Can you say anything that isn’t a meaningless riddle?

My mood every time the Trump administration says they're close to a ceasefire and I think, "huh, I wonder if I'm wrong and they can get out of this."

Of course the real trick is that writing that post was my way to invoke my bad luck to end the war early. I was sure the moment I hit 'post' a ceasefire would get announced.

I appreciate flattery as much as the next person but it is really funny reading a bunch of 'very clear, lucid analysis, well written, etc. etc.' reposts here and elsewhere for, "this war is dumb as hell." I can't even claim brevity, I spend 7,500 words saying "this war is dumb as hell!"

Bringing back the ancient Greek chorus, with functionally no changes whatsoever except language.

One thing I didn't put in here but is also at play: whatever markets predict, the opposite thing becomes more likely. If markets think Trump will cave and accept humiliation, oil trends lower, making him less likely to do so. If they think he'll fight, it goes up, making him more likely to cave.

Well, I am not sure what my analysis here is worth, but here is my 7,500 word primal scream of a military historian's take on the War in Iran. My best summary: this war is dumb as hell. acoup.blog/2026/03/25/m...

I guess my question is, "what is the first thing to meaningfully break, where is it, and how long do we have until it happens?" Because the thing is, even if the war ends tomorrow, a lot of reduced production is locked in for a while.

Calling it now, the moment they're in a room with Vance they break out a giant Uno Reverse card and Delcy Rodriguez him into power.

Sure would be handy for knowing what is going on with this war to have at least one party to the conflict whose government was not composed of compulsive liars. Oh well!

yes. if claremont hates fed independence they can simply press republican lawmakers to pass a law. but the aim of this place is to transform the chief executive into an elected sovereign whose word is law

Normally I think at @sarahtaber.bsky.social's video explainers are fantastic and to be fair this one (youtu.be/13gQAt7OzxE?...) may be true (she'd know better than I) for the United States. But I would suggest the fertilizer freakout is not about American agriculture, but instead global.

This sounds like a very frustrating way to end up potentially having to repeat Augustus' job in negotiating with Persia to get some legionary standards back. One assumes this is still at the 'providing the executive options' stage rather than a set plan, but still, oof. Risky as hell.

Ah, so we're negotiating with Steve Witkoff's Iran counterpart's secret Canadian girlfriend, I see.

Over 100 updates last week in the #PleiadesGazetteer, plus new records for few settlements, a villa, a mountain, some temples, a small Roman province, the agora of Messene, and the legendary "Wall of Romulus". #ancientGeography #ancientHistory #archaeology #HGIS

αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐφέλκεται ἄνδρα σίδηρος "For iron itself incites men [to violence]" (Odyssey 19.13). One of the great examples of how sharp Greek, especially Homer's, can be in its brevity. The verb, ἐφέλκειν, is literally 'to draw, drag, take in tow,' so the iron itself is dragging men to violence.

Ah, I see markets have chosen to learn nothing over the last year. Neat.

A useful reminder that you *want* 'your side' to be losing military war games a lot. The whole point is to ask, 'how will this go in unfavorable circumstances' or 'what is the worst, most effective way my enemy can come at me?' If your military wins all their war games...those are bad war games.

Predictions are hard, especially about the future, but I am going to take a stab that having ICE goons in body armor doing nothing in airports while people stand in line is not going to make people like them anymore. But also anything they do other than 'nothing' will make people like them less.

In the same way, a lot of folks who opt not to get the subtext of the culture they consume do so because they don't enjoy it, so they won't do it unless someone makes them. I enjoy strategic puzzling, but a lot of people don't. I enjoy thinking about words. I do not enjoy thinking about numbers.

The National Literacy Institute is not a disinterested source here; their business is selling courses. Their numbers do not reflect data from the NCES' study (part of the PIAAC), you know, an actually rigorous study. Also conflating literacy skills with critical reasoning, as here, is a mistake.

After years of calls, events, and track changes, Brian Drohan and I are excited to announce the publication of our edited volume, Military Humanitarianism: Aid Operations and Armed Forces, with @cornellupress.bsky.social in July 2026! www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

So, um... this is bad. Really bad. I looked at the letters that were translated by the AI, and the very first one I found was almost entirely hallucination. Thread:

In line with discussion about the job market, the latest majors being closed at Syracuse University:

medievalists should be more concerned about scholarship appearing from political scientists who work on modern subjects, who decide to try out methods (especially but not exclusively quantitative) on the premodern past WITHOUT at least including a medieval historian on the team. #medievalsky

everything being done now was test run by Republicans on the Humanities for decades and many of our STEM colleagues were silent

LOL, to be fair while the CK2/3 meme content is focused on transgressive behavior (all the murder and incest), 'virtuous' play - no affairs, no assassinations, etc. - is actually a pretty effective strategy, especially for running a large realm where you want to stack +opinion into space.

Folks, Alan is excited to announce that the PPP has been selected to join @officiallotro.bsky.social's Content Creator Program. This successful, long-running, faithful adaptation has often been discussed on the show (as early as episode 66, in the interview w/ Mike Drout, a contributor to the game).

your locus of thought and personnel, when it comes to *strategy*, has got to be people who don't spend most of their youth getting expert on "how do i occupy that building/ridgeline/woodlot over there" traditionally, this is what the *state department,* as in *matters of state* was for

Right. Lots of speculation on this site all week about what the Marine Expeditionary Units headed towards the Persian Gulf might do, most of it pretty unhinged, so this thread is MEU 101. I'll keep adding to it as necessary.

So, of course, 1) lol, this looks awful but 2) This is hardly the first 'Jesus game' attempt and it is so depressing because why would you make a game about being Jesus (a thing none of your players do) instead of a game about being a Christian (a thing rather more people do).

but don't worry, we entirely destroyed Iran's military capacity. it's all gone now.

I really need to pick a good go-to meme for a single, long-drawn out, guttural scream somewhere between horror and anger. Suggestions welcome.

Seems bad.

>a month >then take Kharg >then negotiate [LOAD-BEARING ASSUMPTION: the iranians want to] if you need me i will be drinking in the bathtub with the shower water as hot as possible and creed playing

This week on the blog (acoup.blog/2026/03/20/g...) is a gap of a 'gap week' as I was traveling to speak (and will be again next week), but I have, in essence, reconstructed my talk out of its component parts via a blog reading list, if you want to get a sense of what I said.

It feels vaguely whack-a-doodle that despite the plethora of translations of Thucydides basically everyone - yours truly included - defaults to the Crawley translation because that is what is in the Landmark. That is the Crawley (1874) translation (usually cited to the 1910 edition).

I have a papyrology joke bu[t ca. 15 ].

Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform and never miss an episode! Find all of the relevant links, as well as links to our website, other socials, and online bookshop here: linktr.ee/ancienthisto...

Thinking from a strategic perspective, I would not expect Iran's checkpoint to ever allow anything close to full traffic. They need the economic pain in order to stop the USA and Israel from assassinating their leadership over and over again. So I'd expect Iran-approved shipping to remain token.

So it looks like (www.wsj.com/world/middle...) we are settling in for attempting to just hammer down enough Iranian capability in the strait to make it safe for passage. This seems likely to be very difficult to me, and take a long time. I wish markets understood this.

Are they really trying to blame some rando enlisted instead of the fact that they’re running a brand new carrier into the ground doing random side quests?

I was rereading @bretdevereaux.bsky.social 's blogpost about how fascists are notoriously bad at waging war and it was [morbidly] funny how much of it is applicable to the current administration.

if you think donald trump is doing Grand Strategy instead of just being the rolling katamari damacy ball of desires and grievances he always is you are a fucking moron

My "Ask Me Anything" about white nationalism and Greco-Roman antiquity is Friday at 9AM EDT on www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori.... Hop on and ask a question! (engagement drives the algorithm to make the post more visible to more people so it really helps!)

mill's dedication: this is a jointly authored work a century & a half of male editors: mill exaggerated out of a sentimental fondness for his wife mill's letters: no, really, most of "my" work was partly by her, i really could not be clearer on this

Seems bad.

They could be upholding women's property and legal rights, but no, they just decided to double down on the Spartan practice of harassing and murdering an ethnically somewhat-distinct underclass to try to intimidate them into doing manual labor for minimal compensation.

Just incredible what a disaster Fetterman has been.