This week has seen tensions between the US and Iran escalate to the brink of a shooting war with a 100+ million USD drone's obliteration following its violation of Iran's airspace. The shootdown was followed by several hours of drama over whether or not the USG would answer Iran's act of border defense with retaliatory airstrikes. While the details of the process remain unclear, US President Donald Trump decided not to strike in defiance of staff of career USG national security advisors (archived). Instead, sometime tomorrow new sanctions and an escalation of the USG's economic war against Iran will be announced raising tensions still higher.

After the USG's embarrassing regime change miss in Venezuela, it is clear that the USG has never been weaker or less influential on the international stage since William Henry Seward nearly provoked Europe to end the US as Abraham Lincoln's Madame Secretary of State. With US warfighters wrecked in the aftermath of their own color revolution, the US Department of "Defense" briefly published a document outlining a hypothetical doctrine suggesting the US could achieve "strategic rebalance" by winning a nuclear war (archived).

And so the USG empire enters this next week with the a serious dilemma. Earlier this year their intelligence apparatus failed to buy regime change in Venezuela. A very sophisticated drone that was supposed to enjoy protection from airdefense missiles through its high flight altitude was taken down by an airdefense missile. What can the USG possibly do that demonstrates anything other than the empire's increasing impotence?