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“Purchased With Blood”: Frontier Violence and Imperial Decline

Empires are most violent at their origins and their ends. When they are establishing their empires, they are conquering and controlling new territories, governments, and peoples. When they are falling apart, they are desperately attempting to hold onto their power over other territories, governments, and peoples. Both processes lead to a logic of increased violence and brutality, since it is through overwhelming violence that one can establish a hierarchy over others as fast as possible. But violence also creates resentment and reaction, so these attempts can spiral into greater violence or lead to unstable and insecure periods of relative calm. Using extreme violence might overwhelm the enemy and force capitulation. That is the obvious desired outcome of those who resort to its use. But it may also result in a long, drawn-out and brutal war of attrition in which all sides wear each other down over years. Perhaps it will impose a new order over the society and force the population into an acquiescent and obedient position for years, but it is a precarious peace bought with the blood of their people, and resentments build over time until they burst through the seams.

Referring to the Roman, British and American empires, historian Charles Maier wrote, “The Pax Romana, the Pax Britannica, and presumably the Pax Americana are purchased with blood in the decades of their creation and their dismantling.” On the frontiers – or geographic edges – of empire, “[t]here is a natural history of warfare and bloodshed,” wrote Maier. “When they are being established… and when they are being abandoned… frontiers become sites of endemic and brutal killing.” Maier added: “Whether the order they guarantee in the interim is worth the intervals of violence depends upon how long the period of stability lasts.”^[1]

The Spanish and Portuguese conquests of much of the Americas, for example, were marred by endless brutality and endemic killings. The Portuguese empire, however, lasted roughly 500 years, coming to an end in the latter 20^th century. Its origins were extremely violent, but so too was the Portuguese Colonial War, fought between 1961 and 1974, as African and other independence movements against colonization came up against the colonial state violence of Portugal in Angola, Mozambique, and Portuguese Guinea, and which resulted in the killing of over 100,000 African civilians. But when a peaceful military coup overthrew the Portuguese dictatorship, it quickly brought the war to a close and Portugal ultimately withdrew from its African colonies. (At which point, the United States stepped in to continue another decade and a half of counter-insurgency warfare.)

Similar stories can be told for the establishment and fall of the Dutch, Belgian, French and British empires, the latter two having come to conquer or control much of the world between them, from Africa, to West Asia (commonly referred to as the Middle East, so named because it was the mid-way point in the British empire), South Asia, Southeast and East Asia. At its end, the British empire undertook massive colonial wars of domination and punishment against anti-colonial independence movements in Palestine, Malaya, and Kenya, killing potentially hundreds of thousands in Kenya alone. The French waged their brutal colonial wars against anti-colonial independence movements, most notably in Vietnam (Indochina), and then most dramatically in Algeria, killing up to or more than 300,000 Vietnamese, and somewhere between 400,000 and 1 million Algerians, comparable only with when the French first conquered Algeria in the early 19^th century. Again, empires are most violent at their start and their end, and with the violence expressed most dramatically along the imperial frontiers.

Even the Soviet Union, which was a rare historical empire that collapsed relatively peacefully, its decline was still marked by a period of increased violence in the frontiers of its imperial power, not in the core in Europe, but namely in its nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, killing up to 1 million Afghans in the process. Not exactly a peaceful decline, when looking beyond the borders of Eastern Europe. However, certainly within the Soviet Union itself, its rapid decline and fall between 1989 and 1991 was unprecedented in modern imperial history for the lack of violence and warfare. But then we also have the more recent example of Vladimir Putin attempting to re-establish the Russian empire by reconquering and subjugating Ukraine, which was made independent after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. This process is intensely violent, with the more than four-year-long war being the deadliest in the world at present (though the fatalities are largely of combatants, both Ukrainian and Russian, compared with conflicts elsewhere, where the fatalities are largely civilian, such as in Gaza and Sudan).

If we imagine the ‘frontiers’ of the American Empire; when it was being established both as a nation-state and an empire, it first was expanding westwards from the original colonies, and then south, conquering indigenous lands and displacing the pre-existing populations and communities. It was a brutally violent period of endemic killing, ethnic cleansing, colonization, and even genocide. The frontier, as it was known, was the ever-expanding borders of the United States. And then in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the frontiers of the American Empire expanded into the Caribbean, Central America, and across the Pacific – with imperial killing and conquest reaching Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico, Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines.

But after two World Wars in the first half of the 20^th century, America became a truly global empire, less focused on territorial expansion and more focused on economic integration, dependence, and exploitation. Violence was still essential, not to establish colonies, but to create pliant, obedient governments, and repress potentially revolutionary or rebellious populations. America became the ultimate global empire, its frontiers extended across the globe, near and far. It still included locations territorially close to the United States, such as in Central America and the Caribbean, and extended across much of Latin America, but also reached across oceans and continents, to places like Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia, to Germany, Greece, and Turkey.

American Violent Imperial Decline: The First 25 Years of the 21^st Century

We do not appear to be so lucky that America’s imperial decline and collapse will be as peaceful as that of the Soviet Union’s. Indeed, in the waning decades of America’s imperial hegemony, that is, in the first decades of the 21^st century, when America launched its major wars and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and launched countless military operations in and warfare against several other nations (Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Syria, and Pakistan), not to mention the countless other nations where America waged its hidden ‘war of terror’, the death toll was immense. Researchers from Brown University in 2023 reported that the total number of deaths attributable to the US war on terror were roughly 4.5 million, roughly a million of them caused by direct violence, the remaining resulting from indirect deaths caused by a collapse in economic, environmental, and health conditions.

Since the period of this published report, however, the United States has consistently and strongly supported, financed and armed Israel in its genocide in Gaza, not to mention Israel’s wars and/or occupations in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. While all recent US presidents have attacked multiple nations over the course of their terms, the rate and pace has accelerated under Donald Trump. President George W. Bush (2001-2009) undertook major military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Pakistan, but his administration reportedly had plans to attack seven countries in five years (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Iran), so he only managed to achieve part of his administration’s violent imperial ambitions. (Israel also stepped in with a US-backed war on Lebanon in 2006.) But other presidents would soon fulfill much of the list of intended conquests.

President Barack Obama (2009-2017) undertook military operations in seven countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria, dropping a record 26,171 bombs in 2016 (his final year in office) alone. President Obama was in no small measure elected as a popular reaction against the large foreign wars of the Bush administration years, with two seemingly unending wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq and a globally expansive “War on Terror” that unleashed covert operations around the world. Yet, Obama was responsible for further empowering and expanding the roles played by special forces soldiers and secret wars across most of the planet.

By 2010, special forces were deployed to 75 countries, up from 60 at the start of 2009, when Obama entered office. These elite commando units were operating in countries beyond the main combat zones of Afghanistan and Iraq (though also including them, of course) to Colombia, the Philippines, Yemen, Somalia, and across the Middle East, Africa, and Central Asia. The commanders of special operations forces had “become a far more regular presence at the White House than they were under George W. Bush’s administration.” One senior special forces military official was quoted in the Washington Post in 2010 as saying, “We have a lot more access… They are talking publicly much less but they are acting more. They are willing to get aggressive much more quickly.” Special forces operations included raids, strikes, and assassinations, but also training the security forces of different countries in how to undertake counterterrorism operations, and then frequently engage in joint operations with those forces. As White House counterterrorism director John O. Brennan said, the United States “will not merely respond after the fact” to terror attacks, but will “take the fight to al-Qaeda and its extremist affiliates whether they plot and train in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond.”

Obama further implemented this process, as he sought to wind down the large wars and occupations, which were deeply unpopular with the public and around the world, badly damaging the credibility of American political parties and politicians, and American credibility as an imperial power to both allies and adversaries. Also, in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis that badly damaged America’s economic credibility, the Obama administration sought to cut military costs by reducing the large-scale operations and occupations and increasing the size and role and range of the apparatus of secret warfare and the training of local forces around the world. As Obama put it when announcing the defense strategy in early January 2012, “our military will be leaner, but the world must know the United States is going to maintain our military superiority.”

In April 2013, the US Special Operations Commander, Admiral William H. McRaven, told the US Senate that, “On any day of the year you will find special operations forces [in] somewhere between 70 and 90 countries around the world.” As the Wall Street Journal reported in April 2015, “the sun never sets on America’s special-operations forces. Over the past year, they have landed in 81 countries, most of them training local commandos to fight so American troops don’t have to.” By late 2015, roughly half of the 7,500 elite commandos were deployed outside of the Middle East or South Asia, operating in a total of 85 countries around the world, at least according to Special Operations Command at the time. But in total, as the New York Times revealed, “Special operations personnel deployed to approximately 139 nations in 2015 – about 70 percent of the countries on the planet. While a vast majority of those missions involve training the defense forces of partner countries, a few involve direct combat.”

When Obama ended his presidency at the start of 2017, with the US remaining engaged in combat and (limited) occupations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, he left behind “an improbable legacy as the only president in American history to serve two complete terms with the nation at war.” But while he had less US forces deployed to foreign wars than many of his predecessors, with additional military strikes in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, Obama left “a total of seven countries where his administration has taken military action,” noted the New York Times. And before he left office, Obama gave the Joint Special Operations Command, which oversees all military special operations, “expanded power to track, plan and potentially launch attacks on terrorist cells around the globe.”

In Trump’s first term (2017-2021), he continued this trend of bombing the seven countries of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Syria, and Libya, though he also accelerated the rate of drone strikes in particular, and made their oversight more opaque. Trump also continued the trend of having special operations forces deployed around the world, engaged in training programs and military operations. In the first few months of Trump’s first term in 2017, there were a reported 8,600 elite forces deployed to 97 countries around the world, over half of them posted outside of the Middle East and South Asia. As the commander of US Special Operations Command said in May 2017, “We operate and fight in every corner of the world.” In early 2018, it was reported by the Army Times that over the course of Trump’s first year in office, special forces soldiers were “deployed to 149 countries, an increase from the previous year that saw deployments to 138 countries.” That’s approximately 75% of the countries on the planet.

President Joe Biden (2021-2025) undertook military strikes in five countries, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan, though he also strongly backed Israel’s war in Gaza. In December 2023, roughly two months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, President Biden delivered remarks to a gathering of campaign donors where he acknowledged some long-term issues in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and the wider Arab world, but explained, “in the meantime, we’re not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel in the process. Not a single thing,” further affirming that, “Israel’s security can rest on the United States.”

Interestingly, when you compare the list of seven countries that the US was planning to undertake regime change wars against in the early 2000s (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Iran), according to a former top general who was made aware of the plans, by 2026, all the countries that had been named on the list (and new additions as well) had either experienced major wars or collapsed into internal warfare, and the wars were either directly supported or executed by the US or its close allies (such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates).

Obviously, the US invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003 until 2011, and then again in 2014, and were now expected to formally withdraw in the fall of 2026. Syria collapsed into civil war in 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring, but numerous other regional and global powers either covertly or overtly supported differing warring parties, including the US, UK, France, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia, Iran, and Israel. When the Islamic State established itself in territories of Iraq and Syria and the US organized a military coalition to fight ISIS, the US and numerous other nations also became more directly involved militarily in undertaking strikes against targets and deploying troops into Syria. Lebanon was attacked and invaded by Israel in a brutal 2006 war, but was subsequently and repeatedly subjected to Israeli bombardments during the course of Israel’s war on Gaza and its subsequent war on Iran, with substantial wars and invasions of Lebanon in 2024 and 2026. Libya was attacked by the US and NATO in 2011 in the wake of the unrest of the Arab Spring and subsequently collapsed into civil war and is now a divided nation ruled by warlords backed by different outside nations, including the US, France, the UK, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Sudan was mired in civil war in the early 2000s, and then again more recently, after a revolution unseated the long-time dictator in 2019, and then two military factions began a war for power in April 2023, plunging the country into genocidal violence, with the worst of the two belligerents backed by a US ally, the United Arab Emirates, itself an imperial power across the continent of Africa. Somalia has been consistently attacked since 2006 to present day, with warring parties not only including the United States, but also Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda, all close US allies and security partners in Africa. And then Iran, which was first attacked directly in a war by Israel (with the United States eventually joining) in June 2025, and then in a much more significant and still ongoing war, waged by Israel and the US starting in February 2026.

Thus, the seven countries that were identified in the early 2000s by the Bush administration as targets for regime change wars may not have had US puppet states installed within five years, but in the subsequent 25 years after 9/11, they have all become engulfed in wars that have involved the US or its close regional allies, which have left their societies, countries and polities fractured, and hundreds of thousands if not millions dead. Thus, the seven countries initially identified are perhaps best understood as a list of some of the frontiers of the American Empire, subjected to acts of immense imperial violence and conquest. And of course, there are additional countries to add to the list of frontiers of endemic violence that were not included in the original list from 2001, including Afghanistan, Yemen, and Gaza/Palestine, along with more recent additions (and repeating certain ones on the list over and over, emphasizing the endemic nature of imperial frontier violence).

Which brings us to Donald Trump’s second term, starting in early 2025. In less than two years, President Trump rapidly accelerated the use of US warfare in the imperial frontiers, undertaking major military operations in seven countries, including Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Venezuela, Syria, Nigeria, military strikes in the waters of the Caribbean, and of course two wars against Iran. And with two years left to his (presumed) last term as president, we should expect the violence to accelerate, and the frontiers to proliferate as American power declines further.

It’s important to acknowledge that America’s imperial decline and exacerbated violence are not caused by Donald Trump, but he is both a symptom of this process and an accelerant to it. Thus, America’s imperial decline as a great military power extending its hegemony around the globe can perhaps be dated to October 7, 2001, when the US began its war on Afghanistan, and appropriately so since Afghanistan has long been known as ‘the graveyard of empires,’ with every attempt to conquer and control this imperial frontier ending in failure and retreat, going as far back as Alexander the Great, and up to and including the British and Russian empires in the 19^th century, the Soviet Union during its decline, and the American Empire (and NATO) between 2001 and 2021, when they withdrew and the Taliban returned to power, having effectively waged a 20-year war and occupation only to return to power the very groups they sought to depose in the first place.

If we combined the countries that the US has attacked, invaded and engaged in significant military strikes and operations within over the course of the 25 years after the start of the ‘war on terror’ and invasion of Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, to present day (August 2026, as of this writing), the total is ten countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iran. If you include those countries and territories attacked by Israel, specifically since the start of the latest war on October 7, 2023, but also over the same longer time period, due to the fact that Israel’s weapons are provided and its operations heavily subsidized by the United States, there is overlap with US targets in attacking Syria, Yemen, and Iran, but with the additions of Gaza/Palestine and Lebanon. Thus, if we incorporate the US and Israel as a kind of axis of imperialism (which we should), the total number of countries they have collectively attacked, invaded, or engaged in military strikes and operations inside over the past 25 years amount to 12: Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iran.

And this is not including the activities of special operations forces or the training of local armed forces and joint operations carried out with different countries, which as we know, can be taking place in dozens of countries around the world on any given day. Thus, as the American Empire declined over the course of the 21^st century, it also became more violent, attacking and partaking in military operations and deployments in more countries around the world than ever before.

Lethality and Control: Brzezinski’s Imperial Dictum

This essay incorporates the observation from historian Charles Maier that empires are most violent at their start and at their end, and that the violence is most acute on the frontiers of their imperial reach. Additionally, I would like to incorporate some observations from one of America’s most prominent imperial strategists of the 20^th century, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s former national security adviser who was often considered to be the Democratic Party’s answer to Henry Kissinger for his hawkish strategic mind. I would argue Brzezinski was a much more intelligent and far-sighted strategic thinker than Henry Kissinger, who was primarily concerned with great power relations and ingratiating himself to the world’s rich and powerful, particularly its most prominent financial and political dynasties. Brzezinski, while also interconnected with many of the same overlapping social and political circles as Kissinger, maintained a keener and more complex understanding of the world, and acknowledged that there was a world beyond the great powers, and beyond elite circles. Kissinger once infamously dismissed the history of Latin America, Africa and Asia, proclaiming that, “Nothing important can come from the [Global] South. History has never been produced in the South. The axis of history starts in Moscow, goes to Bonn [Germany], crosses over to Washington, and then goes to Tokyo. What happens in the South is of no importance.”

Brzezinski, on the other hand, recognized that the axis of history was more complex, and that the Global South existed and had history – and was important – regardless of whether or not he was personally involved in it or connected to their ruling classes (which was Kissinger’s only real gauge for empathy). When he delivered a eulogy for Nelson Rockefeller, a powerful scion of the rich and powerful Rockefeller family, who personally brought Kissinger into the halls of great power as a close adviser, thereafter becoming a kind of consigliere to the Rockefeller clan (in addition to other dynasties), Kissinger reflected on when he was a graduate student and first met Nelson Rockefeller, describing himself as “intoxicated by the proximity to power.” Indeed, that was an appropriate summation of how Kissinger made his way through the world. And this is not to say Brzezinski was not similar in certain respects, as his rise to power and influence was also connected to the same Rockefeller family. But Brzezinski was not so blind to believe that everything beyond the purview of his own disconnected elite experience was the full extent of the world that mattered or that had the ability to direct and influence history. In short, Brzezinski recognized the South and the people of the world, including if not especially the disaffected masses, as being participants in great history.

Brzezinski even became a fierce critic of the Bush administration’s ‘War on Terror,’ referring to it as “a mythical historical narrative,” and derided the war on Iraq as “a historic, strategic and moral calamity” which was “undermining America’s global legitimacy,” and reflected an “imperial hubris… reminiscent of colonial tutelage.” He also warned in 2007 against a possible war with Iran that could plunge “a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire” across the region. Such a prominent voice of opposition was unwelcome to the Bush administration, and Brzezinski was effectively “shut out” of the White House for the Bush years (2001-2009). Kissinger faced no such excommunication from the halls of power. After all, Kissinger once defined the role of an “expert” as working for their constituency (in his case, the rich and powerful), writing that, “elaborating and defining its consensus at a high level has, after all, made him an expert.” In other words, an expert is someone who defines the elite consensus (such as himself), not someone who would dare criticize or diverge from the elite consensus. During the Bush years, while Brzezinski was shut out of the halls of power, Henry Kissinger was closely advising President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney on the issue of the Iraq war (which Brzezinski strongly opposed), exerting “a powerful, largely invisible influence on the foreign policy of the Bush administration,” telling Bush and Cheney that “the only exit strategy for Iraq was victory.”

Brzezinski may have been a member of the American imperial elite over the course of roughly four decades, but he did not shy away from denouncing the Bush administration’s “mythical” war on terror and the “strategic and moral calamity” of the war on Iraq. Nor did he shy away from providing a more honest analysis of Israel and its relationship with the US and the Palestinians. Brzezinski regained some influence with the Obama administration, having advised President Obama on occasion. In the lead-up to the Obama years, in late 2008, Brzezinski wrote a piece for International Affairs, a prominent British policy journal, which was an edited version of a lecture he delivered to the esteemed and elite British think tank, Chatham House, entitled, “Major Foreign Policy Challenges for the Next US President.” He warned about global issues related to “human well-being” such as “climate, environment, starvation, health and social inequality.” He described what he called “the global political awakening,” writing: “For the first time in human history almost all of humanity is politically activated, politically conscious and politically interactive,” and this was generating a “global political activism” which was “generating a surge in the quest for personal dignity, cultural respect and economic opportunity in a world painfully scarred by memories of centuries-long alien colonial or imperial domination.”

In other words, what he identified as the “global political awakening” was a reflection of the transformations taking place across the formerly colonized and dominated world (the Global South), and among repressed peoples at home in the west itself, who had become increasingly aware of their relative deprivation compared to the powerful, and were becoming increasingly resistant to the maintenance and expansion of power over the dominated, exploited, impoverished and repressed peoples of the world. Such a situation of restless and potentially rebellious or even revolutionary populations around the world poses an obvious challenge to any imperial power, least of all the United States with its frontiers extending across the globe.

Brzezinski also identified “another fundamental change” in the world, which was “a shift in the distribution of global power from the West to the East,” noting that, “[t]he 500-year-long domination of the world by the Atlantic powers – Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Britain and, more recently, the United States – is coming to an end with the new political and global pre-eminence of both China and Japan,” with perhaps India and Russia “waiting in the wings.” Already in 2008 Brzezinski was identifying the fact that America was in a period of imperial decline, and that the world itself was becoming more complex and challenging to govern and rule over. To this point, he identified that “these major world powers, new and old, also face a novel reality: while the lethality of their military might is greater than ever, their capacity to impose control over the politically awakened masses of the world is at a historic low.” He explained: “To put it bluntly: in earlier times, it was easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people; today, it is infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.” Technology, communications, education and connectivity had made people harder to rule over. But technology – particularly of the lethal variety – had also made it easier to kill large numbers of people. Harder to rule, easier to kill. Powerful states are more “lethal” than ever before, but their actual capacity to dominate subject peoples “is at a historic low.” As a result, extreme violence and lethality increasingly becomes the answer to the question and challenge of control; how to establish it, how to keep it. In this context, Brzezinski explained, “the crisis of American leadership could in fact become the crisis of global stability.”

It is this latter point, and quote, which occupies an especially relevant place in this essay and its argument about America’s imperial decline leading to accelerated violence. Just as the historian Charles Maier identified the historical fact that empires are most violent at their origins and ends, and notably so along their imperial frontiers; Brzezinski identified the specific context of violence in the modern world of America’s decline: that while it was once “easier to control one million people than to physically kill one million people,” it was now “infinitely easier to kill one million people than to control one million people.” Both arguments overlap and support the thesis that as the American Empire declines, it will increasingly turn to acts of mass violence, warfare, and lethality. As American power wanes and falters, as it loses allies and gains adversaries, more and more countries and peoples will break off from under the influence of American hegemony and domination. This means that the frontiers of the American empire will proliferate exponentially. As the American Empire seeks to contain the decline of its power, or reassert its dominance, it will increasingly turn to acts of extreme violence as the most efficient means of attempting to achieve these ends.

The focus of the rest of this essay is not on the imperial decline of the past 25 years, however, but to specifically focus on the recent accelerated decline and violence of the first 20 months of the second term of Donald Trump (2025-2026). The prior historical examples from the first two decades of the 21^st century aimed to contextualize the second Trump term, not as an aberration but an acceleration; to understand that Trump is not a cause, but a consequence and catalyst of American imperial decline. Donald Trump and his Make American Great Again (MAGA) fascist movement are, after all, partly a response to America’s imperial decline. Trump’s movement, like other fascist movements, espouse an aggrieved sense of victimhood and fears of community (or racial, ethnic, religious) decline. Internally, this is largely concerned with fears over immigration, Muslims, and culture wars. Externally, Trump expounds these concepts by his demand for allies to act subservient, to respect America’s unparalleled power, and for adversaries to quake and tremble at America’s military might. For Trump, America’s decline is interpreted as a lack of respect, and his answer to that problem is to strike fear among both allies and adversaries. There is no ‘soft power’ in the Trump administration.

In fact, at the start of the second Trump term, the administration dismantled and destroyed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), one of the institutions of America’s soft power in the world that had responsibilities for disseminating vaccines, healthcare, educational opportunities, development aid and support. America’s imperial power always came with large doses of violence, but over the course of the 20^th century it also came with powerful inducements, cultural exports from music to movies and art, to medicine and science and technology, to serving as a beacon to the world and to attract people and talent from across the world to learn at America’s preeminent educational institutions and prosper in its unparalleled economy. All of these facets are under attack and undermined during this second Trump term. All that is left is the hard power of military might. All that is left is violence.

As he started his second term, Trump claimed to be seeking the role of peacemaker, but his actions revealed that he has entered a dangerous and deranged new phase of petulant war mongering. Trump explained in an interview that, “I don’t need international law,” and that the only limits on his global power were, “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” And after erroneously claiming to have stopped eight or ten wars (the figures changed periodically), and then failing to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his imagined victories, Trump angrily informed Norway’s prime minister in a text message that since Norway failed to give him the peace prize, “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.”

America thus enters a period of accelerated imperial decline and imperial violence in a world in which “it is easier to kill one million people” than it is “to control one million people.” This is a dangerous prescription for any era, let alone one in which a fascist movement and leader have usurped the highest reaches of American power. To reiterate, Trump is not the cause of imperial decline, but he is a consequence of it and an accelerant to it. American imperial violence is not unique to Trump, but it is uniquely amplified under his rule. And we can expect America’s violent decline to spread across its many and growing frontiers. Already in the first 20 months of the second Trump term (January 2025 – August 2026), President Trump has waged wars and military campaigns in at least seven different countries and beyond, and alongside its “model ally,” Israel, is waging an imperial war along its frontiers to try to stall or reverse its decline, but which will ultimately only exacerbate it.

THE FRONTIER WARS

The following sections provide a breakdown of the violent imperial decline of the American Empire as expressed through the many wars of the first 20 months of the second Trump administration.

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Empires have always waged wars and committed atrocities. This is how they are formed and so often maintained, after all. But an empire is also supposed to provide a semblance of order and stability to those nations and regions and peoples under its hegemony. An empire will then undertake violence against those powers, rebels, and upstarts that threaten its ‘peace’, stability and order.

But when violence spreads far and wide, with instability and disorder being the rule and no longer the exception, that empire is no longer a guarantor of order and stability. As such, it has lost credibility among both allies and adversaries. New powers may take advantage and rise through the chaos.

Such is the world today. America’s power remains greater than any other single nation. But it’s ability to impose its will on others, both friend and foe, is in rapid decline. Fear, violence and disorder spread across the globe.

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Andrew Gavin Marshall is a writer and researcher of politics, history, and economics based in Toronto, Canada. His website is Empire and Economics, he hosts the podcast ‘In This Mad World.’ You can subscribe to his Substack and follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to his bi-weekly News Junkies newsletter.

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As the Middle East descends into war and chaos, and nuclear proliferation threatens to spread across many regimes, regional threats increasingly become global threats. Israel and the Arab Gulf regimes opposed the Iranian nuclear deal, and the first Trump term withdrew from the deal, after which Iranian nuclear enrichment accelerated. Israel went to war with Iran in June 2025, and the United States joined at the end to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites and declare the Twelve-Day War at an end, with Trump proclaiming that he had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.

Then came the February 28, 2026, war of aggression against Iran, launched by Israel and the US, and again, purportedly to stop it from developing nuclear weapons. But as I have covered in a prior article, the real threat posed by Iran was not in its imaginary nuclear weapons, but in its ability to defend itself and deter an attack from Israel and the US. But Israel and the US are governed by fascists now, unbound by reason and rational argument. They pursued an illegal war of aggression (the “supreme international crime”), and Iran retaliated in a dramatic fashion, targeting US military assets and allies across the region.

And now, in the wake of a brutal war, Iran’s survived regime, more radical than ever, is more likely than ever to actually pursue the development of nuclear weapons. Further, an abruptly announced nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia was quickly undermined by Trump, who then demanded that the Saudis establish formal relations with Israel as a precondition, a non-starter for the Saudis, who also have other options to pursue a nuclear weapon, including possibly by purchasing some from its close ally and defense pact partner, Pakistan. And yet, all this fear and instability, but the only country in the region that actually has nuclear weapons is the most belligerent and dangerous nation, Israel.

Clearly, as dangerous as the region is now, the prospects of further nuclear proliferation and multiple nuclear-armed states, many of which are antagonistic to one another, poses greater dangers still. But did it have to be this way? Is there another way?

In fact, there has been a proposal on the books for over 50 years, which has gained the support of much of the world and virtually every single country in the region itself. The proposal: to establish a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East, or even go as far as creating a weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-free zone in the Middle East.

The proposal goes back many decades. Such an agreement has actually gone into force in regions like Latin America (which established a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons in the region signed by all 33 Latin American and Caribbean nations in 1969), and in subsequent decades similar treaties were signed in Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Africa, and even Central Asia.

In the 1960s, Israel built a nuclear weapon and became the first and to this date, the only nuclear-armed nation in the Middle East. This effort had prompted other regional states to try to build their own nuclear programs, including Iraq, Libya, Syria, and of course Iran.

In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor and effectively ended its nuclear program. The United States would later go to war with Iraq in 1991 and then again in 2003, mounting a massive occupation that lasted for years. In 2003, under US pressure, Libya abandoned its own nuclear and WMD programs. Libya would subsequently be attacked by the US and NATO nations in 2011 and collapsed into civil war and a fractured state run by warlords. In 2007, Israel bombed Syria’s nuclear program. Syria fell into civil war in 2011 and experienced a Turkish-backed invasion in late 2024 that led to the collapse of the Assad regime and establishment of a government under the leadership of a former al-Qaeda and ISIS leader.

And then there is Iran. (See: current war).

Wars of aggression, no matter their excuse, do not make the world safer, but more dangerous. The twin wars of aggression waged by the two fascist imperialist powers of Israel and the United States against Iran in June 2025 and February 2026 (to present) have massively destabilized the region and rapidly expanded the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation. Thus, the case for a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East is more important than ever.

One of the first attempts to pursue this was in 1974, when Egypt and Iran (then under the leadership of the US-backed Shah) proposed a joint UN resolution to establish a NWFZ in the region, clearly fearful of Israel’s weapons program. Such diplomatic efforts also expanded to propose a weapons of mass destruction (WMD)-free zone for the region, which would of course include but not be limited to nuclear weapons. Israel consistently refused to join or endorse any such initiative. Israel’s stance, typically backed by the United States, has hindered progress in this effort for decades.

All the Arab states and Iran have also signed onto the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while Israel has consistently refused to do so. Israel claims that a pre-requisite to it joining the NPT or supporting a NWFZ in the Middle East would be to reach a comprehensive peace agreement with all Arab nations and Iran. Such a prospect, however, if to be believed at all, is unthinkable without Israel attempting to reach a comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinians, something which it has consistently failed and refused to do over the decades.

In 2010, a resumed Egypt-led effort began to attempt to push through a NWFZ in the Middle East, having circulated proposals among the NPT’s 189 members to call for a conference by the end of 2011 to pursue the nuclear-free zone. The US was attempting to push Egypt to find a compromise deal that would pursue Israel’s stated objective of establishing “a comprehensive peace plan.” But a senior Israeli official stated that there was “nothing new” and “no reason for a change of direction on our part.”

But these efforts get consistently pushed further into the future. In November of 2012, Iran announced that it would attend a proposed conference on establishing a nuclear and WMD-free zone in the region, with the conference set to take place in Finland later in the year. Israel remained quiet on whether or not it would consider attending the conference.

Once again, the talks were delayed. And when NPT talks took place in 2013, Egypt ultimately walked out of the talks due to the failure for the meeting to consider its proposal to make the Middle East a NWFZ. Both Iran and Syria had issued calls supporting a conference to ban nuclear weapons in the region, following Egypt’s lead. But Israel has refused to even sign up to the NPT, putting it in the same company as North Korea, South Sudan, Pakistan and India, and would therefore not attend the conference. US and Israeli officials again affirmed that such a NWFZ would only be achieved following a broad peace agreed between Israel and other Middle East nations, and after Iran agreed to curb its own nuclear program.

The last major attempt to push for a NWFZ in the Middle East took place in 2015, but talks of the NPT nations collapsed in failure following four weeks of negotiations as the US and its allies rejected the conference’s final document. The US and UK refused to accept any deadlines to hold a conference on establishing the NWFZ, while Canada opposed any process that didn’t include Israel (which is not a signatory to the NPT, and therefore did not participate in the meetings that were calling for a future conference to discuss the nuclear free zone). Iran accused the US and UK of blocking consensus “to safeguard the interests of a particular non-party of the treaty which has endangered the peace and security of the region.”

Any final document of the NPT countries requires a consensus. Therefore, the US, Britain, and Canada effectively blocked “the entire blueprint for global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation” for the following five years, until the next review conference was set to take place in 2020. The document called for an official conference to be held on the issue of a NWFZ within a few months, which would force Israel into a commitment to meet and negotiate in good faith with its Arab and Middle Eastern neighbours. A high-level US State Department official was dispatched to Israel for talks with the Israelis, who fully objected to the idea of being “forced” into a conference with Arab and other Middle East nations.

But unlike in 2012, when the US allowed language in a document to go forward calling for such a conference (which never materialized), this time the Obama administration took a more firmly pro-Israel stance, decrying the final document as an effort by Egypt and other states to “cynically manipulate” the process. A State Department official said the document was “incompatible with our long-standing policies” and complained that Egypt was “not willing to let go of these unrealistic and unworkable conditions.” Egypt warned that, “This will have consequences in front of the Arab world and public opinion.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly thanked US Secretary of State John Kerry for blocking the Egyptian-led initiative at the NPT meeting. A senior Israeli officials said that Netanyahu spoke with Kerry “to convey his appreciation to President Obama and to the secretary,” adding that, “The United States kept its commitment to Israel by preventing a Middle East resolution that would single out Israel and ignore its security interests and the threats posed to it by an increasingly turbulent Middle East.” Netanyahu additionally thanked the UK and Canada for joining the US in blocking the final document from being adopted.

It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone who has borne witness to the events of the past year, let alone three years, let alone the past quarter-century in the Middle East, that it was the United States and Israel who proved to be the greatest road blocks to peace in the region. This goes not simply for the ‘Palestinian issue’, but that of wider regional wars and nuclear proliferation. For there to be any real effort at pursuing a nuclear weapons free Middle East, Israel would obviously have to give up its arsenal. With the United States unwilling to force Israel into such an agreement, the prospects are near impossible.

But there’s also a reason why this specific subject and proposal is not widely known or reported among the public, because a good idea can get a lot of traction and attention. If publics were made aware that such proposals even existed (let alone were supported by every Arab regime, as well as Iran, and virtually the rest of the entire world), and that there were successful similar agreements implemented all over the world, then it becomes an idea with political capital.

Publics can pressure their governments, so long as they ostensibly remain democratic, and this demand can be added to the ever-growing list of necessary measures to pressure Israel to change its behaviour. We cannot be so naïve to expect Israel to willingly change its own behaviour, least of all for the cause of peace and benefit of others, especially as it descends into a fascist abyss of genocidal mania. Internal politics in Israel, even if they momentarily turn away from Netanyahu and his extreme-right fascist coalition, remain firmly racist, imperialistic, and genocidal. Internal political changes seem to be a harbinger of different flavours of colonialism and genocide, not an abrupt halt to these disastrous policies.

So pressure must come from outside the country, and most importantly the United States, but also all of Israel’s western allies and partners. The language and demands for a nuclear weapons free Middle East should become incorporated with the language and demands for a ceasefire, an end to the genocide, an end to Israel’s multiple occupations, and an end to its illegal wars. Threats to cut off aid, military and diplomatic support, economic relations and investment, and to isolate the country globally (as was done to Apartheid South Africa) should not only be voiced, but implemented. The demand for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East should be added to this list, and become part of how people engage with their elected representatives in an effort to alter public opinion and public policy.

It may be a long shot from our current vantage point, but the downside risks of an ever more nuclear armed Middle East are simply too great to brush this proposal off as wishful thinking and pure fantasy. What is needed is real political capital and pressure from western states, and they will not change their own tune unless they face internal pressure from their publics. It is a long struggle through decaying democracies ahead, but the prospect of nuclear warfare should serve as a strong motivating factor.

It’s worth the effort.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a writer and researcher of politics, history, and economics based in Toronto, Canada. His website is Empire and Economics, he hosts the podcast ‘In This Mad World.’ You can subscribe to his Substack and follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to his bi-weekly News Junkies newsletter.

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For more than two decades, the United States (and Israel) have been screaming hysterics over the presumed threat of Iran and its nuclear program. But having witnessed the past several months of a US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, it is worth looking back (and forward) to contemplate what the real threat is. Far from ending the nuclear threat, the US-Israeli war makes it more palpable; and far from posing a historical nuclear threat, Iran’s real threat was in its capacity to defend itself against regional and global imperial powers.

Israel and the US reportedly “obliterated” the Iranian nuclear program in their 12-day June 2025 war, at least according to Donald Trump (a reliably unreliable source). But it was immediately evident according to US intelligence assessments that the US had probably only sent Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months.

The Twelve-Day War of June 2025 was ostensibly launched to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Israel had issued warnings that Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon, but US intelligence assessments asserted that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon, and even if it were, that it was roughly three years away from being able to produce and deliver such a weapon to a target.

In March of 2025, months before the war, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, told Congress that US intelligence concluded that Iran was not pursuing a nuclear weapon, a position that US intelligence has maintained since 2007 when they reported that Iran ended its pursuit of such an option back in 2003. In the wake of the June 2025 war, Trump was asked about the testimony of his top intelligence official, to which he replied, “I don’t care what she said,” and insisted that Iran was “very close” to a bomb.

Even in the midst of the Twelve-Day War, as it was being bombed by Israel, US intelligence assessments concluded that Iran was still not leaning towards the building of a bomb. But the intelligence assessments concluded that Iran might change course and pursue a bomb if the US bombed its nuclear sites (which it would do roughly a week later at the end of the 12-day war), or if its supreme leader were killed (which would happen on the first day of the start of the February 2026 war on Iran). Indeed, one of the lessons of the Twelve-Day War may have been “that having a bomb is the only protection in a threatening world,” since it provides a strong sense of deterrence against attacking a nuclear-armed power.

As Donald Trump announced his joint war of aggression with Israel against Iran on February 28, 2026, he stated that, “this terrorist regime can never have a nuclear weapon,” and while again stating that the US had “obliterated the regime’s nuclear program” the previous June, he claimed, “they attempted to rebuild their nuclear program.” Trump affirmed: “We will ensure that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon. It’s a very simple message. They will never have a nuclear weapon.”

After starting the war, Trump repeatedly claimed that Iran was two to four weeks away from building a nuclear weapon that it could use to attack Israel or the US. But nuclear experts disputed such claims, with one non-proliferation expert stating, “There was no evidence that Iran was close to a nuclear weapon.”

The 2026 war of aggression by Israel and the US killed the supreme leader and much of the country’s layers of leadership. Ayatollah Khamenei, despite his many other failings and acts of brutality, had held the line for decades that Iran would not produce a nuclear weapon. He even issued a religious fatwa in 2005 which banned the country from ever producing a nuclear weapon. But after Israel murdered him on the first day of the war, Khamenei’s logic (and fatwas) may no longer hold. Refusing to build a nuclear weapon clearly did not deter Israel or the US from attacking the country, so the logic among many regime officials might turn to the belief that only by building a nuclear weapon could they deter possible attacks and wars in the future. A former high level IDF intelligence expert on Iran, Danny Citrinowicz, asserted that in the wake of the assassination of the Ayatollah and the latest brutal war, it was more likely that the regime would pursue a nuclear weapon than abandon the program altogether.

In an interview, Citrinowicz said he was afraid “that this war will not prevent Iran from getting a bomb, but actually accelerate its plans to do so.” He even acknowledged that the US-Iran negotiations in the lead-up to the war had affirmed that the Iranians were willing to give up their ability to stockpile uranium, which would be required to make a bomb. He noted: “That was an important development because it meant that Iran was only seeking to maintain its enrichment project as a means of saving face,” and added: “If you wanted to prevent Iran from building a bomb, and that is really what the Iranians have offered, then this kind of an agreement wasn’t a bad option.” He asserted that, “an agreement prevents the Iranians from reaching a bomb, but strengthens the regime,” while a military attack on Iran “weakens the regime, but strengthens its [resolve] to reach a bomb.” The US thus chose the latter option, according to the former Israeli intelligence analyst.

The devastating war of aggression not only killed the Ayatollah, but numerous political, security and military officials of the regime. A new Ayatollah, Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the former Ayatollah, was appointed to lead the regime, and a string of new leaders rose to the top spots. The result was that the new regime leadership “looks more hawkish and militaristic at home and abroad.”

Iranian sources were also confirming that in the wake of the assassinations and war, hardliners in the government were in the ascendent position, and were increasingly calling for the country to embrace or pursue a nuclear weapons program. Many officials in the regime’s establishment were calling for the policy to be reviewed or changed, though there was no indication that the policy had yet been changed.

By June 2026, some western officials cited new data from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that there was a greater risk of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon following the war than before it. Prior to the June 2025 war, Iran was being subjected to weekly IAEA inspections, after which that process came to a halt.

In late July 2026, several months into the war, US intelligence agencies were warning that the new leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, and the much harder-line Iranian government, were far more open to the possibility of creating a nuclear weapon than all the prior leadership.

The United States and Israel have made the Middle East a substantially more dangerous region. Their two wars of aggression against Iran – first in June 2025 and now the seemingly-unending war that began in February of 2026 – far from halting or deterring Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, have instead created a more hardline government which may pursue nuclear weapons as a future deterrent. This in turn pushes Saudi Arabia to obtain or develop its own nuclear program and nuclear weapons, whether with the support of the United States or Pakistan. And this makes Israel, the only nuclear-armed power in the region, all the more likely to engage in warfare against any nearby nations pursuing nuclear weapons programs. Israel could, in the nightmare scenario, even turn to using its own nuclear weapons. It is, after all, the only country in the region where a government minister (from the most extreme right wing Jewish Power party led by Itamar Ben-Gvir) even publicly suggested, early on in the genocide of Gaza, that Israel could consider dropping a nuclear weapon on the besieged strip.

Though US politicians and presidents have repeatedly warned of Iran’s possible atomic threat, let alone Israeli leaders who have long raised the spectre of a nuclear Holocaust, US intelligence assessments have consistently asserted that the Iranians were not pursuing such a weapons program or policy. But defense and intelligence agencies also assessed what they viewed as the real threat from Iran.

A 2010 assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) acknowledged that Iran’s security and military doctrine was built upon deterrence, not aggression. “Iran’s military strategy is designed to defend against external or ‘hard’ threats from the United States and Israel. Iran’s principled of military strategy include deterrence, asymmetrical retaliation, and attrition warfare.” The DIA described Iran as pursuing a “defensive military doctrine, which is designed to slow an invasion and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities.” It was focused on building “its capability to counter more advanced adversaries.”

The Pentagon’s 2010 Unclassified Report on Military Power of Iran noted that the country’s “security strategy is based first on deterring an attack,” affirming the DIA assessment that: “Iran’s military strategy is designed to defend against external or ‘hard’ threats from the United States and Israel,” and acknowledged that the country’s “nuclear program and its willingness to keep open the possibility of developing nuclear weapons is a central part of its deterrent strategy.” Ultimately, Iran maintained a “defensive military doctrine.”

In other words, the primary “threat” from Iran is that it is capable of defending itself, and potentially even extending its influence and power through the region. For the United States and Israel, two highly militaristic and imperialistic countries which have waged more wars in the Middle East than any two other countries, undertaking substantial invasions and occupations, the ability of another country to defend itself from an attack is perceived as a threat to their own hegemony over the region. Thus, while intelligence assessments may acknowledge that Iran’s strategy is ultimately one of deterrence and defense, by the time this filters through the political and media propaganda landscapes of the United States (let alone Israel), the public is made to believe that Iran is pursuing an aggressive militaristic policy pursuing nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and possibly even attack the United States. This is then used to justify clearly aggressive and expansionary policies of the US and Israel, framed as acts of self-defense, but which are in fact illegal acts of aggression, historically recognized as the “supreme international crime.”

After more than two decades of claiming Iran was perpetually on the verge of creating a nuclear weapon and posed an existential threat to all western allies in the region, if not the world, the United States and Israel proved once again that they are the two greatest threats to peace in the world, that they are the aggressors, that they pose a nuclear and strategic threat to the region and the world. And through their criminal acts of aggression, the United States and Israel may have created the threat they claimed they were stopping: a nuclear-armed Iran. After nearly a quarter-century of fear mongering over Iran’s capacity to defend itself from aggressors, the US and Israel have emboldened and empowered and made more extreme the Iranian regime. And in so doing, they have dramatically destabilized the region and the world. Through their own monstrous acts, the US and Israel may have created the monster they claimed they were stopping.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a writer and researcher of politics, history, and economics based in Toronto, Canada. His website is Empire and Economics, he hosts the podcast ‘In This Mad World.’ You can subscribe to his Substack and follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to his bi-weekly News Junkies newsletter.

Please subscribe to my Substack for more exclusive content

On 22 July 2026, the United States announced a deal with Saudi Arabia to help them construct a civilian nuclear program. The deal had long been desired by the Saudis, but in the midst of the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, and Iran’s retaliation against America’s close regional partners (including the Saudis), the agreement was sped up. The United States is attempting to keep the Saudis within its own economic and political orbit, and in doing so is willing to forego numerous safeguards on the nuclear program that would be required for any other country. But there are numerous hurdles (and much history) to the deal.

The agreement would not prevent enrichment and also fails to commit the Saudis to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency. In effect, this would be granting the Saudis a power that the US and Israel have twice gone to war with Iran over in the past year. Empire is of course synonymous with hypocrisy, but the consequences could be dire for the region and the world. One US think tank expert noted that once the Saudis are able to produce fissile material with the help of the United States, “they can divert it for nuclear weapons.”

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, commonly referred to as MBS, the architect of the brutal and disastrous Saudi war on Yemen, who approved the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, has been trying to reach a nuclear deal with the US for five years. The deal, noted one observer, is “overturning decades and decades of US nonproliferation policy.” But the deal would entrench the relationship between the two countries, requiring decades of close economic, commercial and security cooperation, which would pull the US ever deeper into acting as a kind of security guarantor for the Saudis, another key objective of MBS and the Kingdom.

A nuclear analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International peace commented that this “incredibly shortsighted” deal “appears to provide a pathway to a country that really might want to proliferate,” adding: “You cannot exclude the possibility that Saudi Arabia would nationalize this facility and use it to make a bomb.”

The Israelis of course don’t like the deal, but they have their own nuclear weapons already. Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, also running in upcoming elections, commented that, “enriching nuclear material on Saudi territory could prompt a nuclear race in the region, leading to a total breakdown.” Though some officials in the US and Israel view the nuclear deal as a step towards achieving normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, a path that both the previous Trump and Biden administrations had attempted to pursue.

Trump then added in a demand that the deal was conditional upon the Saudis accepting a normalization agreement with Israel, something which the Saudis said was an impossibility unless Israel seeks peace with the Palestinians and allows for the establishment of a Palestinian state, or at least formal recognition of a Palestinian state by the US and UN on the 1967 borders. Trump stated that the Saudi nuclear deal was “totally subject” to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords, which the first Trump term negotiated between Israel and a number of Arab states, including Bahrain and the UAE, to grant formal recognition and relations between those countries and Israel. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that if the Saudis “don’t join the Abraham Accords, the deal is off.”

The rapid turn from Trump just a day after announcing the deal, then suddenly imposing strenuous conditions (which are beyond red lines for the Saudis) is typical of Trump’s tactics. Perhaps it was a rapid reaction to concerns expressed by the Israelis and others, or perhaps a mere attempt to offer a hand to the Saudis and then slap them with it, in the hopes that it would press them to meet his demands more fully. Or perhaps it is just Trump taking to social media to put his foot in his mouth and spout whatever nonsense he does on a regular basis, from which he may also soon backtrack. But regardless of the motivations, if any, it is clear that Trump has put his own deal in immense jeopardy. For the Saudis, they may have never been closer to a huge nuclear deal, something they have long wanted.

Back in 2018, Saudi Crown Prince MBS said in an interview that, “without a doubt if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.” Saudi nuclear ambitions have not been the purview of MBS alone, but rather a long-standing goal in some Saudi circles.

According to a report from the Guardian in 2010, western intelligence officials were worried that in the event Iran obtained a nuclear weapon, it would trigger an arms race across the region. The biggest worry, according to such officials, was what Saudi Arabia would do. According to the report, western intelligence officials said the Saudis paid for up to 60% of the Pakistani nuclear weapons program, and in return, apparently retained an option to purchase a handful of nuclear weapons from Pakistan in the event the region entered into a full-on nuclear arms race. Both the Saudis and the Pakistanis denied such an arrangement, but the concerns remained among some western officials.

This story was confirmed a couple years later, reported in the Times (in the UK) in 2012, this time citing an unnamed Saudi official who said that if the Iranians built a bomb, “it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom.” A western official added that the Saudis would seek to have the Pakistanis honour their prior agreement and purchase a bomb “the next day” after any theoretical Iranian nuclear weapons test.

Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to the US, warned in 2011 that if the Saudis found themselves between the nuclear arsenals of Israel and Iran, it would have to consider producing its own. “It is our duty toward our nation and people to consider all possible options, including the possession of these weapons,” the prince said.

A 2013 report from BBC Newsnight again affirmed the story that the Saudis might purchase nuclear weapons from Pakistan, according to intelligence seen by a senior NATO official. Additionally, former Israeli head of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin, told a conference that if Iran got the bomb, “the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.” Gary Samore, a former counter-proliferation adviser to President Obama, stated that, “I do think that the Saudis believe that they have some understanding with Pakistan that, in extremis, they would have claim to acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan.” Although he also suggested that he thought it would be much more likely, in the event of such a scenario, “for Pakistan to send its own forces, its own troops armed with nuclear weapons and with delivery systems to be deployed in Saudi Arabia,” as opposed to just handing over a few nuclear warheads.

More recently, in September of 2025, Saudi Arabia signed a “strategic mutual defense” pact with Pakistan, a sign that the Saudis were attempting to expand their security alliances in a signal to both the US and Israel. The agreement was signed just one week after Israel undertook missile strikes in Qatar targeting Hamas negotiators, causing an eruption of anger and fear among the Gulf Arab states. A senior Saudi official told the Financial Times, “We hope it will reinforce our deterrence – aggression against one is aggression against the other,” adding: “This is a comprehensive defense agreement that will utilize all defensive and military means deemed necessary depending on the specific threat.” The pact was signed by Saudi Crown Prince MBS and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose office affirmed that the pact “states that any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both.” The Saudis reportedly informed the Americans about the agreement only after it was signed.

When asked whether this defense pact would include having access to Pakistan’s nuclear umbrella, a Saudi official told Reuters that, “This is a comprehensive defensive agreement that encompasses all military means.” But Pakistan’s defense minister told Reuters that nuclear weapons were “not on the radar” of the pact. However, the same defense minister then was then quoted in the Associated Press saying that Pakistan’s nuclear program “will be made available” to the Saudis, if needed, under the aegis of the defense pact, suggesting that Saudi Arabia was in fact incorporated under the Pakistani nuclear umbrella. The defense minister stated in an interview that Pakistan’s nuclear capability, which “was established long ago when we conducted tests… What we have, and the capabilities we possess, will be made available” to the Saudis, “according to this agreement.”

Regardless of what results from this proposed Saudi-US deal, or whether the Saudi-Pakistani alliance actually extends to a nuclear umbrella (the mixed messaging on both counts makes them both unreliable), it is evident that nuclear proliferation and nuclear weapons make the region more dangerous and unstable. Having been focused for decades on the possible threat of a largely theoretical Iranian nuclear weapons program (which has become more likely following the US-Israeli war on Iran), it is worth asking whether or not the real nuclear proliferation threat comes from the western world’s close ally, Saudi Arabia? Or, for that matter, from the one power in the region that actually has nuclear weapons: Israel.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a writer and researcher of politics, history, and economics based in Toronto, Canada. His website is Empire and Economics, he hosts the podcast ‘In This Mad World.’ You can subscribe to his Substack and follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to his bi-weekly News Junkies newsletter.

Please subscribe to my Substack for more exclusive content

The Trump administration recently announced a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, a deal that was so generous to the Saudis it would theoretically permit them to have the ability to enrich their own uranium to the point of making a bomb. In short, the exact (stated) issue for which Israel and the United States went to war with Iran (to halt its possible nuclear weaponization), was then offered up on a platter to Saudi Arabia.

However, Trump quickly took to social media to add on new conditions to the deal; notably, that for the Saudis to get the deal they must normalize relations with Israel, something the Saudis have vocally said they would refuse to do unless Israel takes moves toward accepting a Palestinian state (something the Israelis have moved so far away from even pretending to entertain). This condition likely killed the deal that was just announced.

But on the issue of nuclear enrichment, there is a strange triangle of power relations in the region between Israel, the (oil-rich) Arab states, and Iran. The relationship between the Arab states and Israel has been historically fraught, and as is evident from the likely failure of the deal, continues to be politically challenging. But the Arab states and Israel find much common ground in their approach to how they deal with what they perceive as the threat of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program.

In a little more than a decade since the Obama administration signed the Iran nuclear deal, the Arab states (particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) grew closer to the Israeli position toward Iran. When the Iranian nuclear deal was announced in 2015, which would limit Iran’s enrichment capabilities in return for lifting of sanctions, President Barack Obama stated, “Put simply, no deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.”

As the Obama administration was working on the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, there were several constituencies that were opposing it. Apart from US Republicans who opposed everything Obama attempted to do, regardless of rationale, the deal was also strongly opposed by both Israel and Saudi Arabia, among other Gulf allies of the US. As talks were ongoing, the Saudi monarch died and a new king, Salman, came to power, and brought with him his son, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), then appointed as defense minister and chief to the royal court, soon to become the most powerful person in Saudi Arabia. He launched the war on Yemen, backed the Egyptian dictatorship, supported jihadist armed groups in Syria, and sought to more strongly oppose Iranian influence across the region.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the deal as a “historic mistake” which could cause “a horrific war.” Netanyahu repeatedly lobbied against what he called a “bad deal” and said that, “It would increase the risks of nuclear proliferation in the region and the risks of a horrific war.” Additionally, he demanded that any deal with Iran also include “a clear and unambiguous recognition of Israel’s right to exist.” Netanyahu reportedly warned Obama that the deal could “threaten the survival of Israel.”

Gulf Arab allies of the United States, like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar all feared the consequences of a US nuclear deal with Iran, particularly what it meant for strengthening Iran’s role in the region, which they viewed as a counterweight to their own regional influence. Diplomats from Arab states were arguing that the US could assuage their fears by entering into formal defense agreements with them, or to upgrade their alliance status to “major non-NATO allies” (a status Bahrain and Kuwait already held at that time), as well as advancing increased arms sales to the region.

Saudi Arabia and Israel increasingly found themselves aligned not just on the Iran nuclear deal, but also on a number of broader issues, particularly as it related to opposing Iran’s influence in the region, whether through Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen.

After the Iran nuclear deal was officially reached and announced in mid-July 2015, Netanyahu warned, “The world is a much more dangerous place today than it was yesterday.” Upon announcement of the deal, Netanyahu declared, “Israel is not bound by this deal with Iran because Iran continues to seek our destruction,” adding, “We will always defend ourselves.”

One Saudi diplomat called the deal “extremely dangerous.” President Obama telephoned Saudi King Salman and other Arab Gulf leaders to reassure them of US support and that the deal would not threaten them. Though some Arab leaders, including Qatar and Oman and even to a degree, the UAE, saw potential economic benefits from the region opening up to Iran and as a result of the lifting of sanctions.

But the Arab states decided that there was little to gain in publicly opposing the nuclear deal, and instead sought to leverage their fears into getting support for other means to counter Iranian influence in the region, such as getting increased military training and intelligence sharing from the United States. The Pentagon agreed to a $1 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia as a means to help address the Kingdom’s fears about Iran, and to support its war efforts against Islamic State in Iraq and in its brutal war against Yemen.

Israel and Netanyahu took another tactic, which was to openly oppose the deal and heavily lobby the American Congress and public against it. A tactic which failed. The major pro-Israel political lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), lost its $30 million advertising and lobbying effort to oppose the deal. But even after he failed, Netanyahu continued to publicly deride the deal as “a very bad deal.”

So the Saudis resigned themselves to accept the deal but push for their own interests, while the Israelis just continued to attack the deal and fantasize about how the deal would purportedly lead to apocalyptic ends for Israel and the world. Once Donald Trump became president, however, both the Saudis and Israelis saw an opportunity. Crown Prince MBS was pushing Trump in 2018 to take a harder line on Iran.

While visiting the White House in 2018, the Crown prince renewed Saudi Arabia’s attack on the Iran nuclear deal, warning, “If they have a nuclear weapon, it’s a shield for them to let them do whatever they want in the Middle East, to make sure that no one attacks them or they will use their nuclear weapons.” He urged Trump to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran and replace it with a stronger one that also deals with Iran’s broader influence in the region.

In May 2018, Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on the country. Israel quickly announced public support for Trump’s withdrawal. As did Saudi Arabia. The UAE and Bahrain also supported the move. In particular, Israel, Saudi Arabi and the UAE had all lobbied the Trump administration to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran. And they were essentially the only countries in the world that were happy the deal was abandoned.

The Saudis were meanwhile lobbying the US government in 2018 to sell it designs to build nuclear plants in the Kingdom, and with the provision that they would produce their own nuclear fuel instead of buying it cheaper abroad, meaning that if they so desired, they could then enrich uranium to weapons-grade material. The insistence of the Saudis on being able to produce their own fuel prompted American intelligence agencies to try to figure out if the Saudis were attempting to build their own bomb, the very issue that the Obama administration attempted to resolve in its 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The launching of the US and Israeli war on Iran at the end of February 2026 followed months of heavy lobbying efforts by Israel and Netanyahu, which ultimately convinced Trump, but not really anyone else in his cabinet, to favour a war with Iran.

In January, the US Arab allies in the region were largely cautioning the Trump administration against carrying out strikes on Iran, fearing the consequences to their own countries as such a war would surely spread rapidly through the region. The Trump administration warned them to get ready for a US strike, but its Arab allies began pressing the administration to hold back. Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar were reportedly warning Trump that such an attack would raise oil prices and hurt the US economy, though the UAE reportedly did not take part in the effort to persuade the US against undertaking strikes. Gulf allies even warned that they wouldn’t allow the US to use their airspace or territory to attack Iran, with both the UAE and Saudi Arabia issuing such warnings.

Yet on the first day of bombing, on February 28, the Washington Post reported that over the previous month of February, the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had apparently changed his tune and began lobbying Trump – alongside the Israelis – to undertake a bombing campaign against Iran. While the Saudis were publicly pushing for diplomacy, the Crown Prince made repeated private phone calls to Donald Trump urging him to attack. Once the war was underway and a few weeks had passed, the Crown Prince was reportedly urging Trump “to keep hitting the Iranians hard,” according to the New York Times. Nearly a month into the war, the Crown Prince was urging Trump to continue the war, believing there was a “historic opportunity” to remake the region. The Saudis wanted the war to end, but only with what they would consider a positive outcome: having defeated Iran.

After largely having lobbied against starting the war, once it was underway the Gulf Arab states began pushing for the Trump administration to follow through and finish the job, fearing that a quick settlement would leave Iran more empowered in the region, which would overall become less stable. Saudi Arabia and the UAE were in particular lobbying the Trump administration to finish the war decisively. If the Iranians wouldn’t agree to extensive restrictions on their missile, drone and nuclear programs, both Arab states favoured an escalated military campaign. As Saudi intelligence confirmed that the Kingdom was urging the US to escalate, Trump himself said of the Crown Prince, “he’s a warrior. He’s fighting with us.” At the end of March, it was reported that the Saudis, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait were all urging Trump through private conversations that the military attacks should end only when there was substantial changes in Iran’s leadership or behavior.

According to the Wall Street Journal in May, the UAE had secretly carried out military strikes on Iran, though refused to acknowledge this publicly. Days later, it was reported that Saudi Arabia had also carried out strikes against Iran. The UAE reportedly carried out dozens of attacks on Iran over several weeks in direct coordination with the US and Israel.

In just a little over a decade, key American-allied Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE had moved from a position of a kind of uneasy but unspoken alliance with Israel on pressuring the United States to abandon its nuclear deal with Iran, to becoming active participants in bombing Iran alongside the US and Israel, after the latter two launched their joint war of aggression against the country. The great irony, of course, is that all these domineering, wealthy and powerful states and alliances have failed to meet even a modicum of their stated objectives in the war with Iran. And Iran, for its part, while battered and bruised and subjected to immense brutality, has also defended itself against all of these states, asserted its newfound dominance in the Gulf (notably over the Strait of Hormuz), and the implications of the war may ultimately drive it towards trying to obtain a nuclear weapon.

Thus, the apparent fears that united the Arab regimes and Israel against Iran, in opposing the nuclear deal and supporting the war, may ultimately bring about their great fear that they were apparently trying to stop: a nuclear-armed Iran. Not only was the war a monumental failure, but it was a colossal catastrophe for stability in the region, and has left all the states involved weaker and more exposed. It is the manifestation of a crumbling empire desperately seeking to maintain its power projection and influence. And it is failing spectacularly.

The Gulf Arab states and Israel have long aligned with the United States in extending its imperial influence in the region; it only makes sense that their own power begins to wane with that of declining US power. But it also makes all of them more desperate and dangerous. The real issue at stake is not that of Iranian nuclear enrichment, but of US imperial influence. Empires tend to be most violent at their beginnings and their ends: when they are attempting to build and establish their imperium, and when they are desperately trying to hold onto it. No doubt, the historians of the future will look back on the Iran war as a radical accelerant for the decline of the American empire, and quite possibly the decline of Israeli and Arab regime power as well.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a writer and researcher of politics, history, and economics based in Toronto, Canada. His website is Empire and Economics, he hosts the podcast ‘In This Mad World.’ You can subscribe to his Substack and follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to his bi-weekly News Junkies newsletter.

It is not simply Gaza that is subjected to Israel’s expansionist aims and ruthless ways of war. A similar script plays out in Lebanon. A “ceasefire” was reached between Israel and the Lebanon-based armed group, Hezbollah, in November of 2024, and lasted for 18 months until Israel launched its war of aggression with the United States against Iran at the end of February 2026. In that time, a period of roughly 15 months, Israel violated the ceasefire more than 15,400 times, killing over 370 people, displacing countless others, targeting civilian infrastructure, and engaging in ethnic cleansing by expelling populations and refusing them the right to return. Again, what kind of meaning can the word ceasefire have when that is how Israel behaves during its supposed implementation? Additionally, during the official “war” (when Hezbollah was fighting back), Israel had moved in to occupy southern Lebanon and destroyed virtually everything in its wake. According to satellite imagery analysis by the Financial Times roughly a month into the two-month war in 2024, Israel had damaged or demolished 30 ancient towns and villages in Lebanon near the southern border with Israel. It was creating a 3km-wide “buffer zone” or “belt” along the border, which was in actual fact a process of scorched earth destruction and ethnic cleansing: the Israelis are expelling the population of southern Lebanon through copious amounts of state terror and destroying their homes and villages so there is nothing to return to.

When Orwell wrote about such tactics, he described them in terms of “defenseless villages” being “bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets,” which in political language was described as “pacification.” He further described a circumstance where “millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry,” which in political language was described as “transfer of population” or “rectification of frontiers.” This is perfectly applicable in relation to Israel and its war in Lebanon. As in Gaza, Israel builds its machine language around concepts of security and defense, so instead of pacification, rectification, and transfer, they opt for the euphemisms of self-defense, buffer zones, and evacuation. Though the specific euphemisms may change, the actual policy in effect – the reality on the ground – is no different than it was when described by Orwell in 1946, some eighty years ago: villages bombed, populations expelled, and homes destroyed so they have nothing to return to. In 19^th and early 20^th century Czarist Russia, these policies were carried out against Jews and known as pogroms, many of which were justified by the authorities at the time as acts of “self-defense, a reasonable response to a pariah people, capable of any and all transgressions,” explained one historian of anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia.

In late November 2024, right after the “ceasefire” was reached in Lebanon, and Israel had to pull back closer to its border, many Lebanese sought to return to their homes in the south. Here is how the Financial Times reported it: “What they found was a sobering trail of destruction. Entire neighbourhoods obliterated. Water and electrical infrastructure destroyed. Medical clinics damaged. Mosques and churches reduced to rubble. Historic markets razed. Cemeteries overflowing.” Israel claims that this deliberate policy of destruction and expulsion is actually a targeted policy against Hezbollah and its “terrorist” infrastructure. They blame all civilian casualties on the opponent, accusing them of using “human shields,” without evidence.

Several months into the ceasefire, Israel announced that it would not fully retreat from Lebanese territory. Instead, an Israeli military spokesperson affirmed, Israel would remain at five key “strategic” locations in southern Lebanon. In other words, Israel would maintain military outposts on occupied territory, seeking to once again alter its borders through force, a grave international crime. Israel has entrenched its occupation of southern Lebanon and consolidated the process of ethnic cleansing of certain towns and villages through a dual policy of mass displacement and mass destruction, including during a period of so-called ceasefire. The more direct language of mass displacement, destruction of civilian infrastructure, ethnic cleansing, and controlled demolitions of entire neighbourhoods and villages is simply too evocative and accurate in its imagery: it conveys the images of what is actually taking place (i.e., war crimes and crimes against humanity). To avoid evoking such images, Israel employs the language of machines through the paradigm of security and defense, which we could also understand as issues of empire and nation. Security has to do with the establishment and maintenance of control over other peoples and lands – about managing an empire; while defense has to do with protecting the nation from the consequences of maintaining its empire.

Additionally, Israel justifies and frames everything it is doing as targeting terrorist infrastructure (while broadening that definition to basically include every building, home, bridge and road in every village and town in southern Lebanon). The language of anti-terrorism is broadly understood and widely used in Israeli society, as it also is in the United States and other western nations. It is an effective tool when it comes to demonizing marginalized or repressed populations, justifying war and occupation, and subsequently destroying entire societies. So long as the use of political language can maintain these fantasies (Israel is defending itself; they are only targeting terrorists; they are building a buffer zone), the policies – and language – will continue. Add fascism into the mix, and there is an accelerant to the violence and destruction.

After 15 months of occupying stolen land, violating the ceasefire over 15,000 times and killing over 370 people in Lebanon, Israel then launched a war of aggression against Iran (with the United States) at the end of February 2026, immediately killing the Iranian leadership. Hezbollah sent a few rockets over the Israeli border as an act of “revenge” for the killing of Ayatollah Khomeini. It was the first time they had fired rockets into northern Israel since the ceasefire was reached in late November 2024, when Hezbollah ceased and Israel kept firing. The IDF reported that it had intercepted one of the rockets and allowed the remainder to fall into open spaces, reporting no injuries or damage. In response to this rather meagre military action, Israel launched a full-scale war and invasion of Lebanon, dwarfing the previous one in its intensity.

As with the start of the war on Gaza in October of 2023, an eruption of bellicose rhetoric and brutality spewed forth from the mouths of Israeli leaders. The oscillation between a euphemistic political language and a language of brutality – and the combination of both simultaneously – particularly at the start of a new and expanded war, reflects the normalization of fascist language and politics in Israeli society, and its fusion into a form of fascist imperialism: an imperialism that seeks rapid expansion, colonial occupation, expulsion or elimination of ‘undesirables’, settlement and annexation of new territories, and ruthless defeat of all enemies. Fascist imperialism is colonial imperialism without restraints, aiming to make deranged fantasies into a reality, and fuelled by a popular base of fanatics. Fascist imperialism is both the engine for the rapid growth and radicalization of fascism at home and abroad, and the source of its own destruction, for it produces countless enemies while establishing no legitimacy except that which results from fear and terror, which cannot sustain itself over the long-term. Thus, imperialism is both the expansionary and radicalizing phase of fascism, while it also represents its overextension, hubris, collapse and failure. Fascist imperialism allows the fascist fanatics to attempt to create in reality their most deranged fantasies in the newly conquered and colonized lands, where they are unrestrained by any laws, rules, or norms that may exist in their home countries. At home, they are citizens of the ‘great nation;’ in the occupied territories and colonies, each individual fascist can be like a king and conqueror.

A week into the March 2026 war, with Israel invading Lebanon, Israeli finance minister and settler leader, Bezalel Smotrich, threatened, “You wanted to bring hell on us, we are bringing hell on you,” adding, in reference to the southern area of Beirut where Hezbollah is based (Dahiyeh) and a city in Gaza that was wiped off the map, “Dahiyeh will look like Khan Younis, and our citizens of the north will live in peace and quiet.” In other words, Beirut will look like Gaza. Another senior Israeli official said, “We are going to do [in Lebanon] what we did in Gaza.” The official explained: “The goal is to take over territory, push Hezbollah’s forces north and away from the border, and dismantle its military positions and weapons depots in the villages.” The defense minister warned that Lebanon would face a “loss of territory.” He threatened to destroy villages in southern Lebanon, again invoking Gaza as the prototype, saying they would apply to Lebanon “the model we applied in Gaza’s Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” citing two cities that were completely destroyed by Israel. The defense minister added that the hundreds of thousands of Shiite Lebanese who had been displaced from the south “will not return to their homes.” Smotrich declared that the Litani river, roughly 30km north of the border with Israel, “must become our new border with the state of Lebanon.” Citing the “buffer zones” in Syria and the “yellow line” in Gaza, Smotrich said that a new border along the Litani river would represent “a radical change” far beyond defeating Hezbollah, that Israel will push its enemies “away on all fronts and create a sterile security cordon that will separate the enemy from our citizens.”

The language above reflects how fascist language has been integrated with Israel’s more euphemistic political language of machines, reflecting the closer integration of fascist politics and parties into the ruling system, accelerated through expansionary wars of fascist imperialism.  They explicitly threatened to turn villages into rubble, openly demanded the expulsion of over a million Lebanese, and announced their intentions to seize new territory and change Israel’s borders. The Israelis were thus being quite open about their intentions to ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon and expand Israel’s border into occupied territory, a major international war crime. Yet these clear calls for and justifications of brutality are still ensnared in the wider web of euphemistic political language, particularly that of the lexicon of security and defense. Thus, such clear examples of brutal language and threats are justified and mystified through a language of “buffer zones,” “yellow lines,” and creating “a sterile security cordon.” Even Bezalel Smotrich, an extremist, right-wing settler, religious fanatic who wants to turn Israel into a kind of authoritarian religious theocracy (sort of like the Jewish supremacist version of the Islamic Republic of Iran), has learned to articulate his desires through the political language of security. Thus, while Smotrich makes open threats and statements of brutality such as, “We are bringing hell on you,” and brazenly calls for Israel to seize southern Lebanon, altering its borders by force, all of which is brazenly criminal, he frames it through the language all Israelis understand, that of security and defense: Israel would “not return to the October 6 situation, where the enemy is on our fences,” he said. Israel will push them back “and create a sterile security cordon that will separate the enemy from our citizens.”

In late April 2026, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published a report noting how Israeli destruction of southern Lebanon was continuing during the ‘ceasefire.’ One Israeli military officer in Lebanon told the paper that in the southern part of the occupied country, they weren’t even really fighting Hezbollah, instead affirming: “The only mission is to continue the destruction… There is no other mission.” Another IDF commander said that despite claims by the IDF that Israel was just targeting “terrorist infrastructure,” the truth was different: “It isn’t terrorist infrastructure; we’re destroying everything.” The name of the IDF operation to destroy villages and communities across southern Lebanon was Operation Silver Plow. Another IDF officer commented that, “At the end of every day, there’s a report on how many homes were destroyed,” with civilian contractors getting paid based upon the number of homes they demolish, while Israeli soldiers watch over them.

In late May, another report in Haaretz detailed the experiences of Israeli soldiers that had been operating inside occupied southern Lebanon, where looting by soldiers was rampant and systematic. One soldier described their experience in a wealthy Lebanese village, when after walking into homes “shooting everywhere,” then “the real mission would begin – to find the valuable stuff.” The soldiers wouldn’t just ransack homes, but shops as well. “At any given time, you could see soldiers walking around the village with civilians’ stuff on them; it felt like the main mission,” recounted one soldier, adding that, “Most senior commanders didn’t care.” The only concern appeared to be to demand that as they loot, soldiers should shoot when entering new buildings, in case there were “dirty ones” that were “hiding.” A soldier reflected: “The feeling is that the IDF has become like an army of Vikings – they let soldiers loot to they’ll be happy and keep fighting.”

Another soldier noted, “In the village we entered there were no terrorists; the houses were empty. There was no fighting there, only operations to flatten the houses.” The soldier added: “This is the IDF of the last two years – the Israel Defense Forces for destroying houses. The news will report on fierce battles and the destruction of terrorist infrastructure, but our mission was one thing – to leave no structure standing, to destroy everything.” They even stopped using explosives to destroy villages and homes, instead bringing in civilian contractors with bulldozers and excavators, “They were all either extremist settlers or Bedouin and Druze,” while the role of soldiers “was to protect them.” Every day, noted the reservist, “each company was assigned a new compound in the village. It felt like we were in a race against time, trying to demolish as much as possible. Every evening the officers had to report how many houses each company had demolished. They called it ‘achievement assessment’.” Only in Israel could the physical process of ethnic cleansing and mass destruction be referred to as “achievement assessment.”

A reservist commented: “For many of the religious guys with me, this was a supreme mission. The battalion commander was the worst extremist. He refused to go home; the smile never left his face. He was euphoric.” They added: “Most of the people with me didn’t care. They’d go in and look for things to steal, to loot… Others enjoyed the destruction, the vandalism. They’d take a hammer and smash things, or just open cabinets and shatter cups and plates. The only reason was revenge.” Another reservist commented that, “I felt that there, over the border [in Lebanon], it was somehow okay to be crazy.” This latter point reminds one of the descriptions of fascist imperialism that we addressed in earlier parts of this essay, where it is in the conquered, occupied territories that fascist fantasies are able to play out, away from the gaze and laws of domestic society, in a world without rules and restrictions.

A New York Times investigation from early May 2026 found that in southern Lebanon, “Israel has razed border villages as part of an effort to lay the groundwork for a larger occupation.” Defense minister Katz even stated it was built on tactics used in Gaza. The investigation found that, “Widespread demolitions have flattened expanses of at least two dozen towns and villages near the border, with damage to government offices as well as civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and mosques.” The IDF was also building new outposts across southern Lebanon, suggesting it was preparing for a long-term occupation. One IDF soldier in Lebanon told Haaretz that, “These are permanent outposts that will be manned for a long time.” Another army source told the newspaper: “We’re behaving just like we did in Gaza… There’s a list of homes to be demolished, and we measure success based on the number of buildings destroyed in a day. It’s not clear why so many troops are need[ed] to protect these activities, or what the broader goal beyond this is.” As one senior officer in the IDF told Haaretz in early May: “I’ve learned that defending from the line of the gate [the border] and sometimes from the line of the community isn’t enough, and we must not allow big problems to only get bigger… As long as this is what we’re told to do, this is what we’ll continue to do… As a senior officer, I feel great value in our presence here, holding this zone, pushing back the enemy, holding the territory and destroying infrastructure.”

IDF military commanders told Haaretz that they were destroying schools, infrastructure and homes in order to “clear the area.” Defense minister Katz stated, “all houses in villages near the Lebanese border will be demolished according to the model of Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza.” He said the IDF would remain “positioned in a security zone inside Lebanon” and “will maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani” river. The IDF established a new “yellow line” (much like in Gaza) which was about 10km north of the Israeli border and 20km south of the Litani, and was “clearing” all homes and infrastructure south of that “yellow line,” representing an unofficial new border. Mass destruction, displacement, occupation and ethnic cleansing are all made vague and banal through the language of machines: to clear the area (displace and destroy), build a security zone (occupy), and establish a yellow line (to change the border by force). It was the lower-rank IDF soldiers and officers who were more honest with their descriptions of what was taking place, untrained in the arts of political language, when they acknowledged that, “The only mission is to continue the destruction,” and that, “It isn’t terrorist infrastructure; we’re destroying everything.” These statements are, in effect, accurate translations of the machine language of clearing and building security zones.  But the problem with the honest descriptions is that they reveal a level of brutality that is not consistent with popular perceptions of a civilized or democratic society. Honest descriptions convey the reality of monstrous policies. No army or state making claims to be moral or righteous can pursue a policy of destroying everything. So, they hide their monstrous actions with their emotionally detached machine language.

The language of fascist imperialism is to talk like monsters and machines, interchangeably and simultaneously. The language of fascism – the language of monsters – is used to incite emotions, inspire supporters, and strike fear among enemies. Israel intends to destroy the villages, expel the population, and occupy the territory of southern Lebanon. In stating this clearly, Israeli officials are able to rally the fanatical support of their base, and strike fear among their ‘enemies’ and intended victims. Stating such clear intentions can also help actually implement the policies without having to do anything concrete; as in, by saying that you will destroy everything and kill anyone, you are encouraging people to flee without having yet to do anything on the ground. For a fanatic base of extremists who dream of settling in southern Lebanon and realizing their fantasies of a ‘Greater Israel’, such a language of monsters arouses their greatest emotional desires and political objectives, and assures them that their leaders have not been led astray by the ‘moderating’ influence of establishment politicians and structures. Such a language of monsters, then, clearly serves several objectives in war and empire.

But the vague euphemisms of political language – the language of machines – still has the central role to play. While the language of brutality conveys objectives and tactics, the language of machines – of banality, as Hannah Arendt might put it, justifies and obscures this brutality from the wider public and the ‘international community.’ The combined vote share of the parties of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the two most extreme right (and fascistic) political leaders in the Israeli government, was approximately 11 percent of the national vote in 2022. Their extreme language may rally their base and the settler movement (which itself comprises about ten percent of Israel’s Jewish population), but euphemistic political language allows them to embed their brutality in the wider political system, normalizing and legitimizing their language (and politics) while also dampening and obscuring its true violence. In short, by integrating the language of monsters and machines, the monsters (the fascists) are able to both legitimize and sanitize their language and politics within the establishment and popular culture. Thus, Smotrich can declare both his intent to bring “hell on you” while justifying and softening that violent language by saying it is done to “create a sterile security cordon.” To be “bringing hell” evokes images of fire, destruction and death, but a “sterile security cordon” evokes barely any images at all, just vague concepts of ‘emptiness’ and ‘cleanliness.’

Those who are the targets of the brutal language (whether the base of support or the enemies under threat) understand that that language is for them – the settler extremists hear “bringing hell” to be the promise of a Biblical fantasy realized, while the Lebanese hear “bringing hell” to be a violent and destructive threat. When the extremist base hears their leaders use vague and empty language like “sterile security cordon,” they accept it as the price to gaining power, that their leaders must, to a degree, play the game of politics in order to gain and exercise political power. They might therefore view their leaders’ use of such machine language to be part of a deliberate effort to deceive the establishment and wider society. Conversely, those who are the targets of the political language of machines, the wider public and establishment, believe that the use of the extremist language of brutality is designed to placate “the base,” and may even accept it as a necessary amount of bravado to strike fear among their shared enemies. To them, the use of vague terms like “sterile security cordon” reflects a moderating impulse among the extreme right, their possible “maturing” by accepting the established political discourse of security and defense, a paradigm which most Israelis can accept and support. They believe that it represents the extremist leadership accepting that shared reality (by speaking its language), while interpreting the “bringing hell” rhetoric to be fantasy consumption for the extremist base, not necessarily a statement of policy. After all, to most Israelis, Israel doesn’t destroy and ethnically cleanse or “bring hell,” it pursues security interests through acts of self-defense, regardless of what the “fringe” says (even when the fringe is now centered squarely in power). Thus, all sides acknowledge that the use of political language – both brutal and banal (monsters and machines) – is inherently deceptive, they just don’t agree about who is being deceived and for what purpose.

What Smotrich and other right-wing extremists in Israel and the United States have done is to legitimize those with a more violent and explicitly racist language by integrating it with the common euphemisms of political and security discourse. This does not challenge, but supports Orwell’s overall thesis on political language: that it consists primarily of “the defense of the indefensible” in order to avoid arguments that were “too brutal for most people to face,” and therefore, “political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.” When the Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon acknowledged that, “we’re destroying everything,” and, “The only mission is to continue the destruction,” they were describing an indefensible policy, as Orwell would put it, something which was “too brutal for most people to face.” Thus, the monstrous reality of destroying everything was translated into the stated objective of creating a sterile security cordon, a term Orwell would certainly have agreed constituted “sheer cloudy vagueness.”

One notable difference with Israel is that brutal language is more common than elsewhere, so while euphemisms are still widely used, the language of monsters – let alone its politics – does not provoke a significant backlash as it might in other countries. Israeli political language has introduced more openly racist and violent language because the Israeli leadership and society have become more openly racist and violent, or at least more openly supportive of those ideas and actions. Most societies are likely to view such statements and arguments as being “too brutal for most people to face,” but Israeli society has to a significant extent become more brutal, and therefore such statements appear more normal within the Israeli political context. That this more explicitly fascist language has integrated itself with the common machine language of Israeli security and defense reflects how Israeli fascists themselves have become more integrated with the Israeli political and security establishment and society at large. Even if the actual popular support base for figures like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are relatively low, their politics and language are now mainstream and cut across the spectrum.

The interaction between language and politics is neither exact nor immediate. It is an evolutionary process, complete with successes and failures, advances and declines. Decades of brutality, apartheid, colonialism, killing and control over Palestinian life and land, justified through the euphemistic language of security and defense, has contributed to making Israel a more brutal, racist, and violent society. Decades of justifying or erasing Israel’s brutal occupation of Palestinians (in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza) through the use of political language has helped to create fascist and religious extremist movements, which have unsurprisingly emerged out of the settler-colonies in the West Bank, and took power in Israel itself, reshaping both it and the wider region according to their dangerous fantasies of a ‘Greater Israel.’

And of course, those fantasies – and Israel’s current stage of fascist imperialism – does not stop at Gaza or Lebanon. It even extends into Syria. But it is also dramatically realized in the apartheid hell-hole of the Israeli occupied West Bank, where Israeli settlers run rampant and terrorize Palestinian communities. It is in the occupied West Bank where Israel’s modern fascist movement was born and from which it came to seize power in Israel itself. It is to the West Bank where the fascists return to make their deadly fantasies a reality.

Andrew Gavin Marshall is a writer and researcher of politics, history, and economics based in Toronto, Canada. His website is Empire and Economics, he hosts the podcast ‘In This Mad World.’ You can subscribe to his Substack and follow him on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, and be sure to subscribe to his bi-weekly News Junkies newsletter.

Below are links to the first two episodes of my interview series where I discuss my ongoing series on political language, empire, and fascism, ‘Monsters and Machines.’

Episode #204 Fascism and Political Language with Andrew Gavin Marshall (Part 1)

Today we have a lengthy conversation with friend of the show Andrew Gavin Marshall to discuss the first part of his recent series on fascism. We discuss a working definition of fascism, the usage of political language and how it can be invoked in different ways, and how society has been focused on avoiding confronting and learning about fascism and the detriment therein.

Episode #205: Fascism and Political Language with Andrew Gavin Marshall (Part 2)

We chat with Andrew Gavin Marshall on part two of his series on fascism. In this interview, we discuss the amorphous nature of fascism, how its adherents don’t really have a political history to work off of, why former colonies didn’t lean towards fascist tendencies, and finally end with a discussion on how one can attempt, if at all, to help someone who is enamored by fascism.

Another American citizen has been killed by the fascist regime’s racist paramilitary police forces. The government is rapidly attempting to establish an authoritarian state under the almost singular leadership of its mentally decrepit octogenarian president, desperately seeking to overcompensate for his immeasurable inadequacies as a human being by forcing the world to kiss his golden ring. Much of the population of the United States toils under a system of economic uncertainty and social instability. The country’s parasitic oligarchy expands their riches and extends their reach literally into the universe beyond our planet.

America’s vast and declining empire grows more violent and exposes its own immense weak underbelly. The strength of its military and economic power is matched by the exposure of its bases and assets, the precarity and lack of trust of its allies, the interdependence of its economy, and the extent of its hubris. America’s empire was always powerful in what it can project and collect, but weak in what it can sustain and inspire. Under fascism, its empire has lost even the pretenses of creating a safer or more democratic world, long mythologized but now officially euthanized and eulogized by the Trump regime. America’s empire is stripped to its skeletal structure of pure power interest. It wants to strike fear and terror, extract tribute, demand subservience, and establish its credibility only through brutality. It wages war and seeks to expand its territory.

Do not seek logic or rationality in fascist madness. It is a system of intense self-destruction which seeks rapid expansion and violent domination. It is the empire abroad come home to roost. It is the naked truth of what America has become. And where it is going.

Fascism is not some political plaything or term-dated social experiment, capable of being ended through an electoral upset or inspiring speech. It is the abyss of the human political animal. In a world of hypocritical, unequal, brutal, dictatorial, and mythical political ideologies, states and systems, fascism is the worst of them all. It is the political parasite that kills the host, the cancer that destroys the cells, the black hole into which the star collapses.

Fascism is the product of broken political, economic and social promises. It is not a rebellion against reality, but a rejection of it altogether. It is thought for the thoughtless, feeling for those with no empathy, it is recollection for those with no memory, it is movement for those with no sense of direction, it is courage for cowards, power for the pathetic, and human nature for the inhumane.

Fascism is a total project, though it is not politically or economically revolutionary. It does not seek to tear down, reimagine, and create new forms of power and social structures, it seeks to reorganize and reshape them to its will, bend them to its command, use them to its advantage. But it is culturally revolutionary in that it seeks to tear down and create a new concept of ‘human’, a new culture it defines as ‘pure’ and tied to some mythical past for which it is willing to violently kill and destroy. Fascism is not politically or economically revolutionary because that would require a level of creativity, imagination, and hope that fascism and its adherents and leaders typically lack. They cannot envision a new system or society because they cannot even understand the one they live inside. Their revolution is cultural because they can only grasp the language and vision of popular cultural appeal, so their great war is waged by people against people, not against power structures and systems they do not understand.

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