SOFREP Cartoon: NATO – Cold War Relic, or Critical Shield?
In Washington, the NATO argument is no longer about deterrence or doctrine, it is about the bar tab, and the guy holding the bottle is starting to ask why he is the only one paying.
Global Politics
Morning Brief: Rochester Police Ambush, UN Peacekeepers Killed, US Seizes Second Venezuelan Oil Tanker
From an ambush that wounded three Rochester police officers, to the killing of UN peacekeepers overseas, to US forces seizing sanctioned oil tankers off Venezuela, a series of escalating incidents highlights growing risks for security forces operating in unstable and increasingly contested environments.
Evening Brief: US Strikes ISIS in Syria, Russia Hits Odesa, Bellevue OIS
After a deadly ambush near Palmyra, US forces hit more than 70 ISIS targets across central Syria in a heavy retaliation strike meant to keep ISIS cells from regrouping. Russia is pounding Odesa while massing forces near Pokrovsk, and back home a Bellevue officer-involved shooting is under review by King County’s independent investigators as both the officer and suspect recover.
Morning Brief: AI Power Grid Shift and Norway Military Aid: F-16 Weapons for Ukraine and Arctic Security on Jan Mayen
Federal regulators are moving to let massive AI data centers connect closer to power plants, a fast-track grid shift that could bring reliability. Norway is also stocking the shelves with consequences, funding F-16 munitions and air-defense weapons for Ukraine while tightening security rules on Jan Mayen as the Arctic heats up.
The Shadow War Off Venezuela’s Coast: How U.S. Special Operators Are Quietly Shaping Operation Southern Spear
Out on the dark water where the rules get thin and the trigger gets heavy, Southern Spear is less a drug bust than a deliberate message: if you run narco-terror cargo under a cartel flag, the United States will hunt you down and end the problem at sea, not in court.
Democracy, Terror, and the Lines We Refuse to Draw
Liberal democracies did not fail because they defended themselves after 9/11, but because they spent the next two decades pretending that ideology, borders, and integration no longer mattered in a world where all three still kill people.
War Tourist Dispatches #1: Crossing the Thai-Cambodian Border
I am not crossing into Cambodia because I want to, but because borders now behave like quiet intelligence services, and once you have been attached to a war, even a routine visa run starts feeling like you are moving through someone else’s threat matrix.
The Rise of Nick Fuentes: Why His Extremism Matters Far Beyond America
Fuentes sells antisemitism and Kremlin-friendly authoritarian nostalgia the way the internet sells everything else, as meme-flavored entertainment stripped of consequence, and Europe cannot afford to treat that kind of cultural poison as harmless content.
Morning Brief: Deadly Shooting at Brown, Gabbard’s Afghanistan Vetting Warning, Bangladesh Peacekeepers Killed in Abyei, and Gaza Power Struggles After Ceasefire
From Kabul evac fallout to a deadly ambush in Abyei and the mess of armed factions in Gaza, these stories all point to the same truth: rushed decisions and fragile ceasefires always get paid for by people standing post. Whether it’s Guard troops at home, peacekeepers abroad, or IDF units hunting bomb-makers, the work is still dirty, dangerous, and done without applause.
The Bolduc Brief: Zelensky’s Stance – A Strong Commitment to Ukraine’s Sovereignty
Zelensky’s refusal to trade away a single inch of Ukrainian soil is not stubbornness but the last solid line between a world of rules and a world where every dictator thinks they can redraw the map at gunpoint.
The Foreign Hand Behind Cambodia’s Drone War
From where I sit in Phuket, watching FPV suicide drones carve into Thai positions from a frontier run by casinos and scam compounds, it is clear this is no border misunderstanding but a conflict engineered by foreign operators using Cambodia’s criminal economy as cover.
The Bolduc Brief: The Contradictory Landscape of U.S. Foreign Policy – From Promoting Democracy to Embracing Interventionism Under the Trump Administration
Hard-nosed realism that trades away our commitment to democracy in favor of cutting deals with dictators is not strength; it is strategic blindness that will cost America both credibility and security.
