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Decker Eveleth

@dexeve.bsky.social
8.1K followers 431 following 950 posts

PRC and DPRK strategic forces analyst with CNA. BA Reed College, MA Middlebury Institute. NSF GRFP.

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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I am in the middle of writing something that mentions, in passing, that the difficulty Iran has had affecting US military operations in the region with their missile forces means Iran may rely more heavily on terrorism to accomplish objectives. Well, looks like that's already here
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Having a lot of inside thoughts about the CASI news.
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Jeffrey Lewis @armscontrolwonk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
+1. A lot of the construction of risk has to do with underlying priors about existential and catastrophic risk more so than the particularities of a given technology. That doesn’t mean the view is invalid; but it does imply one should interrogate those assumptions.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
There is a lot of very justified concern about the interceptor stockpile, but the solutions forwarded are really unconvincing. US must rethink our approach to force design more broadly. "More bombs deter more" doesn't cut it.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I am tired of hearing about the impending arms race. horsdoeuvresofbattle.substack.com/p/i-am-tired...
horsdoeuvresofbattle.substack.com
I Am Tired of Hearing About the Impending Arms Race
Erin Dumbacher has written an article in Foreign Affairs titled “America Doesn’t Need More Nuclear Weapons.” Among its claims about how the United States does not need nuclear weapons is one particula...
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I'd argue that we in the United States have a tendency to do this especially (compared to RU and PRC) because our basic deterrence theory assumes that nuclear and conventional operations are effectively entirely distinct levels of conflict.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
My sense is that people still seem to think that Europe and Asia are going to snap awake at some point and dramatically change their approach to weapons basing, which is an argument one could have plausibly made in the Biden admin after 2021/22, and one you really can't make in the Trump admin.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
As I also said on the other site, the development of a land-based theater nuclear deterrent is defeated by geography in East Asia and in Europe is not only unnecessary, it likely simply increases Russian first strike incentives. Glance at what Gen. Karakayev has written and you'll see why.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
A lot of debate right now on the stockpile is very tiring. Yes, we should build more munitions, but that only solve issues to an extent. No, "do less war" isn't really a helpful comment unless you have some sort of plan to change the landscape of American politics.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is very odd to me...its possible its true, but it raises a number of follow up questions: A) why were the drones loitering over an area 10km away, especially when that area is OBVIOUSLY a military facility?
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Mearsheimer's latest article reminds me of Japanese holdouts pillaging the Phillipines countryside in the 1960s. The paradigm wars are over man. You can go home.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
lol, Ferrari -automated tweet, sent every Sunday
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Very funny, and also probably true.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
The death of hyper-specific professional forums, where knife fights can be performed safely out of the public eye, has dragged a lot of inside-baseball fighting out into the open, and now such knife fights are performed in the pages of major magazines.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
The reporting on decision-making calculus (and I use that word generously) in Iran and the US should reveal why a lot of materialist analysis has turned out to be wrong: we are still in conflict because US and Iran have fundamentally different views on what happened and why.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
A lot of discussion on carriers that would have made sense maybe five or six years ago.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
From Jane Nolan's Gaurdians of the Arsenal. I think this turned out to be wrong, in fact. Or at the very least, vastly overestimated how much the public actually cares.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
This is something I get frequently annoyed about - people forget that there is a reason why CENTCOM HQ is in Tampa. They knew this would happen, and all things considered, we should be pleasantly surprised at how well the bases did hold up.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Signed by the author! And yes, its precisely what it sounds like.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Scored one of my long sought afters at the bookstore for 10 bucks
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Having a great time at UChicago talking to AI folks about nuclear deterrence.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
My latest in Foreign Policy, arguing we are likely overreacting to China recent missile test: foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/13/c...
foreignpolicy.com
Stop Overreacting to China’s Missile Test
It was a milestone for Beijing’s nuclear forces—but not necessarily the provocation many analysts have made it out to be.
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Andrew Facini @andrewfacini.com · 15/06/2026
Oh man haha
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
@andrewfacini.com do you have that "THE ITAR LOOMS" poster you photoshopped? I think it probably needs to be hung inside Anthropic HQ right now
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
The obvious historical analog to this conflict is Beirut 1983, in which an American administration inserted itself into what the defenders considered an existential conflict but the administration was not willing to actually accept American casualties.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Latest Substack post on the Rueters story about Chinese "launch pads." The highlighted facilities cannot support a nuclear LOW mission and are almost certainly not even related to the PLARF. horsdoeuvresofbattle.substack.com/p/on-reuters...
horsdoeuvresofbattle.substack.com
On Reuters' "Launch Pads" Story
A couple of weeks ago Reuters published an interesting story about Chinese launch pads being built around a set of three octagonal bases out in the Chinese desert.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/12/i... My latest in FP, on how the missile defense fight in China will look nothing like how it did in Iran, and some nerdy stuff about Rundstedt.
foreignpolicy.com
Missile Defense Worked Against Iran. It Might Not Work Against China.
The ongoing war has revealed vulnerabilities that could prove far more dangerous in a conflict over Taiwan.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Meanwhile, at the other rogue state, Kim Jong Un tours an enrichment site and looks over some warhead designs.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Trying to avoid the 100 books discourse but I gotta say including Invisible Cities is really stretching the definition of the novel.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Playing the ancient city building game Songs of Syx and getting absurdly mad at how much time and how many resources go into maintaining a library. I would have absolutely set my people back another thousand years if I was a Sumerian king.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
The Middlebury Institute of International Studies is potentially being purchased by uhhhh (checks notes) Soka Gakkai? www.soka.edu/monterey-ins...
soka.edu
Monterey Institute of International Studies | Soka University of America
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
open.substack.com/pub/horsdoeu...
open.substack.com
Siloed Silos and Analytical Failures
Pictured: the most devious counter-intelligence tool ever devised.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
The missile hunting stuff is probably the least problematic aspect of the war. Im much more startled by the amount of munitions that we seems to have expended on honestly irrelevant targets.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
In the White House's new Counterterrorism Strategy released today, narcoterrorists are placed above "Legacy Islamic Terrorists."
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Every time I log on to this platform all I see are smart people I respect arguing with the dumbest people every to grace the earth. Do you know there is a beautiful outside world full of wonder
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
Some thoughts on the war and where we go from here. open.substack.com/pub/horsdoeu...
open.substack.com
The Iran War's End, and the Region's Future
Despite my initial bullishness on the possibility of a return to fighting, the war now seems to be mostly over for both sides – neither Iran nor the United States seems interested in restarting the fi...
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
"The presence of a chemical"
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
There is a third road - one I do not think is likely but is entirely possible - in which no deal is reached, the Strait gradually defacto reopens, and the conflict ends status quo ante bellum.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
I have written something very silly that likens deterrence to assembling IKEA furniture. open.substack.com/pub/horsdoeu...
open.substack.com
The Gun From IKEA
Inspired by some recent struggles with a daybed
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
Sometimes history truly is cyclical. In 1967 in order to support the Vietnam war, US pulled formations earmarked for NATO, deployed them to Vietnam, and expended vast amounts of munitions. In order to close the gap the US complained to the allies about their defense expenditure.
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Jeffrey Lewis @armscontrolwonk.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
@dexeve.bsky.social & I have a new piece out in Survival. In 2024, South Korea secretly deployed more than 300 KTSSM missiles at soft, fixed sites--suggesting that, in a crisis, Seoul may strike first & giving Pyongyang 300 reasons to beat them to it. doi.org/10.1080/0039...
doi.org
South Korea’s Ominous Missile Deployments
By placing more than 300 fixed, short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles on permanent alert at several above-ground sites close to the Demilitarised Zone, South Korean Strategic Command ha...
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
I really do think we need some sort of disparaging term for people whose only interaction with fiction is Weir and qntm.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
My latest in FP, on how Iranian deterrence has collapsed over the last two years: foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/24/i...
foreignpolicy.com
How Iran’s Deterrence Collapsed Ahead of the War
A key failure in 2024 paved the way for U.S. and Israeli attacks.
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Aaron Stein @aaronstein1.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
Experts from the @fpri.bsky.social analyze the latest military developments from the Third Gulf War @slair.bsky.social @dexeve.bsky.social @michaelbpetersen.bsky.social @salisbot.bsky.social & Guy Plopsky www.fpri.org/article/2026...
fpri.org
FPRI Experts React | Understanding the Third Gulf War - Foreign Policy Research Institute
The third Gulf War began with an assassination on February 28, 2026, in broad daylight in central Iran. The war has engulfed the region in conflict, extending
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
Drone launches are down for the same reason missile launches are down. Its a posture issue. You can have the biggest drone arsenal in the world but if your forces aren't postured to effectively continue operations under fire, eventually you won't have the capability to use them
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
An update on how the Iranians are fairing. We're seeing lots of hits on stationary abandoned launchers, which implies either a high missile failure rate or Iranian crews are simply abandoning launchers after firing.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
Unlike the 12 Day War in which Iran used a certain segment of its missile force to retaliate in distinguishable waves, this is complete chaos. Many missiles across many fronts, potentially with units acting without centralized authority.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Some really interesting questions now arise. I don't recall something like this ever happening in the precision munitions era: how do you handle regime transition when your adversary can track and eliminate leadership targets?
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Consequence of Iran targeting US bases across the region is that it's attacks have to get through the fresh air defense networks of Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, etc, countries the United States has spent the last two decades equipping for just this sort of thing.
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Decker Eveleth @dexeve.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
This is probably correct. Also makes it easier for missile defenses to deal with it.
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