General Offensive - General Uprising

In Iran the US negotiators will have to be very flexible indeed about the ‘deal’ they agree, because the Iranians won’t be. In Lebanon the mediators (the US) are trying to go from an ambassadorial meeting to a summit instantly, and that will require some real incentives from the Americans. The Lebanese Government (as I’ve already said this week) are not going to be eager to accept an open-ended co...

Hizballah has already threatened the Lebanese government not to go to these talks in Washington, but apparently there’s enough intestinal fortitude in Beirut to support two ambassadors sitting at a table in Washington. The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs is trailing more Iran discussions. What’s the difference? One set of negotiations is being run the old fashioned way, and one is being run...

The Iranians asked for JD Vance to negotiate with Qalibaf and Aragchi, and President Trump appears to have been happy to send him. We all know that Kushner and Witkoff have failed to extricate America from this phase of the Iran War, but somehow we'll blame the war’s lightweight America-first opponent. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to...

It’s odd that we know what the Iranians think the ceasefire terms are, the Pakistani mediators know, but the American version of the terms are unclear. We recall that at some point Hamas is going to voluntarily disarm and self-exile from Gaza. Today the Iranians say they won’t even, unless the Israelis leave Hizballah alone as the Americans maybe agreed or maybe didn’t. The Iranians are going to k...

I should start calling this the Ludendorff Effect: failing to achieve war aims and continuing to fight in hopes of finding a path to some kind of victory. 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

Notwithstanding the Secretary of War’s allergy to post-conflict reconstruction, why does he want partners for a bit of rebuilding and a bit of demining? Could it be because the Chinese-instigated Pakistani-brokered ceasefire is basically flimflam, to enable the Iranians to carry on as before, America to extricate and regional partners to deal with a still-extreme Iranian theocracy? Does he want so...

The dogged insistence by one of my Israeli national security professional friends that the war aim really was regime change? It’s a bit more understandable now. It’s what Netanyahu briefed to POTUS, and in spite of Ratcliff of the CIA now saying it had been ‘farcical’ and Rubio of Foggy Bottom saying it was ‘b******t’, POTUS went for it. If we’ve avoided a global economic downturn by freezing the...

… and economy appear more a tragic failure of diplomacy and less the callous destruction of a rogue country of 93 million? My concept of metastability was articulated in a futures paper I collaborated on for an energy-sector client shortly after returning from my tour on Op TELIC (a tour spent very much in the rear with the gear). In it, I talked about an Iraq on the edge of state failure, in whic...

I wrote this article years ago during a different Gaza war. I wrote it because I thought we leaned far too hard on the idea that war crimes were the problem in war, not that war itself is the problem. This is comparable to the more recent construction that a revised-down definition of genocide made genocide the problem in war, not war itself. Saying that an American attack against Iranian critical...

I'm not seeking to dispense soft soap; not seeking to alarm; just talking about some support but around decisions on nuclear release. Note: in this video I refer to the Israeli ‘war cabinet’, when I should have said ‘national security cabinet’, an informal name for the Israeli cabinet’s National Security Committee. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or g...

Iran learned the power of the Strait of Hormuz in a Tanker War, and the resilience of its people to aerial attack in the War of the Cities. They also learned from their counter-invasion of Iraq (when Saddam Hussein tried to cut his losses and end the Iran-Iraq War) that they could keep punishing an enemy who didn't want to fight anymore. All three of these are relevant as President Trump offers to...

I do like to answer a subscriber question! 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

Harold asked a series of questions, and of course I had to answer. Here's my statement of his scenario: the US declares victory: Persia delenda est.what remains is no longer the Iranian state. Missiles striking Israel and the Gulf monarchies are being shot by individual warlords. Israel continues to operate against launchers. Only RMB-denominated cargoes pass Hormuz. Why wouldn't the Iranians stop...

31 MEU is steaming a long way, from Okinawa to the Gulf. It's going to take a long time. Is President Trump going to keep the war going that long? Why? 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

The Lebanese Army is very likely convinced that it hasn’t got the combat power to push Hizballah around, and perhaps more important that not even Lloyd’s of London could lay off enough insurance to cover the lives of Lebanese Army leaders if they tried. There’s a sort of pretense that Hizballah isn’t effectively a provincial government in Lebanon, and that the ‘real government’ ought to be able to...

The spot price of Urea is USD600 a tonne; sulfuric acid is selling at USD169 a tonne. These are high prices, because freighters can’t get through the Strait of Hormuz, which means farmers are lacking fertiliser, and that means lower crop yields next year. Lower yields mean higher prices; the knock-on effects of the war are going to be felt for a while. This is a public episode. If you'd like to di...

There is a triangle of autocracies which have allied with each other to oppose the West. American national security strategy and national defence strategy has in recent months dictated a pivot away from these confrontations and a retrenchment in the Western Hemisphere. Nonetheless, the US finds itself moving combat power and influence away from two theatres of operation against these powers to com...

The US went to war in Iran last week without a clear understanding of its war aims or strategic pathways. I’ve characterised this as a divergence between the US and the Israeli approaches to this war: the Israelis are in it to degrade Iranian offensive capability. The Americans are in it for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, and which differ among senior Administration officials. Last Thursday w...

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've been looking all afternoon for a moment to record this. I've had meetings, I've answered questions, I've done interviews. I've realised one minute before air that my headphones were in the car. I've had supper. This morning's wallballs (sets of 20) and deadlifts (sets of 10) have caught up to me. I've abandoned my usual upright posture, and just talked to the phone, but not into the external...

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

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

If I wanted the Iranian regime to collapse and be replaced by something better, and I was ready to expend blood and treasure to achieve this, and I wanted to make it all happen in a welter of death from above, with aircraft carriers and missiles and bunker-busting gravity bombs… I'd start 10 years ago with the seeds of insurgency, and creating a government-in-waiting, and building slowly, and by n...

Also, the Chagos Islands: Hamish Falconer says the deal is paused. Number Ten says it isn't. Right: It isn't paused; it's stalled. Also, most of the viewers of this Substack are American. Is my talk about British policy too much… inside baseball? 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 noticed that Admiral Tony Radakin wasn't saying this. I also notice that neither of them seemed to have a force package in mind, so I’ve suggested one in this morning’s video. I'll note that on Xitter, known for… being Xitter, my thoughts attracted some subtle racism. Somewhere in the Afterlife, Roald Dahl is smiling approvingly and thinking, ‘yes, she is a hook-nosed warmongering old b***h’. Th...