Claims

A war between the US and Iran would be against 'a medium power' (not a peer) and would not be another 'Baghdad 2003,' but Iran is geographically large, mountainous, and difficult to invade; Iran is also three times the size of Iraq with no nearby launch points for invasion, making a ground war extremely costly and unlike previous Middle East interventions.

China militarizes its merchant fleet by training sailors in military tactics, placing weapon systems on container ships, and stationing 'communist commissars' on vessels, allowing China to rapidly expand warship capacity overnight through merchant marine conversions.

Putin recruited approximately 12,000 North Korean troops to defend Kursk after Russian conscripts refused to be deployed there.

Ukraine had obvious motive to attack the MV Ursa Major as a Russian vessel during wartime, and had previously demonstrated capability in the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage operation.

South Korea represents an interesting suspect because Seoul has a vested strategic interest in preventing North Korea from developing nuclear-powered submarines, and could have acted alone or with information from Ukraine.

Iran has no plausible motive to attack the MV Ursa Major and would be a bizarre culprit if discovered to have been responsible.

An inside-job conspiracy theory proposes that Russia deliberately destroyed the nuclear reactor components rather than supply them to North Korea, either because Russia wanted to maintain control over North Korea or because Putin had a strategic change of mind about the deal.

China may have played a role in destroying the MV Ursa Major to keep North Korea dependent on Beijing rather than Moscow, maintaining intra-coalition politics and preventing Russia from gaining excessive influence over North Korean military development.

In August 2024, Ukraine invaded Kursk, which is part of internationally-recognized Russian territory, forcing the Kremlin to navigate a dilemma between defending Russian soil and maintaining military progress in Eastern Ukraine.

No reports suggest Russia attempted to supply replacement nuclear reactors to North Korea after the MV Ursa Major sinking, which could indicate either Russia lacks large reactor stocks or Putin convinced Kim Jong Un that Russia had already incurred sufficient costs.

Russia is outproducing NATO in artillery shell production because Russia maintains 50-mile supply lines directly behind lines of contact while NATO supply chains originate in China, transit the US, and reach Ukraine—a logistical asymmetry that makes Russia's production advantage inevitable regardless of corruption in either military

Iran's October 1 missile strike exposed Israel by demonstrating that if the Iron Dome is less effective than previously believed, Israel has only 10 critical infrastructure sites (5 power plants, 5 water treatment facilities) and cannot defend all against a thousand missiles, creating a mutually assured destruction scenario equivalent to a synthetic nuclear weapon

One reason not to get into wars is you might lose them; the US has lost most of its wars for the past few decades (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria implicitly); this track record suggests military overreach

China operates at 'China speed' and can accomplish infrastructure development far faster than Western institutions; Hainan island's military buildup (carving out mountainsides for airbases, submarine docks) in close proximity to tourist resorts demonstrates China's ability to execute scale and speed projects that would take Western governments years

The nuclear question is a real problem that Europe will have to confront this year, potentially requiring France to formally devote its arsenal to NATO and changes in European nuclear arrangements.

There are tentative signs that Sahel governments may move toward negotiations: Niger's junta sent envoys to jihadist leaders last year, and Mali's authorities have reportedly done the same.

Russia's military performance in Ukraine on day 8 is consistent with Russian doctrine (heavy artillery, house-to-house combat), not evidence of failure; the Russian plan was never to capture Kiev in one month, and from the Russian point of view, the campaign is 'par for the course' despite not being 'all sunshine and chocolate.'

If China is about to succeed in taking Taiwan, the likelihood that somebody destroys TSMC facilities is plausible, with multiple parties having incentives to do so (the US, Japan, Taiwan itself).

Russian President Vladimir Putin anticipated storming into Ukraine and taking the country in a matter of weeks, with the West not even having a chance to respond, but this did not happen.

Since 2015, Russia has been steadily increasing its military presence in the Northern Territories. Satellite imagery shows Putin has built infrastructure reaching as close as 14 miles away from Hokkaido, including barracks large enough for 7,000 people on Kunashiri island and storage of Bal anti-ship missiles (ASMs) on that same island, which lies just 10 miles from Japanese territory.

Ukraine has outperformed expectations while Russia has underperformed, but Ukraine is limited by its own population and weapons inflow, making victory unlikely if Russia achieves general mobilization and moves from 200,000 to 2 million troops in theater.

Russian military advance in eastern and southern Ukraine is stalled, with Ukrainian forces having more people on the front line than Russians, but the limiting factor is how quickly both sides can bring equipment to the war front, with the West starting to run low on supplies.

Canada and Germany have exhausted most of their defense stockpiles and no one wants to exhaust their frontline equipment, limiting Western ability to supply Ukraine.

If NATO directly fights Russia, Russia will be soundly beaten militarily and forced into strategic retreat, but seeing this as national survival, Russia will escalate and likely use nuclear weapons.

The U.S. has effectively withdrawn from the Middle East, eliminating DOD administrative staff and special forces in Syria, reducing Iraq presence to hundreds in advisory roles, removing presence from Saudi Arabia, closing supply lines, and no longer basing the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, with France now having more ships in the Persian Gulf.

Russia's targeting of Ukrainian civilian energy infrastructure (power plants, district heating, electricity) constitutes war crimes and is designed to force significant migration out of Ukraine during winter, not merely to disrupt weapons production.

Russia possesses more manpower, more weaponry, more capacity to manufacture its own weapons independently, and has developed substantial technological advances since the start of the Ukraine war, all of which are bearing fruit on the battlefield and offset Western supply chain advantages.

The US military is highly mobile and can project power globally within moments, whereas the Chinese military operates with heavy Soviet-style armor designed for border defense and is currently transitioning toward mobile, air-based, and ship-based projection capabilities.

China built its first overseas military base in Djibouti in Africa, which it denies is a military base and calls a 'logistical facility,' while the main US military base in Africa is also located in Djibouti.

China has built seven artificial islands in the Spratly Islands, several serving as military bases with radar stations and surface-to-air missiles, including Subie Reef (larger than Pearl Harbor) and Fiery Cross Reef with a 10,000-foot runway.

China seized Fiery Cross Reef and constructed a military base with a 10,000-foot runway in just two years (2014-2016), demonstrating rapid militarization capacity.

The US military has a completely global footprint of bases for radar and listening installations, unmatched in history, maintained on just a few percentage points of GDP.

China's ports are dual-use infrastructure—built as commercial shipping ports but convertible to military ports capable of handling large warships like destroyers and cruisers.

The map of China's trading ports where it has controlling stake is becoming a map of potential military bases—China's port network is transitioning from purely commercial to military-capable infrastructure.