TruthArchive.ai - Tweets Saved By @ArmchairW
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
Well. War with Iran it is. I had hoped it would not come to this juncture, but here we are. Some thoughts after the day's fighting.⬇️ 1. As an initial matter, the Trump Administration's actions here are aggression and perfidy. This attack on Iran was unprovoked and occurred during negotiations in which the Iranians were by all indications willing to make significant and lasting concessions to assuage American and Israeli concerns about the peaceful nature of their nuclear program. Soon enough we will regret setting this precedent. 2. US and Israeli forces appear to have achieved tactical surprise by launching a limited decapitation strike first against senior figures in the Iranian regime. The measure of performance of the strike - did they hit what and whom they intended to hit - is currently the subject of... significant debate. The measure of effectiveness of the strike - did it dislocate the Iranian defensive response or cause panic and infighting in the regime - was negative. The Iranian military deliberately cleared what was at the time an airspace crowded with civilian traffic, brought air defenses online, and began launching retaliatory strikes about an hour later. 2A. The Iranians only brought their air defenses online after their airspace was clear of civilian traffic, suggesting they felt confident in their ability to absorb a limited first strike and also indicating that they very much wanted to avoid repeating Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 with wild defensive fire. 3. Iran has thus far had some success penetrating US and Israeli missile defenses on the far side of the Middle East and considerable success smashing up US bases (and local critical infrastructure) in the Gulf and Iraq with their plentiful arsenal of short-range missiles and cruise drones. There's nothing really new and game-changing here from the Twelve Day War, as I pointed out earlier. They have a lot of missiles and drones and seem more than happy to contest with us on throw-weight. 4. As I pointed out earlier, the considerable standoff that US and Israeli aircraft are operating from has wrecked sortie generation. Coalition strikes on Iran throughout the day have been remarkably modest following the initial wave of attacks, likely due to a combination of delay from forced refueling, disruption to remote bases due to Iranian missile attacks, forced use of standoff weapons due to Iranian AD coverage, and Iranian AD attriting incoming salvos. Effects have not been particularly impressive either - I've seen a grand total of two strikes with noticeable secondaries. 4A. As long as the Iranian IADS network remains intact enough to deter Coalition forces from flying "downtown" into Iranian airspace proper, there's very hard limits on the amount of coercive power that can actually be applied to Iran. We only have so many standoff missiles and don't have a Russo-Chinese missile printer to call upon. And I remind the reader that our bigger and stronger adversaries (Russia and China) are very invested in ensuring that IADS network remains intact so as to preserve their ally. 5. There has been no noticeable regime fracture or civil insurrection in Iran. Everyone in the regime seems to have fallen in line immediately and all the demonstrations in Iran through the day have been pro-government. This is to be expected - the Iranians have not only rehearsed this, they've had multiple repetitions of executing it over the past year. 6. Mossad's attack network in Iran seems to be well and truly dismembered - as I suggested it had been earlier. There have been no reports of commando or insurgent activity in Iran over the course of the day. The Iranian internet is shut down at the moment and nobody seems to be posting online via Starlink. 7. Oil shock is a real prospect here. The Strait of Hormuz is closed. The Bab al-Mandeb is likely going to be interdicted soon by the Houthis. Iran has already begun limited strikes on oil and gas infrastructure in the region. Air and missile campaigns are inherently indecisive, and Americans are not going to tolerate a weeks or monthslong campaign that spikes oil to $150+/barrel. 8. Claims are floating around - out of Israel, of course - that this entire affair was a scheme cooked up by Trump and Netanyahu and that the negotiations were always a sham. I suspect that isn't the case, and that Trump was herded into action by Netanyahu threatening to attack unilaterally after the US "coercive task force" was finally fully assembled in the Gulf. So how does this end? Well, Trump has been quite explicit that he's aiming for a short war (probably trying to beat the markets), so I wouldn't be surprised if this is over relatively quickly. On whose terms... well, that's another matter altogether.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
Still boggles my mind that the Ukrainians made an actual movie trailer for their 2023 counteroffensive. The arrogance was unbelievable. These people thought they could not lose, and their main concern was selling tickets to what was to be the geopolitical event of the year. https://t.co/mkSjNkzIwa
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
"How to get conquered by Russia" Let's actually evaluate the force Finland can deploy in wartime. According to official Finnish arms control disclosures, as of 2023 the Finnish Army maintained seven (7) brigades, all in reserve. Let's evaluate their stockpile in that light.⬇️ According to the same document, the Finnish Army has 200 modern main battle tanks and 1,110 APCs and IFVs, including 320 old MT-LBs and 110 BMP-2s. On a NATO table of organization and equipment (with 44 vehicles per battalion) that's enough to equip four armor battalions and 25 infantry battalions, for a total of 29 battalions. Assuming a US Army BCT-type organization with four maneuver battalions* per brigade, the Finns have enough combat vehicles to equip... those seven brigades, plus one infantry battalion in general reserve. Given the actual structure of the Finnish Army this likely shakes out to one armored brigade with three tank battalions, one mechanized infantry brigade with an tank battalion, and five motorized infantry brigades with no tanks at all. * one of those is a cavalry squadron in the US Army Finnish Army artillery is a somewhat more complicated subject, but it appears that they have approximately 220 155mm howitzers between towed and self-propelled units, of which half are L/39 and half are modern L/52 pieces. This is enough to equip 12 artillery battalions, plus an additional four rocket and missile battalions. This is a reasonable artillery park to support a corps(-) force as above. The Finns also possess(ed?) a large number of Soviet 122mm pieces and a handful of 152mm guns, of which an unknown number have been given to Ukraine. The remainders of this stockpile would be the only heavy weaponry available to equip any additional units raised from mobilized reservists - assuming those donations have been modest, the Finns could equip perhaps twenty additional reserve infantry brigades at a Second World War level with truck transport and a single artillery battalion each. This appears to be the source of the claim that the Finns could mobilize a fairly large army in wartime by relying on their pool of trained reservists. It's worth noting, however, that this is not going to be a good army - it's going to be a force that relies on a defensive front of poorly-equipped, poorly-supported, middle-aged conscripts dying in enormous numbers under Russian artillery to protect a much smaller, "elite" mobile reserve... that is itself only (optimistically) comparable to any given Russian unit of equivalent size. Think the late-war AFU with far less ammunition, dodgy supply lines back to NATO, a prewar drone force, and little ability to reconstitute materiel losses - which will pile up alarmingly quickly. Now add in the fact that Finland, while heavily propagandized against Russia, is a wealthy democracy and not a totalitarian hellhole like Ukraine. The Finnish government has sold its public on the idea that Finnish forces are qualitatively far superior to the Russians and cannot throw bodies at the problem once it turns out otherwise - at least not without a public outcry. In short, this is a force that is going to get manhandled if it comes to war, and as a secondary line of effort for the Russian military.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
So a large part of the stated justification for NATO supporting Ukraine is the supposed belief that "the West is next" - that Ukraine is merely the first domino to fall in a new Russian march to Berlin. It's very odd then that the actual members of NATO aren't acting like it. Over the last two years, Western nations - in particular European nations - have done little to nothing to actually prepare for war with Russia. By and large they have all happily handed over their existing, modest stocks of military equipment and ammunition to Ukraine with no serious replacement plans, let alone genuine rearmament plans. Just to provide an example: with the sole exception of Poland, I don't think any member of NATO - including the United States - has actually taken delivery of a single new tank on account of the war in the last two years. * Hungary received a few Leopard 2A7s from a prewar order earlier this month. Military innovation in NATO has stagnated, with professional Western soldiers seeming to take little interest in battlefield developments. Ukrainian soldiers trained in Europe have complained that Western tactical methods are old-fashioned and unrealistic on the modern battlefield, even to the point of mockery. The "just go around the minefield" remark of a Bundeswehr instructor comes to mind. On the personnel side of the house, only known military titans (sarcasm) Denmark, Lithuania and Latvia have bolstered conscription efforts. The British military has shrunk significantly, mirroring a similar decline in American force strength. None of this is treated as the dire emergency that it would be if NATO actually intended to be ready for war with the Russian Federation in 2025. So what are we to make of this? It's possible that NATO's brain trust is absolutely marinating in hubris ("the Russians suck, we can take them easily"), but in light of articles coming out that the Bundeswehr has no ammunition at all it's difficult to see Western arrogance stretching that far. I think it's far more likely that Western leaders - contrary to their public statements - do not believe Putin has any designs at all on NATO territory. And it's important to underline this last point. This isn't, "Putin has been deterred" because they're not deterring anyone. Once Ukraine falls over Europe is going to be a military basket case protected almost entirely by the dubious prospect of American nuclear attacks. It's "Putin isn't going to move regardless of the balance of forces." Which then begs the question of why the hell, exactly, the collective leaders of the West have gone all in on a Russian-killing project in Ukraine when they seem to have a bone-deep confidence that Putin isn't actually a threat to them.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
It actually occurs to me there is a plausible explanation for this kind of behavior by NATO that doesn't involve Western leaders being absolute ghouls - a sort of security version of the "tragedy of the commons," where NATO has become such a large organization with such diffuse responsibility for outcomes that no individual member has any real urgency to actually prepare for war. So we end up with 31 countries that mostly expect to do token deployments and provide niche capabilities to the coalition while Russian tanks are rolling through Warsaw.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
D+6 Israeli Crisis update. No significant changes on the ground today. The biggest news I've seen is that Israel apparently just now ordered the million-odd people living in the northern Gaza Strip flee south within 24 hours, suggesting a ground assault is imminent. The Israelis have continued their aerial bombardment of Gaza, reaching over 6,000 bombs dropped thus far. Ancient M117 750-lb bombs have been spotted on IAF aircraft, suggesting that the Israelis are at least in part aiming to simply cause destruction in Gaza rather than targeting anything specific - and also suggesting that they're feeling the pinch on their munitions stockpiles. I expect that vast quantities of American bombs will soon be flowing to the Middle East to keep their bombing campaign running. Israel's neighbors and other regional powers in the Middle East are increasingly indicating that they will not stand idly by for an invasion and accompanying mass exodus of refugees from Gaza. Egypt has thus far refused to support any mass flight of Palestinians through Rafah. As I pointed out yesterday, it literally does not matter how fulminatingly angry the Israelis are at Hamas right now - any ground assault will come with real consequences for them, up to and including the potential for a regional war. Each side's death toll currently stands at around 1400 - an apocalyptic figure for Israel (more than they suffered in the Six Days' War and half of what they suffered in the Yom Kippur War) and rapidly approaching the entire death toll in Gaza for all previous conflicts since 2005. These figures are going to rise, and rise rapidly, the longer this goes on. Praying for peace is cliche. Pray for a solution.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
If Mediazona's count of Russian casualties in Ukraine is accurate - and it probably is - Russian losses tapered off over the month of August to the point they're now hardly worse than American ones at the height of the Iraq War. This suggests the AFU is beginning to collapse. ⬇️
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
First of all the bottom line - Mediazona has confirmed a mere 133 Russian military deaths in the first three weeks of August (their data only goes to August 23rd right now). This is on top of a long-term downward trend in Russian casualties since the winter.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
Mediazona's total count is slightly over 30,000 for the entire war right now. How do I know it's accurate? Russian admissions. Recently Gen. Teplinsky, head of the VDV, stated that 8500 Russian paratroopers had been wounded and returned to duty over the course of the war.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
Mediazona has 1,898 VDV soldiers confirmed as having been killed in action in Ukraine. In Vietnam, the US suffered 58,000 dead and some 300,000 wounded, half of whom were not hospitalized. As such the KIA-WIA/RTD ratio seems quite similar between the two wars, which is logical.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
So there's no reason to believe there's some huge pool of extra Russian casualties out there. If there is, the Russian high command doesn't seem to know about them. For context, the two deadliest months of the Iraq War saw 137 and 126 Coalition fatalities.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
Now consider this: 1. Four Iraqi soldiers died for every Coalition fatality in Iraq. There is no such "second army" for Russia in Ukraine to "hide" the true scope of losses. 2. Ukraine fields a conventional force enjoying the full support of NATO. The Iraqi insurgents did not.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
(before anyone asks, yes, Mediazona is counting Wagner troops - they're a rather large portion of Russian losses, too)
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
So what does this mean? Well, I wrote a thread on military collapse due to mass casualties a while ago, you can review it here:
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
Using Nazi Germany as a case study, when military collapse sets in it leads to a rapid fall in combat power as more and more of the force is made up of civilians in uniform who are physically and mentally unfit for combat.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
In the German case this occurred on the defensive, leading to an enormous spike in casualties as the Allied armies steamrolled forward. Germany lost the equivalent of a division a day in the last year of the war.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
Ukraine appears to be quite unique in having gone into military collapse on the -offensive- due to political considerations and Russia playing into those considerations. In that case I'd expect a somewhat different effect - a huge drop in opposing-force casualties and few gains.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
This makes logical sense for a force that is herding poorly-trained and unfit conscripts into attacks - they're going to die in huge numbers and accomplish nothing. That's precisely what we've seen in Ukraine over the last four months of the "Great Counteroffensive."
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
By the month of August, the purpose-built and trained formations Ukraine had assembled for the counteroffensive had been ground down into shadows of their former selves and reconstituted with press-ganged conscripts - but were still attacking.
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
This precipitous decline in the quality of Ukrainian manpower is confirmed by secondary sources. Just as an example, a 71 year-old Ukrainian soldier recently reported for training in Germany. Original behind a paywall at FT, see: https://t.me/DDGeopolitics/78905
@ArmchairW - Armchair Warlord
The upshot of this is that Ukraine - and NATO with it - is sleepwalking into catastrophe once the Russians decide to go on the offensive. They can. And they will. They've been generating forces for a year now that we've barely seen. But more on that later. https://t.co/SWh0QGYprk
