iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Look I got the color wrong, but I was way too close here

Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Be sure to bring out your little orange book and recite key insights from Donale Trump thought when passing the semblance of the supreme leader.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Knowing exactly the amount of time I spend examining Chinese sources, how deeply I integrate them into my work, and the sheer volume of Chinese texts I use compared to most, this remark has me cracking up. But, let's talk about some of the fun Chinese texts I've been finding interesting recently!

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Well, Emma did it. I am officially rewatching the Expanse and I assure you, it's still so. Insanely. Good.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Folks, Science of Military Strategy (战略学) is a great source when evaluating the PLA, incredibly useful. But, it is not the only source, it is not even the best source. When evaluating PLA thinking, you really need to look beyond only using that singular source... There's a lot out there.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Ok I am sort of proud of this one on the CASI topic

Twitter post in which seemingly Trump leaning poster supports AL'S short sighted decision to eliminate CASI due to needing to cut DoD costs, and is reminded that not starting a war with Iran would have been a much smarter place to save DoD money

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Anyways, another feather in the "pivot to Asia, but West-Asia" hat. At least the content is fire leading into the war we're so stupidly walking into unprepared for open.spotify.com/track/7HjR4I...

open.spotify.com

INDO(PAY)COM

AV Boyz · INDO(PAY)COM · Song · 2026

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I'm glad to see the extent of outrage caused by Air University's short-sighted decision to shut down CASI. The analyst's at CASI aren't just close friends of mine, they're a series of top notch China hands doing a massive service to the USG that is rarely replicated.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

"The PLA's 'joint operations' are actually just combined arms" Cool... So, what do you think the combined arms brigades are then exactly...? And what about all that joint work they do with the Navy, Air Force and friends...? Ya know, the ones coordinated through the joint operations command center?

PLA Army Combined Arms Brigade conducting joint training on amphibious operations as part of a joint combined arms, aviation, and navy unit training exercise.

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Tony Stark @tonystark.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This week on WarTalk: @geraldcbrown.bsky.social joins the show to talk the PLA’s 2027 goals, purges, nuclear deterrence, and military doctrine vs reality! open.spotify.com/episode/79qA...

open.spotify.com

WarTalk: PLA, 2027, Nukes, and the Pivot to Asia Pirouette

ChinaTalk · Episode

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Was great jumping on China Talk and getting to chat the PLA, Taiwan, bureaucracy, and a whole range of things. Give it a listen if you've got some time.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Lev's one of the top folks to listen to on Taiwan, very much deserved!

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Your regular reminder that China is not a stranger to the practice of imperialism, and the areas that the PRC claims it has a right to and much of its modern borders are the results of Qing imperialism.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Was having a conversation in which now, when hiring for entry level China work they're getting only a few applicants, compared to just like five-ish years ago when everyone going through IR programs was focused on China.

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Secretary of Defense Rock @sodrock.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Fact check: true

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Look, I don't know why this needs to be stated, but if a foreign military is preparing explicitly to fight and defeat you specifically, you are adversaries. You are not friends.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Look, here's the thing, if your stance is literally that we should end every alliance in the Pacific, you're just not a serious person in this space. You're saying peace is not important. You're saying the economy is not important. You're saying democracy doesn't matter that much.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Kinda off Joe's main point here, but the "reading bad books" as being part of being a historian reminds me of my pet rock that the study of history is a superior toolkit for doing intelligence work well--which I say someone who primarily studied IR.

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Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

there's a couple of us who have remembered the PLA exists m.facebook.com/story.php?st...

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Love to see it. Honestly stuff like this would have been a total gamechanger for me growing up, glad others can benefit.

New York City public school sign offering free meals during the summer.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Ah yes, the continued lashing out against free trade capitalism while simultaneously decrying socialism. Anyways free trade is like, one of the few things economists generally almost all agree on being awesome. But ok.

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Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

the whole idea of LOAC is that it applies not only but *especially* when someone else in the conflict isn't following it

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

So, kinda wanna harp on this a touch more because the link to corruption purges and disrupting readiness is discussed alot in the PLA's internal dialogue. But, it's not the purges that they view as disrupting it but... the actual corruption. So purging it becomes a necessity to meet 2027 goals

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Mike Black @mikeblack114.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

someone coined pete legseth the other day in response to one of the guys whose promotion he's fucking with being a guy who did the combat drop into northern iraq in 03

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Spent many years running around with guns in the armed forces, can confirm all of this is 100% normal shit and Konrad remains a moron.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

So, the White House put out a series of "games" in which you deport as many people as you can, build the border wall to "protect the border from the coming horde" and other just absolutely horrible and insane things. This is... Just disgusting www.whitehouse.gov/arcade/

whitehouse.gov

Arcade

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Honestly this was probably the funniest thing I read all week.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

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Nick Kodama 🌳👻 @nickkodama.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

tactical nukes, theater nukes, limited nuclear options, and non-strategic nukes are often overlapping but not interchangeable terms. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

guys check your work before posting

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Honestly we don't really need wild guesses here, I think the answer is pretty simple--the mass firings of senior officers on charges of corruption is because... there is rampant corruption in the PLA. The degree and scale of corruption in the PLA has long been known to PLA watchers. Occam's razor.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

So, now that I'm back in the open for a while I've got a long list of articles to write, curious if there's any interest that may be worth prioritizing writing. - The PLAs 2027 goals, what they actually are - What Chinese nuclear strategy is moving to and its objectives

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Honestly feel insanely lucky right now that my wife completed her green card process before all this lunacy, as if the current anti-immigration push had occurred years earlier it's perfectly possible she would have never been living in the States. Anyways, try to counter all of this nonsense.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

What really kills me is I know the folks who have to actually implement these changes and they're incredibly intelligent, talented, wonderful people... Who then have to change the name of global features based on... whatever this is.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

Curious about what China’s nuclear force is evolving into? Using Chinese primary sources, my latest publication from @nbr.org maps out what China is building and the goals it intends to serve. 🧵 www.nbr.org/publication/...

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Anyways, this always cracks me up on China because people run themselves in circles on how they don't know why China is building nukes, but you look in Chinese and... it's Taiwan. It's always been Taiwan. But it's just one element among many to meet that political goal

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

It's really fascinating to me how siloed (not sorry) so much of the nuclear field is. The number of individuals in the nuclear field who seem to think nothing but nuclear weapons matter in a significant fashion for matters of deterrence or coercion in particular is... astounding.

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Sam (ABeardedPanda) @abeardedpanda.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Very tiring how it's closing in on 5 years of the full scale invasion and people still insist this is about "legitimate security concerns" when the Russians will just tell you what their goals are and why they're doing what they're doing

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I sure chose a funny day to come out from the woods

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Not a world War, just an incredibly dumb war.

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Gerald C Brown @geraldcbrown.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

This past week was my last with the US Department of State. Starting September 8th, I'll be joining the Council on Foreign Relations as an International Affairs Fellow, researching the larger structural impacts of China's military modernization and nuclear shifts.

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Shipwreck @shipwreck75.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Someone should tell him he can’t claim to own something he can’t even control.

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Bellingcat @bellingcat.com · 17/08/2026

Our new training programme is here, helping open source researchers of all levels push their skills further. Learn from the people doing this work every day. Find out about our upcoming webinars here: www.bellingcat.com/workshops/

bellingcat.com

Workshops Archive - bellingcat

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