Years · 2022

March 2022

8 posts

Article

Atomic Steppe

Verse of the week: “Restrained pulse of moaning steppe — With waves of pain and grief. The drops of rain? Crushing seas? Those are mothers’ trembling tears. Here’s a place of whispering spell — Abai. Earth’s bleeding chest. Death’s stealing…

Episode37 min

Test Three Missiles…

…get a pod.  North Korea has conducted three (and, as I’m typing this, apparently four), ICBM (or ICBM element) tests, with two labelled as “satellite” system tests.  Jeffrey and Scott talk through an OSINT Oreo: Good OSINT to identify ICBM tests,…

Episode45 min

The Bunga Bunga Theory of Deterrence

Should we be worried that Russia may intentionally use nuclear weapons in Ukraine?  Jeffrey and Aaron discuss the role nuclear weapons, conspiracy theories, and misinformation play within conventional wars and escalation dynamics.  Aaron posits the Bunga Bunga Theory of Deterrence,…

Article

All Wars Must End

Quote of the week: “The quickest way to end war is to lose it.” — George Orwell All wars must end, or so we have been told by Gideon Rose and Fred Iklé. But how will Russia’s military campaign in…

Article

ICBM Testing at Sunan

Update: North Korea conducted a failed test of a presumed Hwasong-17 out of Sunan the other day. So, I guess we won’t be getting pictures. An item in the JoongAng Daily caught my eye. A South Korean official claims North…

Article

Changes at Punggye-ri

Jeffrey Lewis and Dave Schmerler Construction is occurring at North Korea’s nuclear test site for the first time since North Korea announced the closure and dismantlement of the site in spring 2018. In April 2018, Kim Jong Un announced an end…

Article

Hold Steady

Verse of the week: “Who has invented our enmity? Who prescribed us/ hatred of each other? Who has armed us against each other/ with the death of the world? Who has appointed me such anger/ that I should desire the…