|
|||||
|
I know I keep droning on about drones, but this really is a paradigm shift happening in real-time. TL’DR… 100km from the FEBA is now a persistent danger zone due to the omnipresent threat of drones. Some were sceptical in an post earlier when drones were credited with 70% of battlefield casualties. Well, the number claimed now, based on video confirmation, is 90%. April 7th, 2026 | 24 comments
 April 6th, 2026 | 8 comments
The other day the Triggernometry boys sat down with a Professor Robert Pape to discuss the Iran War. Here are his main points along with my commentary:
There was something else that bugged me. It was his general tone: defeatism mixed with smugness. *Of course, this interview does no such thing. It seems to me that Obama’s guiding principle was the destruction of American liberties and their replacement with a communist tyranny. The Papes of this world just provided suitable intellectual cover. April 1st, 2026 | 19 comments
The Telegraph reports,
Other than seeing Iran free, I don’t even know what I want to be going on. March 23rd, 2026 | 18 comments
It is easy to underestimate how radical a change in strategy this is. It simply would not have been possible in previous wars. Airpower capable of striking significantly behind the front lines did not exist until World War 2. Since then, command and control structures have been too widely dispersed and hardened to make broad attacks on them even theoretically possible until now. Yes, countries sometimes try to kill each other’s top leaders. But assassinations are less common than civilians realize. Leaders generally do not target each other directly in wars — maybe hoping for a similar courtesy from the other side, or maybe because killing the other side’s leaders can make negotiating peace more difficult. In any case, what Israel and the United States are trying is not a singular assassination but continuous attacks on a national command structure while at the same time sparing civilians to the extent possible. (Yes, the United States appears to have killed almost 200 girls in a Tomahawk attack. But the strike was clearly a mistake, not a strategic choice. It has not been repeated, and the United States is not trying to defend it.) The American-Israeli goal is very clear: to convince the people at the top of the Iranian regime that they, and their replacements, and their replacements’ replacements, will die, and die very soon, unless they capitulate. Can this strategy work? I don’t know. Since it’s never been tried before, I’m not sure anyone does. March 21st, 2026 | 20 comments
I have hesitated to post much about Ukraine lately as reliable information is hard to come by. However, the Telegram channels I have long watched on both sides, and personal contacts I have, are awash with similar reports from their own sources. Make of this what you will. March 16th, 2026 | 18 comments
The response to the Iran-Hezbollah drone attack on Britain’s Royal Air Force Base in Cyprus earlier this month has been revealing. For the first time since 1980, Britain had no warships in the eastern Mediterranean or the Gulf. Air defences were effectively absent. The UK’s main carrier strike group was still en route to Greenland. Britain ended up having to rely on Greece and France to help secure its own military base. That is not evidence of foreign capture. It is evidence of institutional incompetence. March 9th, 2026 | 17 comments
“When we are finished, take over your government, it will be yours to take. This will be… probably… your only chance for generations. For many years you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No President was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a President who is giving you what you want. So, lets see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action: do not let it pass.” Back on January 31st, I asked “So… is help on the way for the Iranian protestors or not?” – We now have our answer. I have my differences with Trump on trade, Ukraine, and threats against Greenland, but on this issue… Godspeed. March 1st, 2026 | 53 comments
Friday 27th February 2026: Pakistan declares state of ‘open war’ after bombing major Afghan cities Saturday 28th February 2026: US and Israel launch attack on Iran, as Trump says ‘major combat operations’ under way Lot of it about these days. I was going to make a rather tasteless metaphor about it being like the Gorton and Denton by-election, with the Greens winning and Reform coming second, displacing the established parties. But of course the surprise war – to all but the very old – was Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Given Iran’s participation in proxy wars in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, and its hostile actions against Israel, Saudi Arabia, and probably other countries that I’ve forgotten (even leaving out Western ones), I’m surprised this didn’t happen earlier. As for Pakistan and their former protégés the Taliban, he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon. Update: Israel says that Ayatollah Khamenei has been found dead in the rubble of his compound. For the sake of the Iranian people, so many of whom have been murdered by Khamenei’s regime in the recent protests, I hope that this is true. In contrast, Zack Polanski of the Green Party says “This is an illegal, unprovoked and brutal attack that shows once again that the USA and Israel are rogue states.” Illegal, Zack? If the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran wanted the protection of international law, they should have renounced and made recompense for taking diplomats hostage. In the absence of that renunciation the international community should have put them down like rabid dogs forty-seven years ago. February 28th, 2026 | 15 comments
UK has not given US permission to use RAF bases for Iran strikes… ok, I get it, bonehead Trump has acted in ways that make it clear the Atlantic alliance of yore is now largely dead, for which there are serious geopolitical consequences. But surely, given there still are US bases are on British territory, at least for now, and the theocratic Iranian government is a manifestly unfriendly power, hampering US strikes on the mass murderous mullahs is perverse. That too will have geopolitical consequences. The lunatic UKGov wants to give Chagos to an ally of China (and pay for the ‘privilege’ of giving them away, for reasons that must surely boil down to naked corruption), I imagine US has drawn up contingency plans to simply take Diego Garcia over if worse comes to worse, with all that implies. February 22nd, 2026 | 10 comments
Preston Stewart has some interesting reportage about Russia being abruptly cut off from Starlink. Whilst this is fascinating from a technical and military point of view, it also brings into focus the sheer power of one man for good or ill… Elon Musk. February 6th, 2026 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||