Geopolitics in the 2020s.

[NotThePars]

They absolutely record drone strikes - practically all strikes from the Turkish TB2 drones on Armenian positions were recorded during the recent war.  The Azeri regime played the videos on billboards in the centre of major Azeri cities during the conflict as a morale booster for the population.
As [mention=25417]NotThePars[/mention] says above though a lot of the use of drones isn't in relatively conventional wars like in Karabakh it's in unconventional warfare where there is no line between the civilian population and combatents.  
I think that the impact of the Karabakh war and the Turkish offsnive in Northern Syria is going to be huge.  The Turkish forces have shown that relatively inexpensive drones can be decisive in conventional wars.  This will help Turkey in a number of ways - obviously they have the military advantage of this, there is also a diplomatic advantage, with other countries pursuing friendly relations with TUrkey to gain access to this technology.  Israel, who also supplied Azerbijan with drones, take this approach when it comes to diplomacy as well. If countries want Israel iarms and expertise they have to normalise political and ecomomic ties. 

The War Nerd’s main takeaway from that was that
the success of drones has been assured but what was especially interesting was that the Armenians were completely unprepared for their deployment which has likely skewed their effectiveness. Basically a great success for advertisers and sellers but how that translates into their actual effectiveness in future conflicts is uncertain.

From my own reading and listening I think the Israelis are actually competent at developing this technology and they are the kings of drones. The US on the other hand are all bells and whistles and love making shit that looks flashy and costs a lot but doesn’t work. So maybe it’ll depend on who does the supplying.

You’re right though, I think. How Turkey utilises them in the future might well be the most interesting outcome of this conflict.

[ICTChris]

2 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

The War Nerd’s main takeaway from that was that
the success of drones has been assured but what was especially interesting was that the Armenians were completely unprepared for their deployment which has likely skewed their effectiveness. Basically a great success for advertisers and sellers but how that translates into their actual effectiveness in future conflicts is uncertain.

From my own reading and listening I think the Israelis are actually competent at developing this technology and they are the kings of drones. The US on the other hand are all bells and whistles and love making shit that looks flashy and costs a lot but doesn’t work. So maybe it’ll depend on who does the supplying.

You’re right though, I think. How Turkey utilises them in the future might well be the most interesting outcome of this conflict.

 

There appear to have been huge issues with the Armenian military during the conflict - they essentially couldn't mobilise their reservists and armed forces which caused big problems once they had to retreat.  The defensive positions essentially collapsed in the South.  There are huge questions about how the Armenians dealt with victory in the 1990s and how successive governments managed their military and approached the Karabakh conflict.  Thousands of Armenians died defending land that they basically took control of in 1994 by default, places where no Armenian lived and that held little value.  WHy did this happen?  In addition, the investments made in jet fightes and other weapons systems don't seem to have been money well spent.  Armenian purchased fighter jets from Russia that were useless in the conflict zone and didn't upgrade their air defence systems meaning they were vulnerable to drones.  

Politically the war exposes the weakness and arrogance of Armenian leaders for the last 26 years.  They were facing a re-arming enemy and never even tried to negotiate a settlement from their position of strength.  They didn't forsee military developments and allowed their current forces to atrophy.  

I think a lot of militaries will be looking at this conflict veery closely though and investing in anti-drone technology, which is out there.  

[DiegoDiego]

"What's the difference between a terrorist training camp and a Yemeni wedding?"
"I dunno, I just fly the drones."

[ICTChris]

NYT article about the Karabakh ceasefire.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/world/europe/nagorno-karabakh-putin-armenia-azerbaijan.html#click=https://t.co/1hyzEYCcHH

Apparently the shooting down of a Russian helicopter promoted Putin to intervene. Interesting story about the unidentified missile hitting Baku as a Russian warning.

[NotThePars]

"What's the difference between a terrorist training camp and a Yemeni wedding?"
"I dunno, I just fly the drones."

You know what they say about jokes!

That transcript I alluded to one of the big indicators in favour of using drones on the suspected militants was them getting out of the car to pray because that’s what jihadis do before they launch an attack. It’s also what every practicing Muslim does every day regardless of whether they have any suicidal intent.

[Fullerene]

1 hour ago, NotThePars said:

 

You know what they say about jokes!

That transcript I alluded to one of the big indicators in favour of using drones on the suspected militants was them getting out of the car to pray because that’s what jihadis do before they launch an attack. It’s also what every practicing Muslim does every day regardless of whether they have any suicidal intent.

 

I read about the Vietnam War where it was very easy to spot the enemy.  They would run away as soon as you started shooting at them.

[NotThePars]

I read about the Vietnam War where it was very easy to spot the enemy.  They would run away as soon as you started shooting at them.

Later in Cockburn’s book he talks about the attempts to develop remote control sensors centred on sniffer sensors and infrared to trigger bombing waves. Apparently it took the Vietnamese less than a week to start throwing jars of piss and running cattle down trails to set off the bombs.

The last anecdote in the chapter is about a tape recording that was supposed to be used to listen out for enemy activity yet this one managed to record a guy taking a leisurely piss on it without triggering any response.

It is kinda remarkable they didn’t give up on remote control warfare there and then.

[ICTChris]

I listened to an old Briefing Room about the UKs Special Forces the other day and it had some interesting details. There was a leaked MoD paper around the mid 2010s which openly stated that the public were now overwhelmingly “risk averse” when it came to British casualties in war and that because of this large scale deployments were far less politically palatable. This boosts the case for SOF being deployed as it can be done without being openly admitted, without Parliamentary oversight and in far more limited numbers.

This ties into what we see in terms of polling and I think can be generally observed. The public generally support military spending but not military deployments, although more support bombing and use of SOF. That’s understandable but perhaps means that the UK needs to define its interests differently. If all we want are raids and drone strikes against people and organisations deemed to be threats, how does that influence foreign policy goals? Do we have goals that can be achieved using that sort of hard power?

One of the guests on Briefing Room used the example of the SAS deployment to Iraq post invasion. The SAS were deployed to fight al-Queda In Iraq, then deemed the most dangerous insurgent/terrorist group. We don’t know for sure but it’s likely they killed hundreds or even thousands of members, sympathisers and bystanders fighting them and arrested many more. No doubt they prevented many car bombings of Shia areas and massacres. Looking back though, did it lead to any sort of stability? In the short run it was a surge of conventional troops combined with an alliance of Sunni militias (the Awakening) that defeated AQI. In the long run AQI regrouped as ISIS and ended up taking control of a third of Iraq.

[Lofarl]

https://www.businessinsider.com/hungarian-mep-resigns-breaking-covid-rules-gay-orgy-brussels-2020-12?utm_source=reddit.com&r=US&IR=T




 

[Boo Khaki]

Quote

Death sentences in Iran are often carried out on Wednesdays.

Dreary TV day in the Republic or something?

[D Angelo Barksdale]

A champions league night. Half time entertainment?

[ICTChris]

On Wednesdays we wear pink. And hang people.

[madwullie]

23 hours ago, ICTChris said:

I am in Special Forces, but my only special skill is making giant posts on this thread about subjects no-one else is interested in.

Obviously extremely well trained. 

Edit: I read all your posts with interest. I was lucky to be studying mod Studs at school during a very interesting time politics wise. Nagorno-karabakh was one of the areas of study, as an entire section of the course was based on the break-up of the USSR. 

Obviously that's chicken feed level compared to depth that you go into here, but having that basic background knowledge really makes your posts interesting mate, and inspires c***s to go off and read for themselves. The pod-cast YouTube phenomenon has kind of passed me by: I should really start exploring that stuff, as there's only so far fucking about on Google can take you. 

Edited December 2, 2020 by madwullie

[welshbairn]

6 hours ago, madwullie said:

The pod-cast YouTube phenomenon has kind of passed me by: I should really start exploring that stuff

There madness lies, on youtube anyway. Some decent podcasts that aren't done by mid western basement dwellers.

[Detournement]

 

Lol.

It's a tragedy that a fine representative of the Venezuelan Volk hasn't received her coup cash.

 

[dorlomin]

https://medium.com/@areidross/from-exile-to-dirtbag-edgelord-geopolitics-and-the-rise-of-national-bolshevism-in-the-u-s-84822021b0e8

Mark Ames, John Dolan (The War Nerd) and their magazine "eXile" have some rather interesting friends. 

No surprise to see those pulled in by stuff largely aimed at the juvenile. 

Quote

Although many of their fans have attempted to distance themselves from The eXile’s former editors, CTH hosted a Syria podcast with the War Nerd, who deflected from regime atrocities in Aleppo. For their podcast, Radio War Nerd, Dolan and Ames brought on frequent RT and Sputnik commentator Max Blumenthal, who has mocked Syrian victims, referred to the White Helmets rescue workers as “an arm of Al Qaeda,” and is currently facing a defamation lawsuit for allegedly participating in a “coordinated effort to attack, discredit and endanger journalists whose work counters a certain political line.”
Aside from attacking me personally in an article cowritten with Blumenthal, Ames has defended a similar line on a number of salient issues. Following the GRU’s Novichok attack in Salisbury that left Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia hospitalized and killed a bystander, Ames and a number of pro-Kremlin pundits and right-wing conspiracy theorists started trying to poke holes in the “official narrative.” After open-source analysts at Bellingcat uncovered the identities of the two suspects as members of the GRU, Ames joined The eXile’s Yasha Levine and an extensive pro-Kremlin reaction against the open-source investigation group.

All very much part of the post truth world of the far left and far right. 

Richard Spencer, National Bolshevism  As those freaks from eXile being a bunch of out and out rape advocates was not enough of a warning to steer the f**k clear. 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by dorlomin
to explain which freaks were being referred too.

[ICTChris]

Azerbaijan MOD have announced they lost 2700 soldiers in the recent war. Armenian casualty figures are officially about 2500 but there are rumours it is significantly higher.

Given the sort of government Azerbaijan have these figures are to be taken wit a pinch of salt but assuming they are accurate that’s 5,000+ killed in six weeks. The previous conflict lasted six years and ended with 30,000 killed. For comparison, the Russo-Georgian war killed about 800 people in a week and the Russo-Ukrainian war has seen around 13,000 killed in six years.

The figures really speak to the ferocity of the conflict

[LongTimeLurker]

19 hours ago, dorlomin said:

https://medium.com/@areidross/from-exile-to-dirtbag-edgelord-geopolitics-and-the-rise-of-national-bolshevism-in-the-u-s-84822021b0e8

Mark Ames, John Dolan (The War Nerd) and their magazine "eXile" have some rather interesting friends. 

No surprise to see those pulled in by stuff largely aimed at the juvenile. 

All very much part of the post truth world of the far left and far right. 

Richard Spencer, National Bolshevism  As those freaks from eXile being a bunch of out and out rape advocates was not enough of a warning to steer the f**k clear.

You do realise that the eXile ended its run 12 years ago and was written as satire to a large extent? That comes across as being similar to someone watching the latest Borat film and writing an irate post on here about Borat's daughter being forced to sit on the roof of a moving vehicle rather than inside. I'm not a fan of either Mark Ames (get the impression the Russians must have something on him and haven't read his stuff for years) or John Dolan (a complete crank when writing about NI politics to the extent that he makes Sinn Fein look moderate), but it's important to also realise that one of the co-editors of the eXile, Yasha Levine, was from a Russian-Jewish background so it's stretching credulity to beyond breaking point to imply that they actually supported Eduard Limonov and the National Bolsheviks rather than used him for satirical entertainment in a similar sort of way to what Sasha Baron Cohen did recently with QAnon or whatever they were called.

Edited December 4, 2020 by LongTimeLurker

[NotThePars]

Sharing the Medium blogs of a pretend anarchist who had the same material retracted from established websites for being filled with baseless smears presumably to own the loony left and stay Not Mad?

 

*Drake voice* No hits, just misses that’s for the centrist folk

 

 

[dorlomin]

2 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

I'm not a fan of either Mark Ames (get the impression the Russians must have something on him and haven't read his stuff for years) or John Dolan (a complete crank when writing about NI politics to the extent that he makes Sinn Fein look moderate)

 

1 hour ago, NotThePars said:

Good lord I remember that Reid Ross piece because he posted something similar for the SPLC who later had to retract the article because it was clearly full of baseless smears lol.

*Drake voice* No hits, just misses that’s for the centrist folk

Really.

Again no surprise who has been taken in by this. 

I suspect we shall be getting ever more exciting takes from this newly discovered trove of insight. 

Quote

Double Down

: to become more tenacious, zealous, or resolute in a position or undertaking
the administration needs to double down on the call for political reform
— Washington Post

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/double down

Meanwhile back in reality.....

Edited December 4, 2020 by dorlomin