Claude code terminal readout: ▐▛███▜▌ Claude Code v2.1.87 ▝▜█████▛▘ Sonnet 4.6 · Claude Pro ▘▘ ▝▝ /workspace ❯ sudo open strait of hormuz ● That's not a package I have in my repositories, and geopolitics is outside my $PATH. If you have an actual task for me, I'm ready. ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ❯
It was worth a shot.
Destroying civilian infrastructure in war is wrong, and probably against the Law of Armed Conflict www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/o...
Astute point in the linked paper (Hathaway with @azmatzahra.bsky.social) about "mistakes" in war:
If you don't change procedures to prevent them from happening again, in what way are they really "mistakes"?
Me after I vibecoded a task manager that just eats tasks.
TBH people are taken aback by how much a *political science* grad degree is "I Hope You Like Matrices."
I turned out to really dig it, but I don't think I knew what I was signing up for...
FWIW the US DoD Law of War manual seems to have a more expansive view than the ICC about when electrical utilities are legitimate military objectives (§5.6.8.5).
Intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime in *some* cases. Russian officials were indicted by the ICC in 2024 for strikes targeting Ukraine's electrical grid ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
Astonishing. The goal of our war is now to undo the effect of the war we started.
Gosh, if only we could rewind to, say, four weeks ago when the Strait of Hormuz was open and normal!
Just a year ago, we heard reducing the deficit was so important Elon Musk had to fire as many scientists, forest rangers and Black women on the government’s payroll that he could find.
Now? 🤷🏾♂️
The peak annual supplemental for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was the $196 billion the Bush admin requested in 2008 as the Iraq surge wound down and Afg ramped up.
The two Iraq supplementals in 2003, the year of the invasion, added up to $167B. (Invasion one alone was $79B.)
![Quote from The Achilles Trap by Steve Coll
Bush administration planners considered an insider coup carried out by military officers to be most likely and most desirable—a quick change of regime that would leave Iraq in the hands of a more manageable strongman. “We made some very overoptimistic assumptions,” recalled David Mack, then at the State Department. “We assumed the chances were great” that military officers would move against Saddam.[19] C.I.A. analysts judged the revolt that spread across the south in early March to be Saddam Hussein’s “most serious political challenge in more than twenty years of power.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:r33rtlo32e2vjtunzxdizoi4/bafkreib25swcyme6zr6petosu2lyrv5opuai7h6slto4lwifopd3z2qcwu)
Quote from The Achilles Trap by Steve Coll Bush administration planners considered an insider coup carried out by military officers to be most likely and most desirable—a quick change of regime that would leave Iraq in the hands of a more manageable strongman. “We made some very overoptimistic assumptions,” recalled David Mack, then at the State Department. “We assumed the chances were great” that military officers would move against Saddam.[19] C.I.A. analysts judged the revolt that spread across the south in early March to be Saddam Hussein’s “most serious political challenge in more than twenty years of power.
Good reminder for Iran today from Steve Coll’s The Achilles Trap: Betting on “self regime change” is something the U.S. has done before, and lost.
Good thread.
MEU is a very small unit in ground combat terms but a kind of big unit to pull out of the Western Pacific
BREAKING: The UN refugee agency says up to 3.2 million people in Iran have been displaced by the ongoing war. Follow AP’s live updates.
I learned about it from this, which came out before the Iraq war was officially over. bsky.app/profile/prof...
They could have read (yes, I know) this piece by @proftalmadge.bsky.social from [checks notes] *2008* entitled “Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz”!
www.caitlintalmadge.com/uploads/8/5/4/1/85419560/closing_time.pdf
“Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz” is a concept that I, a person with tangentially connected expertise, have been aware of for over a decade. What do you mean this was not foreseen by the *actual pros* at like, NAVCENT.
Wat.
Hey man, none of us signed up for this.
700k displaced by strikes in Lebanon: www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...
Pentagon says 140 service members injured in Iran war: www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/w...
(it's apropos of this)
bsky.app/profile/ship...
Apropos of nothing, here's a campaign analysis from 2008 by @proftalmadge.bsky.social www.belfercenter.org/publication/...
“Our government is treating the suffering of the Iranian people as a backdrop for our own entertainment, as if it’s just another piece of content to be swiped through …But we lose our humanity when we are thrilled by the destructive power of our military.”
www.archchicago.org/en/statement...
The aspect of this war that reminds me most of operations in Iraq is the part where we're conducting operations in Iraq. 👀
www.wsj.com/world/middle...
We must convey our displeasure to the US for bringing maritime warfare to our doorstep without informing us or taking us into confidence. It’s an issue of concern. Strategic autonomy must have moral moorings and anchors. This conflict is needless, open-ended, pointless and will only bring grief to the whole world. India must take a stand, convey our concern and ask for hostilities to terminate at the earliest and keep the conflict away from our waters. Admiral Arun Prakash
How Congress politicians in India are discussing the boat strike (the guy she's citing is of India's most decorated GOFOs):
Kanwal Sibal @KanwalSibal The Iranian ship will not be where it was if we had not invited it to talk part in our Milan exercise. We were the hosts. I am told that as per protocol for this exercise ships cannot carry any ammunition. It was defenceless. The Iranian naval personnel had paraded before our president. The attack by the US submarine was premeditated as the US was aware of the Iranian ship's presence in the exercise to which the US navy was invited but withdrew from participation at the last minute, presumably with this operation in mind. The US has ignored India's sensitivities as the ship was in these waters because of India's invitation.
We are far from politically or militarily responsible for the US attack. Our"responsibility" is at a moral and human plane. A word of condolence by the Indian Navy ( after political clearance) at the loss of lives of those who were our invitees and saluted our president would be in order. Lt Gen DP Pan... @LtGenDPPan…. • 18h Our watch gets over when the Ship leaves territorial water. Not till they get home. Their country is at war. They should have stayed in shelter of India. In international waters, they had Not sought an escort from Indian Navy. A... 11:05 PM • Mar 4, 2026 • 2.4M Views
fwiw here's the sourcing I saw at 1am about the US sinking of an unarmed and knowingly unarmed Iranian Navy ship x.com/KanwalSibal/...
Excited to be co-organizing the Multi-Method Conflict Consortium at Duke May 15-16 with @meganastewart.bsky.social & @dotanhaim.bsky.social! Advanced PhD candidates and postdocs are invited to apply for our funded Junior Fellowship, deadline March 10: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Quotation from Phil Klay's novel Missionaries: "An American officer once described it to me this way: “When civilians think about war, they tend to think about the mechanism of death. The heroic Navy SEAL firing a tight cluster of bullets into a bad guy’s head. The creepy, mechanical drone delivering a bomb. But those are just the flathead and Phillips-head screwdriver at the end of a targeting system. And it’s the system that’s the real killer.”
Thinking a lot about this quote from Phil Klay's Missionaries this week.
Kind of a behavioral law: if you have nine explanations for doing something, you actually don’t have one.
"There is anxiety among senior leaders that fighting will extend for weeks, stressing limited U.S. air defense stockpiles. 'There is concern about this lasting more than a few days. I don’t think people have fully absorbed what that has done with stockpiles.'"
www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
At all three places where I taught, veterans and military students are admired for their service, their ability to get their academic work done quickly and extremely well, and for often balancing family and school.
Not *once* have I ever heard a faculty member disparage a military student.
