SNUFFING POWER IN REAL TIME

 There were stories written long ago about my favorite seagoing brigands, the pirate submarines that allegedly interfered with shipping bound into Spain during its Civil War. That was never proven and there was never any assurance as to who those pirates were but one thing that I remember from that reading was that the mere presence of "pirate submarines" obfuscated whether or not a direct attack on shipping belonging to a major European power was being conducted by a future enemy combatant.

Let us talk of drones and wide open borders. By launching direct attacks on Russia with our long range weapons many people have concerns that Putin and Russia might retaliate. The feeble minded immediately think that Putin will just counterattack with nuclear weapons but the one thing one can honestly say about Putin is that he can be both very direct and very subtle. I suspect most people never see the subtle parts because Putin is unusually blunt in delivering his warnings and discussions of consequences.

There is literally no defense against drones in the United States nor in Europe. Your clever clogs Russian agents or hired contractors simply buys a few dozen drones off the shelf in target country A-Z, fits them out with some very easy to import or manufacture high explosive with a really simple contact fuze and then flies them into every single aircraft parked on the ramp at the target airbase.

I wonder how far one can link the control signals for drones. I remember we used to put PRC-77s at high places in Alaska in retrans mode so they would retransmit our signals much longer distances. The signal would just hop from one radio to another. With a rig like that the agents could be flying drones into B2 hangers in Whiteman while the operators were sitting on a hotel balcony swigging vodka in St. Louis. 

The people running this country, whoever they are, seem to be a lot more concerned about what they can do to Russia than what Russians can do to us. Without fingerprints pointing very clearly back at Russia, any attack like this could easily be blamed on China, Russia, the Illuminati, disgruntled Democrats upset about the election, NorKs, white supremacists and aliens. Who can say since they're pirate drones.

I keep seeing reports about all kinds of wild drone activity around our military and naval installations and they can't all be seabats. I think that perhaps somebody has already walked the battlefield and prepped the drones. As usual with direct attacks on America, our Intelligence agencies will be able to tell us all about it in precise detail in the classified after-action report they come up with in 2031.

You know what is funny is the repeated rumors that Putin is a coward who goes to ground whenever Russia suffers a reverse. I'm pretty sure that is nonsense but the same people and drones that would turn a trillion dollars of war machines into flaming debris could also easily take out any public official who puts in an appearance anywhere in public. A man like Putin is all too aware of how the CIA has always favored decapitation strikes on its enemies and they have gotten pretty good at it since Kennedy mysteriously died of a cough or something while out for a drive in Dallas.

I kind of wonder what frangible 20mm ammo looks like as it rains down on Arlington but I don't really want to know. I also kind of wonder how much longer we are going to pretend that coming up with a real killer solution to the drone problem is a crash priority project like the original ICBM and that it needs to be developed and fully operational and fielded worldwide by summer of 2025.

That said, I think Putin will probably start with a demonstration of his unhappiness and probably hit something in Germany or France since they're essentially harmless. On the other hand he might start with Britain who also used its weapons to strike targets in Russia but there are so few meaningful targets left in Britain and who knows, he might take all those ATACMS personally and decide to go after the man who ordered them to attack. Who knows, maybe once Putin's agents kill him,  Americans will find out who was really running this country for the last 4 years.

The truth must lie in the facts.

            –– Judge Learned Hand