Phillips OBrien

From OBrien's post:

"One thing I have learned about myself over the last three and a half years of writing pieces of analysis is that my greatest errors almost always emerge from optimism."

Uff. I'd have to say the same.

Short and well worth a read. Don't ignore the embedded links.

Europeans voting for extremes must understand this. They’ll start with ones you might not like: muslims, homosexuals etc.

But as Amen in the church even light destillations of fascism will continue with journalism, courts and eventually physically threaten any kind of opposition. Even you.

They lead the polls in Germany, France and the UK.

The question therefore needs to be asked. Does Europe Really Want To Save Itself?

Does Europe Really Want to Save Itself? We will know Sooner Than Many Understand.

Just sent out this post. Three and a half years after Bucha, after mass child abductions started, after nightly attacks on civilians, the political strength of parties sympathetic to Russia (which is doing these things) is growing not declining. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

The paradox of "I am all powerful God-King" and "Democrats won't let me open the government" may finally be hitting his voters

Dems should now aggressively move to force more climbdowns from Trump and the GOP to let them off the hook.

Second; Trump and the GOP have been excellent at mostly shielding their voters from any economic harm by blowing up the deficit and bailing them int of needs be (see soybean farmers), but in this case they were about to stick their voters with a massive bill.

Some major miscalculations by Trump
and the GOP here. First, after spending ages praising to Trump, letting him rule by executive order, letting him boast about his great power, they thought voters would say the government shutdown was the Dems fault. Americans see the Government as Trump’s.

Dems would have been better showing this fighting spirit from the start

Why the Democrats were right to force the Republicans hand on the gov't shutdown. Trump is freaking out because the GOP will be blamed for bankrupting many Americans over healthcare. The Democrats should force a full and humiliating climb down on Trump and the GOP.

🔥 Finally an EU leader says it out loud:

“We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies.”

When people start doubting that Trump actually wants to work with dictators, they might ask themselves why the two states he is working hard to limit military sales to are Taiwan and Ukraine.

"And what the Russians at the same time is trying to make civilian life unbearable in the east. They are hunting down civilians in Kherson, for instance, and yesterday did a particularly grotesque double tap attack on a civilian train in Sumy."

As predictable as a dawn sunrise.

Also, all the hopes that Trump would provide concrete aid to Ukraine began to ebb away this week (as predicted). Trump still does not want to help Ukraine and still wants to work with Putin--he just wants Putin to love him in return. And you know who knows this? Putin does.

Its why those who argued Ukraine needs to throw all its young people into the military do not understand war.

Weekend Update #153: The Land War Is Hardening; The Air War Is Broadening Has Trump's Rhetorical Change Meant Anything Concrete?

HI all, just sent out my free weekend update. It was one of those weeks (months really) which confirmed how the war is evolving. The land war is getting more frozen and destructive for those in it, the strategic air war is broadening and expanding. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

Brutally honest 👇

And Putler now knows and has confirmed the weak under belly of West is #NATO-1

No capital including London could handle any Drone/Missile attack the Kyiv takes every night.

Receipt MoD 🇬🇧 🧾 thedefensepost.com/2025/04/25/b...

Unless NATO goes on offense

#SlavaUkraine 💪🏽🇺🇦

These signs are ominous, and people are trying to pretend they are no big deal.

The Russian drones operations reveal two things that Europeans seem unable to admit to themselves. The first is that they are unwilling/incapable of stopping these operations and seem helpless to keep them from multiplying. The second is that the US government doesnt care and will not help Europe.

The Resilience Dilemma In this week’s Europe Dispatch, Minna Ålander reflects on the fact that deterrence by resilience clearly does not work.

This week’s short Europe Dispatch with @phillipspobrien.bsky.social:

Deterrence by denial doesn’t work in hybrid warfare because denying effect doesn’t stop Russia from continuing the attacks. What a nice life we all could have had if Russia had just become a normal country after the Cold War. Alas

The Resilience Dilemma In this week’s Europe Dispatch, Minna Ålander reflects on the fact that deterrence by resilience clearly does not work.

The Latest Europe Dispatch by @alanderminna.bsky.social just appeared (free as always). Russian hybrid attacks cannot be met just by resilience, Europe must now seriously consider deterrence by punishment. If only Russia had become a normal state.... open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

"On why refineries are being attacked—and what matters in refinery attacks [...] Not only is the cracker invaluable to the functioning of the refinery, its an extremely expensive piece of equipment (made up of lots of high grade, very costly metals), and exceedingly difficult to replace"

Really interesting detail on Ukraine’s campaign targeting Russian oil refineries.

I wonder if this type of campaign can be co-ordinated with the sanctions and other activity on the part of the European states, in order to further disrupt global movement of Russian oil & accelerate the pain.

Thanks for this!

Glad it helped

Excellent analysis from OBrien on exactly how Ukrainians have fucked up Russia's ability to refine its own oil. Next stop the pipelines & we may see 🇷🇺 war-fuel bleed out.

#everylittlehelps #slavaUkraini 👍👏👇

Attacking An Oil Production System Some Of The Nuts And Bolts--Starting With Refineries

Hi all, just sent out this free post to explain what matters (and what does not) in the Ukrainian campaign against Russian oil refineries. It discusses why the campaign now seems more successful, but also what else needs to happen to have a greater strategic effect. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

8 months of empty promises, in order to fool Europe and pro-Ukrainian sentiments in GOP.

8 months of real, tangible benefits for Putin. Trump is a Russian asset. Period.

Incredible how easily people are deceived.

I just hope Ukraine supporters in Europe haven’t wasted more time fantasising about what Trump will do for Ukraine. This is now Europe’s responsibility