The Daily Parker

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An example of why free societies have better armies

In an authoritarian regime, telling your boss that he did something wrong can have fatal consequences. Therefore people avoid mentioning problems up the chain. Like, for example, that mandating the army use only Russian-made mobile phones, even though Western electronics have progressed years or decades beyond them, might leave the army at a disadvantage in combat. Similarly, as an engineer, you might not tell your superiors that blowing up the enemy's 3G cell towers will render your 3G phones unusable, even while the enemy gets along fine with 4G.

So by not wanting to risk your life or career by telling a general that his plan sucks, the general might wind up dead and you might wind up informing the world on an open channel, like these FSB guys did:

A Russian general has been killed in fighting around Kharkiv, Ukrainian intelligence has claimed, which would make him the second general the Russian army has lost in Ukraine in a week.

The investigative journalism agency Bellingcat said it had confirmed Gerasimov’s death with a Russian source. Its executive director, Christo Grozev, said they had also identified the senior FSB officer in the intercepted conversation.

“In the call, you hear the Ukraine-based FSB officer ask his boss if he can talk via the secure Era system. The boss says Era is not working,” [Bellingcat executive director Christo] Grozev said on Twitter. “Era is a super expensive cryptophone system that [Russia’s defence ministry] introduced in 2021 with great fanfare. It guaranteed [to] work ‘in all conditions’.”

Grozev's Twitter thread has a point of view, of course, but wow. It's almost like the Russian military wants to lose this war. "The Russian army is equipped with secure phones that can't work in areas where the Russian army operates," Grozev Tweeted.

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