I am trying to revisit seerah half hour a day and I wanted to share something that makes me bawl like a baby. Here is the story of Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه | May Allah be pleased with him) and how he redefined what it means to be a true Friend 😇

/thread/ It has been almost 2 months since the end of the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh war and after observing it from the start and talking about it with (or listening to) some really smart people, here are IMO important lessons (new or old) from that conflict:

1. Even in smaller conflicts, U(C)AVs are making achieving air superiority, or at least denying it to the opponent, a lot more important than it used to be.

2. Effective distribution of real-time data from U(C)AVs (and loitering munitions, which can be launched to perform recon when other assets are not available) can significantly increase the effectiveness of even relatively old artillery systems.

3. While airpower is getting incredibly deadly and can quickly inflict massive material damage, you still need units on the ground with a strong will to fight despite taking casualties (and political will to accept that in serious modern wars, significant losses are inevitable).

4. Soldiers need to be aware that on a modern battlefield there are not really any "safe areas" and TTPs (tactics techniques procedures) need to be changed to reflect this.

There is a recent new word in Chinese that I think deserves introducing into the Western neoreactionary canon.

The word is 内卷 (nei-juan) which has been translated as "involution". Originally a Chinese phenomenon it increasingly applies anywhere there is modernity.

To capture the essence of what "involution" means it helps to picture a spiral in your mind. Our modern narrative says that as we progress technologically we should progress OUT of the spiral and have more free time to be capable of ever more amazing things...

But what if the progression of technology and society actually sends us WITHIN the spiral in an infinite number of ever-decreasing circles? What if we are walking DOWN the spiral staircase of progress rather than UP?

"Involution" in its original meaning has been used to describe agrarian societies and how their development actually leads to self-perpetuating processes that prevent change and progress rather than encourage it.

Increased food production has limited many civilisations and sent them into stagnancy rather than allowed them to grow. This stagnancy can continue for millennia in safe environments till threatened, other times it drives the civilisation into extinction from external threats.

Bellingcat and its investigative partners have established that Russian politician, Vladimir Kara Murza, was followed by a specialist FSB team prior to his suspected poisonings in 2015 and 2017.

Members of the same FSB team, some of whom have medical and chemical weapons backgrounds, tailed Alexey Navalny before he was poisoned with a Novichok substance in August 2020.

Kara-Murza is a well-known Russian politician, film-maker and an outspoken critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin. The circumstances around his suspected poisonings have long remained a mystery.

Travel details of FSB team members show they followed Kara-Murza on a campaign trip outside Moscow that ended less than 48 hours before his first poisoning incident in May 2015.

Kara-Murza recovered in the US before returning to Russia. Yet the same team began tailing him again just five months after he came back. He was poisoned for the second time in February 2017.

#Yemen is a very active topic on Twitter these days, with a number of online campaigns underway, some of which are trending globally. What’s new and interesting is the massive participation by Yemenis using these hashtags #HouthiTerrorismInYemen & #StopHouthiTerrorismInYemen 1/13

These hashtags were started by a group called “Aqyal,” an emerging social movement that fights Hashemite supremacy and calls for equal opportunities for all Yemenis. It’s widely supported by Yemeni youth, including those affiliated with the existing political parties. 2/13

Aqyal was able to rally people across the political spectrum against Houthis for the first time, and this success was due to 1) their independence, 2) all of them are volunteers, 3) transparency in organizing, and 4) the fact that it’s a just cause. 3/13

On the other hand, Houthi supporters have rallied behind these two hashtags #YemenCantWait & #DayofAction4Yemen
These hashtags were originally started by NGOs& independent activists, but their goal coincided with the goal of t Houthi, which is ending support for Saudi Arabia 4/13

The top goal of Houthis since 2015 is to neutralize Saudi Arabia, so the group can more easily take control over the rest of Yemen. Therefore, Houthis hid behind these campaigns, taking advantage of NGOs’ anti-Saudi message.5/13