[YouTube] Long before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492, the Americas were home to thriving civilizations, vast cities and extraordinary cultures. This documentary uncovers the untold story of the New World before European contact, revealing sophisticated societies like the Aztecs and the Inca, the remarkable city of Cahokia and the incredible biodiversity that shaped an entire continent. Discover how millions of people lived across North and South America long before the first European ships reached the Bahamas.
The documentary also explores the dramatic consequences of the Columbian Exchange, when animals, crops, diseases and ideas transformed both hemispheres forever. From horses and potatoes to maize and smallpox, the encounter between Europe and the Americas reshaped world history in ways few could have imagined. Combining archaeology, history and science, this film reveals the forgotten civilizations and remarkable achievements that flourished in the Americas before Columbus.
[YouTube] In this lecture, military historian Sarah Paine lays out the geopolitical framework that has shaped global power for two thousand years: the divide between continental empires that pursue security through territorial conquest (China, Russia) and maritime powers that pursue prosperity through trade (Britain, the US). Recorded first in Paine's 2025 series, this is the framework that all her other lectures build on.
𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒
00:00:00 - Setting the stage
00:12:10 - The continental powers
00:29:12 - The maritime alternative
00:42:00 - How the Industrial Revolution changed everything
00:52:00 - Why Putin wants to break the world
Never forget that Falun Guang discovered that a Chinese General did an AI analysis of Three Gorges Dam naturally failing... you can find that video at Did Xi Jinping’s Military Purge Backfire?
[Jpost] Saudi Arabia is less powerful than it may seem at first glance, former national security adviser and head of the National Security Council Brig.-Gen. (res.) Prof. Jacob Nagel told 103FM in a Friday morning interview addressing the defense agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan.
"You have to understand that Saudi Arabia, despite all its wealth and weapons, is to a large extent a paper tiger. It has a great deal of weaponry and a great deal of money, but militarily, it cannot manage to 'get through the day,'" Nagel said.
He added, "If we examine the war in which the Saudis tried to fight the Houthis, we see that they failed despite all the advanced capabilities at their disposal. They have a great many assets, but nothing is really liquid, and they have reached a situation in which, economically, they need help."
"I don't see the Turks sending their navy to attack the Houthis just because they attacked the Saudis. It simply does not fit my realistic view of the region," he stressed.
SAUDI ARABIA LOOKING FOR ALTERNATE ALLIANCES
"It understands that it is in serious trouble, both financially and in terms of security. Even before the latest wars, we saw them make a surprising move and sign an agreement with Iran, simply because they are afraid and feel exposed to the tangible Iranian threat, and to its militias across the Middle East."
He added, "The Saudis' problem is that they possess the most sophisticated equipment, aircraft, and intelligence, but they simply do not know how to use that power effectively on the ground. Therefore, all the talk about new alliances with Pakistan or Turkey should be taken with a very large grain of salt."
At the same time, Nagel sought to explain the Saudi interest in the agreement.
"This is more of a diplomatic maneuver intended to put pressure on the American administration," Prof. Nagel said. "The Saudis are disappointed with the conduct of the United States, especially in light of the shortages in missile and interceptor stockpiles that they identify in the West, and they are trying to signal that they will not remain alone in the campaign against the Shi'ite axis."
SAUDI-TURKISH-PAKISTANI AGREEMENT ACCELERATED DUE TO REGIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan signed a major joint defense agreement on Friday in the Saudi city of Jeddah. The move marks a significant escalation in efforts by the regional powers to strengthen security cooperation amid growing tensions and the ongoing war between the United States and Iran.
A source close to the Saudi government and military, speaking anonymously to AFP, said, "The agreement has been under discussion for a long time, but recent developments in the region accelerated the process." Two additional regional sources with direct knowledge of the matter confirmed the planned timetable to Reuters.
The closely watched summit brought together Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.
Erdogan departed Ankara on Friday morning for a brief working visit, accompanied by senior Turkish officials. Sharif and Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, arrived in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, where they were received at Jeddah airport by the deputy governor of the Mecca region.
A spokesperson for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry stressed that despite tensions in the Gulf, the visit has "significance that goes beyond the immediate crisis and short-term considerations."
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
08/08/2026 00:00 ||
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#1
Lots of candidates for being a paper tiger out there.
Just an observation - did any of you folks realize that the US currently doesn't have official ambassadors in place for Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Iraq and Kuwait? Nothing but temps in place. Given the current events in the region that seems a bit underwhelming.
And re the article - MBS has Paki nukes available on call per numerous sources. So not as weak as it may appear. Plus 16 Paki fighter jets, several thousand troops and a Paki/Chinese ADA system in the eastern part of the country already.
[TWZ] The inability of a munitions plant in Mesquite, Texas, to build a key part set back the U.S. Army’s plans for ramping up production of 155mm shells to 100,000 rounds per month, according to a scathing new report by the War Department’s Office of Inspector General (DOWIG). Despite receiving close to $500 million from the U.S. Army funded through supplemental spending bills from Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems (GD-OTS), failed to make a single subcomponent needed to produce the badly needed shells as of last March. the Biden years
“Without the 30,000 additional projectile metal parts anticipated from the Mesquite facility, the Army will be unable to reach its monthly capability goal of 100,000 155-mm artillery rounds,” the report concluded. “As of March 2026, the CPE A&E [Capability Program Executive Ammunition & Energetics] officials have not developed a plan to produce the additional rounds that are supposed to be produced at the Mesquite facility.”
Send in consultants from Procter & Gamble. They converted from soap to munitions during WWII, and are experts at optimizing production.
At present, the Army is only producing 36,000 rounds per month, inspectors revealed.
Courtesy of badanov, more details of which are running low:
[TASS] According to the source, particular concern was focused on dwindling inventories of long-range offensive missiles, including ATACMS and PrSM
US missile stocks have been significantly depleted during the conflict with Iran, potentially limiting President Donald Trump’s ability to order further strikes, ABC News reported.
US missile stockpiles are "extremely low," a US official said, adding that particular concern was focused on dwindling inventories of long-range offensive missiles, including ATACMS and PrSM, as the conflict has been fought largely from safe distances or through air strikes.
Meanwhile, the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that US Patriot interceptor stocks had fallen by two-thirds, while the THAAD missile inventory had been reduced by half.
CNN previously reported, citing sources, that the US military had used nearly 80% of its THAAD missile inventory compared with pre-conflict levels and about half of its Patriot interceptors.
The Washington Post reported on August 5, citing sources, that Trump had demanded answers from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on July 31 over why he had allegedly been misled about severe ammunition shortages during the conflict with Iran. The newspaper said the exchange highlighted Trump’s growing frustration with Hegseth. Trump later denied the allegations.
#2
Clarification: the Mesquite plant is supposed to be a hot spin forging operation to make the "bullets" for 155s. No explosives involved, they get loaded elsewhere. Partnered with a Turkish company that aleady does this, they provided the machinery.
Then the Army changed the specs, decided they wanted a 'boat tail' round. Debacle ensued.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/08/2026 14:10 Comments ||
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#3
So it isn’t their fault, a fact TWZ completely missed? Good catch, ed.
[EuoropeSays] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s greatest political asset is no longer Benjamin Netanyahu. It is the opposition. For years, his rivals have mistaken national exhaustion with Netanyahu for public faith in them. They have changed leaders, renamed parties, assembled coalitions, and returned each time to the same message: I am not Netanyahu. That may be a protest slogan. It is not a governing philosophy, and it is nowhere near enough for the Israel that now exists. Indeed.
This is not an argument for absolving Netanyahu. October 7 happened on his watch,
…October 7 happened on a great many people’s watch. That they have to live with it in a small country where all the players know each other, and much of the citizenry knows many of them personally, is all the punishment needed, it seems to me…
and the conception that Hamas could be contained, deterred, and managed collapsed in blood.
Which is why even the Israeli left, except for the professional protest idiots, has given up looking for a partner for peace among the Palestinians, as they used to say.
The military and intelligence establishment failed to understand Hamas, interpret the signs it possessed, and defend Israeli communities when the attack began.
No published inquiry has established that Netanyahu received a precise operational warning and simply ignored it. But political responsibility is larger than a document placed on a prime minister’s desk. Netanyahu presided over the doctrine that failed, and he must answer for it. The doctrine didn't originate with Bibi - he inherited it, along with a country having half-socialist economy.
But he owns rapidly accelerating the freeing of at least part of the economy, a process started by Menachem Begin.
Accountability, however, is not amnesia. David Ben-Gurion declared the state. But the powerful, technological, globally consequential country the opposition now asks to inherit is, in no small part, Netanyahu’s modern Israel. Israel is no longer a struggling young nation begging to enter the room.
It is a regional military power, a global technology center, an OECD economy, and a country that built open partnerships with Arab governments once considered unreachable. Netanyahu did not build that Israel alone. No leader could. Yet his economic reforms, strategic focus, campaign against Iran, and the Abraham Accords helped shape the Israel that his rivals now claim they can lead.
Absolutely.
Replacing Netanyahu, therefore, requires more than persuading Israelis that they are tired of him. A successor must preserve what he helped build, repair what failed under him, and govern at a higher level.
I thought Naftali Bennet was going to be the one, but he is not hard enough.
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
08/08/2026 00:00 ||
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[FOX] For 20 years, electricity was the most boring business in America, and our industry built its whole infrastructure strategy around the assumption that things would stay that way.
The numbers tell the story. From 2010 to 2020, U.S. electricity consumption fell by roughly 1%. LEDs, efficient motors and tightening appliance standards quietly cancelled out the electricity used by every new subdivision, factory and data hall, and then some. Demand was flat, and planners treated this as a permanent fact of life rather than as what it actually was: an intermission.
No-growth industries make choices that are perfectly rational, yet corrosive. You don't fund apprenticeships when there's no new capacity to staff. You don't keep spare metallurgical know-how on the payroll when nobody's ordering. You don't recruit ambitious 25-year-olds into a sector whose pitch is "stable, essential, and never going anywhere."
[NationalContext] President Ahmed al-Sharaa is building a military system designed to prevent any faction, including the SDF, from preserving an autonomous chain of command inside the state. The restructuring now moving through the Ministry of Defence weakens commanders associated with abuses against Kurdish civilians, breaks apart factions of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and brings senior SDF officers into the national hierarchy.
Glory hallelujah. I hope al Nusra/HTS can maintain the moderation in the face of an internal drive toward caliphate.
Some SDF-linked accounts have presented these changes as evidence that Damascus is responding to Kurdish demands.
That reading misses the wider purpose of the restructuring. The process now separating Abu Amsha, Saif Abu Bakr and other former faction leaders from their forces is likely to be applied gradually to the SDF once its integration and formal dissolution are complete. Removing abusive commanders and unifying the army may serve Syria well. The SDF’s apparent plan to enter the state while retaining a concentrated military and political bloc is nonetheless unlikely to survive al-Sharaa’s centralising strategy.
Breaking the factional commands: The government’s first approach after the fall of the former regime was to absorb armed formations into the Ministry of Defence without dismantling their internal structures. Former faction leaders received military ranks, and many of their fighters entered newly created divisions under the same commanders. That arrangement brought roughly 130 armed formations nominally under state authority without provoking immediate resistance, while preserving much of the factional reality beneath the new titles: commanders continued to lead the same fighters, officers and local networks that had served under them before the new army existed.
The current restructuring moves beyond that transitional stage. Reports differ over whether the final structure will contain five or six corps, but the direction is consistent. Divisions are being reduced, reorganised or placed under wider regional commands, and faction leaders are being transferred away from direct control of the formations built around their personal networks.
Muhammad Hussein al-Jassem, known as Abu Amsha, who formerly led one of the key Turkish-backed SNA factions, has reportedly been moved from command of the 62nd Division to deputy commander of the Central Corps. The new post carries higher formal rank while separating him from the fighters and officers of his former Sultan Suleiman Shah faction, and places him inside a headquarters where authority is divided among a commander, deputies, chiefs of staff and central departments. Saif al-Din Bolad, known as Saif Abu Bakr, the former commander of the Hamza Division, another prominent SNA faction, was removed from command of the 76th Division and offered an administrative role within a corps headquarters; he reportedly rejected the reassignment and resigned from the ministry.
The transfers have also reached the 80th Division, an Aleppo-based formation assembled largely from SNA factions of the northern countryside. Among the officers moved from it into the Second Corps command are Muatasim Abbas, founder and long-time commander of the Muatasim Division; Abdul Nasser Abu Jalal, a defected army captain who founded the opposition’s 9th Division (Special Forces) in the western Aleppo countryside; and Thaer Maarouf, former commander of the Samarqand Brigade and a senior figure in the SNA’s First Legion. Each of the three built his standing on a faction of his own.
These transfers matter because a faction leader’s real power comes from control over a concentrated body of fighters, weapons, bases and subordinate officers. A senior title inside a corps headquarters can remove him from his original force while conferring rank and status inside the state. Once the ministry controls salaries, appointments, ammunition, logistics, training and deployments, the former commander becomes dependent on the institution, and his authority ceases to rest on personal control of an armed organisation.
More at the link
Posted by: badanov ||
08/08/2026 00:00 ||
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[FOX] Military professionals rarely begin by asking what politicians are saying. They begin by asking what armies are doing.
Professional soldiers are trained to see what others overlook. Not necessarily because they possess better information, but because they ask different questions.
Politicians communicate through speeches. Diplomats communicate through negotiations. Armies reveal themselves through force posture. A brigade quietly changes location. Engineers strengthen defensive positions. Fuel and ammunition move forward. Reserve formations reposition. None of those actions guarantee war, but together they often reveal something more valuable than public statements: what commanders believe may happen next.
Throughout my career, I learned that tanks rarely tell you who is about to attack. They tell you what commanders think is coming.
That is why recent reports deserve careful attention. Elements reportedly associated with Iran's 92nd Armored Division moved T-72 tanks toward the southern approaches near Abadan on August 1. If confirmed, the movement matters, not because it proves an American ground campaign is imminent, but because it may reveal what Iranian planners are preparing to confront.
Professional militaries do not reposition conventional formations casually. Armor consumes enormous amounts of fuel and logistical support. Commanders accept those costs only when the movement serves a real operational purpose.
Robert Maginnis is a retired U.S. Army infantry officer, senior fellow for National Security at the Family Research Council, and the author of 14 books. His latest, "The New AI Cold War: Liberty vs. Tyranny in the Age of Machine Empires," examines the global contest for AI supremacy and its implications for freedom.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
08/08/2026 00:00 ||
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They reportedly involve the arrival of a massive spacecraft, the beginning of a third world war and a dramatic change in Russia’s leadership before the end of 2026.
#5
1. A perceived threat of a US invasion from Kuwait. There is at least 1 (possibly 3) Brigade Combat Team-level equipment sets in Kuwait, just add troops from the US and you have most of a mechanized infantry or armored division.
2. As they have stated before, Iran plans to invade Kuwait to attack the US bases and equipment.
Downside, looking at google earth, there don't seem to be any major direct roads from Abadan to the Kuwaiti border (27 miles) taking the most likely major road, Abadan to Al Faw and then back up is 67 miles. Can we say 'Highway of Death II'>
Only if we still have A-10s to oppose them. With our current military "elite" and Congress, that's ALWAYS a question.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/08/2026 9:39 Comments ||
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#7
There is at least one squadron of A-10's in the Gulf. Plus plenty of other squadrons that can do ground attack. I don't expect the Iranians to have mobile SAM launchers anymore, maybe just some MANPADS which are generally useless against aircraft above 15,000 feet.
#8
Maybe somebody just wanted them to be out of the way for power consolidation.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
08/08/2026 14:16 Comments ||
Top||
#9
To me it signals that they perceive a ground combat threat from that area, reflecting the perception that Trump and his allies are facing enormous pressure to finish the damn thing.
The alternative is that they are at the Gotterdammerung point internally and are going to try and lash out to create a larger regional conflict, perhaps triggering some kind of Islam-wide reaction to the conflict?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
