General Offensive - General Uprising

Half-assed committment to big tasks is what causes this. Generals make it clear what level of commitment is required to achieve a strategic aim. Political leadership commits a fraction of that; then they’ve got aims that don’t match resources, they change their aims, they make up strategy as they go along. This isn’t because political leaders are mendacious or stupid: there can be perfectly accept...

The Saudi Arabia civil nuclear deal is a long-term thing, and it’s not going to disappear. The Israelis are relaxed about it. It’s not a factor in any eventual Saudi weapons capability: they can have that with or without a civil nuclear programme. What matters is that one key precondition. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episode...

‘Accountability’ isn't a mission verb. It’s not a verb at all, in point of fact. You don't win a war by conducting missions that hold the enemy to account. You win a war by setting and then achieving strategic objectives. If you can't do that, stop having the war. When people are asking about your exit strategy, it's because you don’t have an achievable strategy: you can't win. Stop having the war...

I’m not really sure whose reporting I’d accept on whether Israeli citizens’ attacks on West Bank Palestinians are increasing in tempo or intensity. Answers on a postcard please. The people who are protecting those who allegedly committed these crimes aren’t just arranging for people they like to stay out of prison even when accused of violent crimes they’re likely to repeat. It’s not just a matter...

Yesterday this was all about the Trump Toll. By the time I trimmed and uploaded the video, the morning’s Trump Toll newsprint was afternoon fishwrap (or in the case of subscriber Colonel Paul, parrot cage lining). Am I trying too hard to be topical? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe

I’m not mystified at the way so many Israelis have viewed Netanyahu as a necessary evil for so long: he and his people have carefully built the legend that he is the only person in all of Israel capable of functioning as Prime Minister, and that without him there would be a return to the days of frequent suicide bombings inside Israel. It’s not trivial: about a thousand Israelis were killed by sui...

There is every likelihood that Iran is continuing to pursue its interests and its strategies relentlessly, and the American negotiators are growing frustrated at dealing with experienced national security professionals whose political leadership are fairly relaxed about being bombed by the Americans. Or it could be that the American side want an oil price spike so that they can sell spot Brent abo...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit nusbacher.substack.com It’s been a long day, it’s a steamy hot evening, and I wanted to answer this question sooner rather than later. I’m going to keep this for paid subscribers, and I think there are some questions worth answering quickly and privately, in the moment.

I keep promising myself I’ll talk about something else. The war that still has US forces anchored in the Middle East, Israeli forces seizing key terrain in South Lebanon and the Ukrainians striking deeper into Russia is important, but the odd spectacle of the US making unconvincing threats while the Iranians rebuild their offensive capabilities should be the least important thing. Next video: Why...

This will be elementary for some of you: Iran and Hizballah made it impossible for Israel to remain in South Lebanon a few years ago, and made life very difficult for Israel to commit land forces to joint operations in Lebanon from 1985 onwward, apart from long-range artillery fire. Israel’s success against Hizballah over recent years has been choked back by Donald Trump, who has in recent weeks c...

The Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to relentlessly confront Israel and the United States. Hizballah will still relentlessly confront Israel. Ukraine will continue to fight for their independence. North Korea will continue to prepare to unify the Korean peninsula under the Kim Dynasty. China will continue to prepare for a China with Taiwan’s territory and Siberia’s resources. An Israeli pol...

Was that a provocative enough title? I mention Prof Greg Rose in this. I know a bunch of my subscribers remember Greg (and Terry), and I think I’ll try and do a bio podcast about him. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe

We saw the signals a few weeks ago: positioning the United States as the victor over Iran with careful caveats: it was a ‘military’ victory, meaning a tactical and operational victory. The target pack was serviced. The other poor dumb sonofabitch died for his country. The battle was won; the war is over. In a folk understanding of warfare, you win a war by winning battles. Win all the battles, win...

The Twilight of the Warlords more than the Twilight of the Gods, mind. Last night Binyamin Netanyahu went cap in hand to the President of the United States to ask for permission to defend his country by responding to Iranian attacks with Israeli counterattacks against Iranian national infrastructure. President Trump’s response was to tell him no, at least publicly. The Israeli counterattack was ap...

The Strait of Hormuz moment makes this an apt time to look at the Bering Strait and the North West Passage. Looking at the proportion of the Arctic littoral that is the coast of Greenland and Canada’s Arctic Archipelago makes it easier to understand the odd fascination that President Trump has annexing this bit or that. As the polar icecaps melt, the route through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago w...

So, Bibi Netanyahu is on a choke chain: precision strikes against Hamas leadership, apparently OK; attacks against Hizballah apart from the Capital, fine; but nothing that is going to lead to something close to achieving a strategic effect against Iran’s most prized proxy. Remember that moment when KushKoff leaked to Barak Ravid that ‘JD is going to the Super Bowl’? This is the other bookend: Marc...

I had a fairly random question this afternoon when I came in from an extraordinarily warm morning’s gardening on a holiday Monday. This was my answer. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe

I love that the BBC view me as somebody they can invite on to discuss Russia-Ukraine, and then tell me on the call that it’s about a particular case in the broader context of Russian air defence forces and NATO air forces occasionally using electronic warfare on each other to let them know they are unwelcome; or the broader context of Ukraine and Russia putting ordnance onto each other’s capitals....

The Trump-Xi summit was about two things: China getting Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz and America expressing its relaxation at the idea of the People’s Liberation Army crossing the Strait of Formosa. Something I talked about on yesterday’s BBC Arabic spot, which I haven’t developed here, is related to nuclear proliferation in the Western Pacific: the overture for the Putin-Xi summit was a fair...

Netanyahu is trying to keep the late October election date by tabling conscription exemption legislation for young Haredi men, and maybe the Haredi parties will go for it. Their aim isn’t to lose Netanyahu the election (which might be close enough to have Netanyahu as caretaker PM ringing their doorbells in search of coalition partners). It’s to get Netanyahu to dump his ideas like lowering the vo...

The radio presenter said that the US and Israel were ‘plotting’ a resumption of hostilities. It’s not ‘plotting’ if the resumption is being signalled very clearly: it’s planning. The Iranians are definitely signalling engagement; the Pakistanis are definitely signalling engagement; the US might accept some form of reparations to Iran, they clearly think there’s some possibility of the Iranians acc...

This isn’t your daddy’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine with the sponsorship and the finance and the refined ideology. It’s 2026 and the Iranians are running Scottish separatist botnets, untrained mooks are making non-flammable petrol bombs and the Right of Islam has got a logo with only one misspelled word and a shmexy sniper rifle! This could easily be a guy in a basement with a ph...

How do the Germans survive when they treat all terrorism as crime in law? Also, is ‘ stochastic terrorism ’ some kind of meaningless jargon? Did I just record a 25 minute video without once referring to World War 3.0?There is, by the way, a prize for recognising the source of my definition of terrorism. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to...

Sometimes I just have to get home from Crossfit, plunk down in front of the microphone, and start talking. In particular I thought it was important to say something before the weekend about the brief illusions of peace in the context of a deliberate de-escalation of conflict that’s called a ‘cease-fire’. This comes up in the context of the US Navy steaming warships through the Strait of Hormuz to...

Planes of cleavage in the Iranian regime, imminent collapse of the bourgeois running dog settler colonialist Zionist entity; it says you’re about to watch your adversary dissolve into dust like a vampire on Buffy. Maybe it works. A state is an idea (unless you’re a blood-and-soil nationalist in which case it’s … an idea about blood and soil. If you change the idea sufficiently, maybe you can make...