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Notes -
New week is here, it is time for some more random culture (and kinetic) war news, sourced from various parts of internets via xitter.
1/ Middle Eastern issues, and general strategy, tactics, law and customs of war in the current millenium.
About half of US deployable air power is ready for Iran boogaloo 2.0. It would be very symbolic if it began exactly at 4th anniversary of three day special operation to desatanize Ukraine.
How it will start? As massive decapitation strike on enemy elite human capital.
An underrated change in modern warfare is the rise of “man hunting” - targeting of individuals, especially generals and other key personnel.
It is fascinating to see how something that was absolute NO in traditional rules of war "Generals do not take pot shots at each other" became normalized in the rules based order.
First organized crime bosses, then leaders of terrorist/freedom fighter groups like Al Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah, and now leaders and VIPs of internationally recognized states as Iran or Venezuela. And not only uniformed personnel, but leading scientists are now fair targets too.
This tactic became prevalent, because the targets are completely unable to reciprocate.
US and Israeli high ranking officers are not so well protected, professional sleeper cells should be able to get at them, but there is no evidence that these cells exist outside of Tom Clancy novels.
The highest ranking Israeli person killed was minister of tourism 25 years ago.
True war of assassins is yet to come.
What would be long term results? Being general is not any more cushy job with spiffy uniform, only people who believe in their cause and are ready to die will strive for such positions. Do the forces of freedom have plan B for case when decapitation strike succeeds, all targets are elliminated, but the enemy still refuses to surrender?
It is important to always have plan B. ready.
2/ More Middle Eastern issues
US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in Tucker Carlson interview that "it would be fine" if Israel took over all of Middle East.
Angela Price Aggeler, US ambassador to Macedonia, so far hadn't commented whether Macedonians should take back all lands given to their ancestors by Zeus.
3/ Yet more Middle Eastern issues
Israeli ultra-orthodox revived ancient European tradition of burning cats and dogs alive as part of celebration.
Very based and trad pilled.
4/ Woke and also military issues
Ft. Bragg kindergarten teacher who identifies as trans wolf 'Lilith Deathhowl' was fired
It looks like story from 2021, as if celebrations were premature and wokeness hadn't perished yet.
5/ Epstein issues
Epstein before his ultimely demise hid his secrets in storage units. Good news, the whole sordid saga can be prolonged into infinity. At any time, mysterious storage unit can be opened and new Easter eggs rolled out for the eager public.
6/ Now, the thread connecting all issues of the day together
The subway question is again the hottest debate on Xitter right now:
Are homeless drug addicts peeing and pooping in public transport reactionary lumpenproletariat or progressive freedom fighters? Is shitting in New York subway the best way to defeat American imperialism and free Palestine?
This "decapitation strategy" seems like a function of the post-GWOT American toolkit, which consists of
It's a great strategy for creating the appearance of victory at a low cost against tribesmen with no air defenses. In terms of actually producing victory, however, as far as I can tell it has never worked except when some significant faction within the targeted regime is secretly working for the enemy. The Onion released an article all the way back in 2006 titled "Eighty Percent Of Al-Qaeda No. 2s Now Dead"; twenty years later, Al Qaeda is more powerful than ever with control over Syria and a significant portion of the Sahel.
If you prefer a more recent example, we've seen this whole song and dance before with Operation Rough Rider and to a lesser extent, Operation Prosperity Guardian. Trump issues dire threats, carrier groups moved into position, Yemen was obliterated with constant airstrikes for over a month, Houthi officials were assassinated yet the Houthi drone and missile capabilities remained intact and Trump ultimately backed down having achieved basically nothing.
If this sort of strategy went nowhere against Yemen then why would there be any expectation of success against Iran, which is larger, more powerful and more populous by several times?
The idea presumably would be that if you can degrade the IRGC's capabilities, since they act as kind of the internal suppression force (being a sizeable army/navy in their own right), the regime won't be able to maintain control over a populace in revolt. At least, that's my take on it.
Another take is that it's a lot easier to cause harm to a sophisticated nation like Iran than to a... less industrialized/urbanized place like Yemen. It's a lot easier to destroy (from the air/sea), say, the US Navy's nuclear shipyard in Newport News than it is to clear out a bunch of people in Appalachia with missiles being smuggled to them.
How would this work when IRGC (presumably) consists largely of true believers and their suppression capabilities are of the "we'll shoot you on the street", and not the "we'll use a highly centralized apparatus to eliminate key dissidents"? That is, when killing a bunch of leaders doesn't actually degrade on the street capabilities of the organization (unlike with the nuclear program or traditional state leadership).
IMO a lot of people question the IRGC is filled with true believers today. It’s been too easy for Israel to take out Iran leadership which implies there are a lot of snitches in the Iranian ranks.
And then you look at their former Presidents pinned tweet Ahmadinejad
He frequently says things that aren’t Iran Supremacy now. There is at least some belief that the Iran regime is hollow now. Sometimes people just keep getting up in the morning and doing their orders until the system changes.
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