I was just disinvited from the Air War College where I’d been asked to lecture on my book, which is a history of U.S. civil-military relations.

The current US macro environment is not unprecedented in its components, but the simultaneous convergence of fiscal stress, energy shock, geopolitical rivalry, and Treasury market strain is historically rare.

✋ Former USG war crimes lawyer here. Apropos of SecDef's remarks this morning: Denial of quarter—even the declaration of no quarter—is a war crime. And recognized as such by the US Government. From DoD's Manual for Military Commissions.

“Go to a bar and shout, ‘Who can shoot an anti-tank weapon?’ All the men will stand up,” says Oskari Jaakkola, chief executive officer of Finnish battery startup Cactos and an army reservist with the rank of lieutenant. #Defence www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

DISTRACTIONS DON’T WORK. COVERUPS WON’T WORK. NOT EVEN WAR. RELEASE THE EPSTEIN FILES.

Should EU double down on investing in quantum processing research? The current AI ecosystem is built around extremely energy intensive linear compute. Companies like IQM, in Europe, are pushing the envelope which may disrupt the disruption, sooner than later. Could we literally quantum leap?

Lots of questions and muddled thinking about whether the impending fossil fuel crisis will benefit coal. Key thing to understand: Fossil fuel demand will fall; fuel-switching between coal and gas is temporary, while clean energy acceleration is structural. Just look at the 2021-2022 gas crisis.

The Danish energy minister is urging people to avoid driving ICE cars because of the energy crisis. Meanwhile the price of electricity is essentially zero. Besides EV car charging, I’m sure the Danes have many #eBikes

The concentration of desalination infrastructure in the Persian Gulf has created a vulnerability of extraordinary scale.

As a professional military strategist, I just wanted to make sure everyone has a full understanding of the American strategy in Iran, thank you for your attention to this matter

Now, a major issue here is that the state of USN mine countermeasure capabilities is... not good. As you might have seen, the last of the old Avenger-class was shipped out of the Gulf in *January*. Something which once again is very much on brand for the complete lack of long-term planning by Trump.

Claude Code is now charging 25$ per code review, 50$ for deep reviews. But what’s the real cost, once VC subsidies run out? The 200$ Pro subscription reportedly costs them 5000$. So sustainably we’re looking at x35 markups with margins, down the road. Don’t fire your engineers just yet.

I believe a digital town square is a natural monopoly. It can coexist with regional and niche solutions, but there is a distinct need for a centralized system-level meeting place. Europe doesn’t have one. So we try to rent a corner of US or Chinese town squares. A bad idea.

EXCLUSIVE: EU Inc draft shoots for a regulation. The proposal sets out a plan for an EU interface that founders could use to input information which would then be transmitted to existing national registers. 🔗 https://eurac.tv/9YqL

Europe needs her own digital platform. Or we will continue to pay more than 50 billion euros rent, annually, to American and Chinese platforms. And federated/decentralized solutions, while supplementary, do not address this need. open.substack.com/pub/jpahonen...

We need a managed-in-EU social media / digital town square. We need the control to protect against foreign propaganda, bots, trolls. And it needs Ads, so that European companies can stop paying for foreign digital ads to reach European people. Currently we are bleeding €50B every year.

OpenAI watching Satya Nadella announce Copilot Cowork powered by Claude.

A very good listen. President Stubb makes some very good points in the interview (and a few good puns!). therestispolitics.supportingcast.fm/listen/the-r...

Now, I look at that “€50B annually”. And I think maybe we should repatriate some of that back to Europe. Click to read my thoughts about how we could do that. open.substack.com/pub/jpahonen...

If you believe, like I do, that digital sovereignty is increasingly critical to Europe, perhaps even existentially so, please click here to consider an initiative: www.openpetition.eu/petition/onl...

Tässä ehdotuksessa ei kyllä oikeastaan ole kuin voittajia. Tai no, Kremlin roisto häviäisi. Mutta sitä me ei lasketa. Eihän? www.mtvuutiset.fi/artikkeli/it...

Read our analysis of the video showing a US Tomahawk missile strike next to Girls’ School in Iran on February 28 here: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

One way to look at the US war against Iran: The US may have a 67 fold advantage in nominal GDP, but when comparing the cost of a drone and an interceptor missile the difference is 200 fold… against the US.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang rarely shows concern about competitors. Yet one European company, IQM Quantum Computers, may be giving him reason to pause.

There are days when I dream of being back in basic training in the army, where the most complex thing I had to stress about was a company gear check, and a missing firing pin.

Jos nyt jollekin oli epäselvää niin minulta irtoaa heti ääni liittovaltion puolesta. EU:lla on riittävästi historiallista ja poliittista kulttuuripääomaa luoda uuden sukupolven liittovaltio. Coalition of the Willing tarjoaa keinon päästä liikkeelle.

If AWS starts feeling sluggish it could be because the EMEA regions around Iran are being migrated to deal with damage from Iranian drones.

Called it: US congress failed to curb Trump’s war with Iran: falsify.app/p/B4DFJ6AUoO...

Falsify.app promotes critical and transparent thinking: it helps you make falsifiable predictions, learn from them, and make sense of the world. I've just launched it: www.indielaunchers.com/product/e91b...

falsify.app/p/M52Qzf00Gt... Iran to strike desalination plants — The plants provide 60% of fresh water in region, turning them into strategic targets to apply pressure

Spanish Prime Minister following Trump's threats: "We will not be complicit in something that is bad for the world and that is also contrary to our values ​​and interests, simply out of fear of reprisals" #Iran #Trump #tariffs

Da moon.

🚨 BREAKING: Macron announces increase in France's deployed nuclear warheads. He adds that France will no longer communicate about how many warheads France is deploying. This is a major change in France's nuclear posture.

One of the hallmarks of the US power system is their blindness to how detrimental it is to consider military outcomes insulated from political outcomes. If an operation creates a power vacuum, it’s not a success. You can win every battle and still lose the war. Again.

was just watching this - at least can say we saw the first. bsky.app/profile/altw...

Never forget who you’re fighting for.

Looks like Iran has decided on three types of targets: US military bases in the region (Bahrain & others), oil infrastructure (eastern Saudi Arabia) and, perhaps most escalatory of all, densely populated urban areas to maximise economic and political impact (Dubai).

Tiniest violins for the many European tax exiles and gangsters who never quite understood how much of a geopolitical house of cards the UAE is

Tax breaks for his rich buddies...

I served in the military for 20 years. Afterwards, I devoted another 25 years directly supporting the military, as contractor and civilian. For those serving now, you are either participating in or supporting an illegal war. The orders to commit were illegal. You have an obligation to resist.

Update: The total number of little girls killed at an elementary school in Minab, Iran, by the US and Israel has risen to 51. The entire community is devastated, families destroyed.

My line on BBCr4 Today on the Iran strikes was this. Last June there were intensive US/Iran talks under way. Aborted by Israeli strikes on Iran which US joined. I think this is similar. The US-Iran-Oman talks seemed to be going well. Netanyahu preempted, and Trump felt he had to follow 1/5

Prediction (by Dec 2026): ICE/DHS/NG occupy voting stations in GA/AZ/MI/PA/WI; voter suppression widespread. WH rejects non-GOP results, SCOTUS ordered to overturn via “emergency.” 100+ opposition arrested/removed. If true, US midterms mark shift from functioning to performative democracy

Would it be possible for Iran to take out a carrier? They’re one of the leading drone manufacturers. I wonder if it’s possible they could swarm the group defenses?

Do you use falsifiable predictions as a thinking tool? I do it often. I think I see a pattern, I make a prediction of the outcome, and then put a “wager” in my calendar at the end of the timebox. It helps me critique my own thinking, protects against worst of gloomy thoughts.

“Why did you take your kids from Finnish school - the best in the world! - to Greece?” I get this question at least twice per week. Tl;dr: the image of high quality Finnish education is utterly outdated, and for example in reading skills now scores below US.

I find it bizarre that even in anonymous discussions almost everyone avoids making falsifiable predictions. There's no social cost to being wrong anonymously. Which means the avoidance is internal, and that's the more interesting problem: You can't correct a belief you've never committed to.