Governments that want to send young people to die in distant countries have always faced the same problem: the arithmetic of the transaction is unfavorable. You are asking a twenty-three-year-old to trade his life for a geopolitical objective he cannot see, in a country he cannot find on a map, on behalf of politicians who will not be going themselves. Across history, the most reliable solution to this problem has been God. Tell the soldier he is not serving the state—that cold, bureaucratic, manifestly self-interested entity—but rather serving the Almighty. Make the war a crusade. Make...

Marco Rubio did something unusual on Capitol Hill last Monday. He told the truth. Standing outside a classified Gang of Eight briefing on March 2, the Secretary of State explained to reporters exactly why the United States launched Operation Epic Fury four days earlier: "We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties." That is not a description of the United States defending itself. It is a...

Washington launched an illegal, undeclared war against Iran on the basis that it would be quick. It will not be quick. And the costs—in munitions, in lives, in the economic foundations of an entire region—are only beginning to arrive. Start with the constitutional fact that every cable news anchor has managed to avoid: the United States is at war with Iran, and Congress never voted for it. No declaration. No authorization. Not even the fig leaf of an AUMF. A president decided, an order was given, and American bombs fell on a sovereign nation that had not attacked the United States. Whatever...

Between January 27 and January 29, 2026, something carefully orchestrated unfolded across Western capitals. Within this forty-eight hour window, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier group arrived in the Persian Gulf, President Donald Trump declared "time is running out," the European Union unanimously designated Iran's Revolutionary Guard as terrorists, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced "Iran's days are numbered," and oil surged 5%. This was not a spontaneous crisis but methodical preparation for military action. Analysis of 235 news headlines from eleven countriesAnalysis based on...

Modern wars have a peculiar discipline: they are carefully organized to happen far from the capitals that authorize them. Decision-making remains insulated, prosperity remains intact, and political life continues uninterrupted—while destruction, instability, and escalation are exported to allied territory. The war in Ukraine follows this pattern with brutal clarity. Europe is not watching this war from a safe distance. It is hosting it. Economically, politically, strategically, Europe is the space where risk accumulates and consequences materialize. Critical energy infrastructure “rupture”...