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Dr Matthew Ford Profile picture
Dr Matthew Ford
@warmatters
Ex-West Point fellow, Historical Consultant @Royal_Armouries. Saarf-Londoner. Co-author @warradical. Assoc Prof at the Swedish Defence University @Forsvarshogsk
Jeremy Wagstaff Profile picture Dana Eyre Profile picture Dr Paul Bailie Profile picture Joao dos Reis Alberto Profile picture 4 subscribed
Sep 7, 2023 • 21 tweets • 6 min read
Twenty yrs ago I started a self-funded PhD. I wrote about small arms. As of 2020 this had been downloaded 4780 times (KCL has taken the counter down now) & on academia viewed 2223 times.

I did this at my own expense. No would fund a PhD on guns.
1/
You can download the PhD (FOR FREE) here via academia or KCL thesis portal here.

I can count the downloads if you look at the academia page.

2/

academia.edu/30850102/The_B…
kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/stud…
Jul 21, 2023 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Good article.

A prof willing to call out Western infatuation with “manoeuvre warfare” & argue (correctly IMV) that we’re seeing the war through the lens of a Ukraine info op & consistently poor Western punditry. “The fact is that Western military science, which has not been tested against a peer enemy in more than a generation, has got a major development in warfare seriously wrong, radically overestimating the power of offensive manoeuvre by highly mobile, digitally-networked forces…”
Jan 16, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Was just reading Alex & @CorporalFrisk & reflecting.

Last year we kidded ourselves that the war would be over quickly.

So we didn’t put in orders for gear & ramp up production (UK only put in a order for new NLAW on Dec).

1/ Now NATO is caught in a dilemma. Countries need to re-arm but they hope for a short war.

They want to prep for the greater threat - China - but must buy for European deterrence.

In the mean time there’s a gap between ambition & industrial capacity.
Jan 13, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Just look at his floofy eyes… Image And this dude flopping over Image
Dec 7, 2022 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Thanks @staillat.

Pretty much what I’ve been documenting on my academia page since March 2022 and @andrewhoskins and I discuss in @WarRadical

cc: @EvansRyan202 Hi @SteveJFeldstein we map your paper in a book @andrewhoskins and I published with OUP in July 2022. This discusses the collapse of civil-military distinctions.

I go onto explore this in detail in Ukraine over several academia documents.
1/
 amazon.com/Radical-War-At…
Dec 7, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
BOOM!

"The state of digital humanities is always several categories of obsolescence behind, which is inevitable. But more crucially, the humanities have not fundamentally changed their approach in decades, despite technology altering the entire world around them" And just in case you want to see the knife twisted:

"The humanities promise students a journey to an irrelevant, self-consuming future; then they wonder why their enrollments are collapsing"

ooof
Dec 6, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Articles that you might enjoy...

1/
 sociologica.unibo.it/article/view/1… 2/
 journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.11…
Dec 6, 2022 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
A reminder list of books I need to read but haven't had chance.

You'll see what I am into. All additional suggestions welcome.

Tagging @william_merrin @guyyeomans & @andrewhoskins 'cos I suspect you could add to this list!
1/
 hurstpublishers.com/book/digital-a… 2/
amazon.co.uk/Ideology-Mass-…
Dec 5, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Anyone having connectivity challenges in London? No I am not making it up! Image
Sep 25, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
You'll be blown away when you realise that all it takes is silk under garments... As I peer-reviewed some of this stuff from the Royal Armouries, I figure I should give it a push here...

theguardian.com/artanddesign/2…
Sep 25, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
A reminder:

We don’t know the balance of forces in Ukraine for either 🇷🇺 or 🇺🇦 so we have to estimate.

We can do that based on actual intelligence feeds OR we can apply statistical methods…

This is also known as the German tank Problem.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_ta… This has bearing on the mobilisation-tank gap that appears to be dominating my TL today.

Sep 24, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Ok I’m going to stick my neck out. The state of one AK does not tell us anything about anything.

🙄 Rusty guns for tyre nuts…
Sep 24, 2022 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Advancing the case for OSINT.

This is worth a listen over your third coffee.

sites.libsyn.com/420071/working… Second podcast of the day...

This time @RoryStewartUK adds some reality to the theory of war and battle.

Instead the focus is on the politics of war.

Picks up some themes from @WarRadical which is all about why some wars get attention!

h/t @MDRBrown

sites.libsyn.com/420071/war-and…
Sep 23, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
THREAD:

On the perils of distributed military social media campaigns. Dustin raises good questions.

Mission Command and social media are a potent combination that could easily exaggerate violence and produce counter productive outcomes.
Sep 11, 2022 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
no If I just reply to your thread @jwmeiser then my point will get lost.

it just isn't manoeuvre warfare. And I don't care how many people assert that it is. It isn't. you just have to look closely.
Sep 11, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Social media is a perfect way to turn defeat into collapse.

That’s the fight now being had on Telegram. Disinfo/misinfo everything and anything to get people to run away.

Makes the lives of OSINT analysts that bit harder! Amplify the impending collapse. Like Islamic State in 2014. Watch the enemy run before a firefight even starts.

Yet again the smartphone becomes a vector for war - even conventional and highly kinetic wars like that in Ukraine.

#radicalwar
Aug 30, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
THREAD:

The Kherson pocket contains 20-30 Russian BTGs.

If there is a chance of their destruction, my own view is Putin will not risk an internal coup but push to use Tactical Nuclear/Thermobaric weapons to reshape the battlefield. That would require a lot of care managing the narratives and the related escalation ladder. It might mean thermobaric first and watching how things unfold domestically.
Aug 29, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
From @konrad_muzyka Ukraine Conflict Monitor:

"it appears that we were right in assessing the small likelihood of a Ukrainian counterattack in the Kherson Oblast. Instead, the goal is to wear down Russians as much as possible, degrade their ability to command forces..."

1/ "...hinder logistics support, & put pressure on Russians living in Crimea and force them to leave the peninsula, at least temporarily."

"However, Ukrainians need to contend now with 20-30 battalion tactical groups in the Kherson Oblast. If the bulk of these forces end up..."

2/
Aug 29, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
In March I was spending a lot of time sifting through people's twitter posts - knowing that the war in Ukraine was actually being posted to Telegram - to see what sort of footage was being posted online.

1/ My main interest was smartphone footage.

But I was also intrigued as to whether streetcam stuff was finding its way online too.

There was of course the famous battle at Zaporizhia power station.

2/
Jul 8, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
It all appears finely balanced with lots of arguments swirling back & forth about my TL as to whether more arms prolong or brings the war to resolution.

What we know is the war is breaking economies & will soon force a policy decision that has the potential to divide Allies. 1/ I don’t know what the answer is but watching the politics of division play out on Twitter is certainly helping to blind us to the reality of the problematic choices facing Western allies.

2/
Jul 6, 2022 • 9 tweets • 1 min read
So it is 1922 Committee rule change OR to stage a vote of no confidence and try to bring about an election.

The guy is actually mad. He’s going to break the Tory Party.