owner had his 2024 money-laundering conviction pardoned by President Donald Trump last October.

Michael currently holds stock in the prediction market platform Kalshi, which he received as compensation for his prior consulting work there. Both companies have grown massively over the past year after receiving regulatory reprieves from the Trump administration.

Prediction platforms like Kalshi collect revenue for hosting betting markets on US military actions like the Iran War and have been plagued by concerns of both White House conflicts of interest and potential insider trading.

In total, Michael’s disclosure form lists an extensive array of stock holdings and other assets totaling between $121 million and $277 million, though he’s been forced to divest from some of those holdings since entering the government last May.

His remaining financial positions could still pose conflicts of interest for his high-powered role at the Pentagon, despite receiving little media coverage during his confirmation process last year."

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/pentagon-anthropic-ai-surveillance-michael

#USA #Trump #Pentagon #DoD #Militarism #AI #Anthropic #PerplexityAI

PODCAST: How Israel sells militarism at home and abroad

Sahar Vardi discusses the human and political costs of Israel's flourishing arms industry, and the deep societal shifts demilitarization would require.

By +972 Magazine March 27, 2026

Listen here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

How has Israeli society become so deeply militarized, and what does that mean for how “security” is defined?

In this episode, we speak with Sahar Vardi, a veteran anti-militarist activist and researcher who has spent years tracking Israel’s arms industry and its effects on society. She explains how militarization is embedded in everyday life, shaping culture, politics, and economic priorities, while carrying profoundly different meanings for Israelis and Palestinians.

Vardi also traces how Israel’s military industrial complex increasingly drives the nation’s policy priorities, and how these systems extend far beyond Israel’s borders, exporting both arms and doctrines of control into a global security economy. As defense exports rise, she asks who profits, who bears the cost, and why do we accept this model as inevitable despite its failure to provide real safety?

Additional reading:
,,,

https://www.972mag.com/podcast-israel-militarism/

#militarism #israel #palestine

"Seventeen submarine cables pass through the Red Sea, carrying the majority of data traffic between Europe, Asia, and Africa. Additional cables run through the Strait of Hormuz. When a cable breaks in peacetime, repair ships arrive within weeks. In an active war zone, they cannot safely operate at all.

The sovereign wealth question deserves more careful analysis than the most alarming headlines suggest.

These are not small funds that can be depleted by a few weeks of conflict. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Mubadala are designed, as economist Brett Rowley has noted, to “withstand volatility rather than respond to it.”

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, turbocharged by oil revenues that have climbed sharply since the Strait of Hormuz was threatened, may actually find itself with more capital to deploy, not less — though analysts note it has already signaled a 15% cut in capital spending as it reassesses its priorities.

The more plausible risk is not a wholesale reversal of Gulf AI investment, but a cooling. Several major data center projects in the UAE are already reportedly under review. Companies that had been preparing to break ground are instead asking what war-risk insurance looks like, and discovering, to their dismay, that standard commercial policies exclude acts of war.
(...)
“The region remains attractive to companies in terms of capital from sovereign wealth funds, government buy-in, available energy, and its role as a gateway to markets in the global south,” Tess deBlanc-Knowles, senior director at the Atlantic Council, told CNBC. Governments across the Gulf, she said, would be racing to reassure U.S. companies and hold them to their commitments.

India is the most obvious beneficiary of uncertainty in the Gulf."

https://restofworld.org/2026/gulf-war-aws-data-center-attack-ai-investment-risk/

#Iran #MiddleEast #War #USA #Trump #Militarism #AI #DataCenters

" Irrationalism has prevailed effortlessly, but reason never triumphs on its own – it must be fought for. "

- Heinrich Mann, On Hate, 1933
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Mann
#hate #destruction #nationalism #militarism #authoritarianism #war #UncheckedPower #SocialCohesion #democracy #participation
Image: Stencil, Bellingen

"Since Iran choked off the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping route through the Gulf, attention has centred on the risk to oil flows.

The threat to food security, however, may be just as grave a risk. “You can live without your fridge or without your car for a while,” says Michael Werz, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “You cannot live if you do not have food staples.”

The impact on the global food system caused by the Iran war could be even bigger than the crisis triggered by Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, experts say.

That is a particularly serious concern for the world’s poorer countries, but the longer the conflict lasts, the more severe the food shock will become and the more people will be affected.

The initial disruption four years ago was concentrated in Black Sea grain exports before rippling out to energy and fertiliser markets. This time it is hitting several parts of the system at once.

The Gulf is at the heart of global fertiliser markets. Its production has been halted and shipments disrupted, curtailing supplies and driving up global prices.

Many other countries also depend on gas from the region to manufacture fertiliser.

Higher fuel and electricity prices are already pushing up the cost of moving, processing and cooking food."

https://www.ft.com/content/27e07c19-723a-4fce-adab-82538c350e74?syn-25a6b1a6=1

#Iran #Israel #USA #Trump #War #Militarism #FoodCrisis

"Jason Brownlee: The lesson, not just for Iran but other regimes in the past, has been that moderation and reasonableness is the danger: that the US wants to attack when a country is making compromises, when a country is negotiating in good faith. In fact, exactly as you described, Iran under Ali Khamenei was at most trying to enter what is known as the “Japan club,” where you have a solid civilian nuclear program that is permitted under international law, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and that does not produce nuclear weapons but would put you a few months away from nuclear weapons if you needed to get there. That’s what Japan has; that’s what a number of other countries that are US allies have. So there’s a kind of latent potential for weaponization, but it never needs to be acted upon. And it’s absolutely within the NPT — which Iran has signed, unlike Israel.

In that respect, the US pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Trump’s first term and really tightening the screws on Iran over the past few years, including under the Biden administration, points to an attitude of grinding down a country and a government that is not presenting a threat and, on the contrary, is actually operating according to internationally recognized norms and rules."

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/trump-iran-israel-regime-change

#Iran #USA #Trump #Israel #Militarism #RegimeChange

"As President Trump prepared to welcome conservative Latin American leaders to a summit in Florida in early March, U.S. officials released a video of a massive explosion — capturing the destruction of what they said was a drug trafficker’s training camp in rural Ecuador.

The video was meant to show that the U.S. military, which for months has bombed boats it says are carrying drugs from South America, was “now bombing Narco Terrorists on land,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on social media.

The military strike appears to have destroyed a cattle and dairy farm, not a drug trafficking compound, according to interviews with the farm’s owner, four of its workers, human rights lawyers and residents and leaders in San Martín, the remote farming village in northern Ecuador where the strike took place.

And though the Pentagon said at the time that it had “executed targeted action” against the site at Ecuador’s request, U.S. troops had no direct involvement in the strike shown in the video, according to four people with knowledge of the operation, three of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

In San Martín, which The Times visited over two days this month, residents told a different story about the bombardment and the actions by Ecuador’s military in the days leading up to the strike."

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/world/americas/us-ecuador-drug-camp-bombing-dairy-farm.html

#USA #Ecuador #Militarism #LatinAmerica #Warmonger #Neocolonialism

Oh.

(Gift link)

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/world/americas/us-ecuador-drug-camp-bombing-dairy-farm.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V1A.V84O.IHMJ4-IS_M4n&smid=url-share

#Ecuador #militarism #DonaldTrump #Hegseth