Thursday, June 5, 2025

Part I

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Ukraine’s Surprise Drone Attack: Ukraine Launches Devastating Drone Attack on Russia’s Bomber Fleet – We are in a New Age of Asymmetrical Warfare

Sometimes dividing lines in history, the before and the after, sometimes that’s an ongoing argument, interesting arguments to be sure. Sometimes there are crystallizing events, and the before and the after are just almost instantly clear. One of those crystallizing events took place on Sunday, although much of the world did not recognize it at the time for what it was.

On Sunday, on command, an entire army, it seemed, of drones with explosive devices, they were set loose in Russia and they were set to attack Russia’s strategic bomber fleet. And these drones did so with incredible effectiveness. Even as Ukraine claimed at the beginning that there may have been as many as 40 of these strategic bombers that were destroyed, in all likelihood, it is somewhere between 10 and 20. But some estimate that might be as much as 20 to 25% of the operational strategic bomber fleet of Russia. It is a crippling blow. It was something that was not anticipated.

And as is so often the case in a before and after, just think of the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941, there was a before and there’s an after. No one would have left an installation as strategic and important as Pearl Harbor, as exposed as it was, and changes would’ve been made, of course, if it had been anticipated that the Japanese would attack by surprise, out of the blue, and would aim that attack right at Pearl Harbor. But what took place in Ukraine is incredibly audacious. For one thing, just think about the technology. You have the modern technology of drones, and those drones have already been a destabilizing, they’ve already been a game-changing event in terms of the history of warfare. Never before have drones been used like Ukraine has used them.

Now, this leads to another big issue in warfare, came to be discussed in the 1970s and the 1980s, but in a more amplified way thereafter, particularly given military experience in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. The phrase is asymmetrical warfare. So if you think about most wars throughout history, at least the ones that make the history books and we think of, they make movies about, they are in, general, something akin to symmetrical warfare. You have the Empire Japan, you have the British Empire, you have the United States, you have the Soviet Union. You could just look at all these things. Look at World War II.

The big issue here is that there were big alliances and there were major national actors. And thus when you look at Japan, the Japanese Navy, you look at the US, the US Navy, you look at the British Navy, you look at all these things, you can see you’re talking about things that are fundamentally dissimilar. As a matter of fact, the Japanese were trying to catch up with the West and were doing so in such a way that, quite frankly, even as the military buildup was happening, many in the United States and Britain and elsewhere pretty much denied what they could see with their own eyes.

But asymmetrical warfare isn’t about, say, Japan and the United States. Asymmetrical warfare is about a lone warrior with a bomb, or with a missile thrower or a grenade launcher, and you’re looking at an attack upon the United States or American military forces, allied military forces. You’re talking about landmines, you’re talking about all kinds of things that were exploited during America’s rather unfortunate wars in the Middle East in the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century.

That asymmetrical warfare has also been demonstrated in recent months with the United States, with the Houthi rebels in Yemen. And the Houthi rebels have been firing missiles that sometimes can cost as little as $1,000 to $2,000. The American missiles defensively that have been shooting them down cost about $2 million apiece. That is asymmetrical warfare. $2,000 over here, stopped by $2 million over there. The United States is vastly more wealthy than the Houthi rebels. But asymmetrical warfare means that you can look at a terrorist group, you can look at a militant cell, you can look at, well, a nation like Ukraine that has been invaded by a far more powerful and more populous nation like Russia, and you can have a game-changing event such as took place on Sunday.

The audacity, again, is absolutely astounding. Ukrainian forces, their security and intelligence forces, had forward placed all of these drones. They were generally in crates, sometimes in the back of trucks. They were placed in advanced positions, very careful, very strategic move. They were hidden in crates sometimes in false floors, we are told, in trucks and lorries, and they were there just waiting to be launched and used in this kind of devastating attack. So this takes a lot of planning. It takes a lot of foresight. It didn’t necessarily take a large amount of money. Ukraine was not building strategic bombers. It was seeking to destroy them. That’s the asymmetry.

We’re now told that some of these drones can be ordered on the internet, the Chinese versions. And of course you also have, in some parts of the world, Iranian versions available for hundreds, at the very least thousands of dollars, and they can do millions upon millions of dollars of damage. And that’s just equipment. The human toll is incalculable.

But this asymmetrical warfare means that people around the world are catching on. Insurgent groups around the world, smaller nations, or for that matter, smaller militias can look at this and they learn a very quick lesson. The drone may get through. And if it does, it can get through a devastating effect.

So one of the things to keep in mind here is that a nation like Russia has a pretty sophisticated defense system, but that defense system takes some time to become operational. So just take the classic case in which there’s the detection of some kind of incoming threat, and it takes some time to launch a fighter. It takes some time to fire a missile in response. It takes some time, and that time sometimes is very short. One of the things that has become very clear is that in terms of naval warfare, the time may come down to two or three minutes or even less, that crucial window when a defensive mechanism might actually be able to stop an offensive weapon.

But when it came to what Ukraine did in Russia on Sunday, a part of the genius of placing all of these bombs, on drones, in forward placement was that so many of them were so close to the installations, there was no time at all for Russia to respond. Before they knew it, they had bombers that were bombed, exploding and burning on runways, visible at least in part to American and allied satellite imagery.

What does this mean strategically for the war after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? And now after a long period of fighting in which Russia clearly thought that Ukraine could be knocked out quickly, it wasn’t. And even as you have had a give and take here and there, the reality is that Russia is still far larger, it is still far more powerful. And the other thing that is working against Ukraine right now is that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s strong man president, is arguably stronger when he and his nation are at war. In one sense, going to war in Ukraine has solved some political and economic problems for Russia and Vladimir Putin, bringing a war to conclusion’s a very difficult thing under just about any circumstance.

Ukraine, on the other hand, was invaded. It has the ambition of regaining its territory. Whether or not that’s a realistic prospect is certainly open to question. It is almost beyond question that Ukraine has virtually no chance of recovering the Crimean Peninsula, which it lost years ago to Russia. And it is also unlikely that it is going to regain all the territory in the eastern region of the nation, bordering Russia, some of that predominantly Russian speaking in the first place. And it is just outside the capability of Ukraine to regain all of that territory, much less to defeat Russia. And that term itself is problematic. What would it mean to defeat Russia? Just ask Hitler or ask Napoleon, what exactly does that look like. Over time, Russia repels invasions. And over time it can absorb all kinds of losses.

But this is an absolute, it is an abject humiliation. Russia has been by a swarm of drones that have knocked out its strategic bomber fleet. Not entirely, but there are those looking at this who say it’s going to be very difficult for Russia to replace those bombers in the short term, or the long term, or ever. And the reason for that, it’s also interesting. And it’s not just about Russia, it’s also about the United States of America.

When it comes to American strategic bombers, what are we talking about? Well, you could say we’re talking about the B-2. It has been operational since about 1988, the stealth bomber as it is known. We have them. We don’t have that many of them. Then there’s the B-I Lancer bomber. And there are variants, of course, of all of these, and it became used in 1985. Still being used today. By the way, one of the loudest aircraft ever produced. It’s a strategic supersonic bomber.

And then of course, you look at B-52, the B-52 is still flying, 76 of them still operational in American Air Forces. And you look at the B-52, it is older than I am. It began flying in 1955. It is still flying. It is of course the Stratofortress. It is being up updated all the time. And American projections are that the B-52 will serve for at least another 25 to 40 years.

When it comes to Russian forces, we go back to the Soviet Union and the Tu-95 Tupolev bomber, sometimes known as the bear, it is a massive bomber. It’s kind of like a propeller driven version of the B-52. And it is still flying. It is a part of the strategic backbone of Russia’s Air Force. You have other bombers, including the Tu-22, the Backfire, and there are some very impressive aircraft there, but not that many of them and all of them are aging. And here’s a crucial difference between Russia and the United States, the United States is still producing these kinds of aircraft. When it comes to Russia, it really hasn’t been able to pull that off. It also hasn’t really been able to pull off a major entry into passenger aviation either. It still tends to buy Boeings and Airbuses just like most of the other major air carriers around the world.

What will this mean for the eventual outcome of the war between Russia and Ukraine? It is probably not a game changer in that respect. And it was also clear in an ominous way that yesterday in a phone call between President Donald Trump of the United States and President of Vladimir Putin of Russia, Putin said that Russia would strike back in a retaliatory attack on Ukraine. It didn’t announce when that would come or what it would mean, but this also comes after Russia has been sending more and more cruise missiles and other attacks into Ukraine, and the casualties are adding up.

Now, some have noted something very important in moral terms. Let’s just think about this for a moment. I just said that Russia has been sending in these missile attacks on population and city centers in Ukraine. Ukraine released this swarm of drones armed with considerable explosive power, and they were directed not at civilian centers. They were directed not at Russian cities. They were directed at military installations and at military equipment. Morally, that’s a very important distinction.

Military historians point out that ending a war is far more difficult than many people might think. For one thing, it isn’t clear to either side when exactly the right time to end the war might come. In one sense, both sides believe that some kind of strategic gain is right around the corner, that they’ll be in a stronger position tomorrow than they are today. But you also just recognize that it’s not enough for one side to come to this conclusion. You have to have both sides come to this conclusion and at roughly the same time. Historians, particularly military historians, will point out that this kind of agreement, this kind of ceasefire, this kind of peaceful end to hostilities rarely comes quickly.

But you also have other things that are really factoring in here. For one thing, Russia is certain that Ukraine will run out of steam and it might also just run out of soldiers. Russia has a far larger population, and Russia has been very effective at mobilizing that population. Vladimir Putin has been throwing money at this situation. He’s been throwing money at the families of Russia’s war dead. He has been throwing money at the soldiers themselves in such a way that many of them are actually making more as members of the military there in Russia than they ever had expected to be able to earn in their lives. This has led to an incredible amount of support for the Russian government and for Vladimir Putin himself. Now, will this last forever? Assuredly not, but Vladimir Putin believes that time is on his side. And just speaking in pure strategic terms, it is hard to argue with that assessment.

On the other hand, Ukraine has the strong moral ground. It was not the invader, it was the invaded. And it also is talking about its own home territory. It is fighting for its own people and its own territory. But right now you have another asymmetry. Ukraine appears to be more interested in bringing this war to a conclusion if only a temporary ceasefire than does Russia. And so long as that asymmetry exists, the likelihood is that the war will not only continue, but will go from event to event, attack to attack, and may actually escalate. And in this sense, that’s exactly what Ukraine has done. Ukraine has humiliated Russia in this attack. There’s just no question about it.

Military sources all over the world are looking at this and just about every major military is saying, “Well, thank goodness that wasn’t us.” It was a devastating attack, and the Russians look absolutely stupid. Why were all these bombers just lined up where they could be attacked like this? It is just a matter of fact that we are generally, military forces are generally very good at defending against the kinds of attacks that have come in the past. The kinds of attacks that may be developed in the future, the reality is, it’s quite easy even for some of the most advanced militaries on earth to be caught flat-footed in that situation.

Part II

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America, You’ve Been Warned: The U.S. Needs to Take Ukraine’s Drone Attack on Russia as an Exposure of Our Own Vulnerabilities

And this gets to another big worldview issue, and that is who needs to learn this lesson really fast? And in that case, you have to come back to the United States of America. American military officials and military intelligence strategists are looking at what took place in Russia on Sunday, and saying it could happen here. It can happen here because of known vulnerabilities that honestly have been known for some time.

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal makes this point. They write, “But the US has lost some basic muscle memory since the Cold War on living in a dangerous world.” A prescient report this year from Thomas Shugart and Timothy Walton at the Hudson Institute warned about highly vulnerable US airfields, especially in the Western Pacific. Listen to this, “For the new B-21 bomber, the Air Force is looking at shelters akin to sunshades,” Mr. Shugart and Walton write, “that could leave the aircraft exposed to threats including lethal unmanned aerial vehicles.” So in other words, even as this was unforeseen by Russia, it wasn’t unforeseen by some military specialists, considering the evolving nature of asymmetrical warfare.

Now get this, Shugart and Walton write about the US and our vulnerabilities to lethal unmanned aerial vehicles. They argue that not building approximately $30 million hardened aircraft shelters “for over $600 million B-21 bombers is an unwise decision that could endanger the ability of the US to strike globally.” Okay, think about that for a moment. So you have, in this case, a $600 million airplane. It could be protected with a $30 million hardened aircraft shelter. But what if you decide you don’t want to spend that $30 million? Basically, the aircraft are completely exposed.

That was what we might say was exposed Sunday in Russia, and it is almost a surefire bet that American military authorities are taking a quick look at what happened in Russia and wondering what they must do to prevent something like that from happening to American forces, an American aircraft sitting on American runways all over the world.

And the other worldview issue in all of this is that it’s not only those seeking to defend assets who are seeing this development and learning quick lessons. It is also those who might want to attack a nation like the United States of America and might want to knock out a certain percentage and perhaps even a considerable percentage of our own aircraft and our own defenses. You can look at this and recognize there are terrorist groups and others around the world who are saying, “You know, this looks like a playbook that we could run ourselves.”

Meanwhile, in another sobering note, we just need to reflect upon the fact that most officials around the world now believe that casualties of the war in Ukraine are now, in the words of the New York Times, closing in on 1.4 million. That’s 1.4 million. This is turning out to be not only an historic war, but an incredibly deadly war as well. We’ll be tracking developments on this story. And lamentably, there are almost certainly going to be developments soon to come.

Part III

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So Many Parents are ‘Unschooling’ Their Children – What Does It Mean, and What’s Behind It?

Now, let’s come back to the United States of America. USA Today ran a major article on unschooling. Headline, “Unschooling Trend is All Over Social media. Advocates Say Kids Thrive. Critics Lament Harm.” Adriana Rodriguez is the reporter in the story. The first thing I want to note is that there is nothing particularly new about unschooling. That is one of the terms that goes back to the 1960s. And it does remind us of something that’s just an important historical fact. The unschooling movement and the allied homeschooling movement, they developed on the cultural left at first, not so much on the cultural right. Unschooling was a way of those on the left, including the hippies, especially on the West Coast saying, “We’re not going to turn our kids over to the man. We’re going to educate them ourselves. We’re going to take them away from the state, from the government-run schools who are going to fill them with all kinds of Cold War propaganda, et cetera.” Of course, now the concerns about those public schools are far more widespread, not on the left, but on the right for all kinds of credible reasons.

But USA Today is just saying that unschooling is now breaking out as something of a renewed trend. And by the time something like this shows up in a paper like USA Today, it’s pretty far advanced. By the time a major newspaper like this decides, “We’re going to write a feature article on this,” something has really happened already. And one of the things that we can now understand is that the spark for at least some of this came with the COVID-19 pandemic and with the shutdown of so many school systems, and so many parents came to understand several things. Number one, their kids evidently weren’t learning much anyway. Or to put it another way, a lot of parents looked at their kids during the pandemic and said, “You know, they’re evidently spending a lot of time at school doing something other than learning. There are other ways to get this done.” Some families found it to be a very satisfying and bonding experience when parents were teaching their kids. Other families got together, formed their own formal or informal consortia, organizations together, to educate their children.

But it is interesting that USA Today takes this tack, “Unschooling videos have amassed millions of views on social media as fascination with the educational movement grows.” Even Courtney Kardashian said, “Sending kids to school felt so dated” while speaking with her sister during a recent episode of the Khloé in Wonder Land podcast. I didn’t know such a thing existed, but evidently they’re talking about unschooling.

USA Today says, “Some parents say their children are thriving in the unschooling environment, fueling their confidence and desire to learn.” But USA Today comes along to warn, “But not all students find success in unschooling. Some former students say the lack of structure and accountability can lead to educational neglect if parents don’t have the resources to make it work. Some kids who were unschooled feel they were left unprepared for adulthood and had fewer career opportunities.”

Well, all right, let’s just start with something Christians need to recognize. There is no perfect way to approach the educational process. There is not and never has been. There’s never been a perfect model and there never will be a perfect model in a fallen world. But I’ll just say from a Christian perspective, given an organic biblical understanding, the closer you get to the family and specifically to parents being in charge, and parents taking charge for the education of their own children, the closer you get to that, the closer you’re going to get to what works, simply because in the order of creation, marriage and family work, parenting works. And the family is to be, at the very least, the first school for the child. And so unschooling in this sense, as covered by USA Today, can cover an entire range of educational philosophies, of worldviews and all the rest.

My point in raising it today is simply to say this is something that isn’t going to be reversed. I am pretty confident about that. I think as much as the COVID-19 pandemic was a disaster in so many different dimensions, one thing that has come out of it is that an incredible number, an incredible percentage of American families and parents are saying, “Well, we’re not just going to go back to the kind of habits of the past in terms of five-day-a-week public schools and all the rest.” Some of them are looking for other traditional school models. And of course you have the development and rapid growth of the Christian classical school movement, and I think much good is being done there. You also have families that are giving themselves in a more active sense to homeschooling even now what I would call a strategic homeschooling. In other words, it’s not just homeschooling to homeschool. It’s homeschooling with a specific kind of biblically-based, often classically influenced curriculum in mind and with specific outcomes for their children that parents are seeking to achieve.

Part IV

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There’s More to ‘Unschooling’ Than the Left Wants You to Believe – Watch Out for the Elites Looking to Regulate Your Children’s Education

Now, there’s one dimension of this story in USA Today that I don’t think most Christian parents are going to find too interesting, and that is kind of a resurgence of the hippies who are basically saying, “We want just free schooling. We’re going to let our kids learn what they’re interested in. They can just follow their own bliss. They can just make up their own curriculum. If they’re interested in this, they can do it. If they’re not interested, they don’t have to do it.” I think most Christian parents recognize that is not a very workable plan. No wonder there are some kids who are unprepared for adult responsibilities. I don’t think most children left to themselves just in a so-called free school are going to get very far.

Now, I think from a Christian perspective, at least a part of what we might see here is that unschooling is interesting, but it’s not enough on its own. Unschooling just is too undefined to be particularly helpful. As parents taking responsibility, families taking responsibility for creating educational alternatives for their children, that’s a good thing. But when that gets translated into something amorphous, and quite honestly independent of any real learning, and I also mean by that learning things that practically and academically should be learned in school. That’s why a formal curriculum I think is a very important thing and the discipline of that curriculum.

Finally, on this, I want to point to something at the end of this USA Today article because I think this should have the attention of Christian parents in particular. One woman cited in the article is quoted here, “She commends parents who want to take a proactive role in their child’s education, but advocates for stronger state regulations to prevent educational neglect.” Now, I’ll just step back and say, I think that is a rather subversive insertion in this article.

I think there’s a big problem there. Let’s just state the obvious when the people who are operating their own schools, as in the public schools, will claim the right to regulate those who have pulled their children out of those schools. I think you should hear in that not only something that doesn’t sound wise, I think you should hear in that a threat.