Strategic Culture

David Wurmser is Matryoska’s ‘doll’ within: no military invasion, but just a strategy to blow apart the Iranian Republic.

Iran – wisely – has eschewed direct, state-to-state military conflict, for a more subtle, and pernicious war on the US presence in the Middle East – a war, which if successful, will re-cast the region.

The strategic balance seemed more or less sustainable until its upending with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani and Al-Muhandis, ordered by Trump.

Boris Johnson has done the impossible – but done it by doing the precise opposite of what conventional rationalism would have expected.

The EU premise was of ‘uncle’ America, always being ‘there’, in case of difficulties. This is no longer true – and shocking it is, for EU élites.

The new type of warfare is using economic pressure to trigger popular protest and then to leverage the economic grievances of the ordinary populace.

Democracy – as experienced – too often has become the institutional tool to smother smouldering anger, Alastair Crooke writes.

Is Trump’s effort at outreach to Russia connected to his vision of how the US might transition to something smaller, within a multi-polar framework?

What is driving the sudden focus on ‘the flawed system’ in Lebanon is simply hard reality, Alastair Crooke writes.

What if maximum pressure fails either to implode the Iranian state politically, nor brings Iran to its knees, begging for a new nuclear deal?