Vicious Predator

Chinas long term strategy to replace the US as the global hegemon was contingent on the US adhering to the “rules based order” and avoiding applying hard military power to protect its interests given Americas war fatigue. China knows it can’t win a direct military confrontation with the US, so its plans relied on a gradual erosion of American strategic power and influence. President Trump has thrown out the post Global War on Terror foreign policy playbook and the Chinese have no idea what to do about it.

There are tectonic shifts happening in geopolitics as we speak. The GCC is eyeing a military alliance with the United States. Europe is losing most if not all of its influence in the region, Syria no longer a threat. Wow.

China Is Repeating the Soviet Union’s Fatal Mistake Its economy looks strong on paper: a record $1.2 trillion trade surplus, dominance in EVs, solar, and shipbuilding. But the foundation is cracking. Its share of global GDP peaked at 18.5% in 2021—now down to 16.5% in 2025. Its economy has fallen from ~75% of the U.S. to under two-thirds. Why? Because Beijing shifted from wealth creation to state-driven tech and military expansion. Many of these sectors aren’t profitable. EV and solar industries are locked in brutal price wars. Chips and defense rely on massive subsidies. Meanwhile, real wealth creators are shrinking. This is the Soviet playbook: prioritize power over profit. It looked strong until it collapsed. Economics is simple: wealth first, strategy second. China reversed it. And now the cracks are showing.

Scott Ritter: “If I were the Iranians, I would actually take out Israeli desalination plants now. Right now. End Israel right now. Just end it. Just take it out. End it. Make Israel over. Israel needs to cease to exist. It is literally the cancer on the planet.”

For the record. Trump’s Iran Gambit and the New Great Game Donald Trump’s Iran war is not really about Iran. It is a live‑fire demonstration for a larger audience: China, Europe and every state that still depends on U.S.‑policed sea lanes and dollar finance. Trump’s Art of the Deal meets Kipling’s Kim: transactional brinkmanship fused with a ruthless sense of the Great Game. His coercive sequencing with Tehran – pressure, “winding down”, peace feelers, a 48‑hour ultimatum on Hormuz, threats to “obliterate” power plants – is meant to show that the U.S. can still dominate escalation ladders in a critical energy theatre. Iran’s new 4,000km missile, capable of reaching European capitals, only vindicates his argument that this is not a local irritant but a system‑level threat. Europe’s instinct to respond with process and paper echoes Chamberlain more than Churchill. The real inflection point is what happens if Iran can no longer serve as a staging ground or energy back door for China. If crude again clears overwhelmingly in dollars, and Washington effectively controls the main flows out of the Gulf. The geometry between the U.S. and China changes dramatically. Beijing would face a world where its industrial lifeblood remains hostage not to “multipolarity” but to American tolerance. Gulf monarchies are already betting on this outcome, distancing from Tehran while recommitting long‑horizon capital to the U.S. That is not sentiment; it is positioning for a system in which American security guarantees and dollar energy are, once more, the only game that really counts. If President Trump holds his nerve, IMHO he will, Iran is boxed in rather than appeased, the peace dividend will be akin to the fall of the USSR. State sponsored terrorism take a significant hit, cheaper and more predictable energy, risk premia declines, and a strategic map in which China must live inside an order Trump has just proved Washington can still enforce. Yes, Iran is a sideshow. And yes, The Great Game evolves.

@samstein @ajlamesa Part of the reason for the war is the continuing economic squeeze of China

I continue to be intrigued at the administration's decision to send Scott Bessent out to defend the war.

@Scaramucci @josephbvarner Maps

Here’s the question nobody in Washington is asking about the Diego Garcia strike: how did Iran know exactly where to aim? They don’t have satellite coverage of the Indian Ocean. Someone gave them the targeting data. Who? And what does that make this war?

@WarMonitor3 Canadian sighs at 2.3%

Britains military is completely degraded from years of chronic underfunding and is a shadow of even its Cold War Power: -Army just 72,000 personnel -Just 14 destroyers or frigates -Only 200 MBT and even less artillery -Only 2.3 percent GDP spending

As New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is begging “high-net-worth” people to return to the state to help pay for “generous social programs", Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other Democrats are pushing to lower the threshold for the death tax and to raise the tax to 50 percent. How enticing...

@SilentlySirs Why would Trump know or care?

A European blow to Trump — Spanish NATO troops in Iraq pull out and head home via Turkey.

Chappell Roan’s bodyguard when he saw the kid

chappell roan vs that footballer's kid

The regime still hasn’t internalized that President Trump will out-escalate them if he thinks escalation is required to force de-escalation. He is not a conventional Western politician, and Tehran repeatedly miscalculates because it keeps assuming he is.

Mueller went after Trump the elected president on totally, obviously false pretenses, his children, everyone around him, random people who worked for him, to bleed them dry, have them imprisoned, or kill themselves— one instance among many in his long career of being a menace. But we’re supposed to be appalled at Trump saying “good” at his death announcement. No.

I was "sacrificed" to the Mueller witch hunt because the coup plotters needed to destroy President Trump. To achieve this goal, Comey, Brennan, Christopher Steele, CIA operative Stefan Halper, and even my own university professor—who we now know was a British intelligence operative—placed false stories in the media. They claimed I was a Russian spy who had an affair with President Trump's National Security Advisor, and that President Trump had therefore endangered U.S. national security as a result. This smear campaign directly triggered the Mueller investigation into President Trump. Everyone knew the story was completely false. I am not a Russian spy, there was no affair, I was married, and I had just had my first baby. Mueller didn't even interview me, because he knew the entire narrative would collapse if he did. But the truth didn't matter. They were determined to "get Trump." It didn't matter that they hurt innocent families in the process.

⚡️Europe is a wealthy dependency under American air cover. That is the real truth. The UK still gets spoken about like a serious standalone military power because people confuse history, branding, and selective capability with full-spectrum sovereignty. But missile-age sovereignty is brutally simple. Can you detect, track, coordinate, intercept, and sustain defense against real saturation attacks on your own territory? If the answer is no, then a huge part of your security is rented. That is what this post is really admitting. The UK is not a self-contained shield. It is a node inside an American system. Same with much of Europe. Strip away US sensors, interceptors, command architecture, logistics, and industrial depth, and the prestige collapses much faster than the speeches do. The deeper failure is civilizational, not technical. Europe spent decades living inside a security subsidy and started mistaking that subsidy for its own strength. So it optimized for comfort, process, and posturing while the hard architecture of survival stayed underbuilt. A continent full of rich countries ended up acting like missile defense was optional because the American backstop was always there. That means “strategic autonomy” has mostly been theater. Not because Europe has no money, no talent, or no industrial base. Because it never made the hard choice to build the ugly, expensive, integrated war stack that real independence requires. It wanted the status of autonomy without paying the cost of autonomy. European elites still talk like actors in a multipolar world while functioning like protected clients inside an American security operating system. That gap between self-image and real dependency is where the real vulnerability lives. Systems get blindsided when they believe their own mythology. So what is really going on here? A long-hidden hierarchy is becoming visible. America is still the military kernel. Europe is still the attached architecture. That is why every crisis keeps revealing the same thing. Energy shock, missile defense, naval security, ISR, command integration, deterrence credibility. Scratch the surface and the American backstop is underneath all of it. The most compressed truth is this: Europe is not weak in the soft sense. Europe is incomplete in the hard sense. And the UK is a perfect example of a country that still looks like a power until you ask whether it can actually defend its own cities without the United States.

Yes, Trump could have been more gracious about Robert Mueller. Then again, the man asked Trump for a job, then tried to take away his presidency and his liberty. All based on lies. He was used by party hacks to divide Americans. A distinguished public servant tainted by politics.

chappell when the girl walked past her😭

they’re acting like chappell roan killed her lmaooo