Military

5th Generation War, Part 1: Don’t Capture the Capitol—Just Convince Half of the People it’s Corrupt and Illegitimate

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You don’t have to invade a nation to defeat it. You may only have to convince its citizens that their elections are rigged, their courts are corrupt, their institutions are illegitimate, and their neighbors are the enemy. As early as 2012, the U.S. military was wrestling with the Human Dimension and emerging ideas about the Human Domain—the recognition that wars ultimately turn on human behavior and human will. Add smartphones, algorithms, information warfare, color-revolution dynamics, and fifth-generation warfare, and the battlefield starts looking considerably different. The Capitol can still be standing, the flag can still be flying, and elections can still happen right on schedule. But if nobody believes any of it anymore, an enemy may never have to conquer us. We may eventually do the job ourselves.

Fort Wilkins: Once again, US Army Sends a West Pointer to the End of the Earth

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In 1844, the U.S. Army sent a West Point graduate and a couple companies of infantry to the very tip of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula to keep order during America’s first great copper rush. Captain Robert Emmet Clary and his soldiers arrived in the wilderness, built most of a fort in five months, and then watched history move somewhere else when war with Mexico began. But Clary’s story gets even better: his West Point classmate—and reportedly his wedding best man—was Jefferson Davis. Three decades later, Davis headed the Confederacy while Clary remained loyal to the Union and earned brevet promotion to brigadier general for his Civil War service. Fort Wilkins is a wonderfully obscure reminder that long before Gettysburg, some remarkably tough Americans were already busy building this amazing country.

UN CLASH: Netanyahu slams Mamdani in speech against backdrop of protests

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized Zohran Mamdani over the NYC mayor’s call for his arrest, as large anti-Israel protests descended upon the city during his address to the UN General Assembly.

Bernie Sanders convinced me that socialism can work… But Bernie is not going to like it

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I owe Senator Sanders an apology. And a challenge.

For years I stood in front of classrooms and told teenagers that socialism does not work. I was wrong, and I am willing to say so in public. Socialism works fine. It has been working in the United States for generations, on a printed schedule, at places like Fort Jackson, Fort Sill, and Fort Leonard Wood, none of which has a single Bernie sign in the yard.

There is a catch, of course. There is always a catch. The system only works when a specific set of conditions is in place, and every one of them is something @SenSanders has spent fifty years calling cruel. I know he could not survive those conditions, because he already flunked a much gentler version of the test in 1971. We will get to that. Do not skip ahead. It is the best part.

China’s Cognitive War Against America – The Trump-Xi Summit

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In just a few weeks after our nation remembers and mourns the loss of nearly 3000 souls murdered on 9-11, President Trump will be meeting with Xi Jinping. What is truly surreal about the summit and our continued engagement of China, is that the summit will occur while Xi is waging war on the United States of America.

AR Tactical: Can Your Rifle Even Reach 600 Yards?

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Think you’re a rifleman? There’s only one way to find out. AR Tactical is one of the fastest-growing rifle sports in America, challenging everyday shooters to stretch their skills to 600 yards with practical rifles and real-world marksmanship. Along the way, even experienced competitors discover that old habits don’t always translate—and that’s part of the fun. The question is simple: Will your rifle even reach 600 yards?

The Infantry: The Guys Who Get the Dust While Everyone Else Gets the Glory

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The cavalry gets the glory. The infantry gets the dust. For thousands of years, warfare has invented faster horses, bigger guns, tanks, aircraft, drones, and now cyber warriors—but eventually somebody still has to walk onto the objective with a rifle and take the ground. Call them ground pounders, earth pigs, grunts, soldiers, or Marines: they are the infantry. Not everyone should be one, and thank God for that. But every army needs them, because wars may be shaped by technology, artillery, armor, and airpower—but ground is still won by the poor bastard standing on it.

MIDDLE EAST ESCALATION: Regional powers AWAIT US response after Iranian attack

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Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reports on a potential U.S. response to escalating tensions in the Middle East amid threats from Iran-backed Houthis and a reported Iranian attack on a U.S.-contracted vessel on ‘Special Report.’

The Army Is Apolitical. And DFAC Coffee Is Gourmet.

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The Army Chief of Staff is fired. Senior generals depart. The Secretary of the Army resigns. Meanwhile, the Iran war escalates and even tactical nuclear options reportedly enter Pentagon discussions.

Maybe it’s personalities and “woke generals.” Maybe it’s something much deeper happening behind classified doors.

What the hell is going on inside the Pentagon?

The Hard Truth About 9/11: A sobering view from 25 years after.

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President Bush at Ground Zero on 9/14/2001: “Thank you all. I want you all to know that America today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn. This nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut as we mourn the loss of thousands of our citizens.”

China’s Nuclear Arsenal Expansion Is a Direct Threat to the U.S.

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China poses a continuing nuclear threat to the U.S. through a relentless effort to modernize and expand its nuclear arsenal and delivery capabilities.

The PLA is executing the fastest and largest peacetime nuclear buildup in history, moving from a “minimum deterrence” force of roughly 200 warheads a decade ago toward a force that multiple U.S. officials now project could approach numerical parity with the United States and Russia within four to five years. This is a direct military threat: more silos, more delivery platforms, new low-yield and tactical designs, and — per credible but contested reporting — a resumed covert testing program.

Baghdad NYT: ‘A More Confident Iran Emerges After Six Months of War With the U.S.’

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That was the headline in the New York Times. The sub-headline read, “New intelligence reports have assessed that Iran now has a far better understanding of its capabilities and the limits of U.S. power.”

Fact-check: Well, yes if you consider they now realize their capabilities are nada, non-existent, zilch. The Persian Army has more power and it disappeared in a sandstorm west of Thebes 2,551 years ago.

The FOBbit: How the Army Turns Warriors Into PowerPoint-Slinging Indoor Cats

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The Army has a remarkable ability to take a perfectly functional warrior, promote him a few times, hand him three computer monitors, and turn him into a PowerPoint-slinging indoor cat. Thus begins the evolution of the FOBbit: that mysterious creature who once went outside the wire but now survives on RFIs, synchronization meetings, Green Beans coffee, and Baskin-Robbins. The real horror comes when you finally look down at your ice cream, look at your clean uniform, hit “Send” on another 1600 suspense, and realize the terrible truth: Oh, $h!tt! I’m the FOBbit.