J.C. Corrigan

Husband/Dad, Penn St Fan, Politically Homeless - Wealth Design Planner - Tweets/Likes are not advice/endorsements

[Jim Bianco @biancoresearch]

I am not a military analyst. I'm a financial analyst focused on macroeconomic risk.

That different lens might explain why I see something most military strategists and investors are missing.
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The New Rules of Warfare—And Why We Can't Opt Out

For nearly a century, warfare belonged to whoever controlled the biggest defense budget. Aircraft carriers. Stealth bombers. Multibillion-dollar weapons systems.

That model is changing in ways many aren't appreciating.

Ukraine and Iran are showing the West what 21st-century conflict actually looks like: decentralized, highly iterative, fast-changing, unmanned, and cheap. Neither the US nor Russia—beginning in 2022—appears prepared.

We might now have no choice but to show we can fight and win such a war.

The Ukraine Approach

Faced with a small defense budget, a much smaller population, and a vastly outnumbered army, Ukraine had to get creative. They couldn't match Russia's industrial capacity or spending. So they abandoned that playbook entirely.

They developed an entirely new way to fight, highly decentralized, iterative, and most importantly, cheap.
They also created Brave1—a completely new way to conduct war.

Frontline commanders log into an iPad and bypass central command entirely. They spend digital points to purchase equipment directly from hundreds of (Ukrainian) manufacturers. When they encounter a new threat, they message the manufacturer directly and work with the engineers to find a solution, even if that means they visit to the front. The result is hardware or software upgrades that once took months now take days.

Here's the crucial part: hundreds of manufacturers compete fiercely for these dollars by offering the best possible product as fast as possible. This isn't centralized procurement. It's a market. Competition drives innovation at scale. Weapons evolve as the enemy evolves in real time.

Units are also awarded points for confirmed kills, uploaded from drone video—a powerfully eloquent way to grade effectiveness.

But the real innovation might be how they decentralized manufacturing itself. Instead of building weapons in massive, centralized factories that make perfect targets for Russian bombing, Ukraine distributed production across hundreds of small manufacturers—workshops, machine shops, garages, and yes, kitchens. Each produces components or complete systems. This approach serves two purposes: speed and survival.

You can bomb a tank factory. You destroy production for months. You cannot bomb ten thousand kitchens. If one workshop gets hit, ninety-nine others keep producing. The network regenerates faster than Russia can destroy it. This is why the manufacturing process includes actual kitchens—it's not a metaphor. It's a strategy.

The Metric That Defines a New Era

The result is staggering: at least 70% of battlefield casualties now come from drones. This is the first time in over a century that the primary cause of combat death is neither a bullet nor an artillery shell. Since World War I, industrial warfare meant industrial killing. Ukraine has broken that equation entirely.

As a result, Russia is now controlling less territory than at any point since 2022 and going backward. In March, Ukraine made gains while Russia recorded no gains for the first time in two and a half years, and Drone-led offensives recaptured 470 square kilometers while paralyzing 40% of Russian oil exports.

Ukraine has lowered the "cost per kill" to less than $1,000 per casualty—a 99.98% reduction from the millions of dollars that were common in the post-9/11 wars. This isn't an incremental improvement. This is a complete inversion of modern military economics.
Yet the Western defense establishment is not learning from this.

Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger mocked Ukraine's entire approach. In The Atlantic, he called Ukrainian manufacturers "housewives with 3D printers," dismissing their work as "playing with Legos." They are not studying this revolution. They are mocking it.

And the "housewives with 3D printers" are beating the Russian army!

Ukraine Is Now in the Middle East

The US Military and Gulf states face an eerily similar problem. Iran's Shahed drones threaten shipping in the Strait of Hormuz—a chokepoint that funnels 21% of global oil. They cannot fend off Iran by firing a $4 million Patriot missiles at $20,000 drones.

They need what Ukraine has discovered: a decentralized, rapidly adaptive defense network that doesn't require centralized industrial capacity.

That's why Ukraine just signed historic 10-year defense deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE.

Over 220 Ukrainian specialists are now on the front lines of the Persian Gulf—exporting not just weapons, but a completely new doctrine of how to fight.

The precedent is set. The model works. Everyone is watching.

Mosaic

On April 1st, Trump threatened to bomb Iran "back to the stone ages" if they don't reopen the Strait within weeks.

It's the classic 20th-century playbook: overwhelming offense force, massive bombardment, industrial-scale destruction.

The problem? That playbook doesn't work against distributed, cheap, rapid-iteration systems—especially when your enemy is organized under a mosaic structure.

Iran's "Mosaic Defense" doctrine is a decentralized command system where authority and capability are distributed across multiple geographic and organizational nodes.

Each region operates semi-autonomously with overlapping chains of command and pre-planned contingencies. It's designed so that when you destroy the center, the edges keep fighting. You cannot decapitate a system with no head. You cannot out-bomb your way to victory when your enemy is not centralized; this was the solution for 20th-century industrial warfare.

Defense Wins Championships

21st-century asymmetrical threats require defensive shields, not aggressive offenses. Ukraine has built exactly that: rapid-iteration defenses, decentralized manufacturing, commanders empowered to buy solutions in real time and rewarded for success.

That same defensive model may hold the key to opening the Strait of Hormuz. Not through massive offense, but through the ability to adapt and defend quickly.

Why We're Stuck

Whether you viewed this as a war of choice or not, it has now become a war to keep global trade open. And that makes it inescapable.

This is precisely why the US cannot declare victory and walk away from the Strait of Hormuz— or TACO.

Every adversary on the planet will interpret American withdrawal as confirmation that cheap asymmetric systems work against powerful centralized platforms.

And these adversaries might have sent us a message last month. In mid-March 2026, an unauthorized drone swarm penetrated Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, home to the U.S. Air Force's Global Strike Command.

The fact that this happened not overseas but in the United States, and that these tests occurred just weeks ago, underscores how close this threat is now.

They didn't attack. They announced their presence. Every adversary watching learned that cheap drone networks can reach into the US.

The Global Supply Chain Risk

If the US abandons the Gulf while Iran holds the Strait contested, markets will price this as validation that cheap systems can hold global trade hostage. The current market disruptions will become permanent.

Supply chains will have to pivot from "just-in-time" efficiency back to "just-in-case" redundancy. Inflation returns as safety costs money. Trade routes diversify away from vulnerable chokepoints. The global friction tax becomes permanent.

The Unavoidable Truth

Once you prove that cheap, asymmetric systems can hold global trade hostage, that knowledge spreads globally and irreversibly. Every adversary learns the same lesson: you don't need a $2 trillion Navy—you need $20 million in drones and the will to use them.

Withdrawing while the Strait remains contested would permanently validate this model. Supply chains shift to "just-in-case" redundancy. Insurance costs rise. The friction tax becomes structural—baked into every global transaction for decades.

The cost of staying is measured in months. The cost of leaving is measured in decades of economic drag.

We cannot leave unfinished business.

[Dr. Julie Gurner @drgurner]

"It doesn't matter how many years you lost....Save the rest of your life."

No regrets about the past.
Face Forward.
Make the rest of your life what you want.

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

.@billmaher notes that vice should not be frictionless and always available. The harms from ubiquitous sports betting fall especially on boys and young men, whose life-chances are most diminished.

[Nature is Amazing ☘️ @AMAZlNGNATURE]

What lesson did you learn from this?

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

Thanks @SenJoniErnst

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is said to have shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer. https://t.co/452E7Mq31c

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@WeAreIncomeLab

[MichaelKitces @MichaelKitces]

Which comprehensive financial planning tool should you choose? We discuss this in our report on Advisor Productivity: https://t.co/aTt5kvaaeX

Based on advisors' ratings of these tools across various domains, we categorized programs as "market leaders", "competent", or "weak".

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@T_Gatzemeier Roth conversions today can also help you with a badly timed inherited IRA. I am finding that providing some “tax insurance” for some clients is worth the due diligence on what they expect to inherit and how does that impact our strategy.

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@TKopelman 8606 has three year statue of limitations to resolve so they should be ok

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@shaneparrish - not a good combo

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@mylattice24 @jbrendanfrazier Agreed - also implicit on many dimensions.

[Michael Camp @EsElSenorCamp]

@Politics_Polls Trump can still win Dixville Notch if Mike Pence has the courage to do the right thing

[April, or "A lot of oranges" @ALotOfOranges]

My retirement plan is to move to Dixville Notch and then take a really long time to vote every year so they're forced to keep their polls open until the normal time.

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@lhamtil Technically it’s an us-y

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@allstarcharts Looks like its waiting to see who wins the election

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@danielcrosby Feels like an extension of social media where people can say/do what they want without consequence, which is why parents in youth sports are getting worse. Didnt work out this time. Good hypothesis?

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@RyanPKirlin Fascinating to hear it but sometimes they just want a different type of US Index - which for now, may work out.

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@T_Gatzemeier The missing ingredient to all this is being postured for an unknown inheritance - either amount, when, or the tax treatment of said inheritance. Nobody talks about this and it is a winning lottery ticket in many instances.

[Alec Stapp @AlecStapp]

Milei repeals rent controls in Argentina.

The results in Buenos Aires since last October:

- housing rental supply up 170%

- rents down 40%

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@danielcrosby Let’s revisit this when your daughter is 15

[J.C. Corrigan @jc_corrigan]

@T_Gatzemeier Wish this was done in weeks vs days. Nobody gets out for just a day