William B. Fuckley

opinionhaver.bsky.social

19 October 2026 22:53

Old middlebrow military or spy thrillers were much more willing to take place in some kind of Hollywood version of the actual world, with (caricatures, sure) of real countries, agencies, etc. Even sort of campy outlandish shit like James Bond often referenced real conflicts.

William B. Fuckley

opinionhaver.bsky.social

19 October 2026 22:53

One thing that is weird about current examples of the genre is this attention to ~tactical realism~ in like the exact guns or jargon used but the central motivating conflict is either ‘evil PMC that might as well be cobra commander’ or ‘mumble mumble hand wave’

William B. Fuckley

opinionhaver.bsky.social

19 October 2026 22:53

There’s a forgettable chuck Norris movie from like the 80s that a couple of us in grad school watched drunk on a lark once because his character is a political science grad student, and even kind of trashy stuff like that was rooted much more concretely in some kind of real politics.

alex williams

atwilliams.bsky.social

18 October 2026 18:13

this is a good idea nypost.com/2026/10/18/u...

Jason "Red5" Lyall

jaylyall.bsky.social

18 October 2026 01:22

New paper 🚨: Is there a democratic advantage in war? 30 years of research say yes. We reevaluate these claims with new data on wars and democracy and find very little evidence to support the claim that democracies win wars at (much) higher rates than non-democracies Paper: doi.org/10.31235/osf...