Few actions can convey just how well a war is going as firing three of your top military leaders just four weeks into hostilities - yet this is exactly what has happened at the Pentagon earlier this week.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/3/hegseth-fires-us-army-chief-of-staff-in-reported-string-of-dismissals

On Thursday April 2nd Pete Hegseth the so-say ‘Secretary of War’ stunned the military establishment by announcing the immediate ‘retirement’ of General Randy A. George the Army Chief of Staff since 2023, in tandem with General David Hodne, the head of the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, and Major-General William Green jnr - the Army’s Chief of Chaplains.

This move which has been described by some military insiders as “completely insane” was reportedly provoked by a personal clash between General Randy A. George and Pete Hegseth over the latter’s decision to  block the promotions of four officers - two black and two female - in a list of 29 otherwise white officers gazetted for promotion.

According to the Baptist News, this marks the first occasion that an Army Chief of Chaplains has ever been dismissed from post within their four-year term of service - by a curious  coincidence Major William Green jnr. also happens to be black.

https://baptistnews.com/article/for-first-time-ever-army-chief-of-chaplains-fired-by-hegseth/

Meanwhile in other war news; The Sun has published a video of two US military aircraft that had to be blown up by their own special forces while searching for shot-down F-15 pilots after the rescue aircraft themselves became bogged down in sand behind enemy lines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siqL6V70McU

The Mirror has published video of a $700 million AWACS E-3 spy-plane reduced to rubble on the runway at Prince Sutan Air Base in Saudi Arabia by a $20,000 Iranian Shahed 136 drone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQn04k-eUD4

And The Times of India has published a detailed report claiming that an Iranian drone attack on the US Embassy in Riyadh KSA on 3 March last month caused far more damage than previously acknowledged:

The strikes occurred at around 1.30am and hit a secure section of the embassy complex. According to officials, three floors sustained heavy damage, and areas including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station were affected.

While Saudi authorities initially described the incident as causing only minor material damage and a limited fire, sources told The Wall Street Journal that the blaze lasted for nearly half a day and left parts of the embassy beyond repair.

No casualties were reported, but officials said the timing prevented what could have been a mass-casualty event had the attack taken place during the working hours.

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/iran-drone-strike-on-us-embassy-in-saudi-arabia-hit-cia-station-report/articleshow/130032655.cms

Edited April 5Apr 5 by toucana
edited "US military aircraft" para 5

More questions are being asked about the real nature of the SAR (search and rescue) mission conducted in Iran by US forces last weekend. According to  a website called Defence Security Asia, US losses included:

• 1× F-15E Strike Eagle destroyed

• 2× HC-130J Combat King II destroyed

• 1× MH-6 Little Bird destroyed

• 1× A-10 Thunderbolt II destroyed

• 1–2× MQ-9 Reaper drones destroyed

• 2× HH-60 rescue helicopters damaged

https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/us-2-billion-burned-iran-f15e-rescue-mission-hc130-helicopter-losses/#google_vignette

Additional reports suggest that an F-16 Falcon and a KC-135 Stratotanker also declared emergencies over the same period, amounting to a jaw-dropping $2 billion worth of destroyed hardware. The Hercules HC-130J in particular is one of the very largest cargo aircraft flown by the US air-force, making this one of the most expensive SAR missions in US military history.

The incident began on 3 April when an F-15E fighter belonging to the 494th Fighter Squadron of the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath UK was shot down inside Iran by IRG air defences. Initial reports suggested that this happened within mountainous terrain inside Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province in southwestern Iran. But the subsequent destruction of US aircraft took place several hundred miles further north at a disused airfield about 35 Kilometres from the city of Isfahan which happens to be one of the principal Iranian nuclear material storage sites believed to hold up to 400 kilograms of near weapons grade Uranium 235.

On 1 April (two days before the F-15 was shot down) the BBC posted an article suggesting that president Trump was mulling the option of sending a special forces team into Iran to seize this stockpile of Uranium in what would have been a high-risk covert operation

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvglv5v4yvpo

The BBC News website returned to this theme last night with a follow-up report suggesting that the SAR mission to rescue the missing F-15E was actually used as cover to conceal an operation of this type - an operation that went very badly wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ0t7WBITyk

Iranian defence sources are in no doubt that this is exactly what happened, and are already describing the weekend events as ’Tabas II’ - a reference to the ill-fated  ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ in 1980 when US Delta forces were forced to abandon a covert operation to rescue US diplomat hostages after a Hercules C-130 and a helicopter collided at a staging area called Tabas during the early stages of the operation - a disaster which killed 8 US service personnel, and cost president Jimmy Carter the 1980 presidential election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw

On 4/5/2026 at 11:06 AM, toucana said:

Few actions can convey just how well a war is going as firing three of your top military leaders just four weeks into hostilities - yet this is exactly what has happened at the Pentagon earlier this week.

You can't expect a war to go good if it is based on a faulty premise and idiotic planning.

I would expect senior Pentagon officials and Generals to push back against stupid orders and war crimes; they are, after all, professionals, and the only 'grown ups' in the room.

P 'ass-licker' Hegseth obviously didn't like sensible opinions, and fired them.
( I'm sure many more firings will come, including Hegseth himself; somebody has to fall on his sword for D Trump )

42 minutes ago, MigL said:

You can't expect a war to go good if it is based on a faulty premise and idiotic planning.

To quote a famous strategist and deal-maker:

Nothing bad can happen, it can only good happen.

43 minutes ago, MigL said:

P 'ass-licker' Hegseth obviously didn't like sensible opinions, and fired them.
( I'm sure many more firings will come, including Hegseth himself; somebody has to fall on his sword for D Trump )

No doubt. I am moderately certain that Trump is strategically not talking to Hegseth so that that one can take the fall. Also a lot of folks apparently were women and people of color, so we can see the true worth of DEI.

I like the thread's title nod to the A.C. Clarke story "Neutron Tide".

27 minutes ago, Janus said:

I like the thread's title nod to the A.C. Clarke story "Neutron Tide".

Oddly enough I had completely forgotten about that A.C. Clarke story, from 1970, though I do vividly recall the Larry Niven story ‘Neutron Star’ which came out 4 years earlier in 1966 as part of the ‘Known Space’ series.

Niven later said that he kept meeting people who had done full mathematical analyses of the tidal effects in his story, and they told him the hero could not possibly survive, as the ship comes out of hyperbolic orbit spinning.

Edited Wednesday at 08:16 PM5 days by toucana
redundant 'and' removed

We were warned many times. Here's one red flag, from the Guardian in November 2016.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/nov/21/watch-movies-donald-trump-films-fast-forward

Donald Trump’s greatest talent is his ability to boil complex themes down into blunt sentiment. While Hillary Clinton broke her back trying to set out a wide-ranging and inclusive moral ideal of what the United States should be, Trump wore a hat with “Make America Great Again” written on it and won.

This ability, it turns out, stretches to Trump’s movie-watching habits. A feature in the Sunday Times this weekend recalled an occasion in the 1990s when Trump wanted to watch the Jean-Claude Van Damme film Bloodsport during a flight. However, Bloodsport is a long film – 92 minutes long, in fact – and Trump is a busy man. His solution? Making his son fast-forward through all the boring bits, like exposition and dialogue, until he was left with a relentless 45-minute supercut of broken bones and knuckle sandwiches.

(Me again): Trump's foreign policy, such as it is, has no moral center or guiding geopolitical principle. It's just about people giving you cool stuff, making money (or stealing it), bullying whenever possible, and if you get a chance to act tough and blow things up in a spectacular way, with lots of Van Damme supercut moments, go for it. Damn the bone spurs, full speed ahead! Add in the advancing effects of dementia as it further reduces self-awareness, ability to comprehend strategy and absorb anything from intelligence briefings, any rudimentary grasp of the global economic effects of unleashing chaos in the Gulf, plus general failure to grasp political optics, and you have a president demolishing his own party with each TACO Tuesday that isn't met by a 25th amendment team.

5 hours ago, toucana said:

Niven later said that he kept meeting people who had done full mathematical analyses of the tidal effects in his story, and they told him the hero could not possibly survive, as the ship comes out of hyperbolic orbit spinning.

Remember the story well, and its many scientific corrections later (much as his later Ringworld had glitches that were pointed out, and which Niven corrected in sequels). I remember my journalist papa returning from some conference in NY (where he met Lyndon Johnson), and he'd bought a couple sci-fi books in an airport store during a long layover. One was Alfred Bester's collection (Starburst, iirc), the other an issue of Worlds of If, which happened to contain "Neutron Star." Both that story, and an especially horrific one by Bester called "Fondly Fahrenheit" were a lot for a ten/eleven year old to take on board (let alone a younger sibling), but they set my imagination to sizzling.

President Trump’s threat to ‘blockade the straits of Hormuz’  following the collapse of the Islamabad peace talks between the US and Iran yesterday brings to mind something known as a ‘counter-pincer’ in the  Japanese game of Go.

https://senseis.xmp.net/?CounterPincer

A ‘pincer’ or hasami 螯 in Go occurs in the opening phases of a game when one player attacks another player’s corner stone, and that player defends their corner by pincering the attacking stone with one of their own. A counter-pincer occurs when the pincered player doubles down by pincering the pincering stone

This almost invariably leads to a highly complex and fluid contact fight in that area of the board. Suffice to say it’s a line of play that novices are strongly recommended to avoid, and one that even experienced Dan level players think twice about, because of the complexity of the territorial exchanges that can ensue.

The Straits of Hormuz carry not only about one fifth of the oil shipped around the world, but also large amounts of key mineral resources such as aluminium that many Asian economies depend on. Shortages of oil caused by a naval blockade in the Straits of Hormuz don’t just affect the price of petrol at the pumps. They also affect the supply of many other items such as plastics and pharmaceutical products that depend on a petrochemical feedstock.

Relatives living in France tell me that there are major concerns there about the future availability of quite common household medicines, as long-standing supply side problems in the French pharmaceutical industry are compounded by the current blockades in The Straits of Hormuz.

Several days ago the Airports Council International (ACI) warned that European airline operators could start running out of jet fuel within three weeks because around 50% of Europe’s aviation fuel comes from Gulf sources. This could lead to wholescale flight cancelations and the shutdown of smaller airports right in the middle of the summer holiday season

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w37ggp011o

Yet another problem arising from the ongoing blockade of Gulf shipping will be a worldwide shortage of helium which has already doubled in price since the start of this crisis.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/3/26/helium-hitch-why-us-israel-war-on-iran-could-cause-mri-scan-delays

Around one third of the world’s supply of helium comes from Qatar, the world’s chief producer of this chemical which is of critical importance in the operation of medical MRI scanners which rely on superconducting electromagnets; and to the semiconductor sector which uses helium extensively for cooling purging and plasma control during chip manufacture.

In poker it's known as a donk bet.

Donk betting carries risks:

• It can reveal information about the bettor’s hand, making it harder to balance a range.

• Acting out of position generally puts the bettor at an informational disadvantage.

• Overuse can make the player exploitable, especially in heads-up pots.

Except for the fact that this is not Poker or Go.
It is not a game; it is serious, and it is putting the lives and livelihood of many people around the world in danger.

Many countries like to 'war-game' strategies for actual war planning.
I fear this trivializes the seriousness of actual war.

War needs to be taken seriously, and have actual consequences, in order motivate its avoidance.

Edited 19 hours ago19 hr by MigL

Honestly, framing it around Go moves make it seem that there is a some sort of standard or acceptable strategic framework. But considering the flailing throughout the operation, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't another spur-of-the-moment decision.

"Hey, they are taking the world hostage, why don't we?"

1 hour ago, MigL said:

Many countries like to 'war-game' strategies for actual war planning.

The maddening thing is that the US military knew that this was going to happen, but in this case the folks in charge decide to treat it like a literal game.

1 hour ago, MigL said:

War needs to be taken seriously, and have actual consequences, in order motivate its avoidance.

I fear we had a small time frame in human history where we actually took war seriously and as a net negative. Now we get desensitized just by keeping wars going in the background and then even folks like Hegseth glorifying gore and carnage. The dumbest timeline just got a major lobotomy.

3 hours ago, CharonY said:

Honestly, framing it around Go moves make it seem that there is a some sort of standard or acceptable strategic framework. But considering the flailing throughout the operation, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't another spur-of-the-moment decision.

The Go analogy came to mind while trying to find a precedent for a strategy as odd as answering one threatened naval blockade with another  - which president Trump has now done. Japanese Go like Poker is a zero-sum game where one player’s gain is matched exactly by another player’s loss,with no draw/tied state outcomes possible - (with a couple of very rare exceptions in the case of Go).

Real war on the other hand is regarded as a non zero-sum game by game theorists. It’s entirely possible for all of the antagonists to suffer significant or even catastrophic losses in a ‘lose-lose’ game with no winners. The MAD (mutual assured destruction) concept of thermonuclear deterrence depends on this concept.

I came across a discussion of this topic in a recent article by the writer and evolutionary theorist Robert Wright called “The NonZero Newsletter” in which the author asks the question:

“If nations rationally pursue their self-interest, shouldn’t the knowledge that war often makes both sides worse off discourage them from starting wars?

https://www.nonzero.org/p/war-isnt-a-zero-sum-game

It’s a good question which the article discusses at some length before suggesting that two levels of accounting can occur in the type of thinking that encourages leaders like President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu to pursue military “excursions” (to use Trump’s word) in the Middle East.

One is a belief that in a final tabulation, a significant gain of territory, resources, and an enhanced level of border security may (in the mind of leaders  at least) outweigh the loss of life, economic damage, and the international opprobium that you will suffer.

The second level of calculation is entirely political. The fact that domestic political benefits can accrue for particular leaders who initiate wars. Prime minister of Israel Netenyahu skilfully exploited the appalling security lapses of 7 October 2023 which occurred on his watch, and turned them into a get-out-of-jail- free card by sustaining a war on Gaza well past the point where Hamas had been neutralized  - and rose in domestic public esteem by doing so. He then started another conflict first in Iran, and then in Lebanon when public attention began wandering  away from Gaza and back towards the fact that he should have been in gaol.

In the case of President Trump, there was no remotely plausible national security threat that justified attacking Venezuela, and the same goes for his attack on Iran:

“In the absence of a plausible strategic rationale, we’re forced to conclude that Trump launched this war because he thought it would be a political winner. “ (ibidem)

That -  and the fact that it provided an opportune distraction from the growing domestic discontent and the political fallout from the Epstein files and the ICE fiascos of the last few months - not to mention the fact that he (like Netanyahu) should have been either in gaol for fraud, or in a lunatic ayslum for the criminally insane.

52 minutes ago, toucana said:

That -  and the fact that it provided an opportune distraction from the growing domestic discontent and the political fallout from the Epstein files and the ICE fiascos of the last few months - not to mention the fact that he (like Netanyahu) should have been either in gaol for fraud, or in a lunatic ayslum for the criminally insane.

There is a third possibility. One that is based on a mix of stupidity and dementia, where there the logical calculus is based on what happened 5 minutes ago on Fox News. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to entirely trivialize it, but many of the explanations of decisions on that level generally follow some sort of logical framework that one might follow. Even if it is a value question (e.g. following the tabulation of cost and benefits) there would at least be some foundation for the discussion, even if there are fundamental disagreements.

However, the foundation for Trump (less so for Netanyahu) are just not based on reality. I rather think, for example, that Trump did not really understand how tariffs work, and basically once he committed to them, he largely flayed around to see how he can leverages stuff.

Perhaps he wanted to initiate a conflict as a distraction from political woes, but his "model" was basically that simply that the weaker one will not do anything to impede the stronger party. After all, that was his personal experience. I sincerely doubt that there was any deeper strategy and he likely simply didn't understand how an inferior party could exact pain by closing the Strait.

What might be true with the Go analogy is mostly that he is very reactive. He tends to react in the moment, based on how things appear on media and just goes with it. But Go has an internal logic and you generally don't just mimic what the opponent is doing. Rather, he is demanding that the opponent concedes, without counting the score or even looking at the board.

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

What might be true with the Go analogy is mostly that he is very reactive. He tends to react in the moment, based on how things appear on media and just goes with it. But Go has an internal logic and you generally don't just mimic what the opponent is doing. Rather, he is demanding that the opponent concedes, without counting the score or even looking at the board.

A game variant of Hanlons razor might apply here. (In other Turnipstan policies, both malice and stupidity are key, e.g. immigration policy)

The only tiny shred of competence in the new blockade is that it will finally do what should have been done from the start if the goal was actually Iranian capitulation. If Iran can't ship oil, then its economy will collapse.

40 minutes ago, TheVat said:

A game variant of Hanlons razor might apply here. (In other Turnipstan policies, both malice and stupidity are key, e.g. immigration policy)

The only tiny shred of competence in the new blockade is that it will finally do what should have been done from the start if the goal was actually Iranian capitulation. If Iran can't ship oil, then its economy will collapse.

Maybe, though the question is who can absorb more pain. And even in a collapsed economy, I am not entirely sure what the scenario would look like in which the Iranian government would capitulate. Also, I am wondering how much that would actually change. While Iran had been able to get some revenue from the Strait, I do wonder how much this actually will meaningfully add.

Also, would they actually seize Russian, Chinese or Indian ships? There is also a report that Trump wants to block all ports, which seems to be a bit of a tall order (but could also just bluster again). Either way, China will watch that with extreme interest, I am sure.

4 hours ago, toucana said:

Real war on the other hand is regarded as a non zero-sum game by game theorists. It’s entirely possible for all of the antagonists to suffer significant or even catastrophic losses in a ‘lose-lose’ game with no winners.

Maybe the involved states cannot be 'winners', but you can certainly have groups within those states that are.
Halliburton comes to mind during G W Bush's Iraq war.
And since America's former allies in Europe stopped buying American military equipment after he threatened invading ( buying ? ) some of them, the American military-industrial complex needed a handout from the taxpayers in the form of massive orders once D Trump depletes supplies with his war of 'choice'.
Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics are cutting donation cheques to their favorite political party as we speak.

Good point. Good old Eisenhower, eh?

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

Maybe, though the question is who can absorb more pain. And even in a collapsed economy, I am not entirely sure what the scenario would look like in which the Iranian government would capitulate. Also, I am wondering how much that would actually change. While Iran had been able to get some revenue from the Strait, I do wonder how much this actually will meaningfully add.

Also, would they actually seize Russian, Chinese or Indian ships? There is also a report that Trump wants to block all ports, which seems to be a bit of a tall order (but could also just bluster again). Either way, China will watch that with extreme interest, I am sure.

Agree about the Iranian economy. I read in the Financial Times that they can struggle on for about a year without oil income. Iran is an industrial nation of 90million with quite a lot of other regional exports, not just a bunch of desert tribesmen with oil wells. So they can, apparently, last a year. Whereas the US mid terms are in 6 months and a blockaded Strait ensures higher inflation and fuel prices for US voters.

Therefore I imagine Iran can afford to tough it out and wait, while the electoral urgency mounts for Trump. They can see the US public turning against him. They can also see he is going nuts, hence their on-line trolling to wind him up in the hope of further mad outbursts that will damage him further. (He now seems to be doing his best to alienate both the Catholics and the Evangelical Right, quite unnecessarily.)