Asst Prof of Strategic Deterrence @NavalWarCollege | Co-editor, "The Reagan Moment;" Author, "The Nuclear Club" | PERSONAL VIEWS, don’t speak for NWC, USN, DoD.
Thrilled to announce my 1st book! "The Nuclear Club" examines world affairs from Hiroshima to 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to demonstrate how the club consolidated authority via a counter-revolution that legitimated wars of choice a/g rogue states.
https://t.co/BOo5NTMjGO
I have no connection to MIT, but hearing that they are shutting down 3 of their 4 libraries has me so so sad. I think it’s a decision they will live to regret & the symbolism of it is devastating.
Me and my buddy a couple of days ago were talking about how much of what we considered the “fantasy” elements of the world building in Pokémon as children are just “everyday life, Japan.”
Cycling Road: “Wouldn’t it be crazy if there was a long scenic bridge only for bicycles?”
@jeff82874662@aaron_benj87286 So, then, explain why Nixon negotiated surrender on Hanoi’s terms despite achieving a number of operational defeats on the PAVN via Linebacker I and II plus naval interdiction and mining?
Every year, I share this video of French caretakers who take sand from Omaha Beach in Normandy, and scrub them into the letters to give them the gold coloring.
They do this for all 9,386 US soldiers who died.
France also gave us this land as American soil. #MemorialDayWeekend
China cut raw dysprosium and terbium to Japan, It did not cut finished magnets - Read that again.
Japan can still buy the finished product from Chinese factories but cannot buy the raw material to make its own.
That trains Japanese manufacturers to stop making magnets and start buying them, Every month Shin Etsu does not get raw dysprosium is a month its customers switch to Chinese finished magnets.
The ban is not punishing Japan, It is converting Japan from a competitor into a customer.
Takaichi said in Diet that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival threatening situation for Japan. That was one sentence in one committee hearing.
Within two months China banned dual use exports, blacklisted 20 defense entities, and stopped shipping dysprosium, terbium, gallium, and yttrium. The chart goes from 200k kg bars to flat zero.
Every Indo Pacific government considering a public Taiwan position now has a cost model in front of it
Everyone focuses on dysprosium and terbium. Gallium is the harder problem. It is not mined directly. It comes as a byproduct of aluminium smelting.
China runs 90% of global gallium supply because it runs 60% of global aluminium. You cannot build a gallium mine, You need an entire aluminium smelting industry first.
Japan has neither, The chart shows gallium going to zero alongside the rare earths.
We had no Premier League wins in 2026 (13 games), prior to the arrival of Roberto De Zerbi. Relegation looked increasingly inevitable.
Thank you for saving this club from relegation, Roberto, we are eternally indebted to you for that. 🤍🇮🇹
@whsieh@BretDevereaux@IVMiles What would you say the last effective military blockade was?
The last example of successful military coercion via air power was Kosovo? Is Iran analogous? I’m skeptical.
So, agree we could reopen Hormuz, but only with limited convoys. Enough to alter balance of resolve? ehh
@whsieh@BretDevereaux@IVMiles So, you’re back to coercion by punishment, either the blockade or in combination with air interdiction with some strategic bombing (of remaining military industry/basing). Could work but typically over many months if not years (& enemy can & will also adapt). It’s a pickle.
@whsieh@BretDevereaux@IVMiles No, full closure is unsustainable for IRGC but ultimately this is a question of resolve—they have more. As for maritime interdiction by air assets, they can’t be everywhere. They’re insufficient for deterrence by denial—so, insufficient for convoys. DDGs remain bottleneck.
@whsieh@BretDevereaux@IVMiles What COAs do you envision could restore traffic, in what sequence, at what percentage of prewar traffic?
As grounds for my pessimism, during Operation Earnest Will, USN destroyers convoyed in 14 months more or less what transited the Strait of Hormuz each month before OEF.
Brilliant opportunity to work in my former department (Strategy) @AirWarCollege w/ a great cast of scholars.
The Air University has refreshed its curriculum to expose students to war gaming while sharpening focus on great-power competition: https://t.co/M5tLGqe8Yx
Society is full of little, insidious mechanisms trying to capture and divide your energy and focus
This is completely against your own self-interest, but from this discourse this weekend on unhappiness in the face of abundance it should be fully evident that people are almost powerless to resist these forces
This is because the smartest people in the world are hard at work creating novel approaches to highjack your attention, degrade your willpower and convince you to trade your money and your time for the next _____ which will surely, finally, bring your happiness
But success, and contentedness, come from investing in *fewer* pursuits with *more* depth and intensity
You only need a few great friends who you can count on and who can count on you. A couple of hobbies you are willing to be bad at for years until you slowly live your way into well-crafted mastery. Your career will flourish if you embrace the dogged pursuit of a single outcome over a long period of time
This is the tension of modern existence, and the true meta-skill to hone and refine over decades. How do you live a deliberate life in a world that actively wants you to exist in a state of reactive desire?
I don’t claim to have the answer, and would simply posit this:
Become aware of all the ways society, and people, try to hijack your one precious life to divert attention toward things that really and truly do not matter, and even actively harm you
And every day seek to build mental and emotional resilience against those forces and cultivate persistence in your pursuit of the few things that really and truly matter
It is hard. Many days you will fail. But you cannot let the world knock you off balance and live a life defined by someone else’s terms
It is perhaps the only thing that matters
Conrad wrote that "the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness."
My gratitude and thanks to the crew of the USS Gerald R. Ford after nearly a year at sea.
Their long deployment, involving indispensable roles in two major military operations, likely stripped life down to essentials: time, routine, fatigue, trust in the people beside you. And survival. All amidst indifferent oceans. Welcome home to the crew.