Pete Monks

A poster promoting the movie “The Battle of Algiers”. The poster features a stern-looking bemedalled French colonel in a beret and sunglasses, and a backdrop of a crowd protesting for Algerian independence

The Battle of Algiers

Promotional poster for the 1981 Australian movie “Gallipoli”, with actors Mel Gibson and Mark Lee dressed as Australian soldiers in WW1.

Gallipoli

I expect that the collateral damage guidance issued by Hegseth to CENTCOM is pretty loose.

And as for the Israelis…

I don’t think the post-Peloponnesian war analogy of the Athenians having lost an empire, stuck with a deeply divided and non-functioning polity, and reduced to being mercenaries for the highest bidders in the Middle East was exactly what they had in mind, but here we are 2/2

Early in my military career (Balkans, early on in Afghanistan) I would often hear British officers smugly quoting the Harold Macmillan line about the British being the cultured Athenians to the brutal and arriviste US Romans 1/2

I’m not ruling out a genuine error (although carelessness or indifference to CDE is a strong possibility), but “who puts a school there anyway” is a loathsome argument.

Look at any major US military base on google maps, search for ‘elementary school’ or ‘middle school’, and see what turns up.

If you are the home team wondering if your biggest blue friend will actually play (I’ve said this before, but I don’t think they will unless absolutely forced to) a drawn out blockade and pressure campaign will be extremely challenging to withstand 2/2

Exceptionally hard problem for red. Also an exceptionally hard problem for blue, especially when you don’t know if all the blue players are going to turn up, and/or let you play from your turf. 1/2

A paperback book - Nigel Townson’s “The Penguin History of Modern Spain: 1898 to the Present”. The cover features a colour photograph of a Spanish street scene in the 1960s or 1960s

For this weeks #histbookchat, #photofriday and #booksky, “The Penguin History of Modern Spain: 1898 to the Present” by Nigel Townson.

I don’t know a lot about modern Spain’s history apart from the Civil War. I’m just up to the start of the Second Republic, looking forward to the post-Franco period

Distance running becomes more attractive when there is more misery in an average hour of your working day than in running for an hour

A four-panel cartoon from The Simpsons of Homer and Bart pursuing a BBQ pig that is alternately rolling/floating/flying further away: “it’s just a little dirty, it’s still good, it’s still good!” “it’s just a little slimy, it’s still good, it’s still good!” “it’s just a little airborne, it’s still good, it’s still good!” “It’s gone” “I know”

I couldn’t settle on just one

Homer Simpson telling Lenny and Carl that he knows they are members of the secretive “Stonecutters”, and that he knows the Stonecutters do “weird, strange, sick, twisted, eerie, godless, evil stuff. … and I want in.”

For Epstein, Bill Clinton was essentially bait for his marks.

“Oh, yeah, Bill and I hang all the time. Great guy, lots of insights”

This is the core truth about the appeal of Trump, MAGA, and their imitators elsewhere (including my own country). It’s selling freedom from consequences, responsibility and accountability.

Certainly, the racism, misogyny, cruelty, etc, is appealing to many - because you can get away with it.

Come and See

And that improvisation will also include some personal score-settling, and a bit of “that snooty bitch gave me some side-eye”, “I like the look of that guys truck, I think he’s one of them”, etc, etc

I don’t think the entire USA will look like a giant Bosnia, but I can see some areas undergoing a mini ethnic-cleansing effect and the former local PD being the nucleus of a de facto ethnic militia.

And yes, there might not be an agreed ‘enemy’ look, but that won’t stop some local improvisation

On average, maybe like the Troubles, but there will definitely be places that look more like the worst bits of Bosnia or Rwanda. The people on extreme left and right thirsty for civil war don’t seem able to imagine militias combing through retirement villages and elementary schools…

I kind of get why nobody wanted Afghanistan in their school, but what’s going on with Italy and Greece?

For lots of people in the Pentagon and CENTCOM, the chance to stack Iranian bodies as payback for casualties from EFPs supplied by the IRGC back in ‘07 or so is reason enough.

“Here’s your commemorative Trump battleship meme coin to remember him by. Only 4 easy payments of $59.99”

“You see, son, that was an unsinkable battleship except there was a woke female or ethnic minority somewhere in the USN who let the *warfighters* down. And your dad was a bit of a sucker and loser, too.”

Vader would be like the one SOCOM guy banging on about his capture/kill missions on OEF while everyone else in the INDOPACOM CUB has spent the last few years fighting major fleet actions with the PLAN.

“That Vader guy again?”
“Wasn’t much use against the Renhais in the Balintang Channel, was he?”

Sitting there angrily tapping his fingers while waiting for the screen to load between lessons on his mandatory annual online cybersecurity challenge.

Maybe just one big one

You’re going to end up with three sources:

1. West Point

2. The ‘senior military colleges’ that think they are still commissioning cadets into the Confederate Army

3. The *operator* to OCS pipeline for dudes who can lift lots, have Spartan or Viking tats, and don’t read books because that’s woke

The Wordle Company is not a reliable curator of news or opinion, and should no longer be thought of that way.

IIRC, the *warriors* and *operators* were convinced they were on top of it all in Afghanistan.

“Just one more HVI capture/kill CONOPS, bro, I promise, bro, just one more”

Obviously very different literary styles, though!

I think that’s a very sound assessment about our operations in Vietnam. I spent a lot of my career hearing (and believing) that we had some special insight into COIN when really we just had some decent TTPs for close combat in jungle terrain.

Which app is this? Asking for a friend.