When a mortar round exploded on top of their American-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, the Ukrainian soldiers inside were shaken but not terribly worried, having been hardened by artillery shelling over three years of war.

But then the small drones started to swarm.

They targeted the weakest points of the armored Bradley with a deadly precision that mortar fire doesn’t possess. One of the explosive drones struck the hatch right above where the commander was sitting.

“It tore my arm off,” recounted Jr. Sgt. Taras, the 31-year-old commander who, like others, used his first name in accordance with Ukrainian military protocols.

Scrambling for a tourniquet, Sergeant Taras saw that the team’s driver had also been hit, his eye blasted from its socket.

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Drones are now responsible for 70% of deaths and casualties in the Ukraine war.

A Thousand Snipers in the Sky: The New War in Ukraine https://t.co/53dQU6uF2q

— Martin Ford (@MFordFuture) March 3, 2025

Donald Trump, seeing “a big, beautiful Ocean” between his country and the world’s problems, wants to curtail America’s responsibilities abroad. His party is also broadly keen on increasing military spending, and the Trump administration, working with Congress, has new priorities for the Pentagon.

In February several media outlets reported that Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, had ordered a $50bn cut to Pentagon spending. Yet the reported memorandum’s vague language and fuzzy maths belied the reality that Mr Hegseth was seeking cuts merely to offset new spending on “America First” programmes. The Pentagon chief vowed that the changes would make the American “military once again into the most lethal, badass force on the planet”.

Defence spending is poised to rise above levels in the Biden era, when the former president consistently requested after-inflation reductions to outlays. On February 21st the Senate approved $150bn in new defence spending, on top of the department’s existing annual budget that approaches $900bn. The following week a House bill approved $100bn. Some Hill appropriators wonder whether these big numbers will survive the give-and-take of complex spending negotiations, but it is clear that if Mr Trump is pulling back from the world, he isn’t yet pulling back on defence spending. 

Read it all.

America is set to spend more—and differently https://t.co/MY9pqNzJyp #economy #usa #governmentspending #Trumpadministration #military #technology #21stc

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 3, 2025

One in three people displaced by the war in Ukraine remain in urgent need of humanitarian aid, charities have warned on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion, on Monday.

An estimated 3.6 million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine, while 6.5 million people have fled the country to find safety elsewhere: 90 per cent of the refugees are women and children. Vital infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals, has been destroyed in parts of the country. Conditions are worst along the eastern and southern frontlines.

Children are traumatised, and suffering from a lack of food and disrupted education, World Vision reports. An estimated 659 children have been killed in three years, and 1747 injured. “The emotional burden faced by Ukrainian children cannot be overlooked,” its Operations Director, Arman Grigoryan, said.

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One in three people displaced by the war in Ukraine remain in urgent need of humanitarian aid, charities have warned on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion, on Monday https://t.co/L1wPcXQsZh pic.twitter.com/7WIc1MLm89

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 24, 2025

Donald Trump’s demand for a $500bn (£400bn) “payback” from Ukraine goes far beyond US control over the country’s critical minerals. It covers everything from ports and infrastructure to oil and gas, and the larger resource base of the country.

The terms of the contract that landed at Volodymyr Zelensky’s office a week ago amount to the US economic colonisation of Ukraine, in legal perpetuity. It implies a burden of reparations that cannot possibly be achieved. The document has caused consternation and panic in Kyiv.

The Telegraph has obtained a draft of the pre-decisional contract, marked “Privileged & Confidential’ and dated Feb 7 2025. It states that the US and Ukraine should form a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine”.

Read it all.

Revealed: Trump’s confidential plan to put Ukraine in a stranglehold

Panic in Kyiv as US president demands higher share of GDP than Germany’s First World War reparations.https://t.co/3rFDHydtCd

— Ruchir Sharma (@ruchirsharma_1) February 18, 2025

In 2022 and 2023, the Army missed its recruitment goal by nearly twenty-five per cent—about fifteen thousand troops a year. It hit the mark last year, but only by reducing the target by more than ten thousand. The Navy has also fared badly: it failed to reach its goals in 2023, then met them in 2024 by filling out the ranks with recruits of a lower standard; nearly half measured below average on an aptitude exam. The Army Reserve hasn’t met its benchmark since 2016, and the ranks are so depleted that active-duty officers have been put in charge of reserve units. Some experts worry that, if the country went to war, many reserve units might be unable to deploy. A U.S. official who works on these issues put it simply: “We can’t get enough people.”

At the end of the Second World War, the American military had twelve million active-duty members. It now has 1.3 million—even though the population has more than doubled, and women are now eligible for armed service. “The U.S. military has been shrinking for thirty years,” Lawrence Wilkerson, a former senior State Department official who leads a task force on the challenges facing the armed services, said. “But its global commitments haven’t changed.” The military operates out of bases in more than fifty countries, and routinely deploys Special Operations forces to about eighty. Now, Wilkerson said, “it’s not clear that the military is large enough anymore for America to uphold its promises.”

For decades, the armed forces based their requirements on a defensive doctrine called “win and hold”: the capacity to win one war while fighting a second to a standstill. Today, with the U.S. confronting perhaps its starkest global-security challenges since the Cold War, many analysts fear that even one war would be too taxing. A conflict with China over the disputed island of Taiwan could leave thousands of Americans dead in a matter of weeks—amounting to nearly half the losses the country sustained in twenty years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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Dexter Filkins reports on the U.S. military’s struggle to recruit from a population that’s not just unenthusiastic but unable to serve as it also reckons with political turbulence at home and mounting security threats abroad. https://t.co/bw6y3RY3zT

— The New Yorker (@NewYorker) February 3, 2025

Holy God, who didst inspire the Dorchester chaplains to be models of steadfast sacrificial love in a tragic and terrifying time: Help us to follow their example, that their courageous ministry may inspire chaplains and all who serve, to recognize thy presence in the midst of peril; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

3 Feb 1943, while in convoy SG 19 from New York to Greenland, SS Dorchester, coastal passenger steamship operating as a troop ship torpedoed & sunk by U-223. 674 of 904 on board died. Four Army chaplains all gave away their life jackets to save others before they died. #WW2 pic.twitter.com/OjWoLgKSPR

— Revd Nicholas Pye (@RevdPye) February 3, 2025

People in the Congolese city of Goma are “terrified in their homes”, the Bishop, the Rt Revd Martin Gordon, has said, as violence escalates and humanitarian conditions worsen.

Operations by the rebel armed group M23, which is backed by Rwanda, and Congolese Army forces have blocked key roads and closed all supply lines to Goma.

Bishop Gordon, who left Goma this week, said on Wednesday that people in the city were without power and in many areas there was no water. “The M23 seems to have control of large parts of the city,” he said. “The Congolese army are resisting in other areas. Civilians are being caught in the crossfire. Bodies are lying in the streets; 4000 prisoners have escaped.”

Camps of internally displaced persons had emptied, he said, as people fled to the city centre; churches were “filling as places of refuge”, and hospitals were “overwhelmed”.

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Hospitals in Goma are swamped, bishop warns in peace plea as violence escalates https://t.co/TbawjMm5LS

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 30, 2025

 China’s military is building a massive complex in western Beijing that US intelligence believes will serve as a wartime command centre far larger than the Pentagon, according to current and former American officials.

Satellite images obtained by the Financial Times that are being examined by US intelligence show a roughly 1,500-acre construction site 30km south-west of Beijing with deep holes that military experts assess will house large, hardened bunkers to protect Chinese military leaders during any conflict — including potentially a nuclear war.

Several current and former US officials said the intelligence community was closely monitoring the site, which would be the world’s largest military command centre — and at least 10 times the size of the Pentagon.

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SCOOP China builds huge new wartime military command centre in western Beijing – 10 times the size of the Pentagon https://t.co/19nxQg0MqM via @ft

— Demetri (@Dimi) January 30, 2025

Sailing off the south coast of England, the Russian trawler known as the Yantar carried its usual array of hi-tech equipment.

In photographs released by the Ministry of Defence, a large radar dome can be seen behind two masts bristling with antennae.

Officially, these allow the 108 metre-long craft to monitor ocean currents, befitting a vessel the Kremlin maintains is part of its oceanographic research fleet.

But it was the ship’s more nefarious purposes that prompted a rare display of British naval power on Jan 20, when the Yantar was confronted by a British warship, HMS Somerset, and patrol vessel HMS Tyne.

Humdrum though it may appear, the Yantar is known to carry two submersibles that can dive down up to 6,000 metres, allowing their crew to map, monitor and potentially sever the undersea cables that transmit data around the world.

Read it all.

"It's Moscow's usual deep-sea games again"- Huh? Nothing routine about a spy ship lurking near critical infrastructure. This just proves how vulnerable undersea cables really are in modern warfare. #spyship #Russia #UnderseaCables #UKDefense #Geopoliticshttps://t.co/VzwwMSpqVy pic.twitter.com/k0EjAdaAuJ

— Robert Morton (@Robert4787) January 29, 2025

On this day in 1945, Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz. During the five years the camp was operational, 1.1 million people were murdered there. One out of every six Jews killed in the Holocaust died at Auschwitz. pic.twitter.com/1eZkT0Qc4T

— Military History Now (@MilHistNow) January 27, 2025

Patton instructed his men: “Pray when driving. Pray when fighting. Pray alone. Pray with others. Pray by night and pray by day.” He believed the Third Army’s nearly 500 chaplains, representing 32 denominations, were as critical to victory as his tank commanders. “He wanted a chaplain to be above average in courage,” O’Neill recalled. “In time of battle, he wanted the chaplains up front, where the men were dying. And that’s where the Third Army chaplains went—up front. We lost more chaplains, proportionately, than any other group.”

Patton relied on his faith more than most commanders did. Brig. Gen. Harry H. Semmes wrote that Patton “always read the Bible, particularly the life of Christ and the wars of the Old Testament. He knew by heart the order of morning prayer of the Episcopal Church. His thoughts, as demonstrated daily to those close to him, repeatedly indicated that his life was dominated by a feeling of dependence on God.” Semmes added that “Patton was an unusual mixture of a profane and highly religious man.”

Gen. Omar Bradley concurred: “He was profane, but he was also reverent. He strutted imperiously as a commander, but he knelt humbly before his God.” This was certainly the case during Patton’s finest moment in the Ardennes. “Destiny sent for me in a hurry when things got tight,” he wrote at the height of the battle. “Perhaps God saved me for this effort.” He also noted: “We can and will win, God helping. . . . Give us the Victory, Lord.”

Read it all.

In World War II, Gen. George Patton believed the Third Army’s nearly 500 chaplains, representing 32 denominations, were as critical to victory as his tank commanders, writes @kershaw_alexhttps://t.co/6JWN16ZNM1

— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) December 20, 2024

Ukraine is not only the breadbasket of Europe; it is also a mineral superpower, with some of the largest reserves of 117 of the 120 most widely used minerals in the world.

Of the 50 strategic minerals identified by the United States as critical to its economy and national security, many of which are quite rare yet key to certain high-value applications, Ukraine supplies 22.

Ukraine possesses the largest reserves of uranium in Europe; the second-largest reserves of iron ore, titanium and manganese; and the third-largest reserves of shale gas — as well as large deposits of lithium, graphite and rare earth metals, according to a 2022 report by the Canadian geopolitical risk-analysis firm SecDev. These minerals are essential to the production of vital goods ranging from airplanes, cellphones and electric vehicles to steel and nuclear power.

The question for the president-elect is: Does he want Russia and China to get that treasure trove of natural resources? Or does he want to develop them with Ukraine to the benefit of the American people? One of the main reasons Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine (aside from his delusional historical fantasies about how Ukrainians and Russians are “one people”) was to seize these natural resources, which are valued at an estimated $26 trillion, according to SecDev.

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Does Trump want Putin to get Ukraine’s $26 trillion in gas and minerals? Kyiv controls vast gas and mineral deposits. Does Trump want those flowing west, or to Russia and China?

Gift link: https://t.co/3feef88yEZ pic.twitter.com/QVIbrZFNyc

— Marc Thiessen 🇺🇸❤️🇺🇦🇹🇼🇮🇱 (@marcthiessen) December 19, 2024

The Newspaper round in Velyka Pysarivka can be sketchy. Barely 3km from the Russian border, the village is stalked by death. Oleskiy and Natalia Pasyuga, the husband-and-wife duo behind the Vorskla (the weekly takes its name from the local river) have a survival algorithm. Oleksiy, 56, drives. Natalia, 53, listens out of the passenger window for the drones that grow stealthier with every day. They say they are careful, though they know they are kidding themselves. Delivering the paper to the last remaining residents of the village is not a rational exercise, but a love affair. The tears of subscribers make it worth it, Ms Pasyuga says: “They grab the paper and hold it to their nose to smell the fresh newsprint.”

For its 2,500 readers, the Vorskla is more than a news source; it is a connection to the outside world. Most of Ukraine’s border villages now have no electricity or mobile connection. When televisions work, they pick up Russian channels. The Pasyugas say they feel obliged to stay to debunk the propaganda, though they evacuated their offices from Velyka Pysarivka in March after a glide bomb smashed their car and half the building. Six months later the Russians destroyed the other half, during attacks that coincided with Ukraine’s advance into Russia’s Kursk province just to the north. Now the Vorskla is put together in a library in the nearby town of Okhtyrka. It is printed and hand delivered to front-line villages in a car the couple borrow from their son.

When your correspondent calls, the Pasyugas are preparing a special Christmas issue. They already know what they want: uplifting stories to raise the morale of their weary readers. For once, there will be no obituaries of the local boys lost in battle. The Kursk offensive will be left out too, though that is less unusual. The Pasyugas say they know “too much” to accept the official celebration of the offensive as “Ukraine’s great and only triumph of 2024”. They choose silence instead.

Read it all.

What might a possible deal for peace in Ukraine look like in the coming year? Find out in The World Ahead https://t.co/zX7oLK9XU1

Photo: AP pic.twitter.com/JWpGo0QQTY

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 13, 2024

Now that Mr Assad has fled to Moscow, the question is where will liberation lead. In a part of the world plagued by ethnic violence and religious strife, many fear the worst. The Arab spring in 2010-12 taught that countries which topple their dictators often end up being fought over or dominated by men who are no less despotic. That is all the more reason to wish and work for something better in Syria.

There is no denying that many forces are conspiring to drag the country into further bloodshed. Syria is a mosaic of peoples and faiths carved out of the Ottoman empire. They have never lived side by side in a stable democracy. The Assads belong to the Alawite minority, which makes up about 10-15% of the population. For decades, they imposed a broadly secular settlement on Syrian society using violence.

Syria’s people have many reasons to seek vengeance. After 13 years of civil war in a country crammed with weapons, some factions will want to settle scores; so will some bad and dangerous men just released from prison. Under the Assads’ henchmen, many of them Alawite and Shia, Sunnis suffered acts of heinous cruelty, including being gassed by chlorine and a nerve agent.

Syria’s new powerbrokers are hardly men of peace. Take the dominant faction in the recent advance. Until 2016 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. Its founder, Ahmad al-Sharaa, had fought the Americans as a member of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq under the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Jolani. HTS and Mr Sharaa swear they have left those days behind. If, amid the chaos, such groups set out to impose rigid Islamic rule, foreign countries, possibly including the United Arab Emirates, will bankroll other groups to take up arms against them.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

The fall of a tyrant must be celebrated. And while Syria faces great uncertainty, a nation exhausted by war could yet choose the long road towards peace. Here is how https://t.co/RMkRxpiWW8 pic.twitter.com/nWqNYtt8Nx

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 12, 2024

Almighty God, our sure defense: We give thee thanks for thy servant Frederick Howden Jr. and all military chaplains who provided comfort and inspiration in time of battle; and, following the example of Jesus the Good Shepherd, laid down their lives in the service of others. Inspire and strengthen us, also, for the duties of life still before us, that we may be faithful to the end; through the same Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Frederick Howden, Jr., Priest and Chaplain of the Armed Forces, 1942 https://t.co/s2tLUovdkP

Photo courtesy of https://t.co/KplMBQE1V4 / The Names Project, via https://t.co/o8XiuXBT2W pic.twitter.com/SsjOOAfNKO

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) December 11, 2023

Entering the weekend, Syria President Bashar al-Assad showed no signs of yielding.

As armed rebels closed in Saturday on Damascus, Assad ordered his forces to defend the Syrian capital, seemingly confident the military would come to his rescue, according to Syrian officials familiar with the matter.

By late Saturday, Assad had vanished. He didn’t show up for a prepared address to the nation, and his cabinet had no idea where he was. They learned with the rest of the world that Assad had escaped the country hours ahead of the rebels’ arrival.

The toppling of Assad’s regime, ending 50 years of his family’s rule, revealed how badly Syria’s army had been hollowed out by years of corruption, defections to the rebellion and the country’s economic crisis. Recruitment had declined, and Syrian men dodged conscription.

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In his last hours as Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad called for help from Russia, Iran and his own military. After an 11-day blitz by rebels, he learned too late he was out of allies and loyalty. ⁦@WSJ⁩ https://t.co/29xRh2rvtn

— Amb Antonio Garza (@aogarza) December 9, 2024

Iran sharply increased its stockpile of nearly weapons-grade uranium amid its confrontation with Israel, according to the United Nations atomic-energy agency, in a challenge for the incoming Trump administration.

Iran’s decision to expand its stockpile of nuclear fuel and its failure to fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, which monitors Tehran’s work, is set to trigger fresh diplomatic pressure from Europe.

Concerns are growing in Western capitals that Iran could decide to develop a nuclear weapon, after comments by senior Iranian officials that Tehran has mastered most of the techniques for doing so. Israel’s hollowing-out of Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East, has also prompted a public debate in Iran about whether the country’s best form of deterrence lies in having an atomic bomb.

Iran has always claimed that its nuclear work is solely for peaceful civilian purposes.

Both the incoming Trump administration and Tehran have sent mixed messages about whether they will seek confrontation or some kind of diplomatic engagement after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

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The accurate take: Iran has significantly expanded its nuclear weapons program since Biden took office. It is now feigning restraint in anticipation of Trump’s return and Israel’s military achievements, which exposed Khamenei’s vulnerabilities. https://t.co/19MFSUDgm0

— Mark Dubowitz (@mdubowitz) November 19, 2024

Ukrainian forces have defended against Russia’s full-scale invasion for 1,000 days and continue to demonstrate incredible resilience against Russian aggression. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022 under the incorrect assumption that Ukraine would fail to defend itself and that Russian forces would be able to seize Kyiv City and install a pro-Russian proxy government in three days. One thousand days later, Ukrainian forces have successfully pushed Russian forces from their most forward points of advance in Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Poltava, and Mykolaiv oblasts and continue their daily fight to liberate occupied territory in Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, and Kherson oblasts and Crimea. Russian forces are currently advancing throughout eastern Ukraine, and Ukrainian officials have recently warned about the possibility of an imminent Russian offensive operation in Zaporizhia Oblast. Russian President Vladimir Putin is simultaneously waging an informational war against the West, Ukraine, and the Russian population aimed at convincing the world that Russian victory is inevitable, and that Ukraine stands no chance. This informational effort is born out of Putin’s fear and understanding that sustained Western military, economic, and diplomatic support for Ukraine will turn the tide of the war against Russia.

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Additional Key Takeaways:

Ukrainian forces conducted the first ATAMCS strike on Russian territory overnight on November 18 to 19, hitting a Russian ammunition depot in Karachev, Bryansk Oblast — days after obtaining permission to conduct such strikes. (1/4) https://t.co/nnaLxJtFXY pic.twitter.com/9TgCfPKkSK

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) November 20, 2024

Until recently, the Russian government had cushioned the economy from higher borrowing costs. A variety of schemes made it easier for households to suspend debt payments and for firms to borrow at lower subsidised rates, with the government stepping in to compensate banks for lost income. There are signs, though, that such programmes are becoming unaffordable. A mortgage-subsidy scheme, which had allowed borrowing at a cost of just 8% when official rates were much higher, ended on July 1st. Mortgage volumes halved in the following month. Corporate bankruptcies have risen by 20% this year. The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, a trade body, reckons investment plans for next year are being put on hold owing to heavy borrowing costs.

Higher interest rates will crimp spending by both firms and consumers. The IMF expects Russian economic growth to slow sharply to 1.3% next year. Even VEB, the state-run development bank, has cut its growth estimate to 2%. A combination of lower investment and manpower lost to the front is taking a toll. The need to maintain the value of the rouble to pay for crucial imports is a vulnerability for Mr Putin, and one which could soon take a toll on his ability to fight. He may be hoping that Donald Trump keeps his promise to bring the conflict to an end. Waging a 3% war is one thing; a 21% war is quite another. 

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Russia’s economy has confounded analysts since the country invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Now, however, Vladimir Putin may be hoping that Donald Trump keeps his promise to bring the conflict to an end https://t.co/EQL3wCoHSh 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) November 20, 2024

From the recalibration of military strategy to the reconstitution of diplomacy, artificial intelligence will become a key determinant of order in the world. Immune to fear and favor, AI introduces a new possibility of objectivity in strategic decision-making. But that objectivity, harnessed by both the warfighter and the peacemaker, should preserve human subjectivity, which is essential for the responsible exercise of force. AI in war will illuminate the best and worst expressions of humanity. It will serve as the means both to wage war and to end it.

Humanity’s long-standing struggle to constitute itself in ever-more complex arrangements, so that no state gains absolute mastery over others, has achieved the status of a continuous, uninterrupted law of nature. In a world where the major actors are still human—even if equipped with AI to inform, consult, and advise them—countries should still enjoy a degree of stability based on shared norms of conduct, subject to the tunings and adjustments of time.

But if AI emerges as a practically independent political, diplomatic, and military set of entities, that would force the exchange of the age-old balance of power for a new, uncharted disequilibrium. The international concert of nation-states—a tenuous and shifting equilibrium achieved in the last few centuries—has held in part because of the inherent equality of the players. A world of severe asymmetry—for instance, if some states adopted AI at the highest level more readily than others—would be far less predictable. In cases where some humans might face off militarily or diplomatically against a highly AI-enabled state, or against AI itself, humans could struggle to survive, much less compete. Such an intermediate order could witness an internal implosion of societies and an uncontrollable explosion of external conflicts.

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In our book Genesis we talk about all of the impacts of AI. One of the biggest impacts is on the conduct of war and national security: https://t.co/wv1CHGJdLn

— Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt) November 20, 2024

Almighty and eternal God, from whose love in Christ we cannot be parted, either by death or life: hear our prayers and thanksgivings for all whom we remember this day; fulfill in them the purpose of your love; and bring us all, with them, to your eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

‘At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them’#RemembranceSunday #Remembrance2024 #LestWeForget pic.twitter.com/EkwP5nwA3J

— Westminster Abbey (@wabbey) November 10, 2024

Amid U.S. warnings against a counterattack on Israel, Iran is sending a defiant diplomatic message: It is planning a complex response involving even more powerful warheads and other weapons, said Iranian and Arab officials briefed on the plans.

It remains to be seen whether the Iranian threats are real or just tough talk. Israel’s punishing airstrike against Iran on Oct. 26 shredded the country’s strategic air defenses, leaving it badly exposed and sharply raising the risks to Iran if it follows through. 

How the Israeli response plays out will depend on the size, nature and effectiveness of Tehran’s threatened strike. So far, Israel has refrained from hitting Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities, essential to its economy and its security, but that calculus could change, Israeli officials have said.

Iran has told Arab diplomats that its conventional army would be involved because it had lost four soldiers and a civilian in Israel’s attack, the Iranian and Arab officials said. Involving its regular army doesn’t mean its troops would be deployed but that the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that normally deals with Israeli security matters wouldn’t act alone in this case.

Read it all.

WSJ reports #Iran's regime has been sending messages to Arab countries that it is planning a complex response to #Israel involving more powerful warheads & weapons and its regular army. Worth noting Artesh officers have deployed to #Syria in the past.https://t.co/KdVnXRlgIB

— Jason Brodsky (@JasonMBrodsky) November 3, 2024

In principle, Ukraine could liberate its lost territory if the United States and its European partners intervened with forces of their own. But this would require jettisoning the indirect strategy they chose in 2022. It would come at great human, military, and economic cost. And it would introduce far greater risk, as it would mean war between NATO and nuclear-armed Russia. For this reason, such a policy will not be adopted.

Instead of clinging to an infeasible definition of victory, Washington must grapple with the grim reality of the war and come to terms with a more plausible outcome. It should still define victory as Kyiv remaining sovereign and independent, free to join whatever alliances and associations it wants. But it should jettison the idea that, to win, Kyiv needs to liberate all its land. So as the United States and its allies continue to arm Ukraine, they must take the uncomfortable step of pushing Kyiv to negotiate with the Kremlin—and laying out a clear sense of how it should do so.

Such a pivot may be unpopular. It will take political courage to make, and it will require care to implement. But it is the only way to end the hostilities, preserve Ukraine as a truly independent country, enable it to rebuild, and avoid a dire outcome for both Ukraine and the world.

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The Perfect Has Become the Enemy of the Good in Ukraine | Foreign Affairs https://t.co/YQorbrdOWe

— Richard N. Haass (@RichardHaass) November 4, 2024

The soldier squints through his binoculars. “They can see us,” he warns, pointing to a silhouette of two figures on a hill in the distance. The men in his line of sight are soldiers from Eritrea. But the hill is in Tigray, a semi-autonomous region in northern Ethiopia. Eritrean troops control a significant chunk of Ethiopian territory on the border, in places reaching as far as 10km inside it. At night they creep even further south, spying on military positions and kidnapping civilians. “Let them not start a war and we shall not go to war,” says Tsadkan Gebretensae, the interim vice-president of Tigray and a veteran military commander. “But we are very much aware that things could get out of control.”

The tense situation around the hill, near the town of Fatsi, is a hangover from a war that has technically been over for two years. In late 2020 Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, launched what he promised would be a swift, clean military operation to oust Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). What followed instead was one of this century’s most horrific conflicts. To bring the recalcitrant region to heel, Mr Abiy enlisted tens of thousands of fighters from Amhara, a region next door. He also invited troops from Eritrea, which had been part of Ethiopia until seceding in 1993. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, by bombs, bullets or government-induced famine and disease. Many of the dead were civilians. More than 100,000 women are thought to have been raped.

A peace agreement signed by Ethiopia’s government and the TPLF on November 2nd 2022, stopped the fighting in Tigray. But it did not settle the conflicts between Tigray and the war’s two other main parties, Eritrea and the militias from Amhara. Two years on, that omission helps explain why Mr Abiy faces fresh insurgencies at home and a potential war with Eritrea. These new pressures threaten to further destabilise the Horn of Africa, which is riven by tensions between several states or would-be states and is facing fallout from a catastrophic civil war in Sudan.

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A peace deal made two years ago was supposed to ensure that Ethiopia’s warring parties could mend rifts through further negotiations rather than violence.

No such talks have materialised and now another African war looms https://t.co/CPkGQSzenr 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 28, 2024

The Death Spiral is one of the main Pentagon Pathologies. The American people devote ever greater resources to their defense while receiving less and less in return. The Air Force had 10,387 aircraft in 1975 when the Military Reformers began their work in earnest. Today the Air Force has 5,288. The Navy had 559 active ships in 1975. Today the fleet has only 296. The Pentagon’s base budget is more than 60% higher today than it was in 1975, when adjusted for inflation. The American people simply spend more and receive much less in return for their defense dollars.

An argument can be made that modern military equipment is more expensive because of the capabilities they provide the troops. That is extremely debatable because many of the high-profile acquisition programs over the past 25 years have been underwhelming at best, and often complete failures. It is difficult to find anyone who will honestly say the Littoral Combat Ship was worth the effort.

Left unchecked, the acquisition Death Spiral’s inevitable destination is unilateral disarmament. Norman Augustine, a former DoD official and Lockheed Martin CEO predicted in 1983, with only a hint of satire, that by 2054, “the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.”

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At the current spending rate, in another generation we will have a lot of rich contractors and no aircraft or Naval fleets to speak of https://t.co/k4XV5gsk7Z

— Responsible Statecraft (@RStatecraft) October 24, 2024

Years before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Hamas’s leaders plotted a far deadlier wave of terrorist assaults against Israel — potentially including a Sept. 11-style toppling of a Tel Aviv skyscraper — while they pressed Iran to assist in helpingachieve their vision of annihilating the Jewish state, according to documents seized by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Electronic records and papers that Israeli officials say were recovered from Hamas command centers show advanced planning for attacks using trains, boats and even horse-drawn chariots — though several plans were ill-formed and highly impractical, terrorism experts said. The plans anticipate drawing in allied militant groups for a combined assault against Israel from the north, south and east.

The trove of documents includes an annotated, illustrated presentation detailing possible options for an assault as well as letters from Hamas to Iran’s top leaders in 2021 requesting hundreds of millions of dollars in funding and training for 12,000 additional Hamas fighters.It is unclear whether Iran knew of the planning document or responded to the letters, but Israeli officials view the requests as part of a larger effort by Hamas to draw its Iranian allies into the kind of direct confrontation with Israel that Tehran has traditionally sought to avoid.

The 59 pages of letters and planning documents in Arabic obtained by The Washington Post represent a fraction of the thousands of records that Israel Defense Forces say they have seizedsince Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza began Oct. 27

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"Captured documents reveal Hamas’s broader ambition to wreak havoc on Israel" @washingtonpost Hamas wanted to do a lot more on October 7th. They were stopped by Israeli army, police, security and intelligence, and everyday civilians protecting their families, their nation.

-… pic.twitter.com/JZNgoWZMAn

— John Spencer (@SpencerGuard) October 13, 2024

One year after the brutal Hamas attack that ended Israel’s two-decade golden age of relative peace, expanding wealth and growing diplomatic ties, the country is now firmly on the counterattack and preparing to be at war for years.

Weathering a ferocious Iranian missile assault in recent days and shaking off calls from allies for a cease-fire in Gaza, Israel is instead opening new theaters of fighting.

It launched a stunning series of attacks against the Lebanese militia Hezbollah in Lebanon in recent weeks, while simultaneously targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen, rooting out militancy in the occupied West Bank and mapping out its next steps against Iran, the architect of a so-called axis of resistance that includes U.S.-designated terrorist groups bent on destroying Israel.

The campaign marks an aggressive shift in Israel’s security posture. 

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Sexual violence against women and girls is being seen as the defining characteristic of the worsening civil war in Sudan, as more evidence of the widespread use by all sides of rape as a weapon of war.

An open letter by 253 women across Africa and in the diaspora has called for urgent international action in response to a conflict described as being “fought on the bodies of women and girls”.

It refers to reports of gang rapes of girls as young as nine, and older women, including grandmothers raped in front of their daughters and granddaughters. Male relatives are frequently forced to watch. Women have also reported being targeted because of their ethnicity.

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A bipartisan group of senators this week revealed draft legislation that aims to prod the U.S. government into taking a more active diplomatic role in bringing about an end to the civil war in Sudan.https://t.co/8qzfW6Q5e2

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) October 4, 2024

Ever since Hamas’s slaughter of Israelis on October 7th 2023, violence has been spreading. One year on, the Middle East is an inch away from an all-out war between Israel and Iran. Israel’s skilful decapitation of Hizbullah, a Lebanese militia backed by Iran, prompted the Islamic Republic to rain missiles on Israel on October 1st. Israel may retaliate, perhaps striking Iran’s industrial, military or nuclear facilities, hoping to end once and for all the threat it poses to the Jewish state.

Iran is certainly a menace, and use of force against it by Israel or America would be both lawful and, if carefully calibrated, wise. But the idea that a single decisive attack on Iran could transform the Middle East is a fantasy. As our special section explains, containing the Iranian regime requires sustained deterrence and diplomacy. In the long run, Israel’s security also depends on ending its oppression of the Palestinians.

Iran’s latest direct attack on Israel consisted of 180 ballistic missiles. Unlike an earlier strike in April, this time Iran gave little warning. But as before, most of the projectiles were intercepted. The salvo was a response to the humiliation of its proxy, Hizbullah, which until two weeks ago was the most feared militia in the region. No one should shed tears for a terrorist outfit that has helped turn Lebanon into a failed state. For the past year Hizbullah has bombarded Israel, forcing the evacuation of civilians in its northern belt. Israel’s counter-attack, unlike its invasion of Gaza, was long-planned. It has made devastating use of intelligence, technology and air power, killing the militia’s leaders, including its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, maiming its fighters with exploding pagers and destroying perhaps half of its 120,000 or more missiles and rockets.

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The year that shattered the Middle East pic.twitter.com/6YqtHxDnDQ

— Ibrahim Hamidi ابراهيم حميدي (@ibrahimhamidi) October 3, 2024

The long-feared “wider war” in the Middle East is here.

For the last 360 days, since the images of the slaughter of about 1,200 people in Israel last Oct. 7 flashed around the world, President Biden has warned at every turn against allowing a terrorist attack by Hamas to spread into a conflict with Iran’s other proxy force, Hezbollah, and ultimately with Iran itself.

Now, after Israel assassinated the Hezbollah chief, Hassan Nasrallah, and began a ground invasion of Lebanon, and after Iran retaliated on Tuesday by launching nearly 200 missiles at Israel, it has turned into one of the region’s most dangerous moments since the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.

The main questions now are how much the conflict might intensify, and whether the United States’ own forces will get more directly involved.

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A Wider War in the Middle East, From Hamas to Hezbollah and Now Iran – The New York Times https://t.co/JjU4OyZeLr

— cecilia ballesteros (@ceciliab) October 2, 2024