They Blinded the Attackers in 72 Hours. No One Is Saying It.

hat tip: Richard Medhurst — full satellite analysis here

Blinded?

The Thing In Front of Your Nose

The uncomfortable truth about this war is not what Iran destroyed. It is what the destruction revealed was always already hollow.

Alaric - World History Encyclopedia
Alaric the Conqueror of Rome

Empires do not collapse when they are defeated. They collapse when the gap between their self-image and their actual condition becomes impossible to maintain. The Roman legions did not disappear because the Visigoths were militarily superior in any comprehensive sense. They disappeared because the infrastructure of belief that sustained them; the idea that Rome was invincible, that the civilisational order it represented was permanent, had been quietly rotting for generations before the walls were breached. What Alaric provided in 410 AD was not a military verdict. It was a legibility event. He made visible what had already become true.

I’ll note here: I fully support removing Khamenei, Nasrallah, Hamas; the architects of civilian suffering. Not at the cost of the innocent. That distinction matters and I won’t pretend otherwise.

Medhurst has spent the last several days making the invisible visible; overlaying satellite photography on base after base across the Gulf, turning classified embarrassment into public record.

What Actually Happened

Iran strikes AN/FPS-132 early warning radar in Qatar | TURDEF
The billion dollar radar, one of 6 in the world

Continue reading They Blinded the Attackers in 72 Hours. No One Is Saying It.

India Won the World Cup. Now the Hard Part.

Another version of this article has now appeared at BRAHM.

India won the T20WC yesterday becoming the first team to

Win it thrice | Win it at home | Win it back to back |

Won 3 ICC trophies back to back to back. I always knew this day was coming.

The Golden Age is not arriving. It has arrived.

𝙃𝙄𝙎𝙏𝙊𝙍𝙄𝘾 🇮🇳🏆 India become the first team to defend their Men's #T20WorldCup crown 👑

Badshah’s structural point is right as far as it goes. A country of 1.4 billion people that loves one sport above all others was never going to stay second once the money came. The BCCI’s TV deal money, the IPL pipeline, the depth of the talent pool no. Bangladesh, Pakistan, the West Indies may genuinely no longer able to compete at the same level. Nothing can deny India, that is Bharat, waking up to her Destiny as a Global hegemon (InshAllah this prefaces greatness in others spheres of National Excellence).

But I want to push back gently on the linear framing. More wealth, more wealth, more wealth; therefore dominance. The model minority version of sport & geopolitics. It’s not wrong, but it’s incomplete.

War is what is in your belly

François Gérard (1770-1837), Warlike courage or the Gaulish Courage ...

My Urdu teacher told me something interesting: war isn’t just about your technology. It’s what you have inside your heart. Sports exists, in part, as simulated war. And what makes sport compelling, what makes it actually compelling, not just statistically interesting, is that once the conflict starts, you genuinely don’t know what will happen.

Who is David? Who is Goliath?

Continue reading India Won the World Cup. Now the Hard Part.

India wins the T20 World Cup – The Golden Age is here and it’s permanent

India won the T20WC yesterday becoming the first team to

  • Win it thrice
  • Win it at home
  • Win it back to back
  • Win 3 ICC trophies back to back to back

I always knew this day was coming.

India is a cricket mad country of 1.4 billion+. That means India should have dominated all of cricket. Issue was India was a dirt poor country with most of the population barely surviving.

After the economic reforms, as India kept getting richer bit by bit, the team also kept improving bit by bit.

So I always knew this inflection point would come eventually.

But it is still surreal to watch it live.

Countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, SL, WI etc are no longer able to compete against India.

SENA maybe can give competition for a decade due to being rich countries.

But in 10-15 year’s time India will basically be what USA is to basketball.

Brown Pundits