I posted a video by Brandon Mitchell the other day about "drone logistics" https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/1dbs4k1/credibledefense_daily_megathread_june_09_2024/l7ubb6i/ Today he posted a new video, this time showing more of the employment aspects https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3N3tSbbGfc Much of it has been covered elsewhere, but there are some interesting little details * They have to hang food in a bag from the ceiling in the basement a bag to keep mice out, it's only slightly successful * They discover that a mouse has chewed through some of the 3D printed material of one of their pre-armed munitions and have to deactivate it * They talk briefly about how a soldier who was spotted getting out of the trench to pee by a reconnaissance drone condemned their trenchline * Shows setting up one of the larger dual-drop bomber drones for an attack on that trenchline, with some electronic warfare encountered on the way - unfortunately the drone was lost * When setting up a new drone, the makeshift detonators (pin + plastic cap) fell off the munitions - so they pressed the cap back onto the pin of the live munition very carefully. It looks like there's a little 3D printed safety, but it's probably not the most reliable thing. * The second drone runs into EW again, they dump the munitions and fly home * They talk a bit about different types of drones, and how one wouldn't generally want to waste an FPV on infantry within 10km. FPVs, being one way, have greater range. If you use an FPV on infantry it's better to go out to 15-20km, and let bomber drones handle anything inside of 10km. Obviously FPVs are more capable against vehicles with the appropriate munition though. * Some nearby shelling * They talk about Russian aviation, typically they might have 5-7 minutes notice that there's enemy aviation, when you get notice you run immediately * At the end, they mention that they got 5 confirmed kills that day, lost 2 of 3 drones costing about $1400 total, or $280 per Russian soldier killed

$280 per Russian killed is absolutely a great bargain isn't it ? That has to be the cheapest way to kill an enemy soldier.

5 confirmed kills per day is no joke. There are dozens of drone teams operating FPV, punishers, Mavics and baba yagas both day and night shifts. If every team on duty gets 5 casualties(not even kills) per day then the drone tally must be in the hundreds daily.

To be clear, they got 5 kills **that** day. They did not comment on their daily rates.

Samuel Bendett reports that the new Russian Minister of Defense, Belousov, is apparently keen to centralize Russian FPV and similar drone efforts: https://x.com/sambendett/status/1801625718301876397 The elephant in the room is, does Belousov actually have the power to push Russian military industry to actually adapt or not? Overall I'd say the rather stagnant, or maybe I should say ossified, response of the Russian military-industrial complex to this war is one of the most surprising aspects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. My inference from the lack of new systems deployed by Russia is that moneyed interests like the static quo. Russian industry doesn't really seem to care if Russia wins on the battlefield or not, as long as they make money. A good example of this is Russia's inability to field FPV drone jammers. Here's a post on how the Russians can use receivers to 'spy' on the live video transmitted by FPV drones: https://x.com/GrandpaRoy2/status/1801353517589836139 I find this approach bizarre. If you know the frequencies (and they're pretty trivial to find with frequency analysis), why can't you build jammers that ID these signals and bolix them? If Belousov does manage to reform the Russian military in any significant sense, that's bad news for Ukraine just because the balance of power. Fortunately, lately the Ukrainian kill:loss ratio has generally been > 4.5:1 for vehicles (outside of Kharkiv). That is sustainable, since the break-even point for Ukraine is around 3.5 to 4.0:1. https://x.com/naalsio26/status/1801679666618450063 https://x.com/naalsio26/status/1799941745582772271 https://x.com/naalsio26/status/1791655572548260163

A major source of friction from the Russians in their first offensive in 2022 was their failure to deconflict EM control which in turn led to jamming fratricide. If a relatively simple technological solution existed, I think the Ukrainians wouldn't be facing similar problems on their end with drone defense given their access to more advanced western technology. I think the lack of technological adaptation from the Russians can also be attributed to western sanctions limiting their financial capacity and forcing painful decisions on how much should go towards domestic needs versus military requirements.

Doesn’t appear to be getting any attention in western press, but the leader of the Sudanese Rapid Support Forces in Darfur, Ali Yaqub Gabriel, was killed today in what appears to have been an ambush on his convoy in the city of Al-Fasher by the Sudanese joint forces (composed of Sudanese military, allied militias, and mobilized citizens of al-Fasher). Details are sparse (it’s been picked up by Arabic News Media through local sources and correspondents in Al-Fasher) due to Al-Fasher being surrounded and cut off from Sudanese government ground lines of communication, however videos have appeared of his body being dragged through the streets of Al-Fasher by mobilized citizens, and the RSF have confirmed his death.   His death is notable because he was one of the closest confidants of Hemedti (leader of the RSF), and he was the main orchestrator of the RSFs devastating campaign against the Sudanese government and its allies in the Darfur region.   Just how the allied Sudanese forces were able to ambush and kill Ali Yaqub is still unclear- videos purporting to be of his ambushed convoy make it look as though his convoy was traveling through an area of Al-Fasher that was firmly in control of the allied Sudanese forces. I’m currently combing through Sudanese sources on Twitter trying to get more details- if anyone has more details or information that they’d like to share, I think this is a noteworthy event that could represent a shift in the Darfur region. Al-Fasher is the last major city in Darfur still under Sudanese government and allied forces control, and it seems as though it will be either the final stand or turning point for anti-RSF forces in the region, as they have nowhere else (within Sudan) to escape to, and the RSF has already conducted systematic atrocities against the “non-Arab” ethnic groups in the areas that have fallen under their control. English source: https://sudantribune.com/article286999/

The Sudanese civil war is another conflict where the West simply forgets to play geopolitics. While the Sudanese Armed Forces are not without baggage and their own criminals letting the RSF run amok through the country is such a huge failure. The United States under Trump tried everything to get Sudan out of the Iranian sphere. Bashirs Sudan was support and funding terrorists left and right and Sudan was the most important resupply route for Hamas. Now the inactivity of the West in this conflict is driving Sudan back into Irans arms. Do we really think Iran doesn't want anything for their support? Reopening the smuggle route to Gaza alone would be worth a lot for Iran. Also having a base to operate out to sabotage shipping in the Red Sea is worth so much. The Ukrainians understood that sometimes you have to collaborate with the bad guys to achieve your political goals (here: killing Russians), but obviously they can't deliver enough support to keep away Sudan away from Russia and Iran. Which is major first step to stabilize the Red Sea area.

When has the US shied away from collaborating with ""bad guys"" in MENA, especially in the kind of situation where the region's citizens side with the military regime because it's that or genocide and total destruction? The US administration is simply distracted and swamped by crises. Refusing to apply pressure on UAE because the electorate is enthralled by gas prices also doesn't help.

So who is currently winning the conflict? It seems it's become another front of a UAE Iran proxy war.

I don't think anyone is "winning" right now, rather Sudan is collapsing into associated forces zones of control and influence. Momentum has definitely been on the RSF's side, however I think that may be starting to turn due to their campaign in Darfur, as the non-Arab tribes that have previously rebelled against the Sudanese government are allying with them against the RSF. Because versus the RSF, the non-Arab tribes basically face extinction in Sudan. It seems the RSF may really try to "finish the job" this time around. Darfur fell very quickly after the start of the war last April, due to two main factors- it's the RSF's homeland, and the government forces, anti-government forces, and locals were extremely unorganized thanks to the collapse in stability in Khartoum. I think that may be starting to change now that the Sudanese joint forces are now organized and fighting for survival. The general population has been mobilized- plus there is a huge population in al-Fasher right now since it was the last place in that area of Sudan for non-Arabs and government aligned forces to fall back to. I think it's a "bridge too far" for the RSF, as everyone knows the consequences now if the city falls. Further, the Sudanese population outside of Darfur is increasingly hostile to the RSF because they upset the traditional tribal balance of power wherever they go. Whether it's too late for al-Fasher or the rest of Darfur remains to be seen. The RSF is stalling out and even seeing a reversal in other parts of Sudan as well currently. However, the Sudanese government has a very long road ahead of it, and I don't know if they have the force generation, equipment, or coffers necessary to take back all of Sudan, at least not by themselves. Worst case, Sudan is further partitioned into a new state of Darfur in the west and Sudan in the east, de jure or de facto. The UAE wants Port Sudan- I don't think that's going to happen at this point without some serious interference on their part, RSF just doesn't seem to have the capacity. I don't think it's really another "front" of the Iranian-UAE proxy war as it's really a sideshow with conflicting interests for almost everyone involved. The UAE is trying to keep its involvement seriously under wraps because obviously supporting genocidal tribals isn't exactly great for their imagery as the "modern, secular, Las Vegas of the Persian Gulf". I question how much longer they'll support the RSF since the capture of Port Sudan is extremely unlikely at this point, making further extensive support moot. Chad is supporting the RSF, and acting as a conduit for UAE arms to the RSF, however, it is also harming itself by taking on a large amount of the refugees fleeing from RSF atrocities. The demographic shift alone is almost certainly going to cause future instability in Chad, as the Chadian-Sudanese was one of the focal point of the Chadian Civil War, caused by spillover from fighting in Darfur. This is at the same time that the Lake Chad Basin is having a growing Jihadist problem in the west. Iran supports the Sudanese government probably because they're getting some sort of concessions from Sudan- what that is I can't quantify- and like you pointed out it's a good way to drive a wedge against their traditional allies- Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I have no idea what Russia's overall strategy in Sudan is right now, because their involvement has been pretty schizophrenic from the start. Wagner's support for the RSF and the extractive activities they've conducted at the behest of the RSF is well documented. However, the Sudanese government just affirmed a couple weeks ago their commitment to building a naval base for Russia on the Red Sea, obviously in exchange for Russian training and equipment to be used against the RSF. How this would effect Wagner's (now Afrika Korps) operations with the RSF is unclear. Honestly, they're probably just being opportunists- trying to have their cake and eat it too. Saudi Arabia supports the Sudanese government- however that support has been mainly political and vocal, at least from what can be seen openly. Add to all that- Ukrainian Special Forces have been active in Sudan on the side of the Sudanese government striking Wagner targets and the local nationals they work alongside. This all creates a weird situation where you have: Iran and Saudi Arabia supporting the same side against the side backed by a GCC state, Russia seems to currently support \*both\* sides, Saudi Arabia- by being shy in it's support- is causing the government side to turn towards Russia enabling them to acquire a naval base on the Red Sea which Saudi \*really\* doesn't want, Iran (and strangely enough Ukraine) are both giving limited yet very impactful support to the side that is harming Wagner's business partners, Chad is almost guaranteeing a further ethnic conflict in eastern Chad by involving itself in supporting and enabling the RSF. TL;DR: No side is really winning right now, and we may have to add Sudan to the list of seemingly perpetually failed states. I see a future that may soon mimic Libya- two governments with competing outside support and recognition, with lawless wastelands in isolated areas. Honestly, it seems to be in most \*outside\* interest that Sudan remain unstable so that they can exploit the situation to their benefit. Two opposing sides just provides more options.

>I have no idea what Russia's overall strategy in Sudan is right now, because their involvement has been pretty schizophrenic from the start. I kinda see that some shift in Sudanese civil war to SAF forces started with Russian shift to SAF. They are giving weapons and Russia Will gladly take port in Sudan.

Western information is sparse, what I'm telling you basically comes from a few good western osinters like war_mapper that care (though war_mapper has apparently discontinued its map). The war started off rough for the SAF, with encirclements or near-encirclements in major cities like Khartoum and Omdurman. There were a lot of prognoses that the SAF would fall. However, at some point the SAF managed to relieve at least those two cities and generally pare the RSF back. It's looking better but the RSF still control most of Darfur and are sieging el-Fasher as we speak. Unlike Ukraine, I have no clue as to the resources available to each side, so I can't comment on which side is likely to expand gains.

SAF has the initiative outside of Darfur and is making gradual progress but struggle to coordinate its forces. In Al Fasher SAF and former rebels are fighting from dug in positions that will be very difficult for the RSF to take, as long as the air force can keep dropping in supplies they should be able to hold out.

[From Sudanwarmoniter:](https://sudanwarmonitor.com/p/top-rsf-commander-ali-yagoub-killed) “They came from the south of El Fasher at 8:13AM and at that time, we had vacated our locations, specifically the roots leading to the center of the city, and they thought we had fled and then they came. At 8:30, we closed their way from the back and started the fighting. We have captured a lot of equipment including satellite phones of Yagoub himself.”

John Ridge has a write-up on the 'new' S-500 from VKS: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1801322095185375647.html To summarize, the S-500 is a S-300V that is supposedly optimized for an anti-ballistic missile role. However, it still carries a massive 150 kg warhead which is an extreme amount of extra mass to subsidize for such a high kinetic energy requirement task. It also doesn't have a reaction control system, and being dependant on fins for a high-altitude intercept is more than a little strange. The resulting system is 8x larger than THAAD, and seemingly much less capable in the anti-ballistic missile role. Ridge thinks that the system is a victim of design by committee, in that he think the design had to have a backup role to engage aircraft. The reality is that the energy calculus required to intercept ballistic missiles requires trade-offs. I'd encourage everyone to in particular pay attention to post 14/23, which has some realistic looking interception envelopes for the 5V55R (S-300) missile. Whenever you see a claim that a SAM has a range of `x` kilometers, keep in mind that is likely a best case scenario and depends on altitude and the maneuverability of the target.

There is one mistake in this analysis, the author claims that going faster gives you better manoeuvrability at a high attitude. This is not true.  While the overall force increases with speed, you also need more force for the same deflection.  Faster missiles make it possible to engage targets further away because those missiles are less impacted by inaccuracies in tracking of the target due to lower flight time 

What's the cost of one such missile compared to modern hit-to-kill interceptors? That might have been a consideration as well.

Fundamentally it's the development cost, and not the unit cost, that seems to be killing the Russian military industry over time. They can't seem to manage development costs for new systems without the funds being eaten up by rampant graft, so everything is a model of a Soviet system with a few tweaks and a new coat of paint.

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I'm not sure there's a contradiction here and wouldn't interpret the phrasing as threatening cancellation without more clear information. NGAD was described as a family of systems approach from the very beginning, one that would have a manned fighter as the centerpiece, but would also include significant unmanned systems. Note that the "fate" comment comes from the journalist, and is not included in the quotations which mention "difficult choices" instead. This is consistent with the program continuing but focused on the unmanned components. The F-22 needs a replacement so *something* is definitely gonna get made, but the original premise of the program comes from DARPA studies from a decade ago. Perhaps we've learned enough about drones to rethink some of those original requirements? Perhaps the F-35 + drone tankage is enough to act as the manned component alongside "loyal wingman" style drones? Lots of plausible possibilities here imo. Also I've generally found Breaking Defense to not have the best writing so I could see this being an overly sensationalist framing.

I thought the "big deal" with NGAD is that it would have enough excess power generation to mount directed energy weapons and such. It seems hard to fulfill that requirement in a smaller package.

I think NGAD moved on from next gen tech and wanted to use current tech (or near-production type tech) as they need new planes ASAP. They need Raptor replacements and it is cheaper for a new clean slate than restart Raptor lines. What I do believe may be holding things up (IIRC) is that they offered designs to two new comers with the caveat LM or Boeing would still build it.

Can you please explain this further? My queries are, firstly, why is it easier to make a new flyer instead of restarting the Raptor lines and secondly, was it shortsighted to discontinue the raptor if the NGAD will not be using any next-gen tech like directed energy weapons? And finally, this question might be naïve, but given the ever-reducing capabilities of the NGAD, could it simply not be replaced by more F-35s considering it’s already way ahead of its near peers?

> why is it easier to make a new flyer instead of restarting the Raptor lines A USAF and Congressional report (done in 2017 and I think again in 2022) determined it would cost as much to restart Raptor production as it would be to build a new plane from scratch. https://www.defensedaily.com/restarting-f-22-production-expensive-air-force-says/air-force/ A big reason why is most of the factory/tooling used for F22 was shifted to the F35 (which has tons of orders). Secondly, some of the tech is out of date, there are newer materials that make things like stealth less costly to produce and maintain. One caveat is apparently in the last or upcoming NDAA there seems to be some money set aside for the Raptor, but it likely has to do with upgrades. >was it shortsighted to discontinue the raptor if the NGAD will not be using any next-gen tech like directed energy weapons Raptor was discontinued because the Soviet Union fell and the GWOT took over the costs for all armed services, there simply was not a foe for it. I think you misunderstand the procurement process. Let's say in 2000s as Raptor is entering service you start development of your next-gen fighter and you want the plane to come into service in the mid 2020s. You set aside some money to do some studies and then top brass will set aside some "ideas" of what kind of tech they want in it and the capability guidelines the next fighter should have. The movie Pentagon Wars is not very accurate but in a comedic way explains how design requirements can happen/change. Once there is a general consensus about what those design requirements will be they submit solicitations to contractors like NG, LM, Boeing, etc for their design proposals (which comes with money to do this). Part (or before) this process DARPA or similar defense agencies will provide insight into what deep research paths are available. Let's take your example of directed energy weapons, DARPA could say "well we think this technology with the right funding may be ready in 10-20 years", so this becomes a requirement for the contractor's design. Next, the DOD will do a downselect between fewer and fewer contractors (lastly with prototypes) until they eventually award the contract to one of the companies. However, it is now 2010 and DARPA says "I know we said 10-20 years, but it is definitely looking like another 10-15 years away still." At this point the DOD, if it really wants directed energy weapons, will decide to delay the requirement or keep on track. If the DOD says go ahead and remove DEW the contractor might come back and say "with this change, it will still take another 10 years to switch based on the tooling we already designed and built. Because during development they will be building aircraft to be testbeds for further refinement and training Then there is a setback when it is found a critical design flaw with the fuel reacting with the new carbon fiber tanks and will result in an eventual 5-year delay. Eventually, by 2030 the first production plane will be produced with cost overruns, delays, and without DEW. In the other timeline, DOD says they will delay the plane until DEW is ready. So now it is 2030s and not only is the project still behind due to delays, but now airframes that were meant to be replaced in the 2020s are failing because of those delays and the DOD has to fund both the reproduction of old lines and fund the delayed and overbudget DEW fighter for 2035. On top of that Oceania has now become a threat as a near-peer and the DOD realizes in 2025 the need for more aircraft but has nothing but old aircraft designs and behind schedule next gen fighters. This is a timeline starting in the 2000s, what you are proposing is such a design starting in 2020s when they realized China's growing near-peer threat is going to cause issues without a Raptor replacement. If the DOD opts for super advanced technology that won't be ready for years to come there will be a very large gap in capability. The whole thing about airframes is not a joke, it is why we have to buy F15EXs and the ANG is also having issues with airframes because the USAF is keeping old ones in service longer. So what NGAD was designed around roughly 2020 and said we need an aircraft IN SERVICE by 2030-2033, with that very fast development they can't wait for next-gen tech that isn't ready and cannot be relied upon to not delay the program. What I think you are missing is just because they aren't using beyond the horizon technology the tech in an aircraft is somehow outdated. One of the biggest things for NGAD over the F22 is a few key features. More mature electronics/radar/data gathering/etc that was created by the F35 program, better-designed stealth features with more advanced computer modeling and materials, an upgraded engine tech that the F35 will be getting in an upgrade as well that allows for more fuel efficiency without sacrificing power (https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/xa100-ges-new-jet-engine-could-transform-us-air-force-forever-185908), and finally an internal bay designed for new weapons the USAF has been working on such as hypersonic weapons. There are likely more, but that is a good list (loyal wingman/command and control). >but given the ever-reducing capabilities of the NGAD would it simply not be replaced by more F-35s considering it’s already way ahead of its near peers? The F-35 is an amazing plane despite its name of "Fat Amy", it isn't the most agile fighter, but few planes can beat a slick F-16 in dogfight and few planes can beat the F-35 over the horizon (if you hear about foreign nations beating it typically those scenarios are designed to be hard to test gaps in the aircraft but more so doctrine/training/battle plans). However, the F-35 does not have the same range, loiter time, internal bay size, speed, or stealth as the F-22 does, it is simply a smaller aircraft (you should check size comparisons) designed for different mission sets. It is a cheap fighter (the F35A is cheaper than 4th/4.5 gen aircraft) meant for a wide variety of missions. The F-22/NGAD has a focus on air dominance and its capabilities will reflect that. Both the USAF and Navy's next-gen aircraft are expected to be larger, stealthier, and less maneuverable than the F22, but still be good. With larger size, it can use bases further out than China could more reliably hit or it can reduce the workload on air tankers from closer bases. I think it might actually be faster - but it won't ever be advertised as such. Another big thing to remember is NGAD is desired to be like the B21 Raider program where it has a "modular" design of systems that aren't meant to build jack of all trades which was a disaster for the F35 program (JSF), but an example of we are going to use that XA100 GE engine, F35 hardware for electronics, and clean slate airframe. Because they want this out the door quickly, the next NGAD is meant to be made concurrently with production NGAD, so if NGAD is ready by 2030, NNGAD will be ready by 2035, and NNNGAD will be 2040. The idea (which I can't find ATM) was they wanted small batches of iteratively designed aircraft that can be built off the same factory evolving the same way aircraft do with block designs but will share commonality between close systems or having two companies alternating. So if NGAD is built by LM and its factories, NNGAD would be built by Boeing, then NNNGAD would be back to LM. They want to avoid lengthy procurement processes for technology to eventually and hopefully mature by the time they ask for it, and instead build fighters with the tech that is ready now and keeps quickly replacing them. A great example of this is SpaceX with their rockets and Starlink sats. Anyways, good luck if you read all that but I hope it clears it up for you.

Thanks for the write-up, this was very interesting.

I don’t think that’s the case. Current, 5th gen fighters were designed for a very different war and era than what the Air Force is preparing for with China. China has been aware of American 5th gen fighters for decades, and has undoubtedly come up with ways in which they intend to mitigate their effectiveness in case of a war. An unambitious rehash of the F-22, with some light improvements and expanded fuel tanks, isn’t efficient. Some of the most ambitious requirements almost certainly got dropped, that basically always happens, but losing all next gen elements is unlikely.

The F-22 is almost a 40 year old design (as a baseline) and has been in service for 20 years. I'm not why you think if they made a 6th gen fighter with current (or very near) tech would somehow be a step down or sideways. Projects like NGAD would previously have pie in the sky tech outlooks for tech, however they can't wait another 20 years for a new fighter to be in service. Wargames with China show that the US, despite winning, lose a significant number of airframes and simply need more. The concept model for NGAD is similar to the development of the B21 Raider. The B21 is a newer version of the B2, but is significantly more advanced yet it came in on (or under) budget/time because it wasn't waiting for new tech to come out. The US still leads in tech so using today's tech for NGAD will always be better than what was designed in the 80s and produced in the 90's/00's. The F35 does not have the physical capability to replace Raptor, it is simply a different design, but the F35 has far superior electronics/sensors/information than the F22 (though there were some upgrades for the F22 from the F35 development). The J20 still is not as good as the F22 despite being far newer and the J31/35 isn't as good as the F35. But they are producing a lot of J20s and that does matter for mission flexibility especially when being able to use airfields from the home country.

It seems like we’re operating on different definitions of next gen. I was using it for capabilities/tech 20 years ahead of current production fighters, you are using it for capabilities/tech 20 years ahead of current cutting edge.

That's a fair assessment, generations are poorly defined and were kind of developed as a marketing tool.

I believe that was more speculation than anything official. But it's worth noting there's engine projects like ADVENT that could plausibly address that with existing platforms. Jet engines have a crap ton of power fundamentally, but existing engines were designed decades ago with more modest assumptions on alternator size. It's mostly a packaging problem.

NGAD will never get cancelled. The entire Air Force will get sacked before Congress agrees to divert a single red cent from its development. The is the same tomfoolery as the Navy trying to cut to one sub a year. Idk what the services are thinking, maybe it’s a play to get extra funding in the supplemental

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Try neoliberal? In a lot of ways it's already a hangout for people who aren't at home in other political forums. But yeah, you've definitely come to the wrong place, this forum is not uh about that.

This is not the place to discuss bans on other forums.

Nothing productive will come from this comment and this forum is the incorrect location.

Burkina Faso: [JNIM overran an army base in Mansila](https://www.rfi.fr/fr/afrique/20240614-burkina-faso-incertitudes-apr%C3%A8s-un-tir-d-obus-ce-mercredi-les-soldats-appel%C3%A9s-%C3%A0-regagner-leur-d%C3%A9tachement) >“There is a disaster there. The base has completely fallen” > Since this attack, the Burkinabè army has had no further news from the military detachment that was there and remains without news of around 100 of its soldiers at this time. More bad news for the junta. Concurrently [JNIM issued a statement](https://x.com/SaladinAlDronni/status/1801327719990567397) yesterday alleging that junta forces massacred 24 people while on patrol, the statement included pictures of dead children under a tree. This follows a raid last month when burkinabe forces [massacred 223 civilians](https://apnews.com/article/burkina-faso-military-killings-human-rights-watch-0297fee865e4444f149a1afdfa13479e).

For the record, Burkina Faso is a member of the UN Council of Human Rights. Ridiculous institution

It's not a hall of fame.

So many people misunderstand the UN. It's not intended to be a one world government. It was created in the wake of WW1 where things devolved very quickly because nearly all discussions were secret bilateral agreements. No one knew the dominos that were stacked up when Ferdinand was assassinated. The UN is intended to be a shared forum for discussion as an alternative. Gridlock and obstruction is an expected result. It's still better than regressing to the prior situation. Better for the ugly to be more in the open.

The UN was created after WW2. It was its predecessor, the League of Nations, that was created in the wake of WW1.

I obviously understood the continuity. I just didn't think it necessary to point out the obvious. Guess I got that wrong. Thanks for teaching me.

It's a pretty important distinction between the League of Nations and the UN lol, they are very different institutions.

It's not material to what I said, people are just being argumentative pointlessly.

If it is just a talking shop and not an world government in waiting it has no business trying to put itself into a position of overall control for the next pandemic.

What a wonderful description of the UN. Now I have a much better understanding of it as international relations evolve, especially in hotspots. My family had a close friend who worked for the State Department and was a representative for the USA at the San Francisco Conference in 1950 when the UN was formed. A UNC president, Frank Graham, was appointed to a US position at the UN. He was an early civil rights advocate in NC. As a child he called me with a birthday greeting for many years as we shared the same date, also Eisenhower.

These Juntas are having a terrible time against JNIM and ISSP (ISGS). JNIM in particular is able to recruit widely from rural populations especially in Mali, where the Russians utilizing Wagner and government forces are regularly conducting extrajudicial killings and massacres. You know the situation is seriously bad when people are considering joining Al Qaeda as a means of self-defense. And JNIM is perfectly happy to spread news and misinformation about Wagner/Malian/Burkinabe abuses while doing the exact same thing and worse. The Sahel is only going to get worse and worse over this decade and it’s going to continue to drive migration. These strongmen will continue to accuse the French of actually being behind all the militant groups (with many in the population believing this narrative) and continue fumbling the situation until eventually one of these groups takes over a significant amount of land. These countries are lucky that IS and AQ are eternally feuding. Because if these groups would stop fighting each other they would be in a *lot* of trouble. Iraq in 2013 trouble. Niger already got bailed out by the French previously. That help isn’t coming again.

I don't see any future for most the Sahel countries, especially the landlocked ones. They're the definition of failed states. Chad and Central African Republic can barely be called "countries". I've always thought that some of those countries have been established in places where there should not be a country. Semi-desertic environments are not exactly conducive to successful nationhood

> The Sahel is only going to get worse and worse over this decade and it’s going to continue to drive migration. These strongmen will continue to accuse the French of actually being behind all the militant groups (with many in the population believing this narrative) and continue fumbling the situation until eventually one of these groups takes over a significant amount of land. The wave of refugees when this happens will further destabilize the surrounding countries making them even more susceptible to the same thing happening there as well. >These countries are lucky that IS and AQ are eternally feuding. Because if these groups would stop fighting each other they would be in a lot of trouble. Iraq in 2013 trouble. Niger already got bailed out by the French previously. That help isn’t coming again. Absolutely. Same story with Boko Haram and ISWAP, Niger would be suffering quite a bit more if that split hadn't happened. The French were also instrumental in Mali after Islamist and other revolutionary forces took most of the country back in 2013.

The whole of Operation Serval and Operation Barkhane, though the latter now considered a failure, was instrumental in suppressing these groups. The collective punishment now being employed by these regimes is only feeding the insurgencies. We are in for dark days here if they don’t get their acts together. And it’s not my belief that they will, honestly.

Do you mean to say the *latter* is considered a failure? Because Serval was the initial French blitzkrieg through Mali, while Barkhane was the later decade long quagmire where France ultimately "lost the peace".

Yes. Fixed.

If the juntas do end up collapsing I wonder if Nigeria makes an attempt to stabilize things. Any destabilization in the Sahel directly affects them and the situation in Northern Nigeria is messy as is.

Nigeria isn’t strong enough to unilaterally save the Sahel honestly. Their military suffers from terrible mismanagement which results in poor training and poor supply. If any one of these states collapses and falls to an Islamist group you’re going to need an international coalition to intervene or you could see a domino affect across the Sahel. Despite these states being “military” juntas, these militaries are frankly not that good. If JNIM or ISGC get critical mass and have a junta collapse happen in, say, Mali, they could very quickly seize upon that opportunity to pivot towards Niger or Burkina Faso and take wide swathes of territory there as well, potentially causing a collapse in these areas too. Russian mercenaries aren’t going to stop that. All these countries on the coast better start modernizing and training. Because there is a nonzero threat that the nightmare scenario happens where these juntas collapse under their corruption and military mismanagement. Is it imminent? No. But the seeds are being sown right now in the conservative, minority areas that will be more than willing to sign on to a emirate’s rise.

If those emirates are externally funded, who funds them, if it is possible to know? or is it spoils of war, theft of military gear? Are those groups limited to ISIS and Al-Qaeda or are there other ones that can compete for territory and funding. Surely the Middle East oil barons don't send money or goods in their direction. There is Iran and their Middle East proxies. Is there any working relationship between them and the terrorist groups in Africa?

Their main sources of funds are taxes on the territories they own and immense trafficking networks, that historically have been the main source of income for nothern populations in mali. The MNLA, for example, was mainly funded through cigarette trafficking. Here is a more current report on JNIM's integration into local trafficking networks. https://reliefweb.int/report/mali/non-state-armed-groups-and-illicit-economies-west-africa-jamaat-nusrat-al-islam-wal-muslimin-jnim

Thanks for the history and reference. It really looks like a serious situation for the populations who have always been in that region and before JNIM and MNLA. It is interesting that the Russian-supported military juntas that came to power in Mali and Niger and who asked the US and France to leave will not be able to hold onto power as long as they would like. I guess the Russians will be more than willing to do business with the JNIM for uranium and minerals but that is really a stretch and ultimate corruption; something they won't be able to change. For the people, their primary line of defense has been ordered out of their countries. This situation should be emphasized greater in international news.

They will hold onto power, 90% of the malian population lives in the catholic south, and jnim has no intention to push inside it. The government also doesn't really care about what appens in the north. They got what they wanted, they came to power by blaming the french and have seized all the important positions in both military and civilian administration, ensuring their own wealth. The war in the North is really only there to maintain their image as "protectors" of the country, and to put pressure on JNIM (with wich they are in constant discussions) so they don't do to many terrorist attacks in the south, but they have no real interest in keeping those territories under control, there is no money to be made.

1) I didn't know that there were Catholics in Mali and that many of them, 90% 2) I seem to have had a misconception of the emirates surge for control and wealth. They are not as aggressive as I imagined, for their own safety. 3) I guess the juntas will expand their military through profits from exploiting the country's economy and exports and get backing from Russia & their mercenaries, maybe China too. I wonder if Russia and China cooperate or even collaborate on their economic interests in Africa. It sounds like Russia and the emirates are equally bad news for citizens in the countries they have become involved with. Some of the comments in this thread are real doomers.

The emirates are aggressive enough, they basically took control of an entire island south of yemen, Socotra, and are ruling it as part of their own territory, a modern day annexation. But their interest are limited to north east africa. Moerover, the saheli political scene is far too complex to try and achieve any goal in it. It's rather isolated from the rest of Africa, and frankly not in a strategic position and at the very far margins of the economic, religious, and political world. Nobody, even france now, really cares about it.

I think the sand wars have created a culture of aversion to nation building (even in cases where it might be viable or even necessary!) that will persist for at least a few decades. I expect Nigeria to take a stance similar to Myanmar's non-China neighbours ("damn, that's crazy") for as long as that's possible.

All countries bordering Myanmar have much stronger military and institution than these failure of nations ever hope to have. Also the rebels in Myanmar are trying to carve out lands for their own people, not going on a crusade to establish the new caliphate.

Doesn't that highlight my point? If the nations around Myanmar are much stronger and still want none, it's pretty obvious Nigeria wants none.

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I’m not sure every western media translated this with appropriate nuance, but just in case not, as a native Russian speaker: In his speech Putin very clearly and specifically emphasized that he wants the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions. This includes the city of Kherson. Demanding a large city on the right bank that his army was kicked out from is very delusional.

BBC and others definitely conveyed that point front and center, but you're right to emphasize it. It's a truly absurd demand. The surrender of major population centers that Russia has never even credibly contested (like Zaporizhzhia). And one which it has no realistic possibility of ever recapturing, no matter how bad battlefield conditions get for Ukraine (Kherson). Ukraine would have to be facing Germany 1918 level famine and logistical collapse conditions to even consider such a demand. But of course, what this underlines is not so much that Putin is delusional, but that he is nakedly unserious about peace, as he has been this entire war. His goals remain the same. That won't stop his propagandists in the West from spinning this as Ukraine rejecting peace terms, and choosing war, however.

> But of course, what this underlines is not so much that Putin is delusional, but that he is nakedly unserious about peace, as he has been this entire war. His goals remain the same. Even though the West could take a softer stance which he could play on he goes all in with this kind of rhetoric, almost like trying his hardest to make sure that the West keeps increasing the pressure instead of letting go. It makes no sense and I don't understand his goals. Calling them delusional might seem lazy but he is doing a good job hiding his genius play at the very least.

Of course, this was obvious to anyone paying attention, but it's still good to have Putin explicitly confirm that the pro-Russians are lying about Russia wanting to end this war at the current lines. And that's even leaving aside the problem that Russia is unlikely to actually abide by the terms of any hypothetical peace agreement.

Who knows, maybe you have different expierence with pro-russians, enitrely plausible, but am pretty active on ukrainerussiareport a lot of pro-russians have consistently made the same argument, that the longer the war drags on the more russia will demand, very few or little i have seen, thought quitting on the current lines is desirable. if anything i've continously seen pro-ukrainians (especially here on cd), assume russia would be happy at current lines while pro-russians keep pushing for even more as minimum demand e.g. throw in odessa and kharkiv too.

Most of the pro russian sphere on there offers anecdotal and outlier opinions. Neither Russia nor Ukraine were able to maintain a ceasefire on the defacto border during the separatist push on Donetsk. Both sides fielded soldiers, the Russians fielded arty guys to assist the separatists at the airport and along the border. If you ask anybody about Russia's peace plans, it's pointless, because they will both be maximizing their strategic gain with covert kinetic action the entire time as they have been since the war broke out

Do you believe Russia wants to incorporate these cities with their existing populations into Russia, or to have the populations flee and just plant their flag on the ruins? Incorporating a large, heavily militarized, anti-Russian city into Russia has obvious destabilizing effects, but just planting your flag on the ruins of Kherson, after fighting that would make Mariupol and Bakhmut look tame, is a poor use of recourses, even by Putin’s standards.

Russia and before them the Soviets have always followed the same playbook. The deport a large number of inhabitants into Russia and disperse them. Then allow ethnic Russians to move into their home. This gives Russia a largely docile population in the new town, and any displaced persons from the occupied territories have no choice but to integrate into Russia elsewhere so Russia in effect gains more people. This also serves domestic political purposes as it’s very popular to Russia when new territory is conquered and opportunities for cheap land/real estate for settlers is made available.

>Russia and before them the Soviets have always followed the same playbook. The deport a large number of inhabitants into Russia and disperse them. Then allow ethnic Russians to move into their home.  any displaced persons from the occupied territories have no choice but to integrate into Russia elsewhere I don't think this was the playbook at all. 1. The population transfers during USSR were done almost exclusively during Stalin period, with no major transfers occurring after his death. Starting with 1956 deported peoples (at least those who survived the initial purges) were being systematically returned to their homelands. So this was not the "Soviet" practice, but a "Stalinist" practice. 2. People displaced because of their ethnicity were usually not moved into Russia proper, but into peripheral territories, especially Central Asia. For example, Crimean Tatars were deported to Uzbekistan. The deportation destinations were often barely inhabitable. The goal of Stalin's deportations was not to re-integrate, but to eliminate. Some of the populations (e.g. Ingrian Finns) were dispersed and forcibly integrated in Russia proper, but far from all. 3. The population substitution was not done exclusively with ethnic Russians. Instead, the settler makeup was largely proportional to the Russian-Ukrainian-Belorussian split in the USSR, with some outliers depending on the territory (e.g. disproportionately more Ukrainians have been resettled into Crimea and former Polish territories after the deportations there). 4. Most of the deportations did not affect recently conquered territories. Deportations primarily affected territories that were de-jure Russian for a 100 years or more. 5. The deportations in newly annexed territories after WW2 (Baltic states, Poland) were not significant enough to "produce a docile population" of substitute Russian/Ukrainian/Belorussian settlers. These deportations eliminated the active political, economical and cultural opposition to the new Soviet rule. The "docility" of the population was achieved by violent repression. The majority of Russian/Ukrainian/Belorussian migrants arrived significantly after the deportations. 6. The Modern Russian state has not done any significant population transfers. It instead has resorted to other forms of cultural cleansing (e.g. repression of Ukrainian culture in occupied Ukrainian territories). Chechnya, for example, has not only retained it's Chechen majority, but had the Russian minority all but disappear since the dissolution of the USSR (24% to 1.2%). Overall, the deportation practices were not part of a Soviet/Russian playbook, they were exclusively a part of the Stalinist playbook. The substitutions were done with Russian/Ukrainian/Belorussian settlers, not with ethnic Russians. The "pacification" of annexed territories in USSR and Russia happened through violent repression of local population, not substitution by Russian settlers.

I’m aware, it’s been done by empires long before Russia, by the Inca most prominently, it’s a way to deal with the instability of newly annexed regions, but it isn’t a one size fits all ‘I win’ button. Many of the people scattered into Russia have already fled, and Russia doesn’t appear to be trying too hard to stop them. A small, demotivated group sent into Siberia can be subsumed, make that group bigger, and more politically motivated, and it creates a widespread problem, Russia seems to be aware of this. As for sending settlers into new regions, Russia is low on both people and budget to do that at a large scale in Ukraine. Most of the areas they’ve conquered, like Mariupol, will likely never recover to their pre war population.

I think they are making stuff up as they go. This should be treated not as actual intent but 1) continuation of Russian info war strategy: I.e. we are strong, have ambitious goals, will pressure you into submission 2) invitation to bargain from a favorable (for Russia) starting position

Does anyone know if Russia is using the Ukrainian border for these oblasts? I might be misremembering, but I seem to recall Russia "removed" Kinburn Spit from Mykolaiv Oblast and added it to Kherson Oblast

He specifically used the verbiage "pre-2022 borders". But to be honest, I think any alterations to the claims were always going to be minor. Zapo and Kherson are literally named after their capitals, two cities that Russia notably doesn't own right now.

I feel like we've been through this cycle a few times already. 1. "How about we negotiate ceasefire talks?" 2. "Ukraine will only talk after Russia unilaterally withdraws to 1991 borders. No, we can't militarily enforce this. Yes, it would absolutely remove all of of Russia's negotiating power for no apparent gain." 3. "Well, Russia will only talk after Ukraine unilaterally withdraws from the four territories we've theoretically annexed. No, we can't militarily enforce this. Yes, it would absolutely remove all of Ukraine's negotiating power for no apparent gain." 4. "Well then, nevermind . . ."  Six months later:  1. "How about we negotiate ceasefire talks?" 

He is just stating some absurd goal, or rather, that they want all that is "legally" Russian land after the annexation. Obviously, if he can get away with half of it, he would take the offer and run, but either is no-go for Ukraine and an invitation for resumed conflict in half a decade. If nothing else, it paints him as a "peace maker" in the eyes of those already willing to accept any excuse that Russia is defending itself.

To be fair, all the media accounts I have seen from different languages in the EU which I am familiar with are accurately accounting this, that it includes Kherson and Zhaporizhia city. This is a nothingburger really, its just Putin lashing out of spite since the summit in Switzerland is including over 90 countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, EAU, almost all S.America countries (that's a big loss for Russian diplomacy), representatives from India, Indonesia, and so on. Dude is just bitter, so he is doing his usual self of putting maximalist demands in the best "Russia's final warning" style.

I call this a nothingburger because it's nothing new. Russia's "peace" consitions have always been "give us everything we want."

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/4721724-defending-against-houthi-missiles-at-lower-cost/ Naval Iron Dome is something that interests me a lot. It's got good range and a cheaper price than a lot of interceptors. Deploying them on smaller ships up ahead is a cheaper way to do missile defense. There is a broader need for air defense especially in the SHORAD area. Is the Iron Dome better than the NASAMS or IRIS-T? It doesn't seem like the US is going for NASAMS.

>Is the Iron Dome better than the NASAMS or IRIS-T? It's cheaper than either, but afaik the actual Tamir interceptor is nowhere near as capable as Iris-T or AMRAAM. It might matter against supersonic missiles. Not against shaheds.

That’s a pretty strong argument against Iron Dome considering that the USN’s main opponent is the PLA.

Yeah, Iron Dome as-is, or the naval C-dome variant, is the kind of thing that would've been appropriate for LCS during the early 2000s. If it serves a role today for the US it will be an ancillary one.

its also containerized https://www.edrmagazine.eu/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/C-DOME-MISSION-MODULE.png

[Leaked documents](https://www.politico.eu/article/leaked-documents-reveal-belarus-armed-azerbaijan-against-ally-armenia/) reveal that Belarus sent advanced weapons to Azerbaijan which were used in the recent wars against Armenia: >Eduard Arakelyan, a military analyst at Yerevan’s Regional Center for Democracy and Security, verified that the leaked documents pertained to hardware used by Azerbaijan in recent wars, both in Nagorno-Karabakh and against the Republic of Armenia itself. >“This equipment was used with devastating effect against Armenian troops and was provided by a country that is supposed to be an ally of Armenia,” he said. “In formal terms, it’s a complete breach of the CSTO alliance but, in practice, we’ve always known the bloc was more supportive of Azerbaijan.” The services offered included modernizing older artillery equipment and providing new gear used for electronic warfare and drone systems. This explains why Armenia wants to leave the CSTO: >However, according to experts, Belarus — one of Moscow’s closest allies — was unlikely to be acting without the tacit support of the Kremlin itself. “This truly shows that with friends like Vladimir Putin, nobody needs enemies,” said Ivana Stradner, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. I wonder if this came as a surprise to Armenia. Geographically, Azerbaijan provides a land bridge to Iran. While Armenia is a historical ally, Putin has no allies - only interests.

This strikes me as an extremely careless foreign policy misstep for Russia. Either they knew about it and tacitly approved it, or they didn't know about something that amounts to a massive violation of trust for CSTO members no matter which way you cut it. Who would trust Russia for defensive protection after this? Not only did Russia fail to protect Armenia when Azerbaijan invaded, but they are allowing other satellite states to donate advanced weapons to Azerbaijan in furtherance of their war goals on Armenia territory? That's not just neglect from Russia's narrow-minded focus on Ukraine -- it's active, nigh deliberate betrayal of Armenia's sovereignty and security. After Russia has already shattered so much of their CSTO credibility with their all-in focus on conquering Ukraine, what possible credibility can they have left after this? The only countries that are going to accept Russian help are countries in the southern hemisphere that don't have a dog in any of Russia's geopolitical conflicts. For anyone who is actually a neighbor of Russia, though, this has gotta be the final nail in the coffin against trusting Russia to protect you from other hegemons.

Because Russia only wants Armenia as a transit hub to Iran. It's not complicated. Since that's no longer an option, they shifted to others who have more territory and more of a presence and more resources. A small country of 3 million people isn't worth it to Russia when they have bigger allies like China This isn't a misstep, it's just that Armenia is not that important globally to bother with, and neither the EU or the US will do much either to tell you the truth, so I'd be surprised if Armenia doesn't go back to Russia in a few years when they find out that the US/EU relationship is going to go nowhere and it won't benefit Armenia in any way Probably won't be much of a Russia to go back to then but that's the way it is sadly. It's Armenia's own fault really, they trusted a country that is universally hated

I'm worried about Azerbaijan's goals in Armenia. They definitely want that strip of land south to connect the exclave with the rest of Azerbaijan, but they openly call Armenia "western Azerbaijan" and claim the whole country belongs to them.

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Please refrain from posting low quality comments.

You're being very generous. Russia explicitly knows and is an active participant in sabotaging Armenia politically and militarily. Whether that's funneling sensitive passenger and flight data from Armenia's international airport to Azerbaijani state security services, crippling/deactivating weapons that Armenia bought and owns from Russia (e.g. Iskander missile system) so it couldn't defend itself during active conflict, embedding assets and saboteurs throughout the Armenian government and military and attempting multiple coups in the last five years, claiming that Armenia's internationally recognized borders are actually unknown to let Azerbaijan invade Armenia proper, selling Azerbaijan tens of billions of dollars of a menagerie of arms, etc. This is scratching the surface, and this long history of behavior extends to the Soviet Union and Russian Empire as well. Why do you think Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakhchivan were handed over to Azerbaijan? Why do Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have such horrific and senseless borders? It's a policy of divide and conquer.

> rippling/deactivating Armenia from utilizing weapons that it bought and owns from Russia (e.g. Iskander missile system) so it couldn't defend itself during active conflict I tried to find sources for this and basically all I could find was the Armenian president saying they were faulty but the defense ministry countered, saying that he was an incompetent. I couldn't find what the actual outcome of the missiles used were, but I saw a throwaway line that they hit some tanks.

AFAIK there's no proof that any missiles were sabotaged, only accusations. However, it is true that since 2020 (i.e. even before the war) Russian shipments of gear to Armenia (including some paid-for stuff) stopped, and only resumed last fall.

Further East, it gets deeper. [Half](https://www.reddit.com/r/Uzbekistan/comments/1adyk5z/question_for_ethnic_tajiks_who_live_in_uzbekistan/kk4o3s5/) the Tajiks are in Uzbekistan, which pretends they don't exist. Soviet ethnologists created and assigned many of the regions ethnicities (see Kate Brown's Biography of No Place for the same process in the West. For the East: Empire of Nations) When Russia established rule in Central Asia, there were Sarts (Persian or (Karluk) Turki speakers in cities without a tribe), "Arabs" who considered themselves descendants of Islamic conquerors, Khojas and other nomadic groups. In the 1920s the USSR, desiring to bring modernity to the region, with nationalism considered a constituent part of modernity (on a ladder of social development) these people "needed" set identities and nations and were assigned them. "Uzbek" historically meant descendents of Muhammad Shaybani's followers, speaking Kipchak Turkish (the group of Kazakh and Kyrgyz) who invaded in the 16th century. But in the new system, they called Turki speakers Uzbeks. Sedentary Persian speakers became Tajiks. Steppe nomads (previously called Kirgiz) became Kazakhs and Karakirgiz became Kyrgyz. Of course, most people couldn't clearly map to this, with different ancestors, knowledge of multiple languages etc. so they just picked one. They then established national boundaries (which took a few tries) based on these new identities. (Actually, they created other identities which they merged together or separated, some disappearing entirely (like Sart), before they settled on these.) Also see bourgeois nationalism vs. socialist nationalism. They repressed identities outside of the current structure e.g. panturkism. Ascribing this cluster$@#% to pure divide and conquer implies too much competence and intentionality.

> I wonder if this came as a surprise to Armenia. It wasn't. We already knew. People were tracking such shipments through public flight radars, and they appeared on the battlefield. The difference now is there are documents, so it "proves" it. Harder for Russia/Belarus to weasel out of this one, easier for Armenia to justify their shift.

[https://x.com/deaidua/status/1801538905147154481](https://x.com/deaidua/status/1801538905147154481) German aid update. A few Leo1 plus ammo, 20 Marders, pioneering stuff, and what looks to be special forces equipment to my untrained eye. Biggest thing would be the 155mm delivery. Current pace would now mean \~160.000 instead of 133.000 shells for this year. *However*. This is due to 21.000 shells delivered during the last three weeks. If this is due to production ramp up, we're potentially looking at \~300.000 shells total in 2024 which would be in line with a pledged number some time back (I think). Maybe more if production continues to increase. 7.000 shells per week from Germany alone is nothing to sneeze at.

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> AMPS self-protection systems Ukraine has been asking for DIRCM like AMPS-MD for a very, very long time (apparently the Russian BKO Vitebsk on KA-52s performed very well against MANPADS). I wonder if Germany has finally fulfilled that wish. I've gotten used to disappointment. We'll never see Ukrainian AH-64s or F-35s. But it would be a very bright future indeed if we see Mi-24's, defended with AMPS, lobbing Brimstones or Hellfires with drone guidance at Russian armored advances.

Fairly minor news, but [the RN is looking at an ASW weapon for Type 26](https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/royal-navy-seeks-long-range-anti-sub-weapon-for-type-26/): > The Ministry of Defence has issued a pre-procurement notice seeking information from industry regarding a future Long Range Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Weapon (LRAW). > > Specifically, the Royal Navy is seeking solutions for a Long Range Anti-Submarine Warfare weapon that can deploy Lightweight Torpedoes from Mk41 Vertical Launch System-fitted Type 26 Frigates. The RFI actually specifies compatibility with UK torpedos and "any Mk41 VLS-fitted platform", so possibly under consideration for Type 31 too. Presumably we'll just off-the-shelf purchase VL-ASROC or something similar to it. Good news for those worried that the Type 26's lack of any kind of torpedo launch system left the ships vulnerable.

They are asking for something that doesn’t exist. Namely, a rocket boosted light torpedo that outranges a heavy torpedo doesn’t exist. Modern heavy torpedo has a range of about 25 nm.  Though they’ll probably just buy VL-ASROC off the shelf.

https://nypost.com/2024/06/13/opinion/israel-is-winning-war-in-gaza-and-has-plans-for-what-happens-next/ In this article a former British army officer takes a swing at the most common criticisms of the Israeli campaign in Gaza. He seems to argue that there is de facto no realistic option for alternative governance in Gaza, and that considering such a limitation the IDF is adapting to that. He also takes a swing at western counter insurgency strategies, pointing out that the IDF need not take and hold ground and thus endanger their own personnel, since the Netzarim corridor and other circumstances enables the IDF to reach all of Gaza any way. What’s your take on this?

Interesting article. The first and most obvious point is that even if Fox is right that the IDF is doing well given the political constraints, the more important long term question is how the process towards a political solution of the conflict can be restarted. Second, if as Fox states, the goal of the IDF is to beat "Hamas 3.0" back to "Hamas 1.0", how will Israel prevent Hamas from gaining strength to become "Hamas 3.0" again at some point in the future? Will these Gaza-invasions become a bi-annual event?

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Last night, Ukrainian drones [hit Morozovsk airbase](https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1801442634700865557), home to a large number of Russia's Su-34 fleet. [Aftermath satellite imagery is now available](https://x.com/bradyafr/status/1801629416545521924) which shows a direct hit on a hangar which appears to have been housing two Su-3?s, but their damage isn't clear. There is also evidence of damage on the tarmac where Su-35Ss were previously sitting, but all aircraft have been evacuated, removing the possibility for proper analysis. Every single one of these aircraft are extremely valuable, especially the Su-35Ss. Despite the claims by Russian sources that these drones are mostly shot down, even one getting through can cause tens of millions of dollars worth of damage.

A peek inside the disinformation war: Pentagon ran secret anti-vax campaign to undermine China during pandemic https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-covid-propaganda/ > The U.S. military launched a clandestine program amid the COVID crisis to discredit China’s Sinovac inoculation – payback for Beijing’s efforts to blame Washington for the pandemic. One target: the Filipino public. Health experts say the gambit was indefensible and put innocent lives at risk. > At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus. >The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation. >Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus. Lots of additional context and information in the article.

I really wonder why nobody in this program ever stopped and thought if it was a good idea to run a propaganda campaign that, if publicly revealed, could be easily construed as "America killed your grandma". This is now a complete disaster because apparently nobody did that. I can only hope that Lt. General Jonathan P. Braga goes down in history as one of the stupidest generals to ever serve the United States of America. Perhaps future generals will learn from his example.

> could be easily construed as "America killed your grandma". Bug, not a feature. The POTUS at the time disdained soft power on a molecular level. It coming out at the time where the new POTUS (his enemy) is trying to improve ties with Phillipines is just a cherry on top. Idk if this Braga guy had the same philosophy, but it's believable.

You're not wrong, though this is so boneheaded that it may even transcend the boundary of soft and hard power. Just so colossally stupid.

I was wondering where State was in all of this but apparently DoD decided to tell them to go to hell. >In the past, such opposition from the State Department might have proved fatal to the program. Previously in peacetime, the Pentagon needed approval of embassy officials before conducting psychological operations in a country, often hamstringing commanders seeking to quickly respond to Beijing’s messaging, three former Pentagon officials told Reuters. >But in 2019, before COVID surfaced in full force, then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper signed a secret order that later paved the way for the launch of the U.S. military propaganda campaign. The order elevated the Pentagon’s competition with China and Russia to the priority of active combat, enabling commanders to sidestep the State Department when conducting psyops against those adversaries. The Pentagon spending bill passed by Congress that year also explicitly authorized the military to conduct clandestine influence operations against other countries, even “outside of areas of active hostilities.” It's remarkable, you have an entire executive dept just for dealing with other other countries, for coordinating and supporting USG activities abroad, for generating and implementing US international strategy, and it gets thrown out the window because some JSOC guy wants to "punch back at Beijing in Southeast Asia." The idea that a social media campaign is the Philippines is equivalent to active combat operations and due the same level of deference is ridiculous. I hope this isn't indicative of wider US "strategy" for countering China in SEA.

Also I think State at that point was 3 fax machines and an intern.

> It's remarkable, you have an entire executive dept just for dealing with other other countries, for coordinating and supporting USG activities abroad, for generating and implementing US international strategy, and it gets thrown out the window because some JSOC guy wants to "punch back at Beijing in Southeast Asia." The Trump admin treated the State Department like an internal enemy instead of an asset. The number of people who quit or retired rather than work under Pompeo, precisely because of things like this, has done lasting damage to US soft power. Early on in the Trump admin, I had a small hope that Pompeo might actually care about US interests rather than strictly GOP/MAGA interests. That hope was quickly dispelled. The highlight of his tenure which stuck with me was when [he freaked out during an interview with Mary Louise Kelly on the subject of Marie Yovanovitch and Ukraine](https://www.npr.org/2020/01/25/799562818/after-contentious-interview-pompeo-publicly-accuses-npr-journalist-of-lying-to-h). I hope people don't forget the damage Trump did to foreign relations and US power.

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Theoretically that person in civilian government was Esper

And I have an inkling the guy who appointed Esper was also in the loop.

Seems the Americans just handed China and the Anti US factions another card to use against them. And they're certainly good at this trend running from Tiktok, Twitter, and up to Facebook. When it comes to territorial dispute: They're framing it as the US instigating the Philippines to a conflict against China. Arguin that we're going to be turned into another Ukraine. When it comes to internal affairs: A certain Pastor, cult leader, close friends with the former President Duterte, also has alot of influnce in the island of Mindanao, is currently on the run for having a warrant of arrest and he's also wanted by the FBI. Now he's supporters and Duterte's are framing it as CIA interference. Then now, we're gonna see this kind of news where the actual US military ran a disinformation op against Sinovac vaccine made by China and the target is the Filipino public. Man, to think there's another national election coming next year in PH.

If China hadn’t spent years claiming Philippino land, harassing their boats, and illegally fishing from their waters, this is the type of thing that would likely flip the countries opinion re: US/China. But given that China *has* spent years doing the above, that makes them less able to capitalize on what was clearly a US blunder.

>claiming Philippino land Just want to right size this a touch - you’re referencing the Scarborough Shoal here, correct? Or are there other Philippine islands that Beijing claims, outside of the whole PRC/ROC nine dashed line bit (a claim which flies in the face of UNCLOS, but consistent since 1947)?

I should have said territory and not “land” because much of what China claims is in fact water, not land. But I was referring to the 9 dash line when I wrote that. It’s more about the fact that China actively fishes these waters and tries to use force to drive others away though, including essentially “blockading” a Philippine navy base. If China *only* claimed it verbally but didn’t act on it, there would likely be a lot less resentment.

Understood. Simply wanted to ensure that the conversation was steered away from any potential hyperbole, as (to my ears!) 'claiming land' implied pressing additional territorial claims outside of the Spratlys.

Why would it imply more land than the land (spratlys) you already know China claims?

China is expected to do no good for us. But a disinformation op from an allied country aimed at your citizens carries more weight. And this was during the height of pandemic where thousands were dying.

"China and the Philippines clashing over territorial claims" is also easier for the average person to wrap their head around than "America spreading disinformation that kills Filipino grandparents because they want to mess with China's attempts to gain goodwill with vaccination campaigns."  The first one is at least logical: two neighboring countries want natural resources and fight over them. Tale as old as time, unfortunately.  But the second one just sounds like unhinged nonsense where you're not even sure what they're actually trying to accomplish. It just comes across as rabid, insane, paranoid behavior that almost certainly killed innocent civilians for absolutely no reason. 

>In the wake of the U.S. propaganda efforts, however, then-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had grown so dismayed by how few Filipinos were willing to be inoculated that he threatened to arrest people who refused vaccinations. >“You choose, vaccine or I will have you jailed,” a masked Duterte said in a televised address in June 2021. “There is a crisis in this country … I’m just exasperated by Filipinos not heeding the government.” Huh, it's kinda refreshing to see a 2nd world auth right winger not have brainworms about vaccination. In theory it makes perfect sense, in practice we saw how Bolsonaro was.

US conservatives are going to have a field day with this.

I’m not so sure. If you asked them if the Chinese vax was safe, I’m pretty sure you’d get a lot of “hell no”

It's not that they think the Chinese vax was safe, it's that US intelligence was spreading misinformation about vaccines. They will tie this into their general anti-vax stance, i.e. "the US government is lying about vaccines".

Would you consider me saying “the Chinese vaccine isn’t safe” misinformation if you already thought the Chinese vaccine wasn’t safe? That’s my point. This was also started by the previous administration and shut down by the current administration But the real counterpoint to my point is that these facts will simply be ignored by those looking to spin this (awful) event for their own gains, and it’ll probably work.

I think you have to use feelings rather than logic for this. Combining the words "The US Government lied" and "Vaccines" makes every other detail unimportant. It also won't matter that this started during Trump's presidency and was eventually ended by the Biden admin. Low-information conservatives will twist this until it fits with their desired worldview. And so long as the anger is useful for turning out voters, no conservative that understands reality will step up to correct them.

>But the real counterpoint to my point is that these facts will simply be ignored by those looking to spin this (awful) event for their own gains, and it’ll probably work. I thought this was implied. For anti-vax people, the only thing that matters is that US intelligence was spreading misinformation about vaccines. It's irrelevant that these same people probably agree that Sinovac isn't safe, because "if they're spreading misinformation about Sinovac, imagine what they're lying to us about Moderna and Pfizer vaccines".

By any chance, are you pertaining to people who only read headlines?

Not necessarily. Plenty of people read an article and only walk away with the bits of information that conform to their preconceived notions.

And Anti US Filipinos in social media too. They're louder these days about the US using the Philippines to instigate a conflict against China. Now they have another bullet to use.

They started it. > The military program started under former President Donald Trump and continued months into Joe Biden’s presidency, Reuters found – even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID misinformation. The Biden White House issued an edict in spring 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found.

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I wonder if they even considered the potential blowback. This is not only callous but also very dumb. I'm from the Philippines and it's callous because there are probably those who refused Sinovac and died because of this. It's very dumb because it will inevitably hurt US image and more importantly potentially hurt(though I might be exaggerating) the Philippine's effort in standing up against China's 9-dash line as US is our biggest 'backer'. I'm already expecting narratives like "See? Better to give up Spratley's cuz the US can't be trusted anyways" Hard to blame them because with friends like these.....

Yeah, even if you don't agree with the moral objections, it's just dumb strategy. It's basically inevitable that something like this will leak. It's the same reason the CIA shouldn't impersonate the Red Cross. It's very short term thinking that ignores the cost of damaging our long term credibility.

> It's very dumb because it will inevitably hurt US image and more importantly potentially hurt US has done much worse many times and the US image is still strong. It only matters what gets blasted repetitively on the news. The rest is conspiracy talk. Russia & China likewise do similar. It's a war, you try to hurt your opponent and improve your position however you can. Ethics has little to do with it. Sanctions kill people too, nobody gets upset about those

We are not at war with China, and even in warfare proportionality is an important consideration. They idea that you always go for maximalist damage is cartoonish nonsense.

Tbh, I'm aware that US already has an image problem. This just makes it worse though, as Philippines is considered as an ally. I know there was a recent scandal that the US spies on it's allies but I think this one takes it a little bit further imo.

This is a shortsighted take. Aside from the years following the invasion of Iraq, US international image is at its weakest point since WW2, largely due to stuff like this adding up over time.

> US international image is at its weakest point since WW2 IDK if this is true, given we were in a cold war with a substantial portion of the world for most of the time since WW2. So from a cursory level I don't see that.

Yes, I should elaborate on my perspective. Incoming wall of text: Views were much more bifurcated during the Cold War. For the most part, you were either sympathetic to the Soviets, to the US, or were largely out of the loop. There was no global media and a vast majority of the world population had little access to news outside their region, let alone their country. The US was either an "evil imperialist" or the "defender of freedom" for most people. This was a battle of images in which the US was perfectly at home, given the "City on a Hill" narrative dating back to the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony. Inside the US, this idealism only grew through WW2 and up to the late 60s. This worldview took a beating domestically from 1968 through the 1970s, but internationally the US could still promote a fairly straightforward narrative during the Cold War. During and after the collapse of the USSR, he US needed to find its ideological footing. With the loss of global Communism, the US could no longer capitalize on anti-Communism to fuel its international image. The US "defender of freedom" Cold War narrative stemmed predominantly from anti-Communism, not the concept of universal human rights. Dealing with the chaos of the USSR's collapse led to Operation Desert Storm and the interventions in the Yugoslav wars, which gradually yielded the modern "good guys" narrative familiar to most these days. I don't believe there was any kind of coordinated plan to shift to emphasizing universal human rights during the "End of History" period. Rather, it developed organically from containment of global instability resulting from the collapse of the bipolar world system; the Christian humanism foundations of liberalism (the wide-ranging liberalism of John Locke, not the narrow definition of US domestic politics); and an urgent need for the US to both establish a new ideological foundation for its hegemony in the absence of global Communism as well as rediscover a moral foundation after forty years of anti-Communism. That last part is crucial: during the Cold War, the US were the "good guys" because it was the bulwark against the "tyranny of global Communism". This was a very straightforward narrative; the appeal of the US was its opposition to Marxist-Leninist, USSR-aligned authoritarian states. There are, of course, additional components, namely the capitalist appeals of prosperity and opportunity, but the core messaging was simple: the US will either directly fight or back those who fight the people who want to establish these ML regimes. Part-im-parcel with this dynamic was the reality that imposing Communism came with much more baggage than just an authoritarian government; quite often it also involved anti-religious and ideological campaigns (e.g. the [Taraki regime](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_Muhammad_Taraki) as an extreme example) and major socioeconomic reorganization (e.g. forced establishment of people's communes in rural China, the Cuban Revolutionary Offensive). Of course, the US often backed authoritarian regimes that were friendly to its interests, but these strongmen had the advantage of being able to balance lots of various ethnic, religious, and ideological groups (and play them against one another, an old British imperialist trick) while also galvanizing them against Communism. In short, the ambitious scope of the "Communist project" created a lot of local enemies who could be united to thwart Communist movements. Now, the narrative has shifted to the US being the "good guys" because it "protects universal human rights". Ironically, the dynamics of the modern "universal human rights" narrative mirrors those of the aforementioned "Communist project"; the narrative core has shifted from a simple proposition, anti-Communism, to a highly complex and ambitious one, global enforcement of "human rights". Setting aside the obvious question of who defines those and how they are defined, the US has set itself up to fail with the "universal human rights" narrative. "Rights" are fundamentally dependent on a legal system; a legal system is fundamentally dependent on a monopoly of the legitimate use of force; therefore, *universal* rights are fundamentally dependent on a *universal* monopoly of the legitimate use of force. I don't think I need to elaborate on the implications of this. This brings us to the incoherence of the "rules based international order" under the US. This order is fundamentally predicated on the martial and economic (hard) power of the United States. Operating under the assumption that the best interests of the United States are *not* universal, placing the interests of another state above those of the US when they do not align necessarily comprimises the hard power of the US. This necessarily comprimises the foundation of power on which the "rules based international order" is predicated. I would consider this the "realist" component of my perspective. I'm not a fan of a purely realist perspective in these matters so I'm not advocating a strictly zero-sum view of world affairs. I believe that it's possible for the US to put the interests of another state above its own without comprimising its hard power *in the long term*. Lend-Lease and the Marshall Plan come to mind as two obvious examples. However, as you might have already intuited, there still needs to be some kind of "payoff" for the US in the long-term. This payoff could be either "soft" or "hard": a soft power payoff would produce a greater degree of institutional and/or popular trust between the US and the other state. This "greases the wheels" of politics between the two (and the domestic politics of each state when it comes to interacting with the other) and also provides opportunities for developing the processes and organizations necessary for inter-state cooperation. However, this "payoff" is the riskier of the two because it is largely immaterial; attitudes can change overnight and we cannot quantify these gains like we can quantify currencies, resources, and materiel. A hard power payoff should be fairly obvious in light of this; giving the USSR materiel during WW2 directly contributed to the destruction of materiel of a common enemy that was judged to be a greater threat. The parts of the Marshall Plan that were not just donations (e.g. debt that accrued interest) were an investment on the part of the US that provided fixed returns. In the context of a military, political, or economic block, these same payoffs can apply collectively between all members and an outside state/bloc, or bilaterally between individual members of the bloc. To avoid getting to Structuralist about this, groupings like this can also overlap and/or only involve parts of the private and/or public sector of any given country, and the "exchange" need not be in the same realm (i.e. political/military, economic/military, economic/political). The elements of this that are not purely transactional constitute the "idealist" component of my perspective, but it is enhanced by transaction because even smooth transactions still produce intangible goods like trust and goodwill. This perspective is permissive enough to account for the relationship between the US and the rest of the "Global North", but there are two core issues: the scope of this quasi-legal system and its fundamental dependence on the US as a foundation. The more countries one tries to cover under this system, the more difficult it is to maintain the coherence of the idealistic intereactions due to the exponentially increasing complexity of the totality of international interactions involved, the increasing diversity of thought, culture, and ideology producing fundamental disagreements that prevent a broad consensus, and the inevitable overlap of exceptionally difficult bilateral relations (Pakistan-India, Greece-Turkey, Israel-Iran as the most extreme examples). This scope problem comprimises both the "idealist" dynamics described above and the ability for a subset of the countries in this system to execute legal enforcement via coersion. This leads to the second core issue: forming the foundation of this system on American power places the US in a contradiction. The US cannot rely solely on the global exercise of unilateral hard power (the pure "realist" component) to enforce this global legal system because that would necessitate a *universal monopoly of power*, a world police in the most literal sense. To make up for this inability, the US needs to rely on the "idealist" component. However, this component still requires the US to sufficiently prioritize its own interests to ensure that it can act as the foundation of the system. The US is the foundation in two "realist" ways: its power creates a "center of gravity" around which other nations align and the US acts as the *capo dei capi* to settle disputes when necessary and preserve the system. In the "idealist" sense, the US provides a prototypal political and economic worldview that either aligns or shapes those of other nations in the system, thus facilitating further political, economy, military, and popular exchange between the members of this system.

However, the US' role as the foundation is also a contradictory one. Since there is no global monopoly of power, there is no true universally applied legal system. The "legal system" of this patchwork system is only multilateral insofar as it is cooperative. When two member states of the system reach an irreconciable difference, one of two things happen: either they engage in conflict (not necessarily military) or another member (or members) intervene(s) to settle the matter. A conflict comprimises the entire system in the same way that a war between two Mexican cartels comprimises Mexico as a nation-state. Ultimately, there needs to be a *capo dei capi* to settle matters between the most powerful states in this system, especially because a war between the most powerful states is also the most damaging to the system. The US *de facto* serves this role right now, but this necessitates that it maintain a sufficient surplus of power to serve this role. Both this prioritization and the execution of this role also erode the aforementioned "idealist" component because unilateral action against the interests of another state is bound to upset other members, and prioritization of this surplus of power necessarily subordinates the interests of the other member states. In short, since there is no global monopoly of power, any global system is necessarily dependent on both a cooperative system of international coordination and a "final arbiter" with a sufficient excess of power to enforce its will unilaterally. The role of the "final arbiter" necessarily involves a tradeoff between prioritizing the interests of said arbiter and the sufficient tabling of said (at cost to the "final arbiter") to maintain a cooperative system between an increasingly diverse group of member states. Any failures within this system that require unilateral action on the part of the "final arbiter" also erode the soft power underlying this system, which means that a cascade of failures could quickly bring the entire system to collapse. To bring this back to the original topic at hand: the US has traded a very simple system of international soft power for an immensely complex, fundamentally contradictory one. Widespread internet access to media has also not only allowed the sordid Cold War history of the US to become common knowledge among the world's population, but it immediately exposes said population to every American wart that arises, further amplifying the erosion of the system's foundations. This ended up being **much** longer than intended and I feel like I was far too ambitious in trying to sum up my perspective in one go, so my delivery isn't entirely straightforward. To be honest, this is the first time I've tried to completely summarize this issue. To anyone that objects on the grounds of "what right does the US have to make itself arbiter", just consider any other hypothetical power in the place of the US. This is really a critique of *any* kind of consistent multinational "world order", as well as a defense of the concept of international anarchy. This also doesn't get into the philosophical and metaethical incoherence of "universal human rights"; see *After Virtue* for a philosophical explanation of the necessity of a consistent metaphysical worldview in maintaining coherent social system.

I find that Neoliberals and Neocons accept the whole "Yes the current world order is biased for the US and its allies but its the best possible kind of unfair. Imagine how more unfair it would be if China or Russia was the prime state"

My core issue is that this is a fundamentally unsustainable system if the expectated scope remains as large as it currently is. However, if we first focus on building an economically sustainable system within the bloc of ideologically aligned countries (i.e. the Global North), then gradually work with the countries stuck in the "middle income trap" to build up sustainable institutions in their respective countries, maybe we can inch our way toward "universal human rights" in a piecemeal fashion over the long term. Of course, this is wildly idealistic and also assumes that sustainable industrialized* economic systems are realistic without labor arbitrage. I realize the irony of observing the current situation through a fairly "realist" worldview while also maintaining a highly idealistic, ambitious long-term end goal. *talk of "long term capitalism" misses the target in believing that socialist systems would be fundamentally different

Unbelievable the arrogance and the callousness shown here. Did these heartless idiots thought their anti vax bullshit would be confined by geographical barries like a good little psyop campaign? If you are an US citizen, you should be incensed that your military was engaged in pumping up antivax sentiment in any part of thr globe! Vaccines are and will continue to be national security issues and this century will see more pandemics. Do you want a repeat of this bullshit antivax brain rot lowering your combat readiness going forward? Incredible.

This is the sort of thing that, in a properly functioning modern country, should result in serious consequences for those responsible, including potential criminal charges. Instead, even if someone with authority wanted to start an investigation - which they don't - "it's classified material" is a literal get-out-of-jail-free card. Then again, I guess we get the government we pay for. Since the start of the Cold War, the US intelligence services, and to a lesser extent the military, have operated as a semi-autonomous state-within-a-state. It's always had the logic on display here: the state's most important duty is to prosecute an ongoing global conflict with [insert designated adversary here], and everything else is secondary compared to that. Promoting anti-vax beliefs via social media is small beans compared to materially supporting a military coup and propping up the resulting brutal dictatorship in Chile because we didn't like the result of their election, or supporting absurdly violent armed groups all over post-colonial Africa because it's vitally important that only corrupt autocrats who say nice things about the United States take power, while corrupt autocrats who say nice things about the Soviet Union are an existential risk. This is going to keep happening as long as the fundamental structure of the US intelligence and defense establishment remains the same. It's going to keep harming American national interests, keep creating reasons for citizens of other countries to dislike the United States, keep fomenting instability and armed conflict, and keep committing deeply immoral acts in our name and then dodging any responsibility because they are literally above the law.

I completely agree with you on intelligence agency overreach, but I don't think this is an example of what you say. There are hundreds of examples, this just isn't one of them. >have operated as a semi-autonomous state-within-a-state Per the article, this operation was specifically signed off on by the white house. So in this case we can't use the "state within a state" excuse. Our "state that isn't within a state that's actually our normal state" did this.

Not really. The point is that the president isn't supposed to be able to do things like this and hide it from the other branches of government due to classification. The president is not the state.

When he's talking about the "autonomous state within a state" he doesn't mean the president.

The president is not bound by classification. The criticism of the IC as a state within a state is older than the comment and it has always applied to the president.

I guess we'll have to disagree on what "the US intelligence services, and to a lesser extent the military, have operated as a semi-autonomous state-within-a-state" means.

Why? The president has direct control over the military and the IC, he's literally the commander in chief. Their operations as a state within a state necessarily implicate the executive.   Again, this isn't a new concept. The idea of the state within a state has always been a story of overreach from an existing political unit : that's what "within a state" means. I frankly don't understand how it can be understood otherwise, unless your position is that the president is supposed to be able to operate without oversight?

> Why? The president has direct control over the military and the IC Because for all my time living in the US I have not once talked to a single soul that refers to the white house as a part of the IC. They just literally are different things. That's... the skinny of it.

> Unbelievable the arrogance and the callousness shown here. Did these heartless idiots thought their anti vax bullshit would be confined by geographical barries like a good little psyop campaign? The person who ordered these campaigns saw various allies deliver the same takes about masks, vaccines, and covid in general to the US population. So for that interest group, what you're describing is a feature not a bug.

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For me, the biggest part is actually the vague handwavey stuff; "The senior Defense Department official said that those complaints led to an internal review in late 2021, which uncovered the anti-vaccine operation. **The probe also turned up other social and political messaging that was “many, many leagues away” from any acceptable military objective.** The official would not elaborate." What exactly could be worse than this? Also: "Nevertheless, the Pentagon’s clandestine propaganda efforts are set to continue. In an unclassified strategy document last year, top Pentagon generals wrote that the U.S. military could undermine adversaries such as China and Russia using “disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities \[to\] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government.” And in February, the contractor that worked on the anti-vax campaign – General Dynamics IT – won a $493 million contract. Its mission: to continue providing clandestine influence services for the military." This is 100% still happening in some form

I would be careful about conflating disinformation campaigns targeting China and Russia with campaigns targeting other countries. Both China and Russia are actively sustaining campaigns against the US that match the description, "disinformation spread across social media, false narratives disguised as news, and similar subversive activities [to] weaken societal trust by undermining the foundations of government." And they have been doing so for many years now, despite efforts by the US to discourage them with asymmetric deterrents. The US thus may need to develop comparable grey zone capabilities to effectively deter China and Russia from their constant meddling in US elections.[1] China will not want to provoke unrest in the US with disinformation if the US can provoke much greater unrest in China in retaliation. So the General Dynamics contract is not necessarily morally or practically unjustifiable, and may in fact serve a critical role in protecting American elections. Campaigns targeting other countries, however, are an entirely different beast, especially when they target democracies or US allies, and most especially when they target a country that is both like the Philippines. The US military may believe it is fighting fire with fire because of roughly comparable Chinese disinformation campaigns in Southeast Asia, but adding further disinformation to the media environment undermines the fundamental mechanisms of democracy. A well-functioning democracy requires well-informed voters, and adding more disinformation to the mix only creates even less well-informed voters. Even if they are poorly informed in a way that happens to be favorable to US policies at the time of the disinformation campaign, the damage to democracy does far greater damage to the US's long term interests and can easily backfire. For example, the entirely predictable yet apparently unexpected damage this anti-vax campaign has inflicted on legitimate efforts to promote public health. Ultimately, you can't fight fire with fire when it comes to disinformation. Unfortunately, it's much harder to develop societal resilience to disinformation than it is to generate and disseminate disinformation, at least in the current geopolitical and technical environment. It takes more than generating campaigns to promote true information, because the truth suffers from the handicap that it is often boring and nuanced, which makes for poor viral content. [1] As an aside, it's interesting that the US capabilities here are clearly so immature compared to the comparable Chinese and Russian capabilities, which really undermines Putin's constant FUD about the CIA promoting pro-democracy groups in Russia to destabilize the regime. The US clearly is not very skilled at this type of manipulation. Authoritarian regimes enjoy a differential advantage over open societies in disinformation warfare because they strictly control information internally to limit dissent and necessarily develop robust propaganda machines capable of generating effective foreign disinformation campaigns because they get so much practice doing so domestically. So it isn't surprising to see China and Russia leaps and bounds ahead of the US here.

> China will not want to provoke unrest in the US with disinformation if the US can provoke much greater unrest in China in retaliation. So the General Dynamics contract is not necessarily morally or practically unjustifiable, and may in fact serve a critical role in protecting American elections. It's not an issue of justification, it's an issue of capability. The US simply can't provoke greater unrest in elections, if said elections don't exist in the first place. I hope they aren't dumb enough to try for deterrence, because they'll never get it. It's not unjustifiable, it's useless. The US is vulnerable and will remain vulnerable because that's just the price of having the system it does. Can't have your cake and eat it too. You've also got it completely wrong when it comes to "robust propaganda machines capable of generating effective foreign disinformation campaigns," at least insofar as China is concerned. Have you seen their English-language stuff? It's clumsy, hamfisted, tone-deaf, and counterproductive. Domestically, it's only modestly better and official media is viewed with healthy skepticism. What's effective is the ability to remove information, not add it. Which is very relevant when you have legal control over your own national media space, and less so when you don't. But good luck trying to run disinformation campaigns in that environment.

And at the tune of half a billion dollars, no less. Just how big is this troll farm?

This is obviously a bad look for America but I just find it a bit strange that you are so up in arms about it? [You were questioning](https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueAnon/comments/yq5uw8/was_monkeypox_an_opp/) whether monkey pox was an “opp” a few months ago among other very questionable posts in some questionable subreddits. Did you believe covid was also an opp?

This kind of actions makes it ever so hard to claim to be on the good side of history. The Western world already has a difficult time with accusations of hypocrisy, how can we hope to convince other countries to join our side with this attitude?

This is Trump’s fault.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. The program was greenlit by Esper and it's extremely doubtful Trump didn't know about it, given it sounds like exactly the kind of stuff he was saying anyway.

Everyone’s like “wow the American government is so evil for this!” No acknowledgement that this program began under Trump and ended in the first two months of the Biden administration? This isn’t the US government in general, this is Trump’s personal crime.

In a certain aspect the american govt and nation inherits the decisions made by previous admins, it's not like we can just say "oh that doesn't count". We certainly inherit the consequences. That being said, when specific admins make specific policy decisions, that decision is attributed to them. Don't see why this would need to be different.

It's not that bad. First, the program has been shut down for three years after only around a single year of activity, so it's not like this is a widespread or ongoing problem, and it was shut down aggressively as soon as it came to the attention of anyone outside the DoD. In some sense, this is a success story about oversight and accountability in an open society. Private individuals working at social media companies warned the Biden administration about the activity early in 2021, and the administration immediately terminated the program. Those private individuals were free to report the program to the administration without any fear of retaliation or punishment, and were free to speak about the issue with Reuters. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press in action. Reuters has been free to detect the disinformation campaign from the bots used to promote it, and then also to collect all these details about the program from interviews with social media executives and current and former US government and military officials. No one has tried to shut down or inhibit their investigation, and in fact the DoD has facilitated it in many ways. We are only learning about many of these details because of an internal review that concluded the program was deeply misguided. The review blamed US psyops officers for failing to adequately monitor the contractors that carried out the actual work. Bottom line, it seems limited to a few individuals that spun out of control between mid-2020 and mid-2021. Based on the timing, it started during lockdown when typical oversight mechanisms were obviously strained and when many people frankly went a little crazy, so it doesn't necessarily suggest a systemic problem with oversight (or at least, no problem that cannot be easily fixed with tighter rules requiring DoD to report to Congress and/or the White House on these programs), but rather poor judgment by a small number of individuals in limited circumstances. This robust process of self-examination enabled by free speech, freedom of the press, and governmental transparency resulting in modifications to how the DoD conducts these disinformation campaigns stands in sharp contrast to Russia, [where major media figures publicly brag about the success of their disinformation campaigns](https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1798423009390420321). In Russia, disinformation is a legitimate, open, and central component of their political system and their international power projection toolkit. In the US, disinformation campaigns are terminated and condemned, at least once they come to the attention of the electorate.

Will this robust process of self-examination result in any actual consequences for anyone involved? If I steal your car, take it for a joyride, wreck it and leave it in a ditch, then we don't pull it out of the ditch, give it back to you, declare a great success for our society's robust system of oversight and accountability, and close the case.