If it can be about building a ballroom, it can be about gun laws too. Policy choices.

AI: bad for education.

I was 100ft from a shooting a few weeks ago (walking my dog) and my daughter experienced a mass shooting at her workplace that killed 23 people and injured 22 more. Gun violence is a policy choice.

shankskaurin.wordpress.com/2025/04/21/m... And yes. Which is why you need more of this.

“in combat, the application of land power leads to killing but should never involve murder.” Military Review article proposing an ethical decision making model for the Army: www.armyupress.army.mil/journals/mil...

Hey guys it's totally fine that top military & health leaders are anti-vaxx, right? No historically examples we should pay attention to or anything? Cool cool cool

I read some decidedly nerdy stuff on #strategy. But this article on what chess ♟️ can teach us about the war in Iran takes the check. They had me at “Nash Equilibrium”. sentinelgeopolitics.substack.com/p/epic-fury-...

Great article for those who think about #wargaming, and especially those who think #AI is the answer. AI is an answer, but maybe not to the problem you’re trying to solve. @warontherocks.bsky.social

Still time for MWG Members to apply for these outstanding FUNDED #writing fellowships. Not a member of @milwritersguild.bsky.social? Check out the website. Join us!

Boycotting H-E-B… In Texas… Sure. Some Texans may hate woke, but they love fresh tortillas more.

"An administration that is so obsessed with what it considers the protection of Western civilization should pay some attention to the just war theory that has become a key accomplishment of that civilization."

SUPER excited about these new MWG opportunities! Took a ton of work and years to get it off the ground. Highly recommend MWG members apply for these fully funded writing retreat opportunities!

“A successful outcome on the battlefield is not the purpose of the war itself. Operations on the battlefield, however brilliantly performed, are without practical value if they do not contribute to achieving a worthy political objective.” @warontherocks.bsky.social warontherocks.com/tactical-suc...

Can civil-military relations scholarship provide prescriptive normative guidance for military leaders' appropriate behaviour in democratic backsliding? My new article in @journalofgss.bsky.social debates this civil-military conundrum academic.oup.com/jogss/articl... #CivMilSKy

Illiberalism is not Inevitable www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

"most wars demonstrate the limits of military power, especially when unsupported by a realistic political strategy.” @ldfreedman.bsky.social

Wars assume lives of their own, initiated for one reason, continued for others, concluded for yet another. Afghanistan was this way. So is America’s war of choice in Iran. Begun over uranium enrichment & missiles; fought for control of the Strait of Hormuz; why or how it ends is anyone’s guess.

No wars occurs in isolation. Deep historical experiences and dynamic societies exist on all sides of conflict that shape how we got here and influence the way forward. Strategic empathy isn’t about feeling bad for the adversary, it’s about understanding how past experiences affect future outcomes.

Ok on a serious note, it cannot be exaggerated how bad formalized Iranian control of the Strait is for the world. The entire global economy rests on an American guarantee of free commercial shipping. That guarantee is gone. We don’t know exactly what will happen but none of it will be good.

Freedom of Navigation isn’t free…

Engaging not to be a hater, but because this is quality discourse to platform: That said, as a German historian, I don’t think there’s any way you can argue that conservativism and fascism are ideologically the same. Thread 🧵

If Trump does give an order to attack civilian targets that have no military value as a means of collectively punishing the Iranian people - and make good his threat to begin a genocide - Marco Rubio should resign and the military must refuse the order. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Good thread. The difficulty in ending the war (considering Israeli involvement) is something we see in Clausewitz’s conception of the center of gravity in a coalition: if two states attacking a third have independent means and motives, you have two wars 🧵 open.substack.com/pub/deadcarl...

Highly recommend to any journalist covering U.S. strikes in Iran this @justsecurity.org explainer by Margaret Donovan & Rachel VanLandingham www.justsecurity.org/135797/war-c...

thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2... #OnObedience #DisciplinedDisobedience

It’s far more complicated than “support the Troops”.

Curiously, I hear nothing from the "Ukraine is destroying our ability to defend Taiwan" crowd these days.

Happy NATO founding day to all who celebrate! If you think the alliance isn’t worthwhile, know that everything the U.S. tries to do in the world will be harder and more expensive without allied help. Trade them for better allies if you can find any. I can’t.

I am seeing stuff in the TL that makes me feel a need to say something. I know every time the US goes to war, people respond with this rather bifurcated Support The Troops vs Eww Troops Do War Things. So to be clear, people serve for various reasons but nobody wants to be involved in war crimes.

In my last job I read every firearm CCIR in the total Army (active, NG, Reserves). Every. Day. Suicide, malfeasance, domestic violence, and accidents are done with private firearms. By a ratio of more than 10:1. 1/4

The last 24 hours have raised questions and attention about the Secretary of Defense's role in General Officer promotions.

"The question he asked was whether political leaders could ever build in the discipline of thinking about termination before they committed their forces.” Smart piece from @ghoshworld.bsky.social

As someone who studies politicization of democratic militaries this statement on X is a five- alarm fire. It creates an undeniable permission structure for overt partisan behavior by mil. It's part of a concerted effort by civilian leaders to turn the U.S. military into a partisan aligned force.

As last weeks attack on a USAF E3 at a Saudi air base, and the lack of drone interceptors in the Middle East shows, we in the West at times can be slow learners. The same can’t said for China. What might they be learning from the war in Iran? mickryan.substack.com/p/what-is-xi...

“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...

This was expected which is why no one ever attacked Iran

"What this war exposes, then, is a failure not only of strategy but of literacy."

61 years ago, the first 3,500 Marines of 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade landed in Vietnam to secure U.S. airbases against enemy attacks.

On the possibility of the US seizing Kharg Island, William Hickman had some things to say in a 1983 edition of the NWC Review, which I will quote in this thread. 1/n www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44636275.pdf?refreqid=fastly-default%3A8a508e9d69a5df5858735196a1452802&ab_segments=&initiator=&acceptTC=1

Tactics without strategy… www.csis.org/analysis/ira...

I have an escalation management joke, but somebody beat me to it.

On the risks of measuring behavior: “A strategy of attrition does not require maximum effort every day.”

Current events reminded me of a political button given to me by a previous boss, Congressman Phil Crane, when he was Chairman of the House Trade Subcommittee. Crane ran in the 1980 GOP presidential primary - to the RIGHT of Reagan. Just an observation on how political ideology has shifted.

Walking my dog last night. Stopped when I noticed a fight a few doors down. Then the all-too-familiar sight and sound of muzzle flashes. Life in a “safe neighborhood” in America. Similar incident a few years ago in Europe; I intervened to stop a domestic dispute. Not here. Guns don’t make us safer.

He wasn't just an asylum seeker. Paktyawal was an Afghan special forces soldier who worked with the U.S. Army's 3rd Special Forces Group. He was evacuated on August 30, 2021, entered the U.S. legally and had a pending case with a work permit and social security number. Killed by ICE maggots.

A short take of the DOD's war against the English language. Warfighter? Warrior? GMAFB. Soldier, sailor, airman, & marine are more than sufficient descriptors & speak to their higher calling, one more so than the self-actualization of making war & bullshit of those terms so beloved by so many.

1. Exposing service members to challenging ideas is the intellectual equivalent of the hard PT that the Secretary reveres. Removing those ideas creates weakness by eliminating the kind of cognitive friction that service members need to get used to if they are going to operate effectively.

“Section 14 of the Press Law ordered editors ‘to keep out of the newspapers anything which…tends to weaken the strength of the German Reich, outwardly or inwardly.’” - William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, p. 405