It‘s been a while since a poem gave me such delight in form and content. A. E. Stallings “The Maze” www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I reiterate my call that the Joint Requirements Oversight Council should be superseded by a Joint Council of (Lance) Corporals. If they think it’s dumb, it’s immediately defunded.

It was called “Just Drones” and it was on the ethics of targeted killings using drones, comparing mainly the JWT of Walzer and McMahan. I wrote it in 2013. Best is the Marine Corps then made me drone pilot (Unmanned Aircraft Commander).

This article is excellent.

War will forgive many sins, but not the confusion of aims and desired outcomes. The war on Iran follows an American tradition of striking with precision in the absence of strategy. But as with all these days, it's got that extra...je ne sais quoi warontherocks.com/tactical-suc...

Captain Ahab remained invisibly enshrined within his cabin.

Hope with all my heart that my beloved country won’t commit further atrocities under the current corrupt leadership. The miasma of moral weight caused by such heinous acts will hang over us for a very long time. The contrast with the joy of the moon mission is so sharp. That’s who we’re meant to be!

there are many horrors contained in the Trump admin's war in Iran. but one of the lesser ones is the way he has turned us into the audience for his reality TV show. will he or won't he? tune in at 7! grotesque voyeurism that implicates us all.

FD2030 remains vindicated

At least now I know what the Brits felt like watching their global prestige collapse during the Suez Crisis.

guy who has only read Henry V.... "im getting strong Harfluer vibes here"

If you leave biscotti and espresso out for Giulio Douhet, he’ll bring you another century of misused airpower.

Well I sincerely hope there isn’t a *third* time we land C-130s at a desert airstrip in Iran, after how this time and the previous time went. Incredible that none of the rescuers were killed and a testament to them, but holy shit, talk about history rhyming.

Days - 1500 Casualties - 1,380,000🌻 Economy - ⬇️💩🚽 ☢️threats - 🥱 War crimes - ♾ NATO - +🇫🇮&🇸🇪 Arrest Warrants- ↗️ Warships- ⛴️⏬ Aircraft - 🚀💥 Submarine - Sub marine Oil refineries - 🔥 Oil exports - ⬇️40% Dead generals - 20+ Army - Stuck Trolls - Coping Red lines - Crossed I remain a master strategist.

Writing is thinking and hard and painful and worth all the damn effort.

All senior officers serve at the pleasure of the President. Firing lots of them is a bad idea both because it squanders talent and causes the public to view our military as partisan.

Congrats to the new attorney general and army chief of staff Marcos Rubios

@iantb.bsky.social I just learned about remarks Boyd made to the USMA in 1987. Do you know anything about this?

👇👇👇

“Did we hit the given object? Exactness. Ought we have hit the object? Appropriateness. Or, in Clausewitzian terms: Can we hit at which we aim? Tactical precision. Ought we have hit that object? Strategic accuracy.” Points that have gone entirely unheeded.

“Targeting Clausewitzian Judgments: Fusing Precision and Accuracy to Strategy and Tactics” It’s fun to remember, I already wrote the thing I would like to say! @thestrategybridge.bsky.social thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2...

Re-upping my article from 2018 for @warontherocks.bsky.social “Geopolitical Gerrymandering and the Importance of Key Maritime Terrain“ warontherocks.com/2018/10/geop...

This is phenomenal. And, even better, I might be able to use it in my dissertation! www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/o...

Wow! Learn about the other 304! Opha May Johnson is not the first female Marine you’re looking for. h/t @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social

Contemplating the impermanence of life.

C^1 is command. This prose poem from 1986 is fire. My hat’s off to Greg Todd.

Excellent. From 1986 and aged very well.

Enjoy the delightful infographics from this 1992 work on Command Control. It holds up in reading, believe it or not, although perhaps not in seeing.

These are the indicative estimates of Russia’s combat losses as of March 25, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

A Lieutenant GENERAL made this.

For as corny as these images are, the book is delightful. Imagine a explainer book written about AI in war now that holds up in 35 years.

So, about those Eid prayers in London... "What's the highest thing in Trafalgar Square?" "Nelson's column, innit?" "And the highest thing on the column?" "Nelson." "And on Nelson?" "His hat." "And the highest thing on his hat?" "That bit that sticks up." 1/8

Please caption. Graphics from the 90’s are always excellent in the most terrible way. From ‘Command and Control for War and Peace’ by Thomas P. Coakley

"What exactly do our service members think we’re trying to do in Iran?...This isn’t simply about rhetoric, but about a fundamental view of power & its relationship to violence that filters down to strategy.” Powerful challenge from @philklay.bsky.social about American traditions of morality in war.

Some enterprising think-tanker should calculate the number of US maritime strike weapons (TLAM, JASSM, LRASM) used in Iran vs Ukraine. (I'll help. It's zero in Ukraine.)

It’s shameful and dangerous for the guy who wrote an article about military education to incite a mob to violence against @bradduplessis.bsky.social, @ryanevans.bsky.social, and @warontherocks.bsky.social for engaging its content. This is how republics die.

No strategic theory can compensate for that either…

Fast and Epic Furious (2027)- Dominic Torreto (Vin Diesel) and friends must run commercial oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz against an array of threats from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei (Jack Black)

Schrödingers Strait.

In shock news, the US Secretary of War doesn’t understand war.

So Martin van Creveld ends his 'Command in War' with a very mangled Laozi quote -- it's a bastardization of parts of DDJ 35 and DDJ 11. I'm trying to figure out where he may have gotten it? Thoughts? One idea I had is via Martin Buber who did Hebrew>German>English>Chinese translations, but IDK.

"There are countries where it is not uncommon for officers who have served well in a war to be reduced in rank when peace arrives. Would it not be a good thing if in certain departments of government the officials, or some of them, were reduced in rank whenever war breaks out?" 1/

Chile’s Chinese submarine cable dispute disrupts the Kast–Boric transition, exposing how U.S.–China rivalry is reshaping digital infrastructure and geopolitics in South America.

Another day of monitoring the situation