General Offensive - General Uprising

About General Offensive - General Uprising

Blunt discussions of war and national security from war historian and former intelligence officer Dr Lynette Nusbacher nusbacher.substack.com (https://nusbacher.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Lynette Nusbacher

Category

government · history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

9 Jan 2026

Latest episode

29 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

90 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   29 Sept 2026

   Salami Tactics, Prime Minister

   Editing and adding production values slows my workflow down, but I’ve been thinking for a few weeks about the eerie parallels between the first episode of BBC’s Yes Prime Minister from 1986. It’s not just that the Russians are conducting low-level attacks on NATO countries; it’s the comments on the socials. People really believe that deterrence is a linear system: that nobody would ever tempt a nuclear-armed state to use a nuclear device; that any attack on a nuclear state would invite nuclear devastation. So I’m offering bits of that splendid scene in which Oscar Quitak and Paul Eddington play out Sir Antony Jay’s and Jonathan Lynn’s brilliantly written words about deterrence, conventional forces, and the need to invest in emerging tech. One more reason, though: in the past I’ve posted a link to the episode on YouTube, but I don’t think enough people click over to view it. Suggested Bibliography: The Deterrence Strategy of Sir Solly Zuckerman (Compiled by Gemini) * Nuclear Illusion and Reality (1982). This is Zuckerman’s most famous and direct critique of the nuclear arms race. In it, he systematically argues that tactical nuclear weapons hold zero actual military utility, and that the concept of a “limited” nuclear exchange is a dangerous political fantasy. * Monkeys, Men, and Missiles: An Autobiography, 1946–88 (1989). The second volume of his memoirs covers his critical years serving as Chief Scientific Adviser to the Ministry of Defence and to the British Government. It details his internal Whitehall battles against the unchecked proliferation of nuclear weapons and his deep scepticism of the “balance of terror.” * From Apes to Warlords: The Autobiography (1904–1946) (1978). While focused on his earlier career as a zoologist and his World War II bombing strategy, this volume establishes the operational research principles and hard analytical frameworks he later applied to Cold War deterrence. * Scientists and War: The Impact of Science on Military and Civil Affairs (1966). A foundational collection of his lectures and essays examining the moral and practical responsibilities of scientists in the nuclear age, exploring how technological escalation consistently outpaces strategic doctrine. Show Notes (suggested by Gemini) * The Origins of “Salami Slicing”: Why I consistently use this term to describe the ongoing Russian kinetic campaign against the West. The concept is flawlessly illustrated in the very first episode of the classic 1980s BBC comedy Yes, Prime Minister. * The West Berlin Scenario: A detailed look at the scene where the Government Chief Scientist—a character modelled on former UK Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Solly Zuckerman—forces Prime Minister Jim Hacker to confront the uselessness of the nuclear deterrent against incremental aggression. He walks the PM through a hypothetical sequence: a fire in West Berlin, followed by East German firemen crossing the border, then East German police, then East German troops, and finally Russian troops. At no point in this slice-by-slice escalation is the Prime Minister willing to press the nuclear button. * Real-World Slices in Poland and Germany: How Moscow is executing this exact script today. We examine recent sub-threshold events, including a Russian military helicopter intentionally breaching Polish airspace for precisely 42 seconds—a move easily dismissed as a navigational error—and previous Russian drone impacts on Polish soil disguised by the “fog of war”. We also look at the escalation of these tactics with the recent drone strike on a Ukrainian aircraft at Germany’s Leipzig/Halle airport. * The Strategic Takeaway: Because Russia will deliberately avoid crossing the massive threshold required to trigger a unified NATO conventional or nuclear response, our ultimate deterrent is effectively neutralised. The episode concludes by reinforcing the TV scientist’s 1980s solution: Western governments must urgently pivot their focus and expenditure toward precise, adaptable conventional armed forces and emerging technologies that can actually counter these incremental, slice-by-slice attacks. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe (https://nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

2. 

   19 Sept 2026

   Salami Slicing Article 5: Why Russia's War on Europe Has Already Begun

   I’ve tried to stay calm about this paper (https://understandingwar.org/research/defense-of-europe/the-russian-military-campaign-against-europe-defining-the-threat/), and mostly failed. Definitely read it, and tell me what you think about its arguments and conclusions.https://understandingwar.org/research/defense-of-europe/the-russian-military-campaign-against-europe-defining-the-threat/ The paper’s introduction:The Kremlin is conducting a coordinated series of kinetic campaigns targeting Europe, and NATO states must understand and forthrightly discuss both these ongoing Russian campaigns against Europe and the evolving character of the near-term Russian conventional threat in order to design and execute holistic responses. European governments increased their willingness to publicly attribute and discuss ongoing Russian kinetic attacks against Europe after the German government officially attributed the August 5 Leipzig airport drone attack to Russia.[1] European states and leaders still too often refer to Russian actions with language that impedes effective responses, however, and have not taken sufficient action of their own to deter the escalating Russian campaign against them. European governments must develop a shared conceptual framework to understand ongoing Russian campaigns, an essential step toward creating a coordinated policy plan to respond to and deter Russian actions. NATO has recognized the changing near-term Russian conventional threat and has identified the need for rapid European rearmament and adaptation drawing on lessons from Ukraine to meet this threat, although action is lagging behind words. European states must accelerate and improve these rearmament and adaptation efforts and must prepare for the risk of a limited Russian conventional attack on a shorter timeline than the 2028-2030 window that many NATO states currently discuss. NATO and European states can defeat the ongoing Russian kinetic campaigns and deter the growing Russian conventional threat, but only on the basis of a shared understanding of the problem that will enable them to design and execute coordinated policy plans with the necessary sense of urgency and without panic. This paper presents an initial assessment of the current and near-term Russian threats, priority lines of effort for NATO states, and necessary future analytical work by ISW and other organizations. Show Notes (Suggested by Gemini) * The Cognitive Trap: How terms like “sub-Article 5,” “provocations,” and “hybrid warfare” preemptively constrain NATO’s freedom to act and excuse inaction in the face of direct Russian aggression. * The Salami-Slicing Strategy: Examining recent attacks—including the August 5 Leipzig/Halle drone strike and Polish railway sabotage—as parts of a deliberate, state-directed kinetic campaign across Europe. * Hollowing Out Article 5: Why the near-term threat is not a massive armored march on Berlin, but a limited conventional attack (such as a shallow ground incursion in the Baltics) meant to test NATO’s resolve and watch the mutual defense clause collapse from political indecision. * The Heartland Alliance Factor: How Russian success in paralyzing NATO directly empowers the broader geopolitical aims of Iran, North Korea, and China within the World War 3.0 framework. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe (https://nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

3. 

   15 Sept 2026

   Frozen in Carbonite: The Anatomy of ‘The Two-State Delusion’

   The whole reason to delay recognition of Palestinian statehood, was to build it into the Two State Solution. Arguably, Western recognition of the State of Palestine, creating a failed state ab initio, was a recognition that the future state of peaceful coexistence however cold between Israel and Palestine was no longer a near-term goal. Recognising Palestine could be used as a brickbat with which to beat Israel for its harsh tactics in the Gaza War of 2023-, rather than as part of creating something productive. There are creative ideas like the Canton Solution to the problem of Israeli-Palestinian coexistence, but since the hopeful early days of the Oslo Accords in 1993, right through the darkest days of the Second Intifadah, most of the world was bought into the idea that the State of Israel and an eventual State of Palestine could be brought to live together in some sort of peace. The one-state solution of a Palestine without Jews, and the one-state solution of an Israel with a politically disempowered Arab population, were viewed as borderline preposterous outside political extremist circles. Those one-state solutions are now, particularly after Hamas began the Gaza War in 2023, viewed as plausible. Those who advocate for a Palestine with no Israel imagine, or at least pretend to imagine, a Palestine so respectful of pluralism that 10 million Israeli Jews could continue to live there. Those who advocate for an Israel with Judaea and Samaria annexed, imagine, or at least pretend to imagine, a Palestinian Arab population accepting full civil rights but no votes: permanent expatriates. Both sets of believers are more or less willing to imagine a massive transfer of population to get rid of the people they don’t like. The LLM which coded this graphic did a reasonable job, but I do find it interesting that it balked at referring to Jerusalem and Ramallah as national capitals. This fudge will please nobody. This leaves us with the question whether those violently opposed to Palestinian and Israeli states in peaceful coexistence, led of course by Iran, but supported by Hamas as well, have succeeded in making that coexistence seem utterly absurd. I’ve offered a brief history, from the UN Partition of 1947, through the old rejectionism of the Arab states and the newer rejectionism of Hamas, Hizballah and Iran. The Arab and Iranian rejectionisms of the past envisioned either mass expulsion or mass murder of Israel’s Jews. Jewish rejectionism has its roots in Vladimir Jabotinsky’s revisionist Zionism which was ready to envision coexistence, but which has since the Second Intifadah explicitly envisioned for the Palestinians a mass transfer of population alongside a form of disenfranchised loyalty to Israel. I thought I’d talk about land swaps, and I prepared a graphic for that. If the Two State Solution is frozen in carbonite, perhaps the land swaps that would enable it mean nothing now, but the discussions of the E1 development adjacent to Jerusalem refer to the land swap discussions. Israeli towns and villages in Area C which were envisioned in past negotiations as occupied territory swapped to become part of Israel are now referred to as though that swap were a fait accompli, including E1. It was, people are saying now, always meant to be part of Israel in future, swapped for some part of Israel that would become part of Palestine. It’s interesting that one side of the swap is convenient even if the agreement that might implement the swap (or the other side of the swap where an Israeli slice of the Gaza Envelope would become part of Palestine) is so hard to imagine now. Show Notes & Essay Breakdown (Suggested by Gemini) * The History of Rejectionism: Tracing the evolution from mid-century Pan-Arabism to the modern Islamist rejectionism of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. * The Sparta Doctrine: How the October 7 attacks forced Israel into a state of permanent war, empowering a right-wing vision of annexation and disenfranchisement. [I’m not sure I said this in the video.] * The One-State Delusion: Why both the vision of a Palestine without Jews and an Israel with a permanently disenfranchised Arab population are dark fantasies. * Land Swaps and the Green Line: An analysis of the 1949 Armistice boundaries, the E1 development, and why the mechanics of a two-state solution remain the only viable long-term blueprint, even if currently frozen. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe (https://nusbacher.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

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