"The Press Is Covering The Sparks, Not The Fire" Topic

"When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed in Sarajevo, the world did not immediately understand that it was standing on the edge of a war that would become a kind of pestilence. The assassination did not create World War I by itself. It exposed a system already loaded with alliance commitments, imperial insecurity, military timetables, elite arrogance, and leaders who believed escalation could be managed. That is the part of history worth remembering now.

By pestilential war, I do not mean battlefield death alone. I mean death that spreads when leaders, institutions, and populations surrender judgment to ideology, empire, fear, and momentum. Pestilence is not only disease. It is a moral sickness that teaches nations to accept slaughter as policy.
The danger today is not that 2026 looks exactly like 1914. It does not. Nuclear weapons, cyberwar, drones, sanctions, energy chokepoints, and global finance make this moment different and potentially worse. The circumstances are not identical. The pattern is familiar: separate crises treated as separate stories while the machinery begins to connect. I do not think anybody has to want a world war for us to end up in one.

Ukraine, Iran, Taiwan, sanctions, energy shocks, and dollar risk are all covered as separate stories. Each piece gets airtime. The public is rarely shown the whole board…"

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Armand

There is much to think about in this article.

I agree, excellent article. Many Americans are enjoying the start of football season, watching baseball games, enjoying life while we are at war. I have sat on patios enjoying a beer with friends and I will wonder how we can be enjoying ourselves while other Americans are fighting a war in the Middle East, or preparing for a war in Korea, Ukraine, etc. while our politicians and media are caught up in trivial, inconsequential matters and personal feuds. Very scary times.

I agree, excellent article. Many Americans are enjoying the start of football season, watching baseball games, enjoying life while we are at war. I have sat on patios enjoying a beer with friends and I will wonder how we can be enjoying ourselves while other Americans are fighting a war in the Middle East, or preparing for a war in Korea, Ukraine, etc. while our politicians and media are caught up in trivial, inconsequential matters and personal feuds. Very scary times.

How is that different than any other time? 🤔

I've lived through everything since the late 50's.

Cuban Missile Crises, The Berlin Wall, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, The NORAD Computer Glitch of 79, Able Archer 83 Exercise, The Soviet Satellite False Alarm, The Norwegian Rocket Incident of 95, The Yom Kippur War DEFCON 3 Alert (October 1973), Israel's "Samson Option" High Alert, two Iraq's, Afghanistan, the Twin Towers, financial disaster of Carter's administration, recessions, the tech stock bubble crash, COVID, 60s race riots and on and on and on.

Today is not unique or that bad, despite what they yell on TV.

Iran is a nothing in comparison.

We didn't have to live through WW2, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Revolution or again so many more. I'm sure, they would laugh at our being scared and our inconsequential fears. Most of which are due to our lack of a real catastrophe to compare it to.

Yes, we do live with the possibility of all out nuclear war, daily. I had to hide under my desk in nuke drills during the Cuban Missile Crisis (like it would have helped 😂). I could see the fear in the adults (teachers, neighbors and parents), so even children of 6 could pick up on it during that.

But we still lived day to day lives and had fun.

Between Iran and Ukraine, if you want to fear something bad, look to the war in the later. The longer it goes on, the more chance for a catastrophe due to desperation.

Supposedly Russia is flirting with it in some central EU countries and is now warning the UK. Sooner or later, someone will bluff once too often there.

But still enjoy life.

Oh! And get rid of peace time alliances. They can only lead to disasters. 😉

"We didn't have to live through WW2, the Civil War, the Great Depression, the Revolution or again so many more…"

Not TV on those old days… can you imagine if there were on those times?

Thanks

Armand

Killing the Archer: Why the Red Sea Crisis Demands an Offensive Counter-Strike Architecture

"Across the expanse of modern military history, from the insurgent mortar belts of the Euphrates River Valley to the heavily contested maritime corridors of the Middle East, one foundational principle of counter-network operations remains absolute. You cannot defend your way out of an asymmetric attrition fight. When an adversary possesses access to cheap, mass-produced offensive weaponry and is driven by an unyielding ideological commitment to disrupt regional stability, playing passive defense is a recipe for strategic exhaustion.

Yet across the waters surrounding the Arabian Peninsula, American and allied strategy remains trapped in precisely this reactive posture. While Western attention drifts between competing geopolitical flashpoints, the security environment in the southern Red Sea is deteriorating toward an acute strategic crisis. Along the coastal lowlands and rugged mountain terrain of western Yemen, Houthi forces are consolidating ground and maneuvering heavy assets toward the strategic port city of Mokha. Their operational objective is unmistakable: to establish a fortified anti-access and area-denial bubble capable of physically closing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

This offensive is not an isolated tribal maneuver or a localized insurgency acting on independent ambition. It is the southern pincer of a coordinated, grand strategic campaign directed from Tehran. For decades, the Islamic Republic of Iran has sought the capability to hold global commerce hostage by threatening the Strait of Hormuz in the north. By arming, financing, and directing the Houthi movement in Yemen, Tehran has successfully established a second maritime pressure point in the south…"

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Armand

Winning the War, Losing the Peace

"The United States and Israel were winning the war against Iran and winning it decisively. The cause was sound, a regime that had chanted death to America and Israel and acted on it for 47 years could not be left to acquire nuclear weapons, and the opening campaign was warranted. But on June 17, 2026, the United States failed to convert that advantage into a settlement. War, Clausewitz wrote, is the continuation of policy by other means. The fighting matters only for the political settlement it secures. To hold the battlefield and forfeit the settlement is the cardinal error of On War, and it is precisely what happened here.

Retired General Jack Keane argued for finishing the campaign rather than settling. When Trump halted the bombing on April 7, the target list was far from exhausted. Whether pressure would have forced terms or prolonged the fight is a fair question. But Iran was closer to collapse, its economy in freefall. The campaign stopped short by choice. Joint doctrine, JP 3-0, is built on seizing the initiative and controlling tempo, and Boyd's loop of observe, orient, decide, and act, the OODA loop, captures why: move faster than your adversary can reorient and his decisions come apart. A pause at peak momentum does the reverse, ceding the initiative and giving a reeling regime time to recover a battlefield it was losing.

Israel bore a huge cost in confronting Iran with the U.S. and received the least consideration in the settlement. For the first time since 1956, the Israel Defense Forces fought inside a coalition and carried much of the weight, including an opening sortie of some 200 aircraft that won air superiority without a loss, the dominant role in striking Tehran. Within three weeks its prime minister could say Iran could no longer enrich uranium or build missiles. Israel was excluded from the settlement and publicly rebuked. On June 18, Vice President Vance answered Israeli critics not on the merits but by reminding them that two-thirds of their defensive weapons were American-built, and warning them not to attack their only powerful ally, blunting criticism of a deal Israel was never shown, one that leaves Iran's program intact and Hezbollah rearming on its border…"

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Armand