tactics Archives - usatoday24

Ukraine has resurrected one of the oldest tactics of warfare. And he is isolating Russian cities without the need for soldiers

May 20, 2026 by usatoday24

One of the many movie scenes that took place during the soviet blockade of berlin occurred in 1948, when the United States and its allies kept an entire city alive using an airlift that landed every few minutes with food, coal and medicine. The operation highlighted a lesson that military strategists never forgot: in any war, sometimes the most important thing is not to conquer a city, but to decide who can continue to supply it. A silent return. For centuries, sieges were one of the tools more brutal and effective of the war. Surrounding a city, cutting off supplies, and waiting for hunger, exhaustion, or lack of ammunition to do the job was a military logic as old as empires themselves. Ukraine is now recovering that same idea, but adapted to the drone era. The big difference is that you no longer need to physically surround a city or send thousands of soldiers to isolate it. It is enough to control the roads, monitor movements and constantly destroy everything that enters or leaves. What is happening around Mariupol It is beginning to look less like a traditional war and more like a medieval siege executed from the air and hundreds of kilometers away. Mariupol as a laboratory. After conquering Mariupol in 2022, Russia turned the city into one of the ggreat logistics centers of its southern front, using its roads and port to move fuel, ammunition, troops and equipment towards Donetsk and Zaporizhia. Ukraine has started to attack precisely that circulation network. Reconnaissance and attack drones patrol the main access routes to the city looking for tanker trucks, ammunition transports or logistical convoys. The logic is extremely simple and very old: There is no need to destroy a fortified position if you can prevent it from continuing to function. According to different military sources and published videos by Ukrainian units, some drones already operate up to 160 kilometers within of territory controlled by Russia, turning entire roads into permanent risk zones for any Russian military vehicle. Turn logistics into the new front. The most important transformation of this strategy is that the main objective is no longer necessarily soldiers, tanks or trenches. They are the supplies. Ukraine is exploiting a classic vulnerability: any army depends on fuel, food, ammunition and constant transportation to maintain positions. The drones greatly facilitate that job because logistics trucks are relatively easy targets: they follow predictable routes, have little protection and often transport extremely flammable or explosive material. Even small ammunition can destroy them completely. That explains why Ukraine is dedicating so many resources to chasing supply vehicles instead of directly attacking fortified positions that are much more difficult to neutralize. From Mariupol to Moscow. The same logic also appears behind the massive drone attacks against Moscow. They remembered in Insider that Ukraine no longer uses only small improvised FPVs near the front. Now deploy long-range platforms such as FP-1 Firepointthe RS-1 Bars or the new Bars-SM Gladiatorhybrid drones between a cruise missile and unmanned aircraft capable of traveling hundreds of kilometers and crossing one of the densest anti-aircraft networks in the world. The objective is not only to cause specific damage, but to force Russia to disperse defensesspending resources and living under constant pressure even far from the front. The attack with more than 120 drones on the Moscow region demonstrates the extent to which Ukraine attempts to transfer the logic of attrition and isolation far beyond the traditional battle lines. A battle for movement. What is really important is that Ukraine seems to be redefining a fundamental idea of modern warfare: it is no longer necessary to completely control the terrain to control the situation. Just control movement. If any road can be surveilled by drones, any convoy can be destroyed and any resupply can end up intercepted, maintaining a position begins to be much more difficult even if the enemy retains numerical superiority. There is no doubt, that profoundly changes traditional military logic. The future sieges They may no longer be represented with circles surrounding cities on a map, but with invisible networks of drones capable of slowly collapsing enemy logistics without the need for major ground offensives. The war in Ukraine is demonstrating precisely that: that today you can isolate a city, wear down an army and force it to abandon positions without moving practically a single soldier. Image | Pexels In Xataka | Once again, Ukraine has opened a missile launched by Russia. Once again, surprising manufacturers have been found In Xataka | Russia has been advancing at a snail’s pace in Ukraine for months. That’s about to change because of one season: summer.

Sam Altman attacked Anthropic for using fear tactics with their new AI. He then did exactly the same thing.

May 5, 2026 by usatoday24

The big AI companies have set themselves a goal: practically every week They must present a new model or start warming up the atmosphere by commenting on what is to come. Delays are not tolerated because the speed at which everything happens is overwhelming, but those who continue to dominate the conversation in terms of the power of their models are OpenAI and Anthropic. And what had to happen has happened: if Anthropic has a new “dangerous” model, now OpenAI says they also have one. And it is a example very clear of “where I said I say, I say Diego.” GPT-5.5 Cyber. A few days ago, OpenAI released GPT-5.5 Cyber. This is a variant of GPT-5.5 focused and specialized in advanced cybersecurity capabilities. It is a model focused on tasks such as the exploitation of vulnerabilities, penetration tests, malware reverse engineering and other types of actions highly focused on that sector of computer security. In a reality in which, thanks to AI tools, there are systems that are more vulnerable than ever (and all this when we are on the threshold of the era of post-quantum cryptography), such specialized models seem like a very sweet tool for companies. But, of course, also for someone with other intentions. Access control. Due to concerns over potential dual use, OpenAI has made the decision to restrict access to GPT-5.5 Cyber to “critical cyber defenders.” Who are these? Those that protect essential infrastructure such as electrical or financial networks. OpenAI has a certified access program with robust safeguards and rejection of malicious requests so that not everyone has access to this tool. In addition, they have a monitoring system to detect suspicious activity carried out by the model. With cannon shots. It is, in essence, the discourse of fear. Once again, an artificial intelligence company saying that they have a product so powerful that it cannot fall into the hands of just anyone. It’s not the first time that OpenAI uses this speech, but the times have been very curious. A few days ago, Anthropic presented Mythos. It is a tool very similar to that of OpenAI, one that is already giving some results in companies, with examples like Mozilla pointing out that, thanks to Mythos, the latest version of Firefox has a lot of security patches because AI has greatly streamlined the processes for finding vulnerabilities. It is one more example of the two titans of the AI industry captaining ships with enormous firepower and “shooting” their best product with that speech of fear. Precisely, that’s where the problem lies. The hypocrisy. After the presentation of Cyber, Sam Altman commented at X that they were working with the Government to establish trusted access control to their tool. They have not shared the identities of those who will have initial access or, really, many details of the model. It has simply been a “oops, oops, this is very powerful and we can’t release it to the general public.” And, as we say, the problem is that Sam Altman himself harshly criticized Anthropic’s strategy when Mythos was presented. The CEO spoke about the strategy of fear and compared the maneuver of Anthropic and its declared enemy, Dario Amodei, with that of someone who manufactures an atomic bomb and, at the same time, sells you the bunker to protect you from it. This has not been overlooked by the media because he harshly criticized that strategy just before copying it word for word. At par. Despite everything, neither one nor the other is wrong. When AI companies present a model, curiously it is always better than the competition in almost everything. On this occasion, a assessment The UK AI Security Institute reflects that both Mythos and GPT-5.5 Cyber are two of the most powerful models they have analyzed in their cybersecurity tests and that they are, basically, on par. Compared to previous or non-specific models, the difference is palpable. In expert-level tasks, GPT-5.5 achieved an average success rate of 71.4% compared to 52.4% for GPT-5.4. Mythos Preview, for its part, stayed at 68.6% compared to 48.6% for Opus 4.7. The Institute concludes by pointing out that this is evidence that the potential in cybersecurity is a trend among frontier models, one in which they can begin to achieve the desired benefits in order to become listed companies. Another reading is that countries that want to stop depending on cutting-edge American technology must start getting their act together as soon as possible. And that is, precisely, the message from the CEO of Mistral, the French AI company that recently pointed out that Europe had to stop being a technological vassal of the United States to become a power. In Xataka | Someone has had a simple idea so that data centers do not collapse in Spain: “unplug them” 18 days a year

For 150 aircraft to bomb Venezuela, the US used one of the most lethal tactics of the war: gunboat diplomacy

January 5, 2026 by usatoday24

Long before the hundreds of aircraft, missiles, drones and special forces came into play, the United States had already begun to move pieces throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. While international attention was focused on Venezuela, Washington was weaving an accelerated network of military agreements with Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago and other countries in the region, expanding access to airports, deploying troops “temporary” and authorizing operations armed under the umbrella of a renewed “war on drugs.” The tactic, in fact, was born in the 19th century. An escalation announced. It we count before the end of last year: the timing and magnitude of these pacts they did not go unnoticed for analysts, who interpreted them as the deliberate creation of a regional logistics infrastructure capable of sustaining a prolonged military operation against Caracas. Under a rhetoric that mixed drug trafficking, hemispheric security and regional stability, the real objective seemed much more classic: to surround Venezuela, isolate it diplomatically and make it clear that US military power was not only willing, but physically prepared to intervene. In this context, Caracas’ warnings to its neighbors and the growing concern in Latin American capitals reflected a familiar feeling: that of once again being the “backyard” of a power that did not ask for permission. The qualitative leap. The point of no return has arrived with the military operation which culminated in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife in Caracas. From Mar-a-Lago, Trump not only celebrated the audacity and violence of the operation, but also verbalized something even more significant: the United States was not simply overthrowing a leader, but was arrogating to itself the right to “direct” Venezuela for an indefinite period, dictating key political and economic decisions and recovering, according to his own storythe control of oil resources that he considered “stolen” from American companies. The rhetoric carefully avoided words like occupation, but while the word “democracy” has not once left Washington, “oil” has been repeated dozens of times, so the substance was hard to hide: a tutelage imposed under threat of a military “second wave” if the new power did not obey. The image of an armada off the coast, ready to intimidate both Caracas and other governments in the region, marked the explicit return to a logic that many believed buried after Iraq and Afghanistan. Trump oversaw US military operations in Venezuela, from the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday, January 3, 2026 Gunboat diplomacy. Also called gunboat diplomacywas born in the 19th century as a brutally direct form of foreign policy: sending warships off the coasts of weaker countries to force political concessionscommercial or territorial without the need for a formal war. Powers such as the United Kingdom, France and the United States used it systematically in Asia, Africa and Latin America, turning the mere naval presence into an instrument of coercion. In the American case, this doctrine was intertwined with the Monroe Doctrine and his later reinterpretationlegitimizing military interventions, temporary occupations and regime changes under the premise of protecting national interests in the Western Hemisphere. If you want and from that perspective, the attack on Venezuela is not a historical anomaly, but a technological update of that same pattern: where before there were gunboats, today there are aircraft carriersdrones, special forces and economic sanctions, but the logic is identical. Military force does not act as a last resort, but as a political message itself, designed to discipline a particular government and warn all others. Map of US attacks against Venezuela An echo of interventions and their consequences. Latin American history is full of examples that help contextualize this movement. From the war with Mexico in the 19th century until the Banana Wars of the 20th, passing through the supported coups d’état During the Cold War, the United States has intervened dozens of times to shape like-minded governments or curb rival influences. Trump himself has claimed figures as William McKinleya symbol of an era in which territorial expansion and access to resources were considered legitimate expressions of national power. But they remembered yesterday in the New York Times that these interventions rarely produced lasting stability. They often left fractured societies, legitimized dictatorships and deeply damaged the American reputation, a legacy that strategic rivals today exploit. like china to present themselves as less intrusive (although not necessarily more benign) alternatives. The perfect operation and the subsequent vacuum. From a military point of view, Maduro’s capture was a demonstration extreme precision: months of surveillance, an exact replica of the target to rehearse the assault, selective blackoutscoordinated airstrikes and special forces breaking into the heart of Caracas in the middle of the night. But the tactical success contrasts with the strategic uncertainty which opens later. Who will really govern Venezuela? How will your armed forces react? What happens if a future election contradicts Washington’s interests? There is no doubt, these questions evoke familiar ghosts of “eternal wars” and covert occupationsexactly what Trump had promised to fight against. Hence that “gunboat diplomacy”no matter how modernized it is, continues to suffer from the same problem as it did more than a century ago: it is effective at imposing fait accompli, but terrible at managing long term consequences. The past with weapons of the future. Thus, the attack on Venezuela does not represent a doctrinal innovation, but rather a conscious return to an ancient way to exercise powercovered with 21st century technology. Instead of multilateral negotiations or classic diplomatic pressure, the United States has opted for a direct show of force, combining capture of leaders, control of resources and an intimidating military presence throughout the region above any international law. It is, in essence, the gunboat diplomacy elevated to an industrial scale: faster, more precise and media-intensive, but equally fraught with risks. History suggests that its effects will not be measured in days or weeks, but in decadesand that Latin America, once again, will be the stage where it is tested if the past can really be reused … Read more

In order for 125 airplanes and 14 bombs to arrive in Iran, the US used one of the oldest tactics of war: perfidy

June 23, 2025 by usatoday24

The baptized as Hammer operationhe greater furtive attack From the United States against several of Iran’s critical facilities, it was based on a highly sophisticated tactical architecture, one where, above any other trick, the key was the total surprise. To do this, the United States began with one of the most tactics old and effective of war. It all started 48 hours before the offensive, when Trump It gave two weeks To “avoid” the attack. Perfidy. Those two weeks They never existed in the head of the United States, and Israel knew and few more actors. In fact, most European allies were trying to Find a dialogue A few hours before knowing the operation that was underway. From the diplomatic and ethical point of view, Washington was carrying out a form of political perfidysince Iran was participating in conversations that the United States used for the secret offensive. The maneuver also followed a strategy of classical military deception, a series of lures and public messages that, as we will see, avoided any suspicion while secretly prepared one of the most brutal offensives that are remembered in the history of modern wars. The hammer operation. The aerial offensive launched by the United States against the main nuclear sites of Iran represents not only the greatest operational use in the history of the BB-2 Spirit bomberbut also a unprecedented sample of tactical coordination, strategic deception and technological capacity accumulated throughout years of preparation. The attack included use for the first time in combat of the GBU-57/B antibunker pump Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), of 13,600 kilograms, specifically designed to destroy deeply buried and protected facilities Like Fordow. In total, 14 of these bombs were thrown on Fordow and Natanz, while more than two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles They hit In Isfahánthrown from a submarine Ohio class nuclear positioned in the area of operations of the US central command. The art of deception. It all started on Saturday morning, when flight observers They detected several bombers furtive B-2 Spirit taking off from the Whiteman Air Base, in Misuri, and heading Towards the Pacificwhich seemed to indicate a display towards Guam or missions related to Asia. However, this movement was a decoy: the true bombers in charge of the attack departed shortly after In the opposite directioneast, in mode completely stealthycrossing huge distances without being detected until you reach the Iranian airspace. Fordow after air attacks, seen in a satellite view of the underground complex, on June 22, 2025 The surprise. As we said, the key to operational success was the Deliberate deception: both the visible deployment towards the Pacific and Trump’s statements in the previous days, where he claimed that he would take up to two weeks to evaluate a possible intervention, created the false perception that there was still diplomatic margin. In fact, on Saturday morning, senior officials indicated that it had not been issued No order of attack, reinforcing that illusion. Then, on the afternoon of that same day, from his private club in New Jersey, Trump gave the final order. According to A senior official From the administration, the objective was precisely “to create a situation in which no one would expect.” A graph with details about the hammer operation that the Pentagon published in the last informative session The B2. The main actors were those seven bombers that left in stealth to the east from Misuri. Throughout a 18 -hour flight, with multiple repayings in the air, a profile of minimum communication. Synchronization with escorts, fourth and fifth generation fighters, intelligence aircraft, electronic warfare and air replacement It was millimeter: The fighters released preventive fire to neutralize Iranian air defense threats before the bombers cross the enemy airspace, without detecting hostile activity. The full air package exceeded 125 aircraftincluding platforms such as F-35, F-22, EA-18G Growler and possibly not revealed active. A view of the Iranian nuclear installation in Isfahán on June 22, 2025, after the attacks of the hammer operation Objectives achieved. Between 6:40 and 7:05 pm Washington time (2:10 to 2:35 am in Iran), all nuclear objectives FThey were shocked. The bombings on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahán used 75 precision weapons guided and achieved what the Pentagon described as “severe destruction” of infrastructure. The first satellite images Disseminated by Maxar Technologies showed craters of more than five meters, layers of bluish ash and tunnel entries blocked by landslides. Although Iran did not fire a single antialea defense or deployed fighters, the blow was deep and difficult to reverse in the short term, particularly in Fordow, buried under a mountain and considered so far impenetrable. Hidden cooperation. As we indicated, if someone knew what the United States had in hand, It was Israel. Before the attack, the United States shared with Israel a Systems list of air defense that wanted to neutralize, and the previous Israeli campaign facilitated the opening of the air corridor for the B-2. Coordination included the shared use of intelligence and operational synchronization (in that sense, The F-35 Israeliswith their ability to collect data, they played a key role in the collection of information on Iranian defenses). During the previous weeks, they were made Large -scale exercises that simulated similar missions, and They invested years in the development of technical capacities to integrate armament, sensors, furtive platforms and unified command in a single operating flow. Operation closed? It is one of the great unknowns. Despite the magnitude of the attack, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth emphasized that the operation does not mark the start of an open campaign, but A punctual action With a clear objective: neutralize Iranian nuclear capacity. Even so, he acknowledged that US forces remain on maximum alert to possible reprisals. In His words“This was not an attempt to change regime; it was a precise operation to defend our national interests and those of our allies.” For now, Iran has limited its responses to new attacks on Israel, but senior Iranian officials already They have declared your right to respond directly against … Read more

Europe already has its master lines to consolidate the electric car. And along the way it will copy China’s tactics

March 5, 2025 by usatoday24

The European Commission has submitted its proposal to boost the electric car in Europe. A proposal that arrives with various open fronts, that opens its hand with the manufacturers in the field of short -term broadcasts and that points to greater protectionism against China. These are the master lines of a plan that should gradually approve in various lines of action. What do we have? The proposal of the European Commission, led by Ursula von der Leyen, to promote the use and electric car production in the medium term. The intention of Europe remains to electrify much of the fleet of vehicles that circulate on our roads for which it is expected to allocate 1.8 billion euros. The proposal will have to be approved in various packages by the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. It remains, therefore, to receive the approval of the countries to carry out measures that take into account from the regulations for the production of batteries. Emissions. It is undoubtedly the most controversial aspect. Advanced by the president herself From the European Commission last Monday, manufacturers will have up to 2027 to comply with the limits of emissions that should be applied this year under the threat of fines that could be one thousand millionaire. The idea was to sanction all manufacturers that They will exceed 93.6 gr/km of CO2 Maximum fleet sold with 95 euros per gram overcome and car sold. That put manufacturers such as the Volkswagen Group against fines that could approach 7,000 million euros. If approved (von der Leyen aspires to be a rapid procedure) manufacturers will have to comply with that limit of 93.6 gr/km of CO2 in 2027 but it will be an average emissions of the last three years. That is, they will be able to overcome this year and compensate in the coming years to enter within the maximum limits set. China. Before China’s competition, Europe seeks to arm. He wants to do it with a comprehensive strategy that facilitates the production of batteries for electric cars on European soil and putting obstacles, as we will see, to use bridge to countries with special commercial treaties with the European Union. What Europe wants to do is simply Copy the tactic that China has been applying more than 20 years. The European Commission speaks of “ensuring that investments from countries external to the European Union benefit local companies and help improve long -term competitiveness.” To achieve this, they hold in The countrythe European Commission is willing to support that foreign manufacturers ally with local companies and, in this way, facilitate the transfer of knowledge. When China positioned itself as a cheap and attractive soil for vehicle manufacturers, it used this tactic: who would like to manufacture in China would have all the facilities but should Alder yes or yes with a local manufacturer. The only one that has avoided it has been Tesla But it has arrived much later and in another context than its rivals. The Morocco Bridge. In recent months, Morocco and Türkiye They were positioning themselves as a very attractive market for Chinese companies. Their specific commercial treaties with the European Union allowed them to skip tariffs on electric cars while obtaining a cheap labor. The European Commission wants to end that and force companies to manufacture on continental soil. However, we will have to see what repercussions this has if it goes ahead. There are European companies, such as Stellantis either Renaultthat already contribute the advantages that Morocco offers them to manufacture their cheapest cars and lower profit margin. Europe’s notice in this regard is clear and, if necessary, they will use “the use of commercial defense instruments, such as anti -subvent measures, to protect European unfair competition companies”: Purchase aid. It was one of the great questions and we have barely obtained an answer. The possibility of standardizing the aid to the purchase and that Europe directly apply the discount on the purchase of the car and deliver the money corresponding to the dealerships is rumored for a long time. In Spain We continue without MOVES Plan But so far criticisms have always pointed to long waiting to collect the subsidy. The money delivered was European but currently has to go through the Spanish State that distributes it between the autonomous communities and they manage aid. This way of working can cause more aid to be approved than money available, extending the waiting time to collect. In other countries, Like Portugal or Germanythe discount was directly reflected at the time of purchase. That aid is then processed by the manufacturer who presents the documentation to the State and receives the corresponding money. The processes are expedited, there is greater transparency and greater security is created in the face of the client receiving the money as soon as possible. However, the European Commission has only assured that “it will actively work with member states to optimize these incentive systems for consumers”, without giving more details. Photo | European Commission In Xataka | Europe had a plan to jump into the electric car and 2025 was its first fire test. The manufacturers have ended it

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