I first encountered Sarah C.M. “Sally” Paine, a scholar of naval policy and military history, in a video interview she did with my friend Dwarkesh Patel. I was immediately struck by her ability to place both current events and 20th century history into a single cohesive framework, and to explain that framework in language that was both simple and useful.

"I don't think [US President] Donald Trump is really motivated by US national security interests, or NATO, or Ukrainian interests. I think he wants the Nobel Peace Prize – I think it's been on his mind since the first term," argues former US national security adviser John Bolton in an interview with FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee. "Putin thinks time is on his side. This is not the time for the US or Europe to give up and say 'let's get the best deal we can'," he adds. 

https://www.france24.com/en/video/20251212-it-s-a-mistake-for-ukraine-to-make-concessions-former-trump-security-adviser-john-bolton

US and Ukraine Reach Breakthrough on Security Guarantees During Berlin Talks
Berlin Talks Finalize 90 percent of Upcoming Russia-Ukraine Agreement

The United States and Ukraine have reached agreements on security guarantees following high-level negotiations in Berlin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced during a press conference. The talks are widely seen as a critical step toward a possible political settlement of the conflict.

According to Merz, the US side demonstrated readiness to provide substantial legal and material guarantees to Ukraine. He described the proposals put forward in Berlin as both concrete and significant.

The Wolf and the Lamb

Jean de La Fontaine

Might makes right:

We shall see that in a moment.

A Lamb was quenching his thirst

In a clear stream.

A hungry Wolf, seeking adventure, came adrift

To this place drawn by a hunger scream.

What makes you so bold as to muddy my drink?

Said the enraged animal:

You will be punished for your audacity.

“Sire,” replied the Lamb, “may Your Majesty

Not be an angry fink;

But rather consider normal

That I am quenching my thirst away

In the stream,

More than twenty paces below You,

And consequently, in no way,

Nicolás Maduro is chased out of office by a massive popular revolt but the Venezuelan military takes to the streets, turning its guns on the civilians who have brought him down.

A palace coup sends Venezuela’s authoritarian leader into exile, sparking a bloody power struggle between members of his disintegrating regime.

Maduro or a key ally is assassinated by a US “decapitation” strike but – as foreign soldiers commandeer Caracas and key airports and ports – leftwing insurgents tighten their grip on the country’s mineral-rich hinterlands and regime loyalists launch guerrilla-style attacks on oil refineries and pipelines.

A passenger airliner nearly collided mid-flight with a US military aircraft near the Venezuelan coast on Friday, the Associated Press and the New York Times have reported, citing radio communications and flight tracking data.

The incident occurred amid a US naval buildup in the Caribbean and US President Donald Trump’s threats to strike “narcoterrorists” on Venezuelan soil.

JetBlue Flight 1112 reportedly encountered a US Air Force refueling tanker while traveling from Curaçao, a small island off the coast of Venezuela, to New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, whose grandfather was a member of the Nazi Party, has compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler.

Merz’s maternal grandfather, Josef Paul Sauvigny, served as mayor of Brilon in what is now North Rhine-Westphalia from 1917 to 1937. Initially a member of the conservative Center Party, Sauvigny joined Hitler’s NSDAP after the Nazis came to power in the early 1930s.

Speaking at a Christian Democratic Union conference in Munich on Sunday, Merz accused Putin of seeking to restore the borders of the Soviet Union.

The earth has moved under our feet, and our massive security gamble is crumbling, but the government pretends nothing has happened, writes Michael Pascoe.

Tits on a bull, the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, all same same. The former committee is a random mix of odds and sods – even Ralph Babet – as could be assembled, the latter stacked with fans of last century’s security stories, devotees of Pax Americana, fed and watered by the local and American security establishment to think no further than their outdated Anglosphere prejudices.

Australia’s security abandoned to the folly of declining US empire

by Michael Pascoe

Donald Trump’s latest National Security Strategy memorandum treats the freedom to coerce others as the essence of US sovereignty. It is an ominous document that will – if allowed to stand – come back to haunt the United States.

The 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) recently released by President Donald Trump presents itself as a blueprint for renewed American strength. It is dangerously misconceived in four ways.

Jeffrey D. Sachs

In Botticelli’s masterpiece Pallas and the Centaur (1482-83), to be seen at the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, the Firenze-Athena parallel is unmistakable, with Florence depicted as the new Athens.

Pallas Athena (or Minerva), after all is the Goddess of Knowledge. Here a flowery Firenze – or Firenze Flora, to remind us of another Botticelli masterpiece, the Primavera – is shown as the quintessential emblem of civilitas.

If Western Europe is to be saved from oblivion, this is where it will happen
If the current, fragmented collective West would ever have a chance to be rescued from the Centaur of oblivion, that task must be carried out by the definitive, Western civilization-state: Pallas Athena Itali

BY Pepe Escobar

UPDATE: At least 16 people have been killed and more than 35 injured — many in critical conditions — in a shooting near a Jewish gathering at Sydney's Bondi Beach.

One shooter was killed, while another is in custody. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-15/bondi-attack-could-change-australia-like-port-arthur-massacre/106142102

Warning: This story contains details which may distress some audience members.

[This is the fourth part of a series on Syria and the effects of CIA intervention there, tied for the one year anniversary of the Syrian “revolution.” See Part I, Part II, and Part III.—Editors]

How do you sell the idea of a moderate rebellion without alienating the extremists who will do the actual fighting? 

[INTERESTINGLY, GUS RECENTLY HAD A SIMILAR DISCUSSION — ALBEIT MUCH SHORTER — WITH SOMEONE WHO "DIDN'T KNOW" THE INFLUENCE OF THE JEWS ON THE 1917 RUSSIAN REVOLUTION....] 

A correspondent who goes by the moniker “Gennadiy Gessen” emailed me three years ago with a litany of questions. He sought to challenge me on a number of issues. What follows is our exchange, which is rather lengthy.

Debating Jewish Involvement in the Bolshevik Revolution

JONAS E. ALEXIS

The famed Liberal Party powerbroker Walter Villatora is a former campaign manager for Mike Baird and Tony Abbott. Believing the “Liberal Party is finished”, he resigned his membership last week to start his own conservative party, Reform Australia.

Ex-Liberal Party powerbroker says ‘the party is over’