Hiding from commercial satellites and crowd-sourced intelligence.
That's fun! now do smearing pig's blood on mosque sidewalks! Tip to PJ Media. I'm so old, I remember when "Let's go, Brandon" was unacceptable language.
I'm relieved the West is so far backing a Ukrainian battlefield victory over Russia if Russia doesn't withdraw and end its invasion. Remember the lesson of the Versailles treaty. Oh! Not the one conventional wisdom says is the lesson. This lesson.
This may be a blessing for Ukraine: "French President Emmanuel Macron says it will probably take "several decades" for Ukraine to be confirmed as a European Union member." Macron probably hopes Russia will defeat Ukraine before that. Professional courtesy, and all that. But if Ukraine wins, it may be able to join an EU that reverts to a free-trade bloc without imperial ambitions by then.
Working for the Hong Kong clampdown: "John Lee, who became the face of the national security law and who oversaw the arrests of dozens of activists and raids on newsrooms, is set to replace outgoing Chief Executive Carrie Lam when she finishes her five-year term at the end of June."
A good reminder that while the USSR did spend four years and tens of millions of lives to defeat Nazi Germany, the USSR spent two years as Nazi Germany's ally, carving up eastern Europe between the two; and enabling Germany's invasion of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Yugoslavia, and Greece. I'll add there was a decade prior of clandestine ties that aided Germany's rearmament. The USSR supplied Germany then with more help than China provides Russia now. Tip to Instapundit.
That is massively effed up: "Shanghai authorities were tightening the city-wide COVID lockdown they imposed more than a month ago, prolonging into late May an ordeal that China's capital Beijing was desperate to avoid by turning mass testing into an almost daily routine."
I'd say this is evidence that Russia will eventually evade sanctions, but the Biden administration is likely refusing to enforce sanctions tightly: "Iran’s president said Monday the country is exporting twice as much oil as when he took office in August, despite heavy sanctions on oil exports imposed by the U.S." Because Democrats looove the mullahs.
Just noting something I wrote in Military Review (p. 18) in 2003: "A U.S. commitment to Europe in corps strength is still necessary despite the reduced threat level in Europe. The option to withdraw U.S. troops should simply not be part of the debate. A free, friendly, prosperous Europe is vitally important to America. The contrasting lessons of abandoning Europe after World War I and defending it after World War II argue for continued engagement. That a second world war occurred after the U.S. withdrew from Europe early in the last century speaks volumes." How soon before a full Army heavy corps is back in Europe?
More on war-related food shortages and the threat to poor people. The post notes violent protests in Sri Lanka. But to be fair, Sri Lanka shot themselves in the foot with a failed order to farmers to go 100% organic.
The Russian space agency head implicitly threatened Elon Musk's life for supporting Ukraine with Starlink. So if you oppose Musk taking over Twitter you are a tool of Russia. That's how the logic works, right? Also, Musk has how many potential anti-satellite suicide weapons (as a secondary capability, of course) orbiting Earth? Tip to Instapundit.
Zelensky called for an end to Russia's blockade so Ukraine can ship its grain to hungry markets. Say, why aren't Western leftist "peace" activists flocking to board grain vessels as human shields to help those ships break the blockade? Human shields used to a thing for them when the targets were Israel or America. Why not Russia?
How Australia can react to the possibility that China will get basing rights in the Solomon Islands.
Explaining and defeating anti-access/ area denial (A2/AD) weapons in Russian and Chinese hands. I don't worry too much about Russian weapons in Kaliningrad. The area is small enough for NATO surface-to-surface weapons to hit the A2/AD weapons; and is isolated from resupply. And I fully expect its three Russian brigades to be destroyed early in a ground war.
Javelin anti-armor missile annual production will be nearly doubled--to 4,000--but it may take a couple years. Four thousand per year is not enough for a major war. The U.S. has already sent 5,000--a third of our stocks--to Ukraine. The Stinger anti-aircraft production issue isn't even that good.
Forgiving student loan debt is horrible and punishes non-stupid people. Adjusted for inflation, I had $18,000 in student debt when I finished my MA. I deliberately refused the vast majority of loans offered as an undergraduate. I paid them off. Despite rather low income at the time. I have no sympathy for those who piled up massive debts for worthless degrees. Suck it up and pay up for the lifelong benefit you got. Even if it is only the lesson of not living beyond your means.
One annoying part of having a cat is that I can never take a plate out of the cabinet, set in on the counter, change my mind about plate choice, and place the plate back in the cabinet. No, it must go in the sink to be washed first.
Via Instapundit, the Navy removed some woke books from its reading list. It's a start. I fear it is a long journey to sea control. FFS. You wonder why I worry if our Navy can fight when it can't competently build the ships it puts crews on?
I sometimes come across the idea that America suckered the Russians into invading Ukraine where Russia can be bloodied to a pulp, de-fanging Russia as a threat for years to come. One, I wish we were that good! And two, if true, the Russian solution is simply to get out of Ukraine and declare peace. Let's not be too fanciful, eh?
Will Assad survive this? "The war in Ukraine has made Syria's problems even worse than before, the UN's high commissioner for refugees has told the BBC." Assad survived a multi-war, because Iran, Russia, and America smashed up his enemies. Then Covid. And now Ukrainian and Russian grains aren't reaching markets. Or are the Syrian people too beaten down to do much more than passively go hungry?
Did anybody think a stream of A-10 armor-piercing incendiary rounds wouldn't plow through even reactive armor on tanks? And good luck to active protection systems, too.
Meanwhile in North Korea: "North Korean food shortages are getting worse." Starvation, housing shortages, and drug addiction in a worker's paradise.
What Finland brings to NATO. Well, Finland can hold Finland. And while it does it forces Russia to defend from St. Petersburg to the Kola Peninsula. Finnish F-35s and NATO air reinforcements would tie down a lot of Russian air defenses that can't be used on the main front. Finland gains help if Russia attacks. But Finland is no mere consumer of alliance power.
Back off: "Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Port Royal (CG-73) transitioned the Taiwan Strait Tuesday, the Navy announced in a release."
Lukashenko long tried to balance between Europe and Russia to maintain Belarus independence. He lost that struggle when Russia exploited his need for help against domestic protests against his latest rigged election to engineer the Anschluss. Russian nuclear threats put a target on Belarus. Could this be a motivation for Lukashenko to loosen Putin's grip?
Potemkin Victory Day celebration. And yeah, I suppose Putin could claim he secured the Donbas and Crimea from the farcical Ukrainian threat and that he bombarded Ukraine so hard that it can't build nukes. Yay, Team Putin! Still, the day should be renamed "We Effed Up By Helping the Nazis Rearm Before Germany Invaded Us Day". So before you thank the Russians too much for smashing the German army on the Eastern Front, remember that Stalin was trying to aim Nazi Germany at the West, from rearmament to non-aggression pact that split eastern Europe between the two.
LOL: "Former President Donald Trump has declared his very first move after victory in 2024 will be to make himself head of the new Disinformation Governance Board." Hopefully the DGB doesn't flag this. Tip to Instapundit.
Jackass: the Protest. Scroll down a bit. You'll know when you get there.
LOL! "The United States will take steps to increase pressure on Afghanistan's Taliban government to reverse some of its recent decisions restricting the rights of women and girls if the hardline group shows no sign of rescinding the actions on its own." America ran from the Taliban once, but now we'll be all blood and guts Patton over women's rights?
I do believe I've mentioned the anti-satellite capability of Elon Musk's Starlink once or thrice.
The last time I ordered from Amazon was six months ago. I used to order pretty regularly. Often just from frequent browsing and seeing something I like. But then there was The Incident. When Amazon decided to attack conservatives. I didn't intend to boycott. And I'm not. But I did stop ordering in protest for a while. And then got in the habit of not ordering--or even visiting--much. I find I don't miss it. I'm sure I'll order again. But it is not a habit.
Drama in soccer video games (via The Morning Briefing). Not that I have two care molecules to rub together on the subject.
While I am broadly supportive of Biden's actions to help Ukraine defeat the Russian invasion, I'd be happier if he and his intelligence people would keep their mouths shut about Putin and the help we provide. And I do worry that these loose lips flow from a perhaps dangerous eagerness to rebuild American deterrence after needlessly and shockingly losing the Afghanistan war.
The U.S. is trying to shape Taiwan's arsenal to defeat an invasion, including a more recent Paladin self-propelled artillery model. U.S. opposition to supplying anti-submarine helicopters to Taiwan implies the U.S. will take care of that.
Sure, a single Chinese base close to Australia will hardly be a decisive edge for China attacking Australia. But it helps deny bases to America and undermines Australia's reputation. I guess the military threat angle depends on whether it remains a single-base threat.
I have no idea what this author is talking about when he says the success of the Javelin "owes everything to designer defects" of Russian armored vehicles: "The Russian BRDMs are made of aluminum alloy, which burns incandescently after contact with a high explosive round. And the manufacturer of the T-72 overlooked one fatal design defect: the tank’s ammunition is stored below the crew spaces without a hardened bulkhead for insulation." Those design defects make hits catastrophic rather than simply disabling. Indeed, I think light BRDM recon vehicles can be knocked out with heavy machine guns at close enough range. But Ukraine has the same armored vehicles. They aren't causing Ukraine to lose. Russia's problem is its absolute failure to fight with combined arms tactics and integrated air power.
Jihadis killed 4 more Egyptian troops in Sinai.
What the Hell is wrong with our FBI? "The FBI’s counterterrorism bureau reportedly created an internal “threat tag” in fall 2021 to track alleged threats against school boards following an October 4 directive from Attorney General Merrick Garland." If local police didn't think it a threat, why would the national government? Is the FBI bored? Have nothing to do? Tip to Instapundit.
Britain pledged to defend Finland and Sweden as a bridge to NATO membership. Ideally, Russia doesn't think it needs to exploit gap between asking to join NATO and being in NATO. But honestly, joining NATO now while Russia is busy in Ukraine is good timing. Sadly, the applications could take a year to approve. Ah, paperwork. FFS.
The war against Ukraine shows that Russia isn't that good at information warfare. Well, duh. People who believe that believe some silly things. We don't actually know if Russia attacked Hillary's campaign email. Russia's information ops in the 2016 election were crude, laughable, and tiny. Only Democratic reactions made the effort unexpectedly successful beyond what Russia could have hoped for. As for Russia's 2014 "little green men" ploy in Crimea? Please just stop. That wasn't so much brilliant as it was Western refusal to admit Russia invaded Ukraine.
That actually sounds like something in the EU's lane: "The European Commission proposed helping Ukraine export its wheat and other grains by rail, road and river to get around a Russian blockade of Black Sea ports, which is preventing those critical supplies from reaching parts of the world at risk of food insecurity."
Defeating drones moves forward with microwave weapons. Good. But I worry, as I explained in Army magazine, that forward infantry units could be burdened by having to lug around anti-drone weapons while trying to carry out their mission of closing with and destroying the enemy. Air superiority drones? As this analysis says about strike drones in what I termed the "brown skies", "Flying numerous, successful high-altitude air superiority missions does not mean much for low-altitude drone threats."
I'd worry about our national virus of self-destructive stupidity if we bordered our enemies. Even in today's advanced world, vast oceans matter and will give us the buffer to recover. But my basic optimism would be under less stress if we'd speed that process up a bit.
How long before NATO puts up a statue of Putin in its Brussels headquarters to honor the alliance's best recruiter?
Things get tense in Iran as the government dramatically raises food prices: "As outrage over rising inflation surges online, Iranian authorities appear to be bracing for the worst."
Is Putin purging his military brass? Let's hope it is just RUMORINT. Putin might get commanders who know how to use what Russia has to win. Lincoln kept firing generals until he got Grant in charge, recall.
Is Xi wrecking his economy with his Covid-19 policy? "Despite the intensifying economic pain, few expect Xi to relax his zero-Covid campaign before securing an unprecedented third term in power at a party congress later this year. The strategy 'has become a political crusade — a political tool to test the loyalty of officials', says Henry Gao, a China expert at Singapore Management University. 'That’s far more important to Xi than a few more digits of GDP growth.'" Also, who believes China has lost only a few thousand dead during the pandemic?
Canada has already committed to an expanded military presence in Latvia. Canada will also contribute some officers to a corps headquarters to coordinate NATO activities in the Baltic states.
I really don't understand the distinction some in America are trying to make between helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia's invasion and the somehow more controversial policy of helping Ukraine regain its territory. The latter is defending Ukraine. The former is just slowing the pace of Russia's victory, even if it takes decades.
So no Taliban 2.0 after all?: "Men and women dining out together or strolling in parks is now forbidden
in Afghanistan’s western city of Herat, Taliban authorities have said." This meme never gets old, does it?
The Disinformation Governance Board is going to be busy. Tip to Instapundit.
Teacher unions are evil and if the pandemic hasn't proven that to you, what will? To be clear, teacher unions prioritize rewarding teacher union staff employees. Second, they value politicians who take teacher union support in exchange for keeping the teacher unions in positions of power. Third, they value teachers, for the purpose of sustaining the teacher unions. And finally, they value students as failing bodies inside their schools to justify more and more money for public schools on the promise of finally actually educating those students. Teachers are mostly good people. Teacher unions are the Star Wars bar of K-12 education. Ef them.
The military is edging toward the black box of fire support in a coalition with "Project Convergence [which] seeks to integrate artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomy" to identify the best provider of effects for the mission. Very ambitious. Lord knows if it will arrive any time soon and be robust enough to survive in combat. My noted post noted this project.
Greece will extend a base agreement with America for five years that provides access to three bases on the mainland, in addition to the long Navy access to facilities on the island of Crete. Whatever the official reason, the real reason is Turkey.
LOL:
Uh oh: "Indian government officials, speaking just hours after the country banned wheat exports, said there was no dramatic fall in wheat output this year but unregulated exports had led to a rise in local prices."
Turkey opposes granting NATO membership to Sweden and Finland. I wonder if this is really Turkish resentment of being denied EU membership.
More on the Quicksink bomb and related Quickstrike naval mine, which I mentioned in an earlier data dump. Indeed it does strike ships beneath the waterline. It is an alternative to torpedoes. It is not intended for defended targets that could shoot it down. But with ECM escorts would be useful against a Chinese invasion fleet. I still offer my ASuROC suggestion for defended targets.
I reject that this sort of speculation is "science". Via Instapundit.
At 80 days of combat I'm going to estimate 17,500 Russian KIA and 9,000 Ukrainian KIA. For what's it worth based on my semi-WAG assumptions.
I hope we get our response right the next pandemic, whether natural or engineered. Tip to Instapundit.
The American decision to kill the Israel-Cyprus-Greece EastMed natural gas pipeline to Europe was amazingly bad. Putin's invasion of Ukraine demonstrated how bad amazingly quickly. Yet it will be amazing if the administration reverses its kill order and gets out of the way of its construction. Ah, Smart Diplomacy.® Tip to Instapundit.
