Parvusimperator is now onto Volume 3 of Shelby Foote’s Civil War! Much like McClellan on the Peninsula, I am constantly looking at Volume 1 and saying, “I can take it, I just need another cup of coffee.”
Defense
Taiwan can win a war with China – A particularly spicy take, but a long and well-researched read (as you usually get with Foreign Policy). I thought we’d talked about defending Taiwan in the past, maybe as a podcast segment, but I have a hard time finding it. Private browsing evades the paywall.
The Army buys MH-139s to replace UH-1Ns – Don’t worry. We aren’t buying weird pasta helicopters to do real combat tasks. They’re just for VIP transport and missile silo security in the US.
The Drive to the rescue, with more detail – I buy that a Su-35 could find an F-22 via IRST, especially if (as the Russians say) the Su-35 were behind the F-22. I don’t know if I buy the accuracy of the Russian story, just on principle, but it does at the very least pass the smell test.
Thursday bonus article: The US should buy diesel subs – Written by a perennial favorite here, James Holmes, who became much harder to find on Google following the Aurora theater shooting. The headline might make you say, “Don’t be absurd,” as it did me, but once you get about halfway through, you hit the wham line which made me say, “Oh, that’s actually not a bad idea.”
The ABC Conjecture: proved or not? – I share this in large part because Quanta is reliably excellent math, science, and technology writing, and deserves to be on your reading list.
Catholic drama in China – The short version is, the Vatican struck a deal with the Chinese Communist Party to let the CCP have a say in the nomination of local bishops. In doing so, they’ve robbed themselves of some legitimacy there, in favor of not rocking the boat too much. Especially in authoritarian places, Christianity is by nature a boat-rocking religion.
I’ll let parvusimperator write his own article and just say that electronic ignition and stacked-block ammo is the nuclear fusion of small arms technology, in that it’s always about ten years away.
Hey, what do you guys think about Martin Grier’s ribbon gun? It seems like an interesting concept to explore.
If Grandma had wings, she’d be a 737.
(long form in a forthcoming article)
I’ll let parvusimperator write his own article and just say that electronic ignition and stacked-block ammo is the nuclear fusion of small arms technology, in that it’s always about ten years away.