MulletMonkeyWrench Archive

Reversion to a Mean Strategy: System Memories & Latent Constraints in Russia’s War on Ukraine

TLDRUpFront: A deeper dive into strategies and doctrines of Russia's invasion of Ukraine through a lense of complex systems analysis to help explain what has happened to now, and what is likely to happen in the future. 

Exploits and Asymmetric Vulnerabilities in the Texas Anti-Abortion Law

TLDRUpFront: The private enforcement mechanism of Texas’s anti-abortion law removes legal safeguards designed to protect both defendants and courts from bad actors. In analogy, Republicans turned off the anti-virus software because it made using the dark web harder. In doing so they’ve exposed themselves, and the Texas court system, to exploits and asymmetric monkeywrenching they

‘Say my Name’ Navalny Puts Putin in Dictator’s Dilemma

TLDRUpFront: A mega-mullet overview of all the context you're missing on the Russian Navalny protests, Putin's hold power, and how a Dictator's Dilemma could expose a fracturing among the elites leading to a possible collapse of the regime in Russia in the next few years.

InfoMullet: Principles of Unrestricted Warfare

TLDRUpFront: As China continues to exert pressure on multiple fronts its important to understand a tenet of their strategic doctrine. "Unrestricted Warfare" advances a state-actor strategy of asymmetric conflict based on the principle of additive complexity that seeks to cause a seizure of complex systems. The strategy seeks to bridge combat power disparity between two

InfoMullet: Was it Sam Adams or Black Lives Matter?

TLDRUpFront: During protests, riots, or other actions amateur-historians contrast “these” actions to “those” actions of our Founding Fathers leading to the American Revolution. This InfoMullet quiz challenges our understanding that pre-Revolutionary agitators were any less radical than their modern equivalents. If he were alive today, Sam Adams might share more common cause with Black Live

InfoMullet: Ashes to Ashes (pt3 of 4)

TLDRUpFront: The third of a four-part series as the United States, and the world, begins tipping-over from COVID-19. As worries about pandemic related violence and instability increase the InfoMullet forecasts the next 12 months across six types of violence. Unlike the pandemic or the economy, our forecast of violence is positive with declining rates in

InfoMullet: The Dictator’s Dilemma – Hong Kong Case Study

TLDRUpFront: Even as the wildfire of COVID19 rages we look ahead to what the world will look like after the first wave. Originally published in November, the Dictator's Dilemma uses the Hong Kong protests to illustrate a crucial dynamic: how small initial calls for reform over legitimate grievances can escalate into mass civil protests, violent street

InfoMullet: Canceling OK is the Wrong Approach – Here’s a Better Idea

TLDRUpFront: The OK hand-sign meaning “white power” started as a hoax but became self-fulfilling as hate groups began appropriating the ubiquitous hand sign. In response some seeking to counter hate-speech are trying to cancel OK, and though the concern about radical or violent non-state actors is legitimate, the approach of canceling is in this case

InfoMullet: The Defenestration of Bannon

TLDR UpFront: Steve Bannon resigned his position at Brietbart News Tuesday night. For the man who popularized the term alt-right and was once seen as the grand strategist of Trumpism this continues a six-month plummet. It began with Steve being booted from the White House, then backing a GOP candidate who couldn't win in deep-red

Radical Moderate #2: No other method to disrupt the regular order of the legislature is allowed.

TLDRUpFront: Returning from cancer treatment to the Senate, both on the floor and subsequent op-ed Senator McCain called for a return to regular order in the Senate. In doing so he not only fired more warning shots across the bow President Trump, and his own party leadership. But he also elucidated both a cause