MEDEVAC AT EASE IN BELIZE: 28th Aviation Regiment MEDEVAC helicopter takes a break. The unit was conducting aerial gunnery training at a range in Belize, Feb. 12, 2019.

BACKGROUND TO THE TRUMP-KIM HANOI SUMMIT:

No one is astonished that North Korea’s criminal regime still has nuclear weapons. In many respects, nukes and ICBMs are Kim’s only bargaining chips.

Many, however, are warily amazed that the diplomatic process continues.

For the deep background, read Chapter 2 of Cocktails from Hell. Remember, The Korean War isn’t over.

ROYAL MARINES AT TWENTYNINE PALMS: U.K. Royal Marines with X-Ray Company, Fire Support Group, 45 Commando conduct a security patrol during an exercise at Twentynine Palms, California.

DALLAS VISITS GEORGIA: The nation, not the state. This is an old photo, from 2008. It turned up when I was searching for photos of Coast Guard vessels — really looking for an icebreaker, not a cutter. Then I read the caption. According to the caption, the cutter Dallas was delivering humanitarian aid to Georgia as the Russo-Georgia War of 2008 sputtered and lapsed. As aid to Venezuela stacks up on the country’s border, I thought the old photo had a kind of immediate relevance. Unlike Venezuela 2019, humanitarian aid deliveries to Georgia 2008 arrived and were distributed. But then Georgia wasn’t run by radical socialists who starve their own people and the country had been at war with Russia. Maduro’s Venezuela is run by radical socialists who starve their own people and are at war with their own people — and their regime is supported by Russia.

SPIRIT RAINBOW: A B-2 Spirit bomber waits beneath an arching rainbow. The photo was taken on the flightline at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii on Jan. 30, 2019.

BACKGROUND TO THE TRUMP-KIM HANOI SUMMIT:

No one is astonished that North Korea’s criminal regime still has nuclear weapons. In many respects, nukes and ICBMs are Kim’s only bargaining chips.

Many, however, are warily amazed that the diplomatic process continues.

For the deep background, read Chapter 2 of Cocktails from Hell. Remember, The Korean War isn’t over.

FEBRUARY 2009, TEN YEARS AGO: A Globemaster departure. Every Instapundit vet who has survived the military sardine experience for over three hours in any type of conveyance, please raise your hand…no, don’t put a picture on Fascistbook…just raise your hand as you look at the screen…and remember asking yourself, “Why am I here?” (Like, embrace the suck.)

THE TWO REPUBLICS OF VENEZUELA: Update from a couple of days ago, but very relevant.

VENEZUELA DEADLINE: Guaido gives military three days to switch sides and feed starving people.

Venezuelan National Assembly leader Juan Guaido on Wednesday gave the country’s armed forces a three-day ultimatum to stop supporting President Nicolas Maduro before humanitarian aid arrives.

Large amounts of aid — including medicine, food and hygiene products — are being accumulated on the Colombian and Brazilian sides of the border with Venezuela. Guaido has said it will enter Venezuela Saturday, despite Maduro’s efforts to block it with military force.

Guaido issued the warning as the country’s interim president.

“You have three days to obey the order of the president and place yourselves on the side of the constitution,” Guaido wrote in a tweet directed at military forces, who support Maduro. “The aid is to save lives.”

Love the narrative warfare — will U.S. Democrat Party socialistas back Maduro bullies blocking humanitarian aid?

Stay tuned.

RELATED: For deep background on narrative warfare, read this.

STRYKER MOBILE GUN SYSTEM IN ACTION: This 2nd Armored Cavalry M1128 Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS) is conducting gunnery training at Grafenwoehr, Germany. The vehicle is armed with a 105 mm main gun, a modified version of the 105 mm mounted on my old M60A1 (1975). Technically the Stryker MGS is a fire support vehicle — it is definitely not a main battle tank. This report from 2006 describes the MGS vehicle and why the U.S. Army bought it to complement the Stryker M1126 infantry carrier.

Here’s another photo of a Stryker MGS taken in February 2008 in Iraq.

ACROBATIC COVERING FIRE IN OMAN, CLIFFHANGER VERSION: A soldier from 2nd Battalion, 198th Armored Regiment, 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team, Mississippi National Guard, readies his position for cover fire as part of a team movement drill in Exercise Inferno Creek 19. His team is moving through a wadi in Rabkoot, Oman. The soldier’s overwatch position is high risk but his perch may be the best spot to cover soldiers moving forward on the wadi’s floor. I’m guessing he can observe a valley twist or two his squad mates have to negotiate. Photo was snapped Jan. 28, 2019.

APACHES IN BELGIUM: 1st Infantry Division AH-64 Apaches using Belgium’s Chievres Air Base as “an intermediate staging area” for operations further east.

WARPLANES, HEAVY BOMBER EDITION: B-52H stays, B-1 retires.

In CASE YOU MISSED IT: Russian hostile meddling backfires in northern Europe. (My latest Creators Syndicate column — bumped.)

RELATED: For deep background on Russian dirty tricks, “gray area warfare” techniques, narrative warfare and the Kremlin’s goals, see Chapter 4, Cocktails from Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century. Recommended reading for Russian trolls getting paid a pittance for lurking on the internet and attempting to sow “comment discord.”

MINE CLEARING: U.S. Army 1st Cavalry Division armored engineers conduct a dramatic (and highly explosive) combat assault exercise in Grafenwoehr, Germany.

INVERTED ANGEL: A USN Blue Angel practices the Diamond 360 maneuver, canopy down. It’s a tricky photo.

DICTATORS SPINNING CLUELESS MEDIA: Iran’s Yemen propaganda and more — a lot more. The latest StrategyTalk podcast. Jim Dunnigan gets off a great line in the first five minutes: “History is memory, news is not.” Liars in Iran, Russia, Venezuela and elsewhere leverage that.

In CASE YOU MISSED IT: Russian hostile meddling backfires in northern Europe. My latest Creators Syndicate column.

RELATED: For deep background on Russian dirty tricks and narrative warfare, see Chapter 4, Cocktails from Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century.

APACHES IN TEXAS: Good photo of 1st Air Cavalry Brigade AH-64 Apache attack helicopters training at Fort Hood, Texas.

RUSSIA’S HOSTILE SHENANIGANS: Well, they’ve made a lot of enemies.

However:

It’s often difficult to conclusively prove Russian trickery as it is occurring or even in the immediate aftermath of Kremlin gray-zone warfare operation. A recently released RAND study, “Russia’s Hostile Measures in Europe,” says that hard evidence “of intent from the Russian state, evidence of influence from Russia on a local proxy” and evidence that Russian influence on a proxy “led to the achievement of a Russian foreign policy objective … is almost never available.”

Yes, but:

Bold Kremlin misinformation, apparently spread by the Russian government and its proxies through digital, broadcast and print media, confuses critics and provides the Kremlin with adequate diplomatic cover.

Up to the point that people have heard and seen enough. Finnish soldiers’ training with NATO forces is diplomatic and military pushback. A substantial number of voters in Finland and Sweden favor joining NATO. In Sweden, joining NATO was once a forbidden subject. No longer.

For deep background, see Chapter 4, Cocktails from Hell: Five Complex Wars Shaping the 21st Century.

ABRAMS ON THE RANGE: Tank Table 6.

RUSSIAN HOSTILE MEDDLING BACKFIRES IN NORTHERN EUROPE

COLD RETURN TO PORT: The USS North Dakota pulls into Naval Submarine Base New London.

CHOKEPOINTS: Even cyberspace has maritime chokepoints.

Everyone using a computer knows internet data can be disrupted. The cyberspace “domain” has features analogous to geographic features. The 21st-century’s best-known cyber superhighway is the internet.

However, the internet has maritime chokepoints. In 2010, Jeremy Blackham and Gwyn Prins wrote that over 90 percent of global email traffic was “conveyed via undersea fiber-optic cables. These cables bunch in several critical sea areas (off New York … the English Channel, the South China Sea … and off the west coast of Japan).”

Maps from 2018 record more undersea cables, but their routes differ little from 2010. One trade organization estimated they handle over 95 percent of all intercontinental data.

From my latest Creators Syndicate column.

VERY RELATED: The column quotes a report by the Director of National Intelligence that says U.S. “adversaries pose challenges within traditional, non-traditional, hybrid, and asymmetric military, economic, and political spheres.” Cocktails from Hell explains what the DNI means — without the jargon.

HAWKEYE TRAP: Somewhere in the Indian Ocean an E-2C lands on the carrier USS John C. Stennis.