Free Republic

The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries. The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran. U.S. and Iranian diplomats held talks in Oman last week in an effort to revive diplomacy over Tehran's nuclear program, after Trump amassed military forces in the...

The Pentagon has reportedly ordered a second aircraft carrier strike group to prepare to deploy to the Middle East in support of potential military action against Iran. President Trump has not yet given the carrier group the greenlight to deploy, but an order could be issued “in a matter of hours,” the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday night, citing US officials. The deployment would likely come from the US East Coast, and one carrier is being prepped to head out to sea in two weeks, an official told the publication. The USS George H.W. Bush is currently conducting training exercises...

Iran’s leadership is edging toward a war scenario not because diplomacy is necessarily collapsing, but because confrontation is increasingly seen as the least damaging option for a ruling system under intense internal and external pressure

World War I not only toppled empires and redrew borders—it remade the modern world, with few nations feeling the effects as profoundly as Great Britain. The country’s deadliest war—from which 6 percent of its men never returned—accelerated sweeping social, economic and political changes that fractured the rigid British class system and weakened the aristocracy. For centuries, hereditary landowners exercised a near feudal dominance of the British countryside. As late as 1873, fewer than 5 percent of Britons owned all of England’s property. But an agricultural depression in the late 1800s had already begun to erode their dominance as the First...

“I approached this bastard and in my hands I had my old Remington Model 11 autoloader crammed with 00 buckshot. Frank Pachmayr had put an extension on the magazine which ran right out to the muzzle and this gave me a reserve of fire which sometimes proved quite advantageous.

This is an important piece about the relationship between civilians and the president and the military. Worth reading to understand the level of manipulation the leftists are using to deny the country safety and security A fundamental element of U.S. civil–military relations is the principle of civilian control of the military. This principle pre-dates the Constitution itself. As Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, George Washington deferred to the Continental Congress, despite the severe disabilities of that body. The Constitution codified the principle of civilian control. Civilian policymakers would establish the goals of security policy and provide the material...

President Joe Biden is ready to warn Vladimir Putin during a video call Tuesday that Russia will face economy-jarring sanctions if it invades neighboring Ukraine as the U.S. president seeks a diplomatic solution to deal with the tens of thousands of Russian troops massed near the Ukraine border. Biden aims to make clear that his administration stands ready to take actions against the Kremlin that would exact “a very real cost” on the Russian economy, according to White House officials. Putin, for his part, is expected to demand guarantees from Biden that the NATO military alliance will never expand to...

The U.S. is continuing to build up its military presence in the Middle East ahead of a possible attack on Iran. The USS Abraham Lincoln and its Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is now in the Indian Ocean, a U.S. Navy official told The War Zone on Thursday. The CSG was in the South China Sea until U.S. President Donald Trump ordered it moved west. In addition, more cargo jets and aerial refueling tankers have arrived in the region. Trump on Thursday said a large naval presence is heading to the region. These movements come as Trump has threatened to strike...

Fox News host Mark Levin delves into who historically has had the power to declare war in accordance with the Constitution on 'Life, Liberty & Levin.' Explains the distinction between "making war" and "declaring war," "power of the purse" and other basic constitutional principles, concerning which a host of so-called "experts" are studiously ignorant. Expounds on the substance of the Constitutional Convention, the debates and different factions, which resulted in the text of the Constition as it now is. Transcript linked below video.

President Donald Trump has assured the people of Venezuela that his undertaking to restore the country’s oil infrastructure will be mutually beneficial to both them and the U.S. Ricardo Hausmann, professor of the practice of international political economy at the Harvard Kennedy School, isn’t convinced. “There’s a reason why there’s no profit motive in government,” Hausmann told Fortune, referring to the U.S. controlling the Venezuelan oil market. “Profit motive in government is what we call corruption.” Trump has unveiled lofty plans to revive Venezuela’s troubled oil industry, just days after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro over the weekend....

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian just made a stunning admission that reveals the Islamic Republic's desperate strategic position. In an interview posted to Supreme Leader Khamenei's official website, Pezeshkian declared Iran is in a "full-scale war" with the United States, Israel, and Europe—a public acknowledgment of defeat that represents a geopolitical earthquake for the Middle East. This declaration comes six months after Operation Rising Lion, the devastating 12-day June 2025 conflict that killed 1,100 Iranians including Iran's entire military high command. Israeli F-35 stealth fighters and US B-2 bombers systematically destroyed Iran's nuclear facilities at Fordow and Natanz, eliminated IRGC Commander...

Of all the wars I have covered over the past 50 years, this is one of the fiercest and, to be sure, the most forgotten. “Do you know,” says Suliman, former attaché at the Sudanese embassy in France, who joined the army as soon as the fighting began, in April 2023, and will accompany me for a large part of my reporting, “that this war—the fourth the country has known since its independence—has already produced 12 million displaced people and 150,000 civilian victims?” We are in the arrivals hall of Port Sudan International Airport, 20 kilometers south of the city,...

Interview James Bradley: Domino Theory and media lies for imperialist wars, from Vietnam to Venezuela Finian Cunningham December 25, 2025 © Photo: Public domain Best-selling American author James Bradley talks about his latest book, Precious Freedom. Join us on Telegram, Twitter, and VK. Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su James Bradley, author of Precious Freedom Finian Cunningham, author of Killing Democracy Best-selling American author James Bradley talks about his latest book, Precious Freedom, and how the genocidal war against Vietnam (1965-75) was enabled by the U.S. media’s false propaganda of the “Domino Theory.” The theory was that Vietnam was falling under Soviet and...

Pete Hegseth’s Saturday begins with personal training. The Secretary of War, @SecWar on your socials, is very fond of working out with the troops – something most defense secretaries have done without someone dutifully filming the experience for Instagram. Then he heads off to the Reagan National Defense Forum, the annual gathering of war hawks, policy nerds and defense contractors in Simi Valley, California. Hegseth, the veteran of the Global War on Terror, is there to fulfill his mission of denouncing the neocons. “Out with idealistic utopianism, in with hard-nosed realism,” he declares, insisting the United States will no longer...

European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide a massive interest-free loan to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, but they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. After almost four years of war, the International Monetary Fund estimates that Ukraine will need 137 billion euros ($161 billion) in 2026 and 2027. The government in Kyiv is on the verge of bankruptcy, and desperately needs the money by spring. The plan had been to use some of the 210 billion...

American actions involving Venezuela have stirred up a flurry of theories and narratives around the United States’ strategic intentions. Some theories highlight apparent contradictions between rhetoric and policy, such as President Trump’s pardons of major drug-traffickers despite his public anti-drug stance. Others frame potential U.S. military threats against Venezuela as being driven primarily by America’s dependence on oil. Additional narratives have revived allegations of Venezuelan interference in U.S. elections, including claims from a former Maduro regime official about a “narco-terrorist war” against the United States. In my effort to better understand the factors driving the building tensions around Venezuela, I...

The New York Times’ recent report about his government’s responsibility for the worst corruption scandal in Ukraine’s history suggests that the walls are closing in and his foreign media allies are jumping ship out of desperation to retain some of their credibility after years of deifying him. It was earlier assessed that “Ukraine’s Anti-Corruption Investigation Is Turning Into A Rolling Coup” after it took down Zelensky’s grey cardinal Andrey Yermak, consequently weakened the already shaky alliance keeping him in power, and thus placed more pressure upon him to cede Donbass. The latest development concerns the New York Times’ (NYT) report...

President Trump on Monday signed an executive order designating fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD). Last month, it was reported by the Wall Street Journal that the Trump Administration classified fentanyl as a “potential chemical weapons threat” being smuggled on Venezuelan drug boats to justify strikes in the Caribbean and Western Pacific. Now, with Trump’s new classification of the deadly poison as a WMD, this will likely be used to justify the defense of America against drug cartels further. “The manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, primarily performed by organized criminal networks, threatens our national security and fuels lawlessness...

If there is going to be peace, why are we witnessing the largest military buildup in Europe since the end of the Cold War? When it comes to the major players on the geopolitical stage, it is far more important to watch what they do than it is to listen to what they say. And right now the actions that the major European powers are taking are telling us that they are preparing for a huge war with Russia. Ukraine was supposed to be the final piece of the puzzle for the European Union. It is an enormous chunk of...

We have reached one of the most critical turning points in modern history, but most people don’t seem to understand this. Without a doubt, 2025 has been a year of war. There has been war in Ukraine, war in Iran, war in Gaza, and lots of other regional conflicts as well. But as I have been warning my readers, 2026 could potentially be far worse. Decisions that world leaders make during the months ahead will determine which way things go. Let us hope that they make their choices wisely. According to CNN, White House officials are coming up with plans...