We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 The problems with an air campaign against Iran
This excellent graphic allows us to understand better the issues facing any attempt to strike Iran. Now that we have some sense of the power of the potential force deployed we can highlight a few important points.
600 Tomahawk missiles may sound like a lot but we need some comparisons. In 2025 alone Russia launched 1900-2000 missiles into Ukraine.
But given the patchy air defence in Ukraine we should also count drones. Including strike drones, Russia launched around 34000 strikes on Ukraine.
Needless to say, Ukraine remains intact. The strikes have taken their toll but the country is intact. 600 Tomahawks represent less than 2% of this strike capability.
But Tomahawks are a rare commodity. If the US fired all 600 this would be 10-15% of their total inventory - not total inventory on their ships, the total inventory in existence!
We could add in the aircraft capacities but this is controversial. Risking these aircraft against Iranian air defence - yes, it does exist don’t believe the silly propaganda - is a big proposition. The planes have maybe 600-1000 bombs. So even at an upper-end estimate we have less than 5% of the Russian strikes on Ukraine.
But the real problem is defence, not offence. All in this force has between 1300 and 1500 air defence missiles. Iran has 80000 Shahed drones ready to launch and can produce around 400 a day.
Imagine is the Iranians launched 1000- 2000 Shaheds in the first day. This would attrition the entire battery of the US strike group’s air defence. It would then be completely vulnerable.
The Iranians could then launch more advanced anti-shipping missiles. These are rarer. They have maybe a few thousand. But if they use the drones to attrition air defence they wouldn’t need many. They could also send in the speedboats with short-range anti-ship missiles.
The risks here for the US are unimaginably large. I hope the people in charge understand this. The US Navy failed to defeat the Houthis. Iran is a far larger proposition.
🔗 Phillip Pilkington
Ukrainian forces have begun training and testing exoskeletons for battlefield use. Soldiers from the 147th Separate Artillery Brigade are using them in the Pokrovsk sector for both logistics and frontline operations. The goal is to reduce physical strain, especially when loading heavy artillery shells into howitzers without automatic loaders. Artillery crews can handle up to 1200 kg of ammunition per day, and early tests show that exoskeletons help them work faster and with less fatigue Above all, by improving the conditions for those soldiers on the front lines who handle such heavy loads, plus the stress of work. Seeking to reduce overall fatigue in the troops
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🇮🇷🇮🇱 - 14 wounded in Iranian missile strike in central Israel, according to Israeli media.
🇬🇧🇮🇶 - A drone struck British Castrol oil warehouses in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, causing extensive damage.
🇮🇷🇮🇱 - Iran launched 9 missiles towards Israel this morning alone, with at least 3 of them being cluster missiles.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - Over the past 12 hours, Hezbollah launched counterattacks in Khiam and Qantara, in the Nabatieh direction, southeast Lebanon. Hezbollah recaptured northern Khiam, with fighting ongoing for the south of the town. Hezbollah units also re-entered Qantara; frontline sources reported clashes in the center of the town last night.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - 48 IDF soldiers have been wounded in clashes with Hezbollah over the last 24 hours in southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli Army.
🇱🇧🇮🇱 - "The Israeli army is barely catching its breath in southern Lebanon, and its resources are less than in the previous round of fighting," - Haaretz....
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This is a bank run, not a normal withdrawal.
Wall Street spent the last decade selling millions of investors on something called semi-liquid private credit, higher yields, steady income and the promise you could get your money back every quarter if you needed it. What they buried in the fine print was what happens when too many people try to leave at the same time.
Analysts who have covered private credit for decades say nothing on this scale has ever been reported before at any major private credit manager.
These funds do not hold stocks you can sell on a Tuesday afternoon, they hold private loans to mid sized companies that cannot be liquidated quickly without destroying the price for every investor still trapped inside.
This product was originally designed for ...
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Once a deficit hawk — he said in 2016 that he thought he could balance the budget in five years — Trump ended his first term with $7.8 trillion in added debt. His 2027 proposal is expected to give an update on 10-year deficit projections currently estimated at around $16 trillion.
The GOP's message for the Midterms will be focused on the "need" for a massive defense build up while the Democrats' message will be focused on affordability.
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Investors in US Treasuries will be looking to see if the debt and ...
