TheVulture

My one experience on the Mexican border was weird. I'm from the UK, and was travelling to Mexico for a few days for work, but landing at Tucson, Arizona and being picked up by a driver. This was 2001. Having heard all the stuff in the 90's about the Us-Mexican border and all the efforts to stop illegal crossings, I was rather surprised that we just drove down to some quiet border town, and through in to Mexico without stopping. I don't think the border post was even manned. On the way back I thing there was a guard there, but he just kind of glanced up as we drove past. Came across a roadblock checking identities about 20 miles back inside the US, which I guess was some kind of border patrol, but I don't think they looked at my passport either ('cos I didn't look Mexican?) Apropos of nothing in particular, but the gap between the rhetoric I was hearing and my experience amused me.

If it's spinning upwards, that's bad.

It's one of the most common failure modes in foreign policy: we (for which ever country you are talking about as 'we') tend to anticipate other countries actions in terms of what we are most afraid of them doing, not in terms of what their interests are and what they are trying to achieve. (That, and viewing all unfriendly nations as being mutually co-operating rather than having their own tensions and conflicts with each other). Hence all the silly talk last year about "is the Ukraine war going to prompt China to invade Taiwan?" No - China isn't remotely ready to do that (I'm of the view that China views invading Taiwan as very much a last resort option when all the better ideas have been exhausted), and nothing about Russia invading Ukraine makes China's chances any better. It's just that America's sense of crisis would be hit most acutely by a China-Taiwan conflict, so that's what they start to anticipate.

Yeah, old news. Serbia stood those forces down a few days later, and the NATO forces in Kosovo received some extra troops (nothing significant, mostly just a token increase so signal a willingness to not back down).

Interesting (if long) video of a talk on nuclear escalation in Ukraine and deterrence stability. Some interesting stuff about nuclear threats in October 2022 too.

It's modified from from "Life, the Universe and Everything" by Douglas Adams - third part of the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy (where a bunch of advertising executives are trying to invent fire in a suddenly stone-age society)

My uninformed speculation is to wonder if the recent spate of friendly fire incidents is due to some new cyber or electronic warfare capability becoming available that's enabling Ukraine to feed dodgy information to Russia AD to encouraging friendly targeting. But that's based on wishful thinking with no evidence to back it up (and if it was true, I[m pretty sure no-one would be talking about it in public anyway)

If that front line map is correct, Russia has captured the infamous slag heap.

One minor bit of good news: a deal via intermediaries in Qatar to return four abducted children from Russia to Ukraine. It is apparently a trial deal in the hope of a much larger scale return of children. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67121574

I think he's saying that both countries are extremely unlikely to have shared their plans with anyone else (i.e each other) based on those traits.

Being cynical, a full strength formation has around 300 vehicles. How many a DNPR formation has at this point in the war might be a different matter. Although one would assume they'd be re-stocked to some extent when being thrown in to the main assault of the last few months, but them with Russia, all bets are off: as we've seen, they do things differently there.

So the US, UK, Germany and Norway have all announced this week military aid with substantial air defence and anti-drone components. Guess we know what was top priority on Ukraine's wish list at the moment.

With the Russian attacks on Avdiivka, I can imagine two main scenarios: * Russia feels comfortable with their defensive situation around Tokmak so they can afford the forces for the attack * Russia's position around Tokmak is precarious and this is an attempt to relieve pressure by either faking the idea they have sufficient reserves, or Hitler-esque belief in the decisive nature of offensive action to solve problems. What are the key bits of evidence to look for in the coming days that might indicate one way or the other?

And the goals and interests of the Hamas leadership, safely not in Gaza I believe, might be rather different to those of either the wider Hamas membership, or the Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

I believe this is a new aid package from Germany

Joint statement from five European leaders: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/joint-statement-from-quint-leaders-on-israel-9-october-2023 Today, the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States of America released the following joint statement following their call: Today, we — President Macron of France, Chancellor Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Meloni of Italy, Prime Minister Sunak of the United Kingdom, and President Biden of the United States — express our steadfast and united support to the State of Israel, and our unequivocal condemnation of Hamas and its appalling acts of terrorism. We make clear that the terrorist actions of Hamas have no justification, no legitimacy, and must be universally condemned. There is never any justification for terrorism. In recent days, the world has watched in horror as Hamas terrorists massacred families in their homes, slaughtered over 200 young people enjoying a music festival, and kidnapped elderly women, children, and entire families, who are now being held as hostages. Our countries will support Israel in its efforts to defend itself and its people against such atrocities. We further emphasise that this is not a moment for any party hostile to Israel to exploit these attacks to seek advantage. All of us recognise the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people, and support equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike. But make no mistake: Hamas does not represent those aspirations, and it offers nothing for the Palestinian people other than more terror and bloodshed. Over the coming days, we will remain united and coordinated, together as allies, and as common friends of Israel, to ensure Israel is able to defend itself, and to ultimately set the conditions for a peaceful and integrated Middle East region.

There's a (more active) Israel thread in the general forum:

Although on the other hand, it's also pretty easy for air defences: you don't even need to defend the whole line, just the train, and the added weight of some air defence systems on a typical locomotive isn't going to be a significant additional load. A better option might be to drop powerful anti-train mines randomly on the track. Although as soon as that's a thing, I imagine it would be pretty easy to think up effective countermeasures.

A lot of western politicians greatly over-egg the whole "death to..." thing. It's a common rhetorical flourish in Iran, and if there's one thing that Iranian culture is known for it is over-the-top rhetorical flourishes. If you ever take a taxi in Tehran, and the driver say to you that you were such charming passengers that there is no fee for the taxi ride, he isn't being literal. It is just the first move in the game of tarouf where people try and out-do each other in comically over-the top generosity and politeness, before eventually settling the bill as expected. Very little in Iranian dialog is to be taken literally. So there are crowds on the streets (when the government asks for them) shouting "Death to America" sure, but during some economic protests there are also plenty of people shouting "Death to Hizbollah" (due to the amount of money Iran was spending on supporting Hizbollah and Syria, while economic conditions for normal Iranians were bad), and "Death to taxes" (and even "Death to traffic" due to congestion). It's just a colloquial phrase for expressing disapproval, not to be taken literally. Of course, the Iranian leadership are not fluffy bunnies, and are quite willing to get thousands of people killed in pursuit of minor political aims. And they'll quite cheerfully export death and murder, and (like everyone else) do whatever they can to improve their military and access to the most powerful weapons they can. But honestly, they're not trying to destroy the west (or the world) in some apocalyptic frenzy. They are mostly trying to become the dominant regional power and defend their own security (remember the Iran-Iarq war?), whilst trying to navigate the millenium-plus old Sunni-Shia divide (which has given the Shia, understandably, a lot of sympathy for the underdog and the victims of a double-cross), and defend the Shia populations in other Arab countries. China also ins't trying to usher in the apocalypse. Their primary goal is to not have their economy be subject to the whims of the US Navy. China depends on maritime trade from its east coast (despite the best efforts of the belt and road initiative to create alternative routes overland to Asia, Africa and Europe). And the reality is that that trade only exists at the forbearance of the US Navy. China doesn't want to have to depend on American good will for its prosperity. It wants to have a strong enough navy (or at least enough area denial capability) and enough control over the first island chain (Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia) that it is the power that gets to decide what can sail in the south China Sea, not the US. It wants to be able to guarantee its own naval trade access and coastal security. Of course, that pretty much guarantees conflict with the US, Japan, Taiwan if they try and push that capability (arguably Indonesia and the Philippines would be more amenable to political solutions in the event that the Chinese navy was genuinely competitive with the USN in deep water). Russia at the moment is the odd one out - they don't seem to have any rational goal that corresponds to reality in any meaningful way. They just want as much non-Russian territory under their control as possible to act as an expendable security buffer, but have chosen an approach that is achieving the opposite of that. But these countries aren't working together to some common goal. They are each pursuing their own goals, and using 'friends of convenience' where it happens to align with their own goals.

"Al-Qassam brigade unveils air defence system" - contains no footage of said air defence system, and just shows a few manpad launches and some misses of an Israeli helicopter.

Yes, there was a section about how Russia's approach to mine laying (bury anything explosive you can find that goes bang when stepped on) is a problem for intelligence. Particularly in the context of 500m deep minefields with massive density not playing nicely with NATO expectations of what is needed to breach (or go around) minefields, and artillery deployed mines redrawing the problem while you are trying to solve it.

Oddly enough, exactly the sort of thing discussed in the latest Perun video as a problem of over overly-dense minefields

Between who? And why?

Exactly this. Hamas isn't trying to capture and hold territory to expand Gaza. They are looking for political aims: * energise public support for the Palestinians amongst the Arab world public, to undermine those leaders (e.g. Saudi Arabia) who are quietly normalising relations with Israel * provoke an over the top response from Israel, for the same reasons * act in conjuction with Iran, with Iranian military aid, to help Iran's attempts to position itself with the public as the only significant opposition to Israel and the West * possibly also consolidate Fatah's position in domestic Palestinian politics: historically, the PLO, Fatah and Hamas have spent as much time fighting each other to be the leaders of the Palestinian resistance, as they have opposing Israel.

In Ukraine, both sides have modern integrated air defence systems, with MANPADS, short range air defences, and longer range systems all the way up to patriot / s-300 / s-400 systems with huge ranges over 100km. They have the operational depth to locate these systems 10s of kms from the front line to help protect and conceal them. They have integrated radar systems, an air force with interceptors, and (to an unknown degree) at least potential access to airborne and space based intelligence gathering systems. In Israel, one of the sides has this (more or less), while hamas has no air defences beyond whatever manpads they've managed to smuggle in past the Israeli and Egyptian blockades, and a territory that is a few km wide at its widest point, and an opponent that started from a position of such military superiority for decades than any attempt to build a meaningful air defence system (in their tiny territory) would be detected and destroyed long before it was even marginally effective - assuming they could even find a route to get a significant system in theatre without it being intercepted. Hard to smuggle an s-300 through a small cross-border tunnel...