Are We Already in "the Next War"?

We have an intelligence community that is blind and deaf, run by idiots, lead by a madman. What could go wrong?

(Cue “Danger Zone” music.)

Dateline—somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

Steamlines fill. Hornets rip into the sky from the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group (CVN-75), afterburners blazing. Their tails bear markers of the best in the fleet: the “Fighting Swordsman,” the “Gunslingers,” the “Rampagers,” and the “Wildcats.”

They are warbirds. And they are going hunting.

Slung under their wings? GBU-12 Paveway II bombs.

500-pound precision-guided killers, built to punch through buildings, turn steel into dust, and scatter the enemy like ashes.

Above them, AWACS birds circle, tracking every movement. Below, the battle fleet holds formation—radars hot, defenses primed, every crewman locked and loaded.

Minutes later, the Paveways fall.

Targets vanish in flashes of fire and steel.

A burst of flame, then—lights out.

The enemy never stood a chance.

This wasn’t a fight. It was an execution.

It’s over in less than an hour. The warbirds turn for home. The fleet holds formation. Everyone goes back to their routine—just another day and another mission.

I’ve seen our guys in action. When the United States decides to bring the hammer down, it must feel like vengeance from God himself. It’s something beyond imagination unless you’ve been on the receiving end.

And now, here we go again—bombing Yemen and the Houthis.

Normally, I wouldn’t even blink. This is what we do. This is how deterrence works.

But this time, something is off.

We’re not retaliating.

We’re not deterring.

I don’t flinch from using force. I spent years at the Pentagon making sure we crushed Al Qaeda. I never lost sleep over seeing them beaten into submission. I know exactly who the Houthis are, who Iran is, and how this game works.

The Houthis have attacked shipping, fired missiles at Israel, and fueled chaos in the region for years. We’ve hit them before. And I’ve never had a problem with it—when it was deterrence.

I get it. The Middle East is a game of nine-dimensional chess.

Iran pulls strings.

Israel overreacts.

The U.S. tries to hold everything together before the whole region ignites and oil prices go through the roof.

This isn’t my first rodeo.

But here’s the thing: I also know the difference between deterrence and picking a fight.

And right now, we’re picking a fight.

And that’s not something I’m on board with. Because when you pick a fight, the enemy pokes back.

And this time, they’ll make sure they don’t miss.

And when that happens, we won’t just poke again—we’ll have to escalate.

Because that’s how these things go.

That’s how wars start.

So before we walk down this path, the real question is why?

Why are we doing this?

I thought Peace was the idea?

Maybe I missed a memo, but I thought the goal was de-escalation. Last time I checked, the Houthis weren’t actively launching missiles at U.S. or international shipping. Yes, there were threats. Yes, there was saber-rattling. But threats aren’t missiles, and talk isn’t an attack.

Here’s how we usually handle adversaries like Iran and the Houthis: we wait. We don’t escalate first. We don’t take the first swing. We deal in retribution, not provocation.

Our doctrine is built on something simple: patience is power. We absorb a lot of damage because we can afford to, and when we hit back, we hit in ways that leave a mark. That’s how deterrence works—not by lashing out first, but by ensuring our enemies regret throwing the first punch.

That entire doctrine just got thrown out the window. And for what? A flex? A distraction? A show of force for force’s sake?

It sure as hell wasn’t about deterrence.

So What Changed?

There are only three reasons to abandon deterrence doctrine and strike first:

1. A clear, imminent threat – A preemptive strike makes sense if an enemy is about to attack and taking them out first prevents mass casualties.

2. A political motive – A president desperate for a show of strength to distract from domestic problems.

3. A strategic shift – A deliberate move to change U.S. doctrine from deterrence to something more aggressive.

If there was an imminent threat, I haven’t seen evidence of it. If this was political, well… I don’t believe in coincidences when approval ratings are in the toilet. If this was strategic, then we’re playing with fire, because the next move belongs to the enemy, not us. That runs counter to our entire doctrine. The U.S. doesn’t start fights just to start them—we control the battlespace so that we can end them on our terms. But this? This isn’t control. This is forcing the enemy’s next move.

So what the heck are we doing?

A Disproportionate Response?

Let’s compare:

• The Houthis launched missiles and drones at us.

• We shot them all down.

• We suffered zero damage.

• In response, we leveled military sites across Yemen.

That is not a proportional response.

The entire point of proportionality in warfare is that you respond in kind. You neutralize threats, you degrade capabilities, but you don’t escalate for the sake of escalation.

Instead, we just sent a message: "Even if you fail to hit us, we will hit you. Hard. And first."

You know who fights this way? Israel. Hit first, hit hard, and make sure the other guy never forgets it. But that’s never been our doctrine.

We fight to win wars, not to pick them.

Our strategy results in two things:

1. It incentivizes the Houthis to make their next attack count.

   • If they’re getting bombed just for missing, what’s the incentive to hold back?

   • The next barrage may not miss and now we force our hand to escalate.

2. It signals to Iran that we are willing to go further than deterrence.

   • And Iran, whether directly or through proxies, does not absorb humiliation lightly.

   • We’re pushing them to the wall. And what’s the endgame? Because unless we’re ready to invade Iran, wipe out their entire military, and change the regime, this escalation only leads to one thing: an enemy with nothing left to lose. And that’s the most dangerous kind.

This isn't deterrence. This is provocation.

The Question No One is Asking

I’ll ask it:

What happens when the Houthis—or worse, Iran—decide to hit back in a way that hurts?

• What happens when an oil tanker gets sunk instead of just threatened?

• What happens when an American ship actually takes a hit?

• What happens when the first American body bags come home from a war no one voted for?

We’ve crossed a line here. And if history teaches us anything, once you cross that line, the only question left is how far you're willing to go.

The Blind, the Deaf, and the Madman

We have an intelligence community that is blind and deaf, run by idiots, led by a madman.

What could go wrong?

A lot.

The Intelligence Failure We Should Have Seen Coming

It would be one thing if this strike were based on real intelligence—credible, actionable, urgent. But does anyone believe that’s what happened? Does anyone think our intelligence community—the same one that missed 9/11, miscalculated Iraq’s WMDs, failed to predict the Afghan government collapsing in a week, and didn’t see Hamas preparing for October 7th— somehow pulled off a flawless assessment of an “imminent” Houthi threat?

Again, I have no illusions about who these people are, but I call “Shennanigans!” on this one.

This isn’t intelligence. This is political theater disguised as military action.

We’ve seen this movie before.

A "classified briefing" suddenly tells us that a threat is real and urgent. The press gets just enough leaks to spread the narrative. Congress gets its usual intelligence briefings—the kind that tell you everything and nothing simultaneously—and before you know it, the bombs are dropping.

And when we look back?

Oops.

I wish I could say I’m surprised. But this happens when you gut the institutions built to keep us from making bad decisions and replace them with yes-men, grifters, and “Fox Schnooze” warriors who spend more time licking boot than reading intelligence briefs.

Because this isn’t just about intelligence failures—it’s about the rotting leadership running the show. Which begs the next (scarier) question:

Who’s Running This Shitshow?

Let’s be honest: Trump doesn’t read intelligence briefings. For all we know, the clown can’t even read. By his own words, he uses his “very good brain,” to decide how foreign policy should unfold. His own former National Security Advisors have admitted it. He’s too lazy and too arrogant to care about the details. He wants headlines, not strategy, and every other word better be “Trump.”

So who’s calling the shots?

Cui bono? Because it sure as hell isn’t America. It’s not our troops. It’s not our allies. So who? The arms dealers? The defense contractors cashing in on another Middle Eastern crisis? The war hawks still trying to refight the Cold War? The fanatics who think picking a fight with Iran somehow scares China? If you think this is about 'national security,' I’ve got some defense stock to sell you.

If anyone has an answer, I’d love to hear it.

Who in this administration signed off on an unprovoked strike that fundamentally changes U.S. deterrence policy?

I don’t think anyone knows:

• The intelligence agencies? They’re either too incompetent or too afraid to challenge bad decisions.

• The Pentagon? Led by a 'DUI Hire'—a guy whose entire career has been a case study in failing upward—the Pentagon follows orders even when they know they’re dumb. Why else purge everyone with a spine and replace them with a violent, womanizing alcoholic who was a military disgrace and a laughing stock on a Sunday Fox News program before Trump resurrected him?

• The State Department? Irrelevant. Dead weight. Trump has gutted it. Marco Rubio is an empty suit with a marble-mouthed defense of everything MAGA.

• Congress? Too spineless to push back. And honestly, I beg the question, who was in the “Gang of 8” briefings on this one, and did even anyone say anything at all? I’m guessing they weren’t done and Congress found out on CNN just like everyone else.

So we’re left with a military running on autopilot, an intelligence community flying blind, a Congress with all the courage of a wet sock, and a Commander-in-Chief with the impulse control of a toddler holding a flamethrower.

What could go wrong?

The Relentless Machine: Just How Powerful Are We?

Let’s get something straight. The United States isn’t just powerful—we are, by every conceivable metric, the most dominant military force in human history.

We don’t fight wars. We end them.
We don’t struggle with nations. We erase them.

The combined strength of the next ten militaries on Earth wouldn’t stand a chance against us in a toe-to-toe, tit-for-tat fight.

They don’t win battles against us. They survive them.

• We can wipe a country off the map before lunch and still make our dinner reservation on time.

• We have the largest, most advanced nuclear arsenal on Earth—one that can turn a city into glass in under 30 minutes.

• Our naval power alone outmatches the next ten largest fleets combined.

• Our Air Force owns more than just the skies—it also controls space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum.

It's not a fair fight every time we roll into a conflict. It’s the equivalent of dropping the 1996 Chicago Bulls into a pickup intermural basketball league.

So let’s not kid ourselves about what happened in Yemen.

That strike? It wasn’t a battle. It wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t even a showdown.

It was an execution.

Those jets launched from the USS Harry S. Truman, lobbed precision-guided death onto targets that never saw it coming, and left before the flames even died down.

The enemy didn’t even get a shot off.

That is the scale of our dominance.

The DUI Hire may think we need the “biggest, baddest military.”

I’ve got news for that drunk—we already are.

Nobody has been feared like the U.S. military since the Gurkhas—whose mere name alone was enough to force an enemy to surrender.

Again, I have no qualms about using our force. Many a time in meetings at the Pentagon, I said:

"If our cause be just, let no one stand in our way."

And they wouldn’t.

They just couldn’t.

That’s why I’m so confused right now.

So Why Are We Acting Like We’re Weak?

If we’re this powerful and can wipe enemies off the board at will, then why are we acting like scared children lashing out in the dark?

If the Houthis were a real, existential threat, they would have hit us already. If Iran were truly on the verge of attacking, we wouldn’t be waiting for a manufactured excuse to strike. If this were about deterrence, we wouldn’t be fighting like an insecure empire trying to prove itself instead of a superpower that knows precisely when and how to hit.

We aren’t weak. We never have been.

But weak men in power make strong nations do stupid things. They waste soldiers' lives on wars they don’t know how to win. They send young men and women home in flag-draped coffins for conflicts that never should have happened. They turn superpowers into empires, grasping for relevance.

And right now, we are wielding a sledgehammer in a conflict that doesn’t require one.

Power Without Strategy Is Just Violence

We have the power to destroy nations but not the leadership to win wars. We can control the battlespace but have no strategy for what comes next. We have enough firepower to reduce our enemies to ash, but we lack the discipline to know when not to pull the trigger.

And that’s why this strike in Yemen is terrifying.

Not because it’s impressive—we do this every day. Not because the Houthis deserved better—they didn’t. But because it’s power being used recklessly—not to deter an enemy, not to respond to an attack, but to force a conflict that never needed to happen.

We aren’t just the most potent military force on the planet.

We are the most dangerous.

And when our leaders forget that distinction, the world bleeds for it.

We’ve Seen This Before, and We Know How It Ends

Here’s what happens when you let lousy intelligence, no strategy, and shitty leadership run the show:

We get into fights we don’t need to be in.
We kill people who didn’t need to die.
We create enemies where there didn’t need to be any.
We send Americans to die for nothing.

We’ve done it before—Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria.

The only difference?

This time, the stakes are higher.

Because this isn’t just another regional conflict.

This is a direct provocation of Iran.

And if Iran decides to respond—
If they stop playing the long game and hit us where it hurts—

We’re not just looking at another endless war.

We’re looking at a catastrophe that makes Iraq look like a warm-up act.

I’m not afraid of Iran. Iran is a regional power with global ambitions, but let’s be honest—against us, they wouldn’t last a week. If they ever threatened the United States, they’d cease to exist before the sun set.

If Iran wants to call down the thunder—well, here it fucking comes. Game over.

But that’s not what’s happening here:

We’re the ones provoking the fight.
We’re the ones destabilizing the chessboard.

So tell me again—who thought this was a good idea?

We are so powerful that I had to remind people—our cause had to be just.

The reality is that nobody can stand in our way.

We don’t restrain ourselves because we’re weak. We restrain ourselves because nobody is stronger.

And when this spirals (which is inevitable):

When the missiles come back our way.
When the body bags start coming home.
When oil is $300 a barrel and the economy tanks.
When we find ourselves in a war with Iran, without any of our allies, while China and Russia back Iran.

Who’s going to take the blame?

Not Trump.

He never does. He never will.

He’ll be too busy pointing fingers—at the generals, the Cabinet, the intelligence community, NATO, Congress, maybe even the troops themselves.

The only certainty?

It won’t be him paying the price.

It never is. It never will be.

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