Signed by the author! And yes, its precisely what it sounds like.
Decker Eveleth
@dexeve.bsky.social
PRC and DPRK strategic forces analyst with CNA. BA Reed College, MA Middlebury Institute. NSF GRFP.
Scored one of my long sought afters at the bookstore for 10 bucks
Having a great time at UChicago talking to AI folks about nuclear deterrence.
My latest in Foreign Policy, arguing we are likely overreacting to China recent missile test: foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/13/c...
Stop Overreacting to China’s Missile Test
It was a milestone for Beijing’s nuclear forces—but not necessarily the provocation many analysts have made it out to be.
foreignpolicy.com
Oh hell yeah we're doing Foucault's Pendulum with AI. Keys of Solomon and the mystic Kabbalistic truths here we come.
@andrewfacini.com do you have that "THE ITAR LOOMS" poster you photoshopped? I think it probably needs to be hung inside Anthropic HQ right now
The obvious historical analog to this conflict is Beirut 1983, in which an American administration inserted itself into what the defenders considered an existential conflict but the administration was not willing to actually accept American casualties.
Latest Substack post on the Rueters story about Chinese "launch pads." The highlighted facilities cannot support a nuclear LOW mission and are almost certainly not even related to the PLARF. horsdoeuvresofbattle.substack.com/p/on-reuters...
On Reuters' "Launch Pads" Story
A couple of weeks ago Reuters published an interesting story about Chinese launch pads being built around a set of three octagonal bases out in the Chinese desert.
horsdoeuvresofbattle.substack.com
foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/12/i... My latest in FP, on how the missile defense fight in China will look nothing like how it did in Iran, and some nerdy stuff about Rundstedt.
Missile Defense Worked Against Iran. It Might Not Work Against China.
The ongoing war has revealed vulnerabilities that could prove far more dangerous in a conflict over Taiwan.
foreignpolicy.com
Meanwhile, at the other rogue state, Kim Jong Un tours an enrichment site and looks over some warhead designs.
Trying to avoid the 100 books discourse but I gotta say including Invisible Cities is really stretching the definition of the novel.
Playing the ancient city building game Songs of Syx and getting absurdly mad at how much time and how many resources go into maintaining a library. I would have absolutely set my people back another thousand years if I was a Sumerian king.
The Middlebury Institute of International Studies is potentially being purchased by uhhhh (checks notes) Soka Gakkai? www.soka.edu/monterey-ins...
Monterey Institute of International Studies | Soka University of America
soka.edu
The missile hunting stuff is probably the least problematic aspect of the war. Im much more startled by the amount of munitions that we seems to have expended on honestly irrelevant targets.
Secretary of Defense Rock@sodrock.bsky.social · 3mo agoI do wonder how much ordinance we have actually dropped going after mobile launchers and missiles. One of the big takeaways from the Gulf War Air Power Survey was that scud hunting was a giant waste of time and resources
In the White House's new Counterterrorism Strategy released today, narcoterrorists are placed above "Legacy Islamic Terrorists."
Every time I log on to this platform all I see are smart people I respect arguing with the dumbest people every to grace the earth. Do you know there is a beautiful outside world full of wonder
Some thoughts on the war and where we go from here. open.substack.com/pub/horsdoeu...
The Iran War's End, and the Region's Future
Despite my initial bullishness on the possibility of a return to fighting, the war now seems to be mostly over for both sides – neither Iran nor the United States seems interested in restarting the fi...
open.substack.com
There is a third road - one I do not think is likely but is entirely possible - in which no deal is reached, the Strait gradually defacto reopens, and the conflict ends status quo ante bellum.
I have written something very silly that likens deterrence to assembling IKEA furniture. open.substack.com/pub/horsdoeu...
The Gun From IKEA
Inspired by some recent struggles with a daybed
open.substack.com
Sometimes history truly is cyclical. In 1967 in order to support the Vietnam war, US pulled formations earmarked for NATO, deployed them to Vietnam, and expended vast amounts of munitions. In order to close the gap the US complained to the allies about their defense expenditure.
@dexeve.bsky.social & I have a new piece out in Survival. In 2024, South Korea secretly deployed more than 300 KTSSM missiles at soft, fixed sites--suggesting that, in a crisis, Seoul may strike first & giving Pyongyang 300 reasons to beat them to it. doi.org/10.1080/0039...
South Korea’s Ominous Missile Deployments
By placing more than 300 fixed, short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles on permanent alert at several above-ground sites close to the Demilitarised Zone, South Korean Strategic Command ha...
doi.org
I really do think we need some sort of disparaging term for people whose only interaction with fiction is Weir and qntm.
My latest in FP, on how Iranian deterrence has collapsed over the last two years: foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/24/i...
How Iran’s Deterrence Collapsed Ahead of the War
A key failure in 2024 paved the way for U.S. and Israeli attacks.
foreignpolicy.com
Experts from the @fpri.bsky.social analyze the latest military developments from the Third Gulf War @slair.bsky.social @dexeve.bsky.social @michaelbpetersen.bsky.social @salisbot.bsky.social & Guy Plopsky www.fpri.org/article/2026...
FPRI Experts React | Understanding the Third Gulf War - Foreign Policy Research Institute
The third Gulf War began with an assassination on February 28, 2026, in broad daylight in central Iran. The war has engulfed the region in conflict, extending
fpri.org
Drone launches are down for the same reason missile launches are down. Its a posture issue. You can have the biggest drone arsenal in the world but if your forces aren't postured to effectively continue operations under fire, eventually you won't have the capability to use them
An update on how the Iranians are fairing. We're seeing lots of hits on stationary abandoned launchers, which implies either a high missile failure rate or Iranian crews are simply abandoning launchers after firing.
Unlike the 12 Day War in which Iran used a certain segment of its missile force to retaliate in distinguishable waves, this is complete chaos. Many missiles across many fronts, potentially with units acting without centralized authority.