“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…

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…

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…

"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…
"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…

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…
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…

WSJ has seen the 17-page terms that Russia wanted to impose on Ukraine in *April* 2022. "those objectives remain largely unchanged after two years of fighting: Turn Ukraine into a neutered state permanently vulnerable to Russian military aggression." wsj.com/world/russia-u… Essentially, Russia wanted a colony: "No foreign weapons would be allowed on Ukrainian soil. Ukraine’s military would be pared down to a specific size. Russia sought to limit everything from the no. of troops and tanks to the max firing range of missiles." wsj.com/world/russia-u…

"Israeli troops fired on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City on Thursday, witnesses said. More than 100 people were killed...witnesses later said Israeli troops opened fire as people pulled flour and canned goods off of trucks." apnews.com/article/israel… "Kamel Abu Nahel...treated for a gunshot wound at Shifa Hospital, said he and others went to the distribution point in the middle of the night because they heard there would be a delivery of food. “We’ve been eating animal feed for two months,”' apnews.com/article/israel…

Estonian intel annual report. ". The Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with NATO within the next decade. For Estonia, Russia’s military reform entails a significant increase in Russian forces near the Estonian border in the coming years" valisluureamet.ee/doc/raport/202… Estonian intel: "In the short term [Russia] likely incapable of significantly expanding the production of new armoured vehicles. Nevertheless, refurbishing preserved armoured vehicles from storage can compensate for losses in Ukr for several more years" valisluureamet.ee/doc/raport/202…

Reminds me of the sham Russian "proposals" of Dec 2021-Jan 2022. "Surrender terms currently being proposed by Russian intermediaries include Ukraine ceding the territory already under Russian control along with Kharkiv, and in some versions Odessa" rusi.org/explore-our-re…

https://twitter.com/Jack_Watling/status/1757367634675240966

"The Russian military began 2023 with a highly disorganised force in Ukraine comprising approximately 360,000 troops...By the beginning of 2024, the Russian Operational Group of Forces in the occupied territories comprised 470,000 troops." rusi.org/explore-our-re…

🧵 It's been a bumper week for drones. Zaluzhny wrote an entire essay on them last week. On Tuesday Zelensky announced a new combat branch—the Unmanned Systems Force. A few drone-focused reports are out or due shortly. We put the issue on the cover of this week's @TheEconomist. A piece in our science & tech section looked at the impact of FPV drones. We looked at both their limitations & promise, why both sides are attempting to build millions of these things & how they are being imbued with increasing degrees of autonomy.
economist.com/interactive/sc…

Our piece on the Zaluzhny saga. "The Economist has been able to confirm that an early-evening meeting took place [on January 29th] at which the president informed his general that he had decided to dismiss him." Read on for some of the details 👇🏽 economist.com/europe/2024/01… BBC Russian corroborates our account, which is also consistent with FT's. "Three people took part in the meeting"—Zelensky, Zaluzhny & Umerov. Zelensky said "he had decided to dismiss" Zaluzhny, adding "a decree on this will be signed in the near future" bbc.com/russian/articl…

Bill Burns in @ForeignAffairs. No great surprises. "The key to success lies in preserving Western aid for Ukraine. At less than 5% of the US defense budget, it is a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns for the United States" foreignaffairs.com/united-states/… Burns: "Keeping the arms flowing will put Ukraine in a stronger position if an opportunity for serious negotiations emerges...For the United States to walk away from the conflict at this crucial moment and cut off support to Ukraine would be an own goal of historic proportions."

Lethal autonomous weapon systems & “killer robots … have sucked much of the collective air around military AI regulation. That is problematic, because AI is already being embedded in military activity in far more prosaic and pervasive ways” lieber.westpoint.edu/algorithms-war… “Military commanders who bear… responsibility under IHL for faulty targeting, already suffer from a lack of nuanced understanding of traditional intelligence production cycles…Their capacity to do so in an AI-environment…entails ever further erosion of their moral agency”

“The Times of Israel’s Hebrew sister-site Zman Yisrael reports that Israeli officials have held clandestine talks with the African nation of Congo and several others for the potential acceptance of Gaza emigrants.” timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry… Ministers flouting US red lines. Intel Minister Gila Gamliel in the Knesset: “At the end of the war Hamas rule will collapse, there are no municipal authorities…There will be no work, and 60% of Gaza’s agricultural land will become security buffer zones.” timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry…

The current challenge is to be realistic about Russian capacity in Ukraine without being fatalistic about Ukraine's prospects. This short 24-page paper by Estonia's defence ministry is a welcome effort at setting out a potential strategy. Some highlights:
kaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/… "It is inherently simple to fall into a state of despair as Russia continues to wage its brutal war for the second year, with ... its war resources equally limitless. Shaping the information space in such a way is exactly what Russia is counting on" kaitseministeerium.ee/sites/default/…

Good paper. Russia's '23 defence budget is 5.6% of GDP & 29% of total gov't spending. But Cooper also points to severe indebtedness in defence industry. "The Russian economy is relatively robust," he agrees, "but economic difficulties could mount in the medium and long terms."

https://twitter.com/jakluge/status/1734960970957566221

"It is not clear at this stage how the significantly increased allocation of funding to defence will be used as there are clearly limits to the extent to which the armed forces can be rapidly increased in size and procurement stepped up sharply" sipri.org/sites/default/…

"Israeli spies and military commanders held late-night meetings just hours before the October 7 attacks to discuss an imminent Hamas assault and knew of the threat to the Nova music festival" thetimes.co.uk/article/israel… "The first meeting took place close to midnight and the second one at 3am but attendees concluded that Hamas was holding a training exercise on the Gaza border rather than preparing for a terror attack, according to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper." thetimes.co.uk/article/israel…

Yom Kippur vibes. FT reports that Israeli sentries on the Gaza border issued detailed warnings, including Hamas training to blow up border posts & enter kibbutzim, to highest-ranking intel officer in southern command. He said it was an “imaginary scenario” ft.com/content/277573… "lower-ranking soldiers also warned...several videos showed Hamas was rehearsing taking hostages, & that they felt an attack was imminent, the person said. The memo was triggered by the sighting of a high-ranking Hamas commander overseeing the training" ft.com/content/277573…

I write, with ⁦@AnshelPfeffer⁩, on the implications of the proliferation of more, longer-range, and increasingly precise missiles across the Middle East, including the impact on Israel’s missile defences. economist.com/middle-east-an… Israel faces a growing volume of rocket fire: 192 Hamas launches per day in 2014, up to 700/day in week after Oct 7 (that’s not even counting the 2,000-plus on the day). But Iron Dome is working. Only four Israelis have been killed, two from heart failure. economist.com/middle-east-an…

"In the coming weeks, Israeli generals expect international pressure will force them to revert to a more limited presence inside Gaza. The war will shift to raids against specific targets. These, they predict, will take months, perhaps even a year." economist.com/middle-east-an… Israeli plan is clearer: a slower, longer ground offensive; an ebbing & flowing of ground ops, which might revert to raids. But tension is this: stay in Gaza for a year & you're into long-term occupation. But sporadic raids are unlikely to destroy Hamas.

https://x.com/shashj/status/1720159271227166954?s=20

🧵This week The Economist spoke to Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, on the state of the war. It’s a fascinating & important interview. “Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate.” economist.com/europe/2023/11… We also published an opinion piece by Zaluzhny on what he thinks is needed to break out of "positional" war. He says "air superiority" is key to ground operations & emphasises technology: drones, EW, new sorts of mine-breaching & counter-battery tech. economist.com/by-invitation/…