For the first time in two weeks, Malcolm Nance's war notes came back almost empty.
No American strikes, no Iranian strikes, pages of blank.
Twenty years in naval intelligence taught him what that emptiness means, and his reaction ran three words:
"HERE IT COMES."
A day without sorties is a pre-mission stand-down.
Every strike aircraft goes into maintenance at once, crews count bomb inventories in the magazines, planners build the packages, and carriers prepare to launch everything simultaneously.
That rhythm is reportedly running from Kuwait and Israel to Jordan, England and the B-2 base in Missouri, warning orders already out to theater commanders.
His window: 24 to 48 hours from the order.
The tells are countable.
Seven aerial tankers over the Gulf reads as small shaping.
The real push looks like 20 or 30 stacked over Jordan, Kuwait, southern Iraq and Saudi Arabia, cruise missiles first, B-2s leading, six or seven flights of B-1s out of England behind them.
Then it is DAY ONE of the war all over again.
@MalcolmNance
