Has anyone felt like the news out of this war has been more tightly controlled than other recent conflicts by multiple orders of magnitude? Russia/Ukraine news is everywhere, Israel/Lebanon, etc, but this one is zipped up tightly.
The platforms/news orgs must all be getting pretty serious orders on reporting, because even Gulf Wars I and II had more getting out.
Would the world be safer (or more endangered) if Iran had a nuclear weapon? Not sure if North Korea is a good example, but is that not a detente? Bad for the NK people, but not a geopolitical crisis.
I cannot wrap my head around the current crisis except that it serves as a (deniable) mechanism for hindering China’s ability to stockpile oil, thereby stalling an invasion of Taiwan. Total guess.
edit: As a hypothetical. I’m not suggesting Iran has nuclear weapons.
>The attacks, seen in videos circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times, appeared to be the first on Iran’s energy infrastructure since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran last weekend.
Worth tracking: Zelenskyy announced today that Ukrainian drone experts will deploy to the Middle East this week in exchange for PAC-3 missiles.
The reason this matters beyond the immediate swap: Ukraine has two years of operational experience defeating the Shahed-136, because Russia fired hundreds of them at Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian forces learned the radar signature, failure modes, intercept geometry -- paid in blood and electricity.
So the loop is: Iran manufactured Shahed drones, sold them to Russia, Russia fired them at Ukraine, Ukraine learned to defeat them, Ukraine now exports that expertise to fight Iran's drone attacks on Gulf infrastructure.
It's a rare case of a weapon being turned against its own manufacturer through distributed battlefield learning. And it creates an interesting new trade currency: specialized anti-drone knowledge for air defense missiles.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 30.1 ms ] threadThe platforms/news orgs must all be getting pretty serious orders on reporting, because even Gulf Wars I and II had more getting out.
I suspect it all means it doesn’t look very good for the US
I cannot wrap my head around the current crisis except that it serves as a (deniable) mechanism for hindering China’s ability to stockpile oil, thereby stalling an invasion of Taiwan. Total guess.
edit: As a hypothetical. I’m not suggesting Iran has nuclear weapons.
>The attacks, seen in videos circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times, appeared to be the first on Iran’s energy infrastructure since the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran last weekend.
The ecological and health impacts of this are going to stay with the Iranian people for decades to come.
Edit: https://x.com/mamlekate/status/2030587809371668685?s=20
Left side is vinegar. Right side is rain. PH of 3
The reason this matters beyond the immediate swap: Ukraine has two years of operational experience defeating the Shahed-136, because Russia fired hundreds of them at Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian forces learned the radar signature, failure modes, intercept geometry -- paid in blood and electricity.
So the loop is: Iran manufactured Shahed drones, sold them to Russia, Russia fired them at Ukraine, Ukraine learned to defeat them, Ukraine now exports that expertise to fight Iran's drone attacks on Gulf infrastructure.
It's a rare case of a weapon being turned against its own manufacturer through distributed battlefield learning. And it creates an interesting new trade currency: specialized anti-drone knowledge for air defense missiles.