hazing and gang initiation are very similar activities that produce similar outputs

The biggest reason for them on a personal level is that they allow you to return home with honor. They allow you to begin to see yourself as someone who is worthy and deserving of love and respect. They allow you to accept the love and respect of others, and to begint to rebuild your life.

Lastly, they are for the soul of your nation and your cause. Limits on war preserve humanity. Mercy transcends violence. After the fighting, there has to be something more. Rules of engagement and the laws of armed conflict protect you; abandoning them is dire.

I realized this was the case for a lot of other attorneys when the AI citation sanctions kept coming

my view on this is that publishers should stop it with the 80k wordcount obsession, so many contemporary non-fic books are obviously 40-50k pieces of work stretched to the extent that they become very boring to read - just let people write cheaper, shorter books! www.theguardian.com/books/2025/d...

"Now, the first, the greatest, the most decisive act of judgment that the statesman and commander exercise is that of understanding the war which he undertakes correctly in this respect, and not take it for—or seek to make it—something it, by nature of its circumstances, cannot be."

The only statistic you need to know about the effectiveness of the air war in WWII was the Luftwaffe had a grand total of 380 operational aircraft on the Eastern and Western front to stop a combined 17,000 Allied and Soviet aircraft supporting Operation Overlord and Operation Bagration

I can't remember who offered up "orders that are illegal to give but not to follow" point recently, but that's basically it as far as this whole stupid war goes an illegal war "strategically" does not have direct bearing on whether a specific tactical action violated LOAC

I think it’s bad that “war with Turkey” is something people are getting more comfortable throwing around

American newspaper advocates to "contain" arguably the most geographically and militarily important NATO member in order to benefit a non-NATO member

"...that it can maintain itself in a state of perfect readiness to engage in war immediately and decisively and win a total victory soon after the outbreak without destroying its own economy, pauperizing its own people, and promoting interior disorder." -- 'Men Against Fire', SLA Marshall (1947)

"The belief in push-button war is fundamentally a fallacy. But it is not a new fallacy. It is simply an age-old fallacy in modern dress. There is one controlling truth from all past wars which applies with equal weight to any war of tomorrow. No nation on earth possess such limitless resources... /1

I'll say again that everything that happened is how submarine warfare has always worked. But also, it is fair to say when submarine warfare started, it was hugely controversial for the same reasons that everyone is saying now.

Ukraine's F-16 fighter jets didn't have enough missiles to shoot down Russian drones and missiles for more than three weeks after supplies from Kyiv's partners dried up just as Moscow was preparing a massive winter air campaign, three sources said.

W/n last 48 hrs 4 families received notifications that forever changed their lives. 2 more will shortly; their unit is still very much in the fight. It is impractical to expect protection everywhere, but we should expect leaders to talk about the gravity of these losses with sincerity and reverence.

Maybe I'm kirking out but the unreality of this war is wild. People posting that thousands of Kurds are fighting the regime for the CIA, while the Kurds say it isn't happening. Every video of a missile attack I just have to assume is AI whether it is real or not.

Depends if we are having the domestic A1S8 or the international side of that conversation, but in both cases the "declaration" part is mostly now archaic. The modern standards are if the attack meets ad bellum reqmt for entering an armed conflict, and the in bello standard for action in conflict

@bradduplessis.bsky.social just saw this. Not sure if it’s real, but if so I don’t know if the Republic of Iraq is going to get a choice.

January 31st, 2012. We called in A-10s. Killed four Taliban. I remember the bodies. Teenagers. Twisted wrecked flesh Making killing a video game isn’t just obscene. It’s a lie. It papers over what violence is and what it does to the human body, and to our soul. Truth is always the first casualty.

Last night, I spoke to former Army Pfc. Jeremy Watson who said this about Capt. Cody Khork: “[he] enjoyed being in the service…and was a great coach,” who taught him “Compassion, friendship, loyalty…[and] to always try to stay positive when you can.”

So, war.

For years on my old blog I published the names of servicemembers who died in Iraq & Afghanistan. No other outlets were. These are the first 4 Americans to die in the Iran War. Capt. Cody A. Khork, 35 Sgt. 1st Class Noah L. Tietjens, 42 Sgt. 1st Class Nicole M. Amor, 39 Sgt. Declan J. Coady, 20

This also helps explain why strategic ballistic missile defense for the US and large areas is a losing bet - as long as offense is cheaper than defense. Nitze still has the best construct - to work defenses have to be cost effective at the margins.

Well known BMD L

A Saudi official saying this on Al Jazeera, a Qatari media outlet, is far more telling than any nugget of information carefully leaked to an American media outlet. This war will permanently alter the relationship of the Gulf states, the US, and Israel.

A scrimmage in a Border Station — A canter down some dark defile — Two thousand pounds of education Drops to a ten-rupee jezail — The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride, Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

Trump’s Term 1 folks said he wanted out of South Korea entirely.

I had a client who lived in a termite mound for a month to escape the Nigerian military but I'm sure this is hard too

The "rally-around-the-flag" effect is not some law of physics that works automatically. It largely seems to happen because 1) the opposition party stops criticizing the president or the military operation, 2) partially as a consequence, the mass media is flooded with pro-government messages. /1

A core finding of my forthcoming book on the history of US CT in Afghanistan is that you cannot, in fact, just kill people you think are bad and have it all be fine 🙄

I recommend reading or re-reading Fahrenheit 451 in these days.

“For the last 250 years in this country, it’s been the judges that say this is either constitutional or it isn’t…. [If] nobody’s going to enforce the Constitution, it becomes like the Constitution of Russia,” says Judge John Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee. cbsn.ws/4bgCE3T

Small booms

Read both and make up your own mind. I read them before a planned trip to Iran several years ago that never happened because Khamenei himself decided to shelve our visas at the last moment.

Join @dblesky.bsky.social and @sorenpetro.bsky.social on the Kauffman Corner YouTube live stream! Watch and comment with the link below… tinyurl.com/3b524ap8

What Eric is not saying here is that this is hard work. Getting it wrong in a profession where the stakes are so high stays with you. I know it does with me. Only someone who shouldn’t have been in a position of trust in the first place wouldn’t reflect on their past role.

After the dust settled on Kabul’s collapse the first thing I did was go back & re-examine my works, assumptions, logic. I wrote a long thread on Twitter about what I got right/wrong & what I learned—which was a lot. Some unserious people dragged me for it. They’re cheerleading today’s strikes 😑

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

“He and Mr. Epstein’s staff settled on a fee of $15,000 for a year of access for Mr. Epstein and five “girls.” An accountant later emailed Mr. Epstein to say that Dr. Kruger’s team did not require him to name the women covered by the plan.”

“Mr. Epstein rewarded his preferred doctors with hefty payments, Apple Watches, introductions to celebrities and vacations on his private island and his New Mexico ranch. One cash-strapped dermatologist asked the sexual predator to co-sign his car lease.”

Appalling. One doctor “sent Mr. Epstein’s sexual partners elsewhere for gonorrhea treatment so that when their cases were reported to public health authorities, they wouldn’t be tied to Mr. Epstein. Some doctors also shared patients’ private health information with him”

Meanwhile…

NEW: The Trump administration has delayed arms sales to Taiwan valued at $13 billion that had been approved by lawmakers. US officials say Trump wants to ensure a smooth summit in April with Xi. And the Iran war will cut into US military resources for Asia. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/u...

War is not a morality play. The relevant question isn’t: Are the targets bad people who have done bad things? The relevant question is: Will going to war make things better, achieving something that’s worth the death and suffering it causes?

As someone who has been on the receiving end of Iranian munitions in Iraq and who made it a point to try to learn about these things, the only thing I am confident in asserting is that we never understood the nuances of the relationship between Iraqi Shia militias and Iran (it's complicated).

In 1973, a veto-proof majority of Congress took the position that POTUS’s constitutional powers to use military force are limited to: 1) declaration of war 2) specific statutory authorization 3) national emergency triggered by attack on U.S., its territories or possessions, or armed forces. 1/n

Along with a growing number of war-wounded amputees, Mykhailo Varvarych and Iryna Botvynska are navigating an altered destiny after Varvarych lost both his legs during the Russian invasion.

FWIW, this is sec. 2(c) of the War Powers Resolution:

God if only someone has been writing for *years* on what battlefield autonomy is and isn’t. There is nothing that aggravates me more than the pedantic “mines/missiles/etc” are autonomous. So I’m going to explain what actually matters: in/on/off the loop.