When Veteran YouTube Geopolitical Talking Heads Start Acting Like Internet Trolls

Now let’s be clear about something. Veterans arguing about foreign policy is not the problem. In fact, it’s healthy. People who have worn the uniform should absolutely debate how American power is used. The military has always produced strong opinions—usually accompanied by horrible coffee and worse briefing slides. But what used to separate professional disagreement from internet drama was something the officer corps once valued deeply: discipline.

Red China is the big loser in Iran; Red China’s military equipment is as reliable as Acme’s. Meep-meep

A side benefit of the Operation Epic Fury is testing the war materiel of the Russian and Red Chinese military. With little exception, they are failing again as they did in the extraction of Maduro from Venezuela

The Dollar Isn’t Backed by Gold — It’s Backed by DIME and a Carrier Strike Group

Let’s retire the fairy tales.

The U.S. dollar is not backed by gold. It’s not backed by “faith.” It’s not backed by vibes. It’s backed by power — specifically the kind of power that sails in carrier strike groups, negotiates trade deals, controls sea lanes, writes sanctions law, insures shipping, and can ruin your economy before your stock market even opens.

We’re Great at Regime Change… It’s the Aftermath We Keep Screwing Up

Every time the United States gets involved in a foreign conflict, the opening act is usually impressive. Precision strikes, shock-and-awe, special operations raids, satellites, drones, cyber, carrier groups—the whole high-tech orchestra. When it comes to breaking things, the U.S. military is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Regimes fall, palaces empty, statues get pulled down, and cable news runs dramatic graphics about “the end of an era.”

Using the Veil of Religion to Advance Tyranny

We are in a war in which our enemies use the veil of religion to seize power. Few understand this war in which past losses resulted in hundreds of millions of innocents being murdered, tortured, imprisoned or living for decades to centuries under tyranny. The use of religion to seize power is ancient in concept – and often uses one of two approaches. One is to attack or vilify a religion to advance tyranny. The other, to use the veil of religion to hide insidious efforts to advance tyranny. The genius (and danger) in using religion, in this perpetual cognitive war, is its subtlety. There are no tanks in the streets. Rather, memes, sermons, rhetoric, and false narratives and manufactured victims are employed using our cognitive biases (e.g., emotion, moral outrage) that erode shared reality over time.

World War III Started With a Virus — Now It’s a Multi-Regional Fight and the U.S. Is Running All Four DIME Tools at Once

The modern battlefield isn’t just military anymore. It’s what the national security crowd calls DIME — Diplomacy, Intelligence, Military, and Economy — and right now the United States is fighting on all four fronts at the same time, in multiple regions, with fewer resources than it had even ten years ago. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s just what happens when a superpower tries to hold together a global order that is starting to come apart.

The Destruction of the Military Pension: When ‘Obama Reform’ Meant Saving Money, Not Soldiers

Somewhere between speeches about “supporting the troops” and glossy recruiting commercials, the United States quietly decided that a guaranteed military pension was a little too generous. Not immoral. Not unfair. Just… expensive. And so, without much noise or public debate, the traditional 50% military retirement pension was downgraded, rebranded, and sold as “modernization.” Enter the …

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Why Christians Feel Obligated to Defend Israel—and Why the Bible Never Commands It

There is a quiet anxiety baked into much of modern American Christianity: if you don’t support Israel—always, loudly, and without qualification—God might notice. Entire churches treat Israeli foreign policy as a third sacrament. Question a settlement policy or a military response and someone will reach for Genesis 12 like it’s a theological panic button. This fear wears the costume of faith, but it isn’t biblical. It’s superstition with a study Bible.

“The 51st Star We Never Voted On: How Israel Became America’s Problem Child”

Let’s dispense with the polite fiction. The United States has 50 states on paper and one premium subscription state overseas that gets all the benefits with none of the awkward obligations like paying federal taxes or pretending to listen to Washington. Welcome to Israel, America’s unofficial 51st state — the only one close enough to lecture Congress but far enough away that we pretend it’s “just an ally.”

Promises, Pivots, and Surveillance: How Trump Went From FISA Foe to FISA Friend

Campaign Trump told voters the surveillance state was dangerous and abused. Governing Trump is preserving the surveillance state with adjustments. Campaign Trump framed FISA as existential corruption. Governing Trump treats it as infrastructure in need of maintenance.

Since 1942, the United States Has Been Going to War Illegally — and Everyone Pretends That’s Fine

Enter the War Powers Resolution — Congress’s attempt to look relevant after Vietnam without actually reclaiming its authority. The War Powers Resolution is often defended as a guardrail. In reality, it’s a constitutional fig leaf stapled to a surrender note.

Starmer wants to kneecap our Department of War; Giving Diego Garcia to a nation 1,300 miles away is not how an ally treats us.

500 years ago—514 to be exact—Pedro Mascarenhas, a Portuguese explorer looking for a better route to India and China, encountered a long and narrow uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean. He named it Dom Garcia in honor of the man who financed the exploration. That was in 1512. The island was re-discovered in 1544 by …

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Small Nukes, Big Idea: Why SMRs Are the Future Catching Up With the Past

SMR stands for Small Modular Reactor. The concept is simple: instead of building massive, one-off nuclear cathedrals that take fifteen years, billions of dollars, and three generations of lawyers, you build smaller reactors that are standardized, factory-produced, shipped in modules, and deployed where power is actually needed. They’re designed to be safer, faster to build, easier to scale, and—most importantly—repeatable.

The Ironic Curtain; Europeans who lived under communism hate it. Those spared pursue it.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference shook up the European leadership by reminding them of the dangers of communism. He did this because his grandpa, Pedro Víctor García, a refugee from Castro’s Cuba, taught him well about the dangers of communism.

The Battlefield Moved, Humans Didn’t: Why a 1930s Historian Still Understands Modern War Better Than We Do

Nearly a hundred years ago, Sir Herbert Butterfield sat down and committed the unforgivable sin of telling historians, strategists, and polite academics something they still hate hearing today: war is not a clean system. It is not a spreadsheet problem. It is not solved by better charts, prettier maps, or a PowerPoint deck with the right color palette. War—every war—boils down to frightened human beings trying to reconcile self-preservation, honor, faith, and meaning while other frightened human beings try to kill them.

Four Fires, One Ally With a Hose: Why NATO Has to Grow Up So America Can Survive

At the Munich Security Conference, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did something unusual in modern diplomacy: he told the truth politely. He reaffirmed America’s commitment to Europe, praised NATO, spoke warmly about shared history and civilization—and then, in effect, slid a note across the table that read: You’re going to have to handle more of your own business.