Europeans worry Trump’s TruthSocial post means he’s walking away from Ukraine. My latest on what that isn’t necessarily a bad outcome: macspaunday.substack.com/p/in-praise-...

Jag fick möjligheten att bjuda Tove Lifvendahl på kaffe och en rejäl pratstund om min resa från försvarsbloggare till förbandschef, samt de utmaningar och problem som såväl Försvarsmakten som Sverige står inför med den rådande omvärldsutvecklingen. www.svd.se/a/Ey6P5a/sto...

Not sure I’m buying the “NATO failed hard” interpretation that seems to dominate this site. Three QRAs intercepted the Russian MiGs and there’s a lot of escalation ladder to climb before getting to the use of force. Isn’t this just back to Cold War everyday reality?

1/ While today's incursion into Estonian airspace by three Russian MIG-31s is the most serious such incident in 30 years, it's not the first time that it's happened. It also highlights a strategic vulnerability for Estonia: it does not have a fully agreed border with Russia. ⬇️

Quite possibly. But why would China do this?

A curious phenomenon in the swirling commentary: people seeing comparisons between Charlie Kirk and Horst Wessel and/or his murder and the Reichstag fire, and then appearing more concerned that the American right may not know history than that it may know it very well and see it as a role model.

Rationality is vastly overrated.

No no, you don’t understand. Trump was a white hat pedophile.

“Coalition of the willing”, “security guarantees” and now a “buffer zone”: the meaningless European pantomime continues while Russia contentedly proceeds with its murderous campaign. www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PYB...

"Nothing that happened in medieval eastern Europe bound future states to make war against each other a thousand years later" My latest essay: "The myths that made Putin’s war" www.ft.com/content/9731...

Is the international rules based order dead? And what even is it? My latest video for The Times youtu.be/4T6oSqazmlw?...

Lindsey Graham is instrumental in normalizing Trump's Putin-friendly line and keeping Ukraine's supporters in the Republican Party passive.

Yes, we have much catching up to do. Thankfully the US, with its European-sized debt, its abysmal budget deficit, its French style demographics, its above-average inflation, its 19th century protectionnism, has so much to teach us.

Double-unsmart as Orwell could have put it. The US undercutting the Five Eyes, one of its most effective tools of imperial influence projection since World War2, must be the wet dream of every one of its enemies or rivals

Another busy morning of media reality checks. Still a vast gap between (a) excitable reporting based on comments from European leaders who are humouring Trump instead of saying "this will never work", and (b) what anybody who knows Russia and has been paying attention knows is likely to happen.

Following the meeting of Trump, Zelensky & European leaders one Russian paper says “Zelensky & Europeans poured sugar into the gas tank of the Alaska negotiations. They sweet-talked Trump.” Another paper: “Details of Ukraine settlement are more & more confusing.” #ReadingRussia

Ahead of meetings in DC today, the road ahead looks incrasingly dangerous. Trump puts pressure on Ukraine to push through his appeasement policy toward Russia. Putin still refuses any true concessions. Europe is running behind trying to handle the fire but there is too much smoke.

“Trump has adopted Russia’s position,” writes one Russian paper today. “He will present his peace ultimatum to Zelensky. And there’s no doubt it’s an ultimatum.” My review of today’s Russian papers. #ReadingRussia

Russian media are hailing the Alaska summit as a big win for Moscow: • “a tactical victory for Russian diplomacy” • “huge diplomatic victory for Vladimir Putin” • “Trump perceived Russia’s interests as legitimate.”

Former Trump adviser John Bolton believes Putin achieved nearly all his goals at the summit, while Trump got only promises of more meetings. Bolton notes Putin avoided sanctions, faced no ceasefire demands, and that Trump appeared very tired after the talks.

“You cannot scale a zoo of disparate systems in a long war; modern war demands solutions that can be scaled.”

"The risk is not that Europe overreaches, but that it undershoots. Europe will never have all the resources it needs to assure itself of victory. Failing to go to diplomatic war with the army it has, however, assures it of defeat." My two cents ahead of Anchorage for @cepa.org

Where Babies Come From xkcd.com/3127/

Good. If the US chooses Russia rather than Europe and Ukraine, the EU need to sanction Russia into economic oblivion.

Just published via RUSI... I suspect this one may generate some strong opinions but I think it's an important set of factors for military planners especially in the Land domain to engage with: NATO Should Not Replace Traditional Firepower with ‘Drones’ www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

The 2% (3,5%, 5% etc) are not contributions to the NATO budget!

If this were a make-believe world, this promise would be perfectly understandable. But having made this absurd promise, what happens to the EU if or when Trump Trump decides that he's playing for keeps?

My take on the US-EU trade deal in this @ecfr.eu policy alert: - EU preferred an unequal deal rather than retaliating to maybe get a better one - Some economic silver linings don't cancel the political capitulation - EU needs credible retribution to prevent further US demands ecfr.eu/article/scot...

Så var det dags att avsluta SvD-prenumerationen i vredesmod igen. Får se hur länge jag klarar mig utan morgontidning den här gången (det börjar bli något av en tradition).

Givet artikelförfattarna så borde det här bara vara att göra. När förväntas ÖB komma med militära råd för den nya budgetramen? kkrva.se/fight-the-de...

Faced with Trump's 30% tariff, the EU urgently needs a comprehensive map of its retaliatory options; ranging across goods, services, IP, digital, finance & people-to-people measures (including their cost to Europe). Fortunately, we @ecfr.eu have already published that map: ecfr.eu/publication/...

The alignment ppl must be dying inside

(1/2) Nuclear deterrence: 30 years after the Chequers Declaration, a major strategic announcement will take place today as London and Paris will state they are opening the possibility to "coordinate" their nuclear deterrents and that they now protect Europe against "extreme threats".

Our analysis of what it has cost both sides

In any case, what these numbers show is that a denial strategy related to Russia's conventional ballistic missile arsenal is not feasible. Even ignoring operational factors, such as fire unit deployment and suboptimal interceptor allocation, the math doesn't check out. 6/7

Hello All, latest in @TheAtlantic . Once again, the US has shown that it fails to understand air power. Trump's intervention in the Israel-Iran air war was showy and seems to have accomplished little. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

The best course is to enable Ukraine to return the punishment tenfold. That should also be Europe’s response to Russia’s missile buildup: embrace a conventional countervalue posture and aim thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles at every high-value target west of Kazan. 2/2

Some things here may be dated but I still found it useful. If you follow drone use in Ukraine then you likely know a lot of what’s in this piece. Yet the perspective is nonetheless helpful. warontherocks.com/2025/06/i-fo...

So the US air campaign against Iran seems to have gone like this. 1) Trump does not want to get involved 2) he is told that Israel is having lots of success 3) he becomes desperate to join to he can be seen to “kick ass” 4) He bombs Iran one night

Sometimes the right strategic thing for Europeans to do is just watch events unfold on their phone while sitting in a nice cafe 1000 miles away from all the chaos

A good thread in many ways. But backers of the JCPOA also need to face how it was never coupled with mechanisms to contain the further expansion of Iranian support for Hezbollah and other proxies which fueled Israeli frustration in ways that helped lead to this mess now

Exoplanet System xkcd.com/3103/

"Mr. Trump has spoken with Mr. Putin regularly, as recently as Saturday, when he said that the Russian leader had called him to wish him a “Happy Birthday” and spent more time discussing the Iranian-Israeli conflict than the war he started." www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/w...

Well, well, well.

I've blogged about how the Israeli air force has reshaped the Middle East and what others might learn from them markurban.substack.com/p/israels-sl...

Hi all, I published my latest newsletter earlier today, providing an initial assessment of Operation Rising Lion. The operational picture is still unfolding, but there are already some takeaways to highlight. Access the post here: missilematters.substack.com/p/operation-... Summary below. 1/5

Notable that many of the F-15s and F-16s in #IAF footage - supposedly from last night - are carrying 2000lb GBU-31(V)1 JDAMs. Suggests Israel has established sufficient control of the air to operate non-stealth aircraft directly over Iranian targets without relying on standoff weapons like Rampage

The Axis of Resistance project proved a gargantuan waste of money for Iran that is unable to deter Israel when the chips are down

How it started. How it’s going.