“Mystic Chords of Memory”

A must-read article by @HooverInst Stephen Kotkin illustrating how to meet the challenges of today’s authoritarian regimes by using history as a guide. The good news is that those challenges can be overcome. foreignaffairs.com/china/weakness…

@hw97karbine So the inter-war period. Did the weapon have to fall within certain specifications due to Versailles? I can’t recall if artillery/guns had design limitations.

@MasterHistory23 It was a lightened variant of the 7.5cm leichtes Infanteriegeschütz 18 that could be broken down into loads, the design of the base gun started in 1927

Gebirgsjäger 7.5cm le.GebIG 18 mountain variant of the German WWII infantry gun in action against Soviet positions in Ukraine circa June 1941

#Russia is the aggressor. No learned meanderings through history or geopolitics will change that simple fact. How would we feel if the US was in a fight of our lives and outsiders would sit on their hands and admonish us that we are “not good enough.” Think for once. Think. 5/5

🧵I’m sick and tired of those shilling for Putin who constantly repeat that Zelensky hasn’t held a presidential election or that corruption hampers #Ukraine’s defense effort and thereby Kyiv is “not worthy” of America’s support. Get it through your heads: Ukraine is at war. 1/5

One more point re: this 🧵on #Ukraine. Regretfully, US academics have been either simply irrelevant when it comes to understanding changes in regional and global security, or they seem to believe that current conflicts are merely the means to validate their favorite theories. I will refrain from naming names, as my goal is not to pick petty fights on X. Suffice it to say that I used to respect some of those academics; some even wrote blurbs and endorsed for my books. Over the past four years, however, their incessant commentary on the Ukraine war that, perhaps unintentionally, has validated Russian propaganda made me reconsider what I thought of them. Bottom line: War is not a PoliSci lecture on a particular IR theory. Likewise, Ukraine’s heroic fight to save itself from Russia’s imperial yoke should never be used, as some among the academic commentariat have done, to score political points at home. If they want to continue to opine on Eastern Europe, at least they should learn the relevant languages, learn the region’s history from a perspective other than Russia’s, try to understand the culture. Over the past three decades, the paucity of Area Studies expertise in American Political Science has become a plague. Ask yourself how many of the “academic experts” who supported the GWOT could put together a coherent sentence in Arabic? And yet they would confidently opine about transforming the entire Middle East. Some still do. Enough said.

@SFGiantsMemer I distinctly remember something special happened a few times when it was 421 in right-center.

Rafael Devers would love for this to happen.

name a pitcher you trusted most in a winner-take-all game.

Bruce Jenkins gives his thoughts on the San Francisco Giants. youtube.com/shorts/4OBsbM7… Check out the full episode below 👇 youtube.com/live/n3JU5p52K…

@mikenelson586 The Giants aren't winning 107 games!

I don't want to jinx it, but I think we are about to see something we haven't seen since 2021

💔🇺🇸💔

@BontaHill His defense has been better as well.

Devers is having a helluva month of May at the plate. #SFGiants

“…surely as this day comes round we are in the presence of the dead…on this day when we decorate their graves, the dead come back and live with us.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes, 20th Massachusetts Infantry, on Memorial Day 1884

#MemorialDay, originally “Decoration Day”, was first widely observed in 1868, recognizing the ultimate sacrifice of Civil War soldiers Rep. James Garfield 🇺🇸 (OH) was on hand to make remarks Let’s never forget those who gave their lives so we can have our freedoms #POTUS ♥️

A reminder that we are going live on YouTube at the bottom of the hour (1230 Pacific). Come join the discussion. youtube.com/live/n3JU5p52K…

On this Memorial Day, remembering that during WWII 52 American submarines never came home, and that U.S. submariners suffered a fatality rate of about 20%, more than 10X that of the U.S. Navy as a whole. Here is the crew of USS Snook (SS-279), lost with all hands in March 1945.

@BBGreatMoments Big Time Timmy Jim

Name an athlete who was a Hall of Fame lock until injuries got in the way

Ukrainian forces have reportedly taken advantage of the chaotic Russian supply situation to mount a local offensive south of Zaporizhzhia, retaking the key town of Stepnohirsk. Ukrainian forces are now pushing towards Kamyanske, rolling back nearly a year of Russian progress.

Source: youtube.com/watch?v=zwhHC1…

Petraeus: The U.S. has not remotely learned the lessons it should from Ukraine. This is the future of war: Ukraine alone uses 10,000 drones a day, and 90% of Russian casualties are caused by drones. That should force institutional change. 1/

You can't unsee it once you see it. Check your timeline, and you'll see which senators ran to fluff a deal that doesn't even exist yet, and which they have no knowledge of. I mean, even if you're super pro-Trump on this, it's just cringe. Be your own person.