Just in time for your weekend, I have a fresh piece out with @warontherocks.bsky.social on the new 🇫🇷 French nuclear doctrine of “forward deterrence” and why dispersed air operations are a better comparison to it than 🇺🇸 U.S. forward nuclear deployments and nuclear sharing arrangements in 🇪🇺 Europe.
It is hard to capture what a sweeping strategic defeat the war in Iran has been for the United States. I’m going to thread here some of the posts today that try to capture those effects. Here’s the first:
Foreign students *subsidize* domestic students. Without them college will be *more* expensive and there will be *fewer* spots.
The Iran War has gobbled up a breathtaking amount of U.S. military capability vital for deterring a Chinese attack on Taiwan. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
The Boss 🎸✊
“Iran is now earning nearly twice as much from oil sales each day as it did before American and Israeli bombs started falling on February 28th.”
"Your steadfast commitment to our strategic mission, despite the multiple tramplings, maulings, and other encounters we shall henceforth refer to as 'terminal networking opportunities' has not gone unnoticed."
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-m...
For the alumni association, the tagline is “Leave a tip.”
UMN: Nice future you have there, we’ll take that
What on earth
Here are 10 consequences of the US-Israel attack on Iran - a thread. US soft power is damaged. To launch an attack without clear aims or an exit strategy has upset allies - in Europe, Gulf & Asia - who must bear the economic, political and military consequences. /1
My latest on the Iranian threat to the Strait of Hormuz in @foreignaffairs.com
www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/hormuz-...
"Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the strait in response to strikes."
www.cnn.com/2026/03/12/p...
'Made in USA' and Department of Defense codes imprinted on weapons fragments used to make American Tomahawks and seen in photos by Iran near bombed school. Latest story w/ @trbrtc.bsky.social and @johnismay.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/w...
My latest in @foreignpolicy.com: with a war in the Middle East, the world appears to have missed that North Korea is now officially getting into the space weapons game (with strong incentives to put nukes in space). My analysis: foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/09/n...
Local Massachusetts weekly says it's confirmed that the Pentagon was relying on Claude for strike targeting, which is how they came to bomb a girls' school.
thisweekinworcester.com/exclusive-ai...
It sounds like there’s a sort of low-level war going on in Iraq that hasn’t been fully reported
An Iraqi friend tells me that Iranian-backed militias are attacking various targets across Iraq, and U.S. and Israeli forces are hitting back. They say this is happening more widely than what‘s reported
Genuine question: should dispersal be understood to increase survivability if the dispersal is to countries closer to the presumed front line of any conventional conflict? (and therefore the dispersed assets are presumably more vulnerable/more attractive targets than they would otherwise be)
Polish sources have the final sentence as "As our own autonomous capabilities grow, we will also strive to prepare Poland in the future for the most autonomous actions *possible* in this matter."
In any case, this is proper nuclear hedging talk.
www.polskieradio.pl/399/7975/Art...
In any normal week this would be a huge story. France moves toward extending a nuclear umbrella over European allies-- a major sign of declining credibility of US extended deterrence.
www.defensenews.com/global/europ...
Tusk: "We are investing heavily in future nuclear power plants, and Poland will not want to be passive when it comes to nuclear security in a military context."
"We will cooperate with our allies...as our capabilities increase, we will try to prepare Poland for autonomous action in this matter."
I'm just reading the speech and I am not sure if US nuclear sharing/foreign nuclear deployments are the right way to think about the dispersal of French strategic air force assets. At least to me, I understand it more as a dispersal concept to increase survivability, like Agile Combat Employment.
Thinking back to my proposal of an Anglo-French nuclear deterrent for Europe that I wrote last March.
Macron's scheme is naturally less expansive, but Rome wasn't built in a day and his speech was a big step in the right direction.
French President Emmanuel Macron has just given a truly remarkable speech on France's nuclear policy at a moment of great anxiety in Europe. I wanted to offer an early comment. Welcome to the age of 'Dissuasion Avancée' in Europe.
New post: panda.substack.com/p/dissuasion...
Interesting from an institutional standpoint: France-UK Nuclear Steering Group was first & could be seen as unique arrangement between Europe's two nuclear powers.
France-Germany NSG could create a new dynamic: France as central node of Euro nuclear-consultative mechanisms with UK, Germany, others.
Professors Ron Krebs and Mark Bell @marksbell.bsky.social are quoted by the @startribune.com, discussing Trump's missed opportunity to offer clarity to the country about America's military buildup.
www.startribune.com/trump-sotu-a...
Delighted to review @nktpnd.bsky.social's excellent and important book The New Nuclear Age for Ethics and International Affairs #nukesky www.cambridge.org/core/service...
This is the aftermath of an ICE kidnapping a few blocks from my home in St. Paul—an hour ago. A quiet street full of broken glass and at least three wrecked cars. The target of the kidnapping was taken away by ambulance. He was on a stretcher and covered by a sheet, though a cop said he was alive.
1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.
Hundreds of kids are still detained.
We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵
So, I spent many many years working on my book, and it coincidentally comes out the same week as the end of the New START Treaty. In print from Cambridge University Press next week, and ebook is online now. www.cambridge.org/vaynman or on Amazon: a.co/d/0brNOTKq