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David Burbach (also @dburbach Bluesky) Profile picture
David Burbach (also @dburbach Bluesky)
@dburbach
Prof. of International Relations & National Security. Space. Also nukes, civil-military, cats. Naval War College but personal tweets, NOT representing DOD
Jun 24 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
After I RTd yesterday, a few people asked why China doesn't launch from their coastline vs from an interior populated area? A thread! tl;dr: national security initially, now also sunk costs and not giving a damn 1/ An ideal launch site is near the equator and has wide open ocean to the east (most efficient given Earth's rotation) and either north and south for polar launches. Florida fits the bill nicely for the US! 2/ Image
Jun 10, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Yes, I am thinking "rods from god" today.

This 2002 RAND study has the best quantitative analysis I've seen. Notably, they conclude conventional penetrators are often *better* than hypervelocity impactors against deeply buried targets.

rand.org/pubs/monograph… The kinetic impactors lose energy *too* quickly, very rapidly ablating and vaporizing when they enter the rock or soil surface.

I don't know where advocates get their "destroy bunkers hundreds of feet deep" as published studies just don't support that
Dec 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Last 747 ever to be made. 50 years is quite a run for an airplane but it's sad to see them fading out -- beautiful lines vs the generic twinjet (and we shall not speak of the lumpy 380). My first 747 ride was Pan Am LAX - JFK in 1986, last BA Johannesburg to London, 2012. Honestly not my fav as a passenger, too crowded
Dec 7, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Yeah, I know "it was satire", but I was familiar with the eXile at the time and a core theme for years was how Western women are fat-ankled pantsuit wearing feminazis, while Russian girls were thankfully skinny and economically desperate sluts. What, exactly, was the satire? I dont doubt a lot of specific extreme stories were just stories, but that's just a *lot* of effort, and a great job of never breaking character, to... what, spend years satirizing that some dudes thought exactly that about the advantages of getting laid in Moscow?
Nov 19, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Comparison of the Apollo capsule and service module to the new Orion spacecraft.

The Apollo SPS engine was, as it looks, more powerful -- 21,000lb vs 6,000lb, but the Apollo engine was overdesigned Overdesigned as in, from an early mission concept where the CSM stack would land and then take off from the moon, before the LOR with separate landing craft was chosen.
Oct 25, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
There's no point in arguing but I do see people arguing US COVID deaths were << the official 1 million.

Almost never see them have any explanation for the 1 million excess all-cause deaths 3/2020-today, several standard deviations away from normal I do see some people argue the deaths were simply faked, "liberal" coroners and state vital stats agencies and federal CDC / Census all together massively fabricating death certs and other numbers
Oct 12, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Anya lately has been less requesting I throw the toy mouse, and more a game where I pick it up right in front of her and she then takes it out of my hand using as much violence as possible I have to grant, it's a legit skill for a predator to want to keep in practice.
Oct 11, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Two polls now, Republicans on track to flip Dem seat in deep blue Rhode Island.

Reasons? RI-02 has shifted slightly R (2020 PVI D+4). GOP got the best possible candidate and cleared the field. Dems had weakish field, six-way primary only 4 weeks ago. Those reasons are in addition to the national mood, which would probably make it a tough race if it were Generic D vs Generic R. Unfortunately for Dems, the actual race is worse for them than Generic vs Generic
Oct 10, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
.@SecArmy squarely tied to recruiting, so:

What data does Army have on the relative marginal effects of sticking up vs not on recruitment of different populations?

I'm one of several profs the Army has asked to think about this, but I guess they must have answers already? .@secarmy asserts some populations have lower propensity to serve if Army leaders defend women in public.

One would imagine some young women, and young men who are sympathetic to womens' service, would have lower propensity to join if Army does *not* 2/
Oct 4, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
I've been on social media for 31 years. Started free-speech absolutist. I was naive how many people will put so much effort into abuse and harm for its own sake, or how vulnerable societies would prove to mass disinformation.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… In those three decades, I've seen every unmoderated and easily-accessible platform become completely unusable over time. Spam. Trolls just out to wreck the platform for kicks. Relentless abusers who must not have jobs or families to slow them down.
Oct 3, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Specifics of this paper aside -- I haven't looked at it -- please, people, please distinguish between "one student's term paper at a war college (that may have a B- grade)" and "official DOD policy statement" or "peer-reviewed research" Distinguishing from "official DOD policy statement" is especially critical. Our staff and war colleges do grant academic freedom to officers in their courses. If they want to write that the US should preeemptively nuke China, or preemptively surrender to China, they can 1/
Jun 28, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I'm going ahead w travel to Montgomery, Alabama soon for a space-related event.

But.

As laws evolve I dont think I'll be comfortable with non-mandatory travel that my pregnant or LGBT colleagues would reasonably feel unsafe conducting. Again, that's not an immediate change, but if things go as seems very plausible, there will be an entirely unfair burden placed on some of my colleagues due to laws in certain states. I shouldn't get professional development opportunities they can't reasonably pursue.
Apr 5, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Ah, Massachusetts politics. Late 50s, MA highway officials scammed property owners in Bristol Co. to personally score $$$ from I-95 land acquisition. US Senate Dems uncovered in 1960, but slow walked hearings 'til after JFK won (and GOP took over MA governorship) This by opening to a random page of a book I was about to toss on US highway policy. Didn't make it easier to toss, lol.
Nov 15, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
On the "its own asset" part, what if Russia values ISS less today than we might be used to thinking? I don't think they *want* to destroy it per se, but a short thread 1/ We know in recent months the Russian civil space budget has been slashed, Putin has been publically harsh on Roscosmos head Dmitri Rogozin, and there's been little movement on highly trumpeted things like a China-Russia moonbase. E.g., 2/
arstechnica.com/science/2021/1…
Oct 9, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Not to pick on @ProfPaulPoast specifically, but analysis of policy taglines w external definitions, common understandings, theories is likely to be wrong -- policymakers frequently mean other things entirely than what the words 'really' mean 1/ To extent "strategic competition" means something other than "same stuff but not Trump", I think @kjmcinnis1 is right Biden is using it mostly as cover for to help justify "domestic renewal" that has at least vague indirect national security consequences 2/
Sep 18, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I used to think geothermal only worked in very rare geologic hot spots, but I'm increasingly sold it can be done lots of places -- and by the same drilling firms / drilling workers who'd be displaced from oil & gas wellfields. Tbf, "sold" overstates my ability to judge the technology and economics, but there are at least serious people making the case, which wasn't really true 20+ years ago.
May 17, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
For earlier generations, to see why just look at the New Deal housing maps where the federal govt redlined just about any neighborhood of with a concentration of immigrants -- even German, Poles, etc -- or significant use of languages other than English in public. A bit earlier, my grandparents on one side were kids in recently-arrived German speaking households during World War 1, when the country became actively hostile to the use of the German language (more so in WW1 than WW2, actually)
Mar 14, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"uniformed military can't comment on military policy bc that's political" is just now how it works

Whether to buy a new ICBM is a very contentious political, even partisan issue, and yet @US_Stratcom and official USAF accounts tweet in support *constantly*. Liberal TV commentator: "the Ford aircraft carrier does not work and the sailors crewing it are all stupid baby killers"

Navy: "we'll have to let the political debate play out, it would be inappropriate for the Navy to respond"
Mar 14, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Well, 19,516 pages later, replaced the laser printer I bought soon after starting at NWC in 2007 -- with more or less the same thing. I guess Brother found if you square off the corners it can print 50% faster, or maybe it's that Moore's Law thing Fwiw the old printer was still running great. But needs toner ($99) and the drum will wear out on the next toner cartridge too, whereas a brand new one is under $200🤷‍♂️
Mar 14, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The "lone bomb EMP" concept gets play because:

1. It's a way to turn Iran / NK / Grand Fenwick into existential threats we must invade

2. Masculine fantasies of social collapse but where fallout / plague / etc don't make life impossible no matter your skill with gun and grill To elaborate #2, EMP is the *perfect* "Prepper" scenario. Society collapses and modern conveniences are gone. But everything else is fine -- no firestorms, no plague, no radiation sickness, sunlight not blocked by asteroid dust / volcanic ash / nuclear soot, etc 2/
Mar 13, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
US trying to cause political change in Russia is a fools errand and I largely agree w @DanielLarison and @EmmaMAshford a democratic govt could have similar security interests, but, one w more popular legitimacy might be better on not subverting *other* democracies 1/ Putin's govt has an interest making democracy as a concept appear unstable, weak, ineffective, promoting the notion that there is no "objective" truth to be found, supporting illiberal national & transnational groups, and against anti-corruption and financial transparency 2/