Category:

AMERICAN OLIGARCHY

George Galloway chats w. Max Blumenthal

by Max Blumenthal & George Galloway Published: July 27, 2026

written by Max Blumenthal & George Galloway Approx. 35 Mins. • Watch / read

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George Galloway

INTERVIEW: Big Bro is watching you

George Galloway

Jul 19, 2026 #Tehran #DullesAirport #USConstitution

You'll have had your constitutional rights! Arriving back in the US from the funeral in Tehran of Ayatollah Khamenei, the Grayzone's Max Blumenthal had his phones unlawfully seized. And no doubt the contents copied. He explains what comes now.

Max Blumenthal on US-Israel Influence, Journalist Harassment, and the Iran Conflict

Summary

Max Blumenthal, a prominent journalist for The Grayzone News, shares his experience of unlawful device seizure at the US border following his coverage of Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral in Iran. He details how his phones were confiscated in what appears to be a politically motivated crackdown tied to pro-Israel interests within the US government during the Trump administration. Blumenthal narrates the extensive pressure campaign from Israeli-aligned actors, including political operatives and groups like Canary Mission, aimed at suppressing dissenting viewpoints on the Israel-Iran conflict. Further, he discusses the ongoing proxy war dynamics between the US and Iran, emphasizing Iran’s strategic military posture and the significant public opposition to the US war effort. Lastly, he warns about the fragile security situation in the Gulf, highlighting Kuwait's vulnerability amid escalating tensions and strikes.

Highlights

[01:15] 📰 Max Blumenthal accused of extremist views for reporting facts from Ayatollah Khamenei’s funeral.
[04:10] 🔒 US Customs and Border Protection illegally seized Blumenthal’s devices to access his journalistic sources.
[11:03] 🕵️‍♂️ Laura Loomer, an extremist influencer, pressured the Trump administration to target Blumenthal.
[13:45] 🇮🇱 Canary Mission, backed by Israeli interests, works to destroy Palestine solidarity activists and influenced US actions against Blumenthal.
[15:40] 🇺🇸 Vice President J.D. Vance admits Israeli influence campaigns in the US, confirming longstanding suspicions.
[20:45] 🎯 Iran targets US bases and Israeli proxy defenses, escalating tit-for-tat attacks in the region.
[29:10] 🏰 Kuwait’s security is weakening due to US-sponsored attacks on Iran and the risk of Iranian retaliation amid internal sectarian tensions.

Key Insights

[02:30] 📰 Journalistic Freedom vs. Political Suppression: Blumenthal’s experience reveals a troubling erosion of First and Fourth Amendment protections for journalists, particularly those covering politically sensitive conflicts. The seizure of his devices—not to investigate crime but to access his sources—illustrates how intelligence and political pressure can be weaponized to suppress inconvenient truths within a democratic state.
[05:20] 🔗 Intersection of US and Israeli Political Influence: The pressure on US agencies to harass journalists like Blumenthal is traced to Israeli-aligned operatives with considerable access to Trump administration levers of power. This alliance exemplifies the deep entanglement between US foreign policy and Israeli interests, impacting the freedom of the press and shaping narrative control domestically and internationally.
[11:20] 🤡 The Role of Extremist Influencers in Policy Manipulation: Figures like Laura Loomer serve as unregistered foreign agents or proxies, exerting informal but potent influence on US executive decisions. This phenomenon signals a new hybrid front where social media personalities become instruments of international political warfare, disrupting traditional checks and balances in government processes.
[14:50] 🇮🇱 Covert Operations Against Dissent Within US Borders: Organizations like Canary Mission, funded and directed by Israeli foundations, conduct aggressive campaigns against US-based activists supporting Palestine. Their role in flagging targets for US immigration and security enforcement highlights an external influence network operating within US institutions, threatening civil liberties of citizens and residents.
[17:30] 📉 Declining US Public Support for the War on Iran: New public opinion data shows a majority opposing continued military engagement against Iran, reflecting broad discontent with the war’s rationale and human costs. This shift pressures policymakers to reconsider the open-ended conflict and signals potential domestic consequences for elected officials backing such policies.
[22:30] 🎯 Iran’s Escalation Dominance and Strategic Posture: Iran’s focused military campaign targets US bases and proxy allies in the region strategically, using ballistic missile capabilities and intelligence from global powers such as China and Russia. This methodical approach contrasts with US attacks on civilian infrastructure, signifying asymmetrical warfare where Iran maintains escalating control despite US efforts.
[29:25] 🕌 Regional Fragility—Kuwait as a Case Study: Kuwait’s alignment with the US and hosting of military bases exposes it to Iranian missile strikes, destabilizing the state already vulnerable due to significant Shia populations and weak institutional defense. The possibility of Iranian incursions or internal uprising raises alarms over a regional domino effect that could widen the conflict beyond current hotspots.

This interview provides an incisive critique of how geopolitical conflicts influencing the Middle East extend deep into US civil rights, media freedom, and domestic politics, while also delivering a tactical analysis of ongoing military developments.

Follow @moatstv 570 X: @MaxBlumenthal #Tehran #DullesAirport #USConstitution #GrayzoneNews

Published: July 27, 2026 0 comments

Tension Still in Kiev; Russian Attacks More Intense

by Oliver Boyd-Barrett Published: July 22, 2026

written by Oliver Boyd-Barrett 7 minutes read

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Oliver Boyd-Barrett

Dateline—JUL 21, 2026

On July 21, 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy officially fired General Oleksandr Syrskyi from his position as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The high-profile dismissal capped a severe wartime leadership crisis sparked by the prior removal of popular Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, which had triggered mass street protests across the country.

Zelensky glorified by TIME (and the rest of the prostituted Western media).

Former Defense Minister Fedorov has been replaced temporarily by Yevhen Khmara, the current chair of the SBU. Prior to the final dismissal of Syrski, there had been large protesting crowds for five days across Ukraine in Kiev, Odessa, Ternopil, Rivne, Mykolaiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Dnipro and in dozens of other cities.

Zelenskyy has appointed Major-General Mykhailo Drapatyi, the 43-year-old former Commander of the Joint Forces, as the new army chief to oversee a complete reorganization of the military’s command structure.

An unworkable strategic divide emerged between the 35-year-old former Defense Minister Fedorov, who championed a decentralized, tech-driven approach utilizing advanced drone warfare, and the 60-year-old traditionalist Syrskyi.

Fedorov’s sudden removal last week incited large protests in Kyiv and other major cities, with demonstrators demanding either Fedorov’s reinstatement or Syrskyi’s immediate dismissal.

Syrskyi had faced steep criticism from rank-and-file soldiers, veterans, and military reformers for maintaining a rigid, top-down Soviet-style command system that often ignored tactical innovation and led to high human casualties. But he seemed to enjoy the support of many senior figures in Ukraine’s armed forces and that of the neo-Nazi Azov Brigade.

Further, Fedorov’s popularity was due in large measure to the apparent, though disputed success of Ukraine’s recent drone wars which had gained headline approval from Ukraine’s sponsors in the political West and mainstream media.

Syrskyi’s opposition to Fedorov and Zelenskyi’s initial preference of Syrskyi over Fedorov may have signaled a growing realization at the top that the drone war was not going to be the long-term solution against a Russian opponent more blessed in virtually all categories of resource (including men, money, drones and missiles and industrial capacity than Ukraine) and slowly gaining more and more territory in eastern Ukraine.

For a few weeks, flamboyant Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and, even more recently, on Russian oil tankers and grain cargo ships in the Sea of Azov and along the eastern coast of the Black Sea, had spiked anxiety in Russia and among pro-Russian sympathizers across the world. The Russian economy had shown itself amazingly resilient throughout the war to Western supplies of weapons to Ukraine, direct Western involvement in the supply of hardware and intelligence and navigation of drones and missiles against targets deep inside Russian territory, together with Western sanctions, Western oil price caps the boarding of Russian tankers at sea and other hostilities. But with the inception of massive Ukrainian drone attacks from the beginning of 2026, it began to look as though strikes on energy facilities that closed down refineries, leading to gasoline restrictions, queues for gasoline, closure of Russia’s diesel export supply and dependence on imports of gasoline from India and Kazakhstan might seriously cripple the Russian economy. To these threats in more recent days has been added the targeting of warehouses belonging to Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, and its competitor.

Zelensky being grilled by Trump and his sycophants.

These threats have not disappeared, but Russia does at last appear to have found in them the necessary pretext for a significant upscaling and intensification of the conflict, even if not sufficient to upgrade the Special Military Operation (SMO) to a full-scale war footing. For several nights, now, Russian drones and missiles have bombarded Odessa, its ports, ships, infrastructure, energy and industrial facilities. In effect, Odessa has been isolated from the rest of Ukraine as effectively as Ukraine had managed to isolate Crimea from the rest of Russia, and there are very strong indications that Russia does intend (as shown on a map displayed a year ago by General Gerasimov, Chief of General Staff) to absorb into the Federation the Odessa oblast and all of Ukraine’s Black Sea coastline. In recent weeks, Russia has launched a major campaign of drone strikes on Ukrainian gas stations that seem likely to bring about a crisis of gasoline supply every bid as bad or worse than that experienced in Russia, along with equally intense strikes on locomotives (as many as 200 in the last two weeks, according to one Russian source), railways, logistics hubs, oil storage facilities, military and civilian warehouses (including the entirety of Sumy’s Epicenter mall last night).

What we have not seen so far is any measure strong enough to shut down the constant warmongering, chattering incitement to Ukraine to continue being the West’s proxy in its bid to break up the Russian Federation and divide the spoils between Western nations. Until Russia finds the will to stop being so tolerant of its Western enemies and figures out the right kind of rebuke to the West that will put an end to this self-defeating campaign (that has already clobbered European productivity, pushed it into de-industrialization, and exposed its dependence on both US and Russian sources of energy even in the midst of a global energy crisis) then Putin runs the risk of being seen too weak and too passive.

Statements today by both Russia’s deputy prime minister, by the deputy speaker of the Duma, confirm that the impacts of Ukrainian drone attacks have been severe, but are also intended to signal that quick repairs to damaged facilities are being completed, that restrictions on gasoline consumption are being lifted in many of the affected areas, that stockpiled fuel is being released to market to augment supply, in addition to increased imports from India and Kazakhstan. The road between Russia and Crimea known as the Novorossiya Highway, not long ago subjected to Ukrainian attacks with US-made hornet drones, is reported to be close to being back to normal.

Syrskyi has been replaced just at the time when Ukraine is entering into major combat with Russia over the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk conurbation, and this could turn into a huge problem for Ukraine. Indeed, it already is. Russia is gradually approaching the conurbation from the north, the east and the south. It is closing the gap or encircling the pocket of territory still controlled by Ukraine between Kostiantynivksa and Chasiv Yar so that remaining Ukrainian troops will likely be trapped. The city of Druzhkivka to the south of Kramatorsk is being reduced to ruins by bombardment. Russisa is taking the settlements of Malynivka, Vasiutynske and Tykonivka right opposite Kramatorsk to the west, reducing the distance between Russian forces and the Kramatorsk district of Bilenke to a little over two kilometers. Russia is advancing on Mykonorivka, Vasylivska Potosh and Pershomarivka, to similar effect.

To the north, Russia is closing the noose about Bilya Kolodiaz in Kharkiv and will very likely soon be able to slice off a major part of the north east of Kharkiv oblast, expelling UAF forces further south, and will continue to reduce and isolate the cities of Sumy and Kharkiv. In western Zapporizhzha, forces are moving steadily north and northwest to match other deployments in eastern Zapporizhzhia whose trajectory is the encircling and taking of Orikhiv.

Published: July 22, 2026 1 comment

Why Can’t the Russians Defeat Ukraine?

by Larry C. Johnson Published: July 22, 2026

written by Larry C. Johnson 2 Hrs 55 Mins • Watch / read

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Larry C. Johnson

I received the following email and question from a friend, a man with extensive experience in the US defense realm, who is a solid analyst. His question is legitimate and I will attempt to answer it. He wrote:

Dear Larry
I read your interesting message. I am at the hospital so I can is only use my phone. Here is my question. If your numbers are correct then how come the Russians seem to be unable to defeat the Ukrainians? They seem to find it difficult to make much territorial progress and now are under heavy pressure in Crimea. I also think they are having major problems defending critical infrastructure including refineries and ports and thus have serious fuel shortages.
In short the Russians are not effectively converting their superiority in supplies into battlefield results and are having difficulty protecting key assets on their territory.
Would be interested in your comments

What does it mean to defeat the Ukrainians? At the outset of the Special Military Operation, the Russians were not intent on conquering Ukraine. In his televised address broadcast at 5:30 AM Moscow time on February 24, 2022, Putin announced the invasion with these words (from the official Kremlin English translation):

The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.

The operative word was “demilitarise” — in Russian, demilitarizovat’. He described Zelensky’s government of Ukraine as “a gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis who settled in Kyiv and took the entire Ukrainian people hostage.”

He also stated:

Our plans do not include the occupation of Ukrainian territories. We are not going to impose anything on anyone by force.”

Russia committed approximately 150,000–190,000 troops to the initial invasion on February 24, 2022, drawn from essentially its entire available pool of pre-war Battalion Tactical Groups — roughly 100 BTGs out of approximately 120 available.

The initial objective was to create enough military pressure on Ukraine to force it to the negotiating table… That goal was achieved. When Judge Napolitano, Mario Nawfal and I interviewed Foreign Minister Lavrov on March 13, 2024, Mr. Lavrov emphatically stated that the proposed Istanbul Communique was based on a document provided by Ukraine.

The delegations led by Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia and Russian diplomat Vladimir Medinsky met in Istanbul with President Erdogan serving as the mediator. A draft agreement (sometimes called the “Istanbul Communiqué” or draft peace deal) was discussed and the two sides reached a tentative agreement that included Ukrainian neutrality, limits on Ukraine’s military, security guarantees, and the status of Crimea and Donbas. Then the US and the UK intervened and compelled Ukraine to abandon the talks.

At that point the Russian campaign started to change. Russia succeeded in capturing the strategic city of Mariupol after a month of fighting in May 2022 and began its campaign to free Luhansk and Donetsk from Ukrainian control. However, the Kremlin continued to treat this as a Special Military Operation (SMO), which meant a limited, focused operation to take control of Luhansk and Donetsk.

Luhansk Oblast

As of September 1, 2022, Russia controlled approximately 95–98% of Luhansk oblast — effectively the entire region for practical purposes. Russia had claimed full control on July 3, 2022, following the fall of Lysychansk, the last major Ukrainian-held city in the oblast. Some small pockets and villages remained technically contested or unclear, which is why the figure falls short of 100%. Ukraine subsequently recaptured the village of Bilohorivka in late September 2022, confirming that marginal Ukrainian presence had persisted, but this was a minor exception to near-total Russian dominance.

Luhansk oblast is 26,684 km². Before the February 2022 invasion, Russian-backed separatists had controlled approximately 6,800 km² of the oblast since 2014 — roughly 25% — centred on Luhansk city. The remaining 75% was captured during the first five months of the full-scale invasion, with the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk battles (May–July 2022) being the decisive campaign.

Donetsk Oblast

As of September 1, 2022, Russia controlled approximately 55–60% of Donetsk oblast. The Wikipedia article on the annexation, referring to the situation at the time of the September 30, 2022 annexation declaration, states that Russia held about 60% of Donetsk at that point. PBS reporting from June 2022 put the figure at roughly 50%. The trajectory between those two data points — 50% in June, 60% at end of September — places September 1 at approximately 55–58%.

Donetsk oblast is 26,517 km². Of that, Russian-backed separatists had held approximately 8,800 km² — roughly one-third — since 2014, centred on Donetsk city. The 2022 invasion extended Russian control southward through Mariupol (which fell May 20, 2022) and northward through the Sievierodonetsk corridor. At September 1, 2022, the major Ukrainian-held cities in the oblast still included Bakhmut (then under intense attack but still Ukrainian), Avdiivka, Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka, and Zaporizhzhia city — all of which would become the focal points of subsequent fighting.

September proved to be a pivotal month in the Ukraine campaign. Russia held a referendum from September 23 to 27, 2022, across all four occupied oblasts simultaneously — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Putin signed the formal annexation treaties on September 30, 2022.

The claimed results as announced by Russian occupation authorities were:

Kherson: 87.05% in favour

Donetsk: 99.23% in favour of joining Russia

Luhansk: 98.42% in favour

Zaporizhzhia: 93.11% in favour

At the same time, Ukraine launched an offensive that forced the Russians to retreat from the Kharkiv oblast. The Russians were unprepared for this attack and withdrew from the oblast. It was during this period that the Russian General Staff conceded they were short of manpower, a problem exacerbated by the expiration of contracts for thousands of Russian soldiers.

Russia’s pre-war armed forces numbered approximately 900,000 active personnelaccording to the IISS Military Balance 2022. This was the baseline before the full-scale invasion.

One week before the Kharkiv counteroffensive began, on August 25, 2022, Putin signed a decree increasing the authorised strength of the armed forces by 137,000, raising the official ceiling to 1,150,628 servicemen — a direct acknowledgement that the existing force was insufficient. This decree took effect just as Ukrainian forces were massing undetected for the breakthrough.

On September 21, 2022 — nine days after the Kharkiv collapse — Putin signed Presidential Decree No. 647 announcing a partial mobilisation of 300,000 reservists. This was the first compulsory mobilisation in the Russian Federation’s history. It was a direct and explicit response to the losses and overstretch exposed by the counteroffensive. Approximately 315,000 reservists were ultimately called up by the end of 2022.

Despite the mobilization of reservists, Russia did not shift to a war-footing, i.e., a full mobilzation of the Russian nation. The General Staff remained committed to the SMO and concentrated on carrying out a war of attrition with Ukraine, i.e., demilitarize Ukraine, with two specific guidelines: minimize civilian losses and minimize Russian casualties.

As of January 2023, Russia was still fighting with limited forces compared to the size of the Ukrainian Army. Russia’s dominant military campaign of 2023 was the nine-month-long Battle of Bakhmut, which consumed the vast majority of Russian offensive energy from late 2022 through May 2023 and shaped the entire character of the war that year. During this time, Russia continued to expand its Army primarily through a recruitment campaign and a draft.

Russia’s main campaign of 2024 opened with the fall of Avdiivka in February and then expanded into a broad offensive drive toward Pokrovsk that became the most territorially productive Russian year since the initial invasion.

What distinguished 2024 from 2023 was what happened after the major city fell. After Bakhmut in 2023, Russia had essentially stalled — Prigozhin was quarrelling, Wagner was withdrawing, and Ukraine launched its counteroffensive. After Avdiivka in 2024, Russia exploited the momentum with considerably more effectiveness.

Russian forces pushed northwest of Avdiivka in the months following its fall, fighting through Ocheretyne in April 2024, whose fall opened a dangerous gap in Ukrainian lines. On July 18–19, 2024, Russian forces captured Prohres, a village in central Donetsk oblast. The breakthrough — reportedly caused by heavy glide bomb airstrikes that collapsed the Ukrainian 110th and 47th Mechanised Brigades — allowed rapid advances along a previously stable frontline. This became the decisive turning point of the Pokrovsk offensive: Russian forces began advancing toward the critical logistics hub of Pokrovsk at a pace not seen since the war’s opening months.

The tempo was alarming by summer standards. Russia captured villages across central and southern Donetsk at rates of 5–10km per week in the most active sectors. Vuhledar, which had resisted a Russian assault that failed catastrophically in January 2023, fell in October 2024 after Russian forces flanked it from multiple directions rather than assaulting it frontally. By year’s end, Russian forces were on the approaches to Pokrovsk itself.

Russia’s 2025 strategy represented a deliberate evolution from its single-axis focus of 2023 and 2024 toward a multi-front simultaneous pressure approach designed to overwhelm Ukraine’s ability to reinforce any single threatened sector. The year is best understood through its declared objectives, its operational execution across multiple axes, and the structural shift in how Russia was choosing to fight. It is important to emphasize that Russia’s SMO strategy was still intact — i.e., Russia was not mobilizing the country for war, it was continuing to carryout limited operations with the goal of demilitarizing Ukrainian forces without putting the Russian nation on a war footing.

Entering 2026, according to Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi, more than 700,000 Russian soldiers were engaged against Ukrainian forces — a figure Putin has cited similarly. Note the rare convergence there: both Kyiv and Moscow have put the Ukraine grouping at around 700,000, which makes it one of the more reliable numbers in this space. This represents almost a four-fold increase in the number of Russian soldiers committed to the Ukraine battlefront compared to 2022.

So, to answer my friend’s question, Russia continues to treat the war in Ukraine as a SMO. What makes 2026 distinctive from the previous years is that Russia is now conducting major combat operations in Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dniepropetrovsk, Zaporhyzhia and Kherson, and they are doing so without a full mobilization of the Russian nation. The SMO remains the order of the day.

Only two major targets remain in Donetsk before Russia secures its full liberation: Sloviansk and Kramatorsk. Russian forces are currently deploying in a semi-circle around these two remaining bastions and it is just a matter of time before both will be taken. Some estimate that Russia could achieve these objectives as early as September. Other analysts think Russia will finish the task in early 2027.

While Ukraine has enjoyed some success in targeting Russian refineries in the western region of Russia, the Ukrainian strikes pale in comparison to the damage Russia is inflicting on Ukraine’s remaining industrial assets. The US and Israeli attack on Iran, followed by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has been a major economic boon for Russia. Its oil exports continue to increase and the prices paid for that oil are at a 40% premium over what Russia earned prior to the 28 February attack on Iran.

The total strength of the Russian army now stands at 1.5 million soldiers, which means less than half are committed to the fight in Ukraine. Here is the critical difference between Russia and Ukraine: Russia has ample reserves of men and ammunition while Ukraine has no strategic reserve of fresh, equipped formations that could exploit success or backstop a major breach. While the war grinds on at a slow pace in terms of Western assessments, the facts on the ground show that Ukraine has no viable means of stopping the Russian advances. Russia, it appears, is content to inflict massive casualties on Ukraine using its superiority in artillery, drones and FAB-glide bombs. Ukraine’s artillery and drone forces are dwarfed by Russia and Ukraine does not have FAB-glide bombs and the aircraft to deliver them if it did.

The defeat of Ukraine is inevitable. The real question is how much of Ukraine outside of the Donbas, Kherson and Zaporhyzhia will Russia capture?

Nima and I discussed whether the US is preparing to renew attacks on Iranian naval assets in the Strait of Hormuz:

Mario and I chatted about the massive funeral underway in Iran:

Here is my chat with Glenn Diesen from the 4th of July:

(Republished from Sonar21 by permission of author or representative)

Published: July 22, 2026 0 comments

The “Mad King” of the West

by Hua Bin Published: July 22, 2026

written by Hua Bin 21 minutes read

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HUA BIN

The "Mad King" of the West

The West should focus on surviving its own "Mad King" rather than losing sleep over China or Russia

HUA BIN • JULY 15, 2026

(Image from CartoonForPeace @ https://www.cartooningforpeace.org/en/editos/war-in-iran-is-an-agreement-on-the-cards/)

Donald Trump flipped and flopped again.

He announced a 20% fee for all ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, 13^thof July. He withdrew the order on Tuesday, 14^th of July.

The oil market gyrated during the day and some “smart” folks made yet another killing with the oil futures.

By this point, people are already used to such flip-flops. Wall Street coined the term TACO Index, which tracks how market panics force Trump’s policy U-turns.

A few prominent “flip-flops” from his most recent presidency include:

– The global tariff retreat from “Liberation Day” when he announced sweeping tariffs on imports, including duties on Chinese goods over 100%, but altered course merely days later with a 90-day cause.

Trump posted on Truth Social telling the public and investors “BE COOL”, like “what is the fuss about, dummies?”

– The Nvidia chip ban when Trump barred Nvidia from selling H20 GPUs to Chinese buyers, in April 2025, to protect US “technological supremacy”.

By July, he did a 180, lifting the restriction and demanding 15% Nvidia’s Chinese chip revenues instead.

So far, that 15% cut is worth roughly ZERO since China itself banned Nvidia. To protect Chinese “technological independence”.

– Greenland annexation and EU tariff threat. Trump aggressively demanded the annexation or purchase of Greenland from Denmark. When EU resisted, Trump threated a retaliatory 10% tariff on all EU imports.

Then the whole episode sort of dissipated into the 15-minute news cycle and Trump & EU/NATO made up like a pair of honey birds.

– “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again”. Trump’s April genocidal threats, which also include “we are going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong”, was paused in the 11^th hour due to domestic economic warnings and oil spikes.

Soon after, Trump signed the ceasefire MOU, colloquially known as the “New Versailles Treaty”.

In China, there is a millennial old saying – “the Emperor speaks no idle words”(君无戏言).

It doesn’t refer literally to only the emperor’s words, of course. Anyone who wants to be taken seriously is bound by his words. Especially high officials and people in power.

The West, at least in the olden days, also had similar concepts such as “the word of a king is his bond”. More broadly, the “Gentlemen’s words”.

There was even legal concept of “Crown honor” or the “Divine Right of Kings,” which dictated that a monarch’s spoken word was an absolute, immutable decree.

To break a royal promise was to insult God and destroy the state’s credibility.

Of course, the quaint ancient concept has collapsed in modern Western politics.

Monarchs still exist in some parts of Europe, but “constitutional democracy” is the nominal governing principle. The US even pioneered it.

Power belongs to the office, not the person. As is taught in Civics classes.

Modern politicians are bound by a different set of “rules”, implicit and explicit, such as using the media to float extreme ideas – known as “trial balloons”, and “rhetorical hyperbole” – with impunity.

As journalist Salena Zito famously observed, Trump’s supporters take him “seriously but not literally,” while his critics take him “literally but not seriously.”

Because his base does not expect him to treat every word as a binding decree, Trump suffers no political penalty for walking them back.

Defenders also argue that to an ancient king, words were meant to establish order and stability while, to Trump, words are tools used to gain leverage in a “deal”.

Honor is not a concept Trump has ever had a relationship with.

For the “transactional leader”, making an idle or extreme threat is a feature, not a bug.

It shakes up status quo and gives the threat-maker a “position of strength”, in his own mind.

However, such argument completely overlooks the core ethical meaning of the proverb. “No idle words from the emperor” is fundamentally about integrity, trust, and the moral weight of leadership.

It is not just absolute power. When a leader’s words become meaningless or “brain farts”, it breaks the unwritten social contract between the government and the people.

In classical Western political philosophy, this exact concern is raised with the concepts of “Public Virtue” and institutional trust.

Philosophers like John Locke warned that when high officials treat truth as disposable, it triggers a predictable cycle of institutional decay. Enlightenment philosophy views government as a “fiduciary trust”, which is a relationship based entirely on confidence and good faith. A high official’s word is the currency of that trust.

Western political science heavily documents how “idle words” and casual deception from leadership – the “rot from the top” – can cause a cascade of systemic damage:

Erosion of institutional legitimacy: Citizens stop believing official government statistics, intelligence reports, or legal decrees, assuming everything is just a political game.
The “Cynicism Trap”: When lying is normalized at the top, the public becomes profoundly cynical. People stop participating in civic life because they believe the entire system is corrupt.
Strategic disadvantage: When a country’s leader is known to bluff or reverse course constantly, foreign allies and adversaries discard his pronouncements as inherently untrustworthy.

To be fair, Trump is not a student of history or philosophy. He probably thinks John Locke or Thomas Hobbs are some obscure midwestern baseball players.

A very, very imperfect man

(Image from CartoonForPeace @ https://www.cartooningforpeace.org/en/editos/war-in-iran-is-an-agreement-on-the-cards/)

I have long wondered how the American system, supposedly the most “democratic” and “advanced”, could put someone like Trump into the highest office.

IF the highest office is to be taken seriously.

Trump, after all, is the ultimate proverbial village idiot.

Trump is not an unknown quantity. He had been in the public domain for decades before he entered politics.

Biographers and business analysts, even his ghostwriters of the so-called “business best-sellers”, have dissected his tactics, his business deals, and his relationship with truth in numerous investigative reporting and books. Such works include Wayne Barrett’s 1992 Trump: the Greatest Show on Earth, Michael D’Antonio’s 2015 The Truth About Trump, and Donald Trump & Tony Schwartz’ 1987 The Deal and the Myth: Trump – the Art of the Deal. All were published before his ascension to the presidency.

The verdict on Trump is unanimous. Trump is an unethical, manipulative, and impulsive narcissist who views everything in life as a strict “win-lose binary”.

For him, relationships are disposable and dominance is the ultimate goal.

His core business tactics, which clearly have been taken to his political life, rely on a few distinct psychological and strategic maneuvers:

1. The “Door-in-the-Face”

Trump’s opening gambit is always to “think big” by making an absurdly high, shocking, or completely unrealistic initial demand.

By starting with an extreme position, he completely skews the baseline of the negotiation. Even when he walks the demand back, the final compromise sits much closer to what he originally wanted than if he had negotiated reasonably from the start.

At least, that is what Trump and his supporters think. Reality is quite different from the “theory”, depending on who he is dealing with.

Trump has never had any noticeable success in his “door in the face” approach with President Xi or Kim Jong Un.

2. The “Trump Two-Step”

Trump loves manufactured crisis. He would enter a negotiation by hurling intense personal insults, creating artificial urgency, or threatening extreme consequences (like completely walking away or suing) to disorient and intimidate the other side.

Once the counter party panics and scrambles to stabilize the situation, Trump steps back, offers a slight backpedal, and announces a “deal” where he frames himself as the benevolent problem solver.

The Europeans seem to have fallen for this trick repeatedly. Maybe they just know who their master is…

3. Psychological insecurity and need for ego stroking

Biographers have noted a unique vulnerability in his hard-bargaining armor: his deep reliance on public validation and deference.

He will often accept a lesser deal if he is allowed to claim total, absolute victory in front of the cameras.

Supposedly, the leaders of US “allies” are deploying this learning to “manage” Trump, though empirical evidence suggest Trump has turned the table on them.

4. Overwhelming leveraged bluffs

In The Art of the Deal, Trump famously wrote that the worst thing a negotiator can do is to seem desperate, because the opponent will “smell blood.”

Instead, his biographers point out that he heavily overstates his hand to create a false illusion of complete leverage.

Trump actively despises traditional data analysis or hiring “number-crunchers,” preferring to operate entirely from his gut.

He uses intense public posturing, media leaks, and threats of litigation to convince the other side that his position is unshakeable, hiding any flaws in his actual position behind a wall of noise and theater.

His actions during the Iran War are definitive demonstrations of this bluff strategy but the Iranians have not fallen for it. Once they called Trump on the bluffs, he is left with no cards.

5. Total disregard for long-term relationship

Standard business or ethics class teach that successful negotiation preserves long-term value, trust, and future collaboration.

However, Trump’s career was explicitly built on the exact opposite philosophy.

Because he views negotiations purely through a lens of dominance, he has historically had zero issue burning bridges, insulting partners, or failing to fulfill his end of an agreement.

To him, fairness simply means that the dominant player takes the largest cut, period.

With such mentality, there is zero chance of him building lasting relationship with major powers like China and Russia, where the words of their leaders are taken seriously.

Despite the superficial courtesy President Xi and Putin would show to Trump, he is considered privately as beneath contempt. And completely untrustworthy.

Is Trump the Mad King?

Analyzing the psychological state of a political leader—especially one with a highly unconventional style like Donald Trump—is a subject of intense debate among psychologists, political scientists, and biographers.

Unable to diagnose Trump in person, clinicians instead analyze Trump’s public behavior through the lenses of negotiating strategy, personality traits, and decision-making style.

There seems broad consensus of the following –

– “Transactionalist” and “Predictable Unpredictability”

Many view this behavior not as a sign of cognitive instability, but as a deliberate, deeply ingrained behavioral framework rooted in transaction and entertainment.

In this psychological framework, an extreme initial demand (like a 20% toll or a 100% tariff) is not a literal policy goal, but a psychological anchor meant to shock, disorient, and weaken the opponent before a compromise is struck.

Psychologically, Trump appears to find comfort in chaos and unpredictability, viewing consistent policy as a vulnerability that others can exploit.

– High sensitivity to feedback and praise

Trump also suffers acute responsiveness to immediate, external feedback loops.

Metrics like “TACO Index” suggest that Trump’s sense of self-worth and success is heavily tied to visible indicators like the stock market, television ratings, and social media metrics.

When a threat causes a market crash or severe domestic backlash, his desire to be perceived as a “winner” or a savior prompts a rapid pivot to avoid being blamed for the crisis.

– Need for the “Grand Gesture”

His reversals are almost always framed as a victory where he extracts a concession (e.g., “MASSIVE” investment deals from Europe, Japan and the Gulf states).

Psychologically, the specific policy outcome matters less than the public perception that he personally forced a powerful entity to capitulate.

– Low ideological attachment and high intuition

Trump operates primarily on instinct and intuition rather than firm ideological doctrines or long-term strategic plans.

This means he is unburdened by the psychological need for ideological consistency.

If a situation changes, he can abandon a previous position without experiencing cognitive dissonance.

His primary psychological driver is often identified as a desire for dominance.

Initiating a massive threat asserts dominance; reversing it in exchange for a deal allows him to claim the role of the magnanimous dealmaker.

The interpretation of Trump’s behavior ultimately splits into two main camps:

Clearly, Trump’s supporters either don’t understand or care that his behavior erodes any long-term trust and credibility of the Office.

To them, just like himself, instant gratifications outweigh any enduring damage.

The Goldwater Rule was established in 1973 by the American Psychiatric Association that states it is unethical for psychiatrists to offer a professional opinion or diagnosis on a public figure unless they have conducted an in-person examination.

It was a response to speculations about Nixon’s state of mind that led to his impeachment.

Despite the rule, hundreds of independent mental health professionals have publicly warned that Trump displays textbook behavioral symptoms of “malignant narcissism”.

They have broken traditional professional taboos to publicly analyze Trump’s behavior in a “duty to warn”.

In 2017, a group of 27 psychiatrists published a book arguing they had an ethical obligation to warn the public that Trump’s public behavior showed he was “dangerously mentally unstable.”

In 2020, multiple psychologists participated in a documentary titled Unfit explicitly labeling Trump a malignant narcissist, comparing his rhetorical and behavioral patterns to historical authoritarian figures.

In 2024, more than 200 mental health professionals signed a letter that stated Trump displays symptoms of malignant narcissism—a blend of narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, paranoia, and sadism—making him an “existential threat to democracy.”

I’ll leave the readers to judge whether Trump is a “mad king”. To me, he is clearly an unstable, intellectually inferior, and deeply defective individual who will only poison and debase the office he holds.

Why Trump apologists’ “lipstick on a pig” doesn’t work

Those who provide the comforting “Art of the Deal” explanation to Trump’s erratic flip-flops are the ultimate “lipstick on a pig”.

The sophisticated frameworks used by Western political scientists—terms like “trial balloons,” “strategic unpredictability,” and “rhetorical hyperbole”—are, in essence, academic euphemisms.

They describe the mechanics of how a leader survives making contradictory statements, but they do not erase the ethical reality.

They can put lipstick on the pig but cannot remove the stink.

Framing rapid u-turns as “master pragmatism” or “negotiation tactics” rebrands a lack of consistency as a virtue.

It shifts the public expectation from “Is this leader telling the truth?” to “Is this leader winning the current news cycle?”

Ultimately, while these gimmicks allow a leader to navigate short-term crises and maintain a loyal base, they do so at a steep long-term cost. It lowers the bar for the office and the political system.

The inevitable byproduct of treating a high official’s word as disposable is the steady decay of public institutions and a profound collapse in social trust.

The impact goes beyond borders.

US “allies”, including NATO, European Union, Japan, and South Korea, are forced to live with this unpredictable style of “leadership”, found in any Mafia movies.

So far, these “allies” reactions have been a doubling-down of public servitude and fawning flattery.

Their calculation is “if the King is mad and dumb, let’s kneel, flatter him, and hope for the best”, and “he is too dumb to sense the insincerity and maybe we can get some brownie points by capitulating”.

Unfortunately, that is the trap of vassalhood.

From a structural perspective, these nations are trapped by a historic, deep-seated dependency that limits their choices.

Decades of reliance on the US “security umbrella” have left the vassals with a massive gap between their hostile posture towards US “adversaries” and their capabilities to act on such hostilities.

They are similarly dependent on the US market, technology, and the dollar system for the functioning of their economies.

In geopolitics, the weaker partner always accommodates the stronger one.

Vassals swallow their pride and endure erratic policy shifts because the alternative—being completely abandoned by the master—is considered far more catastrophic than being humiliated.

Ultimately, such servility and appeasement serve as a “self-licking ice cream”.

To the vassals, public display of flattery and compliance are used as a “shield”. It provides Trump the public theatre of dominance in exchange of continued freeloading.

However, such subservience only serves to reinforce Trump’s worst instincts in an endless cycle of submission and dominance.

In psychology and political strategy, this is known as a positive feedback loop for aggression.

It also exposes a profound lack of courage, sovereignty, and strategic autonomy among Western elites.

By constantly absorbing insults, abrupt tariff threats, and unpredictable policy U-turns without pushing back, these governments alienate their own citizens and show themselves as laughingstock to the rest of the world.

All can see these Western leaders as mere appendages to a chaotic court in Washington.

Where it ends for “the emperor with the idle words”

When a leader’s words carry no permanent meaning, treating their volatile outbursts as rational negotiation points ceases to be “smart strategy.”

Instead, it becomes a dangerous gamble that actively accelerates the collapse of the international order.

In history, when courtiers, ministers, and foreign states had to deal with an unpredictable, impulsive, or emotionally volatile absolute ruler – the “mad king”, they could not rely on standard diplomacy or legal contracts.

Instead, they developed high-stakes strategies to survive, redirect, or quietly neutralize the ruler’s impulses.

These strategies fall into a few categories:

1. The “Regent Behind the Throne”

The most common historical strategy was to build a protective bureaucratic layer around the king.

The goal was to ensure his erratic decrees never actually left the palace walls. Loyal ministers would nod in agreement to the king’s wildest orders, but then quietly delay, misplace, or rewrite the paperwork.

During the reign of King George III of Britain, who suffered from severe bouts of mental illness, the Parliament and his prime ministers gradually stripped the monarch of actual executive power.

Today’s Washington has entrenched bureaucracies, the “deep state”, which has served as the “Regent behind the throne” since JFK.

However, Trump has successfully surrounded himself with yes-men and sycophants who are nobody without his patronage.

Thus, the institutional “brake system” is largely disabled.

2. Hedging

When foreign nations realized the superpower was ruled by an erratic king, they abandoned bilateral treaties and moved toward absolute self-reliance and collective defense.

In the 5th century BC, the volatile and unpredictable Persian Emperor Xerxes I demanded “earth and water” from the Greek city-states.

Realizing that submitting to his whims offered no real security, rival cities like Athens and Sparta formed a historic, unified military alliance to completely deter and repel him at Marathon and Salamis.

Not that I think today’s Europe is capable of such feat to defend Greenland for example, the point is it has been done historically.

Funny how they resisted a Persian king, but choose to kowtow to an American one.

3. Manipulation by flattery and fake news

Courtiers who survived long periods around volatile rulers learned to treat the king’s psychology as a hazard to be managed, rather than a rational mind to be reasoned with.

They never openly contradicted the ruler, as doing so triggered lethal outbursts. Instead, they used intense public flattery to satisfy the king’s ego, while manipulating the king to do their bidding.

During the reign of Emperor Chongzhen (1627 – 1644), the last ruler of the Ming Dynasty, the emperor became increasingly paranoid and prone to executing close advisors.

His court officials survived by humoring his volatile shifts and feed him only “good news” about the famine and the civil wars raging in the land. They were, obviously, fake news. His dynasty was overthrown and he committed suicide.

In Chinese history, Chongzhen’s tragic legacy serves as the ultimate example of a leader who was intelligent, extremely hardworking, and well-intentioned, yet completely destroyed his empire through personal insecurity, paranoia, and erratic decision-making.

When the emperor ascended the throne at just 16, he inherited a dynasty on the brink of total structural collapse.

Emperor Chongzhen

The court was ruled by notoriously corrupt eunuchs, and the emperor’s reign was cursed by a mini-ice age that caused catastrophic nationwide droughts, famines, and plagues.

He faced existential threats from massive internal peasant rebellions led by Li Zicheng, and external invasions from the rising Manchu forces in the north, who later founded the Qing Dynasty.

Unlike many famously lazy or hedonistic Ming emperors before him, Chongzhen was a workaholic who slept little, lived modestly, and genuinely wanted to save his people.

However, his deep-seated psychological flaws paralyzed his administration.

He fundamentally mistrusted his own ministers and military generals.

Over his 17-year reign, he went through an astonishing 50 Grand Secretaries (大学士), the highest ranked civilian official, and executed or imprisoned dozens of his top commanders, including his most brilliant general, Yuan Chonghuan.

He fell for a simple disinformation campaign by the Manchus who lost every battle against Yuan. The Manchus used Chongzhen’s paranoia to remove his own most important protector.

By 1644, the rebel leader Li Zicheng marched his army straight to the gates of Beijing.

Trapped inside the Forbidden City, Chongzhen rang the imperial bells to summon his ministers and generals to a final defense meeting.

Not a single official showed up; they had all either fled the city or prepared to defect.

Realizing all was lost, Chongzhen forced his empress to commit suicide and slashed his own daughters with a sword to save them from being captured by rebels.

He then walked out of the palace to Jingshan Hill (Coal Hill) and hanged himself from a tree at the age of 33.

Before he died, Chongzhen bit his finger and wrote a famous, bitter suicide note on his silk robe with his own blood, which perfectly captured his refusal to accept personal accountability:

“I, a person of meager virtue, have incurred the wrath of Heaven… All of my ministers have deceived me. I die unable to face my ancestors in the underworld… May the rebels chop my corpse into pieces, but do not harm a single one of my citizens.”

4. Palace coups and forced abdication

When a king’s erratic behavior crosses the line from a nuisance to an existential threat to the state’s survival, the ruling elite, the military, or the king’s own family sometimes step in to permanently remove him.

In 1762, the erratic Tsar Peter III of Russia alienated his military, his church, and his allies by suddenly reversing Russia’s foreign policy mid-war to favor Prussia.

Realizing his unpredictable whims were destroying the empire, his own wife, Catherine the Great, led a swift palace coup with the military.

Peter was forced to abdicate and was quietly neutralized.

The drama of the Roman Empire, the first Western empire, provides some of the best examples of surviving tyrants like Caligula or Nero, who were highly impulsive, erratic, and deeply suspicious of the political elite.

Roman historians like Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio documented the history in classic works such as The Annals and the History, Twelve Caesars, and The Roman History.

Given the length of the essay, we won’t go into them. The point is the Western annals are filled with examples of how to survive “mad kings”.

The lesson is simple – Rome didn’t fall to its enemies; it rotted from within.

The question for the West today is what it would do with the reigning Mad King.

(Republished from Substack by permission of author or representative)

Published: July 22, 2026 0 comments

The Trump Caesarship

by Paul Craig Roberts Published: July 17, 2026

written by Paul Craig Roberts 6 minutes read

Be sure to share these materials with friends, kin, and workmates.

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
THE UNZ REVIEW

Trump has a disapproval rating of 61%, which indicates that many MAGA Americans have turned against him. Trump brought this rejection of his presidency on himself by renewing America’s 21st century fight for the Zionist agenda of Greater Israel–from the Nile to Pakistan.

The millions of displaced persons from Washington’s 21st century wars for Greater Israel resulting in the destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Palestine are changing the politics of Europe and America where these displaced persons have taken root and are entering politics and media.

O Yea—Bosom Buddies till death. Bad theater. These criminals are not fooling thinking people. Unfortunately, their type remains a negligible minority in a nation ruled by propaganda and induced imbecility.

Yesterday on July 16, the Washington Post reported that more than 100 House Democrats voted to cut off military aid to Israel for fiscal year 2027. That would mean a lack of US dollars for Israel to use to repurchase, as it annually does, the US Government with political campaign donations by which Israel uses our money to buy our government. The vote indicates that Israel’s rule of the United States is running into difficulties. The pressure is on the Israel-worshipping Republicans, bought and paid for with AIPAC political campaign contributions provided by Washington’s annual payments to Israel, to pass AIPAC’s bill that criminalizes any criticism of Israel, including the implied criticism of non-support of Israel. The Israel Lobby is desperate to create law that would lead to the arrest of Democrat elected officials who do not support Israel’s agendas and crimes. The Republicans have shown their determination to sacrifice American interests, money, lives, and the First Amendment for Israel.

By renewing at Netanyahu’s insistence Washington’s war against opponents to Great Israel–principally Iran and the southern Lebanon militia Hezbollah, Trump is further endangering his administration. For example, when was the last time you saw anyone wearing a MAGA hat?

For years I have pointed out, to no avail, that the failure of American democracy was turning the head of the executive branch into a Caesar, as happened in Rome. When democracy fails, as the American one has, a Caesar becomes necessary.

Trump is already adopting the posture of a Caesar. Rome under the Caesars had their portraits on the coinage. Trump has adopted this sign of Caesarship. The US Mint is to produce a one dollar coin with Trump’s image.

The Roman Caesars ruled by force, by violence, and this is Trump’s approach. In his latest outburst, Trump claimed that everything in Iran, not just the oil, belongs to America. He has annexed Venezuela’s oil and government. He claims Greenland which is part of Denmark a US and NATO ally. He claims Cuba, and perhaps Canada and Mexico.

For a person of my generation, which is rapidly dying out, these are incomprehensible claims. This is nothing we have ever previously seen. And the youth know no better. It is what they are born into. To them it is normal.

As the rising generations see this as normal, what is there to stop it?

The Republican Party is not an American party. It is an Israeli Party: https://reason.com/2026/07/16/thomas-massie-sparks-a-democratic-civil-war-over-israel/?

As the rising generations see this as normal, what is there to stop it?

The Republican Party is not an American party. It is an Israeli Party: https://reason.com/2026/07/16/thomas-massie-sparks-a-democratic-civil-war-over-israel/?

Published: July 17, 2026 0 comments