In our latest, @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social and I argue that the Trump administration has the wrong approach in Europe—not, as many say, because it pushes to withdraw from the continent, but precisely because it is *not* serious about disengaging from Europe. warontherocks.com/misguided-an...

Misguided and Misunderstood: Trump’s Approach to U.S. Troops in Europe

For many observers, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s speech on the future of NATO, delivered in Brussels on June 18, 2026, constituted a perfect

warontherocks.com

Good lord that is not how escalation dominance works.

Foreign Affairs@foreignaffairs.com · 2mo ago

“The Trump administration is right to press European allies to spend more on defense, but it cannot stop there,” argues Celeste Wallander. “Doing so would hand Russia the escalation dominance it has long sought and bring the United States to the brink of nuclear war.”

We'd all be better off if all the time spent worrying about the Thucydides trap went into thinking about security dilemmas. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

What is the Thucydides Trap and why did Xi Jinping mention it in his meeting with Donald Trump?

China’s leader raised the ancient Greek historian Thucydides when he met the US president in Beijing

theguardian.com

SCOTUS in the Prize Cases (1863): "The proclamation of blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the Court that a state of war existed..."

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3mo ago

WELKER: The president says hostilities have been terminated, yet the US is actively engaged in a naval blockade. Is the US at war with Iran? BLANCHE: No. What President Trump said this weekend is absolutely true. We are absolutely doing the right thing legally.

Whether or not there is any factual basis to his statement, notable that POTUS is workshopping victory narratives.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 4mo ago

Trump on Iranian leaders: "They're gonna make a deal. They did something yesterday that was amazing actually. They gave us a present, and it arrived today. It was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. I'm not gonna tell you what that present is but it was very significant prize"

TACO time in Iran I argue here. www.theamericanconservative.com/let-iran-be-...

Let Iran Be Someone Else’s Problem

President Trump should declare victory and get out—and rein in Israel if needed.

theamericanconservative.com

No one who ever met Epstein is allowed to work anymore I guess. What is even the rationale for caling for Wasserman's head? Sexting with Ghislaine Maxwell 20 plus years ago? Going on Epstein's plane to a Clinton Foundation meeting? www.espn.com/olympics/sto...

Mayor urges Wasserman to resign as head of 2028 L.A. Olympics

The mayor of L.A. has called for Casey Wasserman to resign as head of the 2028 Olympics organizing team because of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend.

espn.com

Trump's 2024 campaign saw some voter angst, in its data, about him getting elected and being obsessed with revenge. He used a Fox town hall, programmed against the final GOP primary debate to say he would be "too busy" for revenge. (He also got the Q in advance.) www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/u...

‘I’m Not Going to Have Time for Retribution,’ Trump Says at Town Hall (Published 2024)

nytimes.com

Dave Weigel@daveweigel.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Podcast host who voted for Trump because Tulsi Gabbard said he'd stop lawfare and regime change wars

And he didn’t. He tried to help a woman who’d just been assaulted. There was nothing rash, stupid, or radical about what he did. He showed kindness. And they killed him for it.

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social · 6mo ago

This is so difficult to read. apnews.com/article/immi...

Let's see if this thing works. Our Man in Havana no longer satire? www.cnn.com/2026/01/13/p...

Pentagon bought device through undercover operation some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome | CNN Politics

The Defense Department has spent more than a year testing a device purchased in an undercover operation that some investigators think could be the cause of a series of mysterious ailments impacting sp...

cnn.com

What are the odds Maduro gets acquitted? Seems like the drug trafficking charges in his indictment may be pretty flimsy and he could walk. What happens then? Drone strike in Manhattan?

Sad to see Shapiro, who got his start trafficking in conspiracy and dishonesty for Breitbart, slamming the door in the face of the young grifters following in his footsteps. @daveweigel.bsky.social slate.com/news-and-pol...

"Friends of Hamas" Revisited

Last week, after seeing references to a group allegedly named "Friends of Hamas" hidden somewhere in Chuck Hagel's financial records, I did roughly 20...

slate.com

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 8mo ago

Ben Shapiro: "Today I want to talk about something even more important — how to discern those attempting to speak truth from frauds and grifters…The conservative movement is in danger from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracy and dishonesty."

With this today the death toll now passed 100. 104 if I have my math correct. 104 people killed with zero evidence since Sept. 2. Two people have survived and been repatriated and released. 104 people dead under dubious legality.

Brian Finucane@bcfinucane.bsky.social · 8mo ago

The lawless killing spree continues. Do not become inured. This is premeditated killing outside of armed conflict. We call that murder.

It's pretty wild that someone at the Institute for the Study of War falsified their widely-cited war map to win a Polymarket bet. ISW fired the employee but didn't say why. responsiblestatecraft.org/isw-polymark...

Think tanker altered Ukraine war map before big Polymarket payout

The Institute for the Study of War disavowed the edit, removed the employee, but is staying quiet, raising questions about the credibility of ISW and prediction gambling

responsiblestatecraft.org

Trump national security strategy says US should stop "hectoring" repressive nations in the Middle East about human rights then goes on to hector democratically elected European nations about their domestic policies. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/w...

Trump Administration Says Europe Faces ‘Civilizational Erasure’

nytimes.com

I partially disagree. Good writing is related to cleat thinking yes, but not necessarily deep expertise or insightfulness. I changed my mind on this due to various professional writers--reporters and magazine types--becoming abominable but compelling foreign policy pundits.

jamelle@jamellebouie.net · 8mo ago

i strongly, strongly believe that good writing is downstream of clear thinking and a strong understanding of the subject matter at hand. without fail, tortured writing comes from writers who don’t know and can’t think clearly about anything.

Being honest about what happened here, the Europeans and the US Secretary of State managed to insert poison pills into the peace deal Witkoff had put out, making it more unacceptable to Russia and thus ensuring the war continues. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

U.S., Ukraine move forward on peace deal, but Russian rejection is likely

Putin has said the earlier U.S. plan, which Ukraine saw as too pro-Russian, should be the basis for talks and is unlikely to back down.

washingtonpost.com

Even worse than this bit is how he went on to call the reporter embarrassing and "insubordinate" and threaten her employer's ABC's license. Just autocratically bullying the media to show off to MBS.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 9mo ago

Trump suggests Khashoggi had it coming: "You're mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it. You don't have to embarrass our guest."

This is the 16th strike of its kind this year — and at least 66 people are dead because of the government’s rash actions. These extrajudicial strikes are illegal under both international and domestic law.

2 killed in U.S. strike on alleged drug boat in Eastern Pacific, Hegseth says

Two people on board an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific were killed by a U.S. military strike, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday

nbcnews.com

See the promise and peril of the right's emerging anti-Israel politics here. This guy asks Vance why we support Israel, sensibly suggesting we shouldn't while flashing Christian Nationalism by saying they have a different religion than "us" and are hostile to ours. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Bn...

JD Vance Responds To Man Who Says Israel's 'Religion... Openly Supports The Prosecution Of Ours'

YouTube video by Forbes Breaking News

youtube.com

If we can't stop this shit, let's at least all call them stormtroopers. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Pentagon readying thousands of Guard ‘reaction forces’ as U.S. mission widens

The Defense Department’s newly established “quick reaction force” within the National Guard is being readied for civil unrest missions in U.S. cities.

washingtonpost.com

A security guarantee by executive order is not much of a security guarantee. And even if it were a treaty, no US President can't he trusted to restrain Israel. Next president can and should ignore. www.axios.com/2025/10/08/t...

What to make of Qatar's diet Article 5 protections

Trump "may well have intended it one way, and the region could interpret it in another," said one expert.

axios.com

The war on drugs keeps getting more literal. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told

nytimes.com

This is extremely similar to what Duterte did in the Philippines. Killing of supposed drug dealers without due process. Dictator level stuff, scary.

I wrote in my book that "Trump had learned the foremost lesson of 9/11: the terrorists were whomever you said they were." Now "terrorism" is what he's using to apparently provoke a war with Venezuela.

Terror on The High Seas

In the latest migration of a term with lethal consequences, "terrorism" is a pretext for murdering 11 people in international waters

forever-wars.com

I can't speak for Ukraine, but the fact that Europeans feel compelled to call their proposed force for post-war Ukraine a "reassurance" force suggests it is not gonna be backed by a credible threat and won't be reassuring at all. apnews.com/article/russ...

Macron says 26 countries pledge troops as a reassurance force for Ukraine after fighting ends

French President Emmanuel Macron says that 26 of Ukraine’s allies have pledged to deploy troops as a “reassurance force” for the war-torn country once fighting ends in the conflict with Russia.

apnews.com

Blowing up a boat and killing 11 people and in the name of stopping a drug shipment is a depraved act of needless violence. If it's a drug shipment, stop it with the Coast Guard. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

US military kills 11 people in strike on alleged drug boat from Venezuela, Trump says

The U.S. military killed 11 people on Tuesday in a strike on a vessel from Venezuela allegedly carrying illegal narcotics, President Donald Trump said, in the first known operation since his administration's recent deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean.

reuters.com

This news is a throwback to the aughts, with Marco Rubio doing his best to resurrect the dumbest parts of the war on terror, conflating Islamism and terrorism. www.jns.org/muslim-broth...

Muslim Brotherhood terror designation ‘in the works,’ Rubio says

“As long as Hamas exists, there will be no peace in Gaza,” the U.S. secretary of state told the radio host Sid Rosenberg.

jns.org

Despite everything autocratic thing that's happened this year, it's still shocking to me that these huge law firms are agreeing to be subordinated to Trump: working pro bono on an insane protectionist agenda. Corrupt, autocratic, and barely even a scandal. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/u...

Law Firms That Settled With Trump Are Pressed to Help on Trade Deals

nytimes.com