Aaron H. Ellis

Someone needed to say it

I need to get back to using Letterboxd but these are my last four

YouTube video by Eva Cassidy Eva Cassidy - Fields of Gold

youtu.be/9UVjjcOUJLE?...

This clip is doing numbers on Instagram - with people finding it incredulous that Russia and China might not like each other…

I read that the reason is because of changes Apple is making to APIs on iPhones that’ll disadvantage companies like Meta - hence trying to make other gadgets happen

But what do we call the objective to which they’re all working towards?

📌

So, I *used* to agree that it ought to be called “policy”, but then what do you call a *collection* of policies? Which is why I’m trending back to believing there is such a thing as GS

Separate but related, I think this is why Andrew Neil and Piers Morgan thought they *made* their shows on BBC/ITV, and that the audience would follow them to whatever new outfit they started

The Simpsons was on BBC2 in the early ‘90s?

This clip is doing numbers on Instagram - with people finding it incredulous that Russia and China might not like each other…

ICYMI: I talk to historian Andrew Lambert about Napoleon, the First World War, and Western grand strategy today

linktr.ee/strategyaaron

Am still getting over Starmer trashing both his Rose Garden speech and his immigration in that Baldwin interview - two supposedly seminal texts in his premiership according to the briefing at the time.

In so far as the government has a “comms problem”, I think it isn’t that they don’t have a narrative, it’s that they’ve run through about twenty narratives that maybe last about a few weeks.

ICYMI: I talked to @jenstout.bsky.social about the war in Ukraine, the “economics” of being a war reporter – and how Russia accuses Ukrainians of doing things that they did on a much bigger scale

linktr.ee/strategyaaron

Motherfucking wind farms…

ICYMI: I talked to @jenstout.bsky.social about the war in Ukraine, the “economics” of being a war reporter – and how Russia accuses Ukrainians of doing things that they did on a much bigger scale

linktr.ee/strategyaaron

Finally, I don't think Lambert is saying Russia won't fire missiles because they can't or because they don't - it's that if the conflict is at a level where they're bombing British cities, then they're happy to go to WW3, and it's all kinda beside the point anyway in that situation.

Which, again, can be criticised as a strategy - but I don't think as being necessarily wrong or stupid. It reflects valid strategic concerns.

I'm sympathetic to that because, as I say in the episode, I see Russia as a threat - but it also has huge weaknesses that can be exploited. So like, rather than try and stop the "steamroller" in Estonia or Poland, focus on destroying capabilities on the ground (a la Spider Web) before it gets going

Especially when we don't really know how to mobilize a digital/services economy for total war.

Lambert's point is that we can over-estimate Russia, "over-mobilize", and undermine the things that actually win wars for the sake of fielding a mass army because it's what Russia and Ukraine did.

Now, one can disagree with that strategy, but I don't think it's necessarily wrong or stupid. Something I've discussed in previous episodes with @duncanweldon.bsky.social and @jeevunsandher.bsky.social is that there's an economic cost to mobilizing for total war and it needs to be carefully managed.

Again, I think it's an ungenerous reading of what he's saying. I'd say that his argument isn't that Britain should "sit back" if Russia starts a war with NATO. Precisely because there's burden-sharing, Britain ought to concentrate on its other strengths rather than assemble and field a large army.

I’d say that something the Right has done very successfully over the last decade or so is “play the ref”. Although progressives shouldn’t need to, they might as well if the other side is getting away with it.

A plate of salmon and scrambled eggs on a dark table top. Just above it are a cup of black coffee and a copy of Ashes of Our Fathers by Gabriel Gavin

Morning

ICYMI: I talk to historian Andrew Lambert about Napoleon, the First World War, and Western grand strategy today

linktr.ee/strategyaaron

Try out Four in a Bed. My latest obsession. Four bed-and-breakfast owners stay at each other’s establishments, rate them, and pay what they think the room is worth. At the end of the week, the amounts are revealed, and the owners with the fullest amount win.

Some phenomenal, petty TV.

His infamous burqa “letterbox” article was also arguing against any ban (but my guess is that he deliberately threw the phrase in there to cause controversy)

Andrew and I also touch on:

- The tension between popular memory and actual history

- Whether or not grand strategy really exists

- Why Wellington should be seen as more of a politician and a diplomat than a general

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/n...

No more Napoleons strategyaaron · Episode

Andrew and I discuss:

- How this historic strategy defeated Napoleon

- Why abandoning it in 1914 prolonged the First World War

- What lessons Keir Starmer can learn from this mistake

open.spotify.com/episode/6iks...