Kjetil Tronvoll engagement report

Best tweets

• Jul 11, 202646x their median

  Norway's impressive run at the World Cup is yet another reminder that they've got this whole sport thing figured out. Whether it's soccer, golf, tennis or – of course – winter sports at the Olympics, a tiny nation of just 5.5 million people is now churning out world beaters at an extraordinary rate. https://t.co/WRHUPVtHVk

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• Mar 26, 202681x their median

  An Amphibious Landing in Iran and the Battle of Gallipoli Any war against Iran risks repeating the classic mistake of Gallipoli: a superpower’s underestimation of a determined defense strongly favored by geography. In 1915, the British Empire believed its superior fleet would be enough to force the Dardanelles and bring down the Ottoman Empire with relative ease. Generals and politicians, including Winston Churchill, Ian Hamilton, and Lord Kitchener, viewed the Turks as a backward army of “doubtful value” that would flee at the first salvo from British battleships. Reality proved very different. The geography of Gallipoli turned the attack into a nightmare. The Ottomans controlled the steep heights above the beaches. Once the Allies landed, they became trapped on narrow strips of sand, fully exposed to machine-gun and artillery fire from above. Advancing or retreating safely was nearly impossible. This is exactly the same natural wall that Iran possesses today in the mountains that surround nearly its entire coast. Any force attempting a landing in the Persian Gulf would immediately face steep elevations right behind the beaches, giving the defender total visibility and fire superiority. Beyond geography, Iran possesses something the British also underestimated in the Turks: the ability to conduct a saturation defense. While offensive and defensive munitions stocks are running low for the attackers, Iran is preparing a war of saturation. Thousands of drones of various types, missiles, and fast attack boats launched in swarms could quickly overwhelm and exhaust the coalition’s ability to provide cover for a landing in Iran. Logistics represent another fatal bottleneck. In Gallipoli, the Allies could not sustain the flow of supplies under constant fire. In Iran, the challenge would be even greater: supply lines could not rely on American bases in the region, which have already been heavily damaged and under fire for 26 days. They would instead depend on much more distant logistics, supported by an already weakened American industrial base. Meanwhile, Iran would be fighting at home, with underground factories, short supply lines, and the ability to open multiple fronts through Iraqi militias and the Houthis. In parallel, the Strait of Hormuz functions as the modern equivalent of the Dardanelles. Iran dominates the area with sophisticated yet relatively cheap naval mines, anti-ship missiles, drones, and its own navy. The loss of just one or two major ships, or landing vessels, would be enough for the entire operation to collapse, just as happened in 1915 when simple mines sank three British battleships in a single day. The error of assessment is the same as it was a century ago. Just as the British believed the Turks “had no stomach for modern warfare,” today some assume that an intense technological bombardment would quickly cause the Iranian regime to collapse. Statements like Netanyahu’s, “Iran is a paper tiger… A strong blow and the regime will fall”, dangerously echo the declarations of Churchill and Hamilton. Both ignored the fact that a nation of tens of millions of people, fighting on its own territory with strong ideological motivation, does not easily surrender to technological superiority. Gallipoli cost the Allies around 250,000 casualties, including tens of thousands killed, and ended in a humiliating withdrawal. It was a meat grinder that exposed the arrogance of a superpower when it collided with the reality of the terrain and the defender’s determination. Any potential amphibious landing in Iran today carries the same risk of becoming a Persian Gallipoli: where excessive faith in technology runs into an insurmountable geography, a mass of missiles and drones, and the overwhelming advantage of those fighting on home soil. Iran is the opening conflict of a multipolar world, a reality that America, Israel and probably the entire west still fail to recognize.

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• Apr 6, 202646x their median

  Seven Eritrean players fail to return home after international match https://t.co/0TpEVeKHMT

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• Sep 28, 202617x their median

  #عاجل | حاكم إقليم عفر للجزيرة: الجيش الإريتري يشارك مباشرة في الحرب علينا بقياداته وأسلحته الثقيلة - الجيش الإريتري يسعى لقطع الطريق بين إثيوبيا وجيبوتي ومنع وصولنا إلى الموانئ الجيبوتية - الحرب الحالية تفوق إمكانات قوات الإقليم ونواجه جيش دولة كاملا - ما نتعرض له محاولة لتغيير الحدود بالقوة ونطالب الاتحاد الإفريقي بالتدخل

  1.5K228158148708K viewsView on X
• Jul 11, 202610x their median

  Graduation Ceremony of 38th Round of National Service held in Sawa this morning featuring variety of shows by graduating class. In his keynote speech, President Isaias Afwerki underlined imperative for all Graduates to pursue their academic studies through innovative initiatives. https://t.co/OfeKqadW1m

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• Mar 17, 202617x their median

  Iran did not close the Strait of Hormuz. It converted it into a tollgate. The toll is not money. It is alignment. And the country with the world’s largest navy is not on the list of those who may pass. Foreign Minister Araghchi stated it explicitly: the Strait is “open but closed only to our enemies and their allies.” Ten countries have been offered safe passage: China, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Iraq. Iran ships approximately 1.3 million barrels per day to China through the “closed” strait via shadow fleet and dark transits. India is in active talks with Tehran for the release of three seized tankers in exchange for medicines and equipment. The waterway that Goldman Sachs says collapsed from 19.5 million to 0.5 million barrels per day is not closed to everyone. It is closed to the coalition that bombed Iran and open to the rest of the world on terms Iran dictates. This is not a blockade. It is a permissions system. And the permissions are rewriting the geopolitical map in real time. Every country on the safe-passage list gains a competitive energy advantage over every country excluded from it. Chinese refineries receive Iranian crude at $9 to $12 below Brent while Western buyers pay $96.72. Indian tankers negotiate passage while American carriers patrol outside. Turkish trade continues while British Airways cancels flights. The selective enforcement creates a two-tier global economy: countries that can access Gulf energy because Iran permits it, and countries that cannot because Iran does not. The first tier includes every major non-Western economy. The second tier includes the world’s superpower and its allies. Iran’s endgame is not victory. It is attrition toward terms. Araghchi told CBS the war ends only when Iran is “certain it will not be repeated” and reparations are paid. No ceasefire has been requested. Resistance continues “as long as it takes.” The selective Hormuz enforcement is the mechanism: it sustains revenue through China flows, preserves diplomatic options through India and Gulf talks, and inflicts maximum economic pain on the coalition while minimising alienation of the countries Iran needs for long-term survival. The US objective is the mirror image: targeted degradation of nuclear, missile, drone, and naval capabilities to restore free Hormuz transit without a ground war. Fifteen thousand strikes have destroyed Iran’s air force, navy, and air defences. But they have not reopened the Strait because the Strait was not closed by military hardware. It was closed by insurance cancellations, mine threats, and a permissions list that no bomb can erase. The war has produced a paradox that neither side anticipated. America can destroy everything Iran builds but cannot open the waterway Iran controls. Iran cannot stop the bombs but can decide who sails. The military supremacy is American. The chokepoint sovereignty is Iranian. And the ten countries on the safe-passage list are watching both sides bleed while their tankers transit under the protection of the regime the superpower is bombing. Araghchi demands guarantees and reparations. Trump demands warships and coalition escorts. Neither has what the other requires. The guarantees require American withdrawal. The escorts require allied participation that Japan, Australia, and Germany have refused. The war continues because neither side can offer what the other needs to stop it, and the Strait remains a tollgate because the toll, political alignment, is the one currency America cannot pay. Full analysis - https://t.co/iFmUcarGdV

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• Apr 22, 202612x their median

  🚨 As I have been predicting for weeks, Washington has jumped into the hornets nest of Red Sea politics, holding secret meetings with Isaias in Cairo in a bid to increase its influence in the region by lifting sanctions on Eritrea. What will Eritrea do in return? How will Addis react? What does this mean for Trump's promise to restart GERD talks? How will this a US-Eritrea rapprochement affect the SAF and Sudan's war? And what will UAE and Saudi make of the US effort to enter Red Sea political debates, seemingly aligning itself against Ethiopia? Too many questions to answer. But what I can say is that the US is doing it all without a strategy with a used truck salesman at the helm. What could possibly go wrong?? https://t.co/ztA7gLPxH7

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• Aug 1, 20263.7x their median

  New armed confrontations between #Ethiopia ENDF and #Tigray forces reportedly broke out last night. The reported attack in Western Tigray (close to Shererina) represents a clear military escalation and the most serious confrontation in northern Ethiopia for some time. 1/7

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• Oct 8, 20263.2x their median

  🧵 Sadly, my warnings of a new Eritrea - Ethiopia war in-the-making over the past 3 years has become a reality. There are 4 key plausible conflict development scenarios as the situation stand now (and a number of more mixed and «messy scenarios»):

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• Oct 10, 20263.2x their median

  #Ethiopia, something extraordinary is unfolding in #Tigray. Major cities, towns and large rural areas are now under the control of the ENDF and Tigray Peace Forces. The speed of this shift is striking. But the deeper story is not territorial. It is political. Across many towns and cities, the public reaction has been remarkably similar: celebration, relief and an unmistakable rejection of another cycle of war. This should not be confused with celebration of the Ethiopian government. What many people appear to be celebrating is the horizon of no more war. They want ordinary life back: schools, salaries, banks, roads, businesses, movement and security. That distinction is critical. For years, the TPLF presented its political survival as inseparable from the survival and dignity of Tigray. What is unfolding now exposes how far that claim may have drifted from the mood of the people themselves. The clearest disconnect may now be between Tigray and parts of the diaspora. When people inside Tigray publicly express relief, reject another war or celebrate a return to normal life, some long-standing and newly sworn TPLF loyalists dismiss them as bought, coerced or manipulated. And when someone simply describes what is happening on the ground, the response often comes almost automatically: “Are you saying the regime in Addis Ababa can now work for the people of Tigray?” It is a cynical diversion. The question deliberately shifts the discussion away from the real issue: what do the people of Tigray themselves want now? Describing the erosion of TPLF support is not an endorsement of Addis Ababa. Recognizing public exhaustion with war is not a declaration of confidence in the federal government. Reporting that people are celebrating a measure of normalcy is not an absolution of the Ethiopian state. Yet this false binary is repeatedly imposed because it avoids a far more uncomfortable question: what if many Tigrayans simply do not want the TPLF restored to power? Some loyalists rarely say explicitly that the TPLF must return. Instead, every criticism of the organization is met with another excuse, another deflection or another warning about Addis Ababa. There seems to be an endless reserve of explanations for every TPLF failure, but very little willingness to confront what the people themselves may now be saying. If every Tigrayan who rejects another war must be called bought, manipulated or frightened, and every description of TPLF’s declining legitimacy must be reframed as support for Abiy Ahmed, then the problem is no longer the facts. It is a political imagination that cannot conceive of Tigray outside the TPLF. Whatever language is used to disguise it, the underlying preference is becoming increasingly visible: for some, the acceptable future still seems to require the TPLF’s return to its former position. But Tigray is bigger than the TPLF. After years of war, displacement, hunger, repression and repeated mobilization, wanting peace is not betrayal. Wanting ordinary life is not surrender. Refusing another war does not make anyone an agent of Addis Ababa. It is agency. And perhaps the most important political fact emerging from this moment is simple: the people of Tigray are speaking for themselves. Their future cannot continue to be reduced to a false choice between submission to Addis Ababa and restoration of the TPLF https://t.co/LPHRYEmePN

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