I will note that was never my plan, and that I have mentioned several plans by several people before and since that one.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 - 02:44 pm: Edit

It appears that the Iranian national command system has totally collapsed. Regional and missile battery commanders seem to be conducting attacks on their own. The IRGC may be the closest thing to a command system, and it's ability to issue orders and have them obeyed is seriously degraded.

At this point, if Abdul Democrattii announced he had formed a new government and wanted to surrender, no one would know if he actually had the ability to enforce a surrender order.

At least when Hitler died he put Donitz in charge and the German military was able to obey orders from the Grand Admiral to stop fighting.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 - 05:08 pm: Edit

SVC:
I did not mean to assign you responsibility for the plan, just that you mentioned it earlier.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 - 05:26 pm: Edit

It is ironic; Trump may never get the Iranians to surrender/make a deal because he has been thoughtlessly bombing them too much.

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 - 06:25 pm: Edit

One can never bomb these radical militant terrorists too much.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 - 07:42 pm: Edit

So far as I know, no nation has EVER surrendered because they were bombed too much.

What bombing can do, when done correctly, is reduce a nations ability to resist effectively.

Iran is no longer able to export terror, thru drone or missile bombardment, or thru the exporting of terrorists.

It is also not currently able to produce more missiles or drones, meaning neighboring nations in the Persian Gulf and the eastern Mediterranean Sea have a reduced threat.

It is the next level that may be decisive:

Will the population in Iran remain loyal to the Mullahs or rather the successor Government of the IIRG? Or will the turn on the remnants as the French people did on their nobility?

Sadly, either way it turns out, there is likely to be public executions of the losing side.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 - 07:45 pm: Edit

75 dead Iranian senior leaders is a good start. None of the dead Iranian leaders was going to surrender, negotiate opin good faith, or make any kind of deal. We have cleared the decks for better leaders to emerge.

If we had let the Israeli Air Force kill the top 75 Nazi German leaders I 1942, some German field Marshall would have take power, rounded up the rest of the Nazis, and cut a deal.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Tuesday, March 17, 2026 - 08:10 pm: Edit

Al Jazeera media site is now reporting that members of the IIRG are defecting, abandoning their posts.

Seems the pay checks for the rank and file troops bounced this week.

Just another sign that the Iranian Government, military and Religious system is cracking under the strain of air attacks, drones, and economics.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 02:44 am: Edit

Jeff, we can always hope.

By Carl-Magnus Carlsson (Hardcore) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 03:18 am: Edit

Svc, any new leaders, coming from within the present power structures, would not be any different than the dead ones. Don't think IAF vs Ww2 nazis, think IAF vs Hamas. They are still there, are they not?

By Chuck Strong (Raider) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 04:54 am: Edit

“ So far as I know, no nation has EVER surrendered because they were bombed too much.”

Ummm…Japan-1945…

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 08:20 am: Edit

The "Fat Electrician" did a segment on this. Quite amusing.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 11:01 am: Edit

Carl, I believe I said that. We need to kill enough leaders of the current regime and let a leader emerge from the internal opposition.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 11:08 am: Edit

This morning Israel killed the head of the Iranian intelligence ministry, Esmael Khatib. He managed the international sleeper cell network.

The US and Israel have warned Iranian leaders and commanders to leave power and join the people or expect death.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 11:14 am: Edit

The US is using 5000 pound bunker buster bombs to target missile bases near the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump has noted that NATO did nothing to support the US in this war against the nation threatening the European oil supply.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 01:41 pm: Edit

I'm not entirely sure that Europe feels supported by Trump.

Support is a two-way street.

By William Jockusch (Verybadcat) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 01:45 pm: Edit

Trump has said that, but it's not true. Ukraine has about 250 people helping to shoot down Shahed drones.

Ukraine is, after all, a European country.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 02:00 pm: Edit

Ukraine is not a NATO country.

The US has done more for Ukraine than Europe did. NATO did not support the US in the Gulf. They could have sent a few destroyers and minesweepers. They could have sent some jets to defend the Gulf states. The UK could have sent those drone-killing helicopters on the first day. Trump has said many times that he doesn't believe NATO would "be there" for the US, and the first chance they got, they proved him right. Support has always been a one-way street, support only going TO Europe. They now get to reap what they sowed.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 03:08 pm: Edit

Air Transportation: Drones Deliver For Islamic Terrorists
March 18, 2026: Islamic terrorists have increasingly been using drones not just to conduct carry out attacks, but also for resupply operations. This means fortified borders and patrolled roadways are obsolete across the Sahel, in Yemen, and elsewhere. Drones have evolved into a reliable airborne logistics system that can transport nearly a ton of explosives, electronic parts, munitions and vital materiel each week over hundreds of kilometers of hostile territory.
The ISGS/Islamic State in the Greater Sahara has spread terror and destruction throughout the Mali-Niger-Burkina Faso tri-border region in the Sahel. ISGS uses nightly relay chains of short-distance drones to ferry ammunition and roadside bomb components over desert terrain. Similar methods are used by the Houthi rebels of Yemen, and the TTP Islamic terrorists of Pakistan. This has not gone unnoticed.
For nearly a decade American troops, especially special operations forces, got some very practical, and fortunately not too lethal lessons about what it’s like to fight an enemy equipped with a lot of drones. The first thing American troops learned was that these small commercial drones and medium sized Iranian drones were difficult to deal with. The smaller ones, similar to the two kg U.S. Raven, are difficult to hit with gunfire or MANPADS shoulder fired missiles. Another downside of using missiles or machine-guns to take down drones is that those bullets and missiles eventually return to earth and often kill or injure civilians on the ground.
Electronic jamming, which most AUD Anti drone Defense systems employ with some success can easily be defeated by sending drones off on a pre-programmed mission. Nearly all drones have this capability. Used in this fashion a drone cannot be jammed and can take pictures and return very common or deliver a small explosive rare. ISIL\Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant was apparently the first to least successfully use armed micro-drones and for several years North Korea has been using small recon drones flying under automatic control into and out of South Korea. Criminal gangs have used small drones to smuggle drugs across tight borders or even into prisons.
Islamic terrorists and drug gangs can afford to buy lots of the smaller commercial drones but so far these users have been found vulnerable to decapitation, as in capturing or killing the leaders or drone experts. This turned out to be particularly true for Islamic terrorists in Syria and Iraq. By either taking GPS data off a downed one or using intelligence techniques, electronic and photo surveillance, interrogation of prisoners and tips from informants you can find the few locations where Islamic terrorists operated maintenance and training bases for their drones. Smart bombs or even a ground raid put enough of these out of action and that greatly reduced the incidence of enemy drone use.
Some nations, like South Korea and Israel have been dealing with this problem longer than the United States and have developed special weapons and tactics that involved more effective use of ground fire but have also relied on more sensor systems, especially new radars that can detect the smallest drones moving at any speed and altitude.
Since 2014 a growing number of AUDs have been designed and gone into testing and development. In 2016 and 2017 many were sent to Iraq and Syria for use against the growing number of commercial drones ISIL was employing for surveillance or combat when rigged to drop small explosive devices that have caused several dozen casualties.
One of the first AUDs, developed by a British firm Blighter, was delivered to U.S. troops in combat zones for use and, in effect, to see if it works as well in combat as it did, during extensive testing against 60 different drones during 1,500 test sorties. The Blighter AUDs can be placed on rooftops or any other high terrain or carried in a truck or hummer. It can detect drones 10 kilometers away and identify and disable drones in less than 15 seconds. This is done by either jamming or taking over the control signal and landing the drone. Separately an Israeli firm has sold AUDs to the U.S. military for use in the Middle East. None of these AUDs were a complete solution and they were expensive, $743,000 each, mainly because they were light enough for ground troops to carry in a backpack. But these systems were found ineffective for widespread use. The problem was that the Islamic terrorists had access to effective online advice from fans who had drone experience usually from living in the West and often helped develop effective methods for counteracting AUDs.
The number of new anti-drone weapons showing up indicates that the countries with larger defense budgets see a need for this sort of thing and are willing to pay for a solution. These more sophisticated AUDs are safer for nearby civilians to use because they rely on lasers or electronic signals to destroy or disable drones. For example the CLWS Compact Laser Weapon System is a laser weapon light enough to mount on helicopters or hummers and can destroy small drones up to 2,000 meters away while it can disable or destroy the sensors vidcams on a drone up to 7,000 meters away. The CLWS fire control system will automatically track and keep the laser firing on a selected target. It can take up to 15 seconds of laser fire to bring down a drone or destroy its camera. Another example is an even more portable system that can be carried and operated by one person: DroneDefender. This system is a 6.8 kg 15 pound electronic rifle that can disrupt control signals for a small drone. Range is only a few hundred meters so DroneDefender would be most useful to police.
There is also a high-end system similar to DroneDefender that can use data from multiple sensors as in visual, heat, and radar to detect the small drones and then use a focused radio signal jammer to cut the drone off from its controller and prevent, in most cases, the drone from completing its mission. The detection range of this AUDS is usually 10 kilometers or more and the jamming range varies from a few kilometers to about eight.
The problem is the enemy can use their drones at any time and just about anywhere. No one has come up with an AUD cheap enough and portable enough to deal with this. Decapitation is one technique that works but only after the enemy drones have become a serious problem. As always, simple, safe and affordable solutions are always in short supply.
FYEO

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 03:08 pm: Edit

Defending the Front Line Gaps In Ukraine
March 18, 2026: The Ukraine War, now entering its fifth year, is experiencing a growing shortage of soldiers to defend the 1,100 kilometers of front line. Both Russia and Ukraine find themselves with populations unable to generate enough new soldiers to replace losses. Many of those losses are deserters, or military age men fleeing the country before the military can recruit or mobilize them. Many Russian soldiers joined the reserves to avoid fighting in Ukraine. The reserve units were for any other national emergency. Remember that Russia did not consider the invasion of Ukraine a war, but a special operation. By now most Russians have come to see Ukraine as a bad place, where you are likely to get killed or wounded. Now Russia is calling up reserve units and finding that many of the reservists had somehow disappeared.
The end result has been not enough troops to guard the entire front line. Both sides have this problem and over the last six months troops and commanders have quickly adapted. The solution is to keep unmanned frontline areas under constant drone surveillance. Recruiting men to become drone operators is much easier than obtaining infantrymen. When drone operators spot enemy troops moving through the unmanned front line, attack drones are sent to attack the enemy troops while a company or two of infantry held in reserve are sent in to clear out any remaining enemy troops.
All this would not be happening had not the war in Ukraine led to radical changes in the way ground combat is conducted and experienced. There is no longer a conventional combat zone with a front line and large numbers of soldiers moving about. Drones keep the battlefield under constant surveillance. If a target is spotted, a nearby attack drone either drops an explosive or crashes into the target and explodes. Videos and still photos of this captured by the drones produce horrific images of the last moments of a soldier's life.
A battlefield where each side can see everything all the time changes the way troops move about and survive in a 30 kilometer deep zone where both sides’ drone operators are covered with nets to prevent drone attack. Troops move around in small groups at night wearing cloaks that conceal their shape and body heat. Moving a hundred meters this way is exhausting but survivable. Soldiers use drones and sometimes themselves as bait to get the enemy to reveal what they are going to do. You set up traps in these situations and are ready to have your drones attack enemy soldiers who got sloppy or just unlucky.
FYEO

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 03:09 pm: Edit

Procurement: Russian Economic Painkillers
March 17, 2026: A major weapon employed against the Russian war effort in Ukraine has been sanctions imposed by NATO countries. That’s because the combined GDPs of NATO countries is nearly 55 trillion dollars. That is nearly half the global GDP of 117 trillion dollars. One offensive weapon NATO can wield against Russia is economic sanctions. Given how much of the global economy NATO nations possess, sanctions by the NATO alliance have materially damaged Russia’s economy. While Russia can continue to produce weapons and military equipment in the short term, the cumulative impact of the sanctions decreases the Russian ability to manufacture the most effective weapons. These are the systems that depend on components imported from NATO countries. After 2022 Russia had to get by on stockpiled components and the few it could smuggle in. By 2025 Russia was out of many items needed to keep its wartime economy going. Russia doesn’t plan on withdrawing from the war in Ukraine but will have to continue with fewer and less effective weapons and military supplies. Since Russian military efforts in Ukraine have been stalled for over a year, the looming shortages mean sustained stalemate.
Russia will cope, but they won’t win and because of the impact of sanctions on their economy, the Russians are not immune to economic strain. The war and the sanctions imposed have reshaped its economy. Growth has slowed almost to a halt. Inflation remains persistent. Interest rates are high. Labor shortages are acute, driven by mobilization, emigration and the demands of the defense industries. Investment and output in civilian industries has weakened, and long-term prospects for productivity and technological upgrading have deteriorated. This has been a painful process, with no relief in sight.
These developments are significant. They imply a poorer, less dynamic economy over time. But the crucial question is whether they undermine Russia’s capacity or willingness to continue the war. On that point, the evidence is more ambiguous.

FYEO

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 03:10 pm: Edit

Information Warfare: Social Media Algorithmic Propaganda
March 17, 2026: TikTok, a short form video app, currently has about two billion users worldwide. Used mainly for entertainment and communication, it is also used to disseminate propaganda. To do this TikTok makes use of numerous propaganda techniques currently in use. If you spend any time at all consuming mass media, you will find these techniques familiar.
1. Guilt By Association: This is used to damage someone's reputation by associating them with an unattractive person or organization. It doesn't matter if there is an actual association or not.
2. Backstroke: Systematically belittling the goals of the subject of the article as the goals are being listed. For every step forward for the subject, the propagandist pulls the reader back.
3. Misinformation: This is a subtle technique, it involves reporting information in such a way that the final message of the story is not true, it's what the propagandist wants you to believe.
4. Over Humanization: It is a perfectly valid technique to tell a story by focusing on the real people who the story impacts. However, this is also an easy technique for manipulation when a propagandist tries to mask an issue by making anyone who has a valid disagreement look evil due to all the human suffering talked about in the story.
5. Name Calling: This is officially the oldest trick in the book. It is cheap and easy. Often immigration reform activists are called anti-immigrant, while people who are against state sponsored racism are called racists themselves. Name calling clouds and confuses issues, and when repeated by enough people on one side of an issue, creates a weight of its own, which isn't really there, but must now be explained before the victim may have an opinion regarding the issue in question. Example: By saying that the population is growing too quickly, many people assumed she was a racist.
6. He Said, She Said: This is a technique whereby the author can say something they know isn't true, or isn't fair, but they want to say it anyway.
7. Unproven Facts: This is when a usually immature writer is frantically trying to prove a position and they begin to quote studies, reports, and experts as proving this or that, but they never mention the study's name, location, where copies can be found, or the conditions specific to the experiments.
8. Lying: Sometimes complete lies are told. Example: An author in Arizona writes a report which states that the reason that a local mayor decided not to use the police to enforce immigration law was because protests by a certain ethnic group scared him away from it. In actual fact, as stated by the mayor himself, the reason the police weren't used was because no training program had been set up between the police and the INS/ICE. Any person who was a member of said ethnic group would gain from a report like this because, if people begin to hear that that group is really aggressive and authorities do what they say, then the power of that group is enhanced, and everyone reading the news will begin thinking they should always let that group have what it wants. The fact that our police need special permission to enforce some laws and not others is a topic for another discussion.
9. Telling the Truth, For a While: To throw people off the track, biased news services will give good accurate reporting for a while, usually when it no longer matters, then they will stick it to you the next time your guard is down. The best way to recognize this technique is to simply remember who the biggest transgressors are. You must understand that if someone lies or tries to manipulate a story once, they will do so again. They will never be unbiased. They will, however, say something fair from time to time. This is due to the fact that if they were biased every time they spoke, they would soon run out of credibility. Do not trust them twice. Would you buy a car from someone who cheated you on a previous purchase just because they say something you want to hear later?
10. Not Talking: At all about something. Of course the biggest recent example of this was a series of Moslem riots in France. The fact that the rioters were still burning more than one hundred cars each night was suppressed and avoided, rather readers were fed the line that the riots were over. The media went days and days not reporting on the riots which were revealing the complete failure of French social, economic, and immigration policy. However, France, being a socialist country, is favored by the socialist media so the country's failings were not reported. When you're aware of a major issue underway, but see no coverage on it, then you can be sure the media is against the ideas which discussing that topic would raise.
11. Subtle Inaccuracies/Dismissive Tone: Misstating a topic, often a serious one, and pretending any objection or concerned view is silly, unrealistic, or just not necessary. Illegal immigration is a major threat to the United States. With the rapid importation of distinct, and not particularly grateful, ethnic groups who have no interest in anything American, we create division, conflict, and risk. This is a risk that will grow to overwhelm our children. One writer used a childlike, grandmotherly tone to try to belittle and dismiss this serious topic. Her style was to write with pleasantries such as oh, my you've grown, look at the happy big new population. This is an intentional disservice to the readers and an attempt to manipulate them into not recognizing the risk they and their children face of being supplanted in their own home once and for all by foreigners, who, by the way, won't care about you once they outnumber you. At best, this is a foolish policy. At worst, it is self-destruction. In any case, it must be controlled responsibly if we are to remain masters of our own future. This author's method is just one way to use a dismissive tone to trick people into not recognizing the topic's seriousness. The next time you're reading an article which seems to speak childishly of a serious issue, you should be aware that in all probability the author doesn't fail to understand the seriousness of the issue, rather they may be trying to further an opposing agenda.
12. A One One Punch: Pretending to represent two sides, but one side gets a couple of great lines; the other side gets a lame line. Example: Tax cuts are all the rage these days, but two senators disagree on how appropriate tax cuts would be right now. Left Senator Jones says the rich are the ones getting a cut. Who needs rich people with more money? Right Senator Smith doesn't think that's correct. He thinks only certain individuals should benefit. The smallest number of people who enjoy this are the people with the most money, repeated Left Senator Jones. I think that money belongs to all the people, and the best way to give out money the government collects through friendly tax raises is for the government to do it! It's like all the people getting a raise, said Left Senator Jones. Right Senator Smith didn't agree. He thought the money should reflect the people who had earned the most. When asked why Right Senator Smith felt this way he said People have to earn a living. Left Senator Jones said, it is precisely this attempt by Senator Smith to keep people from earning a living that I and my party oppose.
13. Volume: This is related to Coordination, it is merely a deluge of the same story line everywhere, until it becomes dominant, and the media's view of it becomes the dominant view. Examples: Elian Gonzalez, Florida Recount, Poor Election Night Coverage. If you pick a topic with a strong liberal attraction, you will often find that all the news stories about a given current event seem to draw a similar conclusion about it. When you notice this, just ask yourself if it's probable that, in a nation of nearly 300 million, no one has a legitimate opposing opinion. For example, does everyone think Republicans want to poison themselves and all the rest of us? Does everyone want unlimited, uncontrolled, illegal immigration to displace their children? Does everyone love working from January till May for free to pay the government taxes? No, they don't.
14. Coordination: This occurs when a number of like-minded journalists all report the same angle at about the same time. This really doesn't require a conspiracy, there are few media journalists so they can easily see what their buddies' takes are on issues, then parrot the same line. A couple years ago we saw an article in a Southeast paper that actually addressed the damage being inflicted by uncontrolled immigration. We were shocked. Unfortunately, there followed soon after a long rose-colored story about the wonderful immigrants saving our economy which was the magnet for their arrival in the first place at no expense to us, written by the previously honest author, plus 5 other additional co-authors aka thought police. It did have a tiny list of challenges, which was followed by an immediate rebuttal, and all together comprised less than five percent of the article, which among journalists passes for equal time. Magically, a very similar article appeared at the same time in a nearby regional paper written by three other authors with almost the same structure, a list of wondrous immigrants and everything was perfect about them. Did the Censoring 5 and The Three Amigos just happen to telepathically think the same thing, write it, and publish it at the same time? We'll let our readers decide the odds of Spontaneous Identical Publishing /S.I.P. for themselves.
15. Fogging an Issue to Total Nonsense: Sometimes certain groups have an interest in making sure that as few people pay attention to an issue as possible. A good propagandist can write a long, nonsensical article for the purpose of confusing the majority of readers, who themselves work hard all day. It doesn't take much for them to see a catchy headline, then begin to dig into a long rambling article, then throw their hands up and say I don't have the extra energy to decipher this. The reader is correct; the fault is with the propagandist. Example: The Real Reason Why We Need Tax Cuts! A lot of people want tax cuts these days. Here's the real reason they might not be such a good idea. The social ramifications themselves are reason enough! Given a perplexing view of the real intergenerational conflict in today's live and let live society, most people make the more responsible choice. This leads us to the logical question, with school budgets tight, can we afford to argue over social services? A close examination of IRS records plainly displays the fiduciary incentive for economic re-examination in a post-socialist sense. This article will then ramble on like this for 3 or 4 pages.
16. 2,3,4 Technique: Mentioning only one side of an issue 2, 3, or 4 times in an article, each time pretending you are about to present the opposing side, but you never do. Then the article suddenly ends and the reader feels bombarded, outnumbered and alone. In reality the opposing view is by definition held by many people, the author merely refused to present the side of the argument he or she disagrees with. Example: The decision to seal off an additional 4 million acres was a controversial one. Barbara Oaks of Centerville says, there are great advantages to sealing the area off. Many in town feel the same way, less traffic means less pollution, less damage to the area, and less noise. However, not everyone agrees with her. The most common complaints don't address the additional benefits of closing the forest, such as increased education opportunities for area children. Not many opportunities like this afford themselves year round, and keeping the area closed will guarantee the educational hikes around the perimeter can continue. Many longtime residents feel that closing all 4 million acres will be a burden. But don't tell Steve Longmont. “I hope they close even more”, Steve told our interviewers. “There's no good reason for heavy travel through the whole forest, and I'd like to see the place prohibited. Several area polls show a large number of people in favor of closing the area. Keeping the forest closed is what is best for the town.”
17. Pre-emptive Strike: This is when the writer attacks the reader viciously at the very outset of the article with the acceptable view of the topic. The writer tries to beat it into the reader. Example: Just a couple days ago the possible presidential run of a politician who is very pro-enforcement of immigration law was featured in an article by an East Coast paper. The article began by saying the candidate doesn't expect to win because of this or that, and in fact doesn't think he'll win at all, he just wants people to talk about immigration. Nowhere in the article did the candidate say he didn't expect to win, or that he only wanted people to talk about immigration. In fact, the article pointed out that he had already visited Iowa 4 times in 6 months, not at all like someone who doesn't even want to win. At the end of the article were instructions on how to defeat this candidate. The opening attack on his seriousness as a candidate, and the closing advice on how to defeat him are classic examples of Pre-emptive Strike.
18. Framing the Debate: Setting an argument around two alternatives which you would prefer, rather than the true alternatives. Example: The debate over how much funding to give to the project continued. Some are arguing for a reduced amount, while others want to see a much higher contribution level. The needs for both a lower budget and a higher budget have been laid out and defended in the debate brochure, which all members of the decision making body have been reading over for the last three days. Note: the correct decision was to stop the project completely, it accomplishes nothing and the people running it are stealing the money, but you weren't offered the choice of stopping it.
19. Token Equal Time: Sometimes a weak, tiny understatement is added to a propaganda piece, apparently so the writer can pretend they had been fair. This technique is quite common, it consists of an article written with entirely one point of view, then at the end a meager statement from the opposing view is printed, it is immediately refuted, then the article either ends or continues on with the preferred point of view.
20. Interpreting A Statement: Have you ever seen a writer say that someone said something, then what the person said followed, but it didn't look anything like what the writer claimed was meant? Example: The official said that they didn't hold anyone from the previous administration responsible for the loss. I think we should just focus on the future, said the official. note: he didn't say he didn't hold anyone from the previous administration responsible, he said we should focus on the future. See the difference?
21. Withholding Information: Is it the same as lying? Some in the media might not want to answer that question. Recently a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles was portrayed as a jubilant son of an immigrant in an article. What the article didn't mention was that he also once said Prop 187 is the last gasp of white America in California while he belongs to, or once belonged to, a racist separatist organization which plans to take over the American southwest for Mexico to rule, and at a recent ceremony honoring early black leaders he called one of the early union members a •••••• in front of 400 black leaders. A hundred people walked out of the meeting room, though it was reported as 25 percent in order to diminish the effect. None of this was included in the article about the jubilant son of an immigrant. More recently there is the example of multiple murders on private land in Wisconsin by a Hmong immigrant. In actual fact, of the six people murdered all but one were unarmed, one was a woman, and shell casings were found all around the area, meaning the murderer chased his unarmed victims all around to try and kill them. The story as reported called all the victims hunters to conjure up the image of tough armed men in a fair fight, even though the victims weren't hunting at all but were warning the killer to stay off of their private land, hence he murdered them. The upsetting details only came out long after the story was initially reported. Are the authors of these articles lying to the public by not presenting all of the information about the stories, or are the authors so incompetent and clueless that they aren't even aware of these major points even though they are supposed to be writing about these important stories? The authors are either liars or morons.
22. Distracting or Absurd Metrics: With this technique, the writer attempts to drag the reader into a debate about what the reader is even seeing. This is usually used when the propagandist is falling behind and must hurry to destroy the correct understanding of events. Example: During the French riots many writers began arguing about the number of cars burned and whether the number still indicated riot levels. In other words, let's argue about what a riot is, and when you have enough destroyed cars, we'll talk. Meanwhile, you're discussing burnt cars and not the ongoing riots.

FYEO

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 03:10 pm: Edit

Information Warfare: Ukrainian CyberWar Deceptions
March 16, 2026: Since Russia invaded in 2022 the Ukrainian Security Service has dealt with over 14,000 Russian CyberWar attacks on Ukrainian government and infrastructure Russia also has military units that specialize in CyberWar as well as civilians and gangsters that do it for the money. The Russian government pays them to do it for the Motherland. Ukraine has blocked thousands of these attacks and inflicted far more CyberWar mayhem on Russia. This is nothing new. Two years ago, Ukraine carried out a surprise electronic attack on Russian internet access. This was accomplished by using the largest DDOS distributed denial of service attack ever. The attack disrupted all major Russian internet systems, including financial institutions, government networks and internet-based communications. This included messaging apps and social networks.
These attacks are usually carried out by first using a computer virus, often delivered as an email attachment that installs a secret Trojan horse type program that allows someone else to take over that computer remotely and turn it into a zombie for spamming, stealing, monitoring, or DDOS attacks to shut down another site. There are millions of zombie PCs out there and these can be rented, either for spamming or launching DDOS attacks. You can equip a web site to resist, or even brush off, a DDOS attack but the Ukrainian attack was so massive and well planned that Russian DDoS defenses were of no use.
It took about three weeks to get the Russian internet back to normal, although some systems were so heavily damaged that it will take months to get them running again. Major commercial, government and military systems were damaged or offline for weeks while repairs were made. The Ukrainian attacks were so massive, hitting internet targets throughout Russia, that there were not enough Russian internet engineers to repair all that damage immediately. That means systems that are not critical will be offline for weeks or months.
Russians fear the Ukrainians will launch a similar attack before all the damage from the recent one is repaired. Russia has long been a leader in such attacks, but the Ukrainians prepared for that before the Russian 2022 invasion and upgraded their internet defenses. Russia was not as well prepared and was vulnerable. Some Russian internet engineers warned their government of the vulnerability but not enough was done.
Simultaneously the United States continues to hunt down and prosecute Russian hackers that were responsible for Cyber War attacks on Ukraine just before the Russians invaded in 2022. Five suspects are members of the Russian military and in Russia. The United States has offered a $60 million reward for those who make possible the arrest of the Russian hackers. This is the largest reward the United States has ever offered. These rewards work and the Americans keep quiet about who received an award and how the U.S. often arranged to have the award winners and their families relocated and sometimes put in a form of the U.S. witness protection program.
The Russian cyber-attacks on Ukraine were known as Whisper Gate and were carried out by the Russian GRU military intelligence organization. The GRU, in one form or another, has been around for 300 years. Espionage and dirty tricks are a long Russian tradition.
The GRU Cyber War offensive on the eve of the Ukraine invasion was directed against NATO supporters of Ukraine, including the United States. This triggered an aggressive and ongoing American response. This appears to have encouraged the GRU to try harder and the Cyber War goes on.

FYEO

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Electronic Weapons: AI Drones At War In Ukraine
March 15, 2026: Ukraine has revolutionized combat by developing Hornet, a fixed-wing attack drone with a two-meter wingspan, A.I./Artificial Intelligence -powered target recognition and terminal-attack guidance, along with jam-resistant communication and navigation systems. Hornet has a 5 kg payload, a cruise speed of 99 kilometers an hour and range of 150 kilometers. Hornet processes combat data in real time, adapting to changing conditions autonomously.
Last year the major innovation in drone warfare was the Ukrainian use of AI for drone targeting systems. The AI drone contained a targeting system that finds targets. The AI drone operator confirms which targets are real and once a target is confirmed the AI targeting system needs no further communication with anyone. It is resistant to all forms of jamming.
Modern warfare has been radically changed by the introduction of First Person View/FPV drones. These drones are an omnipresent aerial threat to armored vehicles and infantry on foot. Each FPV drone costs less than a thousand dollars. Operators use the video camera on the drone to see what is below and find targets. Armed FPV operators are several kilometers away to decide when their FPV drones will drop explosives on an armored vehicle, which has thinner armor on top, or infantry in the open or in trenches. To do so, the drone operators often operate in pairs, with one flying behind the other and concentrating on the big picture while seeking a likely target. When such a target is found by the reconnaissance drone, the armed drone is directed to the target. The two FPV drone operators are usually in the same room or tent and can take control of new drones, which are lined up and brought outside for launch when needed. The reconnaissance drones are often unarmed so they can spend more time in the air to seek a target.
The Ukrainians developed the FPV drone in 2022, when only a few FPV drone attacks were recorded. The Ukrainian Army was the first to appreciate the potential of FPV drones. By the summer of 2023, the Russian Army also began to use FPV drones in greater numbers. Since then, the number of FPV drone attacks has grown exponentially on both sides. Only twelve percent of those attacks led to the destruction of the target, which could be a vehicle or group of infantry or even a sniper who was firing through a window from inside a building. In this case, the armed FPV drone would fly through the window and explode in the room the sniper was in. The only defense from this was having a nearby open door the sniper could run to or dive through as the FPV drone approached. Sometimes that isn’t possible because the armed FPV drone is coming down from above the window and then in. You don’t see those coming until it’s too late.
In 2026 Ukraine is striving to build as many as ten million drones, both in Ukraine and in other European nations. Nearly five million drones were built last year. The total for 2024 was 1.5 million drones. There have been problems. Chinese component producers are having a hard time keeping up, and, last year, to assist the Russians, China halted sending drone components to Ukraine. Suppliers in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere were quickly found. At least 70 percent of Ukrainian drones are built entirely in Ukraine, and the rest from imported parts or whole assemblies. Some Ukrainian firms have improvised by using plywood and similar materials for their drones. For the FPV First Person View drones, cheaper is better if the drone can hit its first and only target. Most Ukrainian drones are FPV models, which are considered a form of ammunition.
Both sides now use the FPV drones, but there are substantial differences in how the FPV drones are put to work in combat. The Ukrainians seek out high-value targets like armored vehicles, electronic warfare equipment, anti-aircraft systems, and storage sites for munitions or other supplies. Russian trucks carrying supplies are another prime target.

FYEO

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026 - 03:11 pm: Edit

Leadership: Another Reason For Chinese Purges
March 15, 2026: The Chinese military’s year began inauspiciously with more purges of the senior ranks of the military. The latest round of removals involved senior officers who did not respond to orders to develop plans and training exercises for the conquest of Taiwan. Some officers were accused of leaking military secrets to the United States or engaging in corrupt practices for personal gain. Minor offences included disagreements with national leader Xi Jinping on military strategy and management issues.
The latest purges resulted in promotions of officers who were considered loyal to Xi. This loyalty was given more importance than professional skills and experience. Xi seems unwilling to halt the purges at the cost of military effectiveness. These are Xi’s priorities and after things settle down, planning to take Taiwan can proceed again.
Over the last few years China has purged or removed dozens of senior army, navy, and air force officers. The government conducts its own inspections and numerous deficiencies were found. Ships, combat vehicles, aircraft and ballistic missiles listed as available for use were not. Maintenance was neglected to the point that systems became ineffective. For example, missile silos were poorly constructed and unusable. Aircraft were grounded because maintenance was neglected. Warships were similarly unable to leave port because they lacked sufficient maintenance and spare parts to operate at sea. Army units had similar problems with combat vehicles and artillery systems. This was the latest of several purges that have occurred.
While many Chinese officers were found to be corrupt and incompetent, there were exceptions, but not enough to command the number of operable ships, heavy weapons, and aircraft available. Corruption in the Chinese military is an ancient tradition, going back thousands of years and based on the belief that no one would attack such a large state as China. At the same time, China rarely undertook major military campaigns because China was already huge and there were no areas worth having that needed conquering. The most common conflicts were civil wars between factions that were equally unprepared.
For over a decade Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been seeking to reduce corruption in the military and create something modern China has never had, an effective modern armed force. Xi Jinping observed and scrutinized the Russian and Ukrainian military performance during the current war with great interest and growing alarm. That’s because current Chinese armed forces are closer to what Russia is using than to Ukraine’s, which China would like to emulate. That would be difficult because of China’s politics and endemic corruption.
For most of this new century China's leaders have complained about the state of their armed forces. The critics include many irate generals and admirals. Increasingly the complaints are published, so that everyone knows the problem is still seeking solutions. Initially these complaints were confined to private meetings, but so many people attend these meetings that details eventually get out to the public. Since these leaks do not represent official policy, they do not get repeated in the Chinese media, and foreign media tends to ignore it as well. It's more profitable for the foreign media to portray the Chinese military as scary.
The situation is worse than imagined because it's all about corruption among the military leadership. That leads to low standards for training and discipline. In short, Chinese military power is more fraud than fact and three decades of trying to change that have not produced as much change as befits the most technologically advanced and well-equipped military China has ever produced. Corruption has been reduced, mainly with unannounced audits by anti-corruption organizations that have so far apparently been kept clean. These audits continue to find a lot of theft and other misbehavior.
Some improvements come from ordering ships to stay at sea for long periods, which is the customary way to develop effective crews. Same with modern aircraft, which are built to be used a lot in peacetime so the pilots can develop flying skills. While China’s pilots enjoy all this extra time in the air, their sailors are not happy about spending weeks or months at sea per voyage. The ground forces are the focus of most criticism because commanders can appear capable just by training the troops to look good during basic drills and paying attention to keeping the new equipment clean and presentable. Effective combat training has a low priority.
Government investigators continue to find ground units that report they are well trained to operate all their modern equipment, while the reality is that commanders don’t employ realistic training, especially the kind that might injure troops or result in damaged equipment. History shows the more you sweat in peace the less you bleed in war. History also shows that peacetime commanders have to be pushed to practice this because peacetime soldiering has always been more about appearance than wartime reality.
It’s not for want of trying to improve. Since the 1990s China has been undergoing a major military buildup and frequent equipment, organizational and training upgrades. There have been several generations of this since the 1960s. All have failed. Why should the current efforts be any different? The earlier efforts failed because of growing corruption and loss of military spirit.
Most people can understand the role of corruption. Military spirit is another matter, but as successful generals and military historians have noted for centuries, the warlike attitudes of an army make more difference than the quality of their weapons. It wasn't always this way. The People's Liberation Army or PLA as China's armed forces are known, was forced to win or die from the 1920s to 1949. This was during a civil war with the Nationalists while also resisting a Japanese invasion.
The PLA was basically an infantry army which developed innovative tactics and leadership methods that defeated the Western supported Nationalists and fought the American army to a bloody standstill in the 1950-53 Korean War. The original PLA was forged in an atmosphere where failure was not an option. Currently getting rich, or simply looking good to get promoted, is more important than fighting skills when there's no one to fight and much wealth to be had.
After the Korean War the traditional PLA values began to fade. The senior members of the PLA had been campaigning for twenty to thirty years and they were tired and many retired. China was in ruins and had to be rebuilt. To make matters worse the communists then spent the next twenty years indulging in disastrous economic and political experiments. In the mid-1970s, the Chinese communists finally got down to business and introduced economic reforms that are still underway. But reforms in the military were not so easily implemented.
Then there’s the political angle. The PLA was always seen as the basic enforcer of communist rule in China. The Communist Party wanted one thing above all from the PLA: loyalty. Everything else was secondary. This included military capability and fiscal responsibility. Until the 1990s the government was also short of cash most of the time. There was not much money for the military. What cash was on hand for defense went into things like nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and warplanes. Generals were allowed to fend for themselves. Military units had their own farms and grew their own food. Other soldiers worked in factories to produce weapons and equipment. This didn't leave much time for training, and a lot of the spare time available went to political indoctrination. Above all, the troops had to be kept loyal to the Chinese Communist party.
The results of all of this were predictable. For example, when China fought a short war with the combat-experienced Vietnamese in 1979, Chinese losses were enormous and the performance of the troops obviously poor. The Chinese soldiers were brave. They rushed forward and died by the thousands. The soldiers were not trained, and their leaders knew little of battlefield management. The military still needed reform going into the 1980s but did not get it.
China went through an enormous economic boom starting in the 1980s. The communists held on to political power but allowed great economic freedom. It was now OK to get rich and the head of the Communist Party and thus the country said so, repeatedly and in public. The military took advantage of this. The military factories that had previously supplied military needs now began producing consumer goods and weapons for a booming export market. It wasn't until the late 1990s that the government forced the military to pay more attention to their primary job. Officers were ordered to get rid of their business interests. There was a lot of grumbling but by and large everyone complied. It means, however, that the current Chinese armed forces are institutionally only 25 years old.
More money was allocated to new weapons, including the latest warplanes and missiles from Russia and building new things like aircraft carriers. But this did not mean that the PLA was going to become more effective. There had been several attempts to introduce new weapons and new ideas since the 1970s. All had failed to improve combat abilities because of corruption. Money disappeared and little was spent on training the troops to use the new high-tech equipment or providing funds to maintain it.
Going into the 21st century China was still a paper dragon. They have an impressive arsenal of weapons, which are often long on quantity and short on quality. The troops are still spending a lot of time doing non-military tasks. Moreover, the economic boom in China rendered a military career a less attractive choice for talented young men.
Despite that, things were changing this time. The lessons of the past finally caught up with the military leadership. The most obvious evidence of this is the change in pilot training. For decades pilots got little airtime. This reduced wear and tear on the aircraft, making it cheaper to maintain many warplanes. What this produced was many ill-trained pilots flying second rate aircraft. Such a force is usually cut to pieces by a better trained opponent. That happened time and again to everyone from 1941 on. China then tried the other approach favored by Western air forces. PLA pilots were officially required to fly over a hundred hours per year. There was such enthusiasm for developing competent pilots that most squadrons scrounged up the money to fly their pilots more than the new minimum. Front line units, like those on the Taiwan strait, get even more and some had pilots in the air for over 200 hours a year. This was more than Taiwanese pilots fly and explains why the Taiwanese are so eager to upgrade their air defenses. Yet, at the same time some squadrons did not fly much, and the reason was usually that senior officers stole the money needed for flight operations.
The paper dragon is trying to sharpen its claws, putting on some muscle and learning how to fight. China now has thousands of modern warplanes, a growing fleet of modern warships, and modern equipment for many of its ground troops. But there are still a lot of corrupt or incompetent officers at all levels. It's not just the theft; it's also the many officers who don't make any extra effort. There's also a lack of recent combat experience, which eliminates the possibility of getting the best officers promoted and the worst ones killed off or pushed to the side. While this mess is recognized by the senior political leadership, the public image the state-controlled media puts out there is that China’s armed forces are ready for anything and capable of handling any foe. You can get away with that kind of propaganda in peacetime but once these troops go into combat it all falls apart. Keep that in mind the next time China rattles its saber because China’s leaders do so frequently. They have every intention to stay out of any war they cannot win. Aside from going after pirates who still occasionally appear off the coast, or land-based armed gangs or political militias, the military has no formidable opponents. Yet it’s useful to practice on smaller threats that the troops can handle.

FYEO