Hundreds of American HARM anti-radiation and GMLRS missiles have been fired by Ukraine at Russian Buk, S-300 & S-400 batteries in occupied territories for over two years.
Russia has systematically stripped Syria and it's national air defenses to feed into the high tech meat grinder that is occupied Ukraine because of it's below replacement rate air defense missile system production.
Russia has been borrowing from its national air defense "Peter" to pay the occupied territories logistical "Paul" to replace the losses from the 18(+) months long Ukrainian PSU suppression of air defense (SEAD) campaign.
While Ukraine has been adapting to Shahed-136 assault drone attacks with it's mobile anti-aircraft gun and shoulder fired missile territorial defense groups, jamming and 5,000 plus smartphone sonic sensor network.
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Ukraine has also been analyzing Russian Shahed attacks and feeding them to an element inside the Ukrainian military like the Standoff Munitions Activity Center (SMAC) at Barksdale AFB.
SMAC does evasive radar routing for integrated cross-service standoff munition attack profiles for all the US Military services when facing high end "Anti-Access Area Defense (A2AD) threats.
I did a 🧵on them in March 2022 on Pres Trump's 2018 Syrian missile strikes.
The combination of low Russian improved road network density and AFU drone mission planning software means Ukrainian propeller cruise missiles/assault drone streams can be routed away from improved roads.
The next Russian mud season will be...interesting...for Russia.👿
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I did an open source 🧵almost 4 years ago in Oct 2020 on X/Twitter explaining much of this.
In 2024, we are two complete drone-computer technology generations from the Azeri-Armenian War.
Ukraine's propelled cruise missile/assault drone strategic bombing campaign is now in the process of teaching the world what those two generations of advancement means on Russia's industrial and logistical infrastructure.
"Escalation Management" be damned.
17/17 End
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I'm tempted to say the difference between military flag ranks who are competent at 2026 peer to peer warfare, and those who are not, is the understanding and application of attritional loss curves to combat loss rates, electronic warfare and logistics.
The set of curves I had an AI produce for me above have been used for air warfare many times starting at the end of WW2, in the USSBS after WW2 and by many classic RAND airpower studies from the 1950's to 1980's.
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All post 9/11/2001 Western flag ranks are counter-insurgency (COIN) trained & experienced.
They have no gut feel at all to statistical attrition models at all.
These "COIN-head" flags may prove to be highly resistant to changing this. Which is required to deal with drones.
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The effectiveness of drones is directly affected by the electronic warfare competence of the drone users.
The fact that the US Army defenestrated every EW practitioner in the 2000's and has compete "EW virgins" as flag rank leadership means it will fail with mass casualties in its first major drone war combat.
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3. The shooter arrived at the hotel the day before the event.😯
4. TSA rules require firearms to be transported in checked baggage, unloaded, and locked in a hard-sided container, declared to the airline at check-in.
2/
5. Local DC law requires firearms in vehicles to be inaccessible from the passenger compartment and unloaded.
6. Washington DC is not a "safe passage" jurisdiction for non-residents without a license. The shooter lacked this license.
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USN flag ranks & their staffers have been fighting the idea of distant economic blockade of China tooth an nail as a response to China invading Taiwan for 30 years.
They really don't want a recent precedent of a successful blockade...
...to prevent their Carrier fleet Pickett's charge into the South China Sea.
Specifically distant blockade as a strategy against China makes having/regaining 100 Cold War era
2/3
...frigates and destroyer tenders supporting them on distant blockade stations outside the 2nd Island chain, "budget relevant" for a military strategy of conducting three years of blockade enforcement.
I was calling out two dead for every three Russian wounded in Sept 2022 as the more realistic Russian casualty ratio in Ukraine because it was taking more than 24 hours to get to the equivalent of a battalion aid station.
"Oil revenue collapsed to roughly 5% of the national budget, down from 32% the prior year. Taxes increased over 60%. Food prices climbed at least 50%. ATMs across major cities are running out of cash."
Since Clausewitz, the West recognized "war as an extension of politics."
The corollary of that is "politics is an extension of money."
Iran doesn't have any money, thanks to hyper-inflation and now an 84% reduction in oil revenue.
2/
The failed January 2026 Iranian uprising kicked off because hyperinflation caused massive food insecurity that required the mass murder of 30,000 (+) Iranian protestors to suppress.
The 12-day war and the current one have made Iranian hyper-inflation far worse.
3/