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williambendix.bsky.social
Associate Professor of International Relations & Intelligence, Dakota State University Opinions, rarely offered, are my own
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“They’re probably not trying to get all the way into the facility. They’re probably just trying to get close enough to it and crush it with a shockwave,” Lewis says. “If you send a big enough shockwave through that facility, it’s going to kill people, break stuff.” www.wired.com/story/iran-f...

submitted 15 hours ago • 1 comment

Iran now faces one of its most difficult dilemmas since 1979: -if it retaliates, it guarantees additional US strikes, even as it is already being clobbered by Israel -don't retaliate, and send a devastating message of weakness to the US and Israel, and also to its own population

submitted 1 day ago • 7 comments

Whoa! She turned 50 yesterday. She won a silver medal today at the Gymnastics World Challenge Cup. The competitor who won gold is 32 years her junior. www.bbc.com/sport/olympi...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Putin gave no indication at the conference that economic problems were about to force any kind of conciliation with the West.... “I’ve often said that Russians and Ukraine are the same people,” he said in a panel discussion. “In that sense, all of Ukraine is ours.” www.politico.eu/article/puti...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

"Americans can expect a major adversary to use drones and AI to go after targets deep inside the United States or allied countries. There is no reason to believe that an enemy wouldn’t take a page out of the Israeli playbook and go after leadership." To this threat, I would add cyber-terrorists.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

"Iran will come out significantly weaker from this war, no doubt. But it is more than twice the size of Texas — in contrast to Gaza, which is the size of greater Philadelphia. Israel is still at war there after 20 months of warfare." www.politico.com/news/magazin...

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

"There is also no indication that Israel has rendered unusable Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. If that stockpile is still available, and if Iran’s centrifuges still exist, Tehran may be able to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program in just weeks." www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/can-i...

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

"The first [assumption] is that Israel cannot eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat without active U.S. involvement.... The second assumption being tested is that external pressure cannot precipitate the fall of the Islamic republic." www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

"Iran has limited options to respond.... The danger, however, is that Israel has opened a Pandora’s box: the worst Iranian response might also be the most likely—a decision to withdraw from its arms control commitments and build nuclear weapons in earnest." www.foreignaffairs.com/israel/real-...

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Starting to think the play here is to destabilize the regime more than cripple the nuclear program. It’s quite a bet by the Israelis.

submitted 10 days ago • 49 comments

Not asleep yet. Reports from Iran indicate multiple senior military figures and nuclear scientists have indeed been assassinated. To the extent it’s true (and I assume it is), it will make Iranian retaliation and rebuilding more difficult. Just think of finding the guy who knows where the thing is.

submitted 10 days ago • 8 comments

"Since [January 2024], Russian forces have seized less than 1 percent of Ukrainian territory — an area smaller than the state of Delaware." www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/int...

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

"Lithuania also wants NATO countries to rapidly reach the alliance's newly approved capability targets — top-secret objectives regarding military equipment that allies need to have and operate." www.politico.eu/article/lith...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Nice line: "Giving out a prize for novels is a bit like a priest taking Sunday confession from the whole congregation and then giving out awards to the best ones." www.persuasion.community/p/writers-ab...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

"When asked in late 2024 whether they would support a forced mobilization if one was needed to sustain the special military operation [in Ukraine], 49 percent of [Russian] respondents said they would rather see hostilities stop."

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

“I sense more and more from both undergrad and grad students that as a professor, I stand in the way of their credentials so they can go to work,” she said. “It’s not a privilege to go to university. It’s an obstacle.” www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

"Conspiratorial narratives can be especially useful in the event of failure, allowing the government to deflect the blame onto professional authorities and evade accountability. Notably, the ultimate goal is to seize control of the intelligence apparatus and erode one more check on executive power."

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

If the Ukrainians could sneak drones so close to major air bases in a police state such as Russia, what is to prevent the Chinese from doing the same with U.S. air bases? Or the Pakistanis with Indian air bases? Or the North Koreans with South Korean air bases? www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

submitted 21 days ago • 0 comments