Intelligence Review Magazine

Drone strikes hit two oil tankers at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s (CPC) marine terminal near Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast on July 19, forcing a temporary halt to oil loading operations, the consortium said in a statement, reported Anadolu Agency. The Liberia-flagged ASIA and the Marshall Islands-flagged NISSOS IOS were struck; a fire broke out aboard the ASIA but was extinguished by emergency crews. CPC reported no casualties or oil spills, and said both vessels remained afloat.

After the July 17 death of two American service members during an Iranian missile attack on a U.S. base in Jordan, CENTCOM announced that a third individual remains missing, although remains have been found at the site that have not yet been identified. “After a thorough search, U.S. military personnel found unidentified remains at the location earlier today. An examination process to verify the remains is ongoing,” CENTCOM wrote in a statement on X.

Japanese Defense Minister Shinjiro Koizumi has again raised fears of a new phase of militarism in Japan by announcing in an online program that was released on Friday that Japan should have an open debate on the subject of the role of nuclear weapons in defense of the country, reported Japan Times. “While this is a difficult issue for Japan to discuss, one topic we cannot avoid is nuclear weapons,” Koizumi said.

On the evening of July 18, Pope Leo XIV was honored with a special Classical music concert, organized by the Diocese of Albano; the concert was performed in the courtyard of the Apostolic Palace at Castel Gandolfo, just a few miles southeast of Rome, reported Vatican News. The concert included the Polonaise with Variations from Niccolò Paganini’s Third Violin Concerto, and the Libera fantasia e variazioni sulla Norma by Luis Bacalov, based on Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma.

Russia continues to increase it attacks on Ukraine’s military-related infrastructure, as it launched an overnight attack July 18-19 using missiles, drones, and aerial bombs that many are calling one of the largest assaults since the war in Ukraine began in 2022.

The United States struck Iran for an eighth consecutive night July 18-19, allegedly in retaliation for the deaths of two US service members in Jordan. The strikes targeted “military coastal surveillance and air defense facilities, maritime capabilities, and missile and drone storage sites to continue degrading Iranian military capabilities,” CENTCOM said in a statement.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, warned in a July 18 analysis on Substack that the U.S. and Iran are each independently arriving at the same dangerous conclusion: that diplomacy is no longer possible, and that only further military exhaustion of the other side can change the equation.

The Pentagon has been sparing in its accounting of what Iranian missiles have accomplished. The reporting around the strike on Jordan suggests the losses are larger than the official picture, and that Iran’s missile forces have grown harder to stop. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Iranian attack on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, where two and potentially three American service members were killed, also hit manned and unmanned aircraft, according to people familiar with the matter.

A number of financial commentaries have begun to focus on the AI bubble leaking air—or in this case, debt. Bloomberg carried one on June 17 with the title, “Hyperscalers drag down bond gauges on global markets,” which essentially described the data center bonds of the biggest so-called “AI firms” as junk bonds.

The governments of Mali and Algeria have restored diplomatic relations, a move that promises to expand the circle of regional economic developments. Both governments issued statements on July 11,on the restoration of relations including return of respective ambassadors and the reopening of Malian airspace to Algerian aircraft.