Apropos of nothing, Saddam Hussein (leader of an oil rich country) arrested a bunch of foreign nationals right before the Gulf War. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign...

Spain believes that Russia was trying to build two nuclear reactors for North Korean submarines. They are now sitting at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Who did it? youtu.be/Br9KlA4oWOE

Discussion of the two key provisions inside of the U.S.-Ukraine plan, plus the political maneuvering here given that Russia will not accept its terms. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zamA...

Zelensky has revealed the 20 point peace plan negotiated between the United States and Ukraine. I do not think it will work, but Zelensky has successfully deflected the peace plan Russia leaked weeks ago. kyivindependent.com/zelensky-rev...

One must wonder how long the U.S. military can be in “active pursuit” of a tanker. It is not like they move very fast. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

It will not surprise me if these continue for the next couple of weeks. I would be that more serious military action will wait for the new year, though. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

Quick look at Ukraine's strike on a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the Mediterranean Sea today. If Russia stops transiting using the Suez Canal shortcut as a result, it is the equivalent of the destruction of roughly a third of the shadow fleet. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Jzb...

Two blockades, one from a stronger country, one from a weaker country, and the possibility of something more with Trump’s Oval Office address tonight. youtu.be/4KYppram-9A

This might be the greatest exchange in the history of my channel. (The rain commentary is from today’s video.)

Russia claimed control of Kupiansk for several weeks, "completely and in its entirety." Then Zelensky showed up at the city, capping Ukraine's best offensive move in months. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UmU...

(Almost) back to back comments.

Ukraine and the United States are currently engaged in a pair of separate campaigns that target oil tankers. This is a much bigger story than the amount of attention it is currently receiving. And they will have interesting crossover effects. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOA4...

With all of the discussion about a ceasefire (plus Thanksgiving in the U.S.), this was easy to miss. Ukraine has started a new phase of its energy campaign, now specifically targeting production, export terminals, the shadow fleet. Updated timeline below. Full video in the next couple of days.

I recently travelled to Estonia and got deep into the bizarre circumstances that turned into a cybersecurity titan. www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BCc...

Deep dive into the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy, how it lacks a coherent narrative, and all of the self-contradictions therein. www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0qc...

The second Kremlin phone call leak should have been a bigger story. Combined with the leaked 28 point peace plan, we now know what Russia thinks is the maximum it can extract fro. Ukraine. And it also suggests that someone might know Russia’s true minimum demands. youtu.be/_jrYlp8VPKs

This is significant polling. Europe's Hague pledge has rallied support for NATO among Republicans, and frustration with Trump has kept Democrats support of NATO very high.

Sure, what Witkoff said according to the leak is bad. But the real story here is that there is a leak at all. Thinking about who did it and why is the interesting part. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdjU...

Not much is known about what is in the tentative agreement between the United States and Ukraine, but I cover it for the first five minutes today. Then another eight minutes of how all of the disjoined White House actions reveal a Vance-Rubio power struggle. www.youtube.com/watch?v=egSF...

9 minutes of what was lost by waiting to respond to Russia. 45 minutes going through the document point-by-point. There is a bunch of subtle stuff that is easy to overlook here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGAj...

By (likely) leaking the peace plan, Russia set the agenda here. The Kremlin understands the value of this. Europe does not or is too politically paralyzed to do anything about it. Either way, it is to Ukraine’s detriment. youtu.be/kpBKttsvyEE

This is getting messy. Senators claim that Rubio told them that the peace plan was Russia’s, not a White House position. A spokesman from the State Department says that Rubio never said that. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Hopefully never—it’s only bad news if I do.

Yes.

Five minutes of a broad overview of exactly where we are and what is wrong here. Fifty minutes of going through the entire document, point by point, to showcase just how bizarre it is. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d9Z...

Ukraine's air campaign has subtly added a second dimension, and it has *striking* economic and strategic implications. youtu.be/LpgiTa3IzGc

What the heck is underlying the deployment around Venezuela? youtu.be/IVwmOfMSqhE

Big yikes from YouTube's suggested thumbnails for tomorrow's video. There was a time when these would be all you could choose from!

The USS Ford has arrived in the Caribbean, and Venezuela has mobilized some of its forces. This is the first real window where some serious military action could occur. Below, stock video from two months ago of an F/A-18F about to land on the Ford.

If Ukraine was currently torching all of your oil refineries, would you (A) give away air defenses or (B) not give away air defenses? youtu.be/JgL2hZWj3gk

Updated map of the current campaign's strikes on oil and gas facilities in Russia, after two more last night.

A House of Dynamite was great except: 1) the head of STRATCOM implausibly does not understand nuclear strategy 101 2) it was a fantastic first three episodes of an eight episode series 3 the Secretary of Defense was seemingly as uninterested in how it ends as the writer was

Ever wonder how exactly Ukraine protects its skies from one-way attack drones and glide bombs? I went to Istanbul to talk to the folks behind some of the cutting edge air defense technologies. www.youtube.com/watch?v=--q_...

Update to Ukraine's energy infrastructure sabotage campaign, current through October 19. The map getting VERY cluttered.

After a quiet few days on the energy infrastructure front (but not weapons production facilities), Ukraine struck a couple places last night.

Time lapse of every suspected Ukrainian attack on Russian energy infrastructure that I could find. I didn't fully appreciate the extent of the damage until I saw all of the Xs accumulate.

Another night, another fire at a Russian refinery, this one about a 900 kilometers flight. Inset image is from NASA's fire tracker.

Covering a huge distance to hit a refinery is much easier to do when you know where the air defenses are. (Note: There is no way to know whether U.S. intel contributed here, and Ukraine already struck it last month.) youtu.be/mjET8JH-zBg

Discussion of what U.S. intel sharing about long-distance targeting can do for Ukraine, and what it says about the overall U.S.-Ukraine relationship. www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjET...

A discussion of just how much a possible no-fly zone in Ukraine has evolved over the last three years, and just how plausible Poland's plan is. www.youtube.com/watch?v=diqh...

Trump and Zelensky had a brief meeting at the United Nations today. The most important takeaway I got from it is that the U.N. has the same taste in discount Swedish furniture that I do.

Russia sent three fighters into Estonian airspace. NATO may be best off firing at them, but it is worth first thinking about what the Kremlin may be trying to do here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVzC...

With multiple Russian MiGs violating Estonian air space today, this week’s video is looking all the more timely. youtu.be/8McW9Z2egpU

There is a bunch of discussion of using Turkey’s zero-tolerance policy from 2015 as a template for handling Russia today. But the comparison is much more complicated. youtu.be/8McW9Z2egpU

I gather a lot of stock images/video. Usually I do it in a hurry. Rarely I find something so seemingly unreal that I would think if it was fake if I did not know any better and I just sit back in awe. Today I had one of those moments.

New air alerts in Poland and Romania, just a couple of hours after I posted this video. It is the first test of the "Eastern Sentry" counterstrategy. With this kind of frequency, though, we are inching closer to a more kinetic Western response. www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-4e...

What's will Europe do in the aftermath of last night's drone incursions? Here are my initial thoughts. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYFp...

As everyone brushes off their copies of the North Atlantic Treaty this morning to see what the heck Article 4 is, we all discover the document's only major flaw: its lack of Oxford commas.

Today's video is a detailed look at Ukraine's strategy strategy over the last month plus of refinery attacks. It is actually *two* separate campaigns, and they have interesting interactions with the broader strategies Ukraine and Western partners are pursuing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvha...

I want to put some context behind the Politico report that the next U.S. National Defense Strategy will prioritize the homeland, not China and Russia. I think this is likely being misinterpreted in light of an earlier Defense Intelligence Agency assessment. 🧵 www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ExJ...