The U.S.-Iran War Is Coming & Germany's Existential Threat

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Hi readers, happy Thursday! Today we’re covering U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations, Germany’s demographic crisis, the death toll in Gaza, Russia-Ukraine “negotiations,” a U.S.-sponsored VPN site (?), a tragedy in the Sierras, and the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups drama.

“My future starts when I wake up every morning. Every day I find something creative to do with my life.” ― Miles Davis

“President Peace Prize” Pushes For Another War

The U.S. military buildup in the Middle East has reached a tipping point. White House and Pentagon officials have told the press that by the weekend, the U.S. will have enough military power located near Iran to seriously damage the country’s nuclear facilities and ballistic missile infrastructure.

The news puts enormous pressure on U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations, which Trump has been pushing for over the past few weeks. Diplomats from the two countries met in Geneva, Switzerland earlier this week, but left the discussion with not much besides “guiding principles” for future negotiations – Iran has asked for two weeks to come up with proposals for a diplomatic end to the talks, while the U.S. appears increasingly ready to just start bombing Iran in order to force regime change.

Trump has been threatening to launch massive airstrikes on Iran since January, but the U.S. military is only now in a strong enough position to back up those threats. The Pentagon has shifted aircraft carriers, fighter jets, and air defense systems to the region, building up enough firepower to take out Iran’s offensive capabilities while also protecting American troops in the region from any retaliatory attacks. White House sources have told the press that the Pentagon is preparing for a weeks-long campaign pushing for regime change in Tehran, which will be carried out with Israeli assistance. But is a massive U.S. attack on Iran coming this weekend? Probably not – that two-week proposal deadline was put in place by U.S. negotiators – but as each day passes, a U.S.-Iran war becomes more and more likely.

Deutschland In Decline

Germany is in dire straits. According to a study published by the Ifo Institute, a German economic think-tank, the country’s population is now projected to shrink by 5% between now and 2050 – the new analysis, which uses updated data from Germany’s statistical office, is a massive change from the 1% decline that the organization previously predicted.

“Demographic change will have significant effects on all areas of the economy and society,” wrote one Ifo economist. If the projected demographic change occurs, Germany’s working population (people aged 20 to 66) will shrink by 12%, while the amount of people receiving pension checks will rise by more than 20%. The German government already spends about a quarter of its annual budget on paying out pensions, and that number will only increase as the population continues to age. Politicians, according to the report, need to take that “accelerated decline and ageing of the population” into account. 

Besides offering incentives for people to have more children, another answer to demographic decline is increasing immigration. Like many other European countries, though, Germany has recently tightened its immigration policy; last year, just 225,000 immigrants entered the country, down from the 454,00 projected in an earlier report.

More Death Toll Data

• According to a study published in the Lancet yesterday, an estimated 75,000 people were killed during the first 16 months of the war in Gaza. That number outstrips death toll data posted by the Gaza health ministry at the time by about 25,000. The study also estimates that roughly 42,200 Palestinian women, children, and elderly people were killed over that same time period.

• “The combined evidence suggests that, as of 5 January 2025, 3-4% of the population of the Gaza Strip had been killed violently and there have been a substantial number of non-violent deaths caused indirectly by the conflict,” the study’s authors wrote. They estimate that at least 8,200 people died due to non-violent causes (such as malnutrition or untreated disease) over that 16-month period.

• Currently, Gaza health ministry data shows that the death toll has exceeded 71,660, and an Israeli military officer recently supported those numbers, telling the press that at least 70,000 Palestinians had been killed over the course of the war. It’ll take years – if not decades – to work out the actual fatalities from the war, but all of the evidence suggests that the health ministry numbers are significantly lower than the real death toll.

Geneva: Where Diplomacy Goes To Die?

• Peace talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S. wrapped up yesterday. Unfortunately, the negotiations (also held in Geneva) ended with Moscow and Kyiv both refusing to budge, meaning there’s no end to the conflict in sight.

• Both Russia’s chief negotiator and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky told the press that the talks had been “difficult,” though the White House claimed that “there was meaningful progress” made during the meeting, and that both countries had agreed to “continue to work towards a peace deal together.”

• A Ukrainian diplomat told Reuters that negotiators had made progress on “military issues” including ceasefire monitoring and defining the current status of the frontline for later talks, but both sides remain very far apart on most other issues. Russia reportedly wants Ukraine to give up the entire eastern Donbas area – made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions – but Kyiv is understandably wary of handing over the military fortifications in the area. It’s unclear when a next round of talks might take place.

Additional World News

• South Korea court convicts ex-President Yoon for insurrection in martial law case (Reuters) 

• Do not give away Diego Garcia, Trump tells UK (BBC)

• At These Gaza Schools, ‘Peace Building’ Is Part of the Curriculum (NYT, $) 

• Major European allies decline to join first meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace (Guardian)

• How one country stopped a Trump-style authoritarian in his tracks (Vox)

• How Paris’ working-class dining experience is reshaping restaurant economics in France (Conversation)

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Find Your Retirement Timeline

American Exceptionalism Goes Online

• The U.S. State Department is currently developing a special website that will allow people in other countries to view online content that’s censored by their governments. The website will reportedly be hosted at freedom.gov – there’s nothing there at the moment – and might allow users to access a virtual private network, letting them avoid tracking and making their traffic appear to be coming from the U.S.

• Reuters has reported that the project was supposed to launch during last week’s Munich Security Conference, but was delayed for some reason. Or perhaps a multitude of very obvious reasons. According to two State Department sources, multiple people within the agency, including its lawyers, have raised concerns about the project. The most obvious problem is that deploying the website would make it clear that the U.S. government is encouraging other countries’ citizens to circumvent local censorship laws, and is even providing them a tool to break those laws with. Ironic, as the U.S. continues to clamp down on social media users critical of the Trump White House’s controversial ICE raids.

A Tragedy In Tahoe

• On Tuesday, an avalanche in California’s Lake Tahoe region left fifteen people missing. Recovery teams were able to rescue six of those people alive, but their search also turned up the bodies of eight skiers. The last remaining missing person is presumed dead, according to local authorities.

• The deadly avalanche was apparently the size of a football field, and was rated a D2.5 by the Sierra Avalanche Center. Avalanches are graded on a scale of D1 to D5, and the D2.5 rating means this avalanche was over half a mile in length and deposited roughly 6.5 feet of snow across its path. 

• Normally, the area where the avalanche took place isn’t considered too remote to access, but heavy snowfall in the Sierras complicated the rescue process. Officials have stated that the rescue teams have had to brave “extreme weather conditions” caused by a storm that dropped an additional three feet of snow across Tahoe, and high winds and low visibility have only made matters worse.

Additional USA News

• The horrors of the Dilley family detention center, as told by detained children: ‘They don’t treat us like human beings’ (El Pais) 

• SAVE tool keeps mistakenly flagging voters as noncitizens (ProPublica)

• Palantir partnership is at heart of Anthropic, Pentagon rift (Semafor)

• POLITICO asked 2,000 people about data centers — and made 5 charts (Politico) 

• Inside the Homeland Security Forum Where ICE Agents Talk Shit About Other Agents (Wired)

• ICE reliance on Microsoft technology surged amid immigration crackdown, documents show (Guardian)

The Politics Of Peanut Butter Cups

• This is the Daily Pnut, so the following story is of utmost relevance to our publication. On Valentine’s Day, 70-year-old Brad Reese (the grandson of the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups) accused The Hershey Co. of destroying his family’s legacy by switching to cheaper ingredients to manufacture various Reese’s-branded products.

• “How does The Hershey Co. continue to position Reese’s as its flagship brand, a symbol of trust, quality and leadership, while quietly replacing the very ingredients (Milk Chocolate + Peanut Butter) that built Reese’s trust in the first place?” the descendant of candy royalty wrote in a LinkedIn post.

• Apparently, the angry letter was sparked when Reese tasted a bag of Reese’s Mini Hearts, which were just released for Valentine’s Day. The candy is made from “chocolate candy and peanut butter crème,” instead of the usual milk chocolate and peanut butter usually featured in Reese’s chocolates. “It was not edible,” Reese told The Associated Press. “You have to understand. I used to eat a Reese’s product every day. This is very devastating for me.” 

Additional Reads

• Are Elon Musk’s Mars plans finally coming back down to Earth? (Verge)

• The Rise of RentAHuman, the Marketplace Where Bots Put People to Work (Wired, $) 

• The Drone Games: Flying Cameras Are Everywhere at the Winter Olympics (NYT, $) 

• 12-hour days, no weekends: the anxiety driving AI’s brutal work culture is a warning for all of us (Guardian)

• Laurie Spiegel on the difference between algorithmic music and ‘AI’ (Verge)

• How to know if your meditation is working (Psyche) 

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