Mr. Reynolds, appreciate your "anti-doom scroller post". I'm ex-military, and also appreciate the "don't get cocky" admonition. Our opponents study us as much as we study them. The never-ending battle between offense and defense seems to be accelerating in cycle time as technology shortens the kill chain. If you rest on your laurels, you'll get run over. In this vein, you posted about Data Republican on Instapundit and her contributions to this topic (and others). In a prior life I did analysis for DoW(D). This post by her: https://datarepublican.substack.com/p/data-analysis-of-the-state-of-the-dad?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post is something I would keep on my bookshelf as a reference if I was still in that line of work. You have a knack for identifying and promoting talented people. I think you really hit the mark there. If anyone is looking for an information dense, highly detailed catalog of the who, what, when, where, how, and the all-important "why", regarding the Iran conflict, that's where I'd go. All open source, all meticulously referenced and cited for those inclined to verify. That level of fully sourced detail avoids the analyst trap of "making sh...er, stuff up" (MSU). Have to point out, the author has paid a price for this effort from Democrats, RINOS, and former conservatives. For those efforts, she deserves credit and thanks. Again, IMO, YMMV.
agree with most everything, including your favorite Han Solo quotes
I'm more 'Hormuz is critical to the world' than you are. I also wish you would have emphasized that pax America is about world prosperity as much as it is about world peace.
That phrase 'world peace' reminds me of one of my favorite movie lines. It is in the movie 'Miss Congeniality'. After many interviews of the aspiring beauty queens where each answers 'world peace' to the interviewer's question "what would wish for", Sandra Bullock (who is a cop placed in the beauty pageant because of a criminal threat) answers the 'what would you wish for' question with "Stricter penalties for parole violators and when the audience hushes she adds, "and yeah, uh, world peace'.
I wish I could remember where I heard the quip about "we can't seem to do anything about world peace or world hunger, but can't we all join hands to end world music?"
The full quote is even more appropriate in light of all the kibitzing we're seeing:
"No ‘Department of Defense’ ever won a war; see the histories. But it seems to be a standard civilian reaction to scream for defensive tactics as soon as they do notice a war. They then want to run the war—like a passenger trying to grab the controls away from the pilot in an emergency.”
Professor, what ought to be worrying all of us is that all of that technology is equally useful to eliminate inconvenient domestic opposition if the Democrats are allowed to gain control of it. At that point we will get a fast education in how much of this was Israel's contribution.
This is the second decapitation strike by the U.S. this year. It seems its policy now, as well as a strategy. Track and target the top. As Machiavelli observed, some regimes are very vulnerable to that, and some quite resistant. It occurs to me (and a lot of others I’m sure) that Xi’s China, with its extreme cult of personality, periodic purges, no designated successor, and total centralization, is extremely vulnerable to a successful decapitation strike. I’m pretty sure if CCP China had a day like the first day of this war, China would disintegrate. It’s very fragile at the top, and there are powerful centripetal forces.
It is important to remember that this is an Israeli American alliance that is prosecuting these attacks. The decapitation strikes have been almost purely Israeli. American strikes have been focused on Iranian infrastructure. Together, they have been devastatingly effective.
It is rather hard in these days to read something from somebody that one trusts. Thank you for this update that I can believe in.
Glenn, I started reading your website a long long time ago and have developed a good sense of your integrity. So, an article like this provides a perspective that is clear (and I am betting accurate).
Over the the last 30+ years virtually everyone I believed in - NYT, WP, The networks, have turned out to be undependable, and worse, without integrity. Even the WSJ editorial page that seemed to have a patina of integrity has fallen by the wayside. So, thank you .
I came to America (legally :D) 50 years ago. America, was, and is, the land of opportunity. But over the last few decades it has become the land of whining, handouts, and corruption at almost every level.
And our children - the younger people - do not seem to have the same level of love for the country as people in their 60+ years have. There seems to be a disdain for America and what has made out great.
Trump was a Democrat virtually all his life, but, in this term, especially, he has become a TOTAL AMERICAN. Maybe his near death experiences have given him a new look on life. The European countries after WW2, China, Russia - all of them have benefited from the largesse of America.
Iran got away with murder (literally) since the overthrow of the Shah.
Now the world is seeing a different America (at least half of America - the Democrats may as well be working for China - or themselves - and they probably are!). I hope and pray this is the dawn of a New America with all the goodness and abilities that it possesses.
The gap between battlefield success (and the inexplicable Iranian reaction to bomb its neighbors, thus solidifying our allies in the ME) and the constant snark from the MSM and various black pilling podcasters is, imho, unprecedented. Clearly all political aimed at the mid terms. But one does wonder how much of the propaganda from our enemies within is digested by our putative allies and our obvious enemies.
Likely China (and maybe Russia) are funding much of this. One hopes that the Republican party will wise up. Seems like Trump and his team understand the source(s) of the propaganda.
I think we are reeling somewhat from the understanding of just how far we have technologically advanced. We discuss China as a threat - which they are - but they do not have the engineering talent necessary to learn from what is going on in Iran to effectively counteract it. Might they be able to buy it? Certainly. There are traitors in our midst who would be happy to sell it I am sure. But that creates another static technology - they will have to continue to buy to keep up. That takes way too long.
China itself is in a world of hurt, they import way too much food and energy to be a player much beyond their borders, and with their demographic time bomb starting to detonate, and a completely wasted political environment with Xi, China is beyond their zenith and starting the fall. It will accelerate. I guess the only question being how much damage they will inflict on the world on their way down.
Great article! re: The Strait of Hormuz. The Strait is & always will be a SLOC critical choke point; the best solution is one that seeks to bypass it (new canal[s]?), or has measures (pipelines to alternate ports in Israel or Turkey?) in place to mitigate the effects of the Strait being closed. re: The military counter, counter-counter cycle. I would be very surprised if we are showing all our cards in this; I would also be very surprised if our next generation of MilTech isn't already being developed & using lessons learned in this conflict. The bigger issue will be productization to increase production capabilities while also reducing unit costs for things like munitions & drones.
I certainly agree with much in this post and even more with aviation skeptic’s comment.
Two points:
Your tone is antithetical to message when you say “almost comical.” I almost stopped reading right there. This is all dead serious.
The first real serious development and battlefield deployment of UAV was under Billy Clinton. The Predator was not originally designed to be armed. The head of ACC quickly pushed the Hellfire addition when it became painfully obvious that watching bad guys do bad things in real time with no way to stop them in real time was not the way to go. It was tested before 9/11. Very prescient.
I am pretty tired of the Administration bragging about the damage we've done, how about the damage we haven't done. Iran still has the capability to interdict the Strait of Hormuz and successfully attack critical infrastructure in theater that should have been well protected. That is a long way from "winning."
Mr. Reynolds, appreciate your "anti-doom scroller post". I'm ex-military, and also appreciate the "don't get cocky" admonition. Our opponents study us as much as we study them. The never-ending battle between offense and defense seems to be accelerating in cycle time as technology shortens the kill chain. If you rest on your laurels, you'll get run over. In this vein, you posted about Data Republican on Instapundit and her contributions to this topic (and others). In a prior life I did analysis for DoW(D). This post by her: https://datarepublican.substack.com/p/data-analysis-of-the-state-of-the-dad?utm_campaign=reaction&utm_medium=email&utm_source=substack&utm_content=post is something I would keep on my bookshelf as a reference if I was still in that line of work. You have a knack for identifying and promoting talented people. I think you really hit the mark there. If anyone is looking for an information dense, highly detailed catalog of the who, what, when, where, how, and the all-important "why", regarding the Iran conflict, that's where I'd go. All open source, all meticulously referenced and cited for those inclined to verify. That level of fully sourced detail avoids the analyst trap of "making sh...er, stuff up" (MSU). Have to point out, the author has paid a price for this effort from Democrats, RINOS, and former conservatives. For those efforts, she deserves credit and thanks. Again, IMO, YMMV.
agree with most everything, including your favorite Han Solo quotes
I'm more 'Hormuz is critical to the world' than you are. I also wish you would have emphasized that pax America is about world prosperity as much as it is about world peace.
That phrase 'world peace' reminds me of one of my favorite movie lines. It is in the movie 'Miss Congeniality'. After many interviews of the aspiring beauty queens where each answers 'world peace' to the interviewer's question "what would wish for", Sandra Bullock (who is a cop placed in the beauty pageant because of a criminal threat) answers the 'what would you wish for' question with "Stricter penalties for parole violators and when the audience hushes she adds, "and yeah, uh, world peace'.
I wish I could remember where I heard the quip about "we can't seem to do anything about world peace or world hunger, but can't we all join hands to end world music?"
The full quote is even more appropriate in light of all the kibitzing we're seeing:
"No ‘Department of Defense’ ever won a war; see the histories. But it seems to be a standard civilian reaction to scream for defensive tactics as soon as they do notice a war. They then want to run the war—like a passenger trying to grab the controls away from the pilot in an emergency.”
Professor, what ought to be worrying all of us is that all of that technology is equally useful to eliminate inconvenient domestic opposition if the Democrats are allowed to gain control of it. At that point we will get a fast education in how much of this was Israel's contribution.
This will have to do until Colossus takes over. Then we will know the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death.
This is the second decapitation strike by the U.S. this year. It seems its policy now, as well as a strategy. Track and target the top. As Machiavelli observed, some regimes are very vulnerable to that, and some quite resistant. It occurs to me (and a lot of others I’m sure) that Xi’s China, with its extreme cult of personality, periodic purges, no designated successor, and total centralization, is extremely vulnerable to a successful decapitation strike. I’m pretty sure if CCP China had a day like the first day of this war, China would disintegrate. It’s very fragile at the top, and there are powerful centripetal forces.
The Chinese are watching closely.
It is important to remember that this is an Israeli American alliance that is prosecuting these attacks. The decapitation strikes have been almost purely Israeli. American strikes have been focused on Iranian infrastructure. Together, they have been devastatingly effective.
Sorry to pick nits, but the quotes were:
Skywalker to Solo, about the rewards of rescuing Princess Leia: “More wealth than you can imagine.”
Solo reply: “I don’t know, I can imagine quite a bit.”
It is rather hard in these days to read something from somebody that one trusts. Thank you for this update that I can believe in.
Glenn, I started reading your website a long long time ago and have developed a good sense of your integrity. So, an article like this provides a perspective that is clear (and I am betting accurate).
Over the the last 30+ years virtually everyone I believed in - NYT, WP, The networks, have turned out to be undependable, and worse, without integrity. Even the WSJ editorial page that seemed to have a patina of integrity has fallen by the wayside. So, thank you .
I came to America (legally :D) 50 years ago. America, was, and is, the land of opportunity. But over the last few decades it has become the land of whining, handouts, and corruption at almost every level.
And our children - the younger people - do not seem to have the same level of love for the country as people in their 60+ years have. There seems to be a disdain for America and what has made out great.
Trump was a Democrat virtually all his life, but, in this term, especially, he has become a TOTAL AMERICAN. Maybe his near death experiences have given him a new look on life. The European countries after WW2, China, Russia - all of them have benefited from the largesse of America.
Iran got away with murder (literally) since the overthrow of the Shah.
Now the world is seeing a different America (at least half of America - the Democrats may as well be working for China - or themselves - and they probably are!). I hope and pray this is the dawn of a New America with all the goodness and abilities that it possesses.
The gap between battlefield success (and the inexplicable Iranian reaction to bomb its neighbors, thus solidifying our allies in the ME) and the constant snark from the MSM and various black pilling podcasters is, imho, unprecedented. Clearly all political aimed at the mid terms. But one does wonder how much of the propaganda from our enemies within is digested by our putative allies and our obvious enemies.
Likely China (and maybe Russia) are funding much of this. One hopes that the Republican party will wise up. Seems like Trump and his team understand the source(s) of the propaganda.
I think we are reeling somewhat from the understanding of just how far we have technologically advanced. We discuss China as a threat - which they are - but they do not have the engineering talent necessary to learn from what is going on in Iran to effectively counteract it. Might they be able to buy it? Certainly. There are traitors in our midst who would be happy to sell it I am sure. But that creates another static technology - they will have to continue to buy to keep up. That takes way too long.
China itself is in a world of hurt, they import way too much food and energy to be a player much beyond their borders, and with their demographic time bomb starting to detonate, and a completely wasted political environment with Xi, China is beyond their zenith and starting the fall. It will accelerate. I guess the only question being how much damage they will inflict on the world on their way down.
Perfesser- I hope you are right!
Great article! re: The Strait of Hormuz. The Strait is & always will be a SLOC critical choke point; the best solution is one that seeks to bypass it (new canal[s]?), or has measures (pipelines to alternate ports in Israel or Turkey?) in place to mitigate the effects of the Strait being closed. re: The military counter, counter-counter cycle. I would be very surprised if we are showing all our cards in this; I would also be very surprised if our next generation of MilTech isn't already being developed & using lessons learned in this conflict. The bigger issue will be productization to increase production capabilities while also reducing unit costs for things like munitions & drones.
I certainly agree with much in this post and even more with aviation skeptic’s comment.
Two points:
Your tone is antithetical to message when you say “almost comical.” I almost stopped reading right there. This is all dead serious.
The first real serious development and battlefield deployment of UAV was under Billy Clinton. The Predator was not originally designed to be armed. The head of ACC quickly pushed the Hellfire addition when it became painfully obvious that watching bad guys do bad things in real time with no way to stop them in real time was not the way to go. It was tested before 9/11. Very prescient.
I am pretty tired of the Administration bragging about the damage we've done, how about the damage we haven't done. Iran still has the capability to interdict the Strait of Hormuz and successfully attack critical infrastructure in theater that should have been well protected. That is a long way from "winning."