Kevin Stewart

Software Engineer politics,aerospace,technology,military/naval history. Tweets are personal. Proud globalist. Team Reality. Not a Settler.

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

The quest to prevent COVID cases is Public Health's Afghanistan. Ends the same way, humiliation and tears.

[Fabian Hinz @fab_hinz]

Iranian missile engineers:

"Guys, the test failed but don't be disappointed! We learned a lot! Allah is with us and we are eventually going to succeed!"

Russian missile engineers:

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

History will not remember either of us. But I know that history will record that the most disgraceful man ever to hold the office of President of the United States stood in Arlington, looked around, and asked: "I don't get it. What was in it for them?"

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

Sam Harris has written the best thing you’ll read today.

https://t.co/gI0wZZNH4m

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@DOK430 You’re facing hundreds of thousands of $800 drones.

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

Truth - this is coming to all militaries

[Joni Askola @joni_askola]

Ukraine’s mid-range drone campaign is ripping apart Russian supply lines, and Moscow faces an impossible trilemma trying to stop it:

There are simply no cheap, efficient, and low-manpower solutions to protect Russian logistics.

Ukraine will face the same issue in the future.

Ukraine has held a decisive advantage for several months with its mid-range strike drones. Utilizing AI-enhanced and Starlink-integrated technology, these low-cost systems, including the Hornet drone, fly over 100 kilometers behind the front lines to accurately destroy Russian logistics under heavy jamming.

This strategic window of opportunity will not last forever. Russia will eventually improve its own mid-range capabilities, which are already far from non-existent, and turn this tactic back on Ukraine. The Ukrainian military must exploit this current edge and inflict maximum damage on Russian logistics networks before that shift arrives.

Even when Russia upgrades its tech, blocking Ukraine's drone campaign will remain an absolute nightmare. Because these drones are nearly immune to electronic jamming, Moscow is forced to physically stop them. They are so cheap to produce in high numbers that using traditional air defense interceptor missiles makes no economic sense.

Russia will likely turn to alternative countermeasures, such as deploying protective nets over roads, centralizing logistics into heavily defended convoys rather than vulnerable single trucks, and using anti-drone interceptor drones.

However, Russia faces a structural trap: they cannot field a solution that is simultaneously cheap, efficient, and doesn’t require too much manpower. They can only choose one or two out of three. Cheap interceptor drones require a lot of manpower along key roads. Lower-manpower systems with more range are far too expensive to deploy by the hundreds.

This dynamic provides a vital lesson for Ukraine. The Ukrainian military must immediately start preparing for the day Russia scales up its own mid-range drone campaigns (which is already starting to happen). Developing somewhat sustainable solutions right now is the only way to protect Ukrainian logistics when Russia’s tech allows it to copy this strategy

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@EliLebowicz @itsmubashi 💯

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@DOK430 Yeah but you need hundreds or thousands.

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@TheUnaButters @Schizointel Dives aren’t steep enough?

[Olga Patlyuk 🇺🇦 @OlgaPatl]

Every time I read that sanctions against Russia should not be made tougher because they might affect “оrdinary Russians,” I have one question.

Why is the world so concerned that Russians might have a less comfortable life, yet speaks far less about Ukrainians who are being kіІIеd every day by Russian mіssiles and drones?

Sanctions may cause economic hardship for Russians. But that hardship does not thrеаten their lives. It does not dеstroy their homes in the middle of the night. It does not burу their children under the rubble. It does not force them to wake up to еxplosions and live with the fеar of losing their loved ones every single day.

So what is the logic?

Why does the comfort of citizens of the аggressor state matter more to some people than the lives of those their state is kіIІіng?

For years, we Ukrainians have been paying the highest price -with our lives, our health, our homes, and our future. And when someone argues that Russians must be protected from the consequences of sanctions while remaining silent about protecting Ukrainians from Russian mіssiles, it looks like moral blіndness.

I am not concerned about the comfort of people whose state brings dеаth to my nation every day.

I am concerned about the lives of Ukrainians.

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@ML3democrats @PreetBharara Circus

[TheFrenchie @ML3democrats]

Remember when they said Zelensky desecrated the sanctity of the White House by not wearing a suit

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@DOK430 It weighs 6 tons.

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@TonesOfMusic Bono

[Andrew Perpetua @AndrewPerpetua]

The primary purpose of economic sanctions is not to stop a country from acquiring a sanctioned good, or to stop them from acting in a certain manner. The purpose is to permanently reduce their economic growth such that in the future their behavior is no longer relevant to your decision making process.

The bet on sanctions is that your economy will grow faster than their economy. Even very small changes in growth, compounded over many years, leads to enormous differences in economic outcomes.

If your country grows substantially faster, then over time the other country becomes less of a threat to you. The threat probably will not drop to zero, but it is reduced, and more manageable, and puts you in a better position to have power over them in diplomacy.

Sanctions are not a short term play, they are a long term one. A rational actor would see the damage potential of sanctions and immediately act to get the sanctions lifted, to avoid the compounding nature of the punishment. But the world is full of irrational actors and nobody seriously expects a nation to respond to sanctions rationally. They will double down, call it a point of pride to have "defeated" them by using backdoor smuggling or whatever, and claim victory. But the victory is short term, and sanctions are long term. Even if the sanction only lasts a few years, a few years of reduced growth, compounded over decades, is a big dip in outcome, all else being equal.

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@Noahpinion Can confirm, we are if not cooked, at least medium rare

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

Last night, the House chose to stand with Ukraine, and I was proud to cast my vote.

We passed military and reconstruction aid for Ukraine, plus hard new sanctions on Russia.

We did it over the objections of Mike Johnson and Republican leadership, who spent over a year trying to keep this bill from ever hitting the floor.

Eighteen Republicans crossed the aisle and did the right thing.

Why does this matter?

Because when a giant authoritarian state invades a smaller democracy, there is no gray area. There is no “both sides.”

Vladimir Putin is a thug. He started an unprovoked war. He flattened cities. He stole children from their families. Helping Ukraine isn’t charity. It’s the test of whether we still mean a single word we say about freedom.

I heard every excuse. The war’s winding down, they said, so let’s wait and see. Nonsense. You don’t strengthen a democracy by going wobbly the second things get hard. You don’t stop the next invasion by telling the world American resolve comes with an expiration date. Putin is watching. So is every dictator who dreams of taking what isn’t his by force.

This bill still has to clear the Senate and survive a presidential signature. The odds are long. But the House did its job. And we said it plainly: no country gets swallowed whole just because a tyrant wants it.

I’ll keep fighting to see this through. Ukraine’s fight is our fight, and we do not abandon our friends.
https://t.co/16OTeNW1dD

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@WeaponScientist @PaperMissiles To be used against the Greenland invasion ?

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@dilanesper It’s call Catholicism?

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@AstorAaron @laurnorman Are you not entertained?

[Kevin Stewart @stewak2]

@jumpjim I’ve actually flown on a Trilander - in the Solomons in 1994