Foreign Policy Observer

01/13/2026

Larry Johnson:

Multiple reports from OSINT sources, flight trackers (e.g., FlightRadar24), and media outlets (including Israeli, European, and international sources) describe dozens of heavy transport aircraft (C-17s and C-5s) departing from US bases, the UK (e.g., RAF Mildenhall), and Germany, heading eastward to Persian Gulf hubs. This activity ramped up notably in early January 2026, with ongoing reports of C-17s, C-5s, and related support aircraft (including tankers like KC-135 and KC-46) en route.

The movements are most likely preparations for an attack on Iran (e.g., protests, air defense boosts), and analysts note similarities to prior buildups. No exact daily or total count is publicly confirmed by the Pentagon, but the scale is described as a “major redeployment” or “heavy airlift,” often in the range of dozens (20–50+ individual aircraft movements, though some may be round-trips or rotations).

US Cargo Planes Have Flooded the Persian Gulf Since the First of December 13 January 2026 by Larry C. Johnson 139 Comments In December 2025 and January 2026 (through early/mid-January), open-source intelligence (OSINT) and flight-tracking data indicate a significant surge in US military transport ai...

01/13/2026

Andrew Korybko:

The trend connecting the three aforementioned takeaways is that the US is militantly reasserting its historical “sphere of influence” over the Americas, and this is so important for Trump 2.0 that it’s willing to rubbish the “rules-based order” over it and even risk an accidental war with Russia.

The overarching trend is that the US is militarily reasserting its historical “sphere of influence” over the Americas, and enforcing the maritime component of “Fortress America” is so important for Trump 2.0 that it’s willing to rubbish the “rules-based order” over it and even risk an ...

01/12/2026

Reza Pahlavi, the 65-year-old exiled crown prince and son of the late Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, has re-emerged as a leading figure in the various Iranian opposition movements.

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/10/nx-s1-5673238/reza-pahlavi-iran-protests?

In exile for nearly 50 years, Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has issued calls urging Iranians to join protests sweeping the country. But support for him may not be clear cut.

01/12/2026

Alastair Crooke:

The Rubicon crossed – Team Trump’s nihilistic anti-values paradigm

So, finally an act of unvarnished predatory action by Trump and his team – the abduction of President Maduro in a lightning night-time military strike – has launched 2026 into a pivotal moment. A pivotal moment not just for Latin America, but for global politics.

The ‘Venezuela method’ is aligned with Trump’s ‘business first’ approach which is rooted in constructing a ‘financial reward system’, whereby diverse stakeholders to a conflict are offered financial benefits that permit the U.S. to (ostensibly) achieve its own objectives, whilst locals continue to extract rewards from the exploitation of (in this case) Venezuelan resources – under U.S. close supervision.

In this template, the U.S. does not need to create a new governing régime from scratch, nor put ‘boots on the ground’ – for Venezuela, the plan is that the existing government of the newly-sworn in President, Delcy Rodriguez, will remain in control of the country – so long as she follows Trump’s wishes. Should she or any of her ministers fail to follow that blueprint, they will receive the ‘Maduro treatment’, or worse. Reportedly, the U.S. has already threatened Venezuela’s Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, that he will be targeted by Washington unless he helps President Rodriguez meet U.S. demands.

Put another way, the plan comes down to a single underpinning premise that the only thing that matters is the money.

In this context, the U.S. approach to Venezuela resembles that of a Vulture Hedge Fund ‘buy-out’: Remove the CEO and co-opt the existing management team with money to run the company to new dictates. In Venezuela’s case, Trump likely hopes that Rodriguez (who has been ‘talking’ with Secretary Rubio via the Qatari royal family, and who is also the Minister responsible for the oil industry) has squared off all the factions that compose the Venezuelan power structure to accept the relinquishment of state sovereign resources to Trump.

What is so pivotal here is the shedding of all pretence: The U.S. is in a debt crisis and wishes to seize – for exclusive U.S. use – Venezuelan oil. Submission to Trump’s demand is the only variable that matters. All masks are off. A Rubicon has been crossed.

“Venezuela will be turning over 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil to the United States of America, sold at market price with the money controlled by me”, Trump has written on Truth Social.

The erasure of the American ‘project’ – the substituting of self-interested hard power for the American narrative of it being ‘a light to all nations’ – constitutes a revolutionary change. Myths and their supporting moral stories provide the meaning to any nation. Without a moral framework, what will hold America together? Ayn Rand’s celebrated belief that rational selfishness was the ultimate expression of human nature cannot reconstitute social order.

The western Enlightenment has turned on its own values – and has destroyed itself. The ramifications will ripple throughout the world.

Aurelian writes:

“It was Nietzsche, purveyor of uncomfortable truths, who pointed out that the ‘Death of God’, and the consequent lack of any agreed system of ethics would lead to a world without meaning or purpose, because all values are baseless, all action is pointless, all outcomes are morally equivalent and no objectives are therefore worth pursuing …”.

In his book Will to Power, Nietzsche’s thesis was that the end of all values and meaning would imply the end too, of the very concept of Truth, and would reveal the impotence of mechanical western Reason. Collectively, this would amount to “the most destructive force in history”, and would produce “catastrophe”. Writing in 1888, he predicted this would happen over the next two centuries.

Nietzsche was saying that when you cross that Rubicon, it is no small matter. The West would then lose the internal architecture that makes Moral life possible, both internally, and as an actor on the global stage. A state that loses its internal architecture becomes merely a mobster threatening anyone who will not accede to its predations and give it the money on which it has set its eyes.

It is far too early to say how events in Venezuela will turn out, but what can be discerned is that Caracas is collectively strategizing about how to manage an aggressive U.S. within the context of rising popular nationalism at home. Nor can we predict how Team Tump’s wider ambitions to hollow out the South American regional fabric (Cuba in particular) will fare. Equally, it is too early to judge whether Trump’s plan to ‘acquire’ Greenland may succeed.

What can be said nonetheless is that the existing calculus across the globe is upended by the shift to a nihilistic anti-values paradigm.

The world now is governed by strength, by force and power. “We have power”, (Team Trump is proclaiming), so we set the terms on the ground. Russia, China, Iran and others will understand that international niceties should be discarded. It is time to be resolute and utterly hard-nosed, for risk is no longer thought through and critical thinking is absent. Risk abounds.

Coercion breeds the search in others for more effective deterrence – in whatever form – and the merits to any diplomatic engagement will be carefully reviewed. How to trust the U.S.? Can the U.S. be convinced to revert to the politics of classical negotiation? Such a claim now will invite a heavy dose of scepticism.

How to protect oneself? Every leader is quietly doing the calculation. None less so than the Europeans.

Back in 2022 when Russia’s Special Operation in Ukraine began, western leaders were very aware of both their democratic ‘gap’ and lack of moral authority. The Special Operation in Ukraine however, seemed to give them a flag around which to gather their divergent constituent nations. They chose to reach for the Manichaeism that President Biden was embracing in respect to President Putin. It was good versus evil. Many Europeans were drawn to it; it seemed to fill a hole in EU legitimacy.

But today, Trump has ripped away that moral pose. Through the excitement of promoting Ukraine as a symbol for Europe taking the stage as a moral actor, as a consequence the EU at least rhetorically has been edging towards catastrophic war with Russia through a catalogue of misjudgments about the nature of the military conflict – and its causes. The EU leadership has bet the Union on inflicting a humiliating defeat on Putin; but has no answer to the present impasse beyond building castles-in-the-sky multi-point proposals that it hopes to persuade Trump to somehow impose on Moscow.

Instead Trump warns Europe rather that it anyway faces “civilisational erasure” and says that he is considering using military force against Denmark to acquire Greenland. Europe is left naked … and pretending to have moral agency.

Finally, how will this American shift to zero-sum nihilism impact within the U.S.? The MAGA base already has been fractured by Trump’s increasingly open partiality towards Israel – placing Israel First ahead of America First – and now by Jewish billionaires insisting that any criticism of Israel be digitally suppressed.

The images out of Gaza of dead women and children have galvanised many young Americans under 40 years old. Gaza has proved to be the example of an amoral power-politics so extreme that it has radicalised a younger generation that increasingly was leaning toward an uncompromising Christianity.

This was particularly true of the key constituency, Turning Point USA. A big part of the MAGA win in 2024 was due to this youth movement with thousands of chapters, Christian values and high energy. Turning Point USA potentially still offers the prospect for a formidable ‘Get Out the Vote’ operation.

But what many Republicans ignore is that their voter base is roughly one third of the electorate who turn out to vote, and therefore for Trump to win, he will need to persuade at least half of the ‘Independent third of the country’ to vote Trump. Polling shows his approval rating currently standing at -10.

A small group of GOP party officers in combination with powerful established politicians and billionaire donors seek to limit MAGA’s reach over the Republican Party. Just as they crushed the earlier Republican Tea Party movement that rose in 2010, the party apparatchiks want MAGA brought back under full Party control and to accept leadership instructions on who can stand as GOP lead candidates going into the 2026 midterm elections – and beyond into 2028.

In 2016, the agenda of the ‘Sea Island’ cabal of uniparty leaders and donors was focussed on preserving the business model of DC politics from the ‘wild card’ represented by Trump. Today, this extended group aims to fracture the MAGA base that has come to underpin the GOP, in order that they may continue their practice of purchasing all ‘horses (candidates) in the race’. The object being to provide a semblance of choice, whilst limiting that ‘choice’ to two lead candidates acceptable to both wings (Democrat and Republican) of the Uniparty command.

The problem here is that when the rulers become self-absorbed and without scruple, the amorality doesn’t remain contained at the top. It cascades down party structures. And when the moral pose is openly and exultantly flaunted as sham – as Team Trump is doing – then young Christians who take themselves seriously become rebellious. They are silent no more. They understand the nature of the game being played against them.

Will they ultimately comply with the party apparatchiks? That is a good question. The future course of America, to a large extent, hangs on the answer.

01/12/2026

Moon of Alabama:

Just two days ago I opined that the riots in Iran would lead nowhere.

I especially pointed out that the U.S. had delivered Starlink satellite terminals to organizers of the riots – 40,000 of them is a rumored number – but that the Iranian government had acquired the means to detect them and to shut down their traffic.

Just a day later Forbes reports that the government did indeed used its new tools.

The Iranian government did not bother to track down single terminals but used the new Russian and Chinese equipment to shut down all Starlink traffic in Iran. Packet loss rates of 90% have made the connections unusable.

Today pro-government marches are held in all major cities of Iran. They are much bigger than anything the opposition could ever assemble. The Iranian system has again demonstrated that it is astonishingly stable. Not one official has changed side.

The riots are, for now, over. The streets tonight will likely be quiet. During the next weeks the riot leaders and instigators will be tracked down and punished

I especially pointed out that the U.S. had delivered Starlink satellite terminals to organizers of the riots – 40,000 of them is a rumored number – but that the Iranian government had acquired the means to detect them and to shut down their traffic.

01/11/2026

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/11/trump-wants-to-help-iranian-protesters-but-his-advice-is-conflicted

Observers say if US gets response wrong to Tehran’s repression it could end up entrenching regime’s ​position

01/11/2026

Moon of Alabama:

[T]he real hurt came with a medium-sized drone and missile strike on Kiev. At least three combined-thermal-electric facilities were taken out. These used to provide water, heating and electricity to the blocks of Soviet era high rises that cover much of Kiev. These strikes, as the Russian Ministry of Defense empathizes in its reports, are in retaliation for strikes on Russian infrastructure facilities. Russia at a time, offered a ceasefire on infrastructure strikes. Ukraine did not keep to it.

Now nearly half of Kiev’s high-rise apartments have lost water, heating and electricity supplies. This while the temperature has gone down to minus 20° Celsius at night. Municipal workers have started to drain (in Russian) all water from intra-house systems. Otherwise the risers and pipes would freeze and break open. But it also means that water and heat supplies will not come back to those high-rises until the temperatures are back in a positive Celsius range.

The buildings have thus become unlivable. Hundreds of thousands if not millions will have to live elsewhere.

…

During the war the parts of the Ukrainian population that were not directly involved in fighting seemed to have little interest in what was happening. There was still a lot of nightlife in Kiev, all goods were available and even the few short interruptions of electricity were not much to bother with.

This will now change. Electricity is off for most of the time. Shops are closing because running business on generators is unprofitable. Local public transport is mostly down. Longer range tail transport is interrupted. Apartments are unlivable. The consequences of the war have become personal.

This will change the mood even of those who want to prolong the war. The numbers of those willing to accept the loss of territory in exchange for peace will rise.

And no, I do not mean last nights Oreshnik strike on the large gas storage facility in west Ukraine. The seismic impulse from that strike likely damaged the geological structure that allowed the gas to be stored in caverns. It can now escape and has been seen burning. Those were the Ukrainian reserv...

01/11/2026

The UK and France have signed a declaration of intent on deploying troops in Ukraine if a peace deal is made with Russia, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced.

Russia has repeatedly warned that any foreign troops in Ukraine would be a "legitimate target".

The announcement was made by UK PM Sir Keir Starmer after a meeting of Ukraine's allies in Paris.

01/11/2026

Simplicius:

It has happened for only the second time of the war: the Russian Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile dubbed the Oreshnik was launched from the Kapustin Yar range toward Lvov, again providing the world with an eerie spectacle.

It is being reported that Europe’s largest underground gas storage facility was hit.

The timing obviously suggests that this is a “retaliation” attack meant to send a strong message to the West. Retaliation for what, precisely? Likely for several of the recent provocations and escalations together: the attempted drone attack on Putin’s dacha, the US seizure of an allegedly-‘Russian’ oil tanker, and don’t forget—the European summit’s signing of commitments to deploy both troops and military bases on Ukrainian soil in the event of a ceasefire. Russia had just warned they would become legitimate targets, and a strategically placed Oreshnik strike in western Ukraine could certainly be construed as a message for that:

However, there is one counter-argument, which is that this could simply be part of Russia’s systematic campaign to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and Oreshnik just happens to be the most effective weapon for that particular site, which no other weapon could potentially destroy.

The reason is, Lvov is out of range of Iskanders and Geran drones and Kaliber missiles do not have the penetrative ‘bunker-buster’ capabilities to pierce deep underground storage sites. The Oreshnik—by virtue of its Mach ~10+ kinetic inertia—just happens to be the only weapon capable of penetrating a deep underground site at that long range of a distance in western Ukraine, at least theoretically speaking.

It has happened for only the second time of the war: the Russian Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile dubbed the Oreshnik was launched from the Kapustin Yar range toward Lvov, again providing the world with an eerie spectacle:

01/11/2026

01/08/2026

Pepe Escobar: Barbaria strikes again

The Raging Twenties started with a murder: Gen. Soleimani, Baghdad, January 3, 2020. Ordered by Trump 1.0.

The second part of the Raging Twenties starts with a bombing/kidnapping. Mini-Shock’n Awe on Caracas, Delta Force raid. January 3, 2026. Ordered by Trump 2.0.

Raging Donald Trump said he will run Venezuela.

This trashy neo-Caligula, self-proclaimed Emperor of Barbaria, in the end may not run anything, starting with his own motormouth.

The Venezuela op unrolled via a classic imperial playbook. Murderous sanctions for years blocking trade and capital movement, causing hyperinflation and an out-of-control humanitarian crisis. The target: to cause so much suffering to Venezuelans that a military coup would be inevitable.

The Venezuela kidnapping of a President in his bedroom deep into the night unrolled via a classic CIA playbook. They managed to bribe the head of Maduro’s security detail and his close circle, but not (italics mine) the Venezuelan military.

Maduro was protected only by Venezuelan forces, not Russians, as confirmed by independent Caracas sources. When a Russian command got to Maduro’s residence, at first they met resistance by some of Maduro’s own corrupt security.

When they were neutralized and the Russians got inside the residence, Maduro had already been extracted by the Delta Force, with key internal help. The chief of Maduro’s security detail was then apprehended – and duly executed.

The day after the kidnapping, Venezuelan soldiers revealed how Delta Force wanted to establish a beachhead at one of their units in Caracas as an operational base for a Bay of Pigs-style ground invasion. But in the words of a soldier, “We fought, we opened fire, and we forced the helicopter to leave without taking the military unit.”

The Venezuelan Defense Ministry then stated that most of Maduro’s security detail was actually killed during the operation, not specifying by whom. And Cuba announced the deaths of 32 of its fighters – certainly not among those in the compromised security detail.

The Chavista government remains in power – led by the formidable Delcy Rodriguez, constitutionally appointed as interim President. No Fifth Columnists inside the government have been unmasked so far.

An article on the propaganda rag Miami Herald, using as the single source a dodgy former vice-President of Colombia, Santos Calderon, and no evidence whatsoever from Venezuela, spread the fiction that Delcy Rodriguez made a pact with Trump 2.0 to hand Maduro over.

It took less than 48 hours for the bombastic Caligula White House narrative to start falling apart. Investigative journalist Diego Sequera, on the ground in Venezuela, has already largely debunked the tsunami of nonsense drowning mainstream and social media.

Additionally, forget about 28 million Venezuelans cheering a loudmouth neo-Caligula gr**go as “liberator”. He’s now forced to issue personal threats against Delcy Rodriguez and – what else is new – promise that the Empire of Chaos may bomb Venezuela again.

The Donroe Doctrine, decoded

Let’s cut to the chase. Apart from the notorious “largest oil reserves on the planet”, essential for an Empire in financial trouble to build collateral, there are several main rasons for the Venezuela hit.

1. Bellum Judaica. Apart from developing close relations with BRICS members Russia, China and Iran, Caracas unmistakably sided with Palestine and called out the Zionist plague. So in one swoop, we have not only the practical application of the “corollary to the Monroe Doctrine”, explicit in the new National Security Strategy, but most of all the “Donroe Doctrine” deployed as the “Zionroe Doctrine” by a Zionist court jester, who happens to be the neo-Caligula.

What better way to teach yet another lesson to the whole Global South on the limitless Pax Judaica – actually Bellum Judaica, because they are now on non-stop Forever War mode against all “amalek”: and everybody not genuflecting in their altar may be branded “amalek”. It’s no wonder Delcy Rodriguez went straight to the point, qualifying in her first speech the “Zionist tinge” of neo-Caligula’s kidnapping operation.

2. Heavy metal thunder. Only less than 24 hours after the bombing/mini-Shock’n Awe/kidnapping, and for a mere $8 billion, Washington wrapped up a massive smelter deal to process no less than $1 trillion of Venezuelan precious metals.

The deal was financed by J.P.Morgan – which happens to be in big trouble because of the their massive physical silver short position. The beauty is that Venezuela happens to be smack in the middle of the Arco Minero (“The Mineral Arc”) which concentrates untold trillions in still unmined gold and silver.

3. The petrodollar angle. The heart of the matter is not Venezuela’s humongous – untapped – oil reserves per se, complete with neo-Caligula salivation. The key is petrodollar-denominated oil. Printing endless – intrinsically worthless – green toilet paper to finance the industrial-military complex implies the US dollar as the global reserve currency, petrodollar included.

The Empire of Plunder simply could not allow Venezuela’s oil to be sold in yuan, ruble, rupee or a basket of currencies, or in the near future, a BRICS-sanctioned mechanism backed by oil and gold. Red alert was already on as Venezuela integrated into China’s CIPS cross-border payment system.

Then, on the oil front, there’s the matter of stealing Venezuelan oil from Citgo – the Hudson-based subsidiary of PDVSA – to profit Zionist billionaire Paul Singer and his hedge fund, Elliot Investment Management. A “proud Zionist” and AIPAC board member, Robert Pincus, was court-appointed to facilitate the scam, derived from Citgo owing over $20 billion to creditors: another toxic effect of years of sanctions.

Additionally, and contrary to neo-Caligula’s fiction that “this is our oil”, Venezuelan historian Miguel Tinker Salas conclusively proved how the country nationalized the oil industry in 1976: “It was controlled by Venezuelans. It was run by Venezuelans”. Foreign companies, including ExxonMobil’s “most profitable subsidiary” were fully compensated, “much above and beyond what they had already extracted”.

Then there’s the crucial Chinese angle.

There has been a tsunami of splendidly stupid speculation that China did not do anything to “save” Venezuela. China is way too sophisticated to engage in brawls. Beijing will fight the Empire of Chaos in court.

Silently, with no fanfarre, Beijing has made it very clear that any American attack on Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects sealed by contract around the Global South – 150 participating nations at least – will be met with international arbitration in every court from Caracas to Jakarta. Translation – in the only way Western barbarians understand: the legal cost of American regime change operations will become prohibitive.

A test may be coming pretty soon. Assuming neo-Caligula “runs” Venezuela – and that’s a major “if” – all that Beijing needs is to successfully enforce a single contract claim against a Trump-run Venezuela. Let’s see whether neo-Caligula would have the balls to stop Venezuelan oil being sold to China. Good luck on imposing regime change after that.

My Might is Right

Still, neo-Caligula won’t stop – mimicking his motormouth. The Empire of Chaos under the Donroe Doctrine is about strategic dominance, at all costs, over energy and trade corridors. There’s no way neo-Caligula can be forced to cease and desist about Venezuela’s oil. Because that will be the supreme strategic precedent of the new paradigm: My Might is Right rules the new international disorder based on no rules whatsoever.

So whatever happens next in Venezuela directly concerns the whole Global South/Global Majority.

At least now things are crystal clear. International law is for suckers. We search and destroy, bomb, kidnap, whatever – because we can. There are no limits for the Barbaria/ Bellum Judaica combo.

What’s next?

Iran. The war criminal in Tel Aviv has already issued the Bellum Judaica orders. Even if the only “war” Trump 2.0 and his Secretary of Forever Wars can conduct amounts to a bunch of Special Forces trying to get a “beachhead” and indiscriminately hurling loads of stand-off weapons. Washington is woefully incapable of launching a large-scale combined arms operation anywhere.

Greenland. Not for “defense reasons”, as neo-Caligula boasted, but for plunder of natural resources in imperial lebensraum mode and War for the Arctic reasons. Trump has given puny Denmark just enough time to digest it: “We will worry about Greenland in two months.”

Then there’s Cuba – the pet project of gusano Marco Rubio, who in his shady past was quite close to narco-terrorist elites.

Several extra nodes of the Global South – Colombia, Mexico. And if they don’t “behave”, several nodes of BRICS. It’s now Totalen Krieg. And the Empire of Chaos/Bellum Judaica combo “will be watching it like a TV show”. The Global South better get their act together – fast.

01/08/2026

Simplicius:

It’s simply remarkable how the US has pulled back the outer fairytale facade fashioned through years of PNAC-style neocon mental contortions and thinly-veiled justifications for the various empire-building wars and endless bombing campaigns, and has just gone full commando: no more excuses or phony layer-caked rationalizations—we are simply taking the oil because we want it, and are entitled to it, it’s as cut-and-dry as that! If only Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were here to witness the beauty of such simplicity!

…

In fact, Hegseth even dished the details about how Maduro only had three minutes to run after his wife informed him she had heard the sound of aircraft approaching. This clearly points to betrayal of Maduro on behalf of his military apparatus, given that he had no forewarning from the chain of command, who would have long detected combat aircraft approaching, or at least the explosions which had already been going off from the various attacks the American task force was raining down all over the country. If true, the fact that Maduro had to rely on his wife’s ears tells us everything we need to know about his planned isolation and informational blackout.

What do you know?