NewDealHawk

Apropos of nothing in particular: secretaryrofdefenserock.substack.com/p/the-rise-and…

I would feel a lot more comfortable if I weren't learning about our plans for daring military raids via push notification.

Please do me the professional courtesy of retiring this inane talking point. Any practitioner worth their salt knows that all operations necessarily incorporate both sequential and cumulative elements. And if the plan isn’t “conditions based” it ceases to be a strategy and instead becomes a fantasy. Which brings me back to my point: time itself is a condition that matters here and a failure to recognize and understand that will lead to strategic failure. The time factor for reopening the Strait of Hormuz depends heavily on who initiates the war. While the two scenarios are militarily similar (e.g. U.S. forces must fight our way in either way), they differ drastically in their relationship to time on the political-strategic level. A scenario beginning with Iran closing the strait and the U.S. having to respond might have put us on unfavorable footing initially at the tactical level, the time factor would have been considerably more forgiving from a political standpoint in that international audiences will understand it will take time for our forces to set conditions for transits to resume, whether under escort or not. In addition, under that scenario we would be more likely to enjoy political legitimacy in the eyes of publics at home and abroad. By contrast, the scenario we are actually in of Iran closing the strait in response/retaliation to our action has the opposite relationship with time. Because we had the initiative (which of course confers great tactical benefit), Iran closure of the strait puts us in a race against time to get it open again, for every day it remains closed we fail (in both reality and at least as importantly in perception) to overcome their retaliatory action. They retain control and leverage over civilian and naval transit. Meanwhile our political legitimacy faces a steeper climb from having initiated the war. That climb is made steeper by the administration’s having initiated the war without making any attempt to persuade a Congress controlled by its own party, our international allies, or the public of the need to take action at this juncture, even against one of the most odious regimes on the planet. Time does not necessarily favor us in the larger strategic frame either. With the conflict now in its second month, we are talking about an increasingly long war against a middle power. That is a very problematic use of scarce military resources in a global environment characterized by two hostile and aggressive great powers, one of which is working overtime to achieve the status of a true peer. Strictly speaking, this war was optional for the United States. While degrading or destroying Iran’s conventional fleet, missile force, and missile industrial base are of course beneficial, no one has articulated a case for why we needed to do this at this specific juncture, or at the very high political-strategic cost of a demonstrated loss of sea control that (as you have previously claimed) the plan apparently predicted. At this cost—and unless we can decisively reopen the strait, and soon—the choice to initiate this campaign increasingly looks like an unforced strategic error by incompetent political leadership, compounded by the increasingly apparent failure by the planners and political decision makers for this operation to resource sufficient forces to address the foreseeable (and—as you yourself have said previously—foreseen) adversary course of action of closing the strait.

Any man above draft age who advocates for the draft should statutorily be immediately drafted, along with any male adult offspring.

People find this to be very strange, but I sincerely believe that Donald Trump is extremely bad and that the most important thing in American politics is to defeat him and his movement which means the opposition party should try to take more popular stands.

The only way Rob Schneider would join the military is if Adam Sandler was a general.

So much retconning because of our self immolation over TPP and the Euro counterpart, ignorance over GOP Congress imposing constraints, etc. Far from perfect. Disastrous? US was in great position strategically in 2016 for what could have been followed with industrial policy.

@Dalzell60 Untrue. FDD is enthusiastically in favor of nondemocratic states (Saudi, UAE)

Now here’s an exercise in fantasizing about China and Iran. Places like the FDD, with vested interests in a certain type of conclusion about non-democratic states (all bad, all zero-sum, must pressure) draw broad, blanket conclusions, cherry-picking evidence to make unrealistic recommendations. China’s impact on the world is vastly more complex, requiring a much more sophisticated set of policies. This is cartoonish. fdd.org/analysis/2026/…

LMFAOOOO GET HIS ASS MICHAEL

Incredible

How it feels for men who sat out the GWOT to call for forcing 18-year-olds to go fight in a new dumb Mid East war

“Son, I love you, but the star of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo says you have to go to the Middle East to fight a pointless, unwinnable war in Iran.”

Me while suffering the consequences of my actions

Would love to live in a world where "Trump denies disaster aid 80% of the time it's requested by a state led by Democrats but only 10% of the time it's requested by a state led by Republicans" got as much media coverage as "Biden's dog bit someone." 🙄

@mungowitz When, in real life, did Barack Obama act like a king?

When Barack Obama acted like, and sometimes as, King there were only murmurs of approval from Democrats. usatoday.com/story/opinion/… You folks just don't like it when the US President, with powers exceeding ANY king, is not of your party. I'd like #NoKings , not #NoGOPKings

“My general rule of, ‘Is it a war or not?’ is, if someone’s going ‘pew-pew’ to you and you’re going ‘pew-pew’ back, that’s a war.” -@RubenGallego

@jpodhoretz You should go enlist, John

Anyone who quotes the “wisdom” of the least successful presidential candidate in American history is a clown.

This point from @LawDavF (who's been in Washington this week) is key. Out of malice and stupidity the Trump administration has destroyed its own decision-making capabilities.

Seems unlikely.