Book 88-Hours War

Hello everybody!

As might be known by now, here on the Substack I’m rarely posting anything else but analysis of different ongoing armed conflicts around the globe (whether mine, or those authored by Don, Ben and others). The principal reason for this ‘policy’ - even a ‘self-imposed rule’, if you like - is that the analysis in question originally came into being on request from few real-life friends. Therefore, that’s the ‘task & purpose’ of this blog. The secondary reason is that what I’m doing here in this form is, usually, ‘first research’: analysis of first info that’s available, at the start of the lengthy process of collecting additional info and constantly cross-checking, often (by now means always) resulting in creation of one of another book.

Meanwhile, I feel prompted to adjust this policy because my sole other social media presence - that on the Facebook - is increasingly hindered by the Meta, Facebook’s owner. My content posted there (where my account has reached around 40,000 followers) has been subjected to shadow-bans already since longer. These were getting ever more severe with the time: indeed, no sooner have I posted an announcement for the release of my latest book, about two weeks ago, my account was suspended. Because (quoting from explanation) ‘it doesn’t follow Community Standards’.

Seems, I was supposed to post a cat-video instead….

---

Another amusing reaction is coming from within the Supreme Council of Holy Social-Media Wiseacres (not to be confused with the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, although the difference is minimal… especially in credibility): people certain they’re acting ‘in the name of god’, therefore positioning themselves as the sole authorities on military aviation in the social media, and certain it’s only their narrative which matters - no matter where - and nobody else’s.

Now, while some of the holy wiseacres - especially those working for diverse of think-tanks in the USA - are still busy wondering who is that Tom Cooper and why should he matter (of course, none of the holy wiseacres is a racist, but: Indian names of three co-authors of this book are making it obvious that they do not matter), holy wiseacres in Germany have a more urgent problem: reliability of data in a book which they have not read.

Unsurprisingly, they wonder: how can one (quote), ‘…actually have access to such information’?

…without specifying what is that ‘such information’, of course: after all, the aim is not to deny. One can’t deny what one doesn’t know (because one hasn’t read the book). The aim is to spread doubts.

This even more so because (quote), ‘I’m afraid not.’

Translation: because the holy wiseacre in question knows no way how to get the information, it’s me who can’t (again: my three co-authors don’t matter) - and I’m to blame for that.

OK, so lets check what can one find in this book and what is it based upon.

Up front: this is no book about heroes, nor about villains. No book holding your hand: none that will tell you what you want to hear, making you feel good about your favourite side, your favourite weapon, or your favourite narrative. If you’re looking for comfort: buy yourself a pillow instead; this one comes with shrapnel. A book about what happens when the fog of war meets the fog of social media.

Correspondingly, you’ll not find slogans within, nothing of standard formulations filling void spaces in reports by think-tanks: rather the story of this crisis and the resulting war coming into being, in chronological order, including lots of descriptions of the equipment deployed by both sides (because both sides are deploying lots of technology little known outside their own borders), and all of this described in direct, sincere fashion and calling a spade a spade.

Content-wise, Chapters 1 to 6 are explaining how did they get here: from Pakistan setting its own hair on fire by not just ‘flirting with Jihad’ (it built it a house, gave it a bank account, and asked it to stay over the night), via India’s history of reluctance, hesitance, and outright dilettantism; via the nuclear armament of both sides; via detailed reviews of doctrine, organisation, and equipment of both air forces and ground-based air defence systems: the factors that played the crucial role in this conflict. Chapters 7, 8 and 9 are showing what happens when theory meets metal (spoiler: winning is the side proven as capable of unloading brickloads of high explosives upon the other).

As for how did we get all that info, and what kind of super-turbo-secret information have we accessed to put these chapters together…?

The absurdest about this all is that it took no secret sources, no leaked documents, no backroom breifings. Few first-hand sources for understanding the technology and how far is what, no doubt, but, and foremost: lots of open-source social media, time-stamped by locals, minute-by-minute. A few weeks of old-fashioned, patient, research in form of team-work. Post-by-post, place-by-place. In Urdu and different languages spoken in India. Just us - three co-authors, two very helpful gentlemen, and me.

That’s it.

That’s the whole trick.

Any idiot with wi-fi could’ve done it.

Absurd is that nobody did. None of the governments (characteristically: not even one that openly admitted it’s depending on the social media to keep itself updated). None of noble experts. None of the think-tanks - and especially nobody from the Supreme Council of Holy Social-Media Wiseacres: none of self-proclaimed experts screaming, yelling, crying, wondering, expressing doubts, accusing my co-authors and me of being paid shills, and calling names around the social media.

Bottom line: if anybody wonders if this book feels different, it’s because we bothered to look. The others were lazy, and finding it more important to push their agendas, or care about their market shares.

---

And, for a specific wiseacre in Germany: if you’re fact-checking me while not reading this book, or concerned about your market shares, and collecting likes on the Twitter/x, save yourself the time. I’ve been called incompetent, a liar, a hack, a paid shill for every agency from BND to the RAW - and that before breakfast. While you were scrolling in your underwear. The fact you can’t research nor write books is not my problem.