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Trent Telenko Profile picture
Trent Telenko
@TrentTelenko
Divorced father of four great kids, Retired US DoD Civil Servant, Section 22 Special Interest Group list admin, Chicagoboyz-dot-net history blogger
Apr 14 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
USN flag ranks & their staffers have been fighting the idea of distant economic blockade of China tooth an nail as a response to China invading Taiwan for 30 years.

They really don't want a recent precedent of a successful blockade...

1/3 ...to prevent their Carrier fleet Pickett's charge into the South China Sea.

Specifically distant blockade as a strategy against China makes having/regaining 100 Cold War era

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Apr 14 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The high death rate of Russian troops due to a lack of casualty evacuation was highly visible in March-September 2022.

I've documented this consistently, repeatedly and at great technical depth.

Russia Strong "slopaganda" has buried it over and over.

1/ I was calling out two dead for every three Russian wounded in Sept 2022 as the more realistic Russian casualty ratio in Ukraine because it was taking more than 24 hours to get to the equivalent of a battalion aid station.

2/3
Apr 1 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This fact:

"Oil revenue collapsed to roughly 5% of the national budget, down from 32% the prior year. Taxes increased over 60%. Food prices climbed at least 50%. ATMs across major cities are running out of cash."

Underlines a major point of mine. 🧵

1/ Since Clausewitz, the West recognized "war as an extension of politics."

The corollary of that is "politics is an extension of money."

Iran doesn't have any money, thanks to hyper-inflation and now an 84% reduction in oil revenue.

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Mar 31 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Not for US aircraft. ⬇⬇️

Hardened aircraft shelters are against the secular budget religion of US flying service flag ranks.

Not that other Western air forces are any better.

1/ The Chief of Air Staff RAAF 12 months ago gave a lecture trashing HAS as a bad idea and how "dispersal is better."

Dispersal didn't help USAF E-3G's in Saudi Arabia because they had nowhere to disperse too.

Places like Italy are politically off limits.
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Mar 29 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
War is a question of interests, not legality. Iran with, it's support of the October 7th attack, kicked off an existential war with Israel for the latter to prevent Iran from getting the A-bomb.

Israel won't survive as a nation after three Hiroshima class nukes...

Iran War🧵
1/ - riding ballistic warheads in a saturation missile attack - slam into its major cities.

The Trump Administration agreed with Israel on Iranian nukes both in the 12-day war and with the current war.

2/
Mar 27 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
How the mighty RAND has fallen.

Anyone claiming Iran will survive long term without explaining how Iran recovers from currency hyperinflation IN THE MIDDLE OF A WAR marks themselves as incompetent yo-yo's.

1/3
bylinesupplement.com/p/why-the-iran… Hand waving, "They will use ForEx from oil and barter instead of the rial" is ignoring what happened during January 2026.

I dare anyone to do a word search at that link for the text strings "hyperinflation," "Rial" or "foreign exchange."

None are present.

2/
Mar 26 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
The Mullah Regime of Iran is in very deep trouble. Any critical thinker can see that.

What I find remarkable is how many people who should know better are so blinded by their hostility to Netanyahu and Trump that they ignore the military context and the domestic context inside Iran.

1/Image The outcome of this war was decided before it began. The January 2026 uprisings occurred because the Iranian currency had collapsed and the economy was collapsing.

This was due to a massive increase in American economic warfare starting right at the beginning of the second Trump administration. Inflation was over 100% a year in January 2026.
2/
Mar 21 • 12 tweets • 2 min read
Nothing says hyperinflation like a ten million currency unit banknote.

The US and Western nations need to be three weeks into planning for relief and stability operations to prevent mass starvation in Iran after the Mullah Regime goes down.

After the Mullah's🧵
1/ The horrid impending humanitarian disaster reality for Iran is the current regime is a dead man walking because of hyperinflation.

Iran lacks the administrative ability to replace the current hyperinflated currency in the traditional manner...

2/
Mar 17 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The US-Israeli air campaign against Iran is following Warden's "Five Rings" system strategy.

Mullahs & IRGC leaders are inthe dead center of the 5-rings.

The Basij are usually considered "fielded forces" by analysts who don't understand the role of Regime Security Forces in a totalitarian regime.

1/Image Regime Security Forces live in the "System Essentials" ring of a totalitarian government as they control the communications and information in a totalitarian society as a part of their anti-coup mission.

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Mar 17 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
People really don't understand how shutting down the internet has flatlined the Iranian economy.

There are no credit card transactions
No electronic bank transfers
No ATM transactions

1/ All the usual electronic traffic between residential & supermarket banks branches to main branches has to be done by paper, if it is done at all.

You cannot do "Just-in-time" inventory management without the internet.

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Mar 15 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
If Israeli Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) drones are killing Shaheed-136 launch crews.

They are not killing Basij regime security force checkpoints.

The US-Israeli air forces will need to inflict at _least_ 200K casualties to Iranian regime security forces...
1/3 ...for a successful civilian insurrection to have a good chance of success.

Even if there are ~200 checkpoint drone strikes per day inflicting 5 casualties each. That is only 1,000 a day, AKA 200 days.

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Mar 12 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
What jumps put for me looking at this report of the Mullah's decamping to Mashad is the US-Israeli intelligence had to know as soon as it started.

I believe that the steaming of the USS Ford through the Suez Canal happened because of this.

Collapse 🧵
1/ If the Mullah's command was moving.

Their ability to command drone and missile strikes on the USS Ford would be minimal, if only to avoid US-Israeli radio-direction finding.

Mashad is also very convenient place to run away from Iran if the government falls everywhere else.
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Mar 9 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The problem with this thought is the Iranian drones being fired now are the uber sophisticated Russian-guilt Geran using radio mesh and cell phone sim card link video-navigation.

1/3 They are flying lower and more sophisticated trajectories taking advantage of radar shadows from oil infrastructure in the Gulf to prevent the generation of good intercept tracks.

Gun armed ships and attack helicopters low amongst oil rigs are the best play here.

2/3
Mar 8 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
This is a point I have been pounding upon since 2023.

The "Big/Expensive/Few Mafia" in the US Flag ranks and Western Defense Contractors have denied this harsh reality for reasons Upton Sinclair has expounded upon.
1/ Both I and @johnkonrad were mocked for pointing out how deadly drones were for being disintermediated from existing military platforms for ubiquitous commercial transportation infrastructure like cargo containers.
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Mar 5 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Very, Very, few people understand the implications of this Israeli hack combined with its deep penetration of Iran's Regime means for the US-Israeli campaign to exterminate the Mullah's Regime Security Forces.

Let's talk about Gorgon's Stare & Post GWOT smart bombs🧵
1/ Image Gorgon's Stare and its peer systems like ARGUS, Vigilant Stare, Constant Hawk and Agile Condor are Wide Area Aerial Surveillance (WAAS) systems, the all-seeing eye in the sky.

They are increasingly sophisticated mergers of multi-spectral cameras, computer data bases and more recently A.I.

2/
Mar 2 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The crash of the Tanker maritime insurance market will force Gulf tanker escort operations.

Crashing maritime insurance was why 1988's "Operation Praying Mantis" happened.

The problem for China & the EU in 2026 is Gulf Oil no longer flows to the USA.

1/3 Image The USA is an energy exporting nation now and it doesn't need Gulf oil.

The idea that a huge price spike with the US Economy is actually something Pres. Trump can affect via EXPORT Tariffs.

If domestic suppliers can't make money selling abroad...they won't.

2/3
Feb 28 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
I don't doubt that Ukraine cyber hacked in Russian digital terrain elevation maps that the Russians compiled for themselves. Up to date digital terrain elevation maps are a good thing to have.

Plus NASA also had a huge archive of digital terrain elevation data.

1/ But the art of planning munition trajectories to use them is a separate and uniquely military skills set.

Ukraine has had four years of combat experience doing the task of planning munition trajectories.

2/
Feb 28 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
War with Iran has kicked off and both the Trump Adm. and Israel have gone for Iranian Regime change with oil export, leadership decapitation, air defense & Iranian missile site strikes.

Mullah Regime Change 🧵
1/
 Reportedly:

"The U.S. strikes are focused on Iran’s missile program and missile launchers. The Israeli strikes are focused on eliminating senior Iranian officials and on the missile program"

2/
Feb 27 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I was calling this out in 2023⬇️

"Preliminary reports suggest the UAV was likely launched from an Iranian naval vessel — a move that would significantly extend its operational range and time over target."

1/3 The threat of Iranian ISO container, or sea vessel, launched drones was plain three years ago

I got publicly hooted at by US Navy leadership aligned accounts on X for pointing out this "politically incorrect" reality.

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Feb 17 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Drones are both a compliment and supplement all existing ground force combined arms weapons systems and do so at a lower cost.

For the last year to 18 months - and sources vary - three out of every four Ukrainian and Russian casualties are from drones.

Paradigm Shift 🧵

1/5 Artillery plus EVERY_OTHER_ weapons system on the Ukrainian battlefield does 1/4 of 2025-2026 drone casualties.

Such is the BLUF of the drone battlefield paradigm shift in terms of human blood.

2/5
Feb 17 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The problem for an independent EU nuclear deterrence force is sheer numbers, the EU lack of them.

What the Putinists have proven is that Western deterrence assumptions about "acceptable losses" were naive mirrored thinking, attributing Western values to Russia.

1/ The assumption of credible "deterrent effect" has to be shifted into the loss band of annihilation of threat forces - anything less than that, as the Ukraine war proves, is an acceptable loss for the Putinists.

We are at over a million Russian casualties to date.

2/theguardian.com/world/2026/jan…