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It’s time to speak up for tactics. Being ‘tactical’ is often disparaged and considered a lesser activity than being strategic. Yet good strategy requires good tactics. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/in-…
Lawrence Freedman
42.1K posts
Lawrence Freedman
@LawDavF
Emeritus Professor of War Studies King's College London. just published Command: The Politics of Military Operations from Korea to Ukraine (UK Penguin, US OUP)
Joined May 2013
- Just signed off 'yours faithfully' on a formal email to unnamed person because I was taught at school to do that and leave 'yours sincerely' for known person. Does this simply show how old I am?
- Very proud of my former PhD student, Kenyan Ambassador Martin Kimani, making this eloquent statement to Security CouncilIf you're gonna listen to any speech about #Ukraine 🇺🇦, let it be this one. The Kenya ambassador to the UNSC perfectly explains how people across Africa understand Ukraine, and what the Kremlin's acts of aggression mean in our post-colonial world.
00:00 - My analysis of why Putin may fail. I'll try to update this over coming days. A Reckless Gamble
- Still don't understand why we in the UK are not supposed to be frightened of 'no deal' at the same time as this very same 'no deal' is supposed to scare the EU into major concessions.
- Understand the fixation with the nuclear issue but it would be helpful if Western policy community also spent time thinking about a more likely end game in which Russia continues to cede ground without going nuclear.
- While Ukrainians are fighting, resisting, and dying for their country, I am disturbed at posts prematurely conceding victory to Putin, even from people who deeply oppose Russian actions. Wars have many stages and events unfold in unexpected ways.
- As Official Historian of Falklands can i note that Europeans showed solidarity with UK from the start (with sanctions etc) while US was reluctant to break with Argentina."I wonder if we had a conflict again with Argentina ... if we chose to take a different position with a country like Iran, we wouldn't be able to do these things because we are committed in a treaty adhering to European Union foreign policy"
00:00 - Given allegations about early UK response to Covid-19 I’ve been looking at minutes of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG). This to the main Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). The minutes can be found here app.box.com/s/3lkcbxepqixk…
- In March the Russians decided to abandon efforts to take Kyiv to concentrate on taking the Donbas. They are now abandoning Kharkiv to protect what they have in the Donbas (which is still not all of it). 1/2
- As many of you know my son Sam @Samfr had major surgery on Monday. He very much appreciated your good wishes. He’s had a tough few days because of complications. He’ll be in ICU until next week when he will hopefully pick up on twitter where he left off.
- In June 2015 I thought this was hilarious. Sigh.Imagining a future summit between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Donald Trump. Hair-raising.
- Other than that it is a completely different sort of war, that the Russians have been responsible for every escalation, and the US is not actually doing any fighting almost a perfect fit.The echoes of Vietnam in U.S. policy toward Ukraine today are a lot stronger than is commonly admitted. It's far from an exact analogy. But there's more to take heed of than the complete dismissal of the relevance of Vietnam suggests. 1/
- This is the fourth of my posts on the war. Does Russia face defeat? Space and Time
