Read on Twitter
a better picture of this is coming together but the underlying motivation is still missing https://twitter.com/HoansSolo/status/1278681757609492483
this is a critical detail
something that bothered me about the initial reports were really the "artisinally handcrafted murder" element. the ISI model for supplying proxy forces is far more effective, and its not based on handouts for individual kills
so it was strange that Russia seemed to be acting more or less outside of the major insurgent elements opposed to the US presence and in a way that seemed to be more arbitrary (individual dollar amounts per dead soldier) than anything else
given that this is a country filled with gunmen, many of which are freelancers, this is very easy to do its just a question of whether or not its strategically effective
so the revelation tucked into the story that the GRU unit was beginning to have high-level coordination discussions with senior Taliban leadership about target selection is the most important part
it would indicate some motive beyond simple bloodlust, revenge, or boundary-testing, perhaps tied to regional ambitions
really the most important parts of this story are not really about what Trump knew -- the President psychologically is incapable of "knowing" anything in the way you or I do --- but how much the GRU operation was a part of overarching Russian strategy and how much was
coordinated at a high level with militant leadership. There is a potential strategic rationale for this and it would fit with https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/raiding-and-international-brigandry-russias-strategy-for-great-power-competition/
but that remains to be seen, there is a deficit of useful open-source information about this. particularly because the bulk of the discussion domestically in the US is about the administration.
I do not think that this is unimportant -- its critically important. But due to the nature of the administration I am skeptical of how much you can discover right now. Do you feel confident about, say, your knowledge of even things like the DPRK showdown?
I mean, people have already forgotten that we probably came close to an actual shooting war! https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-demanded-evacuation-u-s-families-south-korea-threat-sparking-war-new-book-1476449
these incidents are shrouded in mystery not necessarily due to secrecy -- the administration leaks like a sieve -- but more because of the reality that
(a) everyone is lying
(b) the truth is often stranger than the lies
(c) there is no decision-making process
(d) shit happens
(a) everyone is lying
(b) the truth is often stranger than the lies
(c) there is no decision-making process
(d) shit happens
its more useful at this point to try to look at the other side of the hill here because I think we already "know" what happened with our own
