Are US forces on the brink of defeat via exhaustion?
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is dead, if it ever existed, and Washington’s war to compel Iran’s submission to Israeli demands with air and missile power alone continues without resolution. The war is restarting and Iran remains defiant, its military power is unyielding, and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. War in the Middle East is fast becoming a “war to the last missile.” Since air power über alles has failed will ground forces change the game?
The longer Donald Trump continues the war with Iran, the more damage he is inflicting on the capabilities of the US military. Think about that.
I have talked about the depletion of several categories of US battlefield missiles on recent podcasts and decided to give you the best available data to help you grasp the enormity of the problem. The tables below are based on the most recent publicly available analyses from CSIS, the Payne Institute, and major media outlets (as of mid-2026), and provide a current (overly optimistic in my opinon) estimate for US inventory levels of these key weapons systems. Please note that actual inventories are classified; these are informed estimates derived from DOD budget documents, procurement records, and reported expenditures during Operation Epic Fury (the US-Israeli war with Iran).
⭕️ Iran FM Araghchi: Wars End Either Through Total Victory or Negotiations…
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi:
🔹 A war must be ended precisely at the point when you hold the upper hand on the battlefield. Ending a war is possible either through total military victory or… pic.twitter.com/kHeYhShsXC
How is it possible that the White House doesn’t know what everyone paying attention seems to know? And why is the administration still listening to the same people who lost Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Iran Round One?
As both sides escalate strikes on civilian and military targets, the Pentagon is boosting the number of military aircraft in the Middle East, according to the Washington Post. “The US is planning for a wider war,” an unnamed US official told the paper, while warning that the American military effort would be limited by dwindling air defense interceptor and missile supplies, which had been actively used up during the previous stages of the war.
“We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official told the Post. Military experts cited in the report said Washington remains unprepared for potential ground operations inside Iran–an option US President Donald Trump has refused to rule out.
On Friday, Axios reported that Washington had notified Israel that it was sending dozens of additional refueling planes ahead of a possible expansion of operations against Iran. According to the article, Trump was presented with several new military options, including strikes on Iranian power plants and further attacks on nuclear sites to bury Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium even deeper.
Saeid Golkar, an expert on Iran’s security services, told the Wall Street Journal that the situtation risks getting completely out of hand. “This escalation is rapidly intensifying and getting out of control,” he said. “There is a risk we will go back to a total war even if neither side wants it.”
A CNN analysis suggested that “a decisive US military victory over Iran seems a distant prospect.” In echoing remarks, Sina Toosi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, warned that a ground operation “in extreme summer heat… against a fully mobilized military and a population that has largely rallied around the war effort, would be an extraordinary gamble practically guaranteed to be a historic disaster.”
As we saw at the presentation of the World Cup trophy yesterday, Trump doesn’t seem to understand when it’s time to get off the stage.
Roth Note: Narcissist-in-Chief Trump seems to have to involve himself in everything. We elected a Caesar and got a fool. As for the reader who may remain in the Trump cult, I will acknowledge that some good things for the American people have resulted from his presidency, but suspect them being more accidental than intentional. They seem to me mostly done in order to appeal to Trump’s vanity.
US Troop Casualties Pile Up as Iran Goes to Town on US Bases
⚡️ A former U.S. Air Force pilot, close to U.S. Central Command, says that at least 3 to 5 more soldiers on medical evacuation planes "will probably not survive." There are also 15 other soldiers with serious, life-threatening injuries, whose fate remains unclear. pic.twitter.com/67dwUWcRsF
— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) July 18, 2026
One of the biggest stories around the attack centers on the claim from US officials that Russia and China have been the key playmakers providing Iran with high quality targeting to hit these sensitive sites, with some claiming (see below) that Russia has continued flying major supplies into Iran in recent weeks:
As can be seen, Iran is forcing the US to retreat by devastating the regional bases closest to Iran itself. Now some Iranian figures are even proposing that Iran could launch its own offensive ground invasion to take US bases in neighboring Kuwait.
The image we hold of the Germanic tribes today is incomplete. Much of what has been handed down comes from the records of Roman or, later, Christian authors. While their accounts are valuable, they invariably reflect an outsider’s perspective. A great deal of the Germanic peoples’ actual worldview, their stories, and their oral traditions has been lost over the centuries.
Nevertheless, the sources paint a consistent picture: the community stood above the individual.
The tribal elder—often respected for his age, wisdom, and proven judgment—did not rule as an absolute monarch. Rather, he was a guardian of memory, an advisor, and a mediator. His words carried weight because they were grounded in experience, yet his voice did not supersede the will of the kin group.
Important decisions were made collectively. At assemblies, free men and women—practices varied by tribe and era—gathered to deliberate on matters of war and peace, alliances, disputes, and the well-being of the community. There, they spoke, listened to one another, and strove to reach a decision. It was not the power of a single individual that was to determine the fate of all, but the shared will of the community.
Underlying this concept was a profound mythological idea: the human being was not an isolated entity, but a thread in the great tapestry of the kin group. Every action affected the fate of all. Honor, therefore, was not merely personal renown but the standing of the entire lineage. Those who acted justly strengthened the community. Those who committed treason, murder, robbery, or perjury did not merely harm individuals; they disrupted the order that bound ancestors, the living, and future generations together.
For this reason, a chieftain alone did not adjudicate serious transgressions. The community deliberated on what form of restitution or punishment corresponded to the wrong that had been committed. Depending on the deed, this might entail compensation, penance, banishment, or—in the case of particularly grave crimes—even death. The goal was not mere retribution, but the restoration of peace within the community. Order had to be renewed so that the trust binding the kin-group could endure.
In the Germanic worldview, law was not a cold statute but a living covenant among humans, ancestors, and gods. To honor this covenant was to honor the powers that watched over the world; to break it was to set oneself against the very fabric of life.
Perhaps therein lies the greatest lesson of these ancient traditions: a community is strong when wisdom is heeded, responsibility is shared, and decisions are borne collectively. No individual is greater than the people; no power stands higher than the duty owed to the community.
The voices of the ancients may have faded, yet their vision lives on: a kin-group consists not only of the living but also of the ancestors, the children, and those yet to be born. Whoever acts for the community acts for the past, the present, and the future alike. In this sense, the *Thing*—the assembly of the people—was more than a place of law. It was a sacred space where the order of the world was reaffirmed time and again through collective judgment.
Roth Note: How can we have such a community in America today? Is it even possible any longer?
What is disgusting is that the guy who claims to want to “Make America Great Again” is the guy destroying…