I post at The Dignified Rant: Evolved on Substack. Help me out by subscribing and by liking and sharing posts. I also post here on TDR seven days a week, including Weekend Data Dump and Winter War of
2022. I occasionally post short data dump-type items on my Substack "Notes" section.
In case you missed it on Substack: When You Start to Defend Your Islands, Defend Your Islands!
In case you missed it on Substack: Before Drones There Was the 60mm Mortar
In case you missed it on Substack: Fit to Float is Not Fight to Fight
In case you missed it on Substack: One Year Evolving on Substack
In case you missed it on Substack: America's Trilogy of Dominance?
Yes, Iran still wants nukes no matter what damage the 12-Day War inflicted. I still think Iran could buy them from North Korea.
Sh*t got real or an abundance of caution?
Putin's costly war to take a country that wants nothing to do with Moscow is costing Russia influence in ex-Soviet countries. And it could get much worse. #WhyRussiaCan'tHaveNiceThings
Sounds like Army Delta Force got busy mowing jihadi grass in northwest Syria.
British to Americans: Freedom is too ingrained in our society to need a written Bill of Rights! Wait. What? Tip to Instapundit.
CRS report to Congress on the SSN(X) program.
The Marines are using their V-22 Ospreys to hunt submarines. To be fair, the Marines don't need their transport aircraft to fight ground operations or conduct forcible entry operations in a Force Design Corps.
Buh bye M10 Booker. Not saying I killed it, but I posted this essay about that FBOH the day before the announcement. Coincidence? Okay, sure. Probably.
Russian corruption is worse than Ukrainian corruption: "Russian authorities are increasingly pursuing corruption cases against regional and military officials, legal maneuverings that are putting the elite on guard and in some cases may be aimed at quelling public anger about battlefield failures."
I think this is overly optimistic. If China keeps taking territory and entrenching its de facto control, who cares if targets are defiant?
Hope amidst the ruins of American warship building?
China is shifting to blue water navy training. Does this mean China is confident it can win near its shores and wants to exploit a wartime victory off the coast? It could mean China has decided peacetime power projection is needed without challenging its neighbors and the United States. Just saying.
After five days of fighting, Thailand and Cambodia agreed to a ceasefire.
The three biggest lies China will try to sell to America to reduce tensions over Taiwan.
LOL. And Britain is surrounded by ocean, which should make it really easy by comparison to the US. Tip to Instapundit.
Apparently the Australian government assumes the descendants of criminal settlers can be assumed to be criminals. We really need to try harder to justify the "Free World" description. Tip to Instapundit.
So why isn't Israel suffering another Intifada and more terror attacks over Gaza? The lack of response is much broader than inside Israel. The Palestinian appeal has become ... more selective. And for Iran, the appeal is someone else dying for them in battle. As for Israel creating a "forever war"? Hamas did that.
Hmmm: "[Ideological/religious] groups can kill; drug cartels can kill, but they can also lavishly reward. Ideology is a powerful force, but nothing near the power of greed and fear, which creates a compelling defensive system." I thought a profit motive made drug cartel leaders less suicidally stubborn. I'm wrong?
One of the four American SSGNs visited Brisbane Australia.
LeadOps are the best ops: "The U.S. military has launched its most intensive Somalia bombing campaign on record, carrying out more than 50 airstrikes in the country since the start of the year, U.S. Africa Command strike data show."
Russia is faceplanting in Ukraine, wrecking its army and economy; while Ukraine is planning for the post-war. But I can't help but fear Ukraine is taking its eye off the ball. Russia has to be defeated first to get that post-war recovery.
The rise of drones in the Winter War of 2022. They are important. But I'm still not sure how fleeting lessons of this particular war can be divined to help American forces. Lessons of 2023, 2024, and this year would be different. If we commit to particular lessons we could be as ill-prepared as if we learned nothing.
As we contemplate submarines for battling the Chinese navy, don't forget the capable conventionally powered attack subs that the Japanese and South Koreans have.
Sh*t got real: "Israel ordered its troops to permanently seize parts of the Gaza Strip — to be 'annexed to Israel' — unless Hamas hands over the remaining hostages[.]" Consequences. What are they?
Down on Marine Force Design: "The stunning failure of Force Design is the lack of warfighting and logistics capabilities to operationalize the concept." I've had concerns with fighting and logistics.
Aim high: "The Defense Department’s secretive X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle will lift off again in late August, carrying a quantum sensor that could enable navigation when GPS is unavailable as well as a laser communication system[.]" Space Force got custody of that motto, right?
From the Army, How Russia Fights. I'm looking forward to reading the report.
Interesting: "Turkey has secured a landmark defense export agreement with Indonesia, signing contracts for 48 KAAN fighter aircraft and two İstif-class frigates[.]"
A Gazan child afflicted with a wasting illness is being used as fake evidence of starvation in Gaza. The brother and mother are clearly not starving. Hamas could end any hunger by surrendering instead of blocking humanitarian aid. Why does Israel have the duty to care more about Gazans than Hamas does?
I cannot imagine the Russians selling any islands to the United States right now. But let's revisit the issue when the Chinese grab Russia more firmly by the balls and are really squeezing.
Short CRS report on Taiwan defense and military issues.
Well, this development does justify setting up POLARCOM.
A Pentagon decision "extends tours for unaccompanied service members assigned to South Korea from 12 months to 24 months."
The British government is trying to impress American tech companies into British service to control the British people. I thought the War of 1812 established our sovereignty. Tip to Instapundit.
Will AI result in a quantum leap in military wargames? Simulating enemy decision-making always risks mirror imaging by your guys. But will LLM-based AI just LLM-image? Or can we build subset LLMs based on each country's digital footprint plus intelligence that feed the in-house AI?
Selfridge: "More than 7,500 armed forces members will attend Northern Strike (NS) 25-2, one of the Department of Defense’s largest reserve component readiness exercises. It’s happening across [Michigan] from Aug. 2 to Aug. 16."
The Army is testing a turret-top mini-gun in place of the .50 caliber machine gun on the Abrams for counter-ambush. Without a remote weapon station? Egad. Add that and automate it like Phalanx for anti-drone work, and then we're good to go.
The Houthi are tanned, rested, and ready to shoot at ships in the Red Sea again. When does Egypt take action?
Starmer to Chamberlain: "Hold my warm beer." Worse than shameful, it's psychotic. The British invented "shoot on sight, shoot first, shoot to kill, keep shooting" to deal with Islamist jihadis.
Russia has been shrinking for decades: "Russia is running out of Russians. The Ukraine War hasn’t helped, with losses of over a million dead, badly wounded and deserters. Millions more fled the country to avoid getting mobilized into the military to die in Ukraine."
Westerners wrongly (and conveniently) say China will learn from Russia's invasion of Ukraine that conquest is futile. This is wrong: "holding the island against a mobilized population would be a recipe for a quagmire." I doubt Taiwanese would resist. And if I was China, I'd mass deport Taiwanese to Xinjiang.
Danger, Will Robinsky! "The Chinese military announced Wednesday that it would hold an annual
naval exercise and conduct a maritime joint patrol with Russian forces
next month." Putin should never let the Chinese see Russia's military up close. Especially not at Fúlādíwòsītuōkè Vladivostok!
Did China violate the Biological Warfare Convention by smuggling that crop fungus into Michigan (and toother states)? Two weeks ago I asked if it was an act of war. But if we ignore killing millions of our people, mere crops are just about a good deed, eh?
Israel should follow a simple strategy for dealing with Hamas: "If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting." Sadly, Hamas has the same strategy. But "them" refers to Gazans and "they" refers to Israelis.
If corruption and socialist instincts aren't crushed to unleash free markets, India won't make the leap: "India is not a classic great power, but neither is it merely a regional actor." And it might regress to the latter. Not wanting to align with America to retain options with India-hating Pakistan and China is nuts.
The China-Russia-Iran axis isn't dead because it is perfectly natural for such autocratic states to have loose alliances. So it both is and isn't an alliance as the West views alliances? Okaay.
As the U.S. contemplates reducing troops in Europe (and to be fair, the current level is a post-Winter War of 2022 surge), Poland is confident its contingent is secure. I imagine that's true.
To be fair, America only has to worry about pro-Hamas people taking over our campuses. Europeans worry about losing their cities: "US allies break with Trump to force diplomatic shift on Gaza[.]"
Good: "Germany's armed forces reported a 28% surge in soldier recruits from January to late July, compared with the same period last year[.]" I was worried recruits wouldn't match promises of funding increases.
This post on Ukrainian drone usage mentions retransmitting drones. Which seems like a form of aerial refueling in that it extends drone range. Exit question: Will Ukraine target Russia's rail transformers that power that crucial transportation network?
Air force effect and BDA. Also, I'm not saying small drones aren't useful for recon and as ammunition. But counter-measures will be developed. And the example provided of high American air losses over North Vietnam needing new weapons and tactics supports my view. Don't look for silver bullets.
Is no lie in the service of murderous, evil bastards too great for some to embrace and spread? Apparently not, although "the truth is that there are real concerns about possible near-term hunger and malnutrition in Gaza because Hamas steals aid, hoards food and medicine away from civilians, and punishes dissent."
When Russia is preoccupied getting punched in the face, it has little time to help anyone who thinks it is Russia's ally. Russia was a rising star until it revealed the dead-cat bounce behind the curtain. Oopsky.
The Sin Red Line. Tip to Instapundit.
Make it so: "Australia and the U.K. on Saturday signed a 50-year bilateral treaty furthering the two countries’ sharing of nuclear propulsion technology under the AUKUS agreement."
Maybe it would have been better to devote four decades of research to desalinization technology instead of building nukes: "Iranian president says country is on brink of dire water crisis[.]" I guarantee America and Israel wouldn't have bombed that research.
First line of defense: "India’s latest operational deployment to the South China Sea will feature its first joint patrol with the Philippines in the contested waters." India eases from Act East into Fight East.
The Army is condemned for clinging to the past and not innovating. But when it quickly sheds helicopters in favor of new systems and weapons, it is condemned for the "pace and planning" of eliminating units--called "gutting".
Their presence discouraged more rioting: "The Pentagon said Thursday it is ending the deployment of all but 250 National Guard troops that were originally sent to Los Angeles[.]"
You'd think after Ukraine's dreadful experience trying to penetrate Russia's Surovikin Line in 2023 that Ukraine would have more of a sense of urgency about building fortifications.
Putin's madrassas: get them young to send them to die young. And actual madrassas, too.
A back door effort to demote super carriers in a couple decades? "The decision to build the U.S. Air Force’s F-47 sixth-generation stealth fighter means cancelling the Navy’s F/A-XX combat." I've expected that demotion for a long time. But the F-35C is only just now entering the fleet.
We have more MOPs, right? "Iran is conducting a covert operation to “kill and kidnap” people in the UK and US, the State Department has warned."
If this enables Army units to quickly make and enact decisions on the battlefield, good!
The German Question. It's a big shift in European thinking to wonder how Germany can defend Europe rather than threaten it. Can Germany shift? Can other Europeans shift? Can the Russians shift to seeing Germany as an obstacle to Russian advances rather than the reverse? America needs to lead NATO.
Russian USVs will challenge NATO in the Baltic Sea? Stop the mania. Mine the Gulf of Finland and Kaliningrad's ports and deploy shore-based strike assets in support. That supposed silver bullet will be nipped in the bud.
I have my doubts that Saudi Arabia would want to have another go at a ground war with the Houthi.
Advocating an American Central Asia strategy. The strategy should be helping Russia resist Chinese inroads to Russia's "near abroad" there if Russia stops its war on Ukraine and ends hostility toward NATO. Other than that, I don't want to dilute limited resources in that area with no reliable access.
This is because the European Union is not in fact a sovereign state! It's a proto-imperial body with ambitions to strip away the prefix. Do not go along with their ambition. Kill the EU. And revert it to a common market, I say.
This should boost Western drone production: "China has stopped selling Ukraine drones and drone components. Ukraine’s solution is to rely on increased production by its domestic drone manufacturers and obtaining more drones and parts from the United States and NATO countries."
Will Arab Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia rally to provide regional security that lifts the burden from America? Well, the hope in the 1970s that Iran would provide that security didn't work out so well for us.
China's campaign to undermine Oceania spanning the second and third island chains in the Pacific. Japan advanced through it in 1941-1942 to threaten Australia-United States sea lines of communication.
Will America transfer wartime control of combined forces to South Korea, as long discussed? Will that end American control and risk being dragged into a war with crisis response controlled by South Korea? Does it hamper America using South Korea as a power projection platform? Walking away isn't free.
Did fear of national-building lead Israel to avoid government-building? "Militarily, Hamas is barely functioning, but on the civilian level, they still control everything. The IDF should have taken control and used that to install alternative leadership." I had thoughts on that early in the war.
Europe worries about the Sickly Islamist Man of Europe. I had hoped we only had an Erdogan problem ... But since Turkey no longer has a land border with Russia, Erdogan can focus on imperial ambitions.
Brits to Yanks: We don't need a written constitution to protect our rights like you simple colonials. Wait. What?
Anybody can describe a doomsday chain-of-events scenario of denying Hamas a Gaza state. Say, what if Hamas gets its state, manages to get a nuke from an admirer in Iran or Pakistan, puts it on a ship and sails it into an Israeli harbor or just anchors off Israel's coast when the wind is blowing just right?
No level of Hamas evil is enough to shake the fervor of its Western supporters. As I wrote long ago, such people are honored to be jihadi victims. Tip to Instapundit.
I'm pretty sure it's just a verbal rebuke to Putin's Nuke Monkey: "President Donald Trump said on Friday he's ordered two nuclear submarines to move to the 'appropriate regions' in response to what he called 'highly provocative statements' from the deputy chair of Russia's security council, Dmitry Medvedev."
Huh: "Refaim is the Israeli Defense Forces/IDF effort to apply new drone warfare weapons and techniques while gathering information on who the enemy is, where they are and what they can do. In the midst of all this, Refaim will coordinate attacks on detected targets from army, air force and naval units." Similar?
True, but "can" does a lot of work: "A war between NATO and Russia would be one- sided even without the Americans. European NATO nations can raise far more troops and equip them with more tanks, warplanes and warships than Russia can muster." How much can Russia take before its army culminates?
Oh? "The militant organization Hamas on Saturday said it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established." Define what a state means, please.
How Pakistan ambushed an Indian Rafale fighter with capabilities India did not know about.
Why is Western "leadership" in the Middle East defined as rewarding the perpetually evil and self-destructive Palestinians who will accept nothing less than future chances to joyfully dip their hands in the blood of Jewish victims?
