Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Shashank Joshi Profile picture
Shashank Joshi
@shashj
Defence editor at @TheEconomist, Visiting fellow at @warstudies King's College London.
প্রদীপ্ত মৈত্র (Pradipto Moitra) Profile picture Peter Durbin Profile picture ChopinsHeart@toad.social Profile picture giovanni dall'olio 🇮🇹🇪🇺🇺🇦 Profile picture Magdi Shalash Profile picture 45 subscribed
Jul 2 • 20 tweets • 9 min read
🧵 Our piece on what an Israel-Hizbullah war would look like: bigger, more intense & more destructive than in 2006, with Hizbullah both better prepared & better armed in terms of its ground forces & missile arsenal than the last time round. A few thoughts:
economist.com/middle-east-an… Officials and experts point to four significant changes in Hizbullah's ground forces. In 2006 the biggest threat was anti-tank missiles (see and below). A new challenge will come from loitering munitions (see, e.g., ) armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/comb…
jinsa.org/wp-content/upl…
Image
Jul 1 • 23 tweets • 13 min read
🧵 Understandably, given the topic, most of the sources who helped to inform this report can't be named. But I want to list some of the papers, books and other articles that can. A few years ago CSIS published a series of excellent papers on intelligence and technology, co-chaired by Avril Haines, who is now the DNI of course. The PDFs are here:
-
-
-
- csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/pu…
csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/pu…
csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/pu…
csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/pu…
Jul 1 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
In this week's @TheEconomist I have a ten-page report on intelligence, espionage & technology. It covers how tech is affecting human, signals & geospatial intelligence; the role of AI; why private firms can now do things once confined to state agencies. economist.com/technology-qua…
Image The intro sets the stage. It points out that while technology has always been central to intelligence—both collection & analysis—the relationship has changed profoundly as digital technology has seeped into every aspect of life & become ubiquitous.
economist.com/technology-qua…
Image
Jun 21 • 21 tweets • 9 min read
🧵 I wanted to provide some sources and readings on military AI which helped inform the cover story below. .@SIPRIorg continues to do excellent and rigorous work mapping the autonomous weapon landscape. I think this was the latest, from March 2023, on what the laws of war do and do not permit in this area: sipri.org/publications/2…
Image
Jun 17 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Christopher Andrew on the difference between the KGB and western intelligence agencies & their priorities. "What it would take for SIS to send 18 operations officers to the Philippines, I really can't imagine—but it wouldn't be a chess championship"
cia.gov/readingroom/do…
Image "the turning point for [Mitrokhin] was the same as for Gordievsky, the same as for Sakharov, the same as for Rastushinskaya, the same as for many more—in other words the [Soviet] suppression of the Prague Spring"
cia.gov/readingroom/do…
Image
Jun 15 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
On the 2022 negotiations. “Ukraine’s negotiators offered to forgo NATO membership, and to accept Russian occupation of parts of their territory. But they refused to recognize Russian sovereignty over them.” nytimes.com/interactive/20… “Russia, stunned by the fierce resistance Ukraine was putting up, seemed open to such a deal, but eventually balked at its critical component: an arrangement binding other countries to come to Ukraine’s defense if it were ever attacked again.” nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Jun 6 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Excellent news for Ukraine but a significant logistical challenge alongside F-16s. Macron: “Tomorrow we will launch a new cooperation and announce the transfer of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Ukraine…and train their Ukrainian pilots in France” france24.com/en/live-news/2… Ukraine’s air force chief flagged this in January. “…it is possible that the combat capabilities of Su-24M bombers will be enhanced by Mirage-2000D, and Su-25 attack aircraft will be strengthened by A-10 Thunderbolt II” reuters.com/world/europe/f…
May 28 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This looks pretty bad. "The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation" "Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories." theguardian.com/world/article/…
May 25 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Having ruled it out in January, Tories now announce plan for “mandatory national service” for 18 yr olds. Choice: “a full-time placement over 12 months in the armed forces or one weekend per month for a year volunteering in their community.” Cost put at £2.5bn/yr by 2029-30. Image This @RUSI_org piece below is a very good assessment of the serious challenges of national service and why the state doesn’t presently have the capacity to train a large number of 18 year olds. How fast was this policy thought up, planned and costed?
rusi.org/explore-our-re…
May 20 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
"The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and Israeli [PM] Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity... the court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour" edition.cnn.com/2024/05/20/mid… "The warrants against the Israeli politicians mark the first time the ICC has targeted the top leader of a close ally of the United States...A panel of ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application for the arrest warrants." edition.cnn.com/2024/05/20/mid…
May 20 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Germany Oct 2022: “The rail attackers crippled both the railway’s main communication network & its backup by almost simultaneously severing two data cables located … 200 miles apart…Whoever carried out the sabotage had detailed knowledge of the network” wsj.com/world/europe/e… “In January 2022…a Russian fishing trawler was detected traversing the icy waters above a major fiber-optic cable around the time it was cut. The cable carried data from SvalSat, one of the largest satellite ground stations in the world, located on Norway’s Svalbard archipelago”
May 15 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
"Nearly all of Russia’s leading foreign suppliers of key military-related goods are from mainland China and Hong Kong" economist.com/china/2024/05/…
Image "having surged by 47% last year to $111bn, China’s exports to Russia have fallen in the past two months, by 16% in March and by 14% in April, year on year. Banking woes are likely to be a factor." economist.com/china/2024/05/…
Image
May 11 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Apparently MI6, MI5 & GCHQ once had an internal Christmas pantomime. That’s from Robert Hannigan’s enjoyable new book, “Counter-Intelligence: What the Secret World Can Teach Us about Problem-Solving and Creativity”, which is out later this month. Image GCHQ entrance tests “have included texts in the Elvish language of Middle Earth” Image
May 3 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
On the risks of more frequent declassification. "Many CIA case officers—including one of us, Gioe—have had the experience of listening to their assets express grave concern about the growing volume of intelligence that has gone public" foreignaffairs.com/united-states/… "Another risk to sources and methods is that authorized disclosures could result in more unauthorized ones by raising questions about just how appropriate it was to classify something in the first place." foreignaffairs.com/united-states/…
May 2 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Another year, another blockbuster @TheEconomist interview with @EmmanuelMacron. “A civilisation can die,” Mr Macron warns, and the end can be “brutal...Things can happen much more quickly than we think.”
economist.com/europe/2024/05…
Image Macron on troops in Ukraine. “If the Russians were to break through the front lines, if there were a Ukrainian request, which is not the case today,” he says, “we would legitimately have to ask ourselves this question.” economist.com/europe/2024/05…
Apr 19 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Well. Israel apparently took out a radar site which was part of the air defence for Natanz nuclear facility. That is one hell of a shot across the bow. And here is proof. Pretty clever target: allows Iran to wave away the strike, while sending a clear message that nuclear sites are at credible risk in future escalation cycles. (FWIW Iran’s barrage also struck balance between calibration & signalling, though with less finesse)
Apr 3 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
“The strike that killed seven WCK aid workers in Gaza was a result of lack of discipline on the part of commanders on the ground, and not due to coordination problems between the army and the humanitarian organization, sources in the IDF told Haaretz.” haaretz.com/israel-news/20… ‘IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi …said that the attack was "a mistake that followed a misidentification - at night during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn't have happened," he added’ haaretz.com/israel-news/20…
Mar 27 • 39 tweets • 15 min read
Robert Gates on visiting Russia as CIA director: "One of my most vivid memories, they have this wonderful guest house at KGB headquarters where they have their dinners...We sit down and I ate the worst piece of beef I’ve ever had in my entire life" millercenter.org/the-presidency… "It was like the reject from an American butcher shop...it was all fatty. I mean, it was just a lousy piece of meat. I thought, if the director of the KGB can’t get a better steak than this, they’re in worse trouble than I thought." millercenter.org/the-presidency…
Mar 18 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
A good reflection on Russia’s attritional way of war and why West isn’t prepared for it. But notable that the word “nuclear” doesn’t appear at any point. How does NATO-Russia nuclear dynamic affect the likelihood & impact of war protraction & attrition? rusi.org/explore-our-re… “In an attritional war characterised by heavy casualties, there simply isn’t time to replace lost NCOs or generate them for new units … Only time can generate leaders capable of executing NATO doctrine” rusi.org/explore-our-re…
Mar 12 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
"The United States should adopt a 4+2 posture beginning in 2025 that consists of four U.S. BCTs—in Poland, Italy, Germany, and Romania—and two headquarters, in Germany and Poland" csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/20…
Image "the conventional balance in Europe favors the United States and Europe today. This advantage includes forces currently deployed to NATO’s eastern flank, as well as forces that Russia and NATO could deploy"
csis-website-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/20…
Image
Mar 1 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
Ukraine "presents the first instance in which both combatants deploy robust, if still largely primitive, reconnaissance-strike complexes (RSCs) that they innovate during wartime. This...allows observers to identify fundamental mechanics of the interaction" press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewconten…
Image Not sure this is entirely correct. "These [recon-strike] complexes should also include [AI]; the fact that neither Ukraine nor Russia employs major AI indicates the degree to which their reconnaissance-strike complexes are still primitive." press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewconten…