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A new, non-NATO, security bargain comes closer for Ukraine

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says the U.S. and key European countries have converged on “Article 5-like” security guarantees for Ukraine, strong enough, in his telling, to ensure that any renewed Russian attack would trigger not only Ukrainian resistance but also pre-committed allied support backed by legal obligations.

The intent, Merz argues, is to avoid the enforcement failures of the Minsk agreements. Merz adds that Europe has already put concrete proposals on the table and that “the ball is now on Moscow’s side.”

Reporting in the U.S. suggests the guarantees are being designed to outlast political swings in Washington, potentially through a treaty-level text requiring Senate ratification, and paired with a detailed military-to-military operating arrangement that would specify how support is activated in practice.

Some European commentary has gone further, calling the package unusually robust, even a “platinum standard,” though such descriptions remain purely speculative as there’s been no official announcement.

Alongside the security track, negotiators appear to be exploring hard-edged economic and infrastructure trade-offs, including a tentative concept under which Ukraine and Russia would split electricity from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant 50/50, with a significant U.S. role in governance or oversight, and a proposed “economic free zone” in parts of the Donbas not occupied by Russia. U.S. officials describe the latter as an arrangement outsiders can define in technical terms, but one that ultimately depends on Kyiv and Moscow settling questions of sovereignty, control, and enforcement.

In the end, Russian buy-in will be required for any ceasefire (which we still assess as unlikely), but the progress on security guarantees for Ukraine is real.

It’s the U.S. vs China, everyone else needs to choose a side

Britain braces for the grey zone

Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff, is trying to jolt the country out of what he sees as peacetime habits. In a lecture at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) on 15 December, he argued that the risk posed by Russia is rising and that deterrence can no longer be treated as a task for the armed forces alone. His language about the nation’s “sons and daughters” being ready “to build, to serve, and if necessary, to fight” reads as an appeal for a whole-of-nation posture: larger reserves, faster rearmament, and an industrial base able to sustain a prolonged crisis. He framed this as a matter of public awareness and a willingness to bear costs, while emphasizing that the objective is to avoid war.

That warning landed alongside a worrying intelligence assessment from Blaise Metreweli, the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), in her first public speech on the same day.

Metreweli described Europe as operating in “a space between peace and war,” where coercion is pursued through methods that sit just below the threshold that would automatically trigger a conventional military response. She listed a menu of “grey zone” activity, including drones “buzzing airports and bases,” sabotage and arson, and influence operations designed to widen social fractures. Her message on Ukraine was equally blunt: she said President Vladimir Putin is “dragging out negotiations and shifting the cost of war onto his own population,” while insisting that British pressure and support for Ukraine would be sustained.

The latest institutional backing for this darker diagnosis comes from Parliament’s own watchdog. The Intelligence and Security Committee’s Annual Report 2023–2025 (also published yesterday, 15 December 2025) includes an annexed threat assessment that portrays hostile state activity as multifaceted and increasingly normalized, particularly from Russia, Iran, and China. It highlights risks ranging from attempted assassinations and the abduction of dissidents to Europe-wide sabotage campaigns linked to Russia’s effort to weaken support for Ukraine. The report also emphasizes the cyber dimension, warning that artificial intelligence is already being used to increase the volume and impact of attacks and to sharpen social engineering, raising the baseline level of disruption that governments and companies must absorb.

Taken together, the three interventions point to the same strategic conclusion: “attack” should not be understood only as an invasion scenario. It also means persistent coercion through cyber operations, sabotage, intimidation, and influence.

Knighton is arguing that Britain needs the manpower, stockpiles, and industrial capacity to deter escalation. Metreweli is arguing that the contest is already under way in the grey zone. The ISC is warning that the threat surface is broadening, with artificial intelligence accelerating the pace.

None of this proves Russia intends to strike the U.K. militarily in the near future, and Moscow continues to deny plans to attack NATO, but British officials are clearly preparing the public for a longer period of high tension and routine hostile activity.

Ukraine tests Russia’s naval sanctuary

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) says it used “Sub Sea Baby” underwater drones to strike a Project 636.3 “Varshavyanka” (Improved Kilo) submarine while it was docked at Novorossiysk, inflicting “critical damage” that, by its account, put the boat out of action.

The SBU released video that appears to show a large explosion near a submarine alongside the pier. Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, despite the footage circulating online, denied any damage and said vessels at the base remained operational.

The target matters. As Ukrainian strikes and threats have made Sevastopol increasingly risky, Russia has shifted more of its Black Sea posture to Novorossiysk, farther from the Ukrainian-held coastline and treated as a safer rear-area hub. A successful strike there would suggest that “safe harbors” are shrinking, and that Russia’s layered defenses, including booms, patrol craft, nets, electronic warfare, and local air defenses, can be probed and, at least occasionally, penetrated.

So does the platform’s role. The Improved Kilo class is a diesel-electric attack submarine prized for quiet operations and for its ability to fire Kalibr land-attack cruise missiles, which Russia has used repeatedly against Ukrainian infrastructure and cities.

The SBU said the submarine carried four Kalibr launchers. Even if the missile loadout at the moment of attack cannot be verified publicly, disabling a Kalibr-capable boat would matter operationally. It would reduce Russia’s capacity to generate surprise salvos from the sea and complicate strike planning by increasing reliance on aircraft and surface ships, both of which have faced growing pressure from Ukrainian air defenses and drones.

The method is the real novelty. Ukraine has already used surface naval drones to attack ships and infrastructure, prompting Russia to adapt with barriers and patrols. What Kyiv is advertising now is a weapon that approaches from below the waterline, where detection is harder and port-defense systems are often thinner. Ukrainian online commentary has framed the episode as the first successful use of an uncrewed underwater vehicle as an anti-ship attack weapon; if confirmed, that would mark a notable turn in maritime warfare.

Repair and replacement are rarely straightforward. Even a “mission kill” that leaves a hull afloat can sideline a submarine for months. Underwater blasts can deform the pressure hull, damage propulsion, and contaminate sensitive systems. Under sanctions, sourcing components and completing heavy yard work can be slow and expensive. The SBU has put the replacement cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Strategically, the timing also looks deliberate. The strike landed amid U.S.-led pressure on Kyiv to contemplate concessions to end the war, making the attack useful as political signaling as well as military attrition.

Ukraine is advertising that it can still impose costs and innovate, even without a large navy of its own. If underwater drones become a repeatable capability, Russia may have to spend more on port security, dispersal, and repairs, and accept higher operational risk for submarines even when they are supposedly in safe harbor, alongside the pier.

The new Monroe Doctrine era & the Trump Corollary

Trinidad and Tobago picks a side

Trinidad and Tobago’s decision to allow U.S. military aircraft to transit its airports for “logistical” purposes may be a technical arrangement, but it carries strategic weight.

Port of Spain is aligning itself more openly with Washington’s security posture in the southern Caribbean, at a moment when President Donald Trump’s administration is tightening pressure on Venezuela and hinting at tougher options. Officials in Trinidad and Tobago have described the movements as logistics-related and linked to “regional security” cooperation, covering such tasks as resupplying aircraft and rotating personnel.

Caracas has chosen to treat the decision as encirclement. Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez accused Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of turning Trinidad and Tobago into a “U.S. aircraft carrier” for attacks on Venezuela, and announced an immediate halt to contracts, deals, or negotiations to supply natural gas to Trinidad and Tobago.

Gas is central to the relationship between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago. The two sides have long discussed developing Venezuela’s Dragon field near the maritime boundary, with Shell involved and U.S. sanctions constraints hovering over the project.

The dispute is being sharpened by another flashpoint: the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela on 10 December, which Caracas calls “piracy” and claims Trinidad and Tobago abetted, without explaining how. From Port of Spain’s perspective, the “logistics” label is meant to keep the arrangement within the bounds of routine cooperation. In Caracas’s telling, routine cooperation becomes a forward operating network, particularly after the U.S. installed a radar system in Tobago that Trinidad and Tobago says is aimed at criminal networks, but is an obvious military threat to Venezuela.

The risk for Trinidad and Tobago is that it gets pulled into a contest it cannot control. Its two main airports, Piarco in Trinidad and A.N.R. Robinson in Tobago, sit only 11 kilometers (7 miles) from Venezuela at the closest point. The row is also domestically divisive, with critics warning that Port of Spain is trading sovereignty for alignment and raising the odds of blowback.

Venezuela’s cancellation of gas arrangements is a reminder that energy interdependence can be weaponized quickly, whatever assurances Trinidad and Tobago offers about its “adequate reserves” at home.

Instability from Sahel to Horn of Africa amid state fragility, Russian interference, & Islamist insurgencies

Gunmen strike a church in Kogi

Gunmen stormed a branch of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) in Ayetoro Kiri, in Kabba/Bunu local government area of Kogi State, during a service and abducted worshippers. Local reporting puts the number taken at more than 15.

What is striking is not the tactic, but its spread. Across much of northern and central Nigeria, armed gangs increasingly treat churches, schools, and roadside communities as soft targets. They arrive in force, fire sporadically to scatter crowds, seize captives, and disappear into nearby forests, usually to demand ransom.

Kogi is not part of the far northwest, but it sits close enough to major road networks that the kidnap-for-profit model seen in Niger, Zamfara, and Kaduna can travel, particularly when security forces are stretched and jurisdiction is fragmented.

In November, Nigeria saw a surge of mass kidnappings, including a church attack in Kwara and the abduction of more than 300 pupils and staff from a Catholic school in Niger State.

Europe's center of gravity shifts east, politics moves right, hostility to migrants from the south rises, as ties with the U.S. fray, and fear of Russia increases

France tries to slow the Mercosur deal

France’s call for a delay is the latest attempt to slow, and possibly derail, the European Union’s long-running trade agreement with Mercosur.

Mercosur (short for the Southern Common Market) is South America’s main customs union and political-economic bloc, built around Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Bolivia is now a full member, while Venezuela is suspended. The group was created in the early 1990s to lower internal barriers and negotiate externally as a bloc.

In EU terms, the prize is scale: a preferential trade framework with a large market and an important source of agricultural commodities and raw materials, at a time when Brussels is trying to diversify supply chains and reduce exposure to U.S.-China trade shocks.

The deal has become a lightning rod because it concentrates costs and disperses gains. European exporters of cars, machinery, chemicals, and services like the prospect of lower tariffs and clearer rules. Farmers see a direct threat from beef, poultry, and other imports produced under different cost structures and regulatory regimes. France has therefore leaned hard on “timing” and “conditions” as procedural arguments, but the substance is agricultural politics. Paris is pushing for postponement amid farmer protests and has floated “mirror clauses” (imports meeting EU-style standards), stronger safeguards against market flooding, and tighter food-safety checks.

The procedural fight matters because the European Commission has tried to structure the agreement in a way that reduces veto points. In September 2025 it proposed two parallel instruments: an EU–Mercosur Partnership Agreement and an interim trade agreement that could take effect sooner while broader ratification grinds on. That helps explain why supporters focus on Council arithmetic, while opponents talk as if a single holdout can still kill the entire package. Approval of the deal hinges on qualified-majority thresholds (15 states representing 65% of the EU population), which makes Italy pivotal and turns coalition-building into the main battlefield.

This is where France’s delay campaign comes in. President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have aligned on postponing the final vote, while France courts other skeptics to assemble a blocking minority. Rome’s ambiguity is part of the leverage. Italian politics is sensitive to farmers and to the broader European mood, giving Meloni incentives to keep options open until the last responsible moment. Denmark, which is managing the Council process, has its own constraint: it can schedule votes, but it will avoid putting a proposal on the table that is likely to lose, because a failed vote can freeze a file for months and harden positions.

Supporters fear that another “technical pause” would become a political death sentence. That is why EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has warned that rejection would damage the EU’s credibility as a negotiating partner, particularly with other trade talks under way. Opponents reply that delay is prudence, not sabotage, and that “legitimate concerns” still need addressing. In practice, both sides are right about the incentives. Postponement buys time for safeguards and face-saving add-ons, but it also increases the odds that Mercosur capitals conclude the EU cannot deliver and move on.

The argument also bleeds into a broader EU problem: agricultural protectionism is colliding with enlargement. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is a large share of the budget, and Ukraine is an agricultural powerhouse. Bringing Ukraine into existing CAP formulas would imply either a much bigger EU budget or politically painful cuts to current recipients, making CAP reform hard to avoid if accession is serious.

That is one reason Mercosur comes with baggage: it forces European leaders to confront, in miniature, the same trade-offs that Ukraine’s membership would make unavoidable at scale.

Australia’s counter-terrorism seams show

"Early indications point to a terrorism attack inspired by the Islamic State”, according to Krissy Barrett, the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police on Sunday’s terrorist attack on Jewish Australians at Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach. 

Australian and Philippine authorities have further confirmed that the father and son pair that conducted the Bondi terrorist attack on Sunday traveled to the Philippines in November 2025, with Australian investigators examining claims that they sought “military-style training” in the country’s south.

Australian media report that the son, Naveed Akram, came to the attention of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) in October 2019 because of alleged links to a Sydney-based Islamic State (IS) cell. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said he was investigated for about six months and then assessed as posing no ongoing threat. The father, Sajid Akram, later obtained a Category AB firearms license and had six firearms registered to him, which police recovered after the attack. New South Wales police have also corrected early reporting on timing, saying the license was issued in 2023 after earlier applications lapsed or were resubmitted.  

Taken together, the details pose awkward questions for Canberra and Sydney: how did someone previously examined for extremist associations end up in the same household as a newly licensed multi-firearm owner, and how did travel to a region long associated with extremist activity fail to prompt renewed scrutiny?

The answer may be mundane, but still concerning. Firearms licensing is largely a state responsibility, intelligence holdings sit with ASIO, border and travel data sit with federal agencies, and the Joint Counter Terrorism Team sits between intelligence and policing. If each node sees only its own slice, “connecting the dots” becomes a slogan rather than a system.

Some constraints are structural. ASIO triages a large volume of leads; a case that closes with “no ongoing threat” can reflect legal thresholds for intrusive surveillance and finite resources. A state firearms registry cannot act on intelligence it does not receive, or cannot receive in a usable form. Border systems can flag travel, but unless a traveler is on a watchlist or triggers specific rules, movement is not inherently suspicious. None of this is exculpatory. It simply describes how seams between agencies become vulnerabilities, particularly when risk profiles change quickly.

The next steps are predictable: an inquiry into information-sharing and watchlisting, a review of how firearm licenses are granted and revisited when household members have security flags, and likely deeper operational cooperation with the Philippines on travel, contacts, and any training claims.

A New Year’s Eve plot, U.S. prosecutors say

The FBI says it has arrested four people accused of preparing attacks in the U.S. Federal prosecutors allege the defendants were part of a small, tight-knit cell that called itself the Turtle Island Liberation Front, which investigators describe as far-left, anti-capitalist, and anti-government, and that it was moving from rhetoric to action as New Year’s Eve approached.

According to a federal criminal complaint and Justice Department statements, Audrey Illeene Carroll (who allegedly used the alias “Asiginaak”), Zachary Aaron Page (“AK”), Dante Gaffield (“Nomad”), and Tina Lai (“Kickwhere”) discussed coordinated attacks in Southern California timed to coincide with New Year’s Eve fireworks, allegedly to mask blasts and sow confusion.

The alleged targets, as described by the Justice Department and wire services, included facilities linked to two major U.S. companies, which officials likened to large logistics hubs. Some accounts also describe talk of future attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and vehicles. Investigators say the FBI disrupted the plot before any functioning devices were deployed, seizing materials they describe as consistent with building improvised explosive devices, along with digital communications used to coordinate the group.

Procedurally, the case is at an early stage. A criminal complaint is often the opening move, allowing arrests and initial court appearances while prosecutors decide whether to seek an indictment from a grand jury. The stated charges, conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device, are serious federal counts that can carry long prison terms if proven.

Officials have also suggested the investigation extends beyond these four arrests. Reporting that a fifth person was detained in New Orleans in a related matter indicates that law enforcement is still mapping contacts, communications, and any offshoot plans.

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