Quotulatiousness

April 13, 2026

20 Biplanes vs Six Battleships – The Battle of Taranto

Filed under: Britain, History, Italy, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost Cartographic
Published 12 Apr 2026

Follow up this episode with our North Africa Miniseries on our WW2 channel: • North Africa

November 1940. In the Mediterranean, the British Royal Navy launches a daring carrier strike against the Italian fleet at Taranto. In Operation Judgement, Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers from HMS Illustrious attack the main base of the Regia Marina, crippling multiple battleships in a single night.

This is the story of the attack on Taranto: a bold naval air raid that changed the balance of power in World War 2 and showed what carrier-based air power could do. With Admiral Andrew Cunningham orchestrating a complex deception operation, the strike caught Italy off guard and reshaped naval warfare in the Mediterranean.

Watch this episode of TimeGhost Cartographic for a detailed breakdown of the Taranto raid, Operation MB8, and the battle for control of the Mediterranean Sea.
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April 12, 2026

TKIV-85: Finland’s Ultimate Mosin Nagant Sniper Rifle

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Nov 2025

Finland’s final iteration of Mosin Nagant sniper was adopted in the 1980s to replace a mix-and-match assortment of m/39-43, m/27-66, and m/28-76 rifles. The two options were a Mosin system using a new bedding block (developed by Border Guard officer E. Toro) or a purpose-made new rifle made by Valmet (the Model 86). The Valmet was clearly the better rifle, but the Mosin option was acceptably good and much cheaper — so that’s what was adopted. The parts for the conversions were made by Valmet and assembled at Asevarikko 1.

Two different models were made. One was a military specific type, and the other was a dual-use rifle for competition shooting as well as potential military use. The competition rifles had a lighter barrel profile to meet the international competition weight limit and were fitted with competition aperture sights in addition to mounts for scopes.

Thanks to Frozen Trigger in Finland for giving me access to these examples to film for you!
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April 11, 2026

Aussies & Tanks: The Story of Australian Armour

Filed under: Australia, Britain, History, Military, USA, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

The Tank Museum
Published 30 Jan 2026

Australia has always been an outlier when it comes to tanks. The first time Australians fought alongside tanks, it was such a disaster they almost gave up on the whole idea. And the first time they fought IN tanks, they were pinched from the enemy.

They’re the only Allied nation to reject the M4 Sherman. More than once, they’ve used their tanks very differently to how they were designed. Yet somehow, they’ve almost always been successful.

So, why do the Australians use tanks so differently to everybody else?

Join James and Fam as they explore the weird and wonderful ways that our Australian cousins have used their tanks. From captured tanks in the desert, to heavy metal in the jungle, the Aussie methods of armoured warfare have always seemed a little upside down from the outside.

While Australian interest in tanks has come and gone, when the need has arisen, the Australian tank force has been up to the challenge. Simply put, Australian soldiers usually use tanks differently because they usually fight differently. And despite long periods of neglect, tanks in the Australian Army always seem to find a way to bounce back.

00:00 | Introduction
00:36 | A Bad Start
03:44 | Tanks of their Own
06:19 | Welcome to the Jungle
11:07 | Lessons Relearned
13:53 | Defence of Australia
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April 10, 2026

Trump’s intemperate, irresponsible, unhinged rants … worked?

Filed under: Media, Middle East, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

For all that Trump’s habitual form of social media post seem to frequently dance on the edge of incoherence — if not insanity — his track record is far better than his critics give him credit for. I thought his most recent blustering threats against the Iranian leadership would be counter-productive, but something approximating a ceasefire began just before his deadline. As Brendan O’Neill put it, this gives Iranian civilization a bit of a reprieve, but what about the West?

Imagine calling for the destruction of a civilisation. Imagine dreaming about violently scrubbing an ancient nation from the face of the Earth. Imagine flirting with the idea of obliterating a land with thousands of years of rich history. I am referring, of course, to the activist class and its annihilationist hatred for the Jewish State. For nearly three years, these people have beat the streets and swarmed the digital networks to agitate for the erasure of Israel, all the way “from the river to the sea“. President Trump’s juvenile bluster on Iran has nothing on their existential loathing for the Jewish homeland.

The frenzy of the past 48 hours, following Trump’s potty-mouthed and threatening social-media posts about Iran, has felt unhinged. The nukes are coming, influencers wailed. Trump must be “removed as president” in order to “prevent a catastrophe that our species will never recover from”, said the Guardian‘s Owen Jones. Within hours of this giddy apocalypticism, this huddled descent of the chattering classes into the pit of End Times prophesying, Trump had done what many of us expected he would: struck a kind of deal. The great detonation was not of a nuclear bomb but of the common sense of the cultural establishment. That’s the only thing that got vaporised yesterday.

Then there was the sheer cant. It was Trump’s ominous yelp that “A whole civilisation will die tonight” that got leftists and liberals frothing. It’s genocidal lunacy, they said. Let’s leave to one side that the target of his digital ire appeared to be the Islamic Republic, not Persia. “Forty-seven years of extortion, corruption and death will finally end”, he said. The more striking thing is the industrial-level gall of a cultural elite that is devoted to the dismantling of Israel, puffing itself up in fury over Trump’s hyperbole on Iran.

I agree that “A whole civilisation will die tonight” is a chilling thing to say. That’s why I’m so horrified by the frenzied anti-Zionism of our times. Our intellectual classes furiously deny Israel’s “right to exist”. Our activist classes openly call for Israel’s excision from the family of nations, by intifada (violence) if necessary. Our celebrity classes cheer the armies of anti-Semites (Hamas, Hezbollah) that were founded with the express intention of vaporising the Jewish nation. One minute the keffiyeh set is accusing the likes of Pete Hegseth of being in the grip of an anti-Iranian “bloodthirst”, the next it’s chanting for the death of the Jewish nation’s soldiers.

Future historians will marvel at the brass neck of an influencer class that took 24 hours off from calling for the destruction of Israel to bash Trump for posting about the destruction of Iran. I raise this not to be facetious but to draw attention to the moral disarray here on the home front that has been so spectacularly exposed by events in Iran. For it is undeniable now – we are surrounded by people who salivate over the violent disappearance of Israel but who fret over the withering of the Islamic Republic. They have taken sides – the side of the barbarous regime that dreams of “Death to America” over the side of the democratic state rebuilt by Jews in the aftermath of the Holocaust. I’m delighted the Persian civilisation is safe – now what about the West’s?

April 8, 2026

The Korean War Week 94: Mines, Marines, and Mayhem – April 7, 1952

Filed under: China, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 7 Apr 2026

In order to try and make some progress on the thorny issue of POW repatriation, the UN offers to screen all the POWs they hold to get an exact number of who refuses to be sent back. The Communists agree and the plans are put in motion. Plans in the field are finishing up, with the US 1st Marine Division having moved to new positions in the west, but they now have to deal with the unforeseen issue of thousands of landmines. They did not see that coming.

00:00 Intro
00:47 Recap
01:27 POW Issues
05:58 New Operations
07:18 Marine Defenses
10:53 Landmines
14:18 Summary
15:01 Conclusion

April 7, 2026

NATO’s sudden-onset existential crisis

Filed under: Europe, Media, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, John Konrad explains that the sudden crisis facing the European NATO allies has been building un-noticed for decades:

NATO is in far bigger danger than anyone realizes. And the reason has nothing to do with defense budgets.

The real danger is psychological. It’s cultural.

Europeans didn’t just free-ride on American security for 80 years. They built an entire identity around the idea that they evolved past the Americans protecting them.

That identity is now the single biggest obstacle to Western survival. And the darkest irony is: we helped build it. After World War II, Europe wasn’t just economically shattered. Its culture was in ruins. The cities, the universities, the concert halls, the museums. Rubble.

The Marshall Plan rebuilt the economy. But culture wasn’t a priority. Not at first. Then the Iron Curtain dropped. And suddenly culture became a weapon.

American diplomats, academics, artists & scholars flooded Western Europe. We funded their universities. Supported their orchestras. Rebuilt their museums. Promoted their intellectual life.
Not because European culture needed saving for its own sake.

Because Eastern Europeans were struggling for Maslow’s mist basic needs.

We needed the view from the other side of that Wall to be intoxicating.

So America built Western Europe into a showcase of self-actualization. Art. Philosophy. Cafe culture. Long vacations. Universities where people studied literature instead of surviving. We were manufacturing jealousy.

And it worked. The Wall came down.

But here’s what no one accounted for.

When you give a society self-actualization on someone else’s tab long enough, they forget it was a gift. They start believing it was organically theirs.

And when they look at the country that funded it all, a country busy building aircraft carriers and semiconductor fabs and shale fields instead of reaching the Maslow’s pinnacle.

An overweight American in a ball cap who can’t tell Monet from Pissarro. Who eats fast food. Who drives a truck. Who builds strip malls instead of piazzas.

And to a culture trained in aesthetics but stripped of strategic awareness, that American looks uncivilized.

So the arrogance takes root. And once a culture decides another is beneath them, they stop listening.

Americans say wars are sometimes necessary: crude.

Oil is the backbone of prosperity: unsophisticated.

Kids build companies in garages that reshape the planet: crass.

Wall Street finances the global economy: vulgar.

Europe has no world-class technology sector. No military capable of strong defense. No energy independence. No AI capacity.

What Europe has is culture. The culture we paid for at the expense of us reaching Maslow’s pinnacle.

For decades that was fine. We funded the museums, protected the sea lanes, and tolerated the sneering because the arrangement worked.

Then Europeans stopped keeping the contempt private. They started saying it to our faces. In their media. In their parliaments. At every international forum. “Americans are stupid. Americans are violent. Americans are a threat to democracy.”

We could have moved the Louvre to NY. We could have built a Venice here. We could have stolen your best artists, designers, philosophers and more … like your conquering armies did for centuries.

Instead we funded them. And all we asked for in return was to let us visit.

You don’t have the military to defend your borders. You don’t have the technology to compete. You don’t have the energy to heat your homes without begging dictators.

What you have is an 80-year superiority complex FUNDED BY AMERICANS, protected by American soldiers, and built on the false belief that self-actualization is civilization.

It isn’t. Civilization is the ability to sustain itself. By that measure, Europe isn’t a civilization at all. It’s a dependency with better wine.

That’s not a threat. It’s a weather report.

Build a Navy. Or don’t. But stop lecturing the people who made you “better than us”

Our “crudeness” our “stunted liberal education” our “ugly strip malls” are because we sacrificed our culture to support yours.

From the comments on that post:

Larry Correia chimes in:

Update, 8 April: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substackhttps://substack.com/@nicholasrusson that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.

April 6, 2026

NATO without the United States?

Filed under: Europe, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At The Conservative Woman, Jonathan Riley considers the sudden existential crisis facing the NATO alliance with President Trump openly musing about pulling the United States out of their current commitment to joint European defence:

PRESIDENT Trump’s warning that the US could pull out of Nato should shock even the most complacent and anti-American elements on the political left. Mr Trump has raised the issue in private discussions with White House aides in recent days, and on Wednesday confirmed that he was “absolutely” reviewing membership.

I have underlined several times in these pages why this is so – the global reach and sheer size of US military power and the fact that the USA brings capabilities to Nato that no other country has, or is ever likely to have. With American backing, Nato has credibility in its deterrent posture – deterrence being built on capability and will to use those capabilities. Without the US, credibility remains only in the nuclear sphere because of the independent British and French arsenals, but not in the conventional sphere. An aggressor could well, therefore, be tempted to take actions that fell short of the use, or riposte, of weapons of mass destruction. A Russian incursion into a non-Nato state, for example, Bosnia and Herzegovina or Moldova; or even a limited incursion in the Baltic, either on land or at sea.

The President’s threat came as the latest in a sequence of angry responses to the failure of traditional allies to give their support, as he sees it, to the US/Israeli war on Iran. Not least was his disappointment with Starmer, first over his refusal to give the US use of Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire for strikes on Iran, second over Starmer’s reluctance to deploy the Royal Navy and then his refusal to take the lead on re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. France’s preference for diplomacy has irked him too. Austria, not a Nato member, has become the latest EU country to deny US military use of its airspace.

Whether or not this outburst was more than a mark of his frustration with unappreciative allies – more wake-up call than genuine warning – it still suggests an alarming failure on his part to understand what Nato is and is not; why a US pull-out would be a lose/lose situation for Europe and the US.

Nato is an alliance founded in the Treaty of 1949 and is about mutual defence. Article Five affirms that an attack on one member state is an attack on all and obliges all other states to come to the aid of whoever has been attacked. During the Cold War, there was no discussion about resources, or caveats, or vetoes – what mattered was survival. Once the Cold War was over, nations did have a choice about what they committed – and in the case of every European country, it was less.

The water was muddied by the Nato-led expeditions to Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. These were carried out using coalitions built on the Alliance and in some cases, simultaneously, coalitions built within the Alliance. For example, in Afghanistan, there were really two International Assistance Forces (ISAFs): one was a coalition of the willing confronting insurgency and terrorism; the other was a non-kinetic coalition based on the Bonn Agreement, concerned with nation-building. Some people and member states may therefore believe that Nato is a vehicle for Allies to climb aboard and support US (or French, or British) expeditionary operations. It is not.

T20 Family: Springfield Makes the Garand a Grenade Launching Sniper Machine Gun

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Nov 2025

Late in 1944 the Ordnance Committee recommended adoption of a magazine-fed, select-fire version of the M1 Garand as a new standard US infantry rifle. Both Springfield and Remington developed rifles to meet the requirement, with Springfield’s being the T20 and Remington’s the T22.

The Springfield design went through several iterations from the original T20 to the T20E1 and T20E2, with the capability to launch rifle grenades, mount optical sights, and fire in either semiautomatic or full auto. The first examples of the final T20E2 design were ready in June 1945, but the program lost momentum in August when Japan surrendered. It did continue slowly until 1949, providing some of the basis for the eventual M14 rifle.
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April 5, 2026

When military requirements conflict with national policies

On Substack, Holly MathNerd explains why the US military hasn’t ramped up production of drones in light of the experiences of other current conflicts:

Most people who have opinions about the war in Iran are not also reading the Federal Acquisition Regulations. I am, unfortunately for my social life, one of the people who does both.

And when you hold those two things in your head at the same time — what’s happening over the Strait of Hormuz and what’s happening in federal procurement policy — a contradiction emerges that is so glaring, and so consequential, that I could not write about anything else this week.

Here is the contradiction, in full, before I show you the data.

The United States is fighting a war where drones are the decisive tactical weapon. We are spending $2 to $4 million per intercept to stop Iranian drones that cost $50,000 each. Our own offensive drone program shipped what it had into an active war because full-rate production hadn’t started yet. Ukraine, which does not have this problem, produced two million drones in 2024 by building a distributed ecosystem of small manufacturers who iterate their designs every two weeks and sell units for $300 to $5,000 each.

We cannot do what Ukraine does, because Congress — correctly, for legitimate national security reasons — spent five consecutive National Defense Authorization Acts closing the door on Chinese drone hardware. DJI, the dominant global manufacturer, is now restricted by four separate federal authorities. There is no waiver for convenience. The wall is complete.

Which means the only path to drone dominance runs through a domestic industrial base capable of producing drones at volume, at low cost, with rapid iteration.

That base exists. Partially. Precariously. And it is built on exactly the kind of small, specialized, distributed manufacturers that the 8(a) federal contracting program was designed to bring into the market.

April 4, 2026

RESISTANCE and REBELLION – The Conquered and the Proud 19

Adrian Goldsworthy. Historian and Novelist
Published 10 Sept 2025

Today we think about attitudes to Roman rule and discuss how frequent rebellions were in the Roman empire’s provinces and what were their causes. In particular we think about Judaea, and the Jewish population of the empire more generally, in the first and second centuries AD. Why was there a big rebellion in AD 66 against Nero’s rule, another of the Jewish population in Egypt, North Africa and Cyprus but NOT Judaea against Trajan, and then the final major rebellion in Judaea under Hadrian.

April 2, 2026

m/27PH aka m/37: Finland’s First Standard Sniper Rifle (and it’s really bad)

Forgotten Weapons
Published 14 Nov 2025

The m27PH, aka the m/37, was the first standardized Finnish sniper rifle. It was developed as part of the plan to make a whole family of m/27 rifles for the Finnish Army, including cavalry, trainer, and sniper models. The sniper model was delayed because of the structural problems with the m/27 base rifle, and it was not formally adopted until 1937. The rifle used a 2.2x prismatic scope made by Finnish company Physica Oy. The scope was heavy, fragile, and had a very short eye relief.

When first adopted, the rifles had short, slightly bent bolt handled and standard stocks. Once they began to see use in the Winter War (for which they were Finland’s only standardized sniper rifle), experience showed these features to be problems. The bolt handles were largely replaced with much longer Soviet-style sniper bolts, and wooden cheek rests were added to the stocks.

During the Continuation War, m/27PH rifles were still in service, but as they were damaged their scopes were generally used to build new m/39PH sniper rifles instead. Today they are extremely rare rifles.
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April 1, 2026

The Korean War Week 93: Who Wants To Be President? – March 31, 1952

Filed under: China, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Korean War by Indy Neidell
Published 31 Mar 2026

A surprise announcement this week leaves the US wondering just who is going to run for President — the election is this fall. Whoever does run and win, it can’t help but have an impact on this war. As for what’s going on in the war, Operation Mixmaster winds up, having moved the US 1st Marine Division far to the west along the front lines. The operation was a success, but there are a host of new dangers to deal with in the new defenses. Operation Saturate goes into action- this is another aerial interdiction campaign against Communist logistics, but early results are disappointing, and the future composition of the South Korean armed forces because more and more an issue of contention.

00:00 Intro
00:46 Recap
01:14 Truman Won’t Run
07:04 Operation Mixmaster
11:04 Operation Saturate
13:17 Increase the ROK
16:32 Summary
16:46 Conclusion
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March 31, 2026

Japan’s navy … uh, I mean the “Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force”

Filed under: Japan, Military, Pacific, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

On Substack, Francis Turner discusses what serious countries do (so you know the topic isn’t anything to do with Canada), and part of the post is about the Japanese Navy Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and its latest ship building program:

Last month Japan started work on its second ASEV (Aegis System Equipped Vessel), which should probably classed a Guided Missile Cruiser, though it is unclear if the C designation will be used (let’s face it Japan still calls its two “not really aircraft carriers, honest guv” aircraft carrying warships “Helicopter Destroyers”. Though apparently it plans to change that soon).

At 190m long and 25m broad, the ASEVs will be some of the largest non-aircraft carrier ships being built by anyone this century1 until the Trump battleships start construction. The Trump battleships are projected to be about 50% larger but they haven’t yet been funded let alone contracted. The USN’s Zumwalts are roughly the same size.

It isn’t just the size that is impressive, it is also the speed of construction. The ASEV as a concept showed up in ~2020 when Japan decided the land based Aegis Ashore program was a failure and cancelled it. In October 2024, after about four years, plans had been made, budget allocated and contracts awarded for the two ships. Construction of the first started last July (2025) and the second last month (February 2026). Construction time is estimated to be around three years, with the first delivered/commissioned in March 2028 and the second one year later. Why one year later and not six months earlier? My guess is that the reason is to incorporate lessons learned from sea trials and operating the first in the final construction stages of the second. This seems similar to the Izumo/Kaga construction a decade ago.

Put together and you have ships that will have gone from concept to contract award in 4 years and contract award to fully-functioning delivery in under 5 years — assuming there are no delays. That seems plausible, the Izumo and Kaga were built in about the same time frame, and stands in stark contrast to the procurement speed of the US Navy and any European navy. The first Zumwalt, for example took over 5 years to go from concept to start of construction and another 5+ from there to commissioning and then another 4 to full acceptance. The ASEVs are also expected to be a lot cheaper, costing around JPY400B or about US$2.5 billion for the initial version. There will undoubtedly be upgrades — e.g. drone defenses, laser or rail guns — and there are some new features compared to previous ships — the SPY7 radar from Lockheed Martin for example — but this is an evolution of existing Japanese and US Aegis destroyers rather than a brand new concept which helps explain why I am confident about the timeline and budget.

Although the ASEV’s primary role is missile defense, there is no reason why one might not, in the fullness of time, be loaded with offensive missiles such as the TLAM or antiship missiles. Indeed the Naval News article lists both as options:

    Each vessel will feature a 128-cell Vertical Launch System (VLS) — significantly more than the 96 cells installed on Japan’s latest Aegis destroyers.

    The VLS will be capable of launching:

    – SM-3 Block IIA interceptors, jointly developed by Japan and the United States for ballistic missile defense

    – SM-6 missiles, capable of engaging advanced aerial threats, including hypersonic glide vehicles

    The ships will also support Japan’s emerging counterstrike capability.

    Planned armament includes:

    – the extended-range Type 12 anti-ship missile (ship-launched improved variant)

    – the U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missile

Is that TLAM in your launcher or are you pleased to see me?

Notably the Tomahawk capability has already been fitted to one of the Aegis destroyers this class is supposed to replace. A 128 cell ASEV firing TLAMs could be very unpleasant for Little Rocket Man; if it fired antiship missiles that could make a Chicom invasion of Taiwan pretty miserable just on its own. It would also make a phenomenal commerce raider / blockade enforcer if such roles were needed.

[Aside: Unlike some country’s missiles I’d be pretty confident that the Type 12 anti-ship missile will work well]

As CDR Salamander observed on X, the real question is why Japan doesn’t make a few more and sell them to countries/navies that struggle with procurement. And for that matter why it doesn’t make a couple more for itself. Perhaps it will. I figure there’s a couple of years before there will be yard space to build them so there’s no hurry to make that decision.


    Russia’s Kirov class battlecruisers are larger but a) they were built in the 1970s/80s and b) only one is currently active (for some definition of active).

Japan’s decision to rebuild naval strength has been noted by others, too:

March 30, 2026

UOTCAF – EP 001 – The Royal Canadian Regiment – SWG

Filed under: Cancon, History, Military, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Stormwalker Group
Published 24 Oct 2025

Dive into the rich legacy of the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) in the premiere episode of “Units of the CAF”, hosted by ex-reservist Mario Gaudet.

This 15-minute narration explores the RCR’s origins in 1883 as Canada’s first permanent infantry unit, the symbolism of their iconic “VRI” cap badge, unique uniform features, and their heroic battles from the North-West Rebellion to Afghanistan. We also spotlight some of the regiment’s most decorated soldiers.

Whether you’re a history buff, military enthusiast, or proud Canadian, this series honors the sacrifices and traditions of the Canadian Armed Forces.
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March 29, 2026

The collapse of the Afghan National Army in 2021 was inevitable

Filed under: Asia, History, Military, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, InfantryDort explains why the way that soldiers were required to cover up ANA shortcomings or even blatantly lie about the ANA’s military capabilities show that collapse was inevitable once western forces began to pull out:

A Boeing CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter appears over the U.S. embassy compound in Kabul, 15 Aug 2021. Image from Twitter via libertyunyielding.com

I always get confused when I hear people say they never saw the collapse of the Afghan military coming.

Anyone who’s been on the ground with them knew this.

I saw an entire ANA battalion with modern American equipment get pinned down by 3 Taliban with AKs. Begging me for air support.

How was this a surprise?

And further:

When it came to partnering with Afghans, I was actually convinced for awhile that their failure was my fault. Why? Because that’s what our superiors told us.

I remember giving honest assessments in formal reports about the capabilities of Afghans. It led to many confrontations with superiors across different tours.

“You can’t write that they don’t do X, Y, or Z in this SITREP. Don’t you know every failure is yours and every success is theirs?”

That was the mantra. Every failure was ours and every success theirs. And I believed it.

The military intellectual crowd was in charge at the time. The ones who hate us now for noticing their inadequacies.

The ones who made us think that we could succeed if we made just one more measure of performance and measure of effectiveness to implement.

Maybe we could make that barbarian culture better by just doing one more intellectual thing.

No. And it’s those same people who punished us for telling the truth. And they should be shamed for it in perpetuity.

Senior leaders in 2021 acted stunned at how the Afghans fell so fast. Nobody could believe it.

Maybe they were stunned because the truth had been filtered for decades. Laundered. And for what?

Lies. All lies. And they were peddled by the most “intelligent” military leaders among us.

So if you’re part of that crowd and are now uncomfortable with the current backlash from “idiots” like me. I simply ask, why?

You earned it.

Forcing subordinates to lie doesn’t change the reality they’re trying to inform you about, it just makes the point where reality asserts itself that much more surprising and painful. True in business, especially true in the military.

Update, 31 March: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Have a look around at some of my other posts you may find of interest. I send out a daily summary of posts here through my Substackhttps://substack.com/@nicholasrusson that you can subscribe to if you’d like to be informed of new posts in the future.

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