The Alliance That Ran U.S. Foreign Policy on Autopilot Is Ending

Russia hit Kyiv twice in under a week — one barrage of 68 missiles and 351 strike drones, per President Zelensky, followed days later by ballistic missile strikes that killed roughly a dozen people and flattened apartment blocks. The strikes got through not because Russia found a clever new tactic, but because Ukraine is running short of Patriot interceptors — the missiles that shoot down other missiles. This is a preview of a hard truth in modern warfare: missile defense isn't a shield, it's a stockpile. And stockpiles run out.

The global energy system survived the loss of Iranian oil during four months of war — but it did so by draining the emergency reserves that exist for exactly this kind of crisis. That means the world's shock absorbers are now worn thin at the precise moment the war's outcome remains unsettled: a peace deal is taking shape, but Tehran hasn't signed. If anything else goes wrong, the buffer that just saved the system won't be there.