Watching a History Channel doco I recorded ages ago on Caesar in Gaul. The capacity of Caesar to play off tribes and ruthlessly apply force should be taught at military colleges. Also to generate a sustain a Roman Army far from home on a campaign of annihilation and subjugation.
Reading everyone's take on Afghanistan - a complete disaster of counter insurgency's making - one cannot watch this & Caesar's determination to simply annihilate his way through Gaul, even when his Legions operated with extended supply lines into modern Benelux countries
Caesar like any Roman commander, would have been conscious that his Roman expeditionary army was in a very exposed AO. Caesar would have had no time for the counter insurgency/'winning hearts and minds' approach other than in Tacitus's make a desert and call it peace sense
Julius Caesar on "Leadership By Example" - it was Caesar's practice (followed by, inter alia, Wellington) to place himself as the commanding General at the weakest point of the Roman line and act as a human rallying point. Caesar being Caesar, it worked. #SPQR

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More from @GrayConnolly

8 Aug
Have always thought Chess overrated as a test of one’s strategic thinking esp clearly - but even so one expects that a grand master player can see, like anyone, what was always blindingly obvious
Imagine being a sentient adult and also thinking that Barack Obama's Vice-President & Hunter Biden's father was just the man to stand up to China & Russia & Iran ..... they wanted to believe & we will all reap what these useful idiots sowed.
The world is a pretty nasty place & nasty countries are run by nasty people. Imagine thinking, seriously, that China will keep whatever climate pact it makes. Imagine thinking, seriously, that having Germany addicted to cheap Russian gas was good .... or sending USD to the IRGC
Read 6 tweets
8 Aug
Welcome to the Sydney Lockdown day 45 …....
#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
The Herald is basically running fear pieces by the emeritus dons .... The Herald like the ABC accepts that (not so quietly racist) Boomers who want the Army in (migrant/refugee heavy) south-west Sydney is their core demo

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown

smh.com.au/national/vacci…
This is a very good piece by @michaelkoziol - really surprised the SMH ran it tbqh

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown

smh.com.au/politics/feder…
Read 10 tweets
7 Aug
Welcome to the Sydney Lockdown day 44 ....
#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown Image
Agree with Brad "Chad" Hazzard here. Also have no idea if anyone with any knowledge of logistics and supply chains has thought what would happen if Sydney is strangled.
#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown

smh.com.au/national/nsw/t…
Gladystan 11am briefing - New South Wales in the last 24 hours:
- 95,000+ tests (this is good)
- 262 new cases (this is meh)
- 50+ infectious in the community (this needs to come down)

All the focus should be on Vaccinations. Vax, Vax, Vax.

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
Read 4 tweets
7 Aug
Watching America's neoliberals - few of whom speak a 2nd language or even write clearly in English, who have barely travelled anywhere, and thought Iraq & Afghanistan would become secular democracies - now opine on central European politics is grimly hilarious.
This is the Ricky Bobby in Taladega Nights but for people with varying gender identities and far too much student debt Image
If the Visegrad 4 populations converted to radical Sunni Salafism then the David Frums and Max Boots would be writing whole books in support of them, as well as wanting the CIA to send them arms.
Read 4 tweets
7 Aug
Watching this Rick Stein in Vienna and, as a great admirer of Marshal Radetzky, was unaware that it was Radetzky who brought the veal Milanese back from Milan to the imperial capital of Vienna, which then became Wiener Schnitzel. As important a victory as any Radetzky won.
Rick Stein is the typical if more polite Boomer who likely spent the 1960s trashing whatever had come before & has never really grown up, so he is in Vienna, of all places, looking for 'new' food when Vienna's appeal is as an olde world civilisation.
The Boomer representative Rick Stein failing to do justice to culinary heritage is a piece to Boomers failing to do justice generally ... If you are Catholic, Rick is the nice Boomer who messed up your parish church's design & who cannot understand why 'the kids' want more Latin.
Read 4 tweets
6 Aug
For some reason, there seems to have been a sudden drop-off in calls for Sydney to have some sort of even harsher lockdown ..... why might that be, I wonder?

#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown
The focus has to be on Vaccinations and getting to 70-80%. No more endless focus on cases and no more dog-whistling about 'south west Sydney'.
#Covid19NSW #SydneyLockdown

smh.com.au/politics/nsw/p…
Read 4 tweets

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