Jasen Castillo

“What lessons should US decision makers take away after one year of war in Ukraine?” See my contribution to @defpriorities symposium here: #Ukraine2023Castillo" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">defp.org/ukraine-lesson… #UkraineLessons   Along with @rajan_menon_ @stephenwertheim @EmmaMAshford @stephenWalt @JustinTLogan @BH_Friedman

Aggie SecDef

@andrewmichta @united Ditto my flight today from Houston to Santa Fe. Dirty planes and delays without explanation. Frustrating as Premier1K

A quick observation about US domestic airlines. As a rule, I try not to complain about daily inconveniences, but my flight today to Houston on @united just did it. And mind you: I am a million-miler with them, which apparently means nothing. But my comments apply to all US domestic carriers overall, especially @Delta. Since I came back home from Germany over two years ago I have been flying quite a bit on our domestic airlines. BLUF: They should rank among the worst in the world-too often I have ended up on old dirty airplanes with surly flight attendants, practically zero service, regardless whether you fly economy or first class, the check-in process that reminds me of drill sergeants barking orders at recruits, frequent aircraft breakdowns and missed connections, and delay, after delay after delay. All the while the prerecorded monotone tells us how much they care about us, how important we the passengers are, and our safety. The quality of service across the board is a good indicator od the condition of our society. US domestic carriers don’t care because there is no real competition here anymore when it comes to air travel. Planes are routinely overbooked, delays make travelers miss their connections and nobody cares. On board you are treated like a nuisance. So today it finally hit me why this is happening: to US domestic carriers we are no longer passengers; we are self-loading cargo. And so it goes….

@MarkDavis Imagine how Don Drysdale would have responded during the next at bat.

Amen.

I still don't know who Hasan Piker is and you can't make me learn

The fact that the China is so far ahead of the U.S. in de-risking from oil is a massive U.S. policy failure.

If I had supported this war, I’d be furious. Iran kept its highly enriched uranium and control of the Strait. Its missile and drone arsenal proved tougher than advertised. Our Gulf allies are left smoldering and the global economic pain is still inbound. Israel is more isolated than ever and POTUS is negotiating on the enemy’s terms. But at least we sank their useless navy again. And look on the bright side, it’s probably only halftime.

@JohnJHarwood @SeizeTheNae A

@SeizeTheNae Ray Scott

Who’s the greatest play-by-play voice of all time? A. Vin Scully B. Al Michaels C. Mike Breen D. Keith Jackson E. Chick Hearn F. Marv Albert G. Kevin Harlan H. Pat Summerall

@A_Swidzinski All things being equal, this is not great -*if* you want to defend Taiwan.

In terms of military balance expanding ordnance in the ME isn't great, but would it really make a difference, if push came to shove in Western Pacific? Were pre-Iran stockpiles anywhere near sufficient? No. Could they be rebuild fast enough? No. In a perverse way it's a positive, since it makes miscalculation less likely.

US reportedly committing nearly its entire JASSM-ER inventory to the Iran war. Per @Bloomberg: ~2,300 pre-war stockpile, 1,000+ already fired, & after repositioning remaining missiles to CENTCOM/UK bases, only ~425 left for rest of the world 👇 bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Pivot to Asia!

“It's their home turf. As somebody who's fought on the home turf of another country, you're always at a disadvantage.” -- @JamesWebb_16 on prospect of US ground troops invading Iran responsiblestatecraft.org/veterans-iran/

@RKelanic @cherylbenson Moving to more and more punishment

We aren't in a ground war with Iran. It doesn't matter where their troops move. This is about wreaking havoc for the population -- you're right about that. Question is: does it advance U.S. objectives (setting aside questions of morality and int'l law)? Hard no. Trump wants Iranians to rise up again the regime. But he's strengthening the regime by giving it an existential enemy -- the U.S. and Israel -- to rally against. "Rally around the flag" is a phenomenon as old as politics itself. Hitting civilian targets will backfire. It will strengthen Iranian resolve, not weaken it. That's one reason the U.S. military has avoided such targets. Israel, however, has gone full bore into them. I wouldn't be surprised at all if this was an Israeli strike against U.S. wishes.

What could possibly be the military rationale for this. There isn’t one.

The Iran war exposes just how mil­it­ar­ily over­stretched and stra­tegic­ally undis­cip­lined the United States has become. Within weeks, the country has poured massive quant­it­ies of scarce high-end muni­tions into a region that its own National Secur­ity Strategy deemed a low pri­or­ity just four months ago. “The days in which the Middle East dom­in­ated Amer­ican for­eign policy in both long-term plan­ning and day-to-day exe­cu­tion are thank­fully over,” wrote the aides who penned the doc­u­ment for Trump. “We should encour­age and applaud reform when and where it emerges organ­ic­ally, without try­ing to impose it from without.”

The JCPOA seemed to be capable of doing it. 🤷‍♂️

There's one trait where economists clearly outperform the other social sciences: Hubris.

China HATES this

Hopefully foreign affairs columnists’ articles will start reflecting this genuine debate. Eventually.

@StaciePettyjohn @RANDCorporation I remember Rodger Cliff writing about this in East Asia.

This was foreseeable and foreseen. In 1999, @RANDCorporation warned that cheap GPS guidance and submunition warheads could turn aircraft parked on open ramps at big Middle East bases into easy targets. It recommended hardening bases and dispersing aircraft. rand.org/pubs/monograph…

Passive defenses — bunkers, hardened shelters, dispersal — aren't glamorous. The Pentagon has underfunded them for decades. Now, with U.S. troops under fire in the Middle East, DoD is scrambling to find vendors who can ship prefabricated shelters within 30 days. 🧵

Israel striking near the Bushehr nuclear reactor is reckless and dangerous. A radioactive release could hurt the whole Gulf. Israel has no troops in the Gulf, but the U.S. has 50,000. Yet another example of reckless disregard for the region and the lives of U.S. soldiers.

Yikes. The US has burned through ~850 Tomahawks in 4 weeks. That's roughly a quarter of the inventory. At ~600 produced/year, that's ~1.5 years of production gone in a month. Hard to see what long-term political goal this buys. washingtonpost.com/national-secur…