IMO relevant to the discussion, an excellent, recent video about the current... at least "near edge" state of the art in drone war in Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgA0CE7XP2k
It's a *bit* fluffy, with a bit of a "those plucky Ukrainians" vibe, but neatly touches on the benefits of embracing rapid prototyping and development cycles, and answers one of the questions I ask a *lot* at my IT job about LLM based "AI" -- "OK, but what is it actually *good* for?"
Apparently, "target recognition" is on the list. We can be certain that our opposition is paying attention. We should be as well.
I mean, given the sheer number of people who crossed the border illegally in 2021 - 2025, it's basically *impossible* that there *aren't* teams of sleepers present here. I realize that may not have been your *primary* point, but I think it fits the general sense of things, about the war quite *literally* coming home.
> Editor’s Note: No, I will not apologize for the AI-slop poster. I kind of like how in two sentences they can produce ~87.6% of what I wanted.
Frankly, I'm just amazed it got the words right. It was still within *this year* that the graphical engines of LLMs simply *could not* manage that. Heck, It's possibly been within the last *month* (and certainly no more than two) that I've seen graphics for YouTube vids with text that was visually appropriate gobbledegook. As in, it had the *shape* of words, but not the actual *content* of language. At least not any language **I** speak, and the video was in English, so...
Want to see our nation’s future brought by Xao BuyDem Auto-Pen ?
Read William Forschen’s “Day of Wrath” about Moslem sleeper cells… (psst: aren’t all Moslems “sleepers”? It is in their queerran that they are to rise up and smite the infidels where they find them..)
Ignorance about Moslem incompatibility with freedom has gotten us here today.
As I have long said: World War Three will be fought to determine which people and nations shall not be forced to become Moslem ! !
It's both Muslim and Chinese sleepers I was thinking of. In addition to various South Americans who may be in the employ of either of those. I'm... a *little* surprised that we haven't seen something *already* in the course of the recent conflict with Iran. Perhaps -- indeed, *hopefully* -- I am being excessively paranoid. Of course, I'm also *professionally* paranoid, so, it's hard to turn that *off* when I'm *not* at work...
Those cells are very light sleepers. Plenty of videos on the internet of blatant Islamic "extremism". MEMRI.org is also a good source of information. Reminds me of N. Khrushchev's famous "We will bury you" remark. Communism and Islam have similar goals, and they are both quite open about it. "There are none so blind as those who will not see".
Given the videos I saw of dozens of military-aged Asian males standing *at parade rest* in a queue at the California/Mexican border, my only question is, "How many battalion equivalents of sleepers are here?"
Add to that Warmek's and John Prescott's notes about restaurants, farmland, weathered containers, etc., it might behoove those directly responsible for base defense in the CONUS to hunker a spell with reliable locals to start some informal conversations about intel, reconnaissance, and what have you.
I truly do not know. As I said elsewhere in this thread, perhaps I am being excessively paranoid as regards their presence. But if they're here, I don't have a good explanation for it, unless they either can't *get* deploy orders and don't have standing "if we go silent, attack" ones, or they *are* getting orders, and the people giving them are afraid of what Trump would escalate to (or what the American people would suddenly put up with) if they *did* attack.
Most likely, they simply did not exist. The idea of "hidden Iranian dleeper cells" looks suspiciously similar to "Werewolf" rumors during the closing stages of WW2 - that Nazi created an enormous hidden organization on territories, they were driven from, and those tens of thousands of sleeper agents & wespon caches are only waìting the signal to rise and stab Allied forces in back. On practice, nothing like that existed; it was merely a propaganda claim by Goebbels, who hoped that "Werewolf" rumors would cause Allies to overreact in caution, and thus would slow their advance. Hitler himself was firmly against any kind of "remnant" plans, and specifically forbid any kind of such planning except as propaganda ruse.
That's certainly a plausible explanation. On the flip side, we know millions of people crossed the southern border of the US during the Biden administration, and that sort of asymmetric warfare is very much a thing the Iranians are known to make use of. Hitler was, for all that his Wehrmacht were excellent at maneuver warfare, old-school enough to want soldiers in uniforms fighting in an organized fashion. Iran has form, as the British would say, for precisely the opposite.
True. But I rather doubt that in highly-corrupt, infighting-ridden political structure of Iran, any such large-scale infiltration could be performed without leaks. Don't forget, Israel intelligence penetrated Iranian one pretty good (up to the point, when Iran have Israel-paid agent on the top of agency responsible for countering Israel espionage!).
So if any such massive infiltration actually took place - or at least was attempted - Israel intelligence would almost certainly knew about it. And would gladly tell Americans, because such intel would be a major shock for American public, and would significantly decrease sympathy toward Iran even amongst the left-wing public.
Finally, if Iranians have such sleeper network in place - why didn't they activate it when the war started? They have very little to lose left; Americans already demonstrated willingness to kill Iranian religious leadership, so if they HAVE such "fifth column" in place in USA, why didn't they order it to action?
> But I rather doubt that in highly-corrupt, infighting-ridden political structure of Iran, any such large-scale infiltration could be performed without leaks. Don't forget, Israel intelligence penetrated Iranian one pretty good (up to the point, when Iran have Israel-paid agent on the top of agency responsible for countering Israel espionage!).
Now *that* is a true and excellent point.
As for your other questions, well, I've already quite explicitly stated that I don't know the answer. :D
The men who pulled off 9/11 were exactly that, after all. And it worked out rather well, from their perspective. Well, sort of. The attack *itself* was effective. The aftermath was probably not quite what they were hoping for, though with the 12th Imam crowd, maybe it was exactly what they are hoping to see occur.
I think William Lind had the best notion. Rather than 20 years of interminable bullshit conflict in the Middle East, we should have detailed a ton of satellite resources to pick out AQ training camps in Afghanistan, selected twelve of them, waited until October 11th, call the people who matter about 15 minutes beforehand, and hit those camps with our smallest currently available nuclear weapons.
Don't send the message, "If you strike at us, we will engage in combat to overturn your government!", send the message: "If you strike at us, with will smite you with the Fist of God, because we are just as crazy as you are, and way the fuck bigger."
It would have ultimately caused far *less* regional chaos, and sent a message that is more in the language people in the area understand best. IMO, of course.
Well, Elon Musk is working day and night, creating the biggest, most advanced and most capable satellite system in history. As well as mammoth AI cluster, capable of processing enormous ammount of data in real time. So...
Let me tell you a cautionary tale from my country history. During the Great Purge in USSR, there were mass repressions against Polish nationals, accused in forming a fifth column and spying against USSR. Poland was highly hostile to USSR in 1930s, and was viewed as major threat, so it was viewed as reasonable that Polish intelligence would recruit a lot of agents in USSR. About 100.000 peoples were accused of being spies and saboteurs and executed.
After USSR took over Poland, the archives of Polish intelligence were found, and a total number of Polish spies in USSR - the real ones - was found. There were exactly 18 Polish spies in USSR in late 1930s.
The moral of this story is, just because you assume that your opponent would create a massive fifth column within your ranks, it doesn't means that such fifth column actually exist.
Sure, no argument. Though again, in the 1930s, 4th generation warfare wasn't a thing yet. And again, we *know* that millions of bodies crossed the border. I don't think my concerns about the prospect of their existence are *entirely* unfounded.
Do you have a link to an authoritative, respected archival source or scholarly work for this specific number of 18 Polish spies in the USSR in the 30s?
Because they did not exist, except within the wild imagination of IRGC propagandists? Building and maintaining a large network of sleeper agents isn't something that increasingly corrupt organization, locked in constant struggle for power with other parts of Iranian government, could do efficiently. Recall how the same in-fighting plagued German intelligence during World War 2.
Nah, just displaced Venezuelans and a few Africans thrown in to spice things up. Not a single Asian face to be seen (on TV) among the tens of millions, anywhere, ever, always.
We're going to need a lot more F-15EX. And another black powder plant. And missile batteries set up here again. A ship inspection area several hundred miles offshore of each coast.
We're going to need a lot more *everything*, and we need to have started building it ten years ago. I'll repeat a thing I've said a couple of times since reading a truly excellent Substack article about the US build up of aircraft in WWII: We went from a nation with the capacity to build a couple thousand aircraft per year to one with the capacity to build several tens of thousands of aircraft per year, in four years. These days, if we started *right now*, we wouldn't even have the *permits* to build the *factories* in four years, let alone a single actual airplane. 🫤
One thing to remember is that for the American aviation industry, World War 2 began in late 1938. After Munich, the British and French were ordering anything that could fly and fight. We were three years into ramping up for war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Still and well enough, I think the general point about how long it takes to do bloody well *anything* in this country these days stands, though. But good point, and fair cop.
Excellent point that our efforts did not start in 1941, or later. Most of our major factories, whether making cereal, autos, potato chips, etc. were able to quickly transition to making war production products. Palmer Luckey of Anduril talks of this difference from WWII vs now quite often, and with eloquence and accuracy. Palintir is on the same page.
"New Orleans production of World War II landing boats began in the late 1930s when Higgins Industries adapted the shallow-draft "Eureka" boat for military use, securing early government contracts by 1937–1938 before mass production surged after 1941."
But even expanding it to seven or eight years, rather than four... it just takes so long to build anything here at this point. There might be an endangered dust mite to worry about more, after all. Gotta have another environmental study done.
Doubt that F-15EX would be a good homeland interceptor; too costly and excessive for that. Some interceptor drone, capable of prolonged parolling and high subsonic dashes would likely be better solution.
I see your point, though I think that as gross as the scale was, that likely still falls within the range of "terrorist attacks". And it's not particularly *repeatable*, thankfully. No group of passengers is going to sit still for a hijacking any longer, these days.
But for all we know, there are warehouses, or even just container yards, scattered throughout the country, with crates or shipping containers or something, full of palletized Chinese drones awaiting pick up and delivery. Some of them might be a couple years out of date, but they might also have been designed to accept upgrades that could be shipped over as well, and drone techs in the country either legally or illegally, ready to install and pilot them. 🫤🫤🫤
This is exactly right. A vulnerabilities model needs to dominate with the assumption that if it’s possible, it’s already deployed and in place. Don’t wait to find the pen test.
Chinese restaurant frequency near Conus basing, anyone? CCP controlled farmland near strategic assets with weathered looking containers scattered here and there for “storage”? Top level of containers on a few VLCS/ULCS are all all 100% legit? Please. Sell me another bridge.
I've had a **lot** of thoughts the last few years about "interesting" things one could do with shipping containers. None of them are actually *good*. I'm sure China has at least a *few* people as smart as I am, with a mind that runs like mine does. Possibly even in a position to get someone to *do* something with those ideas.
I mean, just looking at the basic specs, it should be pretty easy to fit a 4 cell VLS launcher into a 20 foot shipping container. Laying down, of course. But it might even be relatively easy to design such a thing to fit in that space, and have the ability to stand up on its own. And *those* move all around the country, effectively anonymously, all the time. Millions of them are already here. Hundreds of thousands just sit out in a field or on a pad or near a building somewhere.
I think this is completely understood to be true on the VLS-like systems and fully demonstrated in combat w smaller, lower cost versions, as well as containerized drone launch used in Russia v Ukraine.
Sure, I'm just thinking of adapting existing systems with known capabilities into unexpected delivery platforms. It probably makes a *lot* more sense to build a "VLS" system that fits precisely in a shipping container in its normal orientation that has 20 cells, or if divided in the way that current VLS cells can be divided by four, into 80 launch bays, for larger, higher powered drones. Or build a midrange system with 45 tubes.
Just look at truck-based drone launchers, in which drones are placed on inclined "shelfs" (that serves as launch ramps too). Such system is perfectly suited for tight-packing drones into container.
Well, the attitude toward Russo-Japanese war on land was mostly "but it was basically a colonial war, fought with second-rate troops both sides have on Far East, and thus it didn't count as example of truly modern warfare". It was partially true; due to logistic limitations, Russian Empire was unable to bring its first-rate troops from West till 1905, and most of the war was fought with whatever troops were available on Far East.
Actually, St. Petersburg convention still holds. Exploding and expanding bullets are still forbidden from being used against enemy personnel. Of course there are violations, but they are exceptions, not rule.
Not quite. The 1899 Hague convention agreed on temporarely ban on air-dropped explosives - but only on five years period. The 1907 convention proposed a longer ban, till the next Hague Peace Conference (planned for 1915), but this declaration was not signed by anyone except China, USA and Britain. So the aerial bombardment ban was only from 1899 to 1904, and was long gone by 1914.
Expanding bullets are not banned, that is merely an interpretation of Hague 1899. Bullets that cause "excessive" wounding are explicitly banned. In essence, each signatory applies legal justification of their own preferences regarding expanding bullets, not a ban.
We in CONUS are currently experiencing 4th generational warfare and have been for quite some time. Globally I believe the myriad of conflicts has morphed into WW3 maybe not historically recognized as such but nonetheless in a new form.
Do you think you and your family are immune from political, ethnic or religious violence?
Stay loose, stay ready and stay flexible because hope is neither a plan nor a strategy.
We have lost much of the experience from WWII, Vietnam, and GWOT. I read that we have to retrain our guys for urban fighting, as if that were a new, unknown condition of warfare. I'd wager my Dad (WWII ETO Combat Vet) and his squad were as tactically competent in clearing buildings as anyone in our current over-vaunted volunteer military (equipment improvements excepted).
CDR Sal, appreciate you once again putting up the red flare on future conflict. In a prior life was around this topic quite a bit, often as part of the "Red" team. Lots of smart people have written articles and books about it. So, what are the most likely threat axis(s)? I go with CCP cells doing all kinds of nasty things to disrupt things electronically (power grid, internet), sniper teams, actual sabotage of railways and pipelines. Suspect Islamists would be brought in after kickoff as they tend to be a bit leaky on the opsec side. But once in, going after the "Great Satan" guarantees high enthusiasm if not disciplined adherence to a plan. If the capability to shut down our internet and still retain theirs exists, our home front is in digital ruins. Not sure if it is still the case, but the military used a lot of the same backbone / infrastructure (Akamai for example) so that's a two-fer. We had resident, existing capability to respond after Pearl Harbor. I am not confident we'd recover should a "digital Pearl Harbor" happen in the near future. At all.
We have to accept the fact that our oceans no longer protect us and expand our contingency planning to include resources here in CONUS as well as overseas. We know the Chinese have been working under cover here for years. That threat should be identified and neutralized today, not "someday". Our supply depots must be protected - look what Ukraine did to Russian in-country supply depots with drone attacks.
I fully agree. We need to protect our infrastructure, both military and civilian, as if there was a valid, current threat because there is.
Protecting the country against a known, provable threat can be as gentle as deportation or as violent as a gunfight. It's up to the powers that be to discover those who pose a threat and deal with them. The Constitution guarantees the people the maintenance of a Federal Republic, and congress has passed laws to deal with invasion, insurrection, etc. I believe all the laws and constitutional permissions needed to protect the country is already available. Now to get someone to actually do it.
"can be as gentle as deportation or as violent as a gunfight."
I agree. A curse of moderate intelligence is the necessity to look at a situation and tell people "well, you decided on the gunfight when you you let them all in and took deportation off the table" and other similar if-thens.
This is true for Australia too. What few people here recognise is that the Air-sea gap now only affords the protection of time to respond, not a barrier of insurmountable distance. Anybody who wishes to reach Australia either with people or with weapons can do so, it will take more time than crossing a contiguous land border, but it's perfectly achievable. The solution is to have sufficient assets to maintain defensive presence in the gap, not enough to surge for a few days or hours.
I'm not sure how well the military establishment have learned Sal's lessons above and I'm very sure they haven't convinced their political masters.
A good platform for from-inside-the-perimeter attack could be a passenger/cargo jet, turned into unmanned carrier for multiple cruise missiles on internal carriage. Could be inserted into airspace under mask of civilian flight from neutral country (using bogus owners), and launch attack from within the protected airspace.
And part of the problem with what defenders face is that a couple of odd out of the box plans like this on D-0 can have an enormously disproportionate effect. After that, the defense shoots everything that moves.
It is not just the bases. The entire industrial infrastructure that supports the military and much else. As long ago as the Peloponnesian War state sponsored economic terrorism was a thing. In the US context, there was the Black Tom incident in WW1 (or perhaps the economic war engaged in by Sherman). The Germans tried again in WW2 but bungled it. Add cyber attacks into the mix and you have a big mess that would cripple our war fighting capacity.
It is natural that posters on a military blog would take the Spartan position. Close the border! Musslemen are devils! The problem is, you are wrong. Dictatorship is the problem, not the solution.
The best place to live is in a free republic. We are heirs to Athens, not Sparta. Our borders should be open to trade and commerce. “Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all,” our founders wrote. Free trade is free enterprise. Free enterprise is essential to human liberty. “Our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing.”
Athens, for all her fractious politics, and her wildly liberal population was not weak. As she rose, the right to vote was coupled with military service, but her real strength was that goods and, yes, labor, flowed freely in and out of the nation by sea.
We are at our best with open borders. A Michigander ought to be able to shop as easily in Windsor as Detroit. A Texan should be able to have happy hour in Ciudad Juárez and steaks in El Paso. Trade should flow freely. So should labor. The question is what does a liberal, free-trading island nation need to protect her? Athens again provides the answer.
Ah yes, the wildly liberal Athens that used massive amounts labor flowing in and out of the city. The barbaroi (non-person, like today's illegal alien.) and massive numbers of slaves. (Today's poorly educated downwardly mobile wage slaves.)
The only question is who controls the flow of goods and labor, the government or the market. Folks florish in a market economy. That's the problem of communism, it sounds great, in theory. In practice, it fails.
As system which encourages individual liberty and economic freedom is alway going to outperform a managed system. Merchantilsts, like Trump the Taffiff King, are as bad as communists, because both systems depend on limiting free markets.
Tom, some areas of the free market economy do require the invisible hand of government. A complete loss of self-sustaining agriculture for example would be fatal in time of war.
The goverment's hand is not invisible, that's the problem.
But, not to be glib, there is a place for the government in a market-based system. The court is a classic example. A market needs rules, and rules need enforcement. A Sheriff serving a Writ of Execution is the sovereign stepping into the marketplace to enforce the rules of the market. Rules, like rules on false advertising, or rules preventing the sale of lettuce loaded with parasites, are necessary, and only the sovereign has the power to enforce them. Infrastructure is another example; the interstate highway system is Socialism, but it allows goods, and labor, to flow to where they are needed.
But, 17th century English got the balance correct. The sovereign isn’t sovereign; the people are.
You raise two points. First, the folks who should determine if the American people should be taxed on the goods they import are the people's representatives in Congress. Tariffs are taxes and taxes are set by Congress.
If tariffs were a revenue source, as they were in the early days of the republic, then we could debate whether income taxes or import taxes are a better way to fund the national government. But the problem with Trump’s tariffs is that they are mercantilism; that failed system that somehow keeps popping up even thought it always fails; just like communism. Trump’s efforts to plan the economy is as doomed to failure as Vladimir Lenin’s.
The wealth of nations is found in free trade and free enterprise.
Problem is, that both USA and China endorse economic liberty. Yes, Chinese system impose more control over buisness than American, but its quantative difference, not quvalitive. Neirher side have advantage/disadvantage there big enough to be meaningful.
Your pictures were not helpful. Mamdani is certainly doing a lot better than the corrupt grifter he replaced. Seems like that election was a 1 or 0, the classic binary choice. From what you showed me Mamdani is a good looking fellow. Handsome.
Pritzer is interesting. I think the Democrats would do better picking a governor to run. Actual administrative experence is what we need in our chief magistrate. He's certainly no pin-up model. I have not heard a lot from him, but, I am interested.
I have not followed Boston since my kid graduated and we sold the condo, but, Boston is nuts. They are all insane, every single Bostonian. If she can keep a lid on that madhouse, good for her. She's pretty, I'd say "attractive, not hot."
I know nothing about Seattle, the closest I got was Portland for the Rose Festival. (Best liberty ever!) I hope this is a bad photo.
Tom, you and I agree on a lot, and if we were start a new society on an island with a couple hundred motivated intelligent people, we'd work well together.
Unfortunately, that's not the 330 (more?) million person unassimilated mess we find ourselves confronted with.
Where we differ is that I believe that an America that protects individual freedom and personal and economic liberty can assimilate anyone. Posters have been commenting about folks from Cuba coming to the US. The first generation are hard-line, Spanish-speaking Batista lovers. The second generation are bilingual conservatives. The third generation, speak no spanish, and are fully amerinaised.
I have picked up some seriously conservative muslim immigrant clients, because my soccer buddy has taught me some basic rules of polite Islamic customs. I have hear repeated complaints about the kids “falling away.” “Nadia won’t let us arrange her marriage.” It takes time, but America works her magic.
In reality, the economy of the "free Republic" of Athens was based on the silver mines. Which was worked by slaves who typically lived only 3-5 years after their owners sold them to the mines due to the hellish conditions. They didn't get to vote and they were not allowed to freely seek other employment where they wouldn't be killed.
You liberals are always trying to impose modern ethics on folks from long ago. You have to judge people by the times they lived in and not reject folks out of hand because "Washington was a slave owner."
Spot on and have been in thought for a LONGTIME.
IMO relevant to the discussion, an excellent, recent video about the current... at least "near edge" state of the art in drone war in Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgA0CE7XP2k
It's a *bit* fluffy, with a bit of a "those plucky Ukrainians" vibe, but neatly touches on the benefits of embracing rapid prototyping and development cycles, and answers one of the questions I ask a *lot* at my IT job about LLM based "AI" -- "OK, but what is it actually *good* for?"
Apparently, "target recognition" is on the list. We can be certain that our opposition is paying attention. We should be as well.
I mean, given the sheer number of people who crossed the border illegally in 2021 - 2025, it's basically *impossible* that there *aren't* teams of sleepers present here. I realize that may not have been your *primary* point, but I think it fits the general sense of things, about the war quite *literally* coming home.
> Editor’s Note: No, I will not apologize for the AI-slop poster. I kind of like how in two sentences they can produce ~87.6% of what I wanted.
Frankly, I'm just amazed it got the words right. It was still within *this year* that the graphical engines of LLMs simply *could not* manage that. Heck, It's possibly been within the last *month* (and certainly no more than two) that I've seen graphics for YouTube vids with text that was visually appropriate gobbledegook. As in, it had the *shape* of words, but not the actual *content* of language. At least not any language **I** speak, and the video was in English, so...
Want to see our nation’s future brought by Xao BuyDem Auto-Pen ?
Read William Forschen’s “Day of Wrath” about Moslem sleeper cells… (psst: aren’t all Moslems “sleepers”? It is in their queerran that they are to rise up and smite the infidels where they find them..)
Ignorance about Moslem incompatibility with freedom has gotten us here today.
As I have long said: World War Three will be fought to determine which people and nations shall not be forced to become Moslem ! !
*nod*
It's both Muslim and Chinese sleepers I was thinking of. In addition to various South Americans who may be in the employ of either of those. I'm... a *little* surprised that we haven't seen something *already* in the course of the recent conflict with Iran. Perhaps -- indeed, *hopefully* -- I am being excessively paranoid. Of course, I'm also *professionally* paranoid, so, it's hard to turn that *off* when I'm *not* at work...
Read also Kurt Schlichter's "The Attack".
I think the early strikes at Qods leadership may have disrupted the Iranian sleepers.
I said that above (below?) before I got to you:)
Is it like Kurt Schlichter's "The Attack?" I've liked William since One Second After and the rest.
William, I have liked him since I first read OSA. Plus I've visited Black Mountain, and Montreat College. It helps for context.
Kurt, I have a challenge reading him. My fault, I'm sure.
Those cells are very light sleepers. Plenty of videos on the internet of blatant Islamic "extremism". MEMRI.org is also a good source of information. Reminds me of N. Khrushchev's famous "We will bury you" remark. Communism and Islam have similar goals, and they are both quite open about it. "There are none so blind as those who will not see".
Given the videos I saw of dozens of military-aged Asian males standing *at parade rest* in a queue at the California/Mexican border, my only question is, "How many battalion equivalents of sleepers are here?"
Add to that Warmek's and John Prescott's notes about restaurants, farmland, weathered containers, etc., it might behoove those directly responsible for base defense in the CONUS to hunker a spell with reliable locals to start some informal conversations about intel, reconnaissance, and what have you.
> hunker a spell with reliable locals to start some informal conversations about intel, reconnaissance, and what have you.
Quoting for emphasis. If those links aren't already developed, they need to be, and right now.
What's your explanation for why the Iranian sleeper cells have remained asleep through five months of war?
I truly do not know. As I said elsewhere in this thread, perhaps I am being excessively paranoid as regards their presence. But if they're here, I don't have a good explanation for it, unless they either can't *get* deploy orders and don't have standing "if we go silent, attack" ones, or they *are* getting orders, and the people giving them are afraid of what Trump would escalate to (or what the American people would suddenly put up with) if they *did* attack.
Most likely, they simply did not exist. The idea of "hidden Iranian dleeper cells" looks suspiciously similar to "Werewolf" rumors during the closing stages of WW2 - that Nazi created an enormous hidden organization on territories, they were driven from, and those tens of thousands of sleeper agents & wespon caches are only waìting the signal to rise and stab Allied forces in back. On practice, nothing like that existed; it was merely a propaganda claim by Goebbels, who hoped that "Werewolf" rumors would cause Allies to overreact in caution, and thus would slow their advance. Hitler himself was firmly against any kind of "remnant" plans, and specifically forbid any kind of such planning except as propaganda ruse.
That's certainly a plausible explanation. On the flip side, we know millions of people crossed the southern border of the US during the Biden administration, and that sort of asymmetric warfare is very much a thing the Iranians are known to make use of. Hitler was, for all that his Wehrmacht were excellent at maneuver warfare, old-school enough to want soldiers in uniforms fighting in an organized fashion. Iran has form, as the British would say, for precisely the opposite.
True. But I rather doubt that in highly-corrupt, infighting-ridden political structure of Iran, any such large-scale infiltration could be performed without leaks. Don't forget, Israel intelligence penetrated Iranian one pretty good (up to the point, when Iran have Israel-paid agent on the top of agency responsible for countering Israel espionage!).
So if any such massive infiltration actually took place - or at least was attempted - Israel intelligence would almost certainly knew about it. And would gladly tell Americans, because such intel would be a major shock for American public, and would significantly decrease sympathy toward Iran even amongst the left-wing public.
Finally, if Iranians have such sleeper network in place - why didn't they activate it when the war started? They have very little to lose left; Americans already demonstrated willingness to kill Iranian religious leadership, so if they HAVE such "fifth column" in place in USA, why didn't they order it to action?
> But I rather doubt that in highly-corrupt, infighting-ridden political structure of Iran, any such large-scale infiltration could be performed without leaks. Don't forget, Israel intelligence penetrated Iranian one pretty good (up to the point, when Iran have Israel-paid agent on the top of agency responsible for countering Israel espionage!).
Now *that* is a true and excellent point.
As for your other questions, well, I've already quite explicitly stated that I don't know the answer. :D
Trying to believe that Muslim sleeper cells (Iranian & others) are not here is a dangerous exercise in optimism that is not backed by history.
The men who pulled off 9/11 were exactly that, after all. And it worked out rather well, from their perspective. Well, sort of. The attack *itself* was effective. The aftermath was probably not quite what they were hoping for, though with the 12th Imam crowd, maybe it was exactly what they are hoping to see occur.
I think William Lind had the best notion. Rather than 20 years of interminable bullshit conflict in the Middle East, we should have detailed a ton of satellite resources to pick out AQ training camps in Afghanistan, selected twelve of them, waited until October 11th, call the people who matter about 15 minutes beforehand, and hit those camps with our smallest currently available nuclear weapons.
Don't send the message, "If you strike at us, we will engage in combat to overturn your government!", send the message: "If you strike at us, with will smite you with the Fist of God, because we are just as crazy as you are, and way the fuck bigger."
It would have ultimately caused far *less* regional chaos, and sent a message that is more in the language people in the area understand best. IMO, of course.
Well, Elon Musk is working day and night, creating the biggest, most advanced and most capable satellite system in history. As well as mammoth AI cluster, capable of processing enormous ammount of data in real time. So...
Let me tell you a cautionary tale from my country history. During the Great Purge in USSR, there were mass repressions against Polish nationals, accused in forming a fifth column and spying against USSR. Poland was highly hostile to USSR in 1930s, and was viewed as major threat, so it was viewed as reasonable that Polish intelligence would recruit a lot of agents in USSR. About 100.000 peoples were accused of being spies and saboteurs and executed.
After USSR took over Poland, the archives of Polish intelligence were found, and a total number of Polish spies in USSR - the real ones - was found. There were exactly 18 Polish spies in USSR in late 1930s.
The moral of this story is, just because you assume that your opponent would create a massive fifth column within your ranks, it doesn't means that such fifth column actually exist.
Sure, no argument. Though again, in the 1930s, 4th generation warfare wasn't a thing yet. And again, we *know* that millions of bodies crossed the border. I don't think my concerns about the prospect of their existence are *entirely* unfounded.
Do you have a link to an authoritative, respected archival source or scholarly work for this specific number of 18 Polish spies in the USSR in the 30s?
"BoatGuy" postulated above maybe we did get some of the right people early in that regard.
Because they did not exist, except within the wild imagination of IRGC propagandists? Building and maintaining a large network of sleeper agents isn't something that increasingly corrupt organization, locked in constant struggle for power with other parts of Iranian government, could do efficiently. Recall how the same in-fighting plagued German intelligence during World War 2.
Nah, just displaced Venezuelans and a few Africans thrown in to spice things up. Not a single Asian face to be seen (on TV) among the tens of millions, anywhere, ever, always.
We're going to need a lot more F-15EX. And another black powder plant. And missile batteries set up here again. A ship inspection area several hundred miles offshore of each coast.
We're going to need a lot more *everything*, and we need to have started building it ten years ago. I'll repeat a thing I've said a couple of times since reading a truly excellent Substack article about the US build up of aircraft in WWII: We went from a nation with the capacity to build a couple thousand aircraft per year to one with the capacity to build several tens of thousands of aircraft per year, in four years. These days, if we started *right now*, we wouldn't even have the *permits* to build the *factories* in four years, let alone a single actual airplane. 🫤
One thing to remember is that for the American aviation industry, World War 2 began in late 1938. After Munich, the British and French were ordering anything that could fly and fight. We were three years into ramping up for war by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Still and well enough, I think the general point about how long it takes to do bloody well *anything* in this country these days stands, though. But good point, and fair cop.
Excellent point that our efforts did not start in 1941, or later. Most of our major factories, whether making cereal, autos, potato chips, etc. were able to quickly transition to making war production products. Palmer Luckey of Anduril talks of this difference from WWII vs now quite often, and with eloquence and accuracy. Palintir is on the same page.
"New Orleans production of World War II landing boats began in the late 1930s when Higgins Industries adapted the shallow-draft "Eureka" boat for military use, securing early government contracts by 1937–1938 before mass production surged after 1941."
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-higgins-boats
But even expanding it to seven or eight years, rather than four... it just takes so long to build anything here at this point. There might be an endangered dust mite to worry about more, after all. Gotta have another environmental study done.
Doubt that F-15EX would be a good homeland interceptor; too costly and excessive for that. Some interceptor drone, capable of prolonged parolling and high subsonic dashes would likely be better solution.
As a black powder shooter, a second plant would be most welcome.
",,,How many ways can you move supplies if 30% of your present preferred methods are unavailable at D+1?..."
got at least one for you Navy..... (just this week, even India is a small step ahead of us in this)
Hate to break it to you, but that attack happened on Sept. 11th 2001.
I see your point, though I think that as gross as the scale was, that likely still falls within the range of "terrorist attacks". And it's not particularly *repeatable*, thankfully. No group of passengers is going to sit still for a hijacking any longer, these days.
But for all we know, there are warehouses, or even just container yards, scattered throughout the country, with crates or shipping containers or something, full of palletized Chinese drones awaiting pick up and delivery. Some of them might be a couple years out of date, but they might also have been designed to accept upgrades that could be shipped over as well, and drone techs in the country either legally or illegally, ready to install and pilot them. 🫤🫤🫤
"No group of passengers is going to sit still for a hijacking any longer, these days."
25 years ago. I'd like to think you are right
But everyone ignores February 26, 1993.....
That was but a headline in a news cycle. Collapsing skyscrapers and toxic debris clouds get more attention.
Which is fine for the general populace. The security apparatus though failed us miserably.
This is exactly right. A vulnerabilities model needs to dominate with the assumption that if it’s possible, it’s already deployed and in place. Don’t wait to find the pen test.
Chinese restaurant frequency near Conus basing, anyone? CCP controlled farmland near strategic assets with weathered looking containers scattered here and there for “storage”? Top level of containers on a few VLCS/ULCS are all all 100% legit? Please. Sell me another bridge.
I've had a **lot** of thoughts the last few years about "interesting" things one could do with shipping containers. None of them are actually *good*. I'm sure China has at least a *few* people as smart as I am, with a mind that runs like mine does. Possibly even in a position to get someone to *do* something with those ideas.
I mean, just looking at the basic specs, it should be pretty easy to fit a 4 cell VLS launcher into a 20 foot shipping container. Laying down, of course. But it might even be relatively easy to design such a thing to fit in that space, and have the ability to stand up on its own. And *those* move all around the country, effectively anonymously, all the time. Millions of them are already here. Hundreds of thousands just sit out in a field or on a pad or near a building somewhere.
I think this is completely understood to be true on the VLS-like systems and fully demonstrated in combat w smaller, lower cost versions, as well as containerized drone launch used in Russia v Ukraine.
agree. VLS is overkill. what they should use is stuff with 50 mile range. lots of it
Sure, I'm just thinking of adapting existing systems with known capabilities into unexpected delivery platforms. It probably makes a *lot* more sense to build a "VLS" system that fits precisely in a shipping container in its normal orientation that has 20 cells, or if divided in the way that current VLS cells can be divided by four, into 80 launch bays, for larger, higher powered drones. Or build a midrange system with 45 tubes.
Just look at truck-based drone launchers, in which drones are placed on inclined "shelfs" (that serves as launch ramps too). Such system is perfectly suited for tight-packing drones into container.
Outstanding sir, great work. I carry similar messages on my Substack and in my books.
Good points, Sal.
Does "D+1" mean "Day one of the conflict plus one?" "Dateline plus one time zone?"
The US Civil War should have given Europe a *much* better idea of what modern weapons could do.
Yeah but they ignored it because we were savages. Same for the Russo-Japanese War.
Well, the attitude toward Russo-Japanese war on land was mostly "but it was basically a colonial war, fought with second-rate troops both sides have on Far East, and thus it didn't count as example of truly modern warfare". It was partially true; due to logistic limitations, Russian Empire was unable to bring its first-rate troops from West till 1905, and most of the war was fought with whatever troops were available on Far East.
Yes. D+1 is the day after the attack. D+0 is the day of the attack.
It did. The Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 outlawed exploding bullets.
The Hague Convention of 1899 outlawed aerial bombardment and poison gas.
They failed to stand the test of time.
Actually, St. Petersburg convention still holds. Exploding and expanding bullets are still forbidden from being used against enemy personnel. Of course there are violations, but they are exceptions, not rule.
Against personnel they are. Against military material they are fine.
So shoot at the buttons on their uniforms
Yet poison gas and aerial bombardment were banned in 1896.
Not quite. The 1899 Hague convention agreed on temporarely ban on air-dropped explosives - but only on five years period. The 1907 convention proposed a longer ban, till the next Hague Peace Conference (planned for 1915), but this declaration was not signed by anyone except China, USA and Britain. So the aerial bombardment ban was only from 1899 to 1904, and was long gone by 1914.
Expanding bullets are not banned, that is merely an interpretation of Hague 1899. Bullets that cause "excessive" wounding are explicitly banned. In essence, each signatory applies legal justification of their own preferences regarding expanding bullets, not a ban.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/st-petersburg-decl-1868
Didn't the Crimean War do that as well? Always testing things in Ukraine.
We in CONUS are currently experiencing 4th generational warfare and have been for quite some time. Globally I believe the myriad of conflicts has morphed into WW3 maybe not historically recognized as such but nonetheless in a new form.
Do you think you and your family are immune from political, ethnic or religious violence?
Stay loose, stay ready and stay flexible because hope is neither a plan nor a strategy.
Nobody in the US north of Pennsylvania has experienced local war in 212 years or so. South of Tennessee maybe 161.
We have no generational understanding of what is inevitably coming.
We have lost much of the experience from WWII, Vietnam, and GWOT. I read that we have to retrain our guys for urban fighting, as if that were a new, unknown condition of warfare. I'd wager my Dad (WWII ETO Combat Vet) and his squad were as tactically competent in clearing buildings as anyone in our current over-vaunted volunteer military (equipment improvements excepted).
CDR Sal, appreciate you once again putting up the red flare on future conflict. In a prior life was around this topic quite a bit, often as part of the "Red" team. Lots of smart people have written articles and books about it. So, what are the most likely threat axis(s)? I go with CCP cells doing all kinds of nasty things to disrupt things electronically (power grid, internet), sniper teams, actual sabotage of railways and pipelines. Suspect Islamists would be brought in after kickoff as they tend to be a bit leaky on the opsec side. But once in, going after the "Great Satan" guarantees high enthusiasm if not disciplined adherence to a plan. If the capability to shut down our internet and still retain theirs exists, our home front is in digital ruins. Not sure if it is still the case, but the military used a lot of the same backbone / infrastructure (Akamai for example) so that's a two-fer. We had resident, existing capability to respond after Pearl Harbor. I am not confident we'd recover should a "digital Pearl Harbor" happen in the near future. At all.
"If the capability to shut down our internet and still retain theirs exists"
I don't think it does, but likely both are going down for "a while" along with lots of lights, refrigeration, and all kinds of interesting things.
Not likely to be at the level of "One Second After", but it will be its close cousin.
what's an industry often found in close proximity to ports? Refineries. UAV's with fuel Air Explosives?
How many plants make utility transformers? How many places does your PGE or SCE store transformer floats?
We have to accept the fact that our oceans no longer protect us and expand our contingency planning to include resources here in CONUS as well as overseas. We know the Chinese have been working under cover here for years. That threat should be identified and neutralized today, not "someday". Our supply depots must be protected - look what Ukraine did to Russian in-country supply depots with drone attacks.
I fully agree. We need to protect our infrastructure, both military and civilian, as if there was a valid, current threat because there is.
Thanks for a great analysis.
The measures that are required are likely incompatible with our Constitution. It's a conundrum (although we should absolutely address the problem).
Protecting the country against a known, provable threat can be as gentle as deportation or as violent as a gunfight. It's up to the powers that be to discover those who pose a threat and deal with them. The Constitution guarantees the people the maintenance of a Federal Republic, and congress has passed laws to deal with invasion, insurrection, etc. I believe all the laws and constitutional permissions needed to protect the country is already available. Now to get someone to actually do it.
"can be as gentle as deportation or as violent as a gunfight."
I agree. A curse of moderate intelligence is the necessity to look at a situation and tell people "well, you decided on the gunfight when you you let them all in and took deportation off the table" and other similar if-thens.
This is true for Australia too. What few people here recognise is that the Air-sea gap now only affords the protection of time to respond, not a barrier of insurmountable distance. Anybody who wishes to reach Australia either with people or with weapons can do so, it will take more time than crossing a contiguous land border, but it's perfectly achievable. The solution is to have sufficient assets to maintain defensive presence in the gap, not enough to surge for a few days or hours.
I'm not sure how well the military establishment have learned Sal's lessons above and I'm very sure they haven't convinced their political masters.
A good platform for from-inside-the-perimeter attack could be a passenger/cargo jet, turned into unmanned carrier for multiple cruise missiles on internal carriage. Could be inserted into airspace under mask of civilian flight from neutral country (using bogus owners), and launch attack from within the protected airspace.
That's good out of the box thinking.
And part of the problem with what defenders face is that a couple of odd out of the box plans like this on D-0 can have an enormously disproportionate effect. After that, the defense shoots everything that moves.
Could do a hell of a lot of damage with a boxcar full of 80lb drones
It is not just the bases. The entire industrial infrastructure that supports the military and much else. As long ago as the Peloponnesian War state sponsored economic terrorism was a thing. In the US context, there was the Black Tom incident in WW1 (or perhaps the economic war engaged in by Sherman). The Germans tried again in WW2 but bungled it. Add cyber attacks into the mix and you have a big mess that would cripple our war fighting capacity.
The next big war may be fought largely in the dark even if nobody deploys a hot rock.
Might want to reconsider where you plan to keep you family. Nice to be close to the Air Force commissary, but might also put them in the target zone.
There are two paths to take, Athens or Sparta.
It is natural that posters on a military blog would take the Spartan position. Close the border! Musslemen are devils! The problem is, you are wrong. Dictatorship is the problem, not the solution.
The best place to live is in a free republic. We are heirs to Athens, not Sparta. Our borders should be open to trade and commerce. “Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all,” our founders wrote. Free trade is free enterprise. Free enterprise is essential to human liberty. “Our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing.”
Athens, for all her fractious politics, and her wildly liberal population was not weak. As she rose, the right to vote was coupled with military service, but her real strength was that goods and, yes, labor, flowed freely in and out of the nation by sea.
We are at our best with open borders. A Michigander ought to be able to shop as easily in Windsor as Detroit. A Texan should be able to have happy hour in Ciudad Juárez and steaks in El Paso. Trade should flow freely. So should labor. The question is what does a liberal, free-trading island nation need to protect her? Athens again provides the answer.
Ah yes, the wildly liberal Athens that used massive amounts labor flowing in and out of the city. The barbaroi (non-person, like today's illegal alien.) and massive numbers of slaves. (Today's poorly educated downwardly mobile wage slaves.)
"Today's poorly educated downwardly mobile wage slaves"
That describes way too many recent "college graduates" these days...
https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-dsa-sweet-spot-highly-educated?open=false
The DSA sweet spot: highly educated, downwardly mobile
The only question is who controls the flow of goods and labor, the government or the market. Folks florish in a market economy. That's the problem of communism, it sounds great, in theory. In practice, it fails.
As system which encourages individual liberty and economic freedom is alway going to outperform a managed system. Merchantilsts, like Trump the Taffiff King, are as bad as communists, because both systems depend on limiting free markets.
Tom, some areas of the free market economy do require the invisible hand of government. A complete loss of self-sustaining agriculture for example would be fatal in time of war.
The goverment's hand is not invisible, that's the problem.
But, not to be glib, there is a place for the government in a market-based system. The court is a classic example. A market needs rules, and rules need enforcement. A Sheriff serving a Writ of Execution is the sovereign stepping into the marketplace to enforce the rules of the market. Rules, like rules on false advertising, or rules preventing the sale of lettuce loaded with parasites, are necessary, and only the sovereign has the power to enforce them. Infrastructure is another example; the interstate highway system is Socialism, but it allows goods, and labor, to flow to where they are needed.
But, 17th century English got the balance correct. The sovereign isn’t sovereign; the people are.
"the interstate system is Socialism"
Wrong. It is a public works project that was built to support defense needs and Capitalism.
Are you suggesting the many eons ago bailout of Chrysler to keep our ability to produce tanks was socialism?
That's where I disagree. Tariffs are far superior to the immoral income tax designed to prevent the acquisition of wealth by the poors.
You raise two points. First, the folks who should determine if the American people should be taxed on the goods they import are the people's representatives in Congress. Tariffs are taxes and taxes are set by Congress.
If tariffs were a revenue source, as they were in the early days of the republic, then we could debate whether income taxes or import taxes are a better way to fund the national government. But the problem with Trump’s tariffs is that they are mercantilism; that failed system that somehow keeps popping up even thought it always fails; just like communism. Trump’s efforts to plan the economy is as doomed to failure as Vladimir Lenin’s.
The wealth of nations is found in free trade and free enterprise.
Problem is, that both USA and China endorse economic liberty. Yes, Chinese system impose more control over buisness than American, but its quantative difference, not quvalitive. Neirher side have advantage/disadvantage there big enough to be meaningful.
China did, for a while. She had some Amerian-trained economists pushing her forward. They say they were not purged, but, it looks like a purge to me.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/business/china-xi-jinping-governance.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0FA.2ivk.abh55me8mjm_&smid=url-share
The DSA sweet spot: highly indoctrinated, replaced by by H-1B holders who actually received an education, downwardly mobile
H1B holders who dont share our traditional values...if not outright detest them...and have no notion of engaging in assimilation.
A lot of them aren't that good either. I'm just sayin'.
When a high trust "my word is my bond" society introduces a lot of "you rate what you skate" people, problems ensue.
I remember my uncle who I worked with warning me about electronics contract manufacturers overseas in the 90s.
"Are you guys ISO 9000?"
"What, you want sticker on board? What you want it to say? No extra charge"
"The problem is, you are wrong. Dictatorship is the problem, not the solution."
You need to hold a seminar for these people Tom...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zohran_Mamdani#/media/File:Zohran_Mamdani_05.25.25_(b)_(cropped).jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JB_Pritzker#/media/File:Governor_JB_Pritzker_official_portrait_2019_(crop).jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Wu#/media/File:Michelle_Wu_53455940403_bd5ebc2ca6_o_(2).jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Wilson#/media/File:Katie_Wilson_Seattle_mayoral_candidate_(cropped).jpg
They really need some help in understanding what you say there.
Your pictures were not helpful. Mamdani is certainly doing a lot better than the corrupt grifter he replaced. Seems like that election was a 1 or 0, the classic binary choice. From what you showed me Mamdani is a good looking fellow. Handsome.
Pritzer is interesting. I think the Democrats would do better picking a governor to run. Actual administrative experence is what we need in our chief magistrate. He's certainly no pin-up model. I have not heard a lot from him, but, I am interested.
I have not followed Boston since my kid graduated and we sold the condo, but, Boston is nuts. They are all insane, every single Bostonian. If she can keep a lid on that madhouse, good for her. She's pretty, I'd say "attractive, not hot."
I know nothing about Seattle, the closest I got was Portland for the Rose Festival. (Best liberty ever!) I hope this is a bad photo.
Pritzker bought his elections and sees Illinois as his personal fiefdom.
Mamdani is a rabid antisemitic communist striving to destroy this country.
The other two are just as bad.
Tom, you and I agree on a lot, and if we were start a new society on an island with a couple hundred motivated intelligent people, we'd work well together.
Unfortunately, that's not the 330 (more?) million person unassimilated mess we find ourselves confronted with.
Where we differ is that I believe that an America that protects individual freedom and personal and economic liberty can assimilate anyone. Posters have been commenting about folks from Cuba coming to the US. The first generation are hard-line, Spanish-speaking Batista lovers. The second generation are bilingual conservatives. The third generation, speak no spanish, and are fully amerinaised.
I have picked up some seriously conservative muslim immigrant clients, because my soccer buddy has taught me some basic rules of polite Islamic customs. I have hear repeated complaints about the kids “falling away.” “Nadia won’t let us arrange her marriage.” It takes time, but America works her magic.
"Athens, for all her fractious politics, and her wildly liberal population was not weak"
Sure. Until it suddenly wasn't...
https://www.thecollector.com/athenian-empire-collapse/
The ruins are enduring though.
180 years isn't a bad run.
Heck, we'd better believe that, just on our B'Day 250!
There's a third possibility: Carthage.
In reality, the economy of the "free Republic" of Athens was based on the silver mines. Which was worked by slaves who typically lived only 3-5 years after their owners sold them to the mines due to the hellish conditions. They didn't get to vote and they were not allowed to freely seek other employment where they wouldn't be killed.
You liberals are always trying to impose modern ethics on folks from long ago. You have to judge people by the times they lived in and not reject folks out of hand because "Washington was a slave owner."