The Financial Times curiously chose September 11 to run the following perhaps overly sensational headline, which pretty much checks every box of classic "global war on terror" fear-mongering, but which also pivots straight to the 'next big war theater' type rhetoric: US Navy Seal unit that killed Osama bin Laden trains for China invasion of Taiwan.

We are told in the article that "Seal Team 6, the clandestine US Navy commando unit that killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, has been training for missions to help Taiwan if it is invaded by China, according to people familiar with the preparations."

"The elite Navy special forces team, which is tasked with some of the military's most sensitive and difficult missions, has been planning and training for a Taiwan conflict for more than a year at Dam Neck, its headquarters at Virginia Beach about 250km south-east of Washington," the report continues. 

But then there's the following admission that this could just be more typical training for repelling an amphibious assault landing of PLA forces on Taiwan's shores, which would not at all be primarily fought by a small Seal team - no matter how elite:

The Pentagon has in recent years sent more regular special forces to Taiwan for missions that include providing training for the Taiwanese military. The Seal Team 6 activities are far more sensitive because its covert missions are highly classified.

All breathless talk of super classified Rambo-style secret missions aside, the real question is what are the American people being prepped for with such a headline which impressively manages to include bin Laden, elite Seals, military preparations, Chinese aggression, and Taiwan... and all on the day that Americans remember the deadliest terror attack in the nation's history?

The answer lies, unfortunately, in this: the US national security state already appears in search of its next war even as two are still raging. Washington participates in both the Ukraine and Gaza wars by proxy - but neither is going very well.