Edit 1: More ARKQ buying today (~50k shares). Thank you everyone for the positive feedback and discussion!
Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF) or TL;DR for the non-military types:
LMT is a good target if you want to literally go to the moon, and my PT is $690.26 in two years (more than 2x from current levels). Justification and some possible trade ideas are listed below, just CTRL-F “Trade Ideas”. I hope you guys enjoy this work and would appreciate any discussion or feedback. I hope to catch you in the comments.
Team,
We interrupt today’s regularly scheduled short squeeze coverage to discuss a traditionally boring stock, LMT (Lockheed Martin), with significant upside potential. To be clear, this is NOT a short squeeze target like many reddit posts are keying on. I hope that this piece sparks discussion, but if you are just looking for short squeeze content, all I have to say is BUY, HOLD, and GODSPEED.
The source of inspiration for me writing this piece is threefold; first, retail investors are winning, and I believe that we will continue to win if we continue to identify opportunities in the market. In my view, the stock market has always been a place for the public to shine a light on areas of innovation that real Americans are excited about and proud to be a part of. Online communities have stolen the loudspeaker from hedge fund managers and returned it to decentralized online democracies that quickly and proudly shift their weight behind ideas they believe in. In GME’s case, it was a blatant smear campaign to destroy a struggling business. I think that we should continue this campaign by identifying opportunities in the market and running with them. It may sound overly idealistic, but if reddit can take on the hedge funds, I non-ironically believe that we can quite literally take good companies researching space technology to the moon. I think LMT may be one of several stocks to help get us there.
Second, a video where the Secretary of State of Massachusetts argues that internet boards are full of a bunch of unsophisticated, thoughtless traders really ticked me off. This piece is designed to show that ‘the little guy’ is ready to get into the weeds, understand business plans, and outpace analysts that think companies like Tesla are overvalued by comparing them to Toyota. That is a big reason that I settled on an old, large, slow growth company to do a deep-dive on, and try my best to show some of the abysmal predictive analysis major ‘research firms’ do on even some of the most heavily covered stocks. LMT is making moves, and the suits on wall street are 10 steps behind. At the time of writing this piece, Analyst Estimates range from 330-460 (what an insane range).
Third, and most importantly, I am in the US military, and I think that it is fun to go deep into the financials of the defense sector. I think that it helps me understand the long-term growth plans of the DoD, and I think that I attack these deep-dives with a perspective that a lot of these finance-from-day-one cats do not understand. Even if no one ever looks at this work, I think that taking the time to write pieces like this makes me a better Soldier, and I will continue to do it in my spare time when I am feeling inspired. I wrote a piece on Raytheon Technologies (Ticker: RTX) 6 months ago, and I think it was well-received. I was most convicted about RTX in the defense sector, but I have since shifted to believing LMT is the leader in the defense space. I am long both, though. If this inspires anyone else to do similar research on other companies, or sparks discussion in the community, that is just a bonus. Special shout-out to the folks that read more than just the TL;DR, but if you do just read the TL;DR, I love you too!
Now let us get into it:
Leadership
I generally like to invest in companies that are led by people that seem to have integrity. Jim Taiclet took the reins at LMT in June of last year. While on active duty, he served as a C-141B Starlifter pilot (a retired LMT Aircraft). After getting out he went to work for the American Tower Corporation (Ticker: AMT). His first day at American Tower was September 10, 2001. The following day, AMT lost 13 employees in the World Trade Center attack. He stayed with the company, despite it being decimated by market uncertainty in the wake of 9/11. He was appointed CEO of the very same company in 2004. Over a 16 year tenure as CEO of AMT the company market cap 20x’d. He left his position as CEO of AMT in March of last year, and the stock stagnated since his departure, currently trading at roughly the same market cap as to when he left.
Jim Taiclet was also appointed to be the chairman of the board this week, replacing the previous CEO. Why is it relevant that the CEO came from a massive telecommunications company?
Rightfully, Taiclet’s focus for LMT is bringing military technology into the modern era. He wants LMT to be a first mover in the military 5G space, military application of AI space, the… space space, and the hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) space. These areas are revolutionary for the boomer defense sector. We will discuss this in more detail later when we cover the company’s P/E multiple and why it is absolute nonsense.
It is not a surprise to me that they brought Taiclet on during the pandemic. He led AMT through adversity before, and LMT’s positioning during the pandemic is tremendous relative to the rest of the sector, thanks in large part to some strong strategic moves and good investments by current and past leadership. I think that Taiclet is the right CEO for the job.
In addition to the new CEO, the new Secretary of Defense, Secretary Lloyd Austin, has strong ties to the defense sector. He was formerly a board member for RTX. He is absolutely above reproach, and a true leader of character, but I bring this up not to suggest that he will inappropriately serve in the best interest of defense contractors, but to suggest that he speaks the language of these companies effectively. I do not anticipate that the current administration poses as significant of a risk to the defense sector as many analysts seem to believe. This will be expanded in the headwinds section below.
SPACE
Cathie Wood and the ARK Invest team brought a lot of attention to the space sector when the ARKX, The ARK Space Exploration ETF, Form N-1A was officially filed through the SEC. More recently, ARK Invest published their Big Ideas 2021 Annual Report and dedicated an entire 7-page chapter to Orbital Aerospace, a new disruptive innovation platform that the ARK Team is investigating. This may have helped energize wall street to re-look their portfolios and their investments in space technology, but it was certainly not the first catalyst that pushed the defense industry in the direction of winning the new space race.
In June 2018, then President Trump announced at the annual National Space Council that “it is not enough to merely have an American presence in space, we must have American dominance in space. So important. Therefore, I am hereby directing the Department of Defense (DoD) and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the Armed Forces". Historically, Department of Defense space assets were under the control of the Air Force. By creating a separate branch of service for the United States Space Force (USSF), the DoD would allocate a Chairman of Space Operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff and clearly define the budget for space operations dedicated directly to the USSF. At present, this budget is funneled from the USAF’s budget. The process was formalized in December of 2019, and the DoD has appropriated ~$15B to the USSF in their first full year of existence according to the FY21 budget.
Among the 77 spacecraft that are controlled by the USSF, 29 of them are Lockheed Martin GPS satellites, 6 of them are Lockheed Martin Space-Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS), and LMT had a hand in creating and/or manufacturing for several of the other USSF efforts. The Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared Missile Warning Satellites (also known as Next-Gen OPIR) were contracted out to both Northrup Grumman (Ticker: NOC) and LMT. LMT’s contract is currently set at $4.9B, NOC’s contract is set at $2.37B.
Tangentially related to the discussion of space is the discussion of hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs). HGVs have exoatmospheric and atmospheric implications, but I think that their technology is extremely important to driving margins down for both space exploration and terrestrial point-to-point travel. LMT is leading the charge for military HGV research. They hold contracts with the Navy, Air Force, and Army to develop HGVs and hypersonic precision fires. The priority for HGV technology accelerated significantly when Russia launched their Avangard HGV in December of 2019. Improving the technology for HGVs is a critical next-step in maintaining US hegemony, but also maintaining leadership in both terrestrial and exoatmospheric travel.
LARGE SCALE COMBAT OPERATIONS (LSCO)
The DoD transitioning to Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) as the military’s strategic focus. This is a move away from an emphasis on Counter-Insurgency operations. LSCO requires effective multi-domain operations (MDO), which means effective and integrated strategies regarding land, sea, air, space, and cyberspace. To have effective MDO, the DoD is seeking systems that both expand capabilities against peer threats and increase the ability to track enemy units and communicate internally. This requires a modernizing military strategy that relies heavily on air, missile, and sensor modernization. Put simply, the DoD has decided to start preparing for peer or near-peer adversaries (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea) rather than insurgencies. For this reason, I believe that increased Chinese and Russian tensions are, unfortunate as it may be, a boon to the defense industry. This is particularly true in the missiles/fires and space industry, as peer-to-peer conflicts are won by leveraging technological advantages.
There are too many projects to cover in detail, but some important military technologies that LMT is focusing on to support LSCO include directed energy weapons (lasers) to address enemy drone technology, machine learning / artificial intelligence (most applications fall under LMT’s classified budget, but it is easy to imagine the applications of AI in a military context), and 5G to increase battlefield connectivity. These projects are all nested within the DoD’s LSCO strategy, and position LMT as the leader in emergent military tech. NOC is the other major contractor making a heavy push in the modernization direction, but winners win, and I think a better CEO, balance sheet, and larger market cap make LMT the clear winner for aiding the DoD in a transition toward LSCO.
SECTOR COMPARISON (BACKLOG)
The discussion of LSCO transitions well into the discussion of defense contractor backlogs. Massive defense contracts are not filled overnight, so examining order backlogs is a relatively reliable way to gauge the interest of the DoD in a defense contractor’s existing or emerging products. For my sector comparison, I am using the top 6 holdings of the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (Ticker: ITA). I hate this ETF, and ETFs like it (DFEN) because of their massively outsized exposure to aerospace, and undersized allocation to companies like LMT. LMT is only 18% smaller than Boeing (Ticker: BA) but is only 30.4% of the exposure of BA (18.46% of the fund is BA, only 5.62% of the fund is LMT). Funds of this category are just BA / RTX hacks. I suggest building your own pie on a site like M1 Finance (although they are implicated in the trade restriction BS… please be advised of that… hoping other brokerages that are above board will offer similar UIs like the pie design… just wanted to be clear there) if you are interested in the defense sector.
The top 6 holdings of ITA are:
Boeing Company (Ticker: BA, MKT CAP $110B) at 18.46%
Raytheon Technologies (Ticker: RTX, MKT CAP $101B) at 17.84%
Lockheed Martin (Ticker: LMT, MKT CAP $90B) at 5.62%
General Dynamics Corporation (Ticker: GD, MKT CAP $42B) 4.78%
Teledyne Technologies Incorporated (Ticker: TDY, MKT CAP $13B) at 4.74%
Northrop Grumman Corporation (Ticker: NOC, MKT CAP $48B) at 4.64%
As a brief aside, please look at the breakdowns of ETFs before buying them. The fact that ITA has more exposure to TDY than NOC and L3Harris is wild. Make sector ETFs balanced how you want them to be balanced and it will be more engaging, and you will likely outperform. I digress.
Backlogs for defense companies can easily be pulled from their quarterly reports. Here are the current backlogs in the same order as before, followed by a percentage of their backlog to their current market cap. All numbers are pulled from January earning reports unless otherwise noted with an * because they are still pending.
Boeing Company backlog (Commercial: $282B, Defense: $61B, Foreign Military Sales (FMS, categorized by BA as ‘Global’): 21B, Total Backlog 364B): BA’s backlog to market cap is a ratio of 3.32, which is strong, but most of that backlog comes from the commercial, not the defense side. Airlines have been getting decimated, I am personally not interested in having much of my backlog exposed to commercial pressures when trying to invest in a defense play. Without commercial exposure, their defense only backlog ratio is .748. This is extremely low. I understand that this does not do BA justice, but I am keying in on defense exposure, and I am left thoroughly unsatisfied by that ratio. Also, we have seen several canceled contracts already on the commercial side.
Raytheon Technologies backlog (Defense backlog for all 4 subdivisions: 67.3B): Raytheon only published a defense backlog in this quarter’s report. That is further evidence to me that the commercial aerospace side of the house is getting hammered. They have a relatively week backlog to market cap as well, putting them at a ratio of .664, worse off than the BA defense backlog.
Lockheed Martin backlog (Total Backlog: $147B): This backlog blows our first two defense backlogs out of the water with a current market cap to backlog ratio of 1.63.
General Dynamics Corporation backlog (Total Backlog: $89.5B, $11.6B is primarily business jets, but it is difficult to determine how much of their aerospace business is commercial): Solid 2.13 ratio, still great 1.85 if you do not consider their aerospace business. The curveball here for me is that GD published a consolidated operating profit of $4.1B including commercial aerospace, whereas LMT published a consolidated operating profit of $9.1B. This makes the LMT ratio of profit/market cap slightly in favor of LMT without accounting for the GD commercial aerospace exposure. This research surprised me; I may like GD more than I originally assumed I would. Still prefer LMT.
Teledyne Technologies Incorporated backlog (Found in the earnings transcript, $1.7B): This stock is not quite in the same league as the other major contractors. This is an odd curveball that a lot of the defense ETFs seem to have too much exposure to. They have a weak backlog, but they are a smaller growing company. I am not interested in this at all. It has a backlog ratio of .129.
Northrop Grumman Corporation backlog ($81B): Strong numbers here. I see NOC and LMT as the two front-runners in the defense sector. I like LMT more because I like their exposure to AI, 5G, and HGVs more than NOC, but I think this is a great alternative to LMT if you like the defense sector. Has a ratio of 1.69, slightly edging out LMT on this metric. LMT edges out NOC on margins by ~.9%, though, which has significant implications when considering the depth of the LMT backlog.
The winners here are LMT, GD, and NOC. BA is attractive if you think anyone will have enough money to buy new planes. BA and RTX are both getting hammered by commercial aerospace exposure right now and are much more positioned as recovery plays. That said, LMT and NOC both make money now, and will regardless of the impact of the pandemic. LMT is growing at a slightly faster rate than NOC. Both are profit machines, but I like LMT’s product portfolio and leadership a lot more.
FREE CASH FLOW
Despite the pandemic, LMT had the free cash flow to be able to pay a $2.60 per share dividend. This maintains their ~3% yearly dividend rate. They had a free cash flow of $6.4B. They spent $3.9 of that in share repurchases and dividend payouts. That leaves 40% of that cash to continue to strengthen one of the most stalwart balance sheets outside of big tech on the street. Having this free cash flow allowed them to purchase Aerojet Rocketdyne for $4.4B in December. They seem flexible and willing to expand and take advantage of their relative position during the pandemic. This is a stock that has little downside risk and significant upside potential. It is always reassuring to me to know that at the end of the day, a company is using its profit to continue to grow.
HEADWINDS
New Administration – This is more of an unknown than a headwind. The Obama Administration was not light on military spending, and the newly appointed SecDef is unlikely to shy away from modernizing the force. Military defense budgets may get lost in the political shuffle, but nothing right now suggests that defense budgets are on the chopping block.
Macroeconomic pressure – The markets are tumultuous in the wake of GME. Hedgies are shaking in their boots, and scared money weighed on markets the past week. If scared money continues to exert pressure on the broader equity markets, all boomer stocks are likely weighed down by slumping markets.
Non-meme Status – The stocks that are impervious to macroeconomic pressures in the above paragraph are the stonks that we, the people, have decided to support. From GME to IPOE, there is a slew of stonks that are watching and laughing from the green zone as the broader markets slip deeper into the red zone. Unless sentiment about LMT changes, I see no evidence that LMT will remain unaffected by a broader economic downturn (despite showing growth YoY during a pandemic).
TAILWINDS
Aerojet Rocketdyne to the Moon – Cathie Wood opened up a $39mil position in LMT a few weeks ago, and this was near the announcement of ARKX. The big ideas 2021 article focuses heavily on satellite technology, deep learning, and HGVs. I think that the AR acquisition suggests that vertical integration is a priority for LMT. They even fielded a question in their earnings call about whether they were concerned about being perceived as a monopoly. Their answer was spot on—the USFG and DoD have a vested interest in the success of defense companies. Why would they discourage a defense contractor from vertical integration to optimize margins?
International Tensions – SolarWinds has escalated US-Russia tensions. President Biden wants to look tough on China. LSCO is a DoD-wide priority.
5G.Mil – We still do not have a lot of fidelity on what this looks like, but the military would benefit in a lot of ways if we had world-wide access to the rapid transfer of encrypted data. Many units still rely on Vietnam-era technology signal technology with abysmal data rates. There are a lot of implications if the code can be cracked to win a DoD 5G contract.
TRADE IDEAS
Price Target: LMT is currently at a P/E of ~14. Verizon has roughly the same. LMT’s 5-year P/E ratio average is ~17. NOC is currently at a P/E of ~20. TSLA has a P/E Ratio of 1339 (disappointingly not 1337). P/E is a useless metric because no one seems to care about it. My point is that LMT makes a lot of money, and other companies that are valued at much higher multiples do not make any money at all. LMT’s P/E ratio is that of a boomer stock that has no growth potential. LMT’s P/E is exactly in line with the Aerospace and Defense Industry P/E ratio standard. LMT’s new CEO is pushing the industry in a new direction. I will arbitrarily choose a P/E ratio of 30, because it is half of the software industry average, and it is a nice round number. Plus, stock values are speculative and nonsense anyway.
Share price today: $321.82
Share price based on LMT average 5-year P/E: $384.08 (I see this as a short term PT, reversion to the mean)
Share price with a P/E of 30: $690.26
Buy and Hold: Simple. Doesn’t take much thought. Come back in a year or two and be happy with your tendies (and a few dividends to boot).
LEAPS Call Debit Spread (Based on last trade prices): Buy $375 C 20 JAN 23 for $26.5, Sell $450 C 20 JAN 23 for $12. Total Cost $14.5 for a spread width of $75. Max gain 517% per spread. Higher risk strategy.
LEAPS: Buy $500 C 20 JAN 23 for $7.20. Very high-risk strat. If the price target is hit within two years, these would be in the money $183 per contract for a gain of 2500%. This is the casino strat.
SOURCES
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/news/features/2020/james-taiclet-from-military-pilot-to-successful-ceo.html
https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/in-response-to-senator-warrens-questions-secretary-of-defense-nominee-general-lloyd-austin-commits-to-recusing-himself-from-raytheon-decisions-for-four-years
https://news.lockheedmartin.com/2019-08-30-Lockheed-Martins-Expertise-in-Hypersonic-Flight-Wins-New-Army-Work
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/capabilities/hypersonics.html
https://research.ark-invest.com/hubfs/1_Download_Files_ARK-Invest/White_Papers/ARK%E2%80%93Invest_BigIdeas_2021.pdf?hsCtaTracking=4e1a031b-7ed7-4fb2-929c-072267eda5fc%7Cee55057a-bc7b-441e-8b96-452ec1efe34c
https://www.deseret.com/2018/6/19/20647309/twitter-reacts-to-trump-s-call-for-a-space-force
https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/fy2021/fy2021_Budget_Request_Overview_Book.pdf
https://www.airforcemag.com/lockheed-receives-up-to-4-9-billion-for-next-gen-opir-satellites/
https://spacenews.com/northrop-grumman-gets-2-3-billion-space-force-contract-to-develop-missile-warning-satellites/
https://www.lockheedmartin.com/en-us/capabilities/directed-energy/laser-weapon-systems.html
https://emerj.com/ai-sector-overviews/lockheed-martins-ai-applications-for-the-military/
https://www.defenseone.com/business/2020/07/new-ceo-wants-lockheed-become-5g-playe167072/
https://www.wsj.com/articles/defense-firms-expect-higher-spending-11548783988
https://www.etf.com/ITA#efficiency
https://s2.q4cdn.com/661678649/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/4Q20-Presentation.pdf
https://investors.rtx.com/static-files/dfd94ff7-4cca-4540-bc4b-4e3ba92fc646
https://investors.lockheedmartin.com/static-files/64e5aa03-9023-423a-8908-2aae8c7015ac
https://s22.q4cdn.com/891946778/files/doc_financials/2020/q4/GD_4Q20_Earnings_Highlights-Outlook-Final.pdf
https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2021/01/27/teledyne-technologies-inc-tdy-q4-2020-earnings-cal/
https://investor.northropgrumman.com/static-files/6e6e117f-f656-4c68-ba7f-3dc53c2dd13a

We’re jacking into the MTRX

The History of the Entire World, I Guess

hi.
you're on a rock floating in space.
pretty cool, huh?
some of it's water.
fuck it, actually most of it's water.
i can't even get from here to there without buying a boat.
it's sad.
i'm sad.
i miss you.
how did this happen?
a long time ago, actually never, and also now, nothing is nowhere.
when?
never.
makes sense, right?
like i said, it didn't happen.
nothing was never anywhere.
that's why it's been everywhere.
it's been so everywhere you don't need a where.
you don't even need a when.
that's how every it gets.
forget this.
i wanna be something.
go somewhere.
do something.
i want things to change.
i want to invent time and space.
and i know it's possible because everything is here and it probably already happened.
i just don't know when to start.
and that's exactly where it started.
whoah, i paused it.
i think there's a universe now.
what's it made of?
quarks & stuff
ah, that's a thing.
in a place.
don't like it?
try a new place.
at a different time™.
try to stick together, because the world is gonna get bigger.
and emptier.
but it's not empty yet.
it's still very full, and about a kjghpillion degrees.
great news!
the quarks are now happily married, in groups of three called a proton or a neutron
and there's something else flying around too that wants to join in but can't cause it's still too
HOT
great news!
the protons and neutrons are now happily married to each other.
and some of them even doubled up.
great news, the electrons have now joined in
congratulations, the world is now a bunch of gas in space.
but it's getting closer together.
and it's getting closer together.
and it's getting closer toge-
it's a star
new shit just got made!
some stars burn out and die.
bigger stars burn out and die with passion, and make some brand new, way crazier shit.
space dust
which allows newer, more interesting stars to be made, and then die, and explode into
even crazier space dust
so now stars have cool stuff around them, like rocks, ice, and funny clouds, which can make some very interesting things.
like this ball of flaming rocks for example.
holy shit, we just got hit with another ball of flaming rocks.
and it kind of made a mess.
which is
now the moon
weather update:
it's raining rocks from outer space.
weather update:
those rocks might have had water inside them, and now there's hot steam in the sky.
weather update:
cooler temperatures today, and the floor is no longer lava.
weather update:
it's raining.
severe flooding alert:
the entire world is now an ocean.
volcano alert:
that's land!
there's life in the ocean
what?
something's alive in the ocean
oh cool, like a plant or an animal?
no, a microscopic speck.
it lives at the bottom of the ocean and eats chemical soup, which is being served hot and fresh, made from gnarly space ingredients left over from when it was raining rocks or whatever.
oh yeah, and it can do that.
it has secret instructions written inside itself telling it how to build another one of itself.
so that's pretty nifty, i would say.
tired of living at the bottom of the ocean?
now you can eat sunlight!
using a revolutionary technique, you can convert sunlight into food
taste the sun
side effect: now there's oxygen everywhere and the sky's blue.
then the earth might have been a snowball for a while, maybe even a couple of times.
it's a sponge.
it's a plant.
it's a worm, and some other types of weird strange water bugs and strange fish.
it's the Cambrian explosion
"wow, that's animals and stuff"
but we're still in the ocean, hey, can we go on land?
no
why?
the sun is a deadly lazer
oh okay.
not anymore, there's a blanket
now the animals can go on land.
come on, animals, let's go on land!
nope, can't walk yet.
and there's no food yet, so i don't care.
ok, will you learn to walk if there's plants up here?
maybe, said some bugs, and fish.
ok, so i can go on land, but i have to go back in the water to
have babies
learn to use an egg.
i was already doing that.
use a stronger egg.
put water in it.
have a baby, on land, in an egg.
water is in the egg.
baby, in the egg, in the water, in the egg.
works for me.
bye bye ocean
and now everything's huge.
including bugs.
wanna see a map of the land?
sure.
oh fuck, now everything's dead.
just kidding, here are the survivors.
keep your eye on this one because it's about to become the dinosaurs.
here's another map of the land.
yeah, it broke apart, don't worry about it, it does that all the time.
here comes a meteor.
and the dinosaurs are gone
it's mammal time, here come the mammals.
look at those breasts.
now they're gonna dominate the world and one of them just learned how to grab stuff.
and walk.
no, like, walk like that.
and grab stuff at the same time.
and bang rocks together to make pointed rocks.
"ouch"
and set things on fire.
"yeouch"
and make crazy sounds with their voice.
"gneurshk"
which can mean different things.
that's a human person
and now they're everywhere.
almost.
ice age
what, you can walk over here?
cool.
not anymore
well i guess we're stuck here now.
let's review.
there's people on the planet.
and they're chasing their food.
fuck it, time to plant some grass.
look at this.
i control the food now.
now everyone will want to be my friend and live near me.
let's all build houses except mine is bigger because i own the food.
this is great, i wonder if anyone else is doing this.
tired of using rocks for everything?
use metal.
it's underground.
better farming was just invented, in a sweet dank valley right in between these two rivers.
and the animals are helping.
guess what happens next
more food.
and more people who came to buy the food.
now you need people to help make the food and keep track of the sales.
and now you need houses for people to live in and people to make the houses, and now there's more people and they invent things, which makes things better and more people come and there's more farming and more people to make more things for more people and now there's business, money, writing, laws, power.
Society
coming soon to a dank river valley near you.
meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, the horse is probably being tamed.
why is all my metal so lame and lumpy?
tired of using lame, sad metal?
introducing
Bronze
made with special ingredient tin from the far lands of tin land.
i don't know, my dealer won't tell me where he gets it.
also, guess what?
egypt
meanwhile, out in the middle of nowhere, they figured out how to put wheels on a horse.
now we're getting somewhere.
also
china
and did i mention
indus river valley civilization
norte chico
the middle east is getting more complicated, maybe because it's in the middle of the east.
knock knock, er, clop clop.
it's the people with the horses.
and they made an empire.
and then everyone else copied their horses.
greeks
ah look, it must be the greeks, er, a beta version of the greeks.
let's check in with the indus river valley civilization.
they're gone.
guess who's not gone?
china
new arrivals in india, maybe it's those horse people i was talking about, or their cousins or something
and they wrote some hymns and mantras and stuff
you could make a religion out of this.
there's the bronze age collapse.
now the phoenicians can get down to business
also, can we switch to a metal that's a little easier to find?
thanks.
look who came back to israel, it's the twelve tribes of israel.
and they believe in God
just 1 though, he's got like a ten step program.
here's some huge heads.
must be the olmecs.
the phoenicians make some colonies.
the greeks copy their idea and make some colonies.
the phoenicians made a colony so big it makes colonies.
here comes the assyrian empire.
never mind, it's the babylonian- median-
it's the Persian Empire
"wow, that's big"
ah, the buddha was just enlightened.
who's the buddha?
this guy, who sat under a tree for so long that he figured out how to ignore the fact that we're all dying.
you could make a religion out of this.
oops, china just broke, but while it was breaking, confucius was figuring out how to have good morals.
ah, the greeks just had the idea of thinking about stuff.
and right over here, alexander just had the idea of conquering the entire persian empire.
it's a great idea.
he was great.
and now he's dead.
hopefully the rest of the gang will be able to share the empire evenly between them.
knock knock, it's chandragupta, he says get the hell out of here.
will you get the hell out of here if i give you 500 elephants?
ok thanks, bye
time to conquer all of india
or
most of india
but what about this part?
that's the tamil kings, no one conquers the tamil kings.
who are the tamil kings?
merchants, probably
and they've got spices
who would like to buy the spices?
me, said the arabians, swiftly buying it and selling it to the rest of the world.
hey, china put itself back together again, with good morals as their main philosophy.
actually, they have three main philosophies.
out here, the horse nomads run wild and free, and they would like to ransack your city.
let's check the greekification levels of the greekified kingdoms.
greekification overload!
bye, said the parthians.
bye, said the jews.
hi, said the parthians, taking over the entire place.
heyyyyyyyy, said the romans, eating the entire mediterranean for breakfast.
thanks for invading our homeland, said the jews, who were starting to get tired of people invading their homeland.
hi, everything's great, said some guy who seems to be getting very popular and is then arrested and killed for being too popular, which only makes him more popular.
you could make a religion out of this.
want silk?
now you can buy it from china.
they just made a
brand new road to the world
or you can
get there on water
sick! new trade routes! said india, accidentally spreading their religion to the entire southeast.
hmm, that's a good place for an epic trading kingdom.
there goes buddhism traveling up the silk road.
i wonder if it'll reach china before it collapses again.
remember the persian empire?
yep, said the persians, making a new one.
axum is getting so powerful they would like to build a long stick.
has anyone populated madagascar yet?
let's do it together.
china is whole again
then it broke again
still can't cross the sahara desert?
try camels.
hell yeah! now we've got business
said the ghana empire, selling lots of gold, and slaves
hi, i live in the roman empire, and i was wondering
is loving jesus legal yet?
no.
actually, ok, sure, said constantine, moving the capital way over here to be closer to his
main rival
don't worry about rome, it won't fall.
it's the golden age of india
there's the gupta empire, not chandragupta, just gupta.
first name chandra.
the first.
guess who's in rome?
barbarians
what's a barbarian?
non-romans, said the romans, being invaded by non-romans.
r.i.p., roman empire, er, actually just half of it, the other half is just fine, but it's not in rome anymore so let's give it a new name.
the mayans have figured out the stars
oh and here's a huge city, population: everyone
the göktürks have taken over the entire eurasian steppe.
great job, göktürks.
how's india?
broken.
how's china?
back together
how's those trading kingdoms?
bigger, and there's more of them
korea has 3 kingdoms.
japan has a kingdom, it's the sunrise kingdom.
deep in the arabian desert, on the top of a mountain, the real god whispers in muhammed's ear.
so he goes down to the cube where everyone worships gods and he tells them their gods are all fake.
and everyone got so mad at him that he had to leave town and go to a different town.
you could make a religion out of this.
and maybe conquer the world as well.
the roman empire is long gone, but somehow the pope is still the pope.
plus there's
new kingdoms all over europe
i wonder if there's room for moors.
here's all the wisdom.
in a house.
it's the baghdad house of wisdom.
just in time for the
islamic golden age
let's bring stuff to the coast and sell it, and become the swahili on the swahili coast, said the swahili on the swahili coast.
remember this tiny space you have to go through to get from here to there?
someone owns that now.
wanna get enlightened in the middle of nowhere?
the franks have the biggest kingdom in europe, and the pope is so proud that he invites the king over for christmas.
surprise! you're the new roman emperor, said the pope, pretending to still be part of the roman empire.
then the franks broke their kingdom into what will later be called france and not france.
but the northerners, or just norse if you don't have much time, are exploring.
they go north, from the north to the northern north.
and they find some land.
two types of land.
and they name them accordingly.
they also invade some other places, and get called many names, such as vikings.
there's the rus.
the kievan rus.
are they vikings?
i don't think so, said the kievan rus.
ok, fair enough.
the pope is ready to make some more emperors.
of the "roman empire".
the holy roman empire.
it's actually germany but don't worry about it.
new kingdoms.
christianize all the kingdoms
which brand would you like?
mine's better.
mine's better.
mine's better.
time to conquer england, said william.
it's a bird, it's a plane
it's the seljuk turks
aah! said the byzantine empire who's getting so small and almost doesn't exist anymore.
we need help!
they need help, so they call the pope.
hey pope, can you help us get rid of the seljuks?
maybe take back the holy land on the way?
come on, i know you want to take back the holy land.
yes, i do actually want to do that.
let's do a crusade.
crusade
they did many crusades, some of which almost didn't fail.
but at least the italians got some sweet trade deals.
goodbye mayans.
hello toltecs
goodbye toltecs.
hello mississippi
look at those mounds.
there's the pueblo.
i always wondered how to build a town in a cliff.
guess who's here?
khmer.
where?
here.
and pagan is there.
vietnam unconquered itself, korea just became itself, and japan is so addicted to art that the military might have to take over the government.
china just invented bombs, and typing.
and the mongols just invaded most of the universe.
nice going, Genghis!
i bet that will last a long time.
some of the islamic turks were unaffected by the mongol invasions because they were busy invading india.
is it tonga time?
i think it's tonga time.
i just found out where the swahili gets all their gold.
look at this chad.
means "lake".
there's an empire there.
right in the middle of
Africa
the king of mali is so rich he's going on tour to let everyone know.
wow, that guy's rich, everyone said.
the christians are doing a great job reconquering iberia, which will soon be called spain and not spain.
please remain christian.
we will check in later to see if you're still christian when you least expect.
whoops, half of europe just died.
ming
china's back, yay!
hey khmer, time to share.
new kingdoms here and there.
oh, look who controls all the islands.
it's the mahajapit.
majahapit.
mapajahit.
mahapajit.
mapajahit.
majapahit?
oh, italy's really rich, time for them to care a lot about art and the ancient classics.
it's kinda like a rebirth.
here's a printer.
let's make books.
so you think you can conquer the byzantine empire?
yep, said the ottoman turks.
nice job, ottoman turks.
whoops, you missed a spot.
don't forget to ban europe from the indian spice trade.
what? that's bullshit, said portugal, spiceless.
well i guess we'll have to find another way to india
wait! said christopher columbus, probably smoking crack.
if the world is round, let's go this way to india.
nah, don't worry, we already got this, said portugal.
so chris goes to spain.
hey spain, wanna hire me to find india by going around back of the world?
no.
please?
no.
please?
no.
please?
ok.
so he sails into the ocean.
and discovers more ocean.
and then discovers the indies.
and japan.
let's draw a line to decide who gets which half of the world.
the aztec and inca empires are off to a great start.
i wonder if they know that europe just discovered their continent?
the habsburgs are marrying into so many royal families they might have to start marrying each other.
move over lithuania, here comes moscow.
ivan wants to make russia great again.
move over timurids, maybe go invade india or something.
persia just made persia persian again.
let's make it the other kind of islam.
the one where we thought the first guy should have been the other guy.
hey christians!
do you sin?
now you can buy your way out of hell.
that's bullshit.
this whole thing is bullshit.
that's a scam.
fuck the church.
here's 95 reasons why, said martin luther, in his new book, which might have accidentally started the protestant reformation.
you know what would be magnificent, said suleiman, wearing an onion hat?
what if the ottoman empire was really big?
which it is now.
what if russia was big? said ivan, trying not to be terrible.
portugal had a dream that they controlled the entire indian ocean, including the spice trade.
and then that dream was real.
and spain realized that this is not india, but they pillaged it anyway.
damn, said england and france.
we gotta start pillaging some stuff.
then the dutch revolt and all the hipsters move to amsterdam.
damn, said amsterdam.
we gotta start pillaging some stuff.
question 1: can you get to india through north america?
no, but at least there's beaver.
question 2: steal the spice trade.
that's not a question, but the dutch did it anyway.
sugar
guess where all the sugar's made?
in brazil.
stolen
and the caribbean.
and it's so god damn profitable you might forget to not do slavery.
the next thing on russia's to-do list is to get bigger.
britain and france are having a friendly discussion about who should control the entire world.
more specifically, ohio.
then it escalates into a seven year discussion, giving prussia a chance to show austria who's boss.
but what about britain and france, did they figure out who's boss?
yes they did.
it's britain.
guess who's broke?
also britain.
so they start taxing the hell out of america.
fuck you, says america, declaring their independence, and fighting for it.
and france helps them win, now france is broke.
and britain'll have to send their prisoners to a different continent.
wait, if france is broke, why do the king and queen still wear such fancy dresses?
let's overthrow the palace and cut all their heads off! said robespierre, cutting everybody's head off until someone eventually got mad and cut his head off.
you could make a reli- no, don't.
haiti is staring to like the idea of a revolution.
especially the slaves, who free themselves by killing their masters.
why didn't we think of this before?
wait, who's in charge of france now?
me
said napoleon, trying to take over europe.
luckily, they banished him to an island.
but he came back
luckily, they banished him to another island.
there goes latin america, becoming independent in the latin american wars of independence.
britain just figured out how to turn steam into power.
so now they can make
many different types of machines and factories with machines in them so they can make a lot of products real fast
then they invent some trains.
and conquer india and maybe put some trains there.
hey, china! said britain.
buy stuff from us!
nah dude, we already got everything, says china.
so britain tried to get them addicted to opium.
which worked, actually.
but then china made it illegal and dumped it all into the sea.
so britain threw a hissy fit, and made them open up five cities and give them an island.
britain and russia are playing a game where they try to stop each other from conquering afghanistan.
also, the
sultan of oman lives in zanzibar now
"that's just where he lives"
india just had a revolution, and they would like to govern themselves now.
nope, said britain, governing them even harder than before.
technology is about to go crazy
the united states finally figured out whether slavery is good or bad.
it's bad, they decided.
and then they continued manifesting their destiny, which is to kill the rest of the natives and take their land and maybe kick out the mexicans too.
i know, let's rape africa, said europe, scrambling to see who could rape it the fastest.
they never got ethiopia
britain and france are still hungry.
they never got thailand
the united states ran out of destiny to manifest, so they're looking for more.
hawaii
cuba
wait, spain controls cuba.
well, blame something on them and go to war!
what should we blame on spain?
let's blame the maine on spain.
so they blame the maine on spain.
now we're in business.
to celebrate, they kick panama out of panama and make a canal, connecting the two oceans.
britain just found oil in the middle east.
it makes cars go
china is so tired of being bossed around that they delete their old government and make a new, stronger government, which is accidentally weaker and controlled by a guy from the previous government.
europe hasn't had a war since the last war.
so they start world war 1.
look at those guns.
it's gonna be a great war.
so great we won't need a second one.
after it's over, they blame germany.
russia went on strike and the workers overthrew the government.
now everyone's paycheck is the same.
communism
in the soviet union
the arabs revolt and britain helps.
now the ottoman empire's gone so we can give the
jewish people a place to live
hopefully the arabs won't mind.
let's cut the cake, said sykes and picot, carving up the remains of the not-so-ottoman-anymore empire.
except turkey, turkey makes a brand new turkey
and then the saudis conquer arabia.
it just seemed like the right thing to do.
hello?
yes, it's the 1920's calling.
let's get in the car and drive to a party and listen to jazz on the radio and go to the movies.
the economy's great and it'll probably be great forever, just kidding.
germany's back, featuring hitler, the angry mustache model.
and he's mad at the jews for existing.
japan is finally conquering the east, and they're so excited they rape nanking way too hard.
they should probably just deny it.
hitler's out of control.
so the international community tackles him and then tries to explain why killing all the jews is a bad idea.
but he kills himself before they could explain it to him.
that's world war 2
bonus round!
pacific showdown.
united states vs. japan.
fight!
finish him
let's unite all the nations and have some
world peace
seems legit.
hi, i'm gandhi, and if britain doesn't get the hell out of india, i'm gonna starve myself in public.
wow, that worked?
bonus, now there's pakistan.
actually two pakistans.
one of them can be bangladesh later.
the jews and the arabs finally figured out which one of them should live in the holy land.
me, they both said at the same time.
let's divide up the land so everyone's happy.
sike, they both get angrier
look out china, there's a new china in china.
what's on the menu?
communism!
no thanks, said the other china, escaping to an island.
i wonder which one is the real china?
there's the korean war, korea versus korea.
nobody wins, then it's on pause forever.
let's meet the sponsors.
oh, it's the two global superpowers.
they're having a friendly debate over which economic system is good, and which one is an evil virus of Satan.
and they both have atom bombs.
fight!
wait, no, that would be the end of the world.
let's just keep it cool and spy on each other instead.
and make sure we have enough atom bombs.
i'll race you to space.
now let's make some more countries fight themselves.
europe is tired of pillaging other continents, so the continents they were pillaging are tired of being pillaged.
so here's a new map, with new countries.
now you can't tell who they're being pillaged by.
the united states finally decided whether racism is good or bad.
they decided it's bad, and the world agrees.
south africa might need another minute to think about it.
let's check the world population.
whoa.
okay.
technology's better too, that might keep happening.
the soviet union decides to relax a little, and accidentally falls apart.
europe makes a union, so now they can all use the same money, except britain, because they don't feel like it.
let's check the mail.
surprise, it's on the computer.
whoops, someone just attacked america.
i bet they'll remember that.
phone call.
surprise, it's in your pocket.
wanna learn everything?
surprise, it's on the computer.
now your phone's a computer, which is in your pocket.
whoops, the economy just crashed.
don't worry, the big banks won't fail because they're not supposed to.
surprise!
flying robots.
with bombs.
wanna print a brain?
some people have no friends.
some people have no food.
the globe is warming
and the ocean is full of plastic
let's save the planet! said everybody, not knowing how.
let's invent a thing inventor, said the thing inventor inventor, after being invented by a thing inventor.
that's pretty cool.
by the way, where the hell are we?

35 things I wish I learned years earlier

This post is mod-approved and I hope it's helpful.
My name is Jared A. Brock and today is my 35th birthday. It’s been a wild ride: I’ve walked across hot coals, swam up an underground river by candlelight, eaten bull’s testicles, and roasted marshmallows on flowing lava.
I’ve written three books, directed four films, published 400+ articles everywhere from Esquire to The Guardian to TIME Magazine, road-tripped through 45 American states and nine Canadian provinces, helped get some laws changed, and traveled to forty countries including North Korea and the Vatican.
I’ve enjoyed nearly thirteen years of marriage to my seventh-grade sweetheart, and we’ve been blessed to fundraise hundreds of thousands for charity. Though not without tons of mistakes and some major setbacks — financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually — it’s been a pretty decent trip so far.
I’m lucky, blessed, downright spoiled. And even though I certainly don’t claim to be wise in any way, shape, or form, here are 35 things I wish I’d learned far sooner. None of these are rules or commands for you to follow, just personal reflections from a decade of journaling. I hope they save you a lot of time, energy, struggle, and life:

1. “Save the best for last” is terrible advice.

A French monk taught me this one. Every morning, I put on the newest pair of socks in my drawer. Why wear the rattiest pair? When I sit down to eat, I eat the tastiest bits first. Why let them get cold? After every shower, I put on my favorite clean t-shirt. I have a great bottle of 10-year-old Laphroaig scotch in my cupboard, but I probably won’t drink it for months because I received two bottles of reactor-aged Lost Spirits single malt for Christmas.
Why? Because life is hard enough and we aren’t promised tomorrow. This doesn’t mean we should throw caution to the wind and “live in the moment” at all times, but it does mean we should try to find the golden middle and glean a little bit of pleasure from every day we’re blessed to live. “Save the best for last” is poverty-mentality thinking. It expects worse in the future. Enjoy the best right now — in your marriage, parenting, work, travel, faith, friendship, contribution. Keep all the chips on the table. Be ready at all times to leave without regret.

2. Tools use us.

A hammer literally cannot hit a nail without using a human.A saw cannot cut through a board without using a human.A phone cannot deliver ads without using a human.

3. Avoid false dichotomies.

When given two great options, choose both.When given two horrible options, choose neither.

4. Failure is overcome by one word.

“Next.”

5. Give yourself a shove.

The best way to eat more candy and drink more vodka is to leave them side-by-side on the kitchen counter.
You get it. Willpower is useless. Instead, line up a series of little nudges to automatically get you through your day. If you want to work out, leave your shorts by the door or your cleats in your fridge. My blue diode glasses rest on top of my laptop so I have to protect my eyes before logging online. I can’t not see my vitamins when I brush my teeth, or chia seeds when I reach for the Brita. There’s a book beside my bed, toilet, desk, and car’s gear shifter.
Line up enough nudges and you can shove yourself in the right direction.

6. Awkward is awesome.

My best friend says that The Office gave society a beautiful gift: the ability to embrace cringe. When you meet someone new and it’s slightly weird, pretend you’re Michael Scott. Just glory and bask in the discomfort.
You can awkward-proof your life by being bold: Ask for discounts. Ask for refunds. Ask for phone numbers. Ask for pay raises. Ask inappropriate questions at inappropriate times. Lather yourself in awkward and pretty soon nothing sticks.

7. Ambition is ruinous for your happiness.

Most goal-setters (myself included) live much of life in anticipation of tomorrow, and when that day arrives, they’re either disappointed by their failures or underwhelmed by their successes.
Instead: trust the process. Whiskey, pasta, bread, beer, and cereal all require just two ingredients — wheat and water — but the outcome is completely different based on the process. Identity precedes action. Determine what you want to be, then determine the process that will get you there every single time.

8. The Marines were right: slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

As teenagers, my friend Tyler and I were in a hurry to get somewhere quickly so we drove 120+ miles per hour for forty-five straight minutes before nearly crashing when the speed burned a footlong gash through the tire. By the time we replaced it with a spare, we were late to our destination by more than an hour.
But nevermind driving. Pump the life-brakes sometimes, or at least, let off the gas. You might get there faster.

9. Most “leaders” aren’t leaders.

Celebrities, politicians, and book-hocking business gurus all call themselves leaders. They’re not.
Real leadership is influence that serves. True leaders are selfless and servant-hearted. They put the best interests of others ahead of their own. Politics and media, by comparison, attracts sociopaths like flies to firelight. Never give power to those who seek it. Nearly everyone worth following is dead.

10. Old people know better.

Honoring our elders is one of the most underrated practices in our newness-obsessed society. Sure, there are a ton of old crazy far-right conspiracy theorists, but there are also good people who have survived four wars, six recessions, and twelve presidents and are somehow still smiling. Get to know them.
Also: meet your old-person self. I try to invent a new word every week — one of them is preflection. To ponder the present through the eyes of your future self. Take an hour in silence to listen to your eighty-year-old self. They might know something you don’t.

11. Fire all your employees.

The employer-employee relationship creates an unhealthy power dynamic between humans that simply didn’t exist when we worked cooperatively to feed our clan or village. I love my work life so much more now that I only work with independent entrepreneurs who are my equals. For me, it’s either a one-man show (my writing business), an equal partnership (my film company), or a co-operative endeavor. Life’s too short to be a boss or be bossed around.

12. Accept that you are a voracious locust of doom.

Nail a roll of paper to the wall and write down everything you consume for a year — food, toilet paper, electricity, car fuel, movies, music, social media content, other people’s time, everything. See what I mean?
Saint Augustine said that the human heart can only fully be satisfied by one thing aside from God himself: everything. All the sex, all the money, all the power, all the possessions, all the glory. All of it. Nothing short of everything could ever fully satiate the human heart. We are wired for more.
Understanding this truth is the first step toward real contentment.

13. Forget what the market wants.

Listen to your gut. Your body knows the difference between good and great. Someone said you should never record a song or code an app or write an article unless it makes you laugh, cry, or orgasm. If an idea doesn’t move you, it won’t move an audience, no matter how “commercial” you think it is.

14. Happiness isn’t the purpose of life.

Hitler really was following his bliss by offing millions of Jews. I’m sure Jeffrey Dahmer genuinely enjoyed the taste of human flesh. Bernie Madoff seemed content to bilk charities for decades.
Happiness isn’t the purpose of life. It’s not even in the top ten. Happiness is a seasonal fruit, not a foundational root. Find firm and fertile ground.

15. There is no ugly.

My grandpa re-proposed to my grandma on their fiftieth wedding anniversary and called her the most beautiful woman he’s ever known. Old wrinkly grandma? Yes. Because we choose our definition of beauty through our thoughts, disciplines, habits, and patterns, be they conscious or otherwise.

16. We are what we consume.

The statistical average American is a walking bodybag of sugar, alcohol, caffeine, porn, pills, and digital stimulus. Imagine how different life would be if our only inputs were nature, sleep, sunlight, organic food, and embodied human interaction?
Guard your inputs carefully.

17. We’re going to die quite soon.

Make sure you live first. Practicing memento mori will help.

18. Fame is poison.

One in four Gen Zers thinks they’ll be famous by age 25. One in 3.9999999 Gen Zers are going to have a miserably disappointing life.
Why do people desire the attention of strangers? Because we all need to love and be loved, to know and be known, but are too afraid to risk personal heartbreak to seek it out. Attention is not affection. Influence is not intimacy.

19. Boomers are to blame for half our troubles.

The Me Generation took a free ride at the planet’s expense and is hellbent on taking the rest of it with them. They’re statistically low on empathy — blame the lead, asbestos, and hairspray if you must — but at least acknowledge the reality that life is hard for everyone, and no one has it easier.

20. Children are dope.

Kids are the blood transfusion in our sick system. We need to stop manipulating, brainwashing, colonizing, and propagandizing them, and learn from them instead.

21. It doesn’t have to hurt.

Joy is a choice.

22. Watch comedy before calls and meetings.

Five minutes of gut-busting laughter will prime you for even the most tedious conference call. Your co-workers and customers all have tough lives like everybody else, so brighten their day by pre-brightening your own.

23. No ragrets.

Tattoo it on your neck. Most people play it far too safe. Instead: optimize your life for the least number of regrets and the most amount of selfless contribution.

24. There are better ways to vote.

I’ve manned several local voting stations, and I’ve also hob-nobbed with politicians in Canada, America, and the UK. The reality is that they don’t work for us. They work for their corporate sponsors and private interests.
Democracy isn’t dead. It just hasn’t happened yet, with all attempts to date being stillborn or aborted. Democracy = one voice one vote. Athens wasn’t a democracy — women, slaves, and tenants had zero say. America isn’t a democracy either — no representative system is, because it’s far too easy for private interests to buy politicians. The charade of voting is illusory. All elections are sham elections.
So what to do? Vote with your money and time and attention. One sham vote every four years versus tens of thousands of dollar-votes each year? It’s a no-brainer. My wife and I haven’t stepped foot in a Walmart in more than a decade because thousands of its suppliers are based in China, the billionaire heirs are anti-democratic tax-avoiders, and they treat their employees like indentured servants. Vote for pro-democracy third-party candidates if you must — just understand the game, and also vote in the ways that actually matter.

25. Everything easy has already been done.

So run a little further. And if it hasn’t been done, it won’t be as easy as it appears. The question to ask is: what’s been standing in the way this whole time? Achievement is all about knocking down obstacles. Just make sure what’s on the other side is rightly worth the effort.

26. Broccoli still tastes terrible.

But you’re not a child anymore. Adults do hard things.

27. Fixed-order scheduling > fixed-hour scheduling.

Discipline is great, but it’s also subject to the law of diminishing returns. Life is just too dynamic to schedule with military precision. Free yourself from the tyranny of “only people who wake up at 5 AM are successful.”
All hours are not created equal. It depends on your sleep drive and chronotype. Know yourself. Unapologetically get some sleep, then do your best work at your best time in your best state.

28. “Freedom” isn’t freedom.

America wasn’t founded on freedom. America was founded on violent autonomy.
The ancient Greeks had an entirely different definition of freedom: it was the ability to choose the right regardless of circumstance.

“We talk about freedom all the time, but we’ve stopped talking about freedom a long time ago. Now we’re talking about autonomy. Freedom is different than autonomy. Freedom has boundaries. Truth is one of those boundaries. And morality is one of those boundaries. Autonomy is the ability to do whatever you want whenever you want in whatever way you want. The problem is this: If I’m autonomous and another person is autonomous, and I have preferences and those matter more than the truth, and that person has preferences and their preferences matter more than the truth, when two autonomous preference-seeking beings come together and their preferences don’t match, who is going to win? If truth is on the bottom shelf, truth won’t decide. What will decide will be power. And isn’t it ironic that in our quest for “freedom”, someone gets enslaved?” — Abdu Murray

29. Grandma didn’t use toilet paper.

She used pages from the Sears catalog. Splinter-free wasn’t available until 1935. The Romans used sponges. The Greeks used clay. Francois Rabelais recommended using “the neck of a goose.” Arabians used their left hand.
Never assume our extremely unique cultural moment is “normal.”

30. The quest for wealth is destroying life.

We need a shared global vision. My invented word for it is benevitae: the sustainable flourishing of all creation. Our collective goal should be socioenviroeconomic sustainability. Where to start? We’d do well to let biology determine ecological sustainability and real democracy to determine economic fairness. Our current trajectory is worse than the Space Shuttle Challenger.

31. Ninety-nine isn’t enough.

Water boils at 100 degrees Celcius. The difference between 99 and 100 is the difference between zero and one. Not-boiling, boiling.
Corollary: 101 doesn’t make it any more boiling.

32. Divide-and-conquer is a business model.

Near the end of high school, dozen friends and I binge-watched multiple seasons of LOST in our friend Mike’s basement. It was one of the most hilarious, riotous, enjoyable experiences we had as a group.
And it was the last show we ever watched together.
People used to go to restaurants in large numbers, to the movies by the dozen, climbing over each other for one of the limited video game controllers, packing out our churches, cheering on our sports teams by the busload. We were almost never alone, and we were far happier. Now we order in, watch Netflix, stream Minecraft, catch the highlights, watch porn, and go to bed. It’s killing us.
Resist the urge to be alone. It’s too easy, and it’s the exact opposite of what we really need. The #1 thing that’s correlated to human happiness is human togetherness.

33. Self-improvement won’t save us.

The great lie of individualist-consumerist culture is that we can improve our way to personal perfection and communal utopia. But it’s incrementalism at best.
It’s just chasing infinity.

34. We know nothing +/-.

On the scale of all that is known, and all that is knowable, our individual understanding is essentially mathematically zero. The entirety of human knowledge is a rounding error.
This is the beginning of humility.

35. The sun is not on fire

This whole list began in Texas. I was at an observatory in the Davis Mountains and it was the first time I’d paid attention to astronomy since grade school. For three decades, I’d wrongly assumed the sun was a giant ball of flames.
But there’s no fire in space because there’s no oxygen in space. It just looks like fire because of how our eyes perceive light through the atmosphere and prism.
As I stared at the real-time image of the sun on the observatory wall, I nearly wept. The sun actually looks like a giant, boiling, grey brain. And then it hit me: I have so many assumptions to set aside and so much left to learn.
So pay attention. Don’t worship the “question everything” mantra, but instead spend your life seeking truth, and wisdom, and understanding.
You know what you need to do to get where you want to be.

Lost in the Sauce: Russia hacks U.S. government, congratulates Biden; Trump silent.

Welcome to Lost in the Sauce, keeping you caught up on political and legal news that often gets buried in distractions and theater… or a global health crisis.
Housekeeping:

HOW TO SUPPORT: I know we are all facing unprecedented financial hardships right now. If you are in the position to support my work, I have a patreon, venmo, and a paypal set up. No pressure though, I will keep posting these pieces publicly no matter what - paywalls suck.
NOTIFICATIONS: You can signup to receive notifications when these posts are done.

Russia

Russian government hackers breached numerous U.S. agencies, including the Treasury, Commerce, and Homeland Security Departments, in a campaign that began as early as Spring 2020. CISA and the FBI are investigating, but officials say it is “too soon to tell how damaging the attacks were and how much material was lost.”

The global campaign, investigators now believe, involved the hackers inserting their code into periodic updates of software used to manage networks by a company called SolarWinds. Its products are widely used in corporate and federal networks, and the malware was carefully minimized to avoid detection.

Though the initial intrusion occurred earlier this year, Trump has decimated the cybersecurity arm of the federal government and failed to nominate confirmable leaders of Homeland Security. Last month, Trump fired the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Christopher Krebs, for refusing to undermine the election. Around the same time, Assistant Director for Cybersecurity at DHS Bryan Ware and Deputy Director of CISA Matt Travis were also forced out.

DHS does not have a Senate-confirmed Secretary, Deputy Secretary, General Counsel, or Undersecretary for Management.
Additionally, there is no White House cybersecurity coordinator, no State Dept. cybersecurity coordinator, the National Security Agency Director is leaving on a romantic vacation in Europe, and the NSA general counsel is former Devin Nunes staffer Michael Ellis.

Finally, note that Russia has been behind hacks that knocked major U.S. hospitals offline during the pandemic and targeted vaccine makers across the world. In the lead up to the election last month, Russian hackers focused their attacks on American hospitals, often demanding a ransom to restore their systems. According to Microsoft, Russia and North Korea targeted "seven prominent companies directly involved in researching vaccines and treatments for COVID-19" around the world.
Russia’s FSB toxins team poisoned the opposition activist Alexei Navalny in August, after secretly following him on multiple previous trips. The squad shadowed him to more than 30 destinations on overlapping flights in an operation that began in 2017.

items recovered from Room 239 at the Xander Hotel were taken to Germany on the same medevac plane as Navalny. At least two subsequently tested positive for traces of Novichok, including a water bottle from the hotel room.

Appointees and nominees

The Senate voted on Wednesday to confirm three members to the Federal Election Commission, fully staffing the agency for the first time in nearly four years. It is also the first time the commission has had a voting quorum - enough to conduct business - since July, when it had four members for just 29 days.
The new commissioners are Shana Broussard (D), current FEC attorney and the first Black commissioner; Sean Cooksey (R), general counsel for GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri; and Allen Dickerson (R), legal director of the Institute for Free Speech, which opposes campaign finance restrictions.

They join Ellen Weintraub (D) and Steven Walther (I), both appointed by George W. Bush, and James Trainor III (R), appointed by Trump. The FEC is designed to contain three Democrats and three Republicans. No party is permitted to have more than three members.

Carl Tobias, a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law: "These are last-minute kind of pushes by the outgoing administration and the Republican Senate majority," he said, meant to ensure that "the commission [will] not be very effective heading into Biden's presidency… It does seem like there is likely to be gridlock and the commission is not likely to do very much that's substantive."

Michael Pack removed the acting director of Voice of America on Tuesday, installing a controversial ally in his place. Pack, CEO of parent organization U.S. Agency for Global Media, replaced VOA director Elez Biberaj with George W. Bush-era director Robert Reilly. The move immediately garnered criticism as Reilly has an extensive history of homophobic and anti-Islamic writing.

NPR: Reilly's 2014 book, "Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything," argues strongly against gay marriage. In public remarks, he said at least a murderer or a consumer of pornography ultimately regrets what he or she does, but asked, "What if you organize your life around something that is wrong?"
NYT: President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is likely to replace Mr. Pack once he assumes office, agency officials said. But Mr. Reilly may be harder to remove if language in the National Defense Authorization Act, a defense spending bill passed by the House, is signed into law that requires the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s chief executive to gain approval from an advisory board before replacing the head of a media network under their purview.

An investigation by the Veterans Affairs inspector general found that Secretary Robert Wilkie worked to discredit a congressional aide who said she was sexually assaulted in a VA hospital. According to the IG, Wilkie “obtained potentially damaging information about the veteran’s past,” leading his staff to pressure VA police to scrutinize her and try to discredit her in the media. The report (PDF) states Wilkie received this information from Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), a former Navy SEAL, who served in the same unit as the female veteran, Andrea Goldstein. Crenshaw refused to cooperate with the investigation.
Further reading on appointees:

State Department acting Inspector General Matthew Klimow found that the majority of trips by Susan Pompeo over a two-year period had taken place without written approval from the State Department, despite the fact that her trips were considered official travel and paid for by US taxpayers.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has spent at least $43,000 in taxpayer funds to host a series of intimate dinners called the “Madison Dinners.” The guest lists for about two dozen of the dinners, held between 2018 and 2020, included American business leaders and conservative political officials.
On his way out of office, Trump rewards some supporters and like-minded allies with the perks and prestige that come with serving on federal advisory boards and commissions. He has appointed Kellyanne Conway to the board of visitors of the U.S. Air Force Academy; Elaine Chao, Lynn Friess (the wife of Republican megadonor Foster Friess, and Pamella DeVos (Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ sister-in-law) as members of the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union and husband of former White House Communications Director Mercedes Schlapp, to the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board.
Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor - a senior adviser at the Pentagon with a history of disparaging refugees and immigrants, spreading conspiracies, and other controversial rhetoric - was nominated by Trump for a spot on West Point's advisory board.
The Pentagon appointed China-hawk Michael Pillsbury to serve as the Chair of the Defense Policy Board, after purging members. In October, the Financial Times revealed that Pillsbury helped funnel dirt on Hunter Biden from China to the Trump administration.
The Office of Special Counsel issued a report finding that White House trade adviser Peter Navarro repeatedly violated the Hatch Act by using his official authority for campaign purposes.

Congress

The Senate approved the $740 billion bill National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with a veto-proof majority, sending it to the president’s desk on Friday. Trump has threatened to veto the bill because it doesn't include a repeal of Section 230, but there are other rebukes of Trump’s policies including provisions to limit how much money Trump can move around for his border wall and another that would require the military to rename bases that were named after figures from the Confederacy.
Crucially, the NDAA also contains provisions that require anonymous shell companies to disclose their true owners, an aspect that may make it harder for Trump and his associates to move or hide money without scrutiny. The law requires anyone registering a new company to disclose the name, address, and date of birth of the real owners, and an identification number for each owner, such as a driver’s license or passport number. The law also applies to corporations and LLCs that already exist.
Sen. Ron Johnson, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, has scheduled a hearing on Wednesday to examine alleged election “irregularities.” The meeting, two days after electors cast their votes, will feature former independent counsel Ken Starr and attorneys in key battleground states. Johnson says the hearings will help him decide whether to join House Republicans to challenge the electoral results on the floor in January.

"The election's not over," Johnson said when asked if he would run again, referring to the November election that Biden won. Asked when he would make a decision, Johnson said: "Once the election is over."

At a hearing on the pandemic last week, Sen. Ron Johnson invited a vaccine skeptic, a critic of masks, and two doctors who have promoted hydroxychloroquine to treat the coronavirus. Democrats boycotted the hearing and numerous Republicans opted not to ask questions; only Sens. Johnson, Rand Paul, and Josh Hawley took part.

“The panelists have been selected for their political, not their medical views. And for that reason the composition of the panel creates a false and terribly harmful impression of the scientific and medical consensus,” said ranking Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, in his opening statement before leaving the hearing.

As an example of the unfounded claims presented at the hearing, Dr. Jane Orient said “Maybe instead of putting masks on everybody, we should be putting lids on the toilet or pouring Clorox into it before you flush it.” Dr. Ramin Oskoui told the committee that wearing masks, social distancing, and quarantining do not work.
Further reading on Congress:

Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) voted with Republicans against two resolutions aiming to block the Trump White House's sale of $23 billion worth of F-35s, Reaper drones, and missiles to the United Arab Emirates.
On her way out of Congress, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) joined Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) to introduce an anti-transgender bill. According to the two representatives, the bill - called the “Protect Women’s Sports Act” - seeks to clarify that Title IX protections for female athletes are based on “biological sex as determined at birth by a physician.”
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) blocked legislation to establish a National Museum of the American Latino and American Women's History Museum as part of the Smithsonian Institution. Lee asserted the bill, which had bipartisan support, would “further divide an already divided nation with an array of segregated, separate-but-equal museums for hyphenated identity groups” (clip).
Self-dealing and stock trades: “While Kelly Loeffler Opposed New COVID Aid, Her Husband’s Firm Sought to Profit Off the Pandemic,” “How Kelly Loeffler’s Firm Facilitated an Enron-Like Scandal,” “Sen. David Perdue Sold His Home to a Finance Industry Official Whose Organization Was Lobbying the Senate,” “Perdue diverted military money to Trump's wall — while profiting from his own Pentagon bill.”

Miscellaneous

The FBI has subpoenaed Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton after his senior staff reported him for alleged corruption, bribery, and abuse of office. All seven whistleblowers have since been fired by Paxton. Four sued Paxton last month in Travis County District Court, claiming they were fired in retaliation, threatened, intimidated and falsely smeared by Paxton.

Some believe that Paxton filed his failed election lawsuit as a way to gain Trump’s favor and obtain a pardon before he leaves office. Remember, Paxton was already under indictment on felony securities fraud charges before the most recent subpoena.

Former CISA Director Christopher Krebs sued the Trump campaign and one of its lawyers, Joseph diGenova, for defamation. “He should be drawn and quartered, taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said of Krebs.
A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit (two Trump appointees and an Obama appointee) denied the appeal of whistleblower Reality Winner, ruling she will remain in federal prison despite having pre-existing medical conditions and contracting Covid-19.
Other court cases: “Supreme Court Says Muslim Men Can Sue FBI Agents In No-Fly List Case,” NPR. “A Michigan judge rules companies don't have to serve gay customers. The attorney general says she'll appeal,” CNN. “Abortion medication restrictions remain blocked during pandemic, judge rules,” WaPo.
Two whistle-blowers have accused contractors building Trump’s border wall of smuggling armed Mexican security teams into the United States to guard construction sites. The complaint also states that the company submitted fraudulent invoices to the federal government, including for diesel fuel and overstating their costs.
U.S. border officials have expelled at least 66 unaccompanied migrant children without a court hearing or asylum interview since a federal judge ordered them to stop the practice.
Federal regulators and West Virginia agencies are rewriting environmental rules again to pave the way for construction of a major natural gas pipeline across Appalachia, even after an appeals court blocked the pipeline for the second time.
The Trump administration finalized a rule that could make it more difficult to enact public health protections, by changing the way the Environmental Protection Agency calculates the costs and benefits of new limits on air pollution.
World: “Trump administration helped GOP donors get Syria oil deal” and “The Israel-Morocco peace deal Donald Trump has brokered is risky: His recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara could lead to war.”

Iran's Nuclear Program: Return of the Shah, a DIY guide to Uranium Enrichment, and More Problems For Joe Biden

First we got the bomb and that was good,'Cause we love peace and motherhood. Then Russia got the bomb, but that's O.K.,'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way! Who's next?
France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,'Cause they're on our side, I believe. China got the bomb, but have no fears; They can't wipe us out for at least five years! Who's next?
Then Indonesia claimed that they Were gonna get one any day. South Africa wants two, that's right: One for the black and one for the white! Who's next?
Egypt's gonna get one, too,Just to use on you know who. So Israel's getting tense, Wants one in self defense."The Lord's our shepherd, " says the psalm, But just in case, we better get a bomb! Who's next?
Luxembourg is next to go And, who knows, maybe Monaco. We'll try to stay serene and calm When Alabama gets the bomb! Who's next, who's next, who's next? Who's next?
Tom Lehrer, "Who's Next?"

Well, since I've spent way too long reading detailed accounts of the Iranian nuclear program, how to build a nuclear bomb, the weirdness of Saddam's nuclear program [which has largely fallen into the cracks of history], and general things nuclear and Middle East.... and Iran is [kind of rightfully] back in the news lately...

Welcome to my explanation of "what's up with Iran's nuclear program", "what's up with Iran", "how do i make nuke", and other things of such nature. It involves a lot of history and explanations of industrial manufacturing processes, and actually fairly little recent stuff because... not much has actually changed, in many ways, and Iran's modern history is quite interesting on its own--it was a struggle not to write more, I'm afraid. Hopefully, even if I don't think it's my best written or most concise work, it proves enlightening.

1. America's Shah

Our first character here is the last of his kind. Shah Mohammed Raza Pahlavi, or, as everyone called him in America and I'll call him here, just "the Shah".

The Shah is a most curious character in history. Born at the end of the First World War, he was raised as Iran became the world's most important oil producer [only eclipsed by Saudi Arabia several decades later]. He was installed by the British and Soviets when they invaded Iran in a little-known episode of the Second World War--Iran would ultimately serve as a significant logistics route and oil source during the war, and housed hundreds of thousands of Polish refugees in an odd quirk of history. Some descendants of Poles actually remain in Iran to this day.

However, Iran, despite boasting some of the world's largest oil reserves, largely remained a backwater. A large reason for this was that Iran had an exceptionally terrible oil deal with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company [later to be known as British Petroleum], which gave Iran only 16% of the revenues and even that only in name since there was little accountability to Iran in the bargain. This situation was unacceptable to the general Iranian public, in which feelings turned nationalistic rapidly, and, in the early 1950s, Prime Minister Mosaddegh [who largely controlled the show, despite the Shah being nominally in charge] nationalized the oil, to the general applause of Iran.

What happened next remains mired in deep political controversy across the globe. Britain is almost certainly mostly to blame for what happened; as they instituted a general embargo on Iran, and managed to convince the Americans to support an effort to launch a coup [counter-coup?] in Iran to restore the Shah [who had fled the country] to power. Even more confusingly for historians, it seems that there was legitimate factions within Iran pushing for the return and installation of the Shah, and Mosaddegh began to become increasingly desperate, dissolving parliament and placing himself as de facto dictator [and it should also be noted that Mosaddegh was not legally the prime minister at this point since the Shah nominally had the power to dismiss him and did so]. In any case, the events of the early 1950s ended with the Shah back on the throne as absolute monarch, unchallenged by any parliament, advisor, or landed noble. Ultimately, the oil was not nationalized, but a better [though still not exceptionally great] deal was made with a consortium of American and British oil companies.

And so things remained, until the early 1960s. The Shah was nothing if not ambitious, and his plans never lacked for grandeur, so, with much public aclaim, he launched a program of reforms he dubbed the "White Revolution" on account of it being bloodless [in theory, anyway]. These reforms led to the rapid growth, urbanization, and development of the Iranian economy, but they carried with them the seeds of their own destruction. While they did avert the rise of an effective communist movement in Iran, they created another revolution. These reforms created a new class of urban poor, of dissatisfied farmers, and particularly enraged the Shia clergy [largely because they deprived them of their traditional rural economic and power base].

However, it is not economics that really interests us here, but the Shah's true passion: World domination. Or at least close to it. Beginning with the massive surge in oil prices in the early 1970s [some of which were in fact instigated by the Shah himself with OPEC], the Shah finally had the financial resources to pursue what he always loved: Building an oversized, incredibly well-armed, and well-trained military. The Shah ordered billions of dollars in military equipment, almost all from the United States, to the point where Congress began agitating to restrict sales--to little effect as the executive branch, at least until the arrival of Jimmy Carter in 1976, was of little mind to control arms sales. Iran got its hands on everything from highly advanced electronic intelligence equipment [in the form of a collaboration with the CIA] to F-14s. The orders that were never delivered included 300 F-16s, 300 F-18s, squadrons of E-3 AWACs, and 4 guided-missile destroyers, the largest and most capable ever built at the time, among other miscellaneous sundries. To the Shah's credit, unlike almost every third-world tinpot dictator, and especially unlike his immediate neighbors and rivals--Iraq and Saudi Arabia--his military was, by all accounts, one of the world's best trained as well as best equipped. In particular, the Shah--a trained pilot himself--loved his air force, to the point that the Islamic Republic is still suspicious of it to this very day. Their feats during the coming war, while sadly never winning widespread recognition abroad, were some of the most incredible ever achieved in the skies. The Shah also engaged in aggressive diplomacy, developing a close relationship with Israel and a very close relationship with the United States, which eventually resulted in the US being closely associated with the Shah's rule to the point where he was sometimes called "America's Shah"--though those who study him closely learn that he also cultivated increasingly developed relationships with the Soviet Union, China, and other world powers, always striving to be more than America's outpost in the Middle East.

It is around this point when Iran first began getting funny ideas about nuclear weapons [though those likely started some time before, when Iran received its first nuclear reactor in 1957 through the "Atoms for Peace" program]. It's no real surprise, knowing the Shah's character. In fact, the Shah once, saying what most of those close to him and many within American intelligence already knew aloud, stated that he wanted the bomb.

in February 1974, following a Franco-Iranian agreement to cooperate on uranium enrichment, the shah told Le Monde that one day "sooner than is believed," Iran would be "in possession of a nuclear bomb." The shah’s surprising comment was at least partially in response to the 1974 Indian test of a nuclear weapon.
Realizing the repercussions of his comment, the shah ordered the Iranian Embassy in France to issue a statement declaring that stories about his plan to develop a bomb were "totally invented and without any basis whatsoever."

[Foreign Policy, The Shah's Atomic Dreams]

This was no idle threat, either. Iran had already, unbeknownst to most, been conducting experiments with plutonium reprocessing using its research reactor. And the Shah had plans to run Iran almost entirely on the clean power of the atom, building 23,000MW of nuclear capacity. The plutonium reprocessed from these plants could allow Iran to build up to 600-700 nuclear warheads every year. Around this point, Iran began demanding what it called "total control over the nuclear fuel cycle", which involved it being able to reprocess its spent fuel and enrich uranium. The US government, probably about the only country that actually cared about non-proliferation [well, the USSR might have as well] was quite nervous about these ideas and refused to export Iran sensitive nuclear technologies without extensive restrictions on what could be done with spent fuel. France and Germany, however, had absolutely zero qualms about selling the Shah [and later Saddam Hussein] nuclear technology, and several plants with very few restrictions on them were lined up for construction in Iran. America ultimately caved when it saw that Iran was just going to get uncontrolled reactors anyway from Europe and figured it might as well be the one building the power plants, so American companies got some contracts to build some of the 23,000MW of capacity too.

However, the Shah's love of his army would ultimately lead to his downfall. Inflation spiked as Iran kept importing weapons with increasingly scare dollars as oil prices receded from their highs in the mid-1970s, and the Shah saw no reason to take austerity measures. The Shah's economic reforms were also showing problems [though as an interesting side note, the Shah planned to nationalize the oil in 1979]. The intelligentsia, which had always hated the Shah, joined forces with the general populace and, for the first time, the Shia clergy, to expel the Shah. This would later prove to be a huge mistake.

2. Revolution and War

Ultimately, it was inevitable once he returned that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini would come to power in Iran. He was the Shah's most vocal critic abroad and was beloved by the religious population, and he and the other Shia clerics even pretended to play at politics. That was until they were able to seize power, at which point they promptly discarded, imprisoned, and later executed the other factions involved--such as the intelligentsia and liberals, whom were responsible for the revolution that brought him back in the first place. The new Supreme Leader instituted a theocracy, turning back the clock of social progress decades. And he promptly began to dismantle everything the Shah had built, including the nuclear program, the entire military, and the expensive arms and nuclear purchases.

In a sense he had help on that matter, though. After early assurances and outreach, when the US welcomed the Shah for medical treatment, students [with the tacit support of the Supreme Leader] stormed the American embassy, taking the personnel there hostage. This resulted in a split between Iran--angry, nationalistic, upset at the US because it was associated with the hated Shah--and the United States, furious at the new upstart who had taken the embassy personnel hostage. A military rescue attempt failed disastrously, spelling doom for the Carter presidency and for the American relationship with Iran. Eventually, the hostages were recovered.

Iran's neighbors, however, would not remain quiet for long. Iran under the Shah had many enemies--the Soviet Union overshadowing it to the north, Iraq a danger to the west, Saudi Arabia an irritant to the south and Pakistan an uncertain factor to the east. Iran's many enemies were a large reason why the Shah had spent so much on weaponry and done so much to strengthen Iran's relationship with states on the periphery, from Oman to Israel. While the Shah was still around, none dared openly work against him. But with the Shah gone, and his mighty army in shambles, Iraq, now under the rule of Saddam Hussein, decided it was time to invade--this time actually for Iran's oil, which largely lies in the southwestern Arab marshlands bordering on Iraq.

Citing essentially made-up pretenses, the Iraqi Air Force launched a devastating surprise strike on the Iranian Air Force while the Iraqi Army rolled into the southwestern region of Iran, a marshy swamp populated by Arabs that held almost all of Iran's oil reserves. Or at least that was what was supposed to happen. The Iraqi Air Force was so hilariously bad at launching a first strike that the Iranian Air Force was able to launch a retaliatory strike the very next day that crippled the Iraqi Air Force for several years. The Iraqi invasion was able to penetrate a short distance into the region, but was fairly quickly halted, with Iraq doing incredibly dumb stuff like making unsupported armor assaults into urban terrain. It turned out that even as a shadow of its former self, the Iranian military was surprisingly good at its job.

What followed was eight years of one of the 20th century's bloodiest and least-well-known conflicts, far too long to describe here. Iraq tried repeatedly to invade Iran, with little success. Iran pushed Iraq out and took regions in southern Iraq. Iraq started frantically buying French and Soviet weapons, Iran was able to find some American hardware via Iran-Contra, and various black market sources--and, strangely enough, Israel, which actually had a team of advisors in Iran through much of the war. Iran used human wave tactics, often utilizing child soldiers, to make up for their equipment disadvantages, while Iraq turned to chemical weapons [largely supplied by European companies, with some help from... the United States] in an unsuccessful attempt to turn the deadlock. It was like the First World War, if fought with 1980s technology, but also worse somehow. Iran instigated revolts in the Kurdish regions of Iraq [which was basically what Iran had done for decades already] and Saddam responded by just gassing entire Kurdish villages. The French, the Gulf monarchies, and the Soviets backed Iraq [and at times even the United States got involved, though seldom very directly]. All the Iranians had were the Chinese and North Koreans.

In the end, the war resolved in a restoration to sine quo antebellum. Literally nothing changed. Iran was devastated from the war, which in its ending stages involved ballistic missile attacks on civilian areas.

These ballistic missile strikes, initially launched by Iraq against Iran, led to the development of an indigenous Iraqi ballistic missile program [with the support of, strangely, Argentina] along with the development of an Iranian ballistic missile program with support from the North Koreans and Chinese, along with some residual support from Israel which had been collaboratively developing long-range missiles with Iran under the Shah. That ballistic program would be one of the war's many legacies, and since then Iran has developed one of the world's most sophisticated ballistic missile arsenals, moving on from crude scud clones to highly advanced, precision-guided tactical missiles that can reliably hit within a few meters of their target. This would almost certainly be the vehicle Iran deployed any nukes it got on, and it could do so with good reliability, range, and protection.

Iraq, whom had suffered from Iranian ballistic missile strikes and air raids, but mostly from borrowing a whole lot of money from the Gulf States to finance the whole war, was also devestated. Iraq decided its solution was to just kill the creditors, in this case Kuwait, which proved to be a terrible idea as literally the entire world united against Iraq to remove it. Thus, the entire Western world, which up until a year or two before this had been loaning money and selling weapons and advanced technology to Saddam Hussein, ended up ganging up on Iraq and obliterating its army. Then it turned out that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program--largely fueled by Western technology. But to understand what they and Iran are doing, we need to learn some physics. Well, mostly engineering.

3. How to build The Bomb, a DIY Guide

Okay, I finally have gotten to the nuclear bomb part. So how do you build a nuclear bomb?

Well, what you need for the most simple sort of weapon--a pure fission weapon, a meagre few tens of kilotons of TNT-equivalent, the technology that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki--seems tantalizingly simple. A trivial amount of plutonium-240 or uranium-235 will do the job for you--around 15 kilograms, varying on how good you are at physics and how big you want the boom to be. Add that in a package with certain other components, none of which are especially hard to make--mostly having to do with precision explosives--and you have the bomb. It's essentially just an engineering and implementation problem [the H-bomb is a bit different, but we'll ignore it for our purposes].

Of course, that's easier said than done. Plutonium-240 and Uranium-235 of sufficient quality [around ~90% purity] are actually pretty hard to get, and while there are alternative routes--you can use reactor grade plutonium if treated right, according to Anglo-American research, or lower-enriched uranium [though in much greater quantities], or even unconventional routes like the uranium hydride bomb--these are really the two things that you need in quantity.

There are a number of ways to get Uranium-235. Uranium-235 carries with it one substantial advantage: You can just dig it up out of the ground. That's where the advantages stop. Enriching uranium from its natural levels of around 0.7% U-235 to 90% is pretty difficult, as it turns out. There are several approaches.

The first one tried is the "Calutron" which uses particle accelerators to separate out the isotopes, and turned out to be horrendously inefficient, never being used after the Manhattan Project [which really did believe in throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks] until some were discovered in Iraq in the mid-1990s when UN inspectors were allowed in. Called "Baghdadtrons", Iraq had developed them because the technology was subject to essentially no export controls [and nobody asked why the Iraqis were suddenly interested in magnets and particle accelerators] and was quite simple to master. Fortunately, they didn't produce that much uranium, but if they had gone on for just a few more years, Iraq would have ended up with a bomb.

The second major method relies on gaseous diffusion, a process requiring massive structures that could handle uranium hexafluoride, and proved quite difficult to develop. The big nuclear states all had these facilities, along with other commercial interests--the French consortium that enriches uranium actually had a 10% interest purchased in it by the Shah. However, they were never that practical for the small, aspiring weapons state--too big and too complicated, and very obvious. The only state which developed its first bomb through gaseous diffusion is, to my knowledge, China.

The third, however, and the one that has gained the most attention now, is the centrifuge. This technology, via which virtually all uranium enrichment these days occurs, relies on just spinning a centrifuge at ultra-high speeds to separate the isotopes--like you might have done in biology, but on a much larger scale. These centrifuges are rather difficult to build and rely on advanced, hard-to-manufacture materials like carbon fiber and maraging steel. Unfortunately, though, thanks to the work of Pakistani nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan, and the efforts of a number of German and French corporations, the knowledge of how to build advanced centrifuges is out there if you know the right people--like Iraq did. They were building a centrifuge using training and technology from European companies, though they never got it up to scale. Libya also got this information, and Iran and North Korea as well. Turns out the Axis of Evil is real, but it's mostly just Pakistan and European nuclear companies.

Oh, and as a minor note, there's a fourth process that's been collecting a lot of concern that relies on lasers to enrich uranium, which has actually been commercialized in Australia. There's a good deal of fear that the technology is so compact that it'll enable virtually any state to enrich uranium in secret. Also, it should be noted that enriched uranium does have other uses than to make bombs--it fuels certain classes of nuclear reactors, for instance. However, the primary reason for enrichment is usually to make bombs.

Plutonium-240, though, comes pretty much one way: Out of nuclear waste. You take raw nuclear waste--there are some specifics if you want to optimize generation of plutonium, but you can do it to pretty much any nuclear waste--then you do some fancy and extremely toxic and dangerous chemistry on it, and, if you've done everything right, out comes plutonium of weapons grade, along with some uranium. This can be reused as fuel for nuclear reactors, and often is--Japan, for instance, has literal tons of plutonium reprocessed from its fleet of nuclear power stations. However, it also produces weapons-grade plutonium [or reactor-grade plutonium, which can be turned into a crude device anyhow]. The only problem with this is that generally people are quite touchy about nuclear reactors, especially the kind good at making high-quality plutonium, and IAEA supervision and controls are required in non-nuclear states. They're also very easy targets for airstrikes, as Syria and Iraq both discovered.

Most countries historically opted for the plutonium route--they could operate nuclear reactors on their own and nobody nearby could stop them. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, the Soviet Union, and North Korea all opted for plutonium. Only China, Pakistan, and South Africa have opted for enriched uranium--though the option seems to be rising in popularity.

4. Iran [maybe] builds a bomb

Well, since Iraq isn't the focus of this and Saddam is very much dead.. back to Iran.

Iran's bomb program is thought to have begun in 1973, when the Shah summoned a nuclear physicist named Akbar Etemad, told him he wanted to launch a nuclear program, and asked him to develop a plan. And, just like that, Iran was off on the road to a bomb. An Atomic Energy Agency was formed, its employees being the best paid in the entire Iranian government. Students were dispatched to a special nuclear engineering program set up with MIT. Huge quantities of money were dumped into nuclear energy, the development of uranium mines, and, of course, the bomb program. This is when the aforementioned activities of the Shah took place.

And since then, it's never really died. It probably would win an award for longest continually operating nuclear program that hasn't built a bomb. The Islamic Revolution was a serious setback as most of the Shah's atomic scientists were purged or fled the country, and so was the Iran-Iraq War, which represented a massive drain on Iranian resources. It continued working at the bomb, but, without those people--and more importantly without the cooperation of Europe, whom were not fans of the revolutionary regime--they stood no chance at building it anytime soon. Still, they worked away--largely knowing that Saddam was pursuing nukes as well, and that he would use them against Iran if he got them first.

In the 1990s, Iran largely focused on reconstruction and development from the catastrophic war. The nuclear program kept whirring away in the background, though. With the help of new technology, new friends--including Russia, no longer committed to non-proliferation as it once was, and soon-to-be nuclear state North Korea--and with a new generation of experts, Iran kept on developing the bomb right up until 2003, when... it stopped. There were probably many reasons for that--Saddam was gone, the United States was acting aggressive, international pressure was up--but they also likely had most or all of the needed information to build a weapon--just not the materials.

However, they kept up another angle--using the very same nationalist rhetoric as the Shah did, years ago, they asserted their right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty [whether one exists is debatable] to enrich uranium and possibly reprocess plutonium in pursuit of a domestic nuclear power program. This program would both fuel Iran's energy needs [which, surprisingly, it has quite a lot of] by producing fuel for Russian-built nuclear reactors, and also provide them with the same materials required to build a nuclear bomb--making them a nuclear-latent state, just like Japan or South Korea. That's when Iran's program really began attracting concern. Along with attention from Israel and the United States, who engaged in assassinations, sabotage, or expatriation of Iranian nuclear scientists [stealing them from nuclear conferences, rescuing their family from Iran, and bringing them to the US] in order to slow the program, with mixed results--while they did serious damage, it still continued. So efforts turned to negotiation.

5. JCPOA, or, how to successfully punt the can

Negotiations began in the late 2000s to attempt to halt the progress of Iran's nuclear program, which was rapidly developing and showed breakout potential to build a bomb by about 2010. While initially they bore little fruit, in 2013, an interim agreement was signed, followed by a full agreement in 2015. The agreement, concluded by the P5+1 [USA, Russia, UK, France, China and Germany] lifted most sanctions on Iran through a phased period, including sanctions on arms exports and an embargo on selling arms to Iran, and in return Iran would subscribe to certain limits on its nuclear program.

It would limit the enrichment of uranium to a low percentage and how much it possessed at any one instance, it renounced certain activities involved in fuel reprocessing and bomb design, it had to export its heavy water [as a side effect Iran is now one of the world's largest heavy-water exporters], and numerous other restrictions were installed. However, the most stringent of them began expiring in the early 2020s, with virtually all restrictions gone by around 2030. This fact has attracted a great deal of attention--in essence, JCPOA is punting the can a little over a decade. Still, alternatives weren't great. JCPOA increased the time that Iran would have to take to get a bomb from around three months to a bit more than that, six months. It also diminished the likelihood Iran would seek a bomb--as long as it could get most of the benefits by remaining on the threshold without actually crossing it, it seemed unlikely that Iran would actually do so when it brought on so many risks--not just sanctions but preemptive military strikes and proliferation throughout the region via Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It wasn't a perfect deal by any means, but it was a deal, and it worked about as well as one might have hoped. That was, until Trump unilaterally pulled out of it.

6. Where We're At Now

When Trump pulled out of JCPOA, reinstating sanctions on Iran, the response began tepidly. But within a year, Iran systematically began breaching the limits of JCPOA. Initially, Iran hoped that other international partners would save it--Europe built a special financial instrument to trade with Iran without sanctions, and Iran turned to East Asia for economic support. However, neither of these really panned out--corporations were scared of American retaliation and Europe found itself unable to do much about the problem. So, Iran ended its good behavior and began slowly, systematically breaching the limits placed on it under JCPOA. It began raising enrichment percentages, and breached its uranium stockpile limits. Iran also became increasingly aggressive in other areas, engaging in mining and seizure of ships--most recently a South Korean tanker--and using its numerous proxy militias to target American interests. In the meantime, Iran's economy has entered freefall--it was never well-managed in the first place, especially with Islamic foundations and the Revolutionary Guard controlling much of the economy, and the sanctions and collapsing oil prices have sent it into a recession. Covid also hit Iran particularly hard, adding to its woes.

At the time I'm writing this, Iran has activated its Fordow facility--which was banned under JCPOA--and has begun to enrich uranium to 20% U-235 levels. This might not sound like a lot, but it's actually much easier to enrich 20% to 90% than 4% to 20%. In essence, with these latest breeches, Iran's breakout time has begun rapidly shrinking--probably back to three months now, or even worse.

7. Going Forward

If Iran wants the bomb, there's not that much that can be done to stop it. Diplomacy will be difficult considering what we did last time, and military strikes are risky on the part of the United States--which could face backlash via proxy attacks across the Middle East--and impossible for Israel, which does not have weapons large enough to destroy Iran's more heavily fortified facilities aside from any bunker-busting nuclear warheads it possibly possesses. Sabotage and assassination will only delay the inevitable. Iran's nuclear program, it seems, will be one of President Biden's first major challenges--vying for attention with all the other ones--and it remains to be seen what he will do about it. I myself have pretty much no clue how to handle the situation.

Other lessons that can be learned here [or at least I learned here] are:

Never collaborate with violent extremists because they just kill you when the revolution is over
Be careful about promoting nuclear technology and selling it to other countries because there very much are proliferation risks
Don't sell stuff to Saddam Hussein [big one]
We can blame Europe for nuclear proliferation [guess where AQ Khan got his first designs from, along with Pakistan... oh, and India got theirs from Canada]
There really isn't much that can be done to stop most countries from getting the bomb if they want one, despite what some suggest. Nuclear weapons... find a way.

8. Citations

Iraq's Programs to Make Highly Enriched Uranium and Plutonium for Nuclear Weapons Prior to the Gulf War, David Albright
The origin of Iraq's Nuclear Weapons Program, Suren Erkman, Andre Gsponer, Jean-Pierre Hurni, and Stephan Klement
The Shah's Atomic Dreams, Abbas Milani
Enrichment Supply And Technology Outside The United States, S. A. Levin and S. Blumkin
Just Because No One Does It Anymore Doesn't Mean It Doesn't Work, Chris Camp
U.S. Finds Iran Halted Its Nuclear Arms Effort in 2003, Mark Mazzetti
Atomic Ayatollahs, David Segal
Timeline of Nuclear Diplomacy With Iran
Iran starts 20% uranium enrichment, seizes South Korean ship
And of course others I haven't noted here in minor capacities.

[DIPLOMACY] Minimising and Reshaping Australia’s Vietnam Deployment

January 1969:

Summarising a Successful but Doomed Deployment:

The good:
Australia’s six-year troop deployment to South Vietnam has yielded mixed results, to say the least. From a military perspective, the 1st Australian Task Force’s (1 ATF) deployment to Phước Tuy Province has been hugely successful. In the last year, Australian officers have borrowed from experience gained during the Malayan Emergency to establish warm and genuine relationships with South Vietnamese villagers across the province. This has in turn allowed for an unprecedented level of civilian cooperation with pro-Saigon forces in Vietnam, helping to deny all manner of civilian support to the Viet Cong (VC) across 1 ATF’s provincial Tactical Area of Responsibility (TAR). New methods of ‘crimping’ VC tunnels have also led to the literal collapse of most of the VC’s tunnel network within the Phước Tuy TAR. These developments have thus denied the VC above-ground refuge among the civilian population as well as underground refuge in the tunnel systems. Unable to rely on political support and geographic protection, it is likely that the VC will be entirely ejected from the 1 ATF’s TAR by the end of 1969 if the task force’s current tactics are sustained.
Elsewhere in Vietnam, Australian personnel have distinguished themselves as perhaps the best fighting force currently participating in the pro-Saigon coalition. Australian engineers recently put up a lynch-pin defence of the South Vietnamese army’s (ARVN) headquarters in Saigon, collapsing the VC’s main assault without taking more than half a dozen casualties. Later, Australian gunships working to combat a North Vietnamese (PAVN) assault on Saigon would liquidate just under a thousand PAVN troops without sustaining any casualties.
The bad:
That said, while Australia appears to be winning its battles, it is difficult to argue that the pro-Saigon coalition is winning its war. Hundreds of American soldiers now face an unprecedented mass court-martial, following revelations of the massacre of over three hundred South Vietnamese civilians. The impending court-martial will be demoralising enough for the American public, but in many ways, it was the ugly debate between congressional hawks and doves which followed the massacre that appears to have done the most damage to American domestic war support. That collapse in support subsequently motivated the announcement of a significant American troop withdrawal, which will see the departure of hundreds of thousands of US troops by the time it is finalised in 1970 (it is estimated that ~250,000 troops will remain in-country post-1970).
Although Washington’s troop withdrawal already places sufficient doubt around the viability of the South Vietnamese war effort in the minds of Australian policymakers, it is not the only factor at play. A range of lesser events has also conspired to render the continued presence of ~8,500+ Australian combat personnel in Vietnam politically and militarily unsustainable. The Tet Offensive had a significant impact on domestic opinion in Australia. Everyday Australians were left to ask themselves how communist insurgents said to be on the verge of defeat by government spokespeople could be capable of launching a mass assault across South Vietnam. Just as equally, the successful launch of a military coup by supposedly allied ARVN officers amid the offensive significantly discredited the Australian war effort. After all, what is the point of fighting alongside the ARVN if its officers would rather launch white phosphorus bombing runs on their own positions in the middle of a nation-wide attack instead of combating the enemy? Posters put up across Australia by anti-war activists largely spoke for themselves, reading “Why send our boys off to fight a junta’s war”?
Finally, there was the New Zealander troop withdrawal, which came as a result of the same domestic pressures now facing the Australian Government. With most Australians seeing New Zealand as a brother nation, Wellington’s effective departure from South Vietnam is particularly damning. Many pundits have come to ask why Australia would continue fighting a war that New Zealand thought was so unwinnable it chose to withdraw.
The ugly:
Despite the moderate rally-around-the-flag effect produced by China’s invasion of Laos and Australia’s recent military successes in South Vietnam, it is evident that domestic opposition to the war has reached an untenable level. With federal elections approaching in late 1969, Prime Minister Gorton and Cabinet have opted to issue a partial troop withdrawal from South Vietnam, to be completed by 1970. The withdrawal plan will see the departure of all Australian conscripts after the 1969 annual service rotation, leaving only professional/volunteer troops in what Prime Minister Gorton has deemed a ”return to the soldier’s war”.
Under its withdrawal plan, the Federal Government will also suspend its military conscription program without repealing the National Service Act 1964. It is hoped that this will satisfy the anti-war movement, which might at least halt its opposition to the war if Australia’s deployment is limited to professional soldiers who have voluntarily signed up to serve in the military. That said, there is a risk that the anti-war movement will not be satisfied by an end to conscription and mandatory service requirements. That could in turn see activists push their advantage to demand the unequivocal withdrawal of all Australian personnel and assets from South Vietnam, including non-conscript troops. In that case, the Government would likely be forced to make further concessions at the risk of losing the upcoming elections. That would then go on to significantly discredit Prime Minister Gorton, in addition to ending what has otherwise been a highly successful campaign across South Vietnam.
To lessen the likelihood of that unfortunate eventuality from occurring, the Australian Government will launch a large-scale media campaign to draw attention to recent Australian military victories in Phước Tuy Province and Saigon. This, it is hoped, will create the political conditions necessary to justify a continued professional troop deployment. However, even this strategy carries with it significant risk, specifically of the Australian public ridiculing the media campaign as yet another propaganda effort to convince viewers that the VC is yet again on the brink of defeat. The Government’s nationwide media campaign is therefore crucial to its effort to make the case for a continued Australian troop presence in South Vietnam. So too is the quiet retirement of Australia’s conscription laws with the suspension of the Vietnam national service program, which might also see the birth of a mass anti-conscription campaign should it be mismanaged.
Post-roll resolution (the domestic reaction):
The public response to Prime Minister Gorton and Cabinet's withdrawal plans were curious, to say the least. The plan's announcement was initially met with catastrophe, with much of the national press ridiculing the Government's accompanying media campaign as yet another propagandistic lie (despite the stories of Australian gunships only ceasing their fire on fleeing PAVN due to running out of ammunition being true). This had the effect of blunting some of the enthusiasm around the withdrawal announcement, although anti-war activists nonetheless embraced news of the withdrawal itself, more or less aligning themselves with Gorton's now famous desire to return to the "soldier's war". The consequences of this realignment are that the anti-war movement's non-radical majority will now largely cease its opposition to the war in Vietnam, assuming that Australia's deployment relies solely on professional soldiers and that no new catastrophes come to afflict the war effort. Furthermore, with the anti-war movement continuing its call for the full repeal of Australia's conscription laws and the pro-war camp resolving to oppose the Gorton administration at the next election, the Prime Minister and Cabinet have resolved to shore up their support by pledging to repeal the National Service Act before the next elections. That pledge has also come with a promise not to increase Australia's troop deployment to Vietnam post-1970 (with the exception of the deployment of non-combat advisers).
Though risky, by partially acquiescing to the anti-war movement's demand, Prime Minister Gorton has secured a large voting bloc that would have otherwise gone to the Labor opposition at the next election. This has come at the cost of the support of the conservative pro-war movement, but with Labor expected to push for additional withdrawals should the situation in Vietnam further deteriorate, the Liberal-Country Coalition Government still remains the most pro-war political force in Australia. This means that by halving Australia's deployment and ending conscription while still remaining in South Vietnam, Gorton can win the support of the non-radical majority of the anti-war movement while still somewhat satisfying conservative hawks. Although Gorton's careful balancing act may win him the next national poll, the risks are that that a collapse in support within the Government's traditional conservative base as a result of the withdrawal, or a drastic deterioration in Vietnam, will nonetheless cost the Coalition the next election.

Specifics of the 1969-70 Troop Draw-Down:

Australia currently has approximately 8,500 combat troops deployed to South Vietnam, with additional personnel deployed as part of corollary Australian air, navy and training commitments to the war. Approximately half of 1 ATF is made up of conscripts, who are deployed in-country over one-year rotations. Under its withdrawal plan, the 1969 conscript rotation will be the last to serve in Vietnam, with ~4,250 professional soldiers remaining in-country from January 1970 onwards. It is expected that the tactics presently in use by 1 ATF in its Phước Tuy TAR will see a VC departure from the province around the end of 1969, thereby coinciding with Australia’s withdrawal. Notwithstanding a decrease in VC activity, Australia shall nonetheless request the deployment of anything from a full ARVN army brigade to a three-battalion ARVN force to the province to fill the gap left by the withdrawing Australian conscripts. Australia will ask to maintain command responsibility for the province, allowing Australian commanders to begin handing the baton onto their South Vietnamese counterparts, just as the Americans are doing across the country (in a process known as ‘Vietnamisation’).
The deployment status of the Australian Army training teams in Saigon and Hue, in addition to the Royal Australian Air Force’s assets at Phan Rang and the Royal Australian Navy’s assets/personnel across South Vietnam, will not be changed by the Government’s new withdrawal plans. Just as equally, the remaining professional troop cohort within 1 ATF will not be withdrawn unless domestic political pressures persist despite the withdrawal plan.

SECRET: The Saigon Meeting:

Invitees: High-ranking military delegations from South Vietnam, the United States, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Thailand and the Philippines.
Australia has understood the political undertones of communist insurgencies since the days of the Malayan Emergency. The same principle applied in Malaya as it does now in Vietnam: despite the temptation to think as much, the struggle against communist insurgents is not military, it is political. The most important topographic feature within that struggle is that of the civilian’s hearts and minds. The most important weapons are the ideas put forth by each side. This is a fundamental truth, as is the fact that our coalition will undoubtedly lose its war if it continues to preoccupy itself with physical geography and simplistic, military concerns. This is a reality that our adversaries have readily come to understand. It was best put by their comrade-in-arms, Mao Tse Tung, who stated that ‘without the support of the people, the guerrilla is a fish out of water, “it cannot survive”’. As Clausewitz would have said, war is politics.
The last time Australia raised the need to embrace the same hearts and minds approach to counter-insurgency (COIN) that won it the Malayan Emergency, American tacticians opted to instead confine Australian forces to the TAR in Phước Tuy Province. Away from the increasingly destructive COIN tactics employed by the United States elsewhere in South Vietnam, (which Australia believes was guaranteed to eventually culminate in a My Lai-type incident), Australian commanders have perfected the art of political warfare. In what Australian tacticians are now calling the ‘Pearson Doctrine’, named after Australian Major General “Sandy” Pearson (who is largely responsible for the recent shift in Australian tactics), pro-Saigon combatants are encouraged to fight for the “cognitive terrain” of the civilian’s hearts and minds, as opposed to fighting for literal territory.
The Pearson doctrine consists of two dual principles:

Denying our enemy the hearts and minds of the civilian. - Pro-Saigon combat groups should seek to develop genuine and constructive relationships with local civilians, particularly village elders in rural regions. For just as each state conducts daily calculations to decide which powers to align itself with, so too do civilians in combat zones conduct daily calculations in the confines of their hearts and minds to decide which military forces to support. By decisively positioning our forces as the safest and most reliable option in the hearts and minds of the civilian, the civilian’s basic survival mechanism will come to favour Saigon above the communist. This decision will naturally result in the civilian seeing the communist camp as an unsafe and unreliable option, to the point that he will even come to view them as a threat to his survival and wellbeing. When this transformation is conducted across whole families, villages, cities and regions, it has the effect of denying entire provinces to the communist. Without the support of the civilians, the communist will be without intelligence, food and shelter. In short, he will be blind and vulnerable in his own land. As Mao Tse Tung stated, without the support of the people, he will surely drown.
Denying our enemy the refuge of the jungle or tunnels. - Without the support of the people, the communist will be forced back into the jungle and tunnels to survive. At this vital stage, he is without a safety net, for when a sympathetic village is attacked by our forces, he can flee into the safety of the natural environment. But where shall the communist flee once he is attacked outside the village structure? Alone in the wilderness, the communist has no refuge. If his logistics, communications or command structures are attacked and destroyed, he will surely starve, collapse or rout. The corollary objective of pro-Saigon combat groups should thus be to deny the communist the jungle by conducting seek-and-destroy missions against known communist logistics, communications and command points. Attacks against such locations should not be distracted by needlessly focusing on inflicting as many casualties as possible. If anything, such attacks should allow the enemy an opportunity to withdraw. Communist forces under sustained attack by high-firepower, seek-and-destroy missions will prefer escape to certain death. Allowing the communist to escape, as opposed to pinning him down and forcing him to zealously fight to the last man, will offer the enemy an opportunity to cede his position in return for his life. The principle cannot be understated. Our coalition’s focus should not be on killing communists, since for every casualty Hanoi sustains, there will be a fresh recruit to take his place. Rather, it should be on eliminating logistics, communications and command positions, which Hanoi cannot so easily replace. The communist camp may boast a formidable manpower base, but without the vital positions necessary to fight a war, the communist will no longer be able to continue the fight. For this reason, pro-Saigon combat groups should also seek to destroy enemy tunnels, such that the communist can take refuge neither above nor below ground.

Extra notes regarding implementation of the Pearson Doctrine:
Principle ONE:
In order to develop a close relationship with local civilian populations, it is important that care is taken to meaningfully improve their socio-economic wellbeing. To that end, Australia recommends that approximately $1,500,000 USD is spent per province, per year, on the provision of food, basic war damage repairs, water pumps, medications, children’s literature and construction projects. Local elders should be consulted on the deployment of any such assistance so that it matches the genuine needs of the local civilian population. Such assistance will help ensure that the civilians see Saigon as a safer, more reliable option than the communist insurgents bringing chaos and destruction to their homeland. Once a village or town has grown more cooperative, it is recommended that basic clinics, electrical generators, school houses and civic buildings are constructed as a sign of deepening trust. However, if at any point the village/town is used as a base by the VC or if intelligence provided by the civilians is found to be severely inaccurate, cooperation with that village/town should be immediately revoked pending a reversal in attitude.
This policy will necessitate the establishment of new bonds between civilians, the South Vietnamese public sector and the Republic of Vietnam National Police, such that Saigon will gain new authority in the region as the local civilians slowly come to align themselves with the anti-communist cause.
It is crucial to remember that this is a slow and fragile process. If rushed, it will fail. If paired with the destruction of property or the liquidation/abuse of civilians, it will catastrophically fail. Thus, the ARVN and the United States must cease their practice of treating civilians as enemy combatants with all urgency. As the Pearson Doctrine has definitively proven in Phước Tuy Province, treating civilians in that manner promises only to entrench sympathies for the VC by establishing the pro-Saigon camp as a profoundly unsafe and unreliable option.
Principle TWO:
Australia recommends that light foot patrols conduct seek-and-destroy missions with the combined support of nearby artillery, close air support and armour. Decisive firepower has the effect of driving the enemy from his position, forcing the communist to choose between his life and his logistics, communications and command components. With an escape valve at their rear, the enemy will typically flee before such intensive firepower, abandoning his valuable positions to our forces.
Concerning tunnels, meanwhile, Australia recommends the covert use of a 50/50 phosgene and stannic chloride gas mixture once VC troops have been forced to flee into their tunnels by surface machine gun fire and the use of grenades. With the VC forced below-ground, the gas will eliminate all personnel hiding in the upper levels of the tunnels. Water spaces and ventilation systems will ensure that the lower levels remain untouched, but with the use of acetylene gas and hand grenades, those levels can be effectively destroyed once they have been scoured for intelligence by specialised tunnel rats. Although the lower levels remain untouched, by conducting a thorough ground search in the vicinity of the main tunnel entrance, it is possible to locate corollary entrances. Once these entrances are destroyed in the same manner, lower tunnel levels spanning multiple kilometres can be knocked out of action, trapping their defenders below. This strategy has proven highly effective in Australia’s Phước Tuy TAR, where the local VC tunnel system has been all but eliminated.
Adopting the Pearson Doctrine:
Australia encourages all allied nations to integrate the Pearson Doctrine into their combat operations across Indochina. Australia is ready to provide in-depth assistance and training to interested militaries through its Army Training Team in Saigon, which could easily be expanded to simultaneously advise multiple militaries within a short time frame.
With Australia reducing its direct involvement in the South Vietnamese battlespace, it insists that the Pearson Doctrine be adopted, lest its six-year contribution be in vain. Australia sincerely believes that the current policy of treating civilians as though they are themselves enemy combatants is dooming the allied war effort and that our success in the conflict will largely be determined by whether we stick to the failed doctrine. The Pearson Doctrine is thus a prime solution to many of the military challenges currently facing our coalition
EDIT: Formatting. Added in dice results.

does north korea have running water video

What healthcare does North Korea have? ... But international experts say it is appalling, with some hospitals even lacking electricity and running water. Outside the capital, Pyongyang, there are ... Tours to North Korea have been suspended until further notice. Check with your travel provider to see what this means for you. There is a serious lack of reliable information on the COVID-19 situation in North Korea, and it is virtually impossible to prove or disprove any claims. North Korea has one of the worst healthcare systems in the world and many hospitals do not have access to running water or electricity. The COVID-19 vaccine race has got a new entrant -- North Korea. As per North Korea's Commission of Science and Technology clinical trials started in early July. The recent Korea Water and Wastewater Association (KWWA) report provides a very interesting narrative on how Korea was able to develop the water sector during the period 1960-2012 . With international support including that from the World Bank, Korea galvanized its water sector by investing in water and wastewater infrastructure. Still, sanctions have caused enough problems that expressions of hope for the success of this year’s summit diplomacy are universal among North Koreans in Rason and elsewhere. Rason: Business Down but Not Out . A few summers ago, a fresh pile of coal sat on the second pier at North Korea’s Rajin port. North Korea claims to have zero cases of COVID-19 within its borders; Experts doubt this claim and worry about its weak, underfunded health system; Many medical clinics have no running water ... For North Korea to admit they have cases now could be a sign of "defeat". "The state has put a lot of stock into its response and there has been so much propaganda about how well they're doing ... And as U.S. troops prepared to embark on their its first major military exercise with South Korea after a long hiatus in August 2019, on July 22 Pyongyang released photos of Kim Jong Un in gray suit visiting a dry dock to inspect what analysts have concluded is an old Romeo-class submarine modified to launch ballistic missiles through its sail (conning tower). North Koreans must cope with these temperature extremes while dealing with food shortages, without heating, running water, working toilets, regular supplies of electricity, medicines, warm clothes... At the same time, many North Korean hospitals lack running water and its people are malnourished. Pyongyang’s ruling elite have enriched themselves and built expensive weapons at the cost of ...

Coronavirus: North Korea enters vaccine race, World News ...

does north korea have running water

does north korea have running water - win

LMT: A Deep Dive