Starting a running beep-boop compilation, hopefully as a reminder - for myself as well - that we shouldn't be in 10+ tweet arguments with accounts like these.


You're not going to win any argument - they go in circles, by design. There's no resolution or end-game here other than to get engagement and muddy the waters.

Seems as good a time as any to revisit the inspirations behind these base names - new and old.

🧵1/

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1878817312566108529

Fort Benning was named after Confederate general Henry Benning.

He bitterly opposed the emancipation of slaves, once saying he'd rather be stricken with pestilence and famine than see slaves become citizens.

He & his troops surrendered at Appomattox Court House in 1865.

2/

Very interesting read on Soviet combat engineering & river crossing tactics. A few things stuck out to me based on casual observations of the war in Ukraine.

Very short 🧵

1/

https://twitter.com/Combination_K/status/1836896455698608549

Some of the more recent pontoon bridging examples seen in Kursk & elsewhere did not seem to follow their own established doctrines - many of these attempts appeared extraordinarily hasty but also completely unsupported. Is this indicative of an atrophy in engineer training?

2/

"The FBI is searching the Delmar home of ex-UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter in connection with a federal investigation."

Here's my take on this

1/🧵

wnyt.com/top-stories/fb… Hahahahahahahahahahaha

End 🧵

The Four Horsemen of Multipolarity





The deepest potential irony here is that the Scooby-Doo van may have the most combat experience

What has sometimes been described "largest shipwreck in the Western Hemisphere" is in the United States, but perhaps not where you think.

It is not off the coast of the Carolinas, or Florida, though. It instead sits roughly 30 miles south of Washington D.C.

It is the "Ghost Fleet of the Potomac" at Mallows Bay.

Short 🧵1/ By the year 1917, Europe was still fully engaged in the First World War. At the time, the Germans were sinking over 200 ships a month - or one out of every four leaving England.

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, having just declared war on Germany, decided one of his first acts would be to embark on a massively ambitious shipbuilding program - 1000 steamships in just 18 months.

2/

In the spring of 1864, General Ulysses S Grant began his "Overland Campaign", an ambitious attempt to end the war by destroying the Army of Northern Virginia, led by Robert E Lee, and take the Confederate capital of Richmond. By June, however, Union assaults and attempts to outmaneuver Lee's forces had failed, resulting in a stalemate.

Grant decided on another ambitious plan: Union Army engineers would conduct one of the most consequential bridging operations in early modern military history.

1/ In order to starve out the entrenched Confederate forces defending Richmond, Grant set his sights on the city of Petersburg, Virginia - 20 miles south of Richmond. Petersburg served as a vital commercial and transportation hub for the Confederate military.

In order to achieve this, however, Grant would have to cross the James River - all the while masking his true intentions.

2/

The US needs to purge the "dead wood" from the ranks once again.

“The difficulties of leadership which existed in 1917-18 have been enormously multiplied today by the increased mobility and fire power of modern armies, and the necessity for vigorous commanders is greater now than it has ever been before.”

An op-ed 🧵(views are 100% my own, and don't reflect any policies or views of any organization). General George C Marshall was appointed the 15th Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army on September 1st, 1939 - just a few hours after Hitler launched his invasion of Poland.

He assumed command of a 190,000-man force ranked 19th in the world, behind Portugal and ahead of Bulgaria.

2/

What does Sweden bring to #NATO? Been discussed a few times, and though Sweden has closely cooperated with NATO for years, it's worth a refresher.

Very short🧵 Sweden's southern coast faces Kaliningrad, the home of Russia's Baltic Fleet. Though it has a relatively small naval force, it operates advanced submarines/watercraft, and could seriously impact an adversary's plans in the Baltic Sea.

2/

In the winter of 1950, U.S. Marines fighting in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir were running low on ammo. They requested resupply of 60MM mortar rounds, codenamed "tootsie rolls". Much to their surprise, they were soon air-dropped actual candy Tootsie Rolls.

1/🧵 The battle in Chosin took place a month after China entered the war, with Chinese forces being ordered to encircle and wipe out UN forces in the area. They attacked with 120,000+ troops, and achieved surprise - UN forces were outnumbered 10 to 1.

2/

At the end of the American Civil War, disillusioned Confederate loyalists struggled to accept the reality of a Union victory. Seeing the destruction of their livelihoods, and determined to maintain their lifestyles, as many as 20,000 left the U.S. Their destination? Brazil.

1/🧵 In 1865, Brazil was still very much a slaveholding state. It has been estimated that some 40% of those victimized by the Atlantic slave trade ended up working in Brazilian sugarcane fields, sending the fruits of this slave labor to Europe and elsewhere.

2/

On August 30th, 1862, a young 21 year old named Lyons Wakeman enlisted in the Union Army, eager to earn a $152 signing bonus and serve his country. There were a few caveats to this: "Lyons" was actually an 18 year old woman by the name of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman.

1/ 🧵 Sarah was born in Bainbridge New York in 1843, the eldest of nine children in an impoverished family. Times were tough, and she had little in the way of financial opportunities to support her family. She also wanted adventure.

In August of 1862, she left - disguised a man.

2/

In 1987, the CIA partnered with the legendary 160th Special Operations Aviation Group, or "Night Stalkers", to steal a Soviet Mi-25 Hind-D helicopter to determine whether a direct counter or competitor needed to be developed. It was dubbed "Operation Mount Hope III".

1/🧵 An opportunity presented itself during the Chadian-Libyan war, when it was discovered that a Mi-25 with Libyan markings had been left behind on Chad's territory, stranded in Ouadi Doum alongside a "trove" of artillery, vehicles, and weapons.

2/

What happens if a cold war in the Arctic goes hot?

The potential for war in the Arctic was consistently underestimated as a threat for decades. The times are, as they say, a-changin'.

A short 🧵 PSA: Appreciating the risk involved in the Arctic also assumes that there is a belief that there is indeed a pattern of warming in the region.

If there is doubt, now is a good time to stop reading as the rest of the thread might be a waste of your time, as it relies on… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

I've never been called "strangely pro-American" and accused of being a fed-bot before. Pretty weird, honestly.

Anyway, he is a completely unrelated US military compilation video.

https://twitter.com/Cwm951/status/1643845069718560768?s=20

Op-Ed:

"The Soviet Union believed it was a global power, but in contrast to Russia today, it had the ability to compete with the United States militarily and diplomatically."

foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/04/nuc… "The Soviets were going head-to-head with the Americans as peers, and they knew it. The goal was the spread of communism and the survival of their regime, not nuclear annihilation."

Two U.S. Navy ships, the USS Philippine Sea and the USS Mason, successfully intercepted a GQM-163 Supersonic sea-skimming missile last week.

The GQM is designed to mimic anti-ship missiles and some cruise missile type threats. Both intercepting missiles, allegedly SM-2's, appear… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… thedrive.com/the-war-zone/3…

The American and European support equipment is optimized for “breaching” operations. Violent attacks that first punch gaps in defensive fortifications such as minefields, trenches and earthen berms, then send armored forces rolling through the gaps.

forbes.com/sites/davidaxe…

https://twitter.com/Havoc_Six/status/1643468876070416384

"Having identified a potential weak spot in Russian defenses, the Ukrainians quickly could deploy at least a battalion of 30 or so Leopard 2s—by loading them onto heavy transporters and speeding them along paved roads toward the attack site.

Under the cover of friendly artillery… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

The DoD just released some amazing images of a joint U.S. Navy SEALs/Greek Special Operations Forces submarine boarding exercise.

thedrive.com/the-war-zone/n…

I have a lot of disagreements with this, but I think it's worth discussing any merits and pitfalls, as echo chambers stifle thought (as well as solutions).

I'm no scholar, but I'd like to share some humble opinions.

A long-winded article🧵

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… First things first: paywall free version: archive.ph/9xdNn

"And though one side in a conflict almost never simply overpowers the other, the risk of failure is especially high for a deeply flawed power such as Russia."

Short article 🧵w/ some highlights:

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… "In the three decades since (1991), the United States, despite boasting the world’s largest economy and most powerful armed forces, has generally proved unable to translate its dominance into quick victories, ending up instead in protracted conflicts with at best mixed results."