Free Republic

An Israeli strike on Iran’s hardened Fordow nuclear facility would not necessarily trigger an immediate, apocalyptic war but could instead be flipped to Iran’s strategic advantage. Rather than a suicidal retaliation, Tehran would likely respond with “retaliation in layers”: deniable proxy attacks, cyber-attacks, and maritime harassment.

Key Points - Russia's lack of large-scale retaliation to recent audacious Ukrainian drone strikes deep within its territory does not signify weakness or fear, but rather a calculated confidence in its ongoing attritional strategy. -Moscow is reportedly achieving its core, albeit limited, war aims—consolidating control over eastern Ukrainian oblasts, securing the land bridge to Crimea, and ensuring Ukraine's non-NATO, neutralized status—through methodical ground advances and superior industrial output. -Russia is perceived to be "already winning" this war of exhaustion by fighting "smarter, not harder," and therefore sees no current need for dramatic escalations that could play into Western or Ukrainian...

NATO is a corpse. All that remains is the grotesque performance art of a diplomatic zombie stumbling from summit to summit, mouthing tired clichés about “shared values” and “burden sharing,” even as its core strategic logic lies rotting beneath the surface. The Atlantic Alliance, once the steel scaffolding of Western security, has become a hollow ritual. Its military readiness is an illusion. Its political cohesion is fraying. Its future, if it has one, lies not in revival—but in reinvention or replacement. This is not a triumphalist declaration from the Kremlin or Beijing. It is a sober diagnosis, grounded in realism...

Once we have eliminated all the impossible scenarios, the least improbable outcome of the war in Ukraine is a Russian victory. Any conceivable Russian victory now will entail such a loss of blood and treasure that it will have to be judged Pyrrhic at best. But it will be a victory nonetheless — and we in the West had better come to grips with that hard truth. Let’s begin by eliminating the impossible. The first unrealistic endgame is the reduction of Ukraine to a vassal state of the Russian empire. The second impossible scenario is the total defeat of the...