True Promise I and II may go down as the most cataclysmicly counterproductive military operations in history. Shattered threat perception on Iran in to a million tiny pieces.

Three possibilities, possibly overlapping, none of them good for China's ability to fight: A) the PLA is so ludicrously corrupt that basically everyone above a certain rank is either involved or knows about it and is compromised by it

No, Reddit automatically scrubs that data. And the sub was almost certainly in port at the time.

Reading a book, originally written in Russian, that uses Chinese words regularly, but A) the Russian author clearly did not speak Chinese and B) there are no tones. So an already borderline unintelligible experience becomes truely unintelligible.

This is oughtslop. You only like it because its what ought to be.

Some thoughts on the recent Oreshnik madness: open.substack.com/pub/horsdoeu...

Theres a lot of talk about Oreshnik being a "psychological weapon." This is, I think, an oversimplification - its true that Oreshnik has some operational limitations. I would argue that those limitations are not all that different than other conventional ballistic missiles.

Seeing potentially credible reports and videos of a new Oreshnik launch against Ukraine tonight.

My latest in Foriegn Policy, where I pour cold water on normative arguments with the technical reality. foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/06/v...

Trying to commit to reading 3-4 books a month. Here is January's reading stack.

[black SUVs pull up to a ski chalet in Vermont] "You're a hard man to find...Mr. Bremer." "Apparently not hard enough." "We need you. One last job."

What is a "black swan" military performance? That doesn't make any sense.

putin is already pretty unconstrained in ukraine (the people saying "zelensky is next" seem unaware russia has tried to kill him many times). the bigger danger is it emboldens putin to step up sabotage and hybrid warfare in europe

Funniest tweet of the year so far.

Yemen, Iran, and now Venezuela, without a single aviation casualty. That's really amazing.

A federal judge waking up, checking his email, and seeing the Maduro arraignment on his schedule

I am going to caution against people assuming that he must have been turned over by the Venezuelan military - much too early to tell. Lack of anti-air fire can be explained by lack of readiness/competence and US SEAD/DEAD.

We have identified what is likely the first technical support area in Belarus for the Oreshnik missile. www.reuters.com/world/europe...

Some very brief thoughts on the Navy force design discussion: "But I think as a whole the direction the US Navy’s force design is going is defensible if you understand how these pieces go together." open.substack.com/pub/horsdoeu...

I've been listening a lot to Rush's "Between the Wheels" from their hit 1984 album Grace Under Pressure, a song that compares suffering though the modern media environment's constant drumbeat of news to being a rabbit getting hit by a car

Swen is correct to make fun of you.

Every year that goes by Todd Howard looks more and more like an Italian banking executive

Why is this still going. Some of us have bedtimes

YEEEEEESSSSSSS

I'm glad that Space King exists as it causes the 10% of the Warhammer 40k community with the worst opinions to self label themselves so I can more efficiently ignore their opinions.

Amazing.

I'm sorry, what?

If American companies cannot supply a cheap weapon that consistently works in Ukraine, then the entire idea of mixing high and low capability weapons in the Pacific is dead on arrival. If you can't deal with Russian EW then you definitely aren't going to like Chinese EW.

When you eject the floppy disk a little too hard

Canceling the constellation class was good and nessessary and will allow the Navy to focus on more achievable capabilities and goals. I understand this is an unpopular opinion, but its also the correct one when taking into account the constraints the Navy is operating under.

Verstappen winning the champ via disqualifications would not be good, but it would be very, very funny.

Gunter was streaming himself playing modded HOI4 kicking the shit out if the Russians

I have never understood the idea that rotating a map of Asia 90° will suddenly unlock some revolutionary new perspective. The places are in the same spots. Everything that can be said about Asian security problems can be said with a north up map.

My dad, who has worn the same pair of tan New Balances for 30 years, arrived to this wedding location wearing *black* New Balances. When questioned, he explained that these were his dress New Balances, for special occasions. Of course.

The president certainly just wants 1 to 1 flight testing, which is not the same thing as nuclear explosions (and flight testing DOES live within the DoW).

Most of the takes I see on Russia-US nuclear issues over the past 48 hours are well reasoned but may fall victim to overthinking. Putin likes Brevestnik because its his pet project. Trump wants to do 1 to 1 flight testing to match.

This is with no exaggeration how it feels sometimes to read FOIA documents.

In our latest, @dexeve.bsky.social and I change it up by combining an analysis of satellite imagery and military writings to assess what the deployment of Russian nuclear weapons in Belarus means for Russia's escalation management strategy. 1/? www.cna.org/analyses/202...

More terrific work from @gabrielairosa.bsky.social, @dexeve.bsky.social & the CNA team. Come for smart analysis on what nuke infrastructure is/not in Belarus & what signals Moscow & Minsk are trying to send. Stay for Russians grappling with realities of war not matching theories of war.

Another related problem is that while GW continues to claim the setting is a satire, none of the current main line writers treat the setting like that, so the main line plot now takes itself way too seriously and has lost all hint of satire or irony. Case in point: the new Terra books.

respectfully, you could not be further from the mark 😂

The new DLC for Rogue Trader looks rad, but the idea of spending another 50 hours playing the Rogue Trader combat system makes me want to blow my brains out

I think we count every new PM France gets as a new republic simply because it would be funny.

Tom Clancy would have been just an incredible poster. He'd have 500k followers and a name like "TomCatOSINT" or something. He'd have 100 tweet threads on Russian carrier tactics that end with recommendations on the best places in the Barents to place tactical nuclear mines.

Behind the pageantry are clues about China’s nuclear and strategic ambitions. @dexeve.bsky.social sits down with @nktpnd.bsky.social to discuss. Listen here: warontherocks.com/ep...

If I had a nickel for each time my undergraduate institution contributed to getting an entire city filled with DHS/national guard, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but its weird it happened twice

Intentionally giving your child autism is a very high risk high reward scenario. On the one hand, he could grow up to be Richard Nixon. On the other hand, he could grow up to be Richard Nixon

open.substack.com/pub/horsdoeu... Folks, some thoughts on missile defense defeat strategies in other countries, with Pakistan as an example.

I have written some thoughts on why we're suddenly obsessed with counting craters. horsdoeuvresofbattle.substack.com/p/who-won-ke...