blobodelendaest.bsky.social
PhD Candidate in Defence Studies, KCL. Strategic Victory in theory and practice. Lessons from Wars of 9/11.
Purveyor of Mission Accomplished banners
911 posts
137 followers
252 following
Discussion Master
comment in response to
post
Because it’s proponents—pilots—all believe they’re gods gift to war, so if they do something, it will have a totalizing impact; the theory is a way to ensure the AF remains independent of the Army; its mirror imaging of a population. Because air power is pure technical, they can’t conceive of others
comment in response to
post
Sigh. No. A win is a win. The Fins destroyed the Red Army in 1938, yet Russia still gets to claim they won the war. Likewise, 20m Russians died in WW2, they still won.
Exchange rates or whatever other metrics produced like it only speak to costs of a win, not to questions of win/lose.
comment in response to
post
The Pivot to Asia is the Infrastructure Week of national security
comment in response to
post
Trump and the cult won’t care. It’s just another data point to point out to everyone that you will be screwed over by this admin no matter what you do. As Trump has always done. Thus don’t do business with him in the first place.
And when the time comes, dump all US T bonds
comment in response to
post
Damn. Now I want to make that movie.
comment in response to
post
In a similar situation in America, they’d all have business degrees, and using McKinsey language.
comment in response to
post
This is why I say that area bombing of Germany is better understood as de-Nazification.
By wiping out the workers and petty Bougie city dwellers, they killed off the two groups that most supported the axis that weren’t on the Eastern Front.
comment in response to
post
This is especially true when you’re the premier military force on the planet, with the most educated pop., and an effective gov. And then the entire world unites to defeat you.
Material deprivation + war trauma + societal collapse, which disprove your prior self image, can only lead to revanchism
comment in response to
post
If we make it out of this moment, the military is gonna have be put back into its box. No more flyovers at games etc. All the propaganda stuff, even if tied to recruitment, will have to go away, along with new laws against GO endorsements, etc.
comment in response to
post
Refusing orders is precisely what we want the uniformed soldiers to do. To have them either stay in barracks, refuse to forward deploy, or do nothing in the face of the protests is how to change the game. It is a small act that can have much larger cascading effects.
comment in response to
post
Every institution failed us. And all because enough people couldn’t handle gay people existing freely, slurs being looked down on, billionaires not be praised, just enough non-white representation, and cities rebelling against police brutality.
Every small progression is met with a fascist moment
comment in response to
post
Since Trump is screwing around with the military as he is, declaring he’s gonna take one of Milley’s stars, etc., should senior Dems and prospective once’s be only telling military personnel that if they deploy and do anything past certain lines, their careers and pensions disappear once Trump does?
comment in response to
post
True. But those Mexican flags need to go away ASAP. Even Obama talked about how he didn’t want to join protests where they were flying them because it felt so unpatriotic.
comment in response to
post
Gotta throw a little about Upton in there too. Until the American form of Von Molke is excised, we're very screwed.
press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcont...
comment in response to
post
Which is why Ukraine needs to start killing off Russian oligarchs. To pressure the key element in Russian policy decisions to end the war before they get killed. 1m soldiers means nothing. A few dozen dead oligarchs and peace negotiations will kick into high gear.
comment in response to
post
It’ll be hilarious when we find out Stu Scheller is driving this in the Pentagon in complete disregard to any and all lessons from Iraq and Afghanistans.
But all kidding aside, I really hope all the military units they send in are filled with Latinos and other immigrant groups.
comment in response to
post
And within a day this comes out
www.wsj.com/world/middle... Israel Is Putting More Women on the Front Line to Help Fix Its Manpower Problem - WSJ
comment in response to
post
Nice. I’d recommend adding that anyone who works in the Executive Branch can’t be pardoned for any crimes committed while working there.
Nor should any soldier found guilty of war crimes be allowed to be pardoned.
comment in response to
post
Welcome to the world of reimagining bureaucratic structures so they do what we want them to do and just that!
comment in response to
post
This isn’t to ignore outright systemic issues in the slightest. Ending the Drug War would be among the best things the country could do all around. I’m just saying that bad cops make everyone worse exponentially. And the fact they’re just allowed to jump around makes everyone worse again
comment in response to
post
Yeah. That’s something that’s gotta go. Especially when the data suggests that it’s mostly just a small number of pure Confed officers make everyone else around them that much worse.
comment in response to
post
Let us also not forget that Stargate created the Department of Homeworld Security.
comment in response to
post
Ending the Dept. of Finance Bros and Klan Rallies would be a nice response to the moment.
comment in response to
post
It was supposed to be the Dept. of Everything Else, but because it only got implemented because of 9/11, that became its first purpose.
Fun fact, they wanted to call it the Dept. of Public Safety, and Gingrich immediately said ‘no’ and reminded people why. About the only decent thing he ever did
comment in response to
post
I had to look that up. That’s good knowledge. At least, you should be barred from have a clearance on a list like that, meaning taking a job in govt is completely impossible.
comment in response to
post
Like MacArthur definitely should’ve gotten it after losing the Philippines, instead he got an MoH and the ability to refurbish his reputation by slandering everyone he screwed over.
He got exiled by default in the end. But long before it should’ve happened
comment in response to
post
We do need a Government Exile law. Can’t banish them to Elbe, but an inability to work in govt ever should become an element in an elite reform agenda.
How to judge and administer is key though.
comment in response to
post
Isn’t that the definition of centrist in America?
comment in response to
post
Both.
Primarily caused by a lack of alternatives to Combat Arms/SOF; various dolchstosses that keep State weak; GO staffing demands; social and media narratives on the military; budgets that are driven by the above; and a refusal to reform after failures
comment in response to
post
Milton Friedman was on Nixon’s Pres. Commission for a reason
comment in response to
post
And they learned the hard way. So many great quotes from
IDF fully acknowledging their first plan, and the ‘victory doctrine’ were all nonsense. And then add in all the AI targeting and suddenly they’ve crushed Gaza and still don’t defeat Hamas. And now they’re fumbling around with ad hoc nonsense.
comment in response to
post
But this is also why we NEED a standing post-conflict corps that expands and contracts as needed easily. Not only to do the pre-war ‘WTF’ to the combat arms guys and the politicians and make war planning infinitely better, but becuase it fixes so many mistakes before they’re made.
comment in response to
post
Yeah. It was a Gerry-rigged thing done on the fly by technicians of warfare.
I’ll give the American anthro’s credit for pointing that out. But I still hate them for lying out their asses and intentionally refusing to learn about their asses.
comment in response to
post
This is also why we need a Dept of Foreign Affairs and an IC that is much larger and heavier with LREC knowledge. We should have, like, 100 local experts on speed dial for every country on the planet.
This is also why the dolchstoss of P2025 is so telling. They learned only the VetBroPod lessons
comment in response to
post
Best practice, especially for a newly defeated state, is not to allow for the creation of a security force for a few years. Let everyone settle and allow themselves to move into a little peaceful role. Then rebuild using those who have worked with you the past few years as the core.
comment in response to
post
Yup. That said, if Af was done right, we wouldn’t have needed all the forces diverted. Once the Talibs ran, we should’ve been sending in a border force of newly minted boots and hyperlocal small governance units. The US isn’t built to win wars, just battles in 1985.
comment in response to
post
But doing this requires having a functioning Nat sec system with a Dept. Of Foreign Affairs actually in charge of FP, not the NSC led by lawyers and politicians who wield the combat arms of the Pentagon like it’s the only thing that exists.
comment in response to
post
100%. We should’ve told the Paks in 2001 that if we lose the war, we would recognize Kashmir as India’s and destroy all of Pak’s nukes beforehand.
comment in response to
post
Afghanistan hurt because it all began with genuinely traumatic event that touched everyone—9/11. We lost, and lost hard, in public, in full view of the globe. Defeated again by a bunch of farmers in black pyjamas. And for basically the same reasons as Vietnam.
comment in response to
post
They said that after Vietnam and it kept happening anyway with every Presidency anyway. Carter with Desert One; Reagan with Lebanon; Bush with Panama; Clinton with Somalia and Rwanda; Bush with Iraq; Obama with Iraq and Libya; Trump with Iran; Biden with Afghanistan.
comment in response to
post
Yup
comment in response to
post
It was more than an in-group bubble. It was the post-Vietnam dolchstoss, the lack of a post-conflict anything built into the military system, the American Way of 'War', Late-stage capitalist beliefs, and Confederacy-based assumptions about non-white cultures all melded into a melange of stupid.
comment in response to
post
And everyone else who knew anything about this told him that was wrong, dumb, and would cause untold problems. Especially with the sectarian elements on Iraq. Again, an intentional refusal to accept legit concerns, and instead build a plan based on magical thinking
comment in response to
post
But this is at the heart of the problem: ‘he believed someone else would do it’. It’s war. You plan and confirm. And the fact to control Iraq would’ve needed 650k for 5-10 years. It’s easy to ask, where is that number coming from? That’s an intentional failure.
comment in response to
post
Which also explains the outcome of the war. And since the long-term heavy approach was not institutionally able to be implemented, it was never a viable option in the first place. We invaded Iraq knowing we had no idea what we were doing, nor the ability to do it.
comment in response to
post
Nah. Its not about fighting forever wars. Its that, for as much as Americans like losing wars, they don't like the final act of losing a war. Because then everyone gets to see, in full view, how truly awful a large number of American ideas and ideals really are in practice.
comment in response to
post
I’d say it’s because the wraith ships are organically grown, not made, meaning their targeting is probably organically based as well.
And because they consider humans little more than cattle, why bother with high tech targeting?
comment in response to
post
They can’t stop proving the legitimacy of CRT on a daily basis to the point we could probably start using that as a legal defence that they’re in violation of Trump’s own EOs
comment in response to
post
It’s time to stop guessing who handed him all that crypto and been funding his legal team for the past year.
comment in response to
post
Trump suggested it in term 1. Likely gonna happen now