Why war isn't as simple as two armies fighting, the obsession with "2,000 pound bombs", Hamas's non-battlefield strategy (which the media helps it achieve) and so much more with John Spencer.

No one understands the intricacies of modern warfare like John Spencer. As a retired US Army Major and chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, not only has he studied war for years, he also put his boots on the ground as a soldier and researcher (including several visits to Gaza over the last year). 

So of course, we asked him the important questions - are we all going to die? Is he single? And why is he so obsessed with concrete?

The After Action Review:

• How did he learn about Israel?
• Global world order
• Remember when Iran attacked Israel?? What was up with that.
• There are worse things than war
• A Just War? Yes (here’s what the author of the Just War theory, Michael Walzer, had to say last year)
• Drones! Here is Yael’s thread about battlefield innovation)
• Wait what is going on in Ukraine again?
• Dead chinese military generals that don’t exist
• Appeasement never works
• Speaking up for Ukraine vs speaking up for Israel
• The dangerously dumb
• John is a normal person — what do normal people think?
• The myth of the 2,000 pound bomb
• War has never been two militaries just trying to defeat each other - there are politicians and populations involved.
• Hamas’s goal is not to win on the battlefield
• How the US lost a battle of Fallujah because of media pressure
• Oh guess what Hamas is stealing (and bombing) humanitarian aid.
• Start digging!
• Sorry ladies, his heart belongs to concrete…
• Everyone should have a friend in the military

Follow John on X/Twitter

Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare. Why Will No One Admit It? - Newsweek, March 2024.

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