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Tuesday’s Forum
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18 responses to “Tuesday’s Forum”
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The future of warfare.
Ukraine Lands Armed Robot Ashore In Russian-Held Territory Via Drone Boat
robotic boat glides through the darkness, reaches an occupied shoreline, and releases an armed ground robot that rolls inland to fight without a single soldier setting foot on the beach. While this sounds like a scene from a future war, it recently played out in southern Ukraine, reflecting Kyiv’s rapid embrace of uncrewed systems as it seeks to counter Russia’s invasion.
Described as the first of its kind anywhere in the world, the operation took place on the Russian-occupied Kinburn Spit in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, according to Ukraine’s 123rd Separate Territorial Defense Brigade, which carried it out on an unspecified recent date.
A video published by the brigade shows parts of the operation from an overhead aerial drone as well as from the uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV), and from the vessel that transported it to the shore. The uncrewed surface vessel (USV), powered by an outboard motor, beaches itself before lowering a bow ramp that allows the wheeled UGV to drive ashore. Armed with a machine gun, the UGV is then seen engaging a target beyond the beach. The USV subsequently departs, although it is unclear whether any attempt was made to recover the UGV.
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So. About Thursday’s Oval Office address…it appears to be about the 2020 election. The president of our country is going to allege that BOTH of Georgia’s US Senators were fraudulently elected.
This is clearly being done in an effort to pass his ridiculous and outrageous “elections” bill.
If no one talks some sense into him and this comes to pass, we are in new territory. Will Republicans FINALLY wake TF up? (I am guessing no.)
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Trump is handing the mainstream media the opportunity to say, “This man is delusional. A danger to the country and the world.” An Illegal, unconstitutional war and unconstitutional economy-wrecking tariffs pale in comparison to a deliberate effort to undermine America’s faith in the bedrock of democracy – free and fair elections. Trump is mentally ill. When will the media stop pretending he is normal?
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A think piece on the history of regime change in the Middle East.
An Unlearned Lesson: The Sorry Record of Regime Change Operations in the Middle East
Five cases are relevant: the 1956 to 1957 Suez crisis, Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, U.S. efforts to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the Obama administration’s decision to remove Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and the 1953 U.S.-sponsored coup in Iran. While other examples exist — for example, Iraq’s disastrous decision to invade Iran in 1980 was motivated in part by regime change ambitions — these five operations are especially useful because they highlight key misjudgments that played a role in shaping the thinking of the principal U.S. and Israeli architects of the war.
A lot of good history for your morning read.
Bottom line: Trump and Netanyahu continue in that long line of wrong strategic thinking.
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In the appendices to the Revolutions podcast, Mike Duncan identifies something he calls the “entropy of victory.”
The gist is that a revolution usually brings together disparate groups with different interests into a common front to oust the current regime. Once this is done, the disparate groups each wants to pursue its own agenda. This may lead to armed fights between them. The French Revolution provides a clear example of this, so does the Mexican Revolution.
When a repressive regime like the ones in Iraq or Libya are toppled by an outside force, you pretty much get the entropy of victory right away. Only now some of the disparate groups will also want to get rid of the outsider. You can’t rule or even govern your country if there’s a superior power operating inside your borders. Some other groups may try to cooperate with the outsider, with the understanding that it will eventually leave or at least massively reduce its presence. This makes them enemies of the other groups.
The Middle East in particular has the additional complication that many countries are the result of European colonialism, so they often contain different ethnic groups and nationalities which tend not to get along. See the Kurds, Shia, and Sunni in Iraq.
In this regard, it may be “better” to support a coup or a side in a civil war, and let the locals deal with the aftermath. It may work, but it tends to involve a repressive regime. See Chile and Iran. And saying “but he’s our SOB” doesn’t go very far.
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Now that the Reflecting Pool has been drained again, the damage to the coating is being revealed and It Sure Looks Like Trump Was the One Who Damaged Reflecting Pool (TNR):
“…it was slashed with a knife, or box cutter, high grade colored waterproofing liner—it was VANDALISM!) and Algae Blooms (also caused by Vandals, but removed long ago!),” he wrote late Monday night on…
No one is buying this. In June, the president said that this so-called “gash” was just 250 feet long. Then it changed to 300 feet, 350 feet, and finally, 300 yards long, the size of three football fields. And yet all that has been revealed in this recent draining is what resembles tire marks, most likely left by the president himself, not vandals with box cutters.
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So, they drove multi-ton armored vehicles across the coating, which clearly hadn’t had enough time to dry/cure because there are TIRE MARKS visible, now that the pool has been drained.
No wonder the stuff started to peel up. There were weak spots due to them driving on it.
This is the DUMBEST (with a B) timeline.
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Not the best of ideas: Chipotle wants to open restaurants in Mexico.
The piece notes Taco Bell has failed here twice. I’ve a vague recollection of that. I did wonder whether Panda Express has stores in China, or Dominos in Italy. No idea on the former, but the latter was attempted and wound up in bankruptcy.
I’ve never eaten at Chipotle, nor Taco Bell for that matter. I don’t look for Mexican food when I travel abroad, not even out of curiosity. I instead try different things from what I can get at home.
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The one universal truth may be that everybody likes Mexican. The 14th in Kabul was always packed with locals and probable still is. They had to do it with beef, lamb and goat of course, and Mexican without pork is a bit off IMO..but it’s still doable, as it is with chicken.
Chipotle is planning to introduce Hawaii to pineapples though….
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One of the thinkers in the Carnegie think-tank found a parallel between Rubio’s management of Venezuela and Teddy Roosevelt’s management of several Central/South American nations: “financial receivership” which didn’t end well.
