I accept the analysis of the damage done by the leaks.
I'd just add one arguable positive:
Broadcasting the shortage of weapons/ammunition faced by Ukraine is useful. It doesn't do any good to turn away from the shortcomings of the alliance's late and underwhelming support. If Ukraine can not do a successful counteroffensive now, it is better to delay.
You can argue this situation either way. Certainly the hawks and appeasers will see the analysis as confirmation of their policy preferences. I'd rather take my chances on a bright light shining on reality.
Oh, and it seems like all this information was gathered by US SIGINT so no HUMINT or moles endangered.
Plus, Russia already knew they leaked intelligence like a sieve in all their agencies since before their invasion back in Feb 2022 (when the US showed the world what Putin was up to). They evidently don’t care all that much or can’t fix the problem.
Finally, I think all of the US’s allies kind of knew the US spied on them. But handling the populace of those countries is the trickier part.
It all started in a right-wing Discord channel (filled with racism and sometimes Cyrillic) with a small tight membership (of about 20). Some American with access to this stuff leaked this stuff to his friends. He probably had no intention to leak this to the outside world or maybe even hurt the US or UA. But then his friends would post this information in other Discord channels and elsewhere to win stupid internet arguments or other reasons and this stuff would spread.
The big scandal (that Alex Clarkson pointed out) is that too many people in the DOD and DC get access to sensitive information for no good reason.
Well, like the leaked documents themselves that nobody seems to know much about, this article follows the same path and just the obvious repercussions are voiced. The news on them follows the same path with the same ending- we'll have to wait to see. Much ado about nothing at this point because nobody knows anything specifically about them.
I think you are over-dramatizing the damage, here.
1. It is not a surprise to anyone that we spy on everyone except UK, AUS, NZ, and Canada. I remember my old man telling me this in the 70s. Or just ask Angela Merkel. If anything there's more of this activity post-9-11, given the massive $$$ influx into the defense/intelligence complex. (It's an embarrassment, sure. But not a big loss of a secret. Although maybe that's what DC cares about more...they are so politically driven there, rather than operational.)
2. The loss is not really super important stuff. We are not talking about losing keymat or crypto machines or SAS or the like. This is not Johnny Walker. It's all about a current conflict, also (even a weather slide from a month ago!) We are not talking about ongoing operations of advantaged US forces (like F-18 dogfighting manuals or blueprints of a submarine).
Also, a lot of the numbers on losses look like they are transcribed from OSINT web-compiled photos (for Russia, and some overestimation/underestimation concerns) or just the exact Ukraine reported numbers (which may have issues also as Ukraine has openly admitted they are fighting for their lives and if they have to mobilized the Ghost of Kiev in PR operations, will do so). And really, those might be the best sources for estimating each side's losses. But a thoughtful (honest) comment would have helped make sense of the numbers. But...honesty is lacking in PPT DOD slides (look at the crap we had with Afghan readiness slides!) That or maybe they could have shaded the numbers with some Bayesian hypothesis (like add X% to Ukraine reported losses or the like for Russia).
In addition, the stuff is a month old. I mean it's not zero value to a Russian to get the list of brigades and organization of armor and the like. But it's not telling them if any of the timelines diverged in the last 30 days.
NOTE: I'm NOT saying it's "OK". Just on the scale of reference, it's not that huge. And if some Springfield Metro Station embarking analysts have to work on it....really it is not the end of the world. They are spending a lot of time churning around, regardless for non-warfighter DC audiences (point 3).
3. Honestly, I'm amazed at the detail in the things for the first thing. How does a decision maker read any of that and extract useful information? If those are daily slides, how the heck do you know when some tiny part of them changed? How do you know which parts are reliable and which parts are not? And we are paying people to compile all that stuff and proof it. Ugg. Death by PowerPoint. Hate that stuff.
4. And the slide on brigade training for the summer offensive should have had a better title, like "brigades are massively under force and have low training time". But...try having that level of fully monty honesty with flag officers. (Why I loved serving in a small unit, far/far from DC or any shore control. We never had that PPT mind rot affecting us. It was just about fixing the gear and doing the missions...which are non trivial issues.)
P.s. As a civilian, I found this video from a former enlisted intel tech more helpful to get a feel for the docs:
What would be really interesting would be leaks that indicate the extent to which Zelensky colluded with the USA BEFORE the Russian invasion. Both would have been aware that Russia could not and would not tolerate American controlled military bases or government in Ukraine. And both were aware that if Ukraine continued to head in that direction then Russia would be forced to act to prevent it at some point no matter who was in charge. They were also well aware that bringing things to a head while Putin, a ruthless and cold-blooded killer, was the person in charge would result in particularly severe destruction and loss of life in Ukraine. Of course for the US it's the ideal proxy war because it isn't American lives that are at risk. And the longer they can prolong the war, the more it weakens Russia.
Sweden: Jews Call for Ban on Nordic Resistance Movement
I ALWAYS LIKE to take note of Jewish organizations calling for bans on immigration resistance parties. You could say “Why bother? We’re surrounded by Jews screeching for White Genocide in various, usually artfully disguised, ways. This is just another twig on the bonfire.”
Bradley Manning?
I accept the analysis of the damage done by the leaks.
I'd just add one arguable positive:
Broadcasting the shortage of weapons/ammunition faced by Ukraine is useful. It doesn't do any good to turn away from the shortcomings of the alliance's late and underwhelming support. If Ukraine can not do a successful counteroffensive now, it is better to delay.
You can argue this situation either way. Certainly the hawks and appeasers will see the analysis as confirmation of their policy preferences. I'd rather take my chances on a bright light shining on reality.
Oh, and it seems like all this information was gathered by US SIGINT so no HUMINT or moles endangered.
Plus, Russia already knew they leaked intelligence like a sieve in all their agencies since before their invasion back in Feb 2022 (when the US showed the world what Putin was up to). They evidently don’t care all that much or can’t fix the problem.
Finally, I think all of the US’s allies kind of knew the US spied on them. But handling the populace of those countries is the trickier part.
It’s actually 1 big leak (that has been going on for a few months): https://mobile.twitter.com/AricToler/status/1644867282680553472
It all started in a right-wing Discord channel (filled with racism and sometimes Cyrillic) with a small tight membership (of about 20). Some American with access to this stuff leaked this stuff to his friends. He probably had no intention to leak this to the outside world or maybe even hurt the US or UA. But then his friends would post this information in other Discord channels and elsewhere to win stupid internet arguments or other reasons and this stuff would spread.
The big scandal (that Alex Clarkson pointed out) is that too many people in the DOD and DC get access to sensitive information for no good reason.
Well, like the leaked documents themselves that nobody seems to know much about, this article follows the same path and just the obvious repercussions are voiced. The news on them follows the same path with the same ending- we'll have to wait to see. Much ado about nothing at this point because nobody knows anything specifically about them.
I think you are over-dramatizing the damage, here.
1. It is not a surprise to anyone that we spy on everyone except UK, AUS, NZ, and Canada. I remember my old man telling me this in the 70s. Or just ask Angela Merkel. If anything there's more of this activity post-9-11, given the massive $$$ influx into the defense/intelligence complex. (It's an embarrassment, sure. But not a big loss of a secret. Although maybe that's what DC cares about more...they are so politically driven there, rather than operational.)
2. The loss is not really super important stuff. We are not talking about losing keymat or crypto machines or SAS or the like. This is not Johnny Walker. It's all about a current conflict, also (even a weather slide from a month ago!) We are not talking about ongoing operations of advantaged US forces (like F-18 dogfighting manuals or blueprints of a submarine).
Also, a lot of the numbers on losses look like they are transcribed from OSINT web-compiled photos (for Russia, and some overestimation/underestimation concerns) or just the exact Ukraine reported numbers (which may have issues also as Ukraine has openly admitted they are fighting for their lives and if they have to mobilized the Ghost of Kiev in PR operations, will do so). And really, those might be the best sources for estimating each side's losses. But a thoughtful (honest) comment would have helped make sense of the numbers. But...honesty is lacking in PPT DOD slides (look at the crap we had with Afghan readiness slides!) That or maybe they could have shaded the numbers with some Bayesian hypothesis (like add X% to Ukraine reported losses or the like for Russia).
In addition, the stuff is a month old. I mean it's not zero value to a Russian to get the list of brigades and organization of armor and the like. But it's not telling them if any of the timelines diverged in the last 30 days.
NOTE: I'm NOT saying it's "OK". Just on the scale of reference, it's not that huge. And if some Springfield Metro Station embarking analysts have to work on it....really it is not the end of the world. They are spending a lot of time churning around, regardless for non-warfighter DC audiences (point 3).
3. Honestly, I'm amazed at the detail in the things for the first thing. How does a decision maker read any of that and extract useful information? If those are daily slides, how the heck do you know when some tiny part of them changed? How do you know which parts are reliable and which parts are not? And we are paying people to compile all that stuff and proof it. Ugg. Death by PowerPoint. Hate that stuff.
4. And the slide on brigade training for the summer offensive should have had a better title, like "brigades are massively under force and have low training time". But...try having that level of fully monty honesty with flag officers. (Why I loved serving in a small unit, far/far from DC or any shore control. We never had that PPT mind rot affecting us. It was just about fixing the gear and doing the missions...which are non trivial issues.)
P.s. As a civilian, I found this video from a former enlisted intel tech more helpful to get a feel for the docs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vus6dflXns
https://readingjunkie.com/2023/04/07/nato-battle-plans-leaked-lets-analyze/
What would be really interesting would be leaks that indicate the extent to which Zelensky colluded with the USA BEFORE the Russian invasion. Both would have been aware that Russia could not and would not tolerate American controlled military bases or government in Ukraine. And both were aware that if Ukraine continued to head in that direction then Russia would be forced to act to prevent it at some point no matter who was in charge. They were also well aware that bringing things to a head while Putin, a ruthless and cold-blooded killer, was the person in charge would result in particularly severe destruction and loss of life in Ukraine. Of course for the US it's the ideal proxy war because it isn't American lives that are at risk. And the longer they can prolong the war, the more it weakens Russia.
Fuck you and your Jewish god . . .
Sweden: Jews Call for Ban on Nordic Resistance Movement
I ALWAYS LIKE to take note of Jewish organizations calling for bans on immigration resistance parties. You could say “Why bother? We’re surrounded by Jews screeching for White Genocide in various, usually artfully disguised, ways. This is just another twig on the bonfire.”
https://nationalvanguard.org/2019/03/sweden-jews-call-for-ban-on-nordic-resistance-movement/