The Wire - March 6, 2025

//The Wire//2100Z March 6, 2025//
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//BLUF: SOUTH KOREAN MILITARY BOMBS CIVILIAN TOWN IN TRAINING ACCIDENT. TENSIONS CONTINUE IN EUROPE REGARDING UKRAINE WAR.//

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-International Events-

Korean Peninsula: A serious accident was reported in Pocheon as two ROK military aircraft accidentally dropped bombs on a civilian area. 8x Mk-82 bombs were dropped during a joint training exercise with the United States, with all of these munitions landing in a civilian village adjacent to the Seungjin Fire Training Field. All 8x bombs were live munitions and detonated on impact, resulting in the wounding of 6x civilians and 2x service members. Several residential structures and a Catholic Church were also damaged in the blast. AC: So far, various Korean media outlets have cited leaked statements from various anonymous military sources, claiming that the pilots had input the wrong coordinates for the bombs to be dropped at, which resulted in the training accident. Nevertheless, this training accident comes during a time of regional (and global) uncertainty, as the fallout from South Korea's previous coup attempts continues to be on the minds of those throughout the Peninsula.

Europe: Rhetoric and tensions continue throughout the continent as various nations solidify their positions concerning war in Ukraine. France has dug in, pledging to commit more support to Ukraine, and Europe at large in the form of reexamining strategic weapons reserves. The United Kingdom has similarly voiced support for Ukraine, with PM Starmer continuing to pledge British military forces for the defense of Ukraine if necessary. Russia has called this development unacceptable, with various Russian politicians stating that Russia will not tolerate the deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine. However, two weeks ago, President Trump stated that Russia was amiable to a peacekeeping force being stationed in Ukraine at some point, blurring the lines in the diplomatic space. Germany has floated the idea of reintroducing mandatory military service, along with reaffirming German support to Ukraine.

-HomeFront-

Washington D.C. - Immigration operations continue amid unimpressive numbers of detentions and deportations. Over the past few days, the data has suggested lackluster numbers of deportations, which has spurred complaints from even those within government who are not impressed with the pace of border security operations.

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Analyst Comments: Creating a deportation counter metric to track daily deportation numbers was probably ill-advised, as it becomes more noticeable when that tracking metric stops (as it stopped only after a few days). A deportation campaign as large as this one is touted to be is no picnic, and will take some time to come into fruition. However, the statistics of monthly deportations are public record, and so far the deportation numbers have been far lower than even the Obama years (which could be more of an indicator of how seriously the situation has deteriorated). Nevertheless, the reality of complex logistical problems is not often captured or explained adequately in the political sphere (regardless of party affiliation). Anytime a large project fails to meet the expectations that politicians campaign on (even if those promises were overly-optimistic in the first place), pondering the age-old question of "incompetence or malice" begins to be the primary vector that citizens have for expressing their dissatisfaction with the pace of promises being made.

Analyst: S2A1
Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground
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