Lorenzo Warby on Somewheres/Anywheres; Matt Yglesias questions "deaths of despair." Noah Smith on military reality; Helen Dale on contemporary Nazi sympathizers
This is a great (although very long) interview with Erik Prince reflecting on his time as a government contractor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK_XLFOm_I& -- if you raise the military budget, you are likely to get many Bagram Air Force Bases replicated over and over. You do not necessarily get something that is good at fighting. You will get something that is excellent at consuming cost-plus merchandise at spectacular scale. You will not necessarily get a fighting force that is calibrated to real defense (and offense) needs. Probably the biggest problem he identifies in this interview is just unacceptably poor management of highly trained personnel.
It's worth pointing out that the British empire was not established by a government program, but by an adventurer named Robert Clive leading a privately owned corporation.
The demise of the tank is a pretty popular claim, and has been for some 50 years it seems. I think a lot of commentators like Smith don't understand how proper modern tanks respond to challenges, for example automatic anti-missile systems. The difference between tanks with 90's era tech and modern systems is pretty dramatic. The competitive race between anti-tank kit and counter measures is pretty serious, so sending in older tanks against cutting edge equipment is just asking for trouble.
Over on YouTube, The Chieftan (old tanker) has a really good video describing the ways modern tanks avoid obsolescence.
"Just make Gaza rich. Israel kept them poor they just should have made them rich."
-Noah
Isn't this the entire Hamas viewpoint? That the Israeli's are keeping the Palestinians down and its only radical actions like this that can change the status quo of apartheid and impoverishment?
Maybe Hamas wants to kill all Jews and Noah doesn't, but who wouldn't want to kill all Jews if you thought the extreme poverty of your life was those peoples fault. And if they had done such terrible things to you for 70 years wouldn't you not trust to be their neighbors.
Noah rejects genetics, so to him making Gaza rich is some easy thing to do. Rather than something impossible to do with low IQ Arabs. Noah says he doesn't know what Israel should do now, but he hasn't even started going down the rabbit hole.
Per Capita GDP:
Gaza: $876
West Bank: $1,924 (don't think this is Arabs only)
Egypt: $3,700
Jordan: $4,100
There are a lot of reasons Gaza might not reach even Egyptian levels, but bottom line is the ceiling is still fucking poor. The second Egyptians got a hold of the vote they picked the Muslim Brotherhood.
As long as the republicans are isolationists, and their only interest are Asian markets, Zionists and Europe supporters have no alternative to the Democratic Party.
The great thing about multi-purpose weapons is that they are less likely to become completely obsolete -- they allow the owner to experiment, adapt, and re-equip. Very specific weapon systems go obsolete much more quickly. For example, carrier-launched fighters are probably obsolete as soon as someone publicly fields AI-driven drone fighters. But the carrier itself can be the floating base, control center, and repair facility for them.
"As Noah would agree, given today’s technology, the most useful weapons are small, smart and narrow-purposed. Hand-held missiles. Smart bombs. Drones. The weapons that are least cost-effective, and possibly even liabilities, are large, not so smart, and multi-purposed. Armored vehicles, aircraft carriers, fighter-bombers."
- This is akin to comparing bullets to guns.
- Vehicles, carriers, and planes are only liabilities when used for the wrong purpose.
- Where the returns are mostly nonfinancial, cost-effectiveness is mostly a matter of how many you need versus how many you have. I think it would be difficult to argue we need zero vehicles, carriers, or planes.
I don't think I come close to fully understanding the details of somewheres/anywheres but it is an interesting framing. I think it is great to not only try to look from the the other side but to look in totally different ways. like this is.
Those large, not so smart, and multi-purpose weapons might well have had their day. But it does raise the question why items like armoured vehicles are being asked for if so many of them are so easily destroyed?
Perhaps their destruction is instead an indicator of their usefulness - just as the growth of threats against them is maybe an indicator of the same.
Weapons and organisational interaction can be hard to decipher, especially when paradoxes abound in warfare (the more effective a weapon is, the less likely it is to be effective).
Necroposting here, as the comment section of a later post linking Warby on this point is subscriber-only:
As I remarked several times before in comments on AK's old blog, the appellation of "Anywheres" and their characterization as rootless is extremely misleading. "Anywheres" belong to a very specific culture, they function well only within the confines of this culture, and they are rooted in it as strongly as any Somewhere in his own culture. It is true that Anywheres' settlements, unlike Somewheres', are geographically very discontiguous, but this is hardly a new feature. Continental Europe has had discontiguous settlements of many distinct cultures for a couple thousand years. Old towns often had alongside their majority population an Armenian quarter, a Greek quarter, a Jewish quarter, a Muslim quarter (e.g. in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), and so on, each having its own magistrates and courts administering its peculiar laws, except capital cases the jurisdiction of which was usually the prerogative of the local sovereign who chartered the settlements.
My idea of economic independence is to help somewheres revitalize their somewheres through greater independence from the labor market (which is relentless hostile to most somewheres).
But he seems to be far too a partisan Dem to be believed without checking, tho I often agree with his critiques. Would read a transcript, but won’t listen.
The optimal size of the military is hugely dependent on the missions. If the USA accepts Russian victory, as it has already accepted Azerbaijani victory and ethnic cleansing of Arminians, the budget can be smaller. Similarly with Chinese or Iranian / Gaza’s aggression.
Mission first, then size. It’s certain that current US levels of mil spending support too much corrupt bloat.
It can be difficult for me to imagine a rah-rah, celebratory attitude to killing as described in Helen Dale's piece on the Einsatzgruppen (or Hamas) that is genuinely felt - that is to say, not a determined effort to whip oneself and others into a frenzy in order to quiet the conscience.* A parallel might be with North American Indians - the young warriors would, not infrequently with the aid of alcohol, "work themselves into a state" over which their elders had no control, which caused a great many reprisals and tragedies: unhinged like (often worse) behavior from the worst of the cavalrymen, and a preemptive determination from people like Sherman that the populations couldn't coexist.
I think about meth in connection with the Nazis, though I don't suppose they handed out meth to their e.g. Ukrainian collaborators.
*I am perfectly aware I could be 100% wrong about this. Maybe I just come from people that are generally phlegmatic except when drunk.
re: Military Budget
This is a great (although very long) interview with Erik Prince reflecting on his time as a government contractor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwK_XLFOm_I& -- if you raise the military budget, you are likely to get many Bagram Air Force Bases replicated over and over. You do not necessarily get something that is good at fighting. You will get something that is excellent at consuming cost-plus merchandise at spectacular scale. You will not necessarily get a fighting force that is calibrated to real defense (and offense) needs. Probably the biggest problem he identifies in this interview is just unacceptably poor management of highly trained personnel.
It's worth pointing out that the British empire was not established by a government program, but by an adventurer named Robert Clive leading a privately owned corporation.
Thank-you for this wonderful highlighting of two of our pieces. I'm sure Lorenzo will be along shortly.
The demise of the tank is a pretty popular claim, and has been for some 50 years it seems. I think a lot of commentators like Smith don't understand how proper modern tanks respond to challenges, for example automatic anti-missile systems. The difference between tanks with 90's era tech and modern systems is pretty dramatic. The competitive race between anti-tank kit and counter measures is pretty serious, so sending in older tanks against cutting edge equipment is just asking for trouble.
Over on YouTube, The Chieftan (old tanker) has a really good video describing the ways modern tanks avoid obsolescence.
"Just make Gaza rich. Israel kept them poor they just should have made them rich."
-Noah
Isn't this the entire Hamas viewpoint? That the Israeli's are keeping the Palestinians down and its only radical actions like this that can change the status quo of apartheid and impoverishment?
Maybe Hamas wants to kill all Jews and Noah doesn't, but who wouldn't want to kill all Jews if you thought the extreme poverty of your life was those peoples fault. And if they had done such terrible things to you for 70 years wouldn't you not trust to be their neighbors.
Noah rejects genetics, so to him making Gaza rich is some easy thing to do. Rather than something impossible to do with low IQ Arabs. Noah says he doesn't know what Israel should do now, but he hasn't even started going down the rabbit hole.
Per Capita GDP:
Gaza: $876
West Bank: $1,924 (don't think this is Arabs only)
Egypt: $3,700
Jordan: $4,100
There are a lot of reasons Gaza might not reach even Egyptian levels, but bottom line is the ceiling is still fucking poor. The second Egyptians got a hold of the vote they picked the Muslim Brotherhood.
As long as the republicans are isolationists, and their only interest are Asian markets, Zionists and Europe supporters have no alternative to the Democratic Party.
The great thing about multi-purpose weapons is that they are less likely to become completely obsolete -- they allow the owner to experiment, adapt, and re-equip. Very specific weapon systems go obsolete much more quickly. For example, carrier-launched fighters are probably obsolete as soon as someone publicly fields AI-driven drone fighters. But the carrier itself can be the floating base, control center, and repair facility for them.
"As Noah would agree, given today’s technology, the most useful weapons are small, smart and narrow-purposed. Hand-held missiles. Smart bombs. Drones. The weapons that are least cost-effective, and possibly even liabilities, are large, not so smart, and multi-purposed. Armored vehicles, aircraft carriers, fighter-bombers."
- This is akin to comparing bullets to guns.
- Vehicles, carriers, and planes are only liabilities when used for the wrong purpose.
- Where the returns are mostly nonfinancial, cost-effectiveness is mostly a matter of how many you need versus how many you have. I think it would be difficult to argue we need zero vehicles, carriers, or planes.
I don't think I come close to fully understanding the details of somewheres/anywheres but it is an interesting framing. I think it is great to not only try to look from the the other side but to look in totally different ways. like this is.
Those large, not so smart, and multi-purpose weapons might well have had their day. But it does raise the question why items like armoured vehicles are being asked for if so many of them are so easily destroyed?
Perhaps their destruction is instead an indicator of their usefulness - just as the growth of threats against them is maybe an indicator of the same.
Weapons and organisational interaction can be hard to decipher, especially when paradoxes abound in warfare (the more effective a weapon is, the less likely it is to be effective).
Necroposting here, as the comment section of a later post linking Warby on this point is subscriber-only:
As I remarked several times before in comments on AK's old blog, the appellation of "Anywheres" and their characterization as rootless is extremely misleading. "Anywheres" belong to a very specific culture, they function well only within the confines of this culture, and they are rooted in it as strongly as any Somewhere in his own culture. It is true that Anywheres' settlements, unlike Somewheres', are geographically very discontiguous, but this is hardly a new feature. Continental Europe has had discontiguous settlements of many distinct cultures for a couple thousand years. Old towns often had alongside their majority population an Armenian quarter, a Greek quarter, a Jewish quarter, a Muslim quarter (e.g. in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania), and so on, each having its own magistrates and courts administering its peculiar laws, except capital cases the jurisdiction of which was usually the prerogative of the local sovereign who chartered the settlements.
My idea of economic independence is to help somewheres revitalize their somewheres through greater independence from the labor market (which is relentless hostile to most somewheres).
Noah is very right in another of his posts where he supports a 3 state solution for Gaza, Israel, and the West Bank. https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/a-three-state-solution-is-the-only
But he seems to be far too a partisan Dem to be believed without checking, tho I often agree with his critiques. Would read a transcript, but won’t listen.
The optimal size of the military is hugely dependent on the missions. If the USA accepts Russian victory, as it has already accepted Azerbaijani victory and ethnic cleansing of Arminians, the budget can be smaller. Similarly with Chinese or Iranian / Gaza’s aggression.
Mission first, then size. It’s certain that current US levels of mil spending support too much corrupt bloat.
You and your minion followers are on Santa's
naughty list.
*peace to us all rather than forever wars*
It can be difficult for me to imagine a rah-rah, celebratory attitude to killing as described in Helen Dale's piece on the Einsatzgruppen (or Hamas) that is genuinely felt - that is to say, not a determined effort to whip oneself and others into a frenzy in order to quiet the conscience.* A parallel might be with North American Indians - the young warriors would, not infrequently with the aid of alcohol, "work themselves into a state" over which their elders had no control, which caused a great many reprisals and tragedies: unhinged like (often worse) behavior from the worst of the cavalrymen, and a preemptive determination from people like Sherman that the populations couldn't coexist.
I think about meth in connection with the Nazis, though I don't suppose they handed out meth to their e.g. Ukrainian collaborators.
*I am perfectly aware I could be 100% wrong about this. Maybe I just come from people that are generally phlegmatic except when drunk.