Joohn Choe

I'm going to go ahead and predict that the strike on the school in Minab is going to turn out to have been the result of AI-generated, patterned error
www.patreon.com/posts/loss-p...

🤦‍♀️

It's not my place to tell people how to brand but maybe change the name of the "PEN1S" drone before you sell it to the Gulf states

That's the thing

Ukraine, and Zelenskyy in particular, could have at least had a LITTLE bit of sass about this and it would have been perfectly justifiable - even lauded from some corners of the anti-war left in America, I'd bet

I detect none. Zero.

That, right there, is high-class diplomacy.

Parallels and ironies: on Ukraine assisting the U.S. in anti-drone warfare | Joohn Choe Get more from Joohn Choe on Patreon

I think it has more to do with how western countries and their allies are increasingly interdependent on each other.

And in this moment, maybe countries like Ukraine are navigating that environment better than even we are.
www.patreon.com/posts/parall...

But here we all are with our exquisite, expensive, useless weapons in the depths of a war asking Ukraine for help.

There's something to learn here if you sit with it for a moment, more than "Ukraine is emerging as a world leader in 4GW or 5GW or whatever we're supposed to be on now".

There are a lot of reasons for this, some of them even interesting.

Dust, water vapor, clouds and smoke are a big factor. Shaheds are also, by the nature of their construction - honeycomb in earlier models, foam in later models - inherently laser resistant.

Know how many confirmed drone kills by LOCUST there are right now? Not counting the party balloon that shut down El Paso International Airport, just one.

It was a CBP drone.

The Feb 10 El Paso airspace closure and aerial free-fire zones at the border | Joohn Choe Get more from Joohn Choe on Patreon

Third, compare this to how American systems are doing right now. Remember the Aerovironment LOCUST?

It's a $10 million, $3/shot 20kw IR laser designed to defeat drones, and counter high-volume, low-cost "swarm" threats. I wrote an article about its use in El Paso
www.patreon.com/posts/150863...

The point here is not that the danger to the Gulf States and American troops in-region from massed drone threat isn't real; the point I'm trying to drive home here is that as bad as that is, this has been constant for Ukraine.

A little EMPATHY is what's called for here.

And one thing about living under daily threat of Shahed attack is that Ukrainians have ended up getting VERY, VERY GOOD at defeating them.

Russia launched an average of 5,000 to over 6,000 Shahed-type drones per month during late 2025 and early 2026, with a record of over 5,400 recorded in and roughly 5,300 to 5,400 monthly in late 2025. Daily attack rates average around 170-180, often using a mix of strike drones and decoys.

Second, you should think about that "1,400 attack drones" number in context. No question, that's a lot of drones, but let me try to put that in a Ukraine war context for you:

First, Ukraine is now in year FOUR of a war they didn't start and assisting us in a war started by a President who insulted their President to his face while in-office, delayed badly needed military aid while he was out of office, and, got impeached for trying to use that aid as a bargaining chip.

Earlier today, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a statement suggesting that the United States had requested assistance with anti-drone warfare. The statement, in full, is below.

I think a few items of context shedding some light on this should be read.

🧵

I was going to let this sit; it has great sourcing, but it's unfalsifiable like a conspiracy theory.

Two red flags changed that:

1. Trump mentioning Iran & election security together, and
2. the draft EO declaring another national emergency around election security

www.patreon.com/posts/exclus...

ok so this is complicated, but, both of these are real but unrelated, and the screenshot is obviously fake

"No, war with Iran!" | Joohn Choe Get more from Joohn Choe on Patreon

DNI Gabbard is at the intersection of two crises:

1. a full-scale air war against Iran and
2. an unprecedented federal campaign to seize domestic election materials

Her role in both raises questions about the integrity of American intelligence and democratic governance heading into the midterms.

Gotta admit, that's pretty rad.
www.patreon.com/posts/arctic...

The answer to the question "what will happen in the Iran war" seems to boil down to a three-way race between destruction of Iran's missiles, expenditure of U.S. & Israeli air-defense assets, and preservation of Iran's existing missiles.
www.patreon.com/posts/iran-w...

Full Transcript: Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi tells "Face the Nation" a U.S.-Iran deal is "within our reach" He also said, "I don't think any alternative to diplomacy is going to solve this problem."

Negotiations were actually why I thought it wasn't 75% probability or above that this strike would happen

see this story? the dateline was *twenty-two hours ago*
www.cbsnews.com/news/full-tr...

Bro

The relative low yield suggested by the intactness of nearby buildings and the extraordinary precision involved suggest extremely advanced targeteering capabilities that are the signatures of only two nation-states, both of which were involved in this series of strikes.

🤦‍♀️

Great job, Department of War, you're really doing it!

What we know now: The Guardian article confirms abuse of EO 13848 | Joohn Choe Get more from Joohn Choe on Patreon

This is, to be direct about it, exactly the moment that justifies what you're paying for here - not just in terms of what you know, but the way that the national conversation might now change in a way that you're uniquely prepared for.

2/2

www.patreon.com/posts/151819...

George Chidi's piece in The Guardian dropped today, and if you've been reading what I've written since early February, you're going to have that uncanny experience where a major news outlet arrives at a conclusion you've already seen mapped out in detail.

Here's a key part that's not in it.

1/2

Will Trump try to seize voting machines to disrupt the midterm elections? State election leaders have been raising concerns about the intent behind Trump’s recent moves on elections

Full article link in comments. If you want to understand the statutory machinery underneath this - EO 13848, IEEPA, the certification failure scenario - that's what the Patreon is for.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

I also agree that January 6th, the fake electors scheme and the attempt to pressure Mike Pence in '20 were all unsuccessful and patently ill-advised, but none of that stopped any of it from happening.

The chaos is the point.

I'm quoted in The Guardian today on the legal mechanism that could let Trump declare voting machines off-limits before November.

The very next sentence after my quote says experts think it "would likely be unsuccessful."

I agree with that.