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Gerry Doyle Profile picture
Gerry Doyle
@mgerrydoyle
Reuters Global News Desk editor, Asia. Defense, other stuff. Novelist, aviation geek, bartender, dad. Ex-NYT. Grew up in Midwest, moved to Mideast. Views my own
Oct 18, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
I have talked to a couple of people about how ukraine could best/most efficiently defend against shahed-136 type drones. both are informed on the subject and one is by all definitions an air defense expert. short answer: missiles and radar directed guns. longer answer... is that for point targets--say, a power plant, a dam, a rail station *not in a dense urban area*--radar-directed guns are a good choice, especially on a cost-per-shot base. rheinmetal's skyranger system and the american c-ram were two suggestions
Oct 18, 2022 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
so this is excellent

couple of interesting tidbits: it confirms that some (if not most/all) western weapons are making their way across the border by road

newyorker.com/magazine/2022/… also that the pentagon doesn't think atacms are crucial... basically they took ukraine's target list and assessed that gmlrs could take care of the most pressing issues
Mar 3, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
what does this mean ukraine does have some ss-21s, very basic short-range ballistic missiles, and iirc did hit a russian airbase in russia in the early days of the conflict
Mar 1, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
this is a good thread. much remains to be seen on how russia may regroup or change tactics, and how much the initial week of failures may have permanently cost their invasion effort. seems clear however that their strategic goal--quick, decisive takeover--is out of reach and the domestic dimension to this crisis, as russia's economy evaporates in real time, changes the calculus as well, although I couldn't tell you exactly how. it does seem that pressing ahead only leads to a wider tree of bad-to-catastrophic scenarios
Sep 2, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
this post brought to you by mountain dew and doritos suddenly very hungry for cool ranch
Aug 30, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I see the takes have calmed down quite a bit since I last logged on what, exactly, are we firing people for? I know it sounds snarky but "if I were running this withdrawal, I would simply have gotten everyone out with no fuss" seems like where a lot of these takes are coming from
Jun 7, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
there are no parallels between the beer hall putsch and the present day, because famously the 1930s were the only time authoritarianism and fascism were ascendant. everyone knows that it's getting harder and harder for the will of the people to be felt nationally (and even at a state level), thanks to gerrymandering and ev distortions, but I'm sure that's nothing to worry about
May 3, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
so, this is pretty nonsensical

taibbi is out of his depth, but the reason the cia wants a diverse workforce is because it can't function as an intelligence agency without one. that's not woke (or a failure of the left, as he bizarrely argues), it's practical Image stole this screenshot from @AthertonKD, btw
May 3, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I see we have been shouting at each other about who should get the most resources to deter/fight a war with china I have no hot take here, but it's a mistake to assume either that china has the ability to wipe u.s. counterattack possibilities off the board or that u.s. forces in the region are invulnerable

(that's the opposite of a hot take)
Feb 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
we have reached the stage in the dystopia where the crowdfunding platform is like, "hang on a second" seriously: the social and *economic* benefits of free education, health care and child care are robust and well-studied. the continued pretense that "actually helping people hurts them, because MorAl hAzaRd," is harmful and needs to stop
Feb 10, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
incredible to see an elected official say this out loud there is no equivalence between protests for social justice, in which what little violence there was, was against property, and the jan. 6 insurrection. none. not in degree, not in kind.
Jan 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
new *what* orders!? the f-16 entered service in *1978* and unless we are talking about a "super falcon" type deal where the guts and airframe are completely revamped, ala the (awkwardly designated) f/a-18e/f then this is not a front-line aircraft in coming decades
Dec 29, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
yeah, that's not really the best takeaway

it took the better part of four years for the political media to come around to the idea that it was ok to say true things, such as "trump lies." would be nice if we could hang onto lessons like that there is also a real danger of thinking "covering biden the same way" equals four years of the same sorts of stories. trump generated the coverage he did because of the person he is and the things he did.
Nov 17, 2020 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
that's correct. the jcpoa put iran's nuclear program in the deep freeze, at basically no cost to the u.s. and its allies.

the u.s. decision to pull out of the deal spun up iran's nuclear program to the point where the u.s. is considering military force to stop it

just insane
Nov 8, 2020 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
now that the election is functionally over, I have a few observations.

first of all, this was not a close contest. biden has a huge lead in the popular vote (4-plus million) that is only going to increase. electorally, the trajectory is roughly the same as trump's 2016 win that's not a squeaker. a squeaker is 2000, which was decided by lawyers and a few boxes of hard-to-interpret ballots in florida

like... child, come close and let me tell you about the election day that lasted two months
Nov 3, 2020 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
oh, hello. I didn't see you standing there. it's been quite a year, hasn't it? what with all the hundreds of thousands of covid deaths, minor wars, and political mayhem. and it's u.s. election day. which means: you need a drink. today we're bringing out the big guns. the elephant guns. the 16-inch naval guns. bourbon and champagne.

let's... BEGIN
Jul 10, 2020 • 26 tweets • 20 min read
have I mentioned I take requests? I do. and they are all the more urgent when someone has a bottle of something different (pastis) they need to make disappear quickly (a week or two). to that effect: let's make a greta garbo in most circumstances you'd drink pastis chilled, straight up. it is, more or less, a somewhat more civilized cousin of our good friend absinthe. but can can also make cocktails with it--important if you have to drink a bottle in like two weeks
May 28, 2020 • 18 tweets • 13 min read
I feel like this week keeps getting darker and darker. so we need an appropriately grim drink. this one is another alleged hangover cure, but we're really doing it today because of its name: the corpse reviver it was invented during prohibition as a way to help people feel better after drinking (illegally) all night. once again, this seems less like a strategy to cure a hangover and more like a strategy to get drunk again
Apr 9, 2020 • 13 tweets • 7 min read
when you want strong crisis-related restrictions that you might not notice until you try to push against them, there's one place in the world that can deliver that kind of thing better than anywhere else: singapore.

and so today we will make a singapore sling warning: this one is going to require some stuff you might not have in your bar. there's a lot in it, all originally designed to--somewhat creepily--disguise the taste of the alcohol so, uh, ladies can drink it.
Apr 8, 2020 • 11 tweets • 6 min read
this one's for new york, which, and I can't believe I'm saying this, is inextricably tied to this cocktail because of a fictional gossip columnist. it has a reputation for being girly, but in the apocalypse we need to be confident no matter who we are. so here's the cosmopolitan this was one of the first drinks I was taught in bartending school because of how generally popular it is. and there's no reason it shouldn't be! continuing my theme of "everything is derivative," imagine a tart margarita but with vodka instead tequila, and adding cranberry juice
Apr 6, 2020 • 11 tweets • 6 min read
as I've mentioned before here at crisis cocktail central, I take requests. @ValerieInsinna asked for a gin drink, and since we all need to be a little tipsy after this weekend, I'm here to tell you about the white lady. the cocktail, not the person asking to speak to your manager you make enough drinks, you realize that all of them are a "take" on a foundational cocktail. I mean a margarita is basically a whiskey sour with tequila and a bit of cointreau. the white lady is, more or less, a margarita but with gin. hear me out!