@emilarchambault.bsky.social
Fellow, Center for Security and Defense / Zentrum für Sicherheit und Verteidigung, @dgap.org Postdoc, Durham University. Remote war, armed drones, OSINT / guerre à distance, drones armés, enquêtes OSINT. Personal account, EN/FR/DE
Especially remembering the part where Athens loses - « the strong do what they will » side doesn’t win!
Two weeks in and I'm still correct
"We have to put the flagship back on the track" is the go-to equivalent in French.
Academics everywhere: Grammarly is probably the only acceptable AI writing assistance tool. Our policies should have a Grammarly exception.
Grammarly: how about we take that good reputation and burn it to the ground?
📣 Save the date!
The next conference of the Society for the History of War will take place at the University of Limerick, Ireland 🇮🇪
🗓 26–27 November 2026
Historians of war, conflict, and violence - mark your calendars!!
📄 Call for Papers coming soon!
4/ Ok, so what ARE the goals? It seems, primarily, destroying lots of missiles and boats and drone factories.
But the question that stumped them: what happens when you stop bombing and they restart production?
They hinted at more bombing. Which is, of course, endless war.
And in this case, it will allow the Trump admin to blame the Iranian people for the failure of their appalling bombing war.
So in short:
- governments/armies always tend to underestimate social resilience and overestimate ability to act (apathy is more often the result than revolution)
- ‘we want to do something and this is comparatively easy’ is a
powerful incentive.
- bombing makes one feel all strong and powerful
Robert Pape has been taking a victory lap recently. He argued in a book called « Bombing to Win » that aerial coercion through punishment (bombing to force desired change) never worked, only coercion by denial (bombing to prevent enemy success). And this seems consistent.
Most recently, it’s pretty much impunity dressed up: the US Air Force’s can bomb more or less anything they want, whenever they want, so of course it’s bound to have an effect, as the argument goes.
Gulf War 1991 is taken as yet another (incorrect) example.
The US then independently developed a theory of economic collapse through critical node targeting (no oil/other key products, no war, collapse), and after WW2 propagated the myth that the bomber offensives had won the war, particularly with the example of Japan and the atomic bombing.
In terms of prevalent example, the perception is/was that WW1 ended due to the collapse of public support in Germany through unacceptable pain (blockade, war costs, economic failure). What if, the theory goes, air bombing could make that pain felt quicker? Wouldn’t that be « humane » (said they)?
I’ve been working on a paper on this theme (and my book in the works also deals with it).
In short, the authority generally invoked is Giulio Douhet who, after WW1, argued that air bombing provided a « mathematical certainty » of avoiding the trench war of WW1.
I know I’m new to Berlin politics, but I find it quite astonishing to see politicians adopt maximalist pro-car stances when the air quality map not infrequently looks like this.
📢 We are hiring at IMEIS, Durham University
The School of Government and International Affairs is recruiting an Assistant Professor in Middle East Politics (with a focus on the Arab states).
🔗 uk.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=b...
For academic enquiries: Professor Bahar Baser – bahar.baser@durham.ac.uk
can't help but notice whose losses are expressed in dollars and whose losses are expressed in lives
Ah right!
So here’s what you do: at the next Union meeting, you propose “working to policy” as part of ASOS. And then you’re bound by Union solidarity 😉
Let me bet: on his next video he’ll brag about having “had meetings at Mar-a-Lago” (never mind with whom), in the same way I have been “to” Harvard (meeting someone for coffee).
Hors sujet à propos du match: « La foule qui menace l’arbitre de coït, si j’ai bien compris », j’ai ri bien malgré moi 😂
Les insultes contre l’arbitre je déteste toujours, mais la formulation c’était superbe.
You're a Prime Minister in a parliamentary system! You chose this job! Going around saying "I'm not a politician" doesn't cut it. You chose to be a politician and you chose to be a parliamentarian - act like it.
Between Keir Starmer (who, as @stephenkb.bsky.social keeps pointing out, evidently hates politics) and Mark Carney (who clearly thinks politics is beneath him), I yearn for a politician who actually takes his job seriously.
www.lapresse.ca/actualites/p...
...but 'who gets to decide what violence is acceptable?' may be an interesting question.
On this topic: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... (reprinted as Ch. 3 of War and the Politics of Ethics)
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Particularly about the school bombing: there's a lot of work on how "mistakes" discourse legitimizes precision bombing (weapons are precise, but the fact that "mistakes happen" doesn't invalidate precision because these are exceptions). It's maybe a bit high-pitched for 1st years...
More broadly, @lucatrenta.bsky.social and @sophieduroy.bsky.social published recently on the collapse of norms against assassination of heads of state (and I believe Oona Hathaway on the collapse of the prohibition on war of aggression). Is the collapse of these norms a change?
On the digital element: the targeting of data centers may be relevant: giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
On cyber: the collapse of Iranian internet under apparent cyber attacks, perhaps (who is being targeted? What effects on the population? Is this legitimate?)
What’s the course/level?
Again, this is stating the obvious, but we've gone from 'the war will force Iran to negotiate better' to "There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER" within a week.
Read Theory
(ht @gregorydaddis.bsky.social)
