Z and Tiger Team deserve one another, shame Ukraine must rely on them both.
More than 48 hours has passed since the drone encounter, so I can post the full video. I was standing on one of the highest points of Kyiv’s right bank looking east, almost directly at the Mother Ukraine statue, trying to take a panoramic photo of autumn foliage.
I thought about Tiger Team yesterday and re-read Chapter 8 of Alexander’s War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World.
In devising our planning scenario, the Tiger Team got the scale, geography, and timing of Russia’s military operations almost exactly right. But we were wrong on almost everything else.
Next I listened to the 2-year anniversary after-action review of the excercise. Indeed, many assumptions of Alexander’s Tiger Team were wrong. Looking on the positive side, he acknowledges them.
Rebecca is on Kamala’s transition team and David is slumming around Budapest. If Donald wins the election this week, the team’s reunion might be postponed. They might all leave goverment service and join Alexander at the University of Virginia, or Colin at Stanford University, or wind up in jail.
Excellent article about стабпункт life (and death).
Viktor and Gabriel, whoever they are, warn about frostbite, from Brussels.
Brendan is in the dumps.
Luke is channeling anguish somewhere near Kupiansk, Kharkiv region.
Handelsblatt says we’re goners.
We all remember June 1948. It’s not as bad as Cold War: Stories from the Big Freeze. Or is it?
If Valery Zaluzhny and top brass of Ukraine’s Armed Forces hadn’t bucked Z’s orders in February 2022, and battalions of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade and 95th Air Assault Brigade hadn’t been dispatched to defend the capital…123.
Ukraine is a country of close calls.
Z and Tiger Team, alas, have not been our salvation, despite their best efforts, so we will continue not relying on them.