Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
The US military is awesome, but I’m skeptical it will achieve substantial war aims. Killing a lot of people and destroying a lot of equipment is a means to an end. It means very little if we don’t have a long-term major success. I’m skeptical the US and Israel will get there, but I hope they do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxiMswJVBI4&t=2s
The US is clearing the way for Kurdish militias to invade into Western Iran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMV96LR_zng
“The first American service members to die in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran were killed in an apparent Iranian drone attack on a makeshift office space in Kuwait, three U.S. military officials with direct knowledge of Iran’s attack told CBS News.
At least six Americans were killed in a strike on a tactical operations center at the Shuaiba port in Kuwait, one of several U.S.-allied countries in the Persian Gulf region that have faced intense Iranian missile and drone attacks since the U.S. and Israel began striking Iran early Saturday. U.S. Central Command has publicly confirmed the deaths.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the deadly strike was caused by a powerful Iranian weapon that made it through both air defenses and the operations center’s fortifications.
…
three U.S. military officials questioned the assertion that the building was adequately fortified. They told CBS News the operations center was a triple-wide trailer made into an office space — a common setup at U.S. bases abroad.
The trailer’s only fortifications were T-walls, which are 12-foot-tall, steel-reinforced concrete barriers used to protect military personnel from explosions, rocket attacks and shrapnel, the military officials said.
But T-walls could not protect the facility from an overhead strike. Two officials told CBS News that the strike appeared to hit dead-center on top of the building.
Three officials also told CBS News, speaking under condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media outlets, that prior to the attack, there were discussions on the ground about whether the tactical operations center in question should not have been used, as it concentrated too many U.S. troops in a location that wasn’t defendable.
Preliminary battle damage assessments suggest the operations center in Kuwait was attacked by a one-way drone, according to three U.S. military officials with direct knowledge of Iran’s attack
…
two sources said there was no American counter-rocket, artillery and mortar system at Shuaiba port that could be used to bring down incoming drones or other deadly munitions. Kuwait had interceptors in the vicinity, but it’s unclear if those were employed.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/military-officials-fortifications-where-u-051839834.html
Iran hides its missile launchers underground and in civilian areas, using human shields.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btzKzRlYPF8
“Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-strikes-iran-triggered-israel-011506844.html
How the US is striking Iran.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OjOJMLabSw
Could Iran hit US Air and Naval forces?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yiv3QkQIYZs
“Human soldiers can disobey unconstitutional orders, but “with fully autonomous weapons, we don’t necessarily have those protections,” Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told Ross Douthat in a recent interview. Amodei also worried that AI could help the government track protesters and political opponents and “make a mockery of the Fourth Amendment.”
…
While not explicitly expressing a desire to use AI for those purposes, the Pentagon has insisted that Anthropic setting any limits on the military’s use will not do. It wants Anthropic to grant the government the right to employ its products for “all lawful use,” according to CNN.
…
This refusal hasn’t gone over well with the Trump administration. Hegseth has reportedly demanded that Anthropic remove its restrictions on certain military uses or else face consequences.
These consequences could include the Defense Department ending its business relationship with Anthropic as soon as Friday—which, OK, fine.
While not reassuring that the government won’t respect these limits around robot death machines and mass spying, it’s sadly not surprising. Ending its relationship with Anthropic’s contract in response would be a disappointing but not outrageous or beyond bounds.
What pushes this above and beyond normal government villainy are the other potential consequences that Hegseth has been floating, including using the Defense Production Act to compel compliance or declaring Anthropic a “supply chain risk”—possibly both. An anonymous senior official reportedly told Axios that severing ties with Anthropic would be “an enormous pain in the ass” for which Anthropic would have to “pay a price.”
Declaring Anthropic a supply chain risk would mean anyone who wants to work with the U.S. military in any capacity must sever ties with the AI company.
“Activating this power would cost Anthropic a lot of business—potentially quite a lot—and give investors huge skepticism about whether the company is worth funding for the next round of scaling,” writes Dean Ball, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. “Capital was a major constraint anyway, but this makes it much harder. This option could be existential for Anthropic.”
Declaring an entity a supply chain risk is usually a move reserved for risky dealings with foreign companies. Deploying this designation against a U.S. company just because its leaders have some morals and some backbone is highly undemocratic—the sort of move one would traditionally expect from the Chinese Communist Party, not a U.S. administration.
…
But it gets worse. Hegseth is also threatening to “invoke the Defense Production Act to force the company to tailor its model to the military’s needs” and remove all safeguards, per Axios.
So, here we have an AI company trying to act ethically and prevent government abuse of this technology and the government threatening to seize the company’s property and do with it whatever the Pentagon wants. If that’s allowed, it means no limits on what abuses the government can force private companies to participate in.”
https://reason.com/2026/02/25/pentagon-to-anthropic-if-you-wont-let-us-use-your-ai-for-mass-surveillance-or-autonomous-weapons-expect-punishment/?itm_source=parsely-api
All the fancy artillery, ships, drones, missiles, special operation forces, doctors, and engineers have an important role to play, but the only military role that can take and hold ground in such a way that will lead to winning a large war, are the infantry grunts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flf3o8Elmas
The army is trying to replace the M4 with a higher powered rifle that can better punch through modern body armor and hit people at farther ranges. However, it is heavy, has more recoil, and holds 20 rather than 30 rounds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H54E5u_aI2I