McFlyTG

I was the over eager kid who always wanted to walk with him after class. We even got beers together a couple of times. He meant a lot to me.

PS The only undergrad professor I truly remember was my Civil War/World War Two professor. Survey courses can still mean a lot.

It’s a blast. I take such joy from it. But even with 30 hours of instruction, it still feels like a survey.

Chinese military capabilities and strategy

The clear winner was left off

Thanks for sharing

That’s hilarious

*long quiet*

*gentle rustling breeze*

*uncomfortable silence*

Me: does this mean the F-15 perfect A2A record is toast?

I’m sure they were all squawking Mode IV

Depending on a number of factors, they could end up at close to 1:1 ratio of attackers versus defenders

Excellent thread

You too?

Oh yeah. I always think of the Serbs around the F-117. I doubt many of them are still alive.

This is by far my favorite soap opera

Japan to place missiles on Yoniguni Island, nearest to Taiwan, by 2030
news.web.nhk/newsweb/na/n...

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the pilots getting Silver Stars for executing missile defense. If that’s the standard we owe a lot of dudes who flew in the Gulf War and North Vietnam awards

In this 2024 interview, Jack Hughes, who just scored the game-winning goal for the US Olympic hockey team, explains why it was important for him to embrace Pride Night when many other NHL players refused to do so.

Soleimani + COVID

My 2020 deployment killed my career ambitions

Sadly nothing accessible. Maybe only these day I’ll stop being lazy and start writing

The Prussians thought they could break will of the Parisians through siege and bombardment. They didn’t. The Nazis thought they could break British will with terror bombing. They couldn’t. Bomber Harris learned nothing and thought British terror bombing could break German will. It didn’t.

There are no good, low risk options.

Assault offers the quickest option, potentially. But the geography and weather are daunting alone. There also a lot of PLA uncertainties.

Bombardment alone has a terrible track record of breaking an adversary’s will. You could make it a component of a blockade, which could speed up the blockade, but now the blockade is no longer bloodless.

The PLA has a wicked problem. Blockade offers a potentially “bloodless” option, but blockades are slow and uncertain. They invite outside intervention.

None of this means something can’t happen, but it does mean analysts should be cautious about treating unprecedented operational combinations as routine or inevitable.

We often debate PLA capability and strategic surprise. Less discussed is the absence of historical precedent for the operational tasks a cross-strait campaign would require. The Three Nevers remind us that physics, distance, and the defender still get a vote.

- There has never been a company-sized (or larger) air assault into a non-permissive environment conducted at ~100 miles of range.

- There has never been an amphibious landing conducted in a coastal defense cruise missile (CDCM) threat environment.

- There has never been a large-scale airborne drop into a fully modern, integrated air defense system (IADS).