https://x.com/ripplebrain/status/2090430665980305408 (privated account)

https://xcancel.com/afinley01/status/2090438434599100529

Some context - "left-of-launch" refers to a strategy of air defense wherein you focus on destroying the enemy launchers themselves (the "archer" in this metaphor)) rather than intercepting their missiles (the "arrows"). This was one of the last remaining copes of Western military commentators - the one that the slightly-less-unserious few, who actually accepted that interceptor inventories were completely insufficient for anything serious, held onto.

This despite it already being shown not to work with the Gulf War Scud-hunting campaign and the Yugoslavia air campaign since, as it turns out, hunting down individual highly mobile and easily concealable trucks is actually far from trivial, but hey, this time, thanks to all the advances in sensor technology and ISR, it would finally work! And, well, it didn't.

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[–] 66 points 3 days ago