🧵 Whenever a Western government makes a contentious intelligence-based claim there is always a chorus of “WMD in Iraq!” Its worth taking a moment to reflect on how meaningless this usually is. All intelligence is imperfect. That’s why intelligence assessments use probabilistic language. Uncertainty is unavoidable. Claims that are reflect this should generally be seen as more reliable than those than don’t (“slam dunk”).

"Post-Soviet Russia has never spent this much on the military...war expenditure has reached 37.3% of all budget spending, 2.5 times the pre-war average...By the end of 2023, army’s share of the total budget will not fall below 30%...twice pre-war level" wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russ… "Based on the government’s GDP forecast for 2023, an anticipated value of 150 trillion rubles, military spending will be no less than 6.4 percent of GDP. This is three times more than the average amount countries allocate to defense (2.1 percent of GDP)." wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/russ…

Wow. Looks like Canada will accuse India of an assassination on its soil. "Trudeau is accusing the gov't of India of being behind a fatal shooting on Canadian soil. Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar was shot dead outside of a Sikh temple...on June 18" cbc.ca/news/politics/… "Canadian national-security authorities have what they consider credible intelligence that India was behind the mid-June fatal shooting of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent Sikh leader in British Columbia designated a terrorist by New Delhi" theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…

Every line of this obituary is better than the next. "His father, Lewis, a former army officer discharged during the First World War for insisting on fighting with a bow and arrow, left his mother when his son was five and became an artist in Paris" thetimes.co.uk/article/major-… "He and his younger sister Eila went to live with their aristocratic uncle, Denis Wigan...His father allegedly lost the custody battle when the judge was told that he had no real job or permanent address, and that Wigan had scored a century for Eton." thetimes.co.uk/article/major-…

I'm late to the newest RUSI opus on Ukraine, but it's insightful as always. "Much of the data supporting the tactics that Ukraine’s international partners sought to train Ukrainian forces to adopt was based on operational analysis from the 20th century" static.rusi.org/Stormbreak-Spe…
"Ukrainians also worked to degrade Russian tactical reserves using UAVs. Reconnaissance by day would locate Russian positions, which would be attacked at night using converted agricultural UAVs dropping RPGs" static.rusi.org/Stormbreak-Spe…

"Ukrainian soldiers ... indicated that Russian artillery units were laagered up to 12–15 km behind the frontline, and that they spend the night even further away. They only approach the frontline to conduct fire missions & withdraw as quickly as possible" rusi.org/explore-our-re… "When the system works, Russian targeting cycles can be completed in three minutes, while others take 30. The former is essentially the limit of what is physically possible – a 155mm shell fired to 25 km will take 75 seconds to reach the target." rusi.org/explore-our-re…

I'm on holiday for a bit, but I left a piece in @TheEconomist on what the Ukraine war is teaching—often, reminding—Western armies about military medicine, after 20+ years in which they enjoyed the luxury of largely unhindered medical evacuation by air.
economist.com/international/… Older injury patterns are returning to the fore. Shelling has caused the majority of casualties for most of the war. Artillery and rocket injuries tend to cause more severe & more injuries than IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan, as the study below explains.

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1684203209269583874?s=20

Nothing to see here. Just a Russian state-founded think-tank declaring Poland & Baltics to be fake states. "all three republics, in fact, are breakaway parts of the large Russian space ... the question of the legitimacy of sovereignty is not resolved." russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-… "One can only hope that those neighbours of Russia who demonstrate more adequate behavior than Poland or the Baltics will be able to save themselves and fit into the new conditions. Russia has already suffered enough with imperial responsibility" russiancouncil.ru/analytics-and-…

New WOTR podcast w/ Michael Kofman & Rob Lee reflecting on their trip to Ukraine. Early June attacks were not probing, says Lee. "It was the real counter offensive...an attempt to conduct a rapid breakthrough [&] exploit that as quickly as possible"
warontherocks.com/2023/07/ukrain… Lee: "during this phase, Ukraine used a lot of its new modern equipment...new NATO trained brigades played a key role in the beginning. And ultimately...the first phase of this operation was not a success...That's the conclusion we've reached after talking to a number of people"

Informative podcast with @DAlperovitch reflecting on his recent trip to Ukraine. " They certainly had hopes that the Russians would not be as deeply as entrenched as they are...It's really, really tough going, they're taking enormous casualties." geopolitics-decanted.simplecast.com/episodes/trip-… "the debate in western capitals...is often framed in the context of lands, how much land is Ukraine going to take back...debate in Ukraine is actually very different. The fundamental issue they're focused on...is how do we end this war in a way where we have durable security?"

Very important new report from UK parliament's intelligence committee. "China almost certainly maintains the largest state intelligence apparatus in the world – dwarfing the UK’s Intelligence Community and presenting a challenge for our Agencies to cover" https://t.co/ONJaWxosSvisc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/upl…
Blunt & to the point. ISC: "China’s size, ambition and capability have enabled it to successfully penetrate every sector of the UK’s economy, and – until the Covid-19 pandemic – Chinese money was readily accepted by HMG with few questions asked." isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/upl…

Great story. "a clandestine unit of [FSB] covertly tracked high-profile Americans in the country, broke into their rooms to plant recording devices, recruited informants from the US Embassy’s clerical staff and sent young women to coax Marines posted to Moscow to spill secrets."

https://twitter.com/JoeWSJ/status/1677317294991482880

"DKRO, which is virtually unknown outside a small circle of Russia specialists and intelligence officers, also helped detain two other Americans in Russia, former Marines Paul Whelan and Trevor Reed, these people said." wsj.com/articles/fsb-e…

🧵 This week's @TheEconomist cover story is my ten-page special report on lessons from Ukraine. The cover evokes a key theme: the various technologies of precision warfare are likely to co-exist with—rather than supplant—legacy weapons, mass & attrition. https://t.co/8bb6qQVBzOeconomist.com/special-report…
The first chapter sets the stage. It asks how the 1990s-era revolution in military affairs which was supposed to make everything look like Desert Storm ended up in a war that resembles Iran-Iraq. Technology has made big ground offensives harder & costlier. economist.com/special-report…

🧵 I want to highlight some papers, studies and other sources that sparked useful thoughts and helped with this special report. https://t.co/HZikd3H7sr

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1675798205471113219

The first is podcasts, above all @WarOnTheRocks' output, including the regular @KofmanMichael chats () and Peter Roberts' @TMWpodcasts (https://t.co/VLDCwSiHuv).warontherocks.com/premium/therus…
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/thi…

🍿 "Prigozhin originally intended to capture Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu & General Valery Gerasimov...during a visit to a southern region that borders Ukraine...the FSB, found out about the plan two days before it was to be executed" wsj.com/articles/wagne… US Intelligence Community leaking to NYT and WSJ this week:

UK chief of general staff at Rusi land warfare conference: “It’s too early to tell how successful Ukraine’s counter offensive will be [but] you should never write off Moscow, Russia has been a country of comebacks. A fractured Russia is unlikely to be a good thing for” Europe. .@Andriypzag, @KofmanMichael & Lt-Gen Ralph Wooddisse now speaking on the lessons from Ukraine.

It seems that Russia tried to kill Aleksandr Poteyev in Miami. Poteyev is the former SVR officer who was recruited by the CIA and is thought to have identified the Russian illegals in the US who were rolled up and swapped in 2010. nytimes.com/2023/06/19/us/… “The plot, along with other Russian activities, elicited a harsh response from the U.S. government. In April 2021, the United States imposed sanctions and expelled 10 Russian diplomats, including the chief of station for the S.V.R” nytimes.com/2023/06/19/us/…

Zaporozhia: ‘“There are constant attacks from helicopters, three or four times a day,” he says, describing the Russians’ deadly use of Ka-52 attack craft in and around the frontline, and admitting they are difficult to shoot down from the ground…’ theguardian.com/world/2023/jun… ‘Like in many Ukrainian hospitals, conditions are cramped at the best of times, but local sources say the facility has been filling up with wounded soldiers over the past fortnight as the counteroffensive has begun.’ theguardian.com/world/2023/jun…

Reading @calder_walton’s history of the east-west intelligence contest. On the Red Terror unleashed by the same Chekist agencies celebrated by the Putin regime today. Reminds me of some people in February 2022.

Our leader on UK’s AI ambitions: “A stock of clean, regularly updated datasets that are technically & legally easy for algorithm-makers to use would draw in engineers who want to build new AI systems. An AI-ready NHS would be the jewel in Britain’s crown.” economist.com/leaders/2023/0…

https://twitter.com/halhod/status/1669338212287004687

“One focus should be to ensure a reliable supply of clean, affordable power. To train models needs mind-boggling quantities of electricity. If Britain is without cheap supplies of power, it will struggle to persuade anyone to set up big GPU centres there” economist.com/leaders/2023/0…

.@Jack_Watling: "the Ukrainians are trying to get the Russians to commit their reserves, moving troops from the third defence line to bolster sectors under pressure. Once these troops are pulled forwards, it will become easier to identify the weak points" rusi.org/explore-our-re… "there is an intense counterbattery duel being fought...The Russians are hunting for Ukraine’s artillery with Lancet UAVs. The Ukrainians are utilising Storm Shadow and GMLRS to try to destroy Russian command and control and munitions stockpiles." rusi.org/explore-our-re…