Are Those the Drumbeats of War or the Hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Russia, Europe and the US Intensify their War Cries
The last couple of days sounded like Crimea River all along the western front of Russia as we were bombarded with wartime news. In short, Secretary of War Hegseth (as he now prefers to be called) has ordered an urgent and extremely rare, if not unique, meeting of all US generals and admirals. The first thing an exceptional meeting like this calls to mind for me is Pearl Harbor. Bringing most of the Pacific fleet into a single harbor presented a huge and tantalizing target for the Japanese. So much so that, to this day, many people go along with conspiracy theories that say it had to be intentional in order to draw Japan into war with the US because you just cannot be dumb enough to create such a target on accident.
That’s what this looks like—call all the top US military leaders from around the world back to the US to meet physically in a single building? Why would you ever do that? What could be a bigger incentive as a target than the hope of completely decapitating the US military? That says to me, as Pearl Harbor still says to many, there either must be an intentional and urgent call to war about to go out, so Hegseth is rallying the generals in spite of the security risk it creates, or Hegseth, who has always sought to stoke his military/warrior prowess, just wants a really big meeting of all “his generals,” as Trump would say; and he doesn’t care what risk he creates in order to feel the power and importance of having all his generals gathered round. (Or Trump asked Hegseth to call a meeting on the president’s behalf with all “his” generals.)
The White House has not announced anything urgent and seemed to deny it, but the way the meeting is calling top brass deployed in critical places back home certainly has “urgent” written all over it—or foolhardy showmanship. When you couple this appearance of top-level urgency with news I ran in The Daily Doom yesterday about truckloads of no-climb fencing arriving at the White House, it seems all the more like something big is going down or that the US wants it to look like something big is about happen, perhaps to intimidate Putin into negotiating with Ukraine. No-climb fencing is the ugly stuff Trump wouldn’t want around the White House, except in times of grave security concerns about high levels of social unrest or high levels of terrorist threats.
Vice President Vance only says that it is odd the media seems so curious about all of this. There is nothing to see here, Folks. Obviously, if you want to create a believable pretense that something big is happening, you play it down, not up. You do things that look like they might be big but keep saying it is nothing so it looks like you’re covering something up. Then you let people leap to their own conclusions because they are much more willing to believe wholeheartedly in their own conclusions.
On the other hand, if you really are planning something big that requires an extraordinary meeting of all the top military brass and heightened security barriers (maybe to help protect the gathered brass?), you are not going to say what it is in that case either. Militaries often do decoy operations; but if you feed all of this into the events of the past 48 hours, it starts to take on an even more defined shape:
President Trump just announced that he thinks Europe should shoot down any more Russian planes that cross into its air space, and Poland has already told Russia through official channels that it WILL do exactly that. Russia responded by saying that NATO and the EU are now “at war” with Russia. That is practically as much as a declaration of war by Russia. It, at least, says that, if any Russian planes over European air space are shot down, Russia will take that as a definitive act of war; so, NATO will be in a state of war with Russia. Europe readily applauded Trump’s approval of shooting down Russian planes if they cross into NATO airspace, while Zelensky, it is reported, stood in awe with dropped jaw when he heard the president’s go-ahead for dropping Russian planes that cross into European air space.
During this same time, the US Navy conducted a 7,500 mile-long nuclear-weapon test to show off the range of its latest and greatest nuclear B-21 bombers. Within that same timeframe, Russia pulled its familiar trick of flying along the edge of US airspace in Alaska as an apparent taunt to Trump for saying Europe should shoot down any Russian planes that cross into its airspace.
Russia is also becoming economically desperate, outright admitting today that, as a result of Ukraine’s many attacks on its refineries, it is now facing a critical shortage of fuel. That’s not something the oil giant has ever admitted before or that a nation in war ever admits and not a weakness oil-giant Russia would ever want to admit, but Russian people who are going without fuel need an answer as to why. A desperate Russia is more likely to be highly reactive and intense.
The source for many of these stories is not one that I find highly credible, but they all come together almost seamlessly with the mainstream stories to where the sudden emergence of major patterns bears noting. I hope to dig more deeply into this during the weekend in a Deeper Dive for my paying subscribers, but my increased workload at my regular employment this past week, plus the arrival of an out-of-state house guest on Thursday for the full weekend leaves me short on time (as a one-man operation); so, we’ll see what I can do for a Deeper Dive. No promises, but I’ll try to find time to dig more into the details of these stories as well as anything new that emerges. Paying subscribers will be the first to know what their future might hold in the theaters of world war.
Wars & Rumors of War, Revolts, Hacks & Cyberattacks + AI threats
Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals
Russia declares NATO and EU are now ‘at war’ with Moscow in chilling escalation
Europe’s chilling response to Trump’s calls to shoot down Russian jets invading airspace
Kremlin threatens war if NATO shoots down Russian fighter jets
Russian warplanes fly near US airspace after Trump’s ‘shoot them down’ comment re: Europe
Vladimir Putin facing economic ‘hell’ as Ukraine ramp up drone strikes
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Netanyahu tells UN war will continue amid widening global backlash
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Trump Trade Wars & Turf Wars
Farmers Still Struggling under Trump Tariffs 1.0 Set for Another Govt Rescue
Political Pandemonium & Social Senescence (socio-political issues & events)
Trump administration rehires hundreds of federal employees laid off by DOGE
ICE arrested firefighter -- while fighting fire!
U.S. Threatens to Bar Foreigners Over Remarks About Charlie Kirk
Ex-FBI Director James Comey indicted after Trump pushes for prosecution of longtime foe
Keir Starmer’s ID card backlash grows as over 1m in UK sign petition in 24 hours
Doomer Humor
The other possibility is that Hegseth is about to roll a massive amount of heads in the military’s top brass. He has stated that the military is “too top-heavy,” and has complained about noncompliance or malicious compliance with his orders — for example, queers being promoted in rank after he ordered all LGBTs to be discharged. And frankly, there are far too many career officers trying to sabotage President Trump’s agenda, either overtly or covertly. We may wind up with 25% fewer top brass on Wednesday than there were on Tuesday. (Or, if North Korea nukes the meeting, we may have 100% fewer top brass the next day.)
if we could only get all of the politicians to join this meeting