What if I told you the lesson from GWOT wasnt if V Shaped Hulls are useful against China, rather is it the ability to create an Operational Needs Statement process for units in the field to know if V Shaped Hulls are needed or not?

https://twitter.com/jpmogan97942/status/1949648809966932246

What if I told you it wasn’t if the MRAP was good, the lesson was how to do a Commercial Off the Shelf buy program unprecedented in DoD history.

What if I told you the Rapid Fielding Initiatives were the lessons.

Or the ability to stand up a Joint Program Office from scratch.

We talk about battles, glory gained against the enemy and great stories of overcoming dreadful odds, but more often than not it is the thankless, tedious mental work done before two armies meet on the field that decides who wins and who loses

Like on the march to Fredericksburg 1/ By the winter of 1862, the Union Army of the Potomac had known little but defeat. They had been beaten like a drum four times at the hands of the Army of Northern Virginia, and had escaped with a draw in September of 1862, despite knowing the entire Southern battle plan.

This is one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite war movies, and it is exactly why all those alpha, sigma, raw egg weirdos know nothing about women, war, or what makes a man a man The men start the clip hardened. It is 1917, three years into the slaughterhouses of the trenches. The French Army is at its breaking point, they just had some of their own men executed for mutiny

They start jeering the German girl, she is an object and they are at their basest

Grab a beer, we are going to talk markets and people who put their finger on the scale of them. (And no, this isn’t a thread about the small hat people, so just stop)

Almost all of Salt Lake City’s housing woes can be told in the story of this one house. Why does this house cost over $300,000? It is by all objective measures a shitbox in a not great neighborhood Well, we have this wonderful tool called Zillow to help us. zillow.com/homedetails/63…

Here is your guide to the “they march like bums” and the “we don’t need to march” debate.

The truth is somewhere in the middle, but neither side it wrong.

(Caveat: the side posting the North Koreans as an example are wrong. Clowns)

Caveat, I have had a drink or two. 1 For millennia, the ability of individual soldiers to march, turn, and act as one with their comrades is why the West became what it was. That is how wars were won. From Phalanxes to the triple line, tercios, hollow squares, and line volleys, the disciplen of the West dominated

One of my favorite D Day stories is the HMS Rodney, who, while providing direct fire support at Gold Beach, slammed a 16 inch shell directly into a Panzer IV

Rodney had been damaged by am LCT, and had a 9 foot hole in her side, but refused to be left out of the fight She knew the Germans had their big guns waiting for the Allies coming ashore. Despite water rushing into his ship, Rodney's Captain would be damned if Britain's sons went ashore without their big guns behind them

Why is what Thomas Ricks wrote either buffoonishly dumb, or a straight up lie?

He fails to understand both history and how wars are won. He mischaracterizes both the US experience building auxiliary forces, and how World War 2 was won. It is comically bad.

https://twitter.com/tomricks1/status/1927458522863632630

Let us start with the role of auxiliaries in general. Large powers throughout history have used foreign troops to bolster their imperial forces abroad. From the Greeks to the Americans. Balearic slingers fought with the Romans, and Montagnards fought with the Americans.

Sometimes we try something, and it fails. The dumb pout, the smart learn. One never knows where that lesson will lead. Years or decades later it might come back into play, and might serve you and your people again. Like the Soviet Space Program and the Battle of Katya Roof. 1/ As the great "Space Race" began in 1957, the autocratic and highly centralized Soviet Union was in a perfect position to get out to an early lead. Their willingness to slap stuff together and catapult things into space outpaced the methodical approach of the Americans.

Why was Shedeur Sanders drafted after 143 other players, and 5 other QBs?

The answer is simple. It isn't talking heads being dumb, (they are), or his lack of skill, or racism..

He simply did not understand football's intrinsic relationship to the Western Way of War. Football isn't war. I find the people who take the analogy too seriously to be cringe.

But war and football are linked. On purpose. We have "in the trenches", the "air raid", the "pocket"...

The man on man struggle as part of a larger, chaotic team fight screams battle.

This is by far the best scene in Last of the Mohicans.

Major Heyward leads a company of Highlanders (in reality the 35th Foot [Royal Sussex]) out of the trenches around Fort William Henry to act as a diversion for a messenger to run to Fort Edward and reinforcements. It is a great moment of redemption for Major Heyward and the British Army.

On the trip north, Heyward had his command destroyed in the woods by the Huron. Unaccustomed to fighting in the close confines of the North American woodlands, Heyward and his men are made fools of

Want to know what globalists think of you?

This from the West Wing (a liberal wet dream) but offers an insightful look into how we got to this point.

Spoiler Alert: they neither understand the world or believe there is a difference between American workers and global workers. They have negotiated a free trade deal. They know it will cost Americans jobs.

The world is full of information: some bad, some good, some deceitful. Making up one's own mind is the only true freedom we have. Sometimes it is wise to go along with the group, sometimes it is best to blaze your own path to glory.

Like at the Battle of Tannhäuser Gate 1. Like many ancient battles, the truth of Tannhäuser Gate has been lost to time. The story has been changed by both 13th Century bards and Wagner alike.

But the legend remains and the story, despite the wear of intervening centuries, refuses to be lost like tears in the rain

What wins wars? Certainly sometimes superior logistics, weapons, or generals, but when no side has those advantages? What leads one side to crush their enemy mercilessly? Discipline, faith, and leadership. Like how white mercenaries ruled the 1960's battlefields of the Congo. 1/It is no surprise that trained, equipped, and well-led European armies slaughtered African tribal armies wherever they went. A tiny nation, Belgium was able to conquer a giant one like the Congo with nothing more than a professional army. Even Italy managed a colony: barely

Alright youse. Grab a chair and make sure you don’t mix up your guns while we clean, and wash your hands before you eat that powder is filthy.

Let’s talk German politics.

German had an election. Nobody won. But this always happens in Germany. So you have to form a coalition It helps not to think of German parties as opposites of one another like in a 2 party US system: for example, the new CDU (led by Friedrich Merz, no relation) is no leaning more anti immigrant like AfD, but they differ on Germany’s place in the EU and foreign policy.

The uniquely American desire for cold stuff… like drinks bordering on Titanic iceberg level cold or A/C temps set to Siberia always puzzled me

It took me a while to realize that Americans don’t particularly like these things, but they do them: because they fucking can

America I grew up with AC, and ice on demand. But I never understood why my family would run the AC like it was the last lap at the Indy 500 and they were three spots behind.

But they did it because they were now Americans, and they just… could

Let’s talk about Egypt…

This is Ali. He was one of two Egyptian officers in my class. (The man with the 240 is not me, but he is a current Infantry Battalion Commander)

Ali was one of two Egyptians in my class. Ali was an aristocrat, the other, Hasani, a soldier.

https://twitter.com/ahmed_hassan_za/status/1889772923067511247

Ali didn’t do shit. He rarely rucked, he couldn’t shoot, he did PT but only when it was running only.

He used to take days off for “religious” reasons, and when we went to the field he initially refused to sleep on the ground.

He was from a rich and well connected family

Trump II reminds me a lot of my mother and her Christmas cards.

(Yes, I have a mother, shocking I know)

See my mother is a slave to formality, and the process. She is a great hostess and friend. Until you wrong her.

Every year she sends out Christmas Cards. She would sit down the week after Thanksgiving and pull out this leather address book and start writing.

No services. No pictures. Every card a hand written note.

Except in this book you saw names with big black lines drawn through them. The Unfortunates.

Men who know their strengths and their enemy's weakness, and are disciplined enough to refuse the battle the enemy offers are the most dangerous type of warriors.

When you combine that with hard, disciplined fighters, you become unbeatable. Like at the Battle of Assaye 1/ In 1803, the British Empire finally decided the time was right to bring India into the fold entirely. The British East India Company, essentially a band of merchants with their own army, pitched a plan to the conquer the rest of India to London.

Real Story: I lived at this outpost that was a solid 5 iron shot from an international border. One day some idiot decided to put a huge aerostat balloon there.

Worried it would break loose and float across the border with the good cameras, we put together a plan. A 50al

https://twitter.com/notwill42/status/1873884175927054468

I had a friend send me a copy of the WW2 Era field manual 23-60, that had a real section of the M2 in aerial defense mode.

We paid some pog at a FOB to build us a 6 foot tall tripod, and mounted that beast next to the TOC.

If you have ever spent much time in Japan, you’ll know that despite being massive xenophobic racists, the Japanese also love to appropriate American culture where they want. After WW2, Japan was struggling with the cultural impacts of American occupation So they proactive approach and doubled down on baseball … and KFC on Christmas. Christmas KFC is a massive tradition in Japan. Like a Black Friday for mid grade fried chicken.

The Japanese aren’t super good at understanding Christmas, but they banzai the Colonel’s bucket.

We often think about war in terms of weapons, strategy, and logistics. Looking at the full spectrum of variables often misses the most important one: the men who do the fighting.

Whatever the weapons or technology, wars are decided by men. Like at the Battle of Lanzerath Ridge 1/ It is 16 December, 1944. The US invasion of mainland Europe is just over 6 months old. The Allies have broken out of the hedgerows of Normandy and raced across France, but then ran right into the German Siegfried Line.