I watched a little bit of Hannity’s interview of Vance and while I can’t recall Vance’s exact words, I was impressed when discussing military matters that he seems to understand that there have been huge changes in war fighting capability (and there will be even more going forward) and that is essentially time to think anew and act anew. This is an excellent and necessary first step as our military was built for the Cold War and then downsized while starting to concentrate on battling insurgency…but its mindset is still mostly Cold War…like we’re about to be faced with 10,000 Russian tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap in Germany. Neither the Ukrainians nor Russians have given a really good account of themselves in the war (probably poor leadership on both sides causing this) but they have given us some hints about what’s coming…and how difficult it is to move against any sort of alert and entrenched defense.

We all recall WWI when the cannon and the machine gun ruled the battlefield and the whole problem was that they prevented the stronger allied army from imposing its will on the weaker German army…until it was found that if you put a plate of steel on a tracked vehicle, you could get at the machine guns and artillery. Most military thinking still seems to be built around the idea that you’ll dash ahead with your tanks and other armored vehicles, break the enemy line and press on to victory. But what I’m seeing in Ukraine is that armored vehicles don’t dare show themselves…drone-fired and man-portable anti-tank weapons are making it difficult for armor to even properly engage the enemy. I believe this is why the Ukraine war has become a trench-war stalemate.

And, so, it was refreshing to see that Vance is clearly thinking about this – about how remotely operated weapons and such are altering battlefield conditions and so we must adjust ourselves to the new reality. My view is that we’re going to want to comprehensively develop this concept…what I’d like to have is the ability at the start of any conflict to essentially shut down the enemy. Destroy his ability to move and communicate and you’ll also destroy his ability to shoot (or at least shoot with any prospect of success). Remember the Germans produced 4,400 tanks in the last 4 months of the war but hardly any of them made it to a battlefield because German road and rail systems had been destroyed by bombing. These days, drones can probably drop every bridge in a medium-sized nation within hours of the start of a fight…that, alone, will destroy their ability to move efficiently.

From what I can tell, the efforts to block Trump’s nominees are failing – even Gabbard and RFK seem set to cruise through. Part of this is the realization even by the RINOs that there is huge primary risk in actually stopping a nominee. Part of it is that the Democrats are stuck on stupid. Shrieking, ignorant stump speeches in the committee hearings rather than actual questions. On the other side of it, all Trump’s picks are clearly intelligent people who have thought about things.

The Department of Defense will no longer fly a female soldier around for abortions. This was Biden policy that if you were stationed in a Red State and needed to whack your kid he’d pay to fly you to a Blue State where it could be done. To me, just weird – the concept of a female soldier is based around the Strong Woman Who Don’t Need No Man…but who apparently can’t exercise a little self control on the weekends and so needs a plane ticket from Alabama to California. Which is it, Liberals? Pick one.

All the hot chicks are with us and this is upsetting the people who can’t get dates – in this case, a hot correspondent is being condemned for her clothes by the people who covered up Biden’s laptop.

Democrats are having their DNC meeting to pick new leadership and figure out why they lost. They are confident it was because of sexism and racism. So, we’re certain that Trump still has moles in the DNC. These people really have learned nothing…but, in a sense, they can’t. Any admission that they got it wrong means that several parts of the Democrat coalition will walk out…go third party and stay third party thus simply handing power to the GOP for a generation. The downside here is that refusal to jettison the most lunatic parts of the coalition will continually alienate the overall electorate. On the other hand, don’t get too cocky, GOPers: I can’t remember the state (think it was South Dakota) but this past Tuesday a special election for State legislative seat in a district that was Trump +24 flipped to the Dems. Special elections are strange and the Dems have gotten really good at flipping special election seats because turnout is so low but the bottom line is that without Trump on the ballot, the GOP does have a turnout problem. The GOP had better start giving people a reason to vote for them or we might have problems.