Delete this picture. This isn’t cute. This is a Canadian in distress. They only discuss thunder running DC when they’re scared.

How “far from f*ing ok” are our allies? Canadian DefSky is singing World War 1 songs, sharpening their bayonets and discussing preemptive strikes.

dentist: you need to avoid crunchy things for a few days me: storygames only, got it

Welcome back Melian Dialogue. We’ve missed you.

Not going to link to them, but hoo boy are the editorials in the WSJ and WaPo on int'l law and the US attack on Venezuela embarrassingly bad.

They are gonna just like land a bunch of troops there and dare anyone to do anything about it

Imagine writing the book Dereliction of Duty and then professionally committing yourself to repeatedly making all of the same mistakes you described in your book.

White House has filed its War Powers report for the attack on Venezuela. I used to help draft these reports and this is an unusual specimen. It promotes a number of political narratives, including about the attack being a "law enforcement operation" and framing Maduro as a "narco-terrorist." 1/n

Wait it’s all First Image? really?

It's the start of a new year and time for an all new version of Cold War Gone CoC²! www.flankmarch.com/downloads If you're a fan of Chain of Command, then here's what you've got to look forward to in version 3...

If you wanted to know why the US got entangled in the Vietnam War, a big part of it was trying to prevent the French from recolonizing it!

"In normal liberal democracy terms, the US is in bad shape. But in consolidated authoritarianism terms, we’re doing pretty well." I wrote about the weirdness of walking around the monuments in DC, three ways the Trump regime stumbled this year, and why I'm cautiously optimistic heading into 2026.

Denmark is a NATO ally. Talking about annexing Greenland is insane. Every pundit, think tanker, “professional”, etc. who whitewashes it should never be close to power again.

Dort possesses a toddler’s understanding of national security. @mikeblack114.bsky.social @sharonk.bsky.social

anyway, lots of toxicity on the timeline today but a hound trying (and failing) to eat noodles in slow motion in mid air is absolutely my jam in terms of a palate cleanse

Fucking hell www.haaretz.com/world-news/2...

Nothing I have seen has disabused me from this theory of the case.

Thanks @persistentpoasting.bsky.social Behold, the Ancient Tapes

The site's early adopters also trending toward online left communities and being invite only also had a lot of networking effects where it attracted a lot of the power-users who were predisposed to brigading and a lot of internet troll behavior

Does anyone got that OLD video of allegedly Delta doing a shoot house demonstration? It shows you HOW this is theoretically possible, those guys moved through it like water. Not mistakes, no friction, no running. Just death.

the yanqui imperialists simply don't understand how good and pure venezuelan oil is. you can drink it, it's better than water

[most viscerally personally unpleasant person you've ever met] i'm going to lead a mass movement of the workers

My face when I hear DGI lost a bunch of guys in Venezuela. Also if you are a sad Cuban intelligence officer stationed in Venezuela convinced you are about to get shot by a turn coat in a green on red: DM me we can talk on signal and come to a understanding for some information in exchange.

Given the latest discourse, I think this banger by @queenofthinair.bsky.social might be the topic of my unit's next officer #PME session:

Just realized that Emperor Qin Shi Huang's "Terracotta Army" of clay soldiers he kept in a vault in like 200 BC make him the first Warhammer Guy. he got some disposable income and started painting minis. totally get it

This is nineteenth century Great Power “sphere of influence” talk, essentially no different than Russia‘s view of Ukraine or the rest of its “near abroad.” It’s been said before, but really worth underlining now: The Trump admin is overthrowing the very post-1945 world order the US itself built.

Or you could just ski uphill and earn your turns.

Removing one man does not a regime change make, thanks for coming to my TEDTalk

The notion that the US military incursion into Venezuela and seizure of its leader wasn't a use of force under int'l law b/c it was a "law enforcement operation" is absurd. In prior US military-LE capture ops abroad, USG definitely viewed such actions as uses of force under int'l law. From 2014.

And none of them are talking about the opposition that won the Venezuelan election in 2024

Another irony here that VZ got people in the streets despite the boat strikes easily being much more unambiguously ILLEGAL illegal

People really just need to read the wikipedia page on Hugh Thompson Jr. to understand what happens when you CORRECTLY stop a bonafide clear cut black and white war crime:

The reason Venezuela's VP Delcy Rodriguez is not taking over the presidency after declaring the office vacant is because that would mandate an election within 30 days according to the constitution. This indicates that the regime may be planning to retain power sans Maduro.

This. We are not lawyers, and even if we were, we are not elected representatives of the people. If you want different decisions, elect different leaders.

The horse knocks another one out of the park.

You know the Greenland stuff isn‘t actually about national security, because if we said to Denmark ”We’d like to pump a ton of money into infrastructure and basing people and boats in Greenland” they would probably say “sure” and be happy with the cash injection.

Do we have to specify modern? Filibusters would argue that would be ideal for their purposes?

happy "mispriced ribeye primals" day to me

Before we kidnapped the Venezuelan president I had planned to write about Letters of Marque. So here it is. @prizepapers.bsky.social gets a mention. Please like, share and donate if you are able. ko-fi.com/post/Letters...

Our article about the Maduro op has received a large update with additional details. Not to toot our own horn but we're far ahead of the big newspapers with this story. Please give it a read. thehighside.substack.com/p/bold-delta...

Having an actual job, sucks in fact. Clocks ticking on Kash I assume at this point?

The year is 2035. “Canadian nuclear doctrine requires that a launch order is separately confirmed by two senior officers, once in English and once in French.”

WOW they built a replica of the target building, HOW COOL and exciting. Including doors and wall material. Never been done before, this is such a unique and fascinating description of a bog standard JSOC raid I’ll forget to ask “but why?” and “is this legal”.

I’d use the “he’s trying to run things over there” line to connect to the whole $40bn to Argentina because hooooooly shit did people hate that so we should remind them at every turn.

Venezuela told me JSOC keep eating her Presidents so I asked how many Chavistas he has and he said he just goes to the cabinet and gets a new one afterwards so I said it sounds like he's just feeding Presidents to JSOC and then her daughter started crying.

Hear that Gusanos? The admin's position is that you're free under the Chavistas.

At this point, I just kinda assume the status quo will hold, and that this entire episode will ultimately amount to little more than content production and performative posting

“Just have the servicemembers follow their oath” sounds clean and simple in a skeet. In real life it’s anything but and it’s not practicable as a genuine check on civilian leaders. You’re asking young people with high school educations to make legal, constitutional decisions in an info-vacuum.

Ok dumb question, IF the justification for the Venezuela raid was that it’s a self protection for Law Enforcement arrest, is it a DSCA mission?

Put a pin in this, I'm still trying to confirm 100% but it sounds like the assault force consisted of C Sqd and 3/75. OPE was indeed conducted under the AUMF. Total control of VZ comms. Recent defections helped the CIA greatly. Maduro recorded constantly to refute any future torture allegations.