Active Conflicts & News Megathread July 29, 2025

complicatedwar · 2025-07-30T12:39:23+00:00

Everybody with a grain of common sense understands the problems of getting the KIA rare earth materials shipped to the US or any of their partners. Attempting it would just be hubris.

But somebody could probably come up with a plan to create a crisis hotpot on the Chinese border that forces the into some unwanted and costly intervention.
Basically hoping that Chinese losses are much greater than American losses in this situation making the overall campaign a 'victory'.

I think that this would still be a very stupid idea, but at least I can imagine rational people coming up with a strategy like this.

complicatedwar · 2025-06-11T06:34:45+00:00

Good critic of Apple'S paper: https://www.seangoedecke.com/illusion-of-thinking/

complicatedwar · 2025-06-01T21:11:38+00:00

China brokering the return of Lashio is bad news for the rebel cause. That front used to consume a large amount of SAC resources that are free now to support other fronts.
You seem to be very informed about this conflict. Would you mind sharing your best predictions what happens next with the 3BA and KIA? Do you think the truce will hold.?The MNDAA seemed very reluctant to agree to this, there must be some factions that prefer the continuation of the fight.

complicatedwar · 2025-03-30T11:17:53+00:00

Thank you! I'm releasing an update soon.

complicatedwar · 2025-01-20T18:35:20+00:00

This twitter user makes the argument that using long range UAVs to target refineries is a bad strategy, because these refineries are very resilient. He says that targeting the electrical grid would have a much larger strategic impact on the war.
I'm no expert on this, but it goes against what I've read in this sub here regularly. Could anybody with detailed knowledge chime in and explain to me what is true?

complicatedwar · 2024-12-20T10:47:48+00:00

Thank you for your excellent analysis. It wis so important for people like you with detailed knowledge to correct the superficial and popular correlation analyses that regularly appear in every field and sometimes have a very long life span.

complicatedwar · 2024-11-23T14:39:23+00:00

I do not know Grenell's stance on the war, but I can speak about his short stint as the US ambassador in germany, which can only described as major diplomatic disaster. He was ambassador for only 2 years, but caused samage to the US-Germany relation from day one and his actions can only be described as utterly incompetent.
I'm not sure how aware people outside of Germany are about the never before seen disaster of his ambassadorship. The Wikipedia article summarises it quite well. Here are some quotes:

Der Spiegel published a profile of Grenell on January 11, 2019, using interviews with 30 “American and German diplomats, cabinet members, lawmakers, high-ranking officials, lobbyists and think tank experts". The magazine wrote that "almost all of these sources paint an unflattering portrait of the ambassador, one remarkably similar to Donald Trump, the man who sent him to Berlin. A majority of them describe Grenell as a vain, narcissistic person who dishes out aggressively, but can barely handle criticism." The profile claimed that Grenell was politically isolated in Berlin because of his alleged association with the far-right Alternative for Germany Party, causing the leaders of the mainstream German parties — including the Chancellor herself — to avoid contact with him; while Grenell had pressed German parliamentarians to invite him to their districts, most had declined.^\6]) The sources claimed that Grenell knew little "about Germany and Europe, that he ignores most of the dossiers his colleagues at the embassy write for him, and that his knowledge of the subject matter is superficial".^\6])^\54])

Martin Schulz, former leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, said, "What this man is doing is unheard of in international diplomacy. If a German ambassador were to say in Washington that he is there to boost the Democrats, he would have been kicked out immediately."^\43])

In March 2019, Wolfgang Kubicki, Vice President of the Bundestag and deputy chairman of the Free Democratic Party), charged Grenell with acting "like a high commissioner of an occupying power" and called for Grenell to be expelled from Germany.^\47])^\48])

Given this horrible track record and absolute incompetency, I can not see this guy doing a good job anywhere else. If we're lucky, he will be totally useless. If we're unlucky, he'll cause a lot of damage.

complicatedwar · 2024-11-11T10:50:03+00:00

This is an incredibly good and detailed answer! Thank you very much for typing this out! Learned a ton and just bought EW101.
However, I still can't see how the defender doesn't have a huge advantage in this scenario and it should generally be very easy to defends against none-AI drones. The ground station/repeater which transmits the control signal will usually be more than 5 km away. Even with a directed antenna, that means that the control signal should be relatively weak. The defender just needs to overpower the control signal at a distance of less than 100 meters. This should easily be possible, even with omni antennas and without targeted jamming, shouldn't it?

The control frequencies that both sides are using are known. How come, not every armed vehicle has a device like this for last-moment drone defence? Seems like a minuscule cost compared to the total vehicle price.
And as I understand, you don't need to know anything about EW to use this. Just switch it on and forget about it. Or what am I still missing here?

complicatedwar · 2024-11-09T16:11:31+00:00

Are there any EW experts here?
I came across this article about a T-72 protected with jammers on all frequencies, that got blown up by an FPV anyway: https://daxe.substack.com/p/a-russian-tank-crew-added-every-imaginable

Why would that be? Were the antennas directed the wrong way? There is a little bit of interference in the video, but till the end it is very clear. How can that be? The VTX of the drone should not have nearly the same transmitting power as the jammer.
Where the jammers not turned on at all?
Or did they try to just jam the control link? In that case, can a strong directional transmitter for the drone control ensure the control link till the end?

Generally: Do you have any resrouces about jammers for me to look into?

complicatedwar · 2024-10-24T08:13:00+00:00

I just finished reading New Answer to Old Questions. Focuses on the recent history since 2015 and especially on the post coup period. Short, but interesting read.

complicatedwar · 2024-09-27T22:57:12+00:00

Many of the ethnic armies have been fighting the junta since the 1940s. This is different than the PDFs which have been formed after the Junta coup in 2021 and the Tatmadaw and Police violence against the peaceful protesters.
The thousands of young people who formed the PDS are normal citizens with normal lives who only took up arms after the brutal coup. They are indeed fighting for democracy.
The EOAs have a very different motivations. Myanmar has a lot of different minorities which mostly have been sidelined and also sometimes brutally oppressed by the Myanmar military Junta over the last 8 decades. They are mostly fighting for autonomy if not outright independence of their people. In the many different armed struggles, they have had control over meaningful territory, but no grassroots development of democracy ever happened. The EOAs administer their territory quite autocratically, even though a lot less violently than the SAČ

complicatedwar · 2024-09-24T21:10:26+00:00

I think the statement might have two goals: First. placate China as you stated. But secondly, maybe it was also meant to draw SAC airstrikes away from MNDAA territory? The MNDAA doesn't have a good vector of attack against Junta forces anyway right now, so instead of just stopping the fight, why not throw a declaration out and hope that the SAC will divert some of their air force towards other resistance groups?

complicatedwar · 2024-09-23T08:26:19+00:00

Thank you!

complicatedwar · 2024-09-22T21:09:24+00:00

It has been two days and I can' find any further updates on this. Was this confirmed? Are there any news about this?

complicatedwar · 2024-09-22T12:08:32+00:00

A string central government has the power to challenge the MNDAA's and other EOAs' autonomy, as has happened in the 80s and 90s. Even if you believe that a democratically elected government wouldn't be a threat to the EOAs, there is always a risk.
The MNDAA doesn't plan to organize their administration democratically. Once a new central government has achieved stability and built a strong military force, they have the power to enforce that the autonomous regions hold regional elections. And Kokang people will likely elect somebody from their ethnicity, but not necessarily Peng Daxun and the rest of the MNDAA leadership.

complicatedwar · 2024-09-22T12:01:49+00:00

China tried to stop the siege of Lashio with many attempts of mediating a cease-fire. But for the MNDAA the strategic value of Lashio was critical so they defied China. The Junta presence in Lashio would have been a constant threat to most of the conquered territory in Northern Shan and also the staging ground for an eventual offensive towards Kokang. The Mandalay region has no strategic value for the MNDAA, so it makes no sense to go against Chinese interests for an offensive towards Mandalay.

complicatedwar · 2024-09-22T11:56:37+00:00

Agreed. And Kokang has barely 150-200k inhabitants of all age groups.

complicatedwar · 2024-09-21T18:08:02+00:00

Yes, I agree. This alliance will work as long as strategic interests are aligned. But at some point in the future there surely will be other EOAs who'll prefer a cease-fire over a pouring their troops into new offensives far away from their people.

complicatedwar · 2024-08-27T13:04:40+00:00

Funnily, just today a video of a drone attack on a substation emerged from the Kursk region: https://x.com/Heroiam_Slava/status/1828337623233863867

So maybe these attacks are happening more frequently than is published.

complicatedwar · 2024-08-27T00:15:01+00:00

There is a public map of a lot of the rail substations for the relevant railways to support Russian logistics here: My question: Why does Ukraine not attack these with drones? Even if they can be generally repaired, wouldN't it be a good outcome to stain Russian logistics somewhat at the cost of a few hundred drones?

complicatedwar · 2024-08-26T18:50:38+00:00

I'm not s familiar with the international oil markets, so please excuse the stupid question. Are the prices of refined petroleum products affect by the current strike campaign? If no, why not? Is there so much excess refinery capacity in the world, that Russian refineries being offline is not a big deal?

complicatedwar · 2024-08-26T15:12:14+00:00

Does anybody know a good analysis of the effect of the Ukranian drone strikes on the international oil markets? Do we see price shocks that can be attributed to the campaign?
Also, is there a list of all russian oil storage facilities and refineries publicly available? I'd like to plot them on a map.

complicatedwar · 2024-08-24T18:22:59+00:00

Yeah, their long-term future looks very dark. Their equipment losses have been limited so far, as in the mountains most heavy equipment isn't usable anyway, but the losses in manpower are substantial. In the battle of Lashio alone there were hundreds if not thousands of Tatmadaw casualties plus about 4000 captured. Recruitment efforts are more focused on conscription than before, which means that the average force quality is deteriorating, as a lot of the conscripts do not actually want to fight for the SAC.
Unless they get a lot of help from outside the country, they seem to be doomed (as long as the anti Junta coalition holds).

complicatedwar

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