Nikolas Gardner

Strategy and History. Fog and Friction.

[Michael Bohnert @mbohnert]

What continues to go underreported is Ukraine’s systematic campaign against Russian radara especially the Kasta-2E2.

These are not the high-profile S-400s or Pantsirs. They are the low-altitude surveillance radars that detect incoming drones and cruise missiles at the earliest stage.

The Kasta-2E2’s antenna is elevated high above the vehicle. That height gives it significantly better low-level coverage against systems like the FP-1, FP-2, and especially the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile. The Radar's lower operating frequency also improves detection of some smaller targets.

These radars are relatively scarce. Every one removed forces Russian air defenses to rely on less capable sensors or to accept later detection. Production rates are nowhere near replacement.

Later detection = less time to cue interceptors or EW = higher survivability for the inbound systems, even if the FP-series becomes more vulnerable in other ways.

This is quiet, cumulative attrition of the detection layer. It compounds over weeks and months in ways that single high-visibility strikes do not. Russian refineries and Wildberries learned this firsthand.

[Nikolas Gardner @Negardner]

😨What if America Went Completely Dark? https://t.co/ycNx8UK45X

[Ryan Fedasiuk @RyanFedasiuk]

1/ The White House is out with a new National Security Science & Technology Strategy. At 24 pages, it actually makes (some) choices.

The central idea is that America should stop treating tech competition as a contest to lead everywhere.

[Jakub Janovsky @Rebel44CZ]

I have just written an article for @WarFrontsWeekly explaining what makes Starlink so useful for military users and what the status and prospects of alternative services are, given everyone's preference not to have to rely on the decisions of Elon and the US government.

[OSINTdefender @sentdefender]

Citing The New York Times, TWZ reports that a senior U.S. military official said Iranian drones provided commanders with the F-15E’s location, speed and direction, potentially allowing a dispersed missile team to target the aircraft.

The significance may be less about a sophisticated “drone swarm” than the use of inexpensive drones as airborne sensors. After U.S. and Israeli strikes degraded Iran’s conventional air defense network, drones could provide a relatively cheap and expendable way to detect and track aircraft and pass targeting information to dispersed shooters.

The report also connects the account to the previously reported “jellyfish” or “minefield” of drones seen by the F-15E crew shortly before they ejected, while cautioning that it remains unclear whether those drones were actually involved in the shootdown.

If accurate, the incident illustrates a broader lesson demonstrated in Ukraine: cheap, distributed sensors can help cue much more expensive weapons against high value targets.

[Arnold Schwarzenegger @Schwarzenegger]

I was a bricklayer.

It was how I paid the bills when I first moved to America. Even the biggest title in bodybuilding, Mr. Olympia, only paid a thousand dollars back then. 

It makes me proud that in March, the winner of our Arnold Classic and our Arnold Classic UK took home more than a million dollars. He can focus on bodybuilding.

But in our day, that wasn’t an option. Some guys were teachers. Some sold insurance. Franco and I laid bricks.
We put an ad in the paper and sold ourselves as European craftsmen. We figured if people heard the accents, they would picture old-world masonry instead of two bodybuilders with a wheelbarrow. 

It worked. 

The phone rang. And then we had to go out and actually do the job, which was the part nobody could fake. Luckily, Franco knew what he was doing.

The work was simple. Mix the mortar. Set the brick. Tap it level. Scrape the edge. Then do it again. And again. Nobody claps for you. There is no crowd, no music, no trophy. There is just the next brick sitting there waiting for you.

You can still find some of the walls we built in Venice.
That’s where my lesson today comes from.

One brick doesn’t look like anything. Ten bricks don’t look like anything. A hundred bricks, you’re starting to see something, but it doesn’t impress anyone.

You just keep laying bricks until the job is done.

And you know what happens after four or five hours on a wall?

You are so damn tired, or you feel so great that you stop measuring.

You are not standing back every ten minutes asking how far from finished it is. You are covered in mortar, your hands are raw, you’re schvitzing, and you are happy. The work took the question away from you.

That is the part nobody tells you about hard work: It doesn’t just build the wall. It terminates the voice that keeps asking when the wall will be done.

[Eddy Elfenbein @EddyElfenbein]

Sixty-five years ago, this was the kind of house someone in the construction industry could afford with a stay at home wife and child. (Note attached garage!) This is what we've lost.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Pretty clear that the people doing this don’t know what “strategic warfighting” is

Exhibit A is the war we’re losing right now.

[Nikolas Gardner @Negardner]

This is what can happen when you take the human out of the loop: US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference https://t.co/RPwnXDoAyR

[Nikolas Gardner @Negardner]

https://t.co/hv0fKeg5OF

[Director Michael Kratsios @mkratsios47]

We have information that Moonshot AI distilled Anthropic’s Fable for the development of its K3 model.

To do this they developed a sophisticated internal platform to conduct large scale distillation against U.S. models, allowing them to quickly switch between multiple methods of access to avoid detection. Moonshot AI has also acquired GB300-equipped servers and has accessed GB300s in Thailand, likely to train its AI models.

The United States strongly supports the free and fair development of AI, including a thriving competitive ecosystem that spans frontier models, specialized systems, open-source frameworks, and open-weight models. Legitimate AI distillation used to create smaller, more efficient models plays a vital role in this open innovation ecosystem. However, large-scale, covert industrial distillation aimed at stealing proprietary U.S. technology and undermining American research is unacceptable.

[Nikolas Gardner @Negardner]

☕️

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

There is good news for coffee drinkers: Up to five cups of the brew a day are safe for most adults and may even have benefits for heart health, according to a new scientific statement by the American Heart Association. ☕️ https://t.co/deJEwviY9U

[The Wall Street Journal @WSJ]

The CIA’s man in Abu Dhabi was sent in to spy on the "spy sheikh"—and went on to play a role in the U.A.E.’s AI win https://t.co/5xGwmerTde

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

Australian broadcaster on hot mic after Trump crashes Spain’s World Cup trophy presentation: “They’re gonna edit him out of that”

[Nikolas Gardner @Negardner]

👍

[FOX Sports @FOXSports]

Vibes are high in Madrid after Spain won its second FIFA World Cup title 🏆

[¹⁰ @HoodiGarland]

France vs. England in a meaningless 3rd place game ended up being one of the most entertaining World Cup matches I’ve watched

[TSN @TSN_Sports]

England sing "Wonderwall" with the fans to celebrate win!

#FIFAWorldCup

[Nikolas Gardner @Negardner]

Trump's Retreat From NATO Gives Carney an Opening https://t.co/jYk7pZ4BDq

[Nikolas Gardner @Negardner]

👍

[TSN @TSN_Sports]

MOROCCO VS. CANADA IN HOUSTON 🇲🇦🇨🇦

Get your popcorn ready for July 4th because this is going to be a good one! 🍿

#FIFAWorldCup

[ORF @orfonline]

#Iran's shift from #US-controlled GPS to China's BeiDou was not a wartime scramble but the culmination of a decade-long effort to reduce dependence on the West. BeiDou's jam-resistant, high-precision signals helped Iranian missiles strike targets as far as Diego Garcia: @PrateekTri1990 https://t.co/5bRa3FGTlp #Military #Technology