The Deep State has launched a war of disruption to disable Trump's "storm." Last week's ATACM strike was but one part to an inter-agency counter-insurgency – a political strike directed at Trump; so too are all the inter-agency false narratives attributed to the Trump camp; and so too, the escalating provocations directed at Iran.

Be assured the Five Eyes are full participants in the counter-insurgency. Macron and Starmer openly conspired together in Paris ahead of the US announcement to promote the ATACMS strike. The inter-agency grandees clearly are very fearful. They must worry that Trump may expose the "Russia Hoax" (that Trump in 2016 was a Russian "asset") and put them in jeopardy.

But Trump understands what's afoot:

We need peace without delay … The foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict. The greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It's probably more than anything else ourselves… There must be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire Globalist Neo-con establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad while they turn us into a Third World country and a Third World dictatorship right here at home. The State Department, the Defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted. To fire the Deep Staters and put America first – we have to put America First.

Whilst the long-range ATACM launch on "deep Russian pre-2014 territory" is no game-changer – it will not change the course of the war (ATACMS regularly are – at 90% – downed by Russian Air Defences); the salience of this act however, is not strategic; rather, it lies with the crossing into the realm of direct NATO attacks on Russia.

Colonel Doug MacGregor reports that two sources are telling him that "Russian nuclear rocket forces are on full alert. They are at the highest level of readiness ever achieved. It suggests that Russia has taken this crossing of the line very seriously."

Yes, it was a provocation, and President Putin will respond appropriately. He has to – but not necessarily through nuclear escalation. Why? Because the war in Ukraine is moving rapidly in his direction, with Russian forces closing-in on the Dnieper east bank. Effectively, facts on the ground will be the outcome determinant, leaving little point to external mediation.