Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Mikhail Moshkin and Dmitry Gubin
[REGNUM] Since the end of World War II, Denmark has occupied Greenland in defiance of UN norms, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, Donald Trump's special envoy for Greenland, said on January 12. Is that true? I’m not familiar with the history of that part of the world.
The day before, Trump instructed the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) to develop a detailed plan for an invasion of Greenland. The American leader justified his intention to annex Greenland to the United States by citing the island's strategic location and mineral wealth.
It's clear why the US President needed the "biggest refrigerator on the planet." It wasn't a matter of great-power whim, but rather military-strategic considerations, primarily the United States' nuclear plans for the Arctic.
The second lure is also clear. Covered by an ice cap (though gradually melting),
Nah — we’re back on the cooling side of the cycle…
the island is a storehouse of the most important resources of our time: oil (up to 13% of potential global reserves), gas, rare earth elements (38.5 million tons), and uranium.
But the 47th US president isn't the first to draw attention to the military potential of the island "at the edge of geography." Plans were formulated long before Trump, in the 1950s.
And long before the advent of the oil and gas economy, Americans viewed Greenland as an economically viable purchase—first, in the 19th century, as a source of fish, game, and minerals.
FIRST AFTER ALASKA
Back in 1867, Secretary of State William Seward —the same one who organized the deal to purchase Alaska from the Russian Empire—immediately after concluding an agreement with St. Petersburg, he began negotiations with Copenhagen.
The talk was about the acquisition of Greenland, Iceland (which until 1944 also belonged to Denmark) and several islands in the Caribbean Sea – the Danish West Indies.
My area of ignorance expands — I had no idea Denmark had colonies, as opposed to smallish Viking conquests in Dark Ages England and Normandy.
Seward valued all these possessions cheaper than Alaska: if the United States paid Russia 7.2 million gold dollars, then it was proposed to give 5.5 million for the three Danish territories.
Seward appealed to Congress and public opinion, citing fish, game, and the earth's mineral wealth. Most importantly (and in keeping with Trump's current agenda), the Secretary of State believed that the annexation of Greenland and Iceland would encourage Canada to join the United States.
Historians believe Seward stumbled over Congress, which rejected the treaty to purchase the Danish West Indies. Furthermore, the antipathy of the majority of the Senate and House of Representatives toward then-President Andrew Jackson played a negative role.
ICEBERGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PALM TREES
The next attempt came in 1910, under President William Taft, the successor to the famous Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt (who is called a role model for Trump).
The plan was drawn up with Rooseveltian grandeur. The Danes were no longer offered money, but a trade: Greenland and the Danish West Indies in exchange for the southern Philippine islands of Mindanao and Palawan (the Philippines were then a US possession).
Probably just as well Denmark did not take the Moslem parts of the Philippines at the time. What would they have done with a region of seething jihadis?
The American ambassador to Copenhagen, Maurice Francis Egan, explained to his friends in the Danish establishment that Mindanao and Palawan could be useful to Copenhagen in its negotiations with the German Empire.
Ok.
Kaiser Wilhelm needed colonies in the Pacific, and Denmark needed to regain Northern Schleswig, which had been seized by the Germans back in Bismarck's time, so there would be something to trade. But the plan didn't work out—the deal fell through again.
In the end, the Danes returned Northern Schleswig for free, following the German defeat in World War I. The Americans eventually purchased the Danish West Indies in 1917, and since then, it has been an "unincorporated US territory"—the US Virgin Islands, the infamous offshore haven.
One less thing I know longer don’t know, so this entire article now counts in the win column.
But while the Danes parted with their possessions in the heavenly Caribbean climate relatively easily, the kingdom stubbornly clings to the Greenland glaciers and hummocks.
This happened in 1946, when the United States offered Denmark $100 million in gold bullion—$1.66 billion in today's dollars.
At the beginning of the Cold War, as now, the Danes were unquestioning accomplices of the US in their confrontation with Moscow (then communist), but on the Greenland issue they demonstrated truly "Viking" tenacity. As Jens Sønderup, one of the leading politicians at the time, stated in the Folketing (parliament) :
"There were rumors in the newspapers that America wanted to acquire Greenland. King Dollar, so to speak, was going to become the dominant force in all areas." The Danes were even willing to tolerate the Greenlanders' desire to secede from the kingdom—but "any form of financial deal was out of the question."
SQUID REMAINS
In fact, the Danish kingdom began to develop Greenland even later than the fertile Caribbean islands: the West India Company acquired the Virgin Islands in the 17th century, and new Danish colonies appeared on the icy island in the 18th century. What's the difference?
It seems to be a matter of "phantom pain." If Trump wants to make America great again, then the Danish state was great half a millennium before Columbus discovered America.
As we previously reported, Greenland and the Faroe Islands (an archipelago located between Iceland, Scandinavia, and Britain) are the still-unmelted fragments of the former Danish great power.
We're talking about the times when the kings of Copenhagen laid claim to the North Atlantic from today's borders of Canada to Norway. Denmark, the leading power of the Kalmar Union (14th–16th centuries), controlled the northern European expanse from Finland to Norway.
The Danes inherited Greenland, a medieval Norwegian possession, from the Kalmar Union, even though the first European settlers, descendants of the Vikings, had died out by the 15th century and white people had returned there in the 18th century. Legally, the island still belonged first to the Kingdom of Norway and then to the Kingdom of Denmark.
Trump's special envoy, Jeff Landry, asserted that Denmark "occupied" the island after World War II, but it seems odd. Denmark was occupied by the Third Reich during the war and de facto lost its overseas possessions—Greenland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. The two islands and the archipelago were occupied by the Anglo-Americans.
Iceland declared independence in 1944, but Greenland remained a possession until 1953 (a status not contested by any UN member state, including the United States). In 1953, the former colony was elevated to the status of a full-fledged amt (county) of Denmark, and since 1979, the island has been a rigsdel, or autonomous territory.
IN TULA WITH HIS BOMB
The US military presence in Greenland, however, was indeed legally formalized during World War II. Unlike neighboring Norway, Denmark did not have time (or perhaps was unwilling or unable) to form a government-in-exile in 1940. King Christian X and his cabinet remained in occupied Copenhagen.
But the Danish embassy in Washington refused to recognize the occupation of Denmark by the Third Reich. Ambassador Henrik Kauffman sanctioned the American military presence on the island. After the war, the authorities in Copenhagen only had to retroactively approve this decision, even though Denmark was considered a neutral state at the time of the Kauffman Agreement.
But the times when the kingdom could explain to the whole world its rights to its ancestral possessions are long gone.
Denmark is "good" as a persistent and gratuitous sponsor of the Kyiv regime (since 2022, the kingdom has financed the Ukrainian Armed Forces with €10 billion, with gifts reaching up to 1% of GDP), to the greater benefit of the United States. But as an independent military force, Denmark is of little value.
In June 2025, amid Trump's latest wave of interest in Greenland, Copenhagen announced it would strengthen its presence in the polar territory: one frigate, two EH-101 helicopters, and an unspecified number of F-16 fighter jets. Not quite two dog teams, of course, but it wouldn't exactly be called a large force either.
The US has a much stronger presence in Greenland; one could say that militarily, the island is already American. And for quite some time.
In 1950, a large US Air Force base, named Thule after the nearby village, began construction in northwest Greenland.
By the 1960s, Thule had been expanded, and B-52 strategic bombers were stationed in Greenland. They carried out round-the-clock combat sorties to the USSR's Arctic borders, armed with nuclear bombs, as part of Operation Chrome Dome—a permanent standby in case of a nuclear war. We've covered this operation in more detail previously.
Let's recall the incident of January 21, 1968, when a fire broke out on board a bomber taking off from Thule Air Base. The plane crashed in close proximity to the base, and—most importantly—four B28 thermonuclear bombs were "lost" in the ice.
It was only in the 1990s that previously classified details were revealed, revealing that the American military had found fragments of three of the four bombs. The "Chrome Dome" was dismantled, but the Americans did not leave the island, although some of the structures were mothballed.
But with the new aggravation of relations with Russia (and in view of the confrontation with China), the Pentagon once again needed the northernmost military outpost of the United States.
In 2020, the Thule air base was transferred to the U.S. Space Force. Three years later, the Danish name Thule was changed to the Inuit name Pituffik. At the same time, the indigenous inhabitants, the Kalaalit Inuit, were evicted.
The 12th Space Warning Squadron, which manages the ballistic missile early warning system, is currently stationed here. Plans include creating infrastructure for the deployment of the latest nuclear-capable F-35 fighter jets.
This point, 1,500 kilometers from the North Pole, which is closer to Moscow than to Washington (3,760 kilometers versus 3,770 kilometers), is a crucial element of the American missile defense system. But it's not the only one.
Among other things, Thule-Pituffik can be used as a deep-water port, the northernmost in the world. Around 600 US military personnel are permanently stationed at the base, but Pituffik could theoretically accommodate up to 10,000. By comparison, the entire population of Greenland is 55,700.
It's noteworthy that the first modernization was carried out during Donald Trump's first term. Denmark, true to its NATO alliance obligations, did not object to American and American-Canadian exercises on its de jure territory or other US military activity. If Trump decides to ignore Copenhagen's opinion and establishes political, rather than military, control over Greenland, the former ruler of the polar seas is unlikely to be able to counter with anything stronger than deep concern.
#1
Mf'ers act like we don't have oil. Tired of hearing this shit. At this point just take their shit to prove a point. I for one am tired of hearing nations that don't have enough dick to talk shit.
Posted by: chris ||
01/13/2026 1:05 Comments ||
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#2
Great article. Thanks Bad!
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
01/13/2026 4:28 Comments ||
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#3
Great backround, excellent article indeed, though it doesn't look into a future of a potentially nuclear/Islamic Europe.
#4
Speak softly and carry a big stick, ie., move whatever mililtary resources are deemed necessary onto the island but don't say anything about it. Denmark saves face and Trump gets his bases. If it comes to mining, do the same. Move the drills and miners onto the island while saying nothing. Nobody will stop it. Maybe even slip some of the profits under the table to concerned Danish authorities. Let them keep their soverienty while we keep the bases, the oil and the rare earth minerals.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/13/2026 11:28 Comments ||
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[IsraelTimes] Vote for political bureau set to take place early this year, with Khalil al-Hayya and Khaled Mashaal seen as top contenders to lead terror group under pressure to disarm
Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... is preparing to hold internal elections to rebuild its leadership, decimated by Israel during the war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , which it sparked by carrying out the October 7, 2023, massacre, sources in the terror group told AFP on Monday.
With international powers and Israel pushing for it to be disarmed and have no role in Gaza’s future governance, its new leaders will face an uncertain future.
The terror group also rules over a territory devastated by two years of war, with its more than two million residents facing harsh humanitarian conditions, and Israeli troops still deployed in much of the Strip.
"Internal preparations are still ongoing in order to hold the elections at the appropriate time in areas where conditions on the ground allow it," a Hamas leader told AFP on Monday.
The vote is expected to take place "in the first months of 2026."
The leadership renewal process includes the formation of a new 50-member Shura Council, a consultative body dominated by religious figures.
Its members are selected every four years by Hamas’s three branches: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and the movement’s external leadership.
Hamas prisoners in Israeli prisons are also eligible to vote.
That council is responsible, also every four years, for electing the 18-member political bureau and its chief, who serves as Hamas’s overall leader.
Another Hamas source close to the process said the timing of the political bureau elections remains uncertain, "given the circumstances our people are going through."
After Israel killed former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continued as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintained a separate PM in the West Bank. Zapped during the 2023-24 war, to eveyone's satisfaction... in Tehran in July 2024, the group chose its then-Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, the criminal mastermind of the October 7 massacre, as his successor.
He too was killed by Israeli forces in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, three months after Haniyeh’s liquidation.
Hamas then opted for an interim five-member leadership committee based in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... , postponing the appointment of a single leader until elections are held, given the risk of being targeted by Israel.
TWO FRONTRUNNERS
All the sources spoken to by AFP mentioned two frontrunners to head its political bureau: Khalil al-Hayya and Khaled Mashaal.
Hayya, 65, a Gaza native and Hamas’s chief negotiator in ceasefire talks, has held senior roles since at least 2006, according to the US-based NGO the Counter Extremism Project (CEP).
Mashaal, who led the Political Bureau from 2004 to 2017, has never lived in Gaza. He was born in the West Bank in 1956.
He joined Hamas in Kuwait and later lived in Jordan, Syria, and Qatar. The CEP says he oversaw Hamas’s evolution into a political-military hybrid.
He currently heads the movement’s diaspora office.
A Hamas member in Gaza said Hayya is a strong contender due to his relations with other Paleostinian factions, including the rival Fatah party, which dominates the Paleostinian Authority, as well as his regional standing.
Hayya also enjoys backing from both the Shura Council and Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
Their main immediate policy difference relates to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, according to the sources close to the terror group’s leadership who spoke to the Saudi outlet Asharq last month.
Hayya, who is seen as close to Iran, was said to support the continuation of "armed conflict with Israel in the Gaza Strip until the war ends and the Israeli army withdraws from the Strip entirely," while Mashaal, who is seen as closer to Qatar, is reportedly seeking "negotiated compromises to end the occupation of Gaza."
Mashaal also supports "trying to move Hamas away from Iran" and "closer to the moderate Arab states," the sources told Asharq.
Qatar hosts senior Hamas leaders and, between 2018 and October 2023, funded civil service salaries and cash handouts in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas violent mostly peacefully seized from the PA in 2007.
The terror group is also supported by Iran, where major protests against the government could prove an issue for Hamas.
"This is a critical moment for its politico-military survival, which depends as much on its regional alliances as on its ability to maintain a balance between its political and military branches," said David Khalfa, a researcher at the Jean-Jaures Foundation in Gay Paree.
"Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... remains a strategic pillar of this precarious balance. A collapse of the Iranian regime would be a catastrophe for Hamas," he added.
The Hamas member in Gaza insisted there was "no interference by Arab or Islamic countries in Hamas’s internal elections."
[Jpost] Twenty years after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged before the US Congress that Israel would wean itself off American economic aid, he now wants to do the same with US military assistance.
"I want to taper off military aid within the next 10 years," he said in an interview with The Economist on Friday, adding that he meant reducing it to zero from its current level of $3.8 billion a year.
If Netanyahu fulfills that pledge — as he did the earlier one — it would constitute nothing less than a revolution in US-Israeli ties.
Again, if the original agreement for funding was part of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, must Egypt be cut off to match Israel? Because I’m feeling vindictive enough after 10/7 to want Egypt to feel pain for their perfidy.
It would also reflect the internalization of one of the central lessons of the seven-front war that followed October 7: Israel must reduce its dependence on others for arms and munitions, even when those others are its closest allies.
At his recent meeting in Mar-a-Lago with US President Donald Trump, Netanyahu said he told the president that he deeply appreciates the military assistance America has provided over the years — a Congressional Research Service report in May put that figure at roughly $174b. since 1948 — but that "here, too, we’ve come of age, and we’ve developed incredible capacity."
The word "too" was deliberate. It echoed the argument Netanyahu made two decades ago when he pushed to end US economic aid.
"The United States has given Israel, apart from political and military support, munificent and magnificent assistance in the economic sphere," he told Congress at the time. "I believe that we can now say that Israel has reached childhood’s end, that it has matured enough to begin approaching a state of self-reliance."
'CHILDHOOD’S END'
Now, in Netanyahu’s telling, that "childhood’s end" applies not only to the $1.2b. in economic aid Israel once received annually, but also to the $3.8b. it now gets in military assistance.
Israel, he said in The Economist interview, has developed "incredible capacity," and an economy that within a decade is expected to reach roughly $1 trillion is no longer a small one.
"So," he said, "I want to taper off military aid within the next 10 years."
To The Economist’s readers, the declaration may sound counterintuitive, but it has been in the making for some time and is the result of several factors.
First, the current framework governing US military aid to Israel — the Memorandum of Understanding negotiated in the final years of Barack Obama’s presidency — is set to expire in 2028. That agreement provides Israel with $3.8 billion annually over a 10-year period that began in 2019. With negotiations for a new MoU just underway, this is a propitious moment to signal that the next framework should be the last — especially at a time when the mood in Washington toward foreign aid, even for close allies, has grown markedly less hospitable.
These MoUs date back to the Clinton years. When Netanyahu first took office in 1995, he inherited an aid structure that had been largely unchanged since 1987: $1.2b. annually in economic assistance and $1.8b. in military aid.
By the mid-1990s, however, runaway inflation had been tamed, and the economy was largely unleashed as trade barriers were dismantled, capital controls were liberalized, and foreign investment surged. The economic assistance that had been vital in the 1980s was no longer needed to the same degree. The security threats, however, remained, so while Israel gave up the economic aid, the military component was increased.
Under the first MoU negotiated during the Clinton administration, Israel received $2.1b. annually in military aid — less than the roughly $3b. it had previously been getting in combined assistance. That figure rose to $3b. a year from 2009 to 2018 and then to $3.8b. under Obama, including some $5b. over the 10-year period earmarked for missile-defense programs in which the US is a partner. This also does not include the billions of dollars Israel has received in supplemental aid since October 7 to fight the war.
Each MoU also imposed limits on how much of that money could be spent inside Israel. Under the Second MoU negotiated with the Bush administration, Israel was allowed to use 26.3% of the funds for local procurement. The Obama MoU phased that out entirely, with the local purchasing rate declining from 25% in 2019 to 11% in 2026 and reaching zero in 2028.
The result was not only deeper dependence on the US but also a growing disincentive to produce arms and munitions domestically.
If Israel could buy bombs more cheaply in the US using US-provided funds, why manufacture them at home? As an Israeli defense analyst told The Washington Post last January, Israel had "refrained, until recently, from producing certain munitions primarily because of profit considerations.... It is cheaper to buy them with the money allocated to Israel by the US."
Then came October 7, the war that followed, and mounting tensions with the Biden administration over its conduct. In May 2024, as the IDF advanced toward Rafah, Biden said in a CNN interview that he had made it clear to Netanyahu and the war cabinet that the US would withhold support — including weapons and artillery shells — if Israel entered densely populated areas.
And, indeed, the US paused the shipments of heavy bombs out of concern they would be used in Rafah. Other munitions were slow-walked, reinforcing in real time the strategic risks of reliance.
As it became clear that weapons supplies could be used as leverage, Jerusalem began shifting course. In March 2024, the Prime Minister’s Office said Israel needed "to be much more independent in the ability to manufacture the war materiel that we need."
That was not an empty declaration. Israel has since significantly expanded domestic munitions production, including types of bombs the US had withheld. Netanyahu said in the Knesset last month that Israel would allocate roughly NIS 350b. over the next decade to build independent production capacity.
"I don’t know if a country can be completely independent," he said, "but we will strive... to ensure our arms are produced as much as possible in Israel."
That is only one part of the equation leading to the decision to end US military assistance gradually. The other lies in political trends within the United States.
The May report by the Congressional Research Service cited above noted that American public attitudes toward Israel have "shifted somewhat when compared to previous eras. Though lawmakers continue to vote in favor of US assistance to Israel, there have been calls from some political and ideological groups to reevaluate the long-standing US-Israeli assistance relationship."
That careful phrasing understates the trend.
In November 2024, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced three resolutions aimed at blocking future arms sales to Israel. All were defeated, but roughly one-third of Democratic senators supported them.
At the same time, as the MAGA wing gains prominence within the Republican Party, so do voices openly questioning aid to Israel — from Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene to Steve Bannon. Their reasons vary, ranging from opposition to all foreign aid to criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza to the argument that Israel should be fully self-reliant.
This remains a minority view within the GOP. But it is no longer fringe. And Netanyahu’s move to wean Israel off US military aid reflects a recognition that these voices, as well as the Sanders-like voices in the Democratic party, are likely to only grow louder, and Israel cannot afford to find itself at their mercy.
#2
I'll assume any collaboration will be called economic assistance. Then I'll assume the article assumes, rather hopes that the United States does not want to co-engineer and co-develop military tech with the jews. Which I think is off-base and preposterous.
I think the Israelis are thinking more along the lines that the Jews will produce their own arms and bombs so another Biden cannot hold up deliveries in the middle of another war for jewish existence.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/13/2026 14:29 Comments ||
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#4
That’s how I read it, too, mossomo.
Jairong, Bibi isn’t dictating what the US Congress will do. He’s saying that Israel doesn’t need military aid anymore, and when the current agreement runs out, in a few more years, won’t accept it even if offered. Note that this is the second time Bibi is turning off the American donation spigot: according to the article he stopped accepting economic help from America to the tune of $1.2 billion/year back when Bill Clinton was president.
[X]
Wall Street modeled Starlink as immune because satellites hop frequencies and move constantly. SpaceX patched SOFTWARE against Russian jamming in Ukraine.
This is HARDWARE.
Murmansk-BN. Krasukha-4. Delivered via IL-76 transports. 5,000 kilometer jamming range.
Two months ago, Chinese researchers published exactly how to black out Starlink over Taiwan: 935 coordinated ground-based jammers blanketing Ku-band frequencies.
Tehran was the field test.
40,000 terminals. Near-total degradation. Regime now executing anyone caught with a dish as “enemies of God.”
This is not about Iranian protests.
This is the authoritarian electronic warfare axis proving concept for Taiwan.
The $280 billion satellite communications market is repricing a risk that consensus said didn’t exist.
Russia supplied the hardware. China published the playbook. Iran just proved it works.
Starlink: 80% packet loss.
Expert monitoring Iranian internet for 20 years: “I have never seen such a thing in my life.”
A technical point raised by another tweet — herewith the text of the thing because it refused to embed for me:
Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡
@shanaka86
Iran just ran the most sophisticated electronic warfare campaign ever deployed against a commercial satellite constellation.
They succeeded.
And it didn't matter.
Here's the physics they missed:
The regime spent $300 million on Russian Krasukha-4 jammers. Achieved 30-80% packet loss nationwide. Made video calls impossible. Made streaming unwatchable. Made commercial internet useless.
On January 8, Crown Prince Pahlavi said: "8 PM tonight. Chant together. Wherever you are."
At 8 PM, neighborhoods across Tehran erupted simultaneously. 31 provinces. 185 cities. The most coordinated uprising in 45 years.
The generals optimized for the wrong variable.
Netflix requires 5-25 megabits per second of continuous throughput.
Revolution requires 1.3 kilobits. Once.
A single protest instruction compresses to less storage than one pixel of video. It doesn't need real-time delivery. It can queue, retry, relay through whatever windows the jamming leaves open.
TCP/IP guarantees eventual delivery. At 80% packet loss, messages take 5 attempts instead of 1.
The message still arrives.
Iran built a $300 million system to deny Netflix.
They couldn't deny revolution.
This is the hard floor of the digital age: the bandwidth required for coordination is 10,000x smaller than the bandwidth required for commerce.
Autocracy has a throughput problem that physics cannot solve.
The night they tried to kill the sky, they discovered the sky had already won.
#1
When something like this happens to Musk, it bothers him. I expect he will be sleeping at the little fort that he builds at his desk for the next little while.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/13/2026 6:41 Comments ||
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#2
I would bet good money that Starlink is working day and night to develop an in-orbit burn-through-jam capability. It only takes a small number of satellites so equipped to end the threat. If I were Musk, I'd also begin hardening some of its satellites, because both Russia and China will try to physically stop 'X' if it can't electronically stop it. Totally illegal (companies aren't "allowed" to wage war against nations), but I'd also develop a de-orbiting capability with home-on-jam capacity. Of course, what he REALLY needs to do is to give Starship the capability to go to the asteroid belt, grab a huge hunk of iron, and direct it where he wants it to land. THAT would really put the fox among the chickens.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/13/2026 10:29 Comments ||
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#3
/\ When something like this happens to Musk, it bothers him.
Musk and his parents have witnessed what can happen to a country and it's freedom. We should all be "bothered."
#6
Elon and his engineers keep sending hot fixes to try to counter Iranian Jamming.
The jamming i do not think is the major cause of the blackout. Iran deployed Starlink Sniffers and were raiding the houses that were broadcasting. That had a negative impact as people turned them off after learning of the raids.
Analysis: A Narrowing Window for the SDF in Northern and Eastern Syria
It has become increasingly likely—bordering on privately confirmed—that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are approaching a decisive inflection point.
Analysis: A Narrowing Window for the SDF in Northern and Eastern Syria
It has become increasingly likely—bordering on privately confirmed—that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are approaching a decisive inflection point.
Multiple private channels indicate that if the SDF fails to present clear, realistic, and actionable steps toward integration within the next few days, a military operation will be launched to seize Tishrin Dam and the entire strip extending from Deir Hafer to Tabqa.
Should this operation proceed, the SDF would then be granted a temporary and final period to reassess its position regarding integration. Until that point, the strategic balance would shift decisively.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] US President Donald Trump has been briefed on options for a military strike on Iran in response to the suppression of protests in Tehran, The New York Times reports.
The pro-Iranian Telegram channel Middle East Spectator, citing its sources, clarifies that the White House administration is seriously considering this possibility, but only if the White House considers the protests to have reached a "tipping point."
The US strategic goal is to prevent being drawn into a full-scale conflict with a completely unpredictable outcome, in which the fall of the Islamic Republic is not a guaranteed outcome.
WASHINGTON ASSESSES THE IMPACT'S STRENGTH
While no final decision has been made, officials say the range of actions being discussed ranges from targeted strikes on Iranian security forces to attacks on non-military targets in the capital.
As Axios points out, most of the scenarios presented to Trump are "non-kinetic" in nature and involve additional economic sanctions or cyber operations. However, the very existence of such discussions at the highest level indicates the extreme gravity of the situation.
The time for making a decision appears to be extremely limited: the protests are estimated to have reached a plateau, and any delay could lead to their suppression by security forces and, as a result, to a missed historic opportunity.
On the other hand, the risks of military action are colossal.
American officials openly warn that any strike could rally a fragmented society around the national leadership or provoke immediate retaliatory action against American personnel and assets in the region. Military experts point to operational complexities and the need for more time to prepare both for an effective attack on Iran and the defense of American assets in the region.
A separate and perhaps most dangerous threat remains the possibility of a preemptive or retaliatory strike by Iran against key US regional allies, primarily Israel, as well as against US bases in Iraq, Syria, and the Persian Gulf, which would instantly escalate the conflict into a new, unpredictable dimension.
DEADLY SYNERGY
By mid-January 2026, the Islamic Republic of Iran found itself at the epicenter of a crisis that, for the first time in its history, threatens the existence of the state precisely because of its dual, hybrid nature.
External aggression alone cannot undermine the foundations of a state. Protests and unrest without external support also do not pose an existential threat.
In the past, the ruling system has faced either intense external pressure (as during the debilitating war with Iraq) or serious internal unrest (as in 2009 or 2019) and successfully dealt with these challenges. For example, it managed to restore its military potential after the 12-day war with Israel in the summer of 2025.
Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran is forced to fight on two fronts, where each challenge not only adds up to the other, but multiplies it, creating a vicious circle that is becoming incredibly difficult to break.
The profound economic collapse, deliberately provoked by external sanctions, erupted from within as a wave of popular anger. This anger, in turn, was immediately interpreted and exploited by external forces as the perfect, almost legitimate pretext for potential military intervention.
Thus, the country finds itself in a strategic trap, a classic “fork in the road” situation: decisive suppression of unrest can be used to justify “humanitarian” aggression, while apparent inaction will be perceived as a sign of weakness, an encouragement to further destabilization from outside.
The wave of protests that began in late December 2025 bore the hallmarks of genuine, spontaneous social protest—it was a cry of despair from citizens who, due to hyperinflation and the collapse of the national currency, literally overnight lost the ability to provide their families with the basic necessities.
However, the root of this humanitarian catastrophe lies not in ordinary managerial inefficiency, but in the deliberate, multi-year strangulation of the economy by an unprecedented sanctions regime imposed by the United States and supported by its Western allies.
I would argue that the root of the catastrophe lies in the deliberate strangulation of the human spirit by the revolutionary Mullahcracy’s totalitarian take on Sharia Law, both original generation and their current corrupt heirs. But I’m just a little American civilian housewife, not a professional Russian pundit, so what do I know?
Sanctions thus served the dual role of a weapon of economic warfare and a detonator of social discontent. Consequently, the very fabric of the internal crisis was woven from threads of external geopolitical pressure, making the protests a direct product and continuation of this influence.
This is precisely what fundamentally distinguishes the current “Iranian winter” from the events of the “Arab Spring” a decade and a half ago.
Then, a wave of popular discontent became an unexpected force for the entire world, engulfing one country after another. External powers, caught off guard, only belatedly and not always effectively attempted to harness and redirect this wave to their own advantage—their interventions were reactive.
A completely different picture is observed today.
Iran has been the focus of global confrontation for many years, viewed in Washington and Tel Aviv not simply as an inconvenient and influential regional actor, but as a strategic adversary, the destruction or weakening of which is a pre-determined long-term goal.
Therefore, key external players approached the current "wave of anger" not as observers, but as parties that had long awaited this moment and meticulously prepared for it. When the protests erupted, they were already prepared not with abstract threats, but with specific, carefully crafted scenarios and intervention plans.
According to some reports, the Israeli leadership considered the dilemma of continuing the military campaign immediately after the end of the 12-day war: use future unrest as a pretext for aggression or launch a new aggression in order to provoke a devastating uprising within the country.
Thus, the internal discontent of Iranians was conceptually built in advance by external players into the framework of the “managed chaos” strategy and was seen as an ideal casus belli.
CONSTRUCTING AN ALTERNATIVE: SYMBOLS, RHETORIC, AND CULTURAL SHIFTS
An important part of this comprehensive preparation was extensive ideological and informational work to construct an acceptable alternative for the protest movement. In a context where organized political opposition within Iran is absent or marginalized, and external intervention requires at least some kind of "banner" for legitimization, an image created and cultivated abroad was brought to the forefront.
Reza Kir Pahlavi, son of the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, transformed himself almost overnight from an insignificant figure in the monarchical exile into a prominent media figure for some protesters. His appeals from overseas, despite the complete lack of a concrete political program and charisma as a leader, unexpectedly found some response.
This, however, required a subtle adjustment of Pahlavi's image itself.
He was destined to play the role of a "two-faced Janus," simultaneously symbolizing both the "golden age" of the pre-Islamic Persian monarchy and a bright democratic future. In the wake of protests, he abruptly shifted his rhetoric, abandoning his previous open calls for restoration. Now, he cautiously speaks only of a "transition period" and the need for "free elections"—the result of the work of political consultants correcting past failures.
It does not seem to me that Crown Prince Reza is tough and wily enough to be a strong man ruler, no matter what his wants in his secret heart. A constitutional monarch, being more ceremony and symbolism, influencing rather than ordering, seems a better fit both for him and the times.
This carefully crafted ambiguity is intended to appeal to a broad range of those tired of the current regime but unwilling to support a direct and unambiguous return to the past. His new position is not an honest conviction, but a tactical maneuver.
He tries to portray himself as a guarantor of democracy, but the Pahlavi name itself remains an indelible symbol of authoritarian rule, the real lessons of which the younger generation who chant his name know very little about. Their support is more an emotional outburst, based on a poor understanding of their own history and a vague desire for a radical break with the present, than a conscious political choice.
This ideological shift is also clearly evident in the change in the cultural code of protest.
While revolutionaries in 1979 branded the Shah as Yazid, an archetypal symbol of tyranny and usurpation in Shiite thought, today radical youth protesters compare Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to Zahhak, the evil snake king from the ancient Persian epic Shahnameh.
This deliberate substitution of Islamic rhetoric for pre-Islamic, nationalistic rhetoric eloquently testifies to the profound erosion of the official revolutionary ideology in certain strata of society.
The protest seeks new points of support not in religion, but in a mythical Iranian past and Persian ethnonationalism, which objectively plays into the hands of the monarchical revanchism of the Pahlavis, for whom Kurush, Darius, and Khosrow were always closer than the Prophet Muhammad, Ali bin Abi Talib, and Imam Hussein.
This is a good thing. Iran has ever been a heterogenous empire going back to when it was the kingdom of the Medes and Persians, and not only does it contain several opposing varieties of Islam, but a whole bunch of of pre- and post-Islam faiths that — counter to the Muslim idée fixe on conquest and surrender — should be accommodated rather than conquered.
The most radical groups of rebels, inspired by this nationalist turn, have moved to direct action against religious symbols, burning mosques and Korans.
The Mullahs managed to turn a large swathe of the populace against islam by the corruption of their practice. Congrats, guys!
These actions have already gone beyond the scope of political protest against the authorities and have the character of an anti-religious challenge, deeply offensive to the conservative and religious part of the population.
Such a turn of events also carries risks for the protest organizers themselves, as it could alienate moderate dissenters who, while criticizing the government, are unwilling to renounce their religious beliefs and consider attacks on Islam an insult to their values.
Moreover, this gives the authorities a powerful ideological tool for consolidating their base.
In response to the desecration of holy sites, spontaneous counter-demonstrations by supporters of the Islamic Republic began to spring up across the country on Sunday evening. Participants chanted "Allahu Akbar!" and "Death to the enemies of the faith!", raising the Quran above their heads and clearly demonstrating that a significant portion of society still identifies with the Islamic values that underpin the state.
This split—not only political but also value-based—creates an additional line of tension within Iranian society.
TEHRAN'S RESPONSE STRATEGY: BALANCING ON TWO FRONTS
Recognizing that the domestic crisis had turned into a theater of full-scale hybrid warfare, the Iranian leadership was forced to develop an extremely flexible and complex response strategy, balancing between two fronts. The primary objective was to prevent these threats from converging into a single destructive force.
On the foreign front, the response was marked by a strategic shift.
For the first time in history, Iran's National Security Council has declared the possibility of preemptive military action against external adversaries. This is a significant shift in doctrine—a shift from a purely defensive and retaliatory stance to a demonstrated readiness for a preemptive strike.
Such rhetoric is intended to serve a deterrent function, raising the potential cost of aggression for Washington and Tel Aviv and forcing them to take into account Tehran's unpredictable reaction.
On the domestic front, the authorities are demonstrating a more selective and differentiated approach.
The Iranian leadership is trying to draw a fine but strict line between what they call the “legitimate” socio-economic demands of citizens, which they officially express their willingness to listen to, and the actions of “rebels,” “warmongers,” and “agents of foreign intelligence services.”
This new rhetoric was clearly articulated on January 11 by President Masoud Pezeshkian, who made it clear that protests were allowed and would be heard, but that such behavior—riots and unrest—must be fought with all possible force. Official media increasingly began referring to the latter as "ISIS-like terrorists."
Thus, the tactic is aimed at dividing the protest field and depriving external forces of a single, convenient humanitarian point of attack. The authorities understand that brutal and total suppression of any dissent will play into the hands of those seeking a pretext for intervention, and so they have chosen a riskier but potentially more effective tactic of controlled decompression, which, however, implies the ruthless elimination of those classified as "terrorists."
POSSIBLE SCENARIOS: FROM THE "SYRIAN MODEL" TO A NEW REGIONAL BALANCE
For the most catastrophic scenario for Iran to materialize—a complete collapse of statehood along the lines of Libya or Syria in 2011—a critical, irreversible split in the security forces is necessary, primarily in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the army.
Today, despite all the tension, there are no signs of such a split.
The neutrality of the regular army, as in 1979, would not be sufficient today, since the system has a powerful, ideologically motivated and loyal support base in the form of the multi-million-strong IRGC and the Basij people's militia.
Probably, recognizing this institutional strength and the possible US refusal to take military action, Israel will try to act independently and adapt to Iran a more sophisticated and long-term model, tested in Syria in 2024–2025.
Its essence lies not in the bet on an instant national uprising, but in provoking and escalating conflicts between the central government and ethnic or religious minorities (Kurds in the northwest, Ahwazi Arabs in the southwest, and Baloch in the southeast, with the inclusion of Azerbaijanis and Lurs).
The subsequent dragging of the country into a smoldering localized civil war would have legitimized larger-scale direct external intervention under the pretext of protecting civilians.
In the initial phase, such a scenario could involve airstrikes and air support for the rebels to establish firm control over some border territories. Even if nationwide protest activity subsides, these captured enclaves will remain a constant, bleeding wound, demonstrating the central government's weakness, fueling new waves of discontent, and constantly diverting government resources.
This strategy of "attrition at the periphery" is aimed at gradually undermining the power and authority of the state and drawing it into civil war.
However, on this path, supporters of the power scenario are faced with a fundamentally new regional reality.
As Syrian-American analyst Hassan I. Hassan notes, no Arab country today is interested in total collapse and chaos in Iran; on the contrary, they fear such a scenario.
This stands in stark contrast to the pre-2023 era and deprives a potential broad intervention of the necessary regional support and legitimacy.
The Gulf states (primarily Saudi Arabia and the UAE), after restoring diplomatic relations with Tehran, view it more as a difficult but necessary neighbor, whose sudden collapse threatens unpredictable consequences for their own security – from a surge in cross-border terrorism to uncontrolled migration and the growing influence of other external players.
Thus, Israel, in its intransigent position, may find itself increasingly isolated.
Probability greater than zero, of course. But how much greater is the question.
***
The Iranian leadership is currently balancing in the grip of unprecedented pressure.
It needs to contain a social explosion without providing an obvious and unambiguous pretext for foreign intervention, and at the same time prepare to repel—and perhaps even launch a preemptive strike against—external adversaries that Tehran considers ready to attack at any moment.
The country finds itself at a unique historical juncture, where its internal socio-economic crisis has become a bargaining chip in a global geopolitical game.
The outcome of this multidimensional confrontation will determine not only the fate of the Islamic Republic, but also the future balance of power throughout the Middle East.
In the modern world, the fault lines between internal despair and external aggression, between spontaneous rebellion and a calculated regime change operation, have been blurred beyond recognition. The strength of its security institutions and the changed, more pragmatic geopolitical situation in the region currently leave Tehran with an extremely narrow, but still realistic, room to maneuver.
However, the cost of any mistake in this game, where the very existence of the state is at stake, has become truly exorbitant.
Posted by: badanov ||
01/13/2026 00:00 ||
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[1773 views]
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#1
Unique in that it is an organic uprising. We know that because the CIA run television networks, which is all of them, are ignoring the story.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/13/2026 6:38 Comments ||
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#2
/\ Yes, the lack of discussion on a topic can be almost as revealing as a constant stream of propaganda.
More than international sanctions, more than its stifling theocracy, more than recent bombardment by Israel and the U.S. — Iran’s greatest current existential crisis is what hydrologists are calling its rapidly approaching “water bankruptcy.”
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..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
