Important. "The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US [DIA] intelligence assessment" edition.cnn.com/2025/06/24/pol… Wow. 'Two of the people familiar w/ the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” “...the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops”...' edition.cnn.com/2025/06/24/pol…

Pentagon briefing: “I know that battle damage is of great interest. Final battle damage will take some time, but initial battle damage assessments indicate that all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction.” Pentagon briefing: “In total, US forces employed approximately 75 precision guided weapons during this operation. This included, as the President stated last night, 14 30,000 pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance penetrators, marking the first ever operational use of this weapon.”

1. Useful details here. “While some American officials find the Israeli estimate credible, others emphasized that the U.S. intelligence assessment remained unchanged” nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/… 2. “American spy agencies believe that it could take several months, and up to a year, for Iran to make a weapon.” nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/…

'To reach even [Natanz] all the weapons available to the Israeli Air Force, and all except the 30,000 lbs GBU-57/B and the 5,000 lbs GBU 72/B available to the United States, would likely require several impacts into the same crater to ‘burrow’ down...' rusi.org/explore-our-re… "For the FFEP [Fordow] and new facility at Natanz at an estimated 80-100 meters, possibly with layers of reinforced concrete, even the GBU-57/B [carried by B2/B21] would likely require multiple impacts at the same aiming point to have a good chance of penetrating the facility."

🧵A few other random observations from the Strategic Defence Review that caught my eye. "much more rapid progress is needed in [carrier strike] evolution into ‘hybrid’ carrier airwings, whereby crewed combat aircraft (F-35B) are complemented by autonomous collaborative platforms in the air, and expendable, single-use drones"

1/ Very important signal that UK might return to air-launched tactical nuclear forces by buying F-35A and participating in US nuclear sharing arrangements. There had been indications that UK was preparing to be able to host B61 tactical nuclear weapons. thetimes.com/uk/defence/art… 2/ UK participation in nuclear sharing would have limited impact in itself, since weapons remain under US custody & control, and several other European countries already host B61s & practice delivering them. This doesn’t mitigate against withdrawal of US nuclear umbrella. But …

An interesting essay on how US intelligence agencies judged Soviet intentions and capabilities & how that changed over time. "...probably incorrectly believing there was also a Soviet proclivity to prepare to launch a war if conditions seemed propitious" cia.gov/resources/csi/… "...considerable [Soviet] exaggerations of Western bellicosity and capabilities, including planning for initiation of war. Soviet intel estimates, like those of the United States and NATO, were always predicated on initiation of war by the other side" cia.gov/resources/csi/…

I've been reviewing many of the past year's US & European military & intelligence assessments of how long it would take Russia to rebuild its military capability and the timeline on which any threat to NATO could unfold. A brief thread below which summarises these assessments.

https://twitter.com/shashj/status/1907348916959326296

Norway intel service: "At the earliest, Moscow may be able to fully realise these plans [for military expansion e.g. Karelia] five to ten years after the war in Ukraine is over." In some areas Russia has "next to no reserves" for the next two years. etterretningstjenesten.no/publikasjoner/…

I wrote a piece on China’s evolution into a bigger, more sophisticated and more threatening cyber power over the past decade, and particularly in the last few years. I also look at the pivotal role played by China’s private sector ecosystem in that shift. economist.com/china/2025/03/… A few sources. Ciaran Martin’s very good survey from a few days ago gazumped mine. rusi.org/explore-our-re…

Absolutely incredible. The Trump admin accidentally adds the editor of the Atlantic to a Signal group. Then Pete Hegseth sends him details of the US strikes on Yemen hours ahead of time incl. "precise information about weapons packages, targets & timing" theatlantic.com/politics/archi… Walz: "it will have to be the United States that reopens these shipping lanes [Red Sea]. Per the president’s request we are working with DOD and State to determine how to compile the cost associated and levy them on the Europeans" theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

Witkoff on UK troop proposals. “it’s a combination of a posture and a pose and…simplistic. I think there’s this … sort of notion of we’ve all got to be like Winston Churchill, the Russians are gonna march across Europe. I think that’s preposterous” singjupost.com/transcript-of-… Witkoff transcript is just eye popping: “Why would they want to absorb Ukraine? For what purpose, exactly? They don’t need to absorb Ukraine. That would be like occupying Gaza…They want stability there… But the Russians also have what they want” singjupost.com/transcript-of-…

America’s main negotiator with Russia appears to be completely captured by Russian propaganda. Witkoff: “there have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule.” pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/… The Russians must be dumbstruck they their opponents have managed to find perhaps the most gullible man on the planet. Putin “told me a story, Tucker, about how when the president was shot, he went to his local church and met with his priest and prayed.” pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/…

“The multinational task force envisioned does not need to be everywhere in Ukraine. It needs to have a presence on three directions, and with sufficient mobility to redeploy as necessary along the front.” But is UK/Fr intention really a force that wd deploy to front in a crisis?

https://twitter.com/kofmanmichael/status/1896548043132199246

Kofman/Watling: “the initial force deployed could be as few as three combat brigades, … force may need to grow over time as Russia reconstitutes. This would amount to perhaps 15,000 to 20,000 personnel in country, with another 30,000 to 40,000 required for sustained rotation”

🧵 This UN resolution vote on Ukraine is worth paying attention to. A brief thread on the Trump administration's bullying under way in the background.
reuters.com/world/europe/u… Every year the US has backed a UN General Assembly vote noting the principles of the UN Charter & Russia's violation of those in Ukraine. Now the US is threatening to vote against that & is pushing a new resolution in the Security Council.

‘The IDF requires an officer to sign off on any recommendations from its “big data processing" systems, according to an intelligence official … The Gospel and other AI tools do not make decisions autonomously, the person added.’ washingtonpost.com/technology/202… “Another machine learning tool, called Lavender, uses a percentage score to predict how likely a Palestinian is to be a member of a militant group, allowing the IDF to quickly generate a large volume of potential human targets”
washingtonpost.com/technology/202…

The Pentagon's annual report on Chinese military power is out. It has a number of interesting things in it. media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/20… It deals extensively with the corruption purges in the Chinese armed forces—at least 15 high ranking officers or industry execs removed July-Dec 2023—concluding that this "may have disrupted its [PLA] progress toward stated 2027 modernization goals" media.defense.gov/2024/Dec/18/20…

Senior US admin official says Assad wouldn't have been toppled absent US support for Ukr & Israel. No "serious" outreach from Assad to USG. US urged Iraq to "stay out of it". And: "future here will be written by Syrians. We are not coming up with a blueprint from Washington" Asked if USG is in contact with HTS, the US official says: " it's safe to say there's contact with with all Syrian groups". Says HTS is a "broad kaleidoscope" and US has to be "smart" in dealing with it, "mindful and pragmatic about about the realities on the ground."

Punchy intro to CDS Xmas lecture at RUSI from @MTSavill: “last month's announcement of cuts… is emblematic of a dept. that is struggling to reconcile people and money with existing commitments at a very time when the threats that we face are growing in scale and complexity” Radakin warns North Korean deployments could become a larger flow: “This year's most extraordinary moment was the deployment of thousands of North Korean soldiers on the border of Ukraine and the possibility of tens of of thousands more to follow” as part of DPRK-Russia pact

Reading the just released “War and Peace” by General Sir Richard Barrons, who is currently co-writing the UK’s strategic defence review. Barrons on serving in Bosnia. “The experience of working in a broken, rundown, deeply factionalised and occasionally bizarre environment was pretty faithfully replicated by my stints in the Ministry of Defence in London”

An instructive podcast, published six days ago, with Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for the secretary of defence position. A few takeaways:
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/143… Hegseth: "I would probably talk a lot about the military industrial complex... the companies that influence the way we procure weapons and way we fight. Well, there's the veterans industrial complex too...allow the private market to provide for vets ... the VA hates that."

“JPMorgan Chase, a bank, has estimated that a tariff hike half the size of the one Mr Trump is advocating would knock a third to half a percentage point off gdp growth in its first year and increase inflation by 1.5-2 percentage points.” economist.com/briefing/2024/… “Mass deportations of the magnitude that Mr Trump has proposed are also unlikely to happen. The federal government simply would not have the capacity to hunt down and deport millions of people unless Mr Trump were to enlist the armed forces or deputise…law enforcement”