Trump didn’t just pardon his followers who stormed the U.S. Capitol. He’s now set them up for payments through a slush fund he created to reward his allies—out of your tax dollars. You could not make this up.

I don't think this is negotiable and people need to come out and say it this is maybe most corrupt action ever taken by a united states president, it is an egregious crime against this country, and nobody involved should walk away unscathed

The blood of thousands of Tiananmen students

Actually, SHAPE subjects cross-subsidise STEM subjects in most comprehensive UK universities annually through differential central charge or 'contribution' models. It's another reason we're all in the current HE crisis together, whether our own particular discipline is 'at risk' at present or not.

First he abandoned Ukraine and now he is abandoning Taiwan. Sucks to be a democratic friend of the USA these days.

What we are seeing in China is clear and unmistakable signs of US decline. The US is praising Xi, refusing to defend Taiwan and desperate for Chinese help--and the Chinese know it and love it. This summit might be remembered in history as the end of the US Era. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

BREAKING: King's College London and Cranfield University will merge - their vice-chancellors talk to The Times about their plans www.thetimes.com/uk/education...

OTD in 1955 the Warsaw Pact was formed. A Russian led ‘defensive' alliance that repeatedly attacked itself, its members mysteriously left as soon as they could.

When Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social shared his article about why universities were in trouble and why they need investment, a Labour MP jumped in to say they weren’t a priority for her. She may be surprised at how many people are employed in universities and how important they are to the economy.

It's infuriating the extent to which Labour is so wilfully ignorant of the importance of higher education to the UK economy, as well as the power the government has (but refuses out of hand to use) to save it from a collapse we can all see coming from a million miles away

Kagan gets this exactly right. Trump let Hegseth convince him everything would work out swimmingly. Instead he has cratered US reputation for decades and possibly the global economy, all while emptying our strategic munitions stockpile. So tired of winning.

Steel industry: £1.1bn in GDP and 20,000 employees University sector: £265bn in GDP and 400,000 employees What the fuck am I missing here.

On 23 Nov 2004 German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called me a "flawless democrat" A statement that has stood the test of both time & special military operation & clear evidence he'd be an honest peacemaker.

This 1952 memo from the Pentagon UFO files is superb There is no point preparing for aliens ‘because no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.’ 🤣 www.war.gov/medialink/uf...

“Use AI to brainstorm but not to write.” “Use AI to help you outline but not to write.” These are commonly proposed as “ethical” ways for undergrad students to use AI, but I’m sorry, brainstorming & outlining are just as integral to writing as the actual construction of sentences.

Join me for a presentation on an upcoming article on Coercion and Deterrence at Sea. I'll be presenting with the @dsdkings.bsky.social @warstudieskcl.bsky.social Corbett Seapower Centre on the Cod Wars. ⏰21/05 1800-1900GMT 📍Online www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/warping-th...

Actually Trump would have "accomplished" 3 things. He would have shown the world that the US is a declining and unreliable power, and he would have entrenched a more hardline regime in Tehran to the detriment of the Iranian people. And he would have given Putin lots more money.

Wakefield’s fraudulent paper is one of the worst things to happen to humanity in the past 50 years. It is responsible for countless preventable deaths and ongoing disabilities. He and his supporters are monsters.

OTD in 1941 the Soviets held a May Day parade in Moscow. So they invited their Nazis allies cos it would be rude not to.

We are offering two great initiatives for humanities and social sciences researchers interested in applying to Horizon Europe. On 1st June we are holding an ERC Reading Day where you can read previously successful ERC grant proposals from a selection of 50 www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/projects/eur...

This puts it in perspective: the importance of higher education for the economy of a place like Manchester.

In sum: We've shit the bed and if Europeans were any sort of allies they'd come over and wash the sheets

There's not a single capability mentioned in this article that can't be better and more sustainably provided by or from a maritime platform, but sure Colonel Paintball, landpower is magic. mwi.westpoint.edu/what-does-la...

For himself?

Also I rather suspect the academic achievement gap - boys now trail girls substantially in the aggregate - has a lot to do with these sorts of attitudes pushing male teachers out of primary school education. It is bad and false to tell boys and men that they aren't and cannot be nurturers.

My "Writing the History of the Royal Navy, 1945-2020" is out with IJMH (link in next text), surveying interesting new work by Ed Hampshire and Peter Hore, and covering mistakes in existing work such as the Official History of the Falklands Campaign, and where gaps remain. 1/2

This is actually the normal and legal functioning of a blockade. Blockading ships can order ships running the blockade to stop for inspection - a ship that refuses to stop can be fired upon to make it stop. Ships with contraband or running the blockade can be seized.

Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

Dusting off my favorite tweet

📝 "If we are to have genuine future security, we must be able to deploy hard power, alongside strong allies to safeguard our interests in a range of domains." Read Prof John Bew's latest for @thespectator1828.bsky.social 👇

🗣️ Prof John Bew participated in a panel on ‘Strengthening the Northern alliance’ and later moderated ‘Getting ready – lessons from history’, which examined how a failure to engage with historical precedent has weakened Western readiness.

🚨 Major intervention on defence spending by Lord George Robertson, author of govt Strategic Defence Review, tonight UK’s leaders have shown ‘corrosive complacency’, putting nation ‘in peril’ while it’s ‘under attack’ PM ‘not willing to make the necessary investment,’ he tells @financialtimes.com

OTD in 1990 Soviet Union admitted that Soviet Union carried out Katyn massacre. These are Soviet documents with Stalin personally approving the murder of 22,000 Poles. We blame(d) it on the Nazis. We lie(d). Imagine us committing atrocities today & blaming it on Nazis...

AI shouldn't be writing your first drafts - it really shouldn't be writing at all, but the argument structure and outline are the last topics it should ever be trusted with. Coding help sure, research help sure, looking for errors and being a critic maybe, but all these hot takes about training...

US maritime power has much bigger problems than ships. If the Commander in Chief is torching the national reputation to allies, accommodators, and competitors alike, there is no size of a fleet that will save you.

The trope is that the US achieves its military objectives but fails to translate them into strategic success. In this war even the first part isn't true. www.wsj.com/world/middle...

We’re about to pay Iran $6 billion to re-open the thing that was open before the war. Art of the deal, baby.

The United States has insisted on a free and open Strait of Hormuz for decades. It should not back away from that principled position now. https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2026/april/deal-allows-iran-any-control-strait-hormuz-terrible-idea

Donald calling this a victory is almost as implausible as claiming our retreat from Kyiv was "planned to help secure peace".

Again, if the critical choke points of maritime traffic are truly in conflict, then the US has failed. Because no power has the capability to hold, eg, the Strait of Hormuz open in significant ongoing warfare. It would take a massive, costly operation. The point is to -- bsky.app/profile/noah...

Trump lost this war in every possible sense — morally, legally, politically, economically, reputationally, and strategically.

If Iran’s 10-point peace proposal ends up being even partly accepted by the US and Israel as the basis for the end to hostilities then it’s indisputable that Tehran has won this.

On consideration, I think if the deal stands along the lines that have been reported, with Iran continuing to extract its tolls and without making any other concessions, I'd say this is probably the worst the United States has ever lost a war. Truly a shocking outcome, if it holds.

🚨🎓Funded #PhD opportunity: AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship - ‘𝗣𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗮𝗿’, with Imperial War Museums (IWM) & University of Glasgow @glasgow.ac.uk. Supervised by Tim Peacock, Matt Barr & Ian Kikuchi. Apply by Friday 22 May, 5pm. October 2026 start. Details in next post.

For part 2 of my critique of John Boyd’s representation of Clausewitz, we’re turning our attention to friction, Schwerpunkts, mass, and the overall Clausewitzian critique of Boyd 🧵 in summary open.substack.com/pub/deadcarl...

OTD in 2023 Finland joined NATO, triggering 5th stage of Kremlin grief 1 “NATO is aggressive alliance” 2 “This crosses critical red line” 3 “The West will face terrible consequences” 4 "We remind you Russia is nuclear power" 5 “This is entirely meaningless & changes nothing”

There's a lot of crap on Five Eyes, but this tops it. Five Eyes literally does protect US lives and national security, and supports US interests. No, the "Steele Dossier" wasn't "from" UK intelligence and our Home Secretary is British. Loomer is 🤯 and people in the WH listen to this nonsense.

The answer is that what they are trying to do is extremely hard, borderline impossible without ground troops. So the failure is not the inability to blow up every last missile, drone and launcher in Iran. The failure was political leaders thinking it would be easy to do so.

Trump is incapable of imagining any kind of relationship that is not coercive. The idea of a mutually beneficial alliance is incomprehensible to him. If NATO is not about screwing over Europeans then it must necessarily in his world view be about screwing over the US.