If you’re wondering what the hell is happening with Iran and Pakistan, don’t worry. The regimes aren’t going insane, these actions are actually quite rational once you understand that these strikes are actually tools to reinforce each regimes’ internal narratives. 1/ Let’s start with Iran’s recent attacks first. It’s important to under that Iran, as an authoritarian regime, is highly susceptible to internal discord. Accordingly, they act in ways to clamp down on activities and discourse antithetical to the direction of the regime. 2/

Far be it for me to disparage a currently “serving” LTC, but how long is the Reserve SOF community going to let one of their own spread blatant Pro-Russian CBRN misinformation like this? 1/

https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard/status/1502960938147729413

US-funded bio labs? Does she mean the WHO funded research facilities? Or the the Ukrainian equivalent of the CDC? Countries have their own bio-research facilities because, *spoilers* endemics and pandemics can start anywhere…and counties need to defend against them 2/

Buckle up because this process is both frustrating and lengthy. Which pretty much sums up course upgrades and modernization processes lol. A thread 1/

https://twitter.com/ChemicalFire/status/1491596329788841993

First, courses in the Army are designed to train you on specific tasks. Your Professional Military Education courses (Basic Officer Leader Course, Captains Career Course, etc.) are specifically designed to train you on Critical Tasks for your MOS (Army Role). 2/

I can do this one very quickly. While CBRN school is the proponent for the Obscuration Operations doctrine, my branch no longer has the capability outside 1 PLT in Mississippi, the OPFOR PLT at NTC, and a rotating Coyote Squad package for IBCTs and ABCTs going to Europe. 1/

https://twitter.com/cwob_ancient/status/1485091091523293189

We also don’t teach Obscuration, and it’s not in line with our Core Functions or Assessing, Protecting against, and Mitigating CBRN hazards for the force. We are quite literally out of the smoke game as a Corps. 2/

1. Always secure yourself first. 2. If you can’t talk, you can’t win.

CBRN knowledge time! Let’s talk about the Nuclear in CBRN and 1) why nukes extra suck, and 2) why we had to separate Radiological & Nuclear as hazards. 1/

https://twitter.com/mike_bull2/status/1458537656342786051

First, nuclear weapons are wildly misunderstood. Video games, movies, and books across the years have wildly skewed the effects of nuclear explosions. The primary effects of the explosions are the initial incineration of the matter in direct proximity of the fission reaction 2/

The most abused term I hear in TRADOC is increasing the “rigor” of a course. So let’s talk about what is and isn’t increasing the rigor when training an officer. A 🧵/ First, let's define the term. Rigor refers to
1) harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment : SEVERITY
2) the quality of being unyielding or inflexible : STRICTNESS
3) severity of life : AUSTERITY
4) strict precision : EXACTNESS
2/

If anyone wants a case study on how groupthink and homogenous teams can completely roadblock problem solving, go check out The Ripper on Netflix. It’s about the utter failure of the West Yorkshire police in finding the Yorkshire Ripper from 1977-1981. It takes a lot to get me riled up about stuff like this, but the insane arrogance those leaders had in locking into one initial idea resulted in over a dozen victims and a total lockdown of the state for women.

With branch selection time upon our young cadets, it's time for my take on why Chemical should be in your Top 3. This thread is hereby labeled: Dr. X-Love, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chemical Corps. 1) Back in 2013, when I found out I was branching Chemical, I felt pretty bummed because of the reputation the Chemical Corps had. I had an engineering degree and a solid slot in the OML, and I wasn't excited that I was going to be stuck being a damn Chemo for my entire career1/

@scottjstephens @MichaelStahlke Too easy, sir. First and foremost, unless they’re branch detailed, your Chemo is going to need command in order to advance their career. It is a requirement in order to compete with their combat arms and maneuver support peers for selection to captain and major. 1/ @scottjstephens @MichaelStahlke Unfortunately, the odds are stacked against your Chemo getting a CBRN platoon or company XO job by virtue of how few of those slots exist within the Chemical Corps. Therefore, in order to set your young lieutenant up for success as a future commander, think about what 2/

Alright ladies and gentlemen, time for a lesson on CBRN Mounted Reconnaissance featuring my NBCRV platoon, the Four Horsemen of 1st PLT
/1 Mounted Recon platoons come in 3 flavors in active duty. ABCT engineer battalions (BEBs) have 2 NBCRV platoons (one team), SBCT BEBs, have 3 NBCRV platoons (still one team) and Hazard Response Companies have 4 NBCRV platoons giving us 2x teams. /2

Alright team, let's talk about the Coronavirus and why you shouldn't start prepping for Doomsday just yet.

https://twitter.com/ChemicalFire/status/1221072017379811328

So what exactly is this thing? A coronavirus (CoV) describes a family of viruses. They infect hosts from all different types of species, but humans are affected by 7 that we've found so far. These include the common cold, SARS (SARS-CoV), MERS (MERS-CoV), and novel (2019-nCOV) 1/

In the last week I read and listened to 3 articles/news stories all revolving around Artificial Intelligence. All 3 had nothing to do with the military but I believe all 3 have extremely high potential to impact the future of warfare. 1/ The first was about the AlphaStar AI defeating some of the world’s top players of Starcraft 2. The AI learned from watching top player matches to figure out basic strategy and rules, then Google DeepMind (its creator) allowed it to run hundreds of matches against itself 2/