Christopher W. Jones

command to a much lower level officer in a hidden place who then had to decide whether to hit the big red button or not.

Yeah, the Soviet response to the Carter SIOP targeting senior leadership was to develop a system in the early 80s that would automatically fire nukes if contact with the Kremlin was lost. They then realized that was completely insane, and instead deployed a system (Perimetr/Dead Hand) that switched

It's not Trump's plan.

No joke, had a eval last semester that read, essentially, "It's ridiculous how long he took to grade stuff. I know he had a new baby to take care of mid-semester, but still."

That loaded gun is why ROK settled on "kill Kim Jong Un and henchmen immediately in case of war." They believe it's the best chance to halt escalation in its tracks.

(Late Cold War US plans for nuclear war with the USSR called for something similar)

Killing senior North Korean senior leadership at the outset in the case of a major war has been the ROK's war plan for a while now.

It really is uncharted territory.
And it's enabled by the digital panopticon that is the background of modern life.

Incredible that after various US veterans saying for years that the US military would never do anything like what the IDF was doing in Gaza (and this was proof of genocide) on the first day of joint operations the IDF took out the IRI's entire leadership in one strike while the US bombed a school.

Yes, the next person up will be offered the choice between working with the US or being eaten alive in internal power struggles.

One thing debates over the historical effectiveness of regime change wars and air power aren't accounting for is the quantum leap in sensor and surveillance technology over the past quarter century.

This makes precision targeting of leadership much more feasible than in past conflicts.

*whispers loudly*
That's quite possibly the plan.
*</whisper>*

Could we kindly delete the word "Glocal" from academic discourse?

Yup.
I also will not use AI to create lecture materials or grade students' work.
We need a parallel professor's pledge.
www.writersagainstai.net/essay

Second term presidents are always obsessed with their historical legacy, and observers puzzled by Trump's embrace of regime change wars are probably underestimating how badly he wants to be remembered as a world-historical figure.

Are concerns about overall enrollment driving the shift from emphasizing students per course to emphasizing majors?

Seems to me that emphasis on students per course = how do we allocate students who are already here?

Emphasis on majors = which departments attract new students to the university?

One thing I'd be interested in hearing is if this method recruits any new majors to your department from among those who choose the paper.

If only things were simple enough that the Great Man Theory of history explained it.

So, rites of passage alone are only likely to sustain the very upper tier of institutions, which are able to provide enough financial aid to lower income students so that they don't need to work off campus and are able draw students a significant distance from home and keep them there.

An addendum thought: The campus lifestyle as a rite of passage really has only ever been a rite for the upper quarter of the income distribution, give or take. At most schools, a very high % of students work off campus extensively, live at home to save money, or go back home every weekend.

21st century humans: can't understand why ancient Mesopotamian diviners thought they could predict the future from wordplay-based omens.

Also 21st century humans: "This AI told me how to fix my lawn mower once, this computer is basically God now."

Funny tidbit from the Daily Tar Heel's retrospective in honor of Bart Ehrman's retirement.

When every subject becomes either utilitarian (earning power) or a niche nerd interest, then the space in which college performs acculturating functions shrinks to the "campus lifestyle" as a 4-year rite of passage.

And that purpose, erm, doesn't *require* academics.

We've already seen this happen with some subjects, e.g. Classics.

Studying Classics and having at least some grasp of Latin & Greek was once a requirement for being considered upper class...now it's just a niche nerd interest for most people.

Very risky to extrapolate cultural trends from limited data, but I fear we're seeing some of this already with the loss of shared cultural referents among younger generations.

When there's no longer any shared cultural norms to be inculturated into, grasping them doesn't confer status.

Which is why I say that while (3) (earnings) is bad enough, the real existential threat to universities will come when education is no longer relevant to (2) (class signifiers).

Well duh...the goal is to convince congress to support a decision that's already been made and to share the political risk if things go bad.

In a way, this custom reflects the English common law tradition in which the Army is raised by and subject to Parliament, unlike the Navy which is a national force raised by and subject to the Crown.

(Which is why the latter has "Royal" as a prefix but the former does not.)

But there's also an implied social contract playing out over multiple presidencies, which is that deploying large numbers of ground troops necessitates political risk-sharing obtained via congressional approval.

Deploying naval/air forces only is seen as less risky and therefore doesn't.

As someone who remembers the debate leading up to the Iraq War quite well, the lack of debate or even significant media coverage over potential military action against Iran is quite jarring.

Trump prefers close special envoys and backroom deals, in part due to his domestic political weakness.

This looks fantastic, really innovative comparative work.