Ian Kummer

I'm a former US Marine fire support specialist, and also worked for about 10 years as a public affairs specialist in the US Army National Guard and Reserves. For that reason I will mostly opine about the "information operations" aspect of current events. Please see my "about" page for more information. If you would like to reach out, you can email me at ian.michael@readingjunkie.com

Star Wars and Empires with the Aesthetics of Rebellion

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I find the most recent Star Wars trilogy significant because it demonstrates an empire with the aesthetics of rebellion, which mirrors real life American tropes. In the previous movie, The Return of the Jedi, Princess Leia and her oligarch friends successfully regime changed the entire galaxy and put themselves in power. 20 years later in The Force Awakens, we … Read more

Johnson’s Sell-out, and Why American Conservatives Always Lose

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Republicans have, once again, preemptively surrendered. Spending for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan all went through this weekend, as well as approval for more Iran sanctions and the “TikTok ban.” In return, Republicans got nothing at all. Not a dime went to sealing our own border. In exchange for selling out his own voters, the speaker … Read more

The Arsenals of Autocracy

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Hello everyone, new podcast on Blowback. This time I give my perspective on the Iranian retaliation against Israel, updates on the Russell Bentley disappearance in Donetsk, and direction of the Ukraine conflict in general.

NATO’s “Lessons from the Russian War on Ukraine” Are All Things I said 2 Years Ago

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Last month, retired Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin published an article about lessons learned from Ukraine, mainly, that the era of dramatic territorial gains through “maneuver warfare” might be over, using the same arguments and citing the same historical examples I made in early 2022. What’s particularly interesting about Vershinin saying this is that I cited … Read more