🇾🇪⚡- Saudi-backed Homeland Shield Forces, HSF, of the Coalition Army have recaptured large parts of the al-Mahrah Governorate, eastern Yemen. HSF were seen raising the flag of Yemen in the cities of Nishtun and al-Ghaydah.

There are also reports of the 23rd Mechanized Brigade of the Coalition Army launching a counteroffensive to secure military fields near al-Abr, central Hadhramaut Governorate.

🇨🇩🇷🇼🇧🇮⚡- M23 have begun advancing along Burundi's border.

After 24 hours of violent clashes, M23 have finally captured the town of Katogota, which lies directly north of the major town of Luvungi - Uvira direction, South Kivu region, eastern DR Congo.

Pro-Congolese sources report at least 40 Burundi military personnel have been captured as prisoners of war by the M23.

🇺🇲 🌎 US National Security Strategy calls for reviving ‘Monroe Doctrine,’ limiting NATO expansion

📝 Bob Gonzales:
"Super read of the NSS ! Appears indeed to be a big change."
●“Trump Corollary” to Monroe Doctrine is now the core pillar.
●China downgraded from existential threat to economic competitor.
●Taiwan deterrence = “ideal” but conditional on allies paying up.
●Indo-Pacific secondary, Western Hemisphere + homeland first.
●No more democracy crusades, no value imposition abroad.
●Tariffs quietly admitted as failure, focus shifts to multilateral pressure.
●Biggest shift since 1945: from global cop to fortified hemisphere power.

📎 Arnaud Bertrand

🇺🇸 ❌️ 🇻🇪 First announced strike since Nov. 15:

SOUTHCOM: "On Dec. 4, at the direction of SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization. Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was carrying illicit narcotics and transiting along a known narco-trafficking route in the Eastern Pacific. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed."

📎 U.S. Southern Command

🇺🇲 🌎 'In everything we do, we are putting America First.'

"What follows is a National Security Strategy to describe and build upon the extraordinary strides we have made. This document is a roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history, and the home of freedom on earth. In the years ahead, we will continue to develop every dimension of our national strength--and we will make America safer, richer, freer, greater, and more powerful than ever before."

President Donald J. Trump

📎 The White House

November 2025

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf

🇺🇸 🇪🇺 NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, Gen. Grynkewich, said the continent can withstand a reduction in the 85,000 U.S. troops stationed there, citing strong European & Canadian capabilities. Comments come as U.S. shifts focus to Asia and Russia escalates hybrid threats.

https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-american-troops-defense-war-ukraine-donald-trump-alliance/

📎 FaytuksNetwork

#BREAKING | Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to Meet U.S. President Trump in Washington on Friday

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Thursday she will travel to Washington for the 2026 FIFA World Cup draw and hold a brief meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, marking their first face-to-face encounter. She will also meet Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney amid preparations for the USMCA review and ongoing North American trade discussions.

The Global Eye | Subscribe

🇺🇲 🌎 "The new US National Security Strategy downgrades China as the primary threat to America and pivots toward a neo-Monroe Doctrine. It looks like DusenburyDavid and I were correct: we are entering a period not of global conflict but of Re-Civilization."

https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2025/11/the-era-of-re-civilization/

📎 Philip Pilkington

Everything really is downstream of housing affordability.

This paper (long but very interesting, recommended reading) makes a compelling case that our housing crisis helps explain the rise of the degen economy and the shape of Gen Z culture.

What happens when young people stop believing they’ll ever own a home? They save less, consume more, work less, and take bigger risks. Their rate of consumption jumps 5-7%, work effort drops 1.5-2.5%, and risk-taking spikes 6-10%.

People born in the 1990s will retire with home ownership rates ~10 points lower than their parents. Many of them mentally check out of ever owning housing... and those that do end up with ~30% less wealth at retirement.

When the dream of home-ownership dies, people spend more and look for quick ways to make money... that mechanism explains so much of the last decade:
meme stocks, altcoins, levered bitcoin treasury plays, SPACs- anything with lottery-like upside becomes more appealing once the safe, slow path of home equity disappears.

Expectations drive behavior, and when home ownership stops feeling attainable, people live differently... and those shifts ripple across the whole economy.
https://x.com/pitdesi/status/1992294577160720481?s=46

🇨🇳 🇹🇼 🚢 As of yesterday, Reuters reports that 90+ Chinese ships are operating in the region - down from 100+ earlier this week - surpassing China's "mass naval deployment in December last year" in the "largest maritime show of force to date."

A high-level visual (notes + sources below):

📎 Ian Ellis

🇺🇸 ❌️ 🇻🇪 Coast Guard helicopter sniper takes out narco-boat in the Eastern Pacific in footage obtained by Fox News.

"New video footage shared with Fox News Digital depicts Coast Guard forces, including a sniper from the service’s Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron (HITRON) based in Jacksonville, Florida, utilizing disabling fire against a go-fast vessel as it completes a drug interdiction mission for Operation Pacific Viper."

📎 CollinRugg

📝 🇺🇸 🌎Captain John Konrad:

"This is a question I asked repeatedly the first day in the Pentagon briefing room. Unfortunately, I didn’t follow up and did not have time to visit Coast Guard headquarters.

U.S. Coast Guard has accumulated absolutely enormous, legal and operational authorities since being formed in treasury.

National Guard troops activated by the Department Of War American cities have strict legal handcuffs. The Coast Guard, at least in Maritime cities like Washington DC, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Memphis… have vast law enforcement authorities.

It has authorities that are very difficult for activist judges to overturn because they operate under admiralty law.

As far as narco boat strikes, the Coast Guard could do that too. One of the greatest injuries to national security was when admiral Papp disbanded U.S. Coast Guard special forces teams.

These guys were a combination of navy seals and Air Force PJs… they had both kinetic and rescue abilities.

The problem the Coast Guard has had for decades is they are outside of the Department Of War and severely limited budget.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of the capabilities. The Coast Guard could bring to the Department Of War if they were brought back inside the building.

As I’ve said many times, the US Navy needs its cabinet seat back and it would be nice to put the Coast Guard and Merchant Marine commandants back under them."

https://www.tradewindsnews.com/opinion/why-the-us-must-use-the-coast-guard-not-the-navy-when-lives-and-due-process-are-at-stake/2-1-1911925

📎 John Konrad