The United States has tried to fight in only one theatre of World War 3.0, focusing on achieving a quick, decisive defeat of Iran without engaging Russia and North Korea as adversaries. This is particularly difficult, given that Iran’s targeting intelligence is coming from Russia.

Iran’s threats to attack American targets in Europe could be made good. This would not be difficult for the Iranians, as long as they were not seeking to achieve significant destruction: a loud bang on a runway at Lakenheath or Ramstein would have to suffice. The US, which is mostly ignoring the targeting intelligence that has enabled Iranian munitions to hit American bases in the Middle East with precision, might have to notice the Russian source; and might be tempted to switch off comparable American intelligence provided to Ukraine.

Russian threats to attack the UK are already happening at low intensity: cyber attacks on supply chain and infrastructure targets have had some success. More of the same, including information warfare against Britain’s social cohesion, could exact a price from the UK for providing money, munitions and training to Ukraine. More desperate attacks against UK energy and internet infrastructure could sting more, without a dangerous move like shooting down an RAF aircraft or killing British soldiers across Russia’s borders.

Then there’s the change in US doctrine to shift the defence of South Korea from massive conventional force commitment to tactical nuclear battle. This week President Trump is making cosy noises to Kim Jong-Un while talking about cutting back on US-South Korean joint exercises, against the background of two nuclear powers going toe-to-toe upwind of Japan and uncomfortably close to northern China. This is necessary because the missiles that the US Army would have fired into North Korean depth, and the air defence missiles that would have shot down incoming North Korean munitions, have been used up in the Persian Gulf. It’s not that the US wants to use nuclear weapons to fight a tactical battle against North Korea, it’s that they’ve used up the other stuff.

Neither Russia nor Iran appears to be on the brink of collapse, however much damage has been done them. Putin appears to be ready to push on to Kyiv no matter how many North Koreans have to die in the process. (This is reminiscent of Iran sending Lebanese Hizballah fighters to die defending the Assad regime in Syria.)

The Iran theatre can end if the US steps back and gives the Iranians their win, swallows the Hormuz tolls, and gives Iran enough money to pretend to comply with restrictions on their nuclear programme. The Ukraine theatre can end if Russia steps back and accepts a cease-fire and negotiates itself out of Ukrainian territory. Both those solutions require Big Men to accept a measure of humiliation.

The US could treat the three adversaries as part of one conflict, but that would require the US to be a bit less friendly to Russia and North Korea. The alternative is to wait for the Big Men to retire, and just keep up the killing in the mean time.

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The salami slicing metaphor for Russian attack against the West … remember that idea?

*Buckshee from the Hindi बख्शी, bakhshi, the Indian Army term for the pay officer. It generally refers to something extra or unearned, and it’s related to the Turkish word بخشیش, bakhsheesh, a gratuity.

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ERRATA: In this podcast I confused Tulsi Gabbard, lately US Director of National Intelligence, and Kristi Noem, lately US Homeland Security Secretary. It was Tulsi Gabbard rather than Kristi Noem who maintained back-channel relations with the IRGC. In the video I imply that the negotiations between the US and Hamas are being conducted in Cairo; they’re being conducted in el-Alamein. Alamein is a railway halt in the Western Desert which is otherwise little-known.

Norwegians were having talks with Hamas in 2021, and I gather I’m supposed to view that as a bad thing. An American private citizen, accompanied by a Brit and a Bulgarian, had talks with Hamas just now, and I think that’s meant to be a fine thing.

There’s a world in which an American private citizen negotiating with a US-designated foreign terrorist organisation might risk a brush with the Law. In this case, Jared Kushner appears to be unconcerned. Arranging an agreement whereby Hamas, a terrorist organisation, achieves an incremental goal by getting the Israel Defence Forces out of Gaza probably isn’t ‘material support’ in the meaning of 18 US Code Chapter 113B. Sometimes people bring up the Logan Act, which forbids American private citizens from negotiating on behalf of the United States; but nobody’s ever been convicted of violating the Logan Act so Kushner won’t be losing any sleep over that.

The UK was abominated until recently for not treating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards as terrorist in UK law, while at about the same time the US Director of National Intelligence was keeping up back-channel contact with them. It’s not that having back-channel contact with people you’re fighting is wicked. During the Second World War, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler knew how to get hold of the British government to ask for penicillin. The reason it’s worth mentioning is that a reason to differentiate between terrorists and non-terrorists is to tell us with whom we should and shouldn’t sit down for a dicker.

Most significant, though: when he was finished his session with Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, Mr Kushner got on a plane to Jerusalem to talk with the Israeli government about exchanging Israeli withdrawal for Hamas disarmament. That is exactly the sort of shuttle diplomacy the US might have considered before agreeing with Hamas an Israeli withdrawal without consulting the Israelis.

The PLO/Fatah/Palestinian Authority renounced terrorism, and now they’re nominally in control of parts of the West Bank, but largely marginalised. I don’t think they’re getting any high-level delegations jetting to Ramallah to update the ancient Abu Mazen on the progress of making Gaza an independent country. It’s fairly clear that the intention of creating the ‘technocratic’ government of Gaza is to extend its writ to the West Bank as soon as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas retires from active politics. Hamas have been practising terrorism fairly consistently since 1989, and they’ve got a high-level delegation checking in with them to ensure they’re happy with America pushing Israel back out of Gaza. How’s that as a rationale for practising terrorism?

That article I referred to:Neumann, Peter R. “Negotiating with Terrorists.” Foreign Affairs 86, no. 1 (2007): 128–38. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20032216.

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Binyamin Netanyahu has started to describe a set of Israel’s more or less bilateral alliances as a ‘hexagon’. This must be because I’ve been describing Russia, Iran and North Korea as a Triangular Alliance, and I suppose he wants something with six points. I didn’t ask Harold what Great Game 2.0 was, but I assume it was the Cold War, and Cold War bush wars in particular. I make a distinction in this video between superpower rivalry and Great Power rivalry. I draw the distinction because I think superpowers have different margins from regional Great Powers, and engage differently on the margins. I’m not yet sure it’s a distinction with a difference.

Technical note: this was recorded in 2K, 60 FPS on a 4K camera, with sound manually synchronised and then saved as 720p 30 FPS before uploading.

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The US projected an SEP field around the Houthis: they’re Someone Else’s Problem. Whose problem? The Israelis and the Saudis. Thing is, neither the Israelis nor the Saudis are getting in the way of Chinese supplies (and Russian and Iranian supplies) to the Houthis, so the Yemeni tribal militia appear to have all the missiles and drones (and firearms) they need. Need for what? Need in order to act as Iran’s proxies at one of the globe’s most important choke points.

Why would Iran only control the Strait of Hormuz when they can also Control access to the Suez Canal?This paper on Houthi logistics is particularly interesting, especially because of the way it uses night-time light emissions as an indicator of activity: https://www.xcept-research.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/2026-02-02_XCEPT-research-report-Smugglers-to-Supply-Chains-how-Yemens-Houthi-movement-became-a-global-threat.pdf

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Donald Trump doesn’t need an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza for the US midterm elections in November. Binyamin Netanyahu, however, definitely needs not to withdraw from Gaza before the Israeli general election in October. Maybe they stitched up Netanyahu’s steadfast refusal between them.

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I had a question about this from a listener, and I’ve responded briefly, partly as a way to determine whether I can record live to Substack using my new webcam. I think the answer is that recording in 1080p HD is more than the Substack studio can handle.

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The US defence budget going up to $1.5 trillion next year means you can give Lockheed Martin a load of cash to build manufacturing capacity for PrSM, but you can't magick inventory into existence. If the US buys all the new missiles, other countries might need to buy elsewhere. What happens to the massive spare capacity once the US Army is no longer hungry for these missiles?

Also, didn't the Secretary of War leakproof the Pentagon by driving the professional journalists out? How could people still be briefing Reuters on background?

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The US Coast Guard has had a bit of a windfall: lavish border security budgets in the Department of Homeland Security are going to pay for a stack of chunky new Finnish icebreakers. Because you were there for my polar security video you know why, and you know why China’s five icebreakers are a number to beat.

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The agreement calls itself ‘this Roadmap’, and it has a lot to say about Palestinian weapons remaining in Palestinian hands. The Roadmap was a 2002-3 plan to achieve Israel-Palestine peace, so the term is a little nostalgic.

For a Roadmap, this document is awfully uncertain how the parties are going to get from here to there in two weeks.

This Road Map references Phase 2, which reminds us that this entire effort is devoted to implementing Phase 1 of the Gaza Peace Plan. The US announced in January 2026 that Phase 2 was beginning.

‘6. Gaza shall be governed according to the principle of One Authority, One Law, One Weapon.’ the Roadmap also creates a new government that has nothing to do with the Palestinian Authority. Perhaps it will replace the Palestinian Authority altogether. There is definitely more than one weapon.

The Board of Peace will appoint the International Verification Committee. The International Verification Committee will have an enhanced monitoring mechanism which will observe any violations by either party. This is intriguing.

The International Stabilisation Force will interpose itself between the IDF and Hamas. They will also train the new Palestinian police force, and they will be represented on the International Verification Committee.

I've said in this video that the eventual implementation is meant to take a year from now (14 days’ detailed planning followed by 350 days’ implementation). That timetable isn't in the Road Map.

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