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Comment by autoexec | Hacker News Reader

If that's true, it's insane that it worked. It should be obvious to not take orders from twitter. There's a chain of command for a reason and random people on social media are no part of it. Sounds like the opposition forces would have to be so stupid that any number of Looney Tunes style tricks would have worked. Maybe next they can send out a rabbit in a dress to make opposition fall in love with it.

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Yep, the Commander In Chief only issues orders on Truth Social.

I just realized how much money one could make by hacking Truth Social and posting some "truths" under Trump's account. It's a relatively new, relatively complex platform; surely there are bugs.

they've already had a very similar idea at truth social themselves, they're now selling premium early access to market moving news

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/12/truth-social...

it's actually amazing to type that out and notice it's not a joke

Oh we see it as a joke outside the US, just not a very funny one.

This belies a fundamental misunderstanding of Yemeni society. Arab political structure is based on tribal loyalty. Leaders of tribes pledge allegiance to other tribes or coalitions of tribes. They're not part of the same command structure because such a thing does not exist. Usually instead of being defeated tribal loyalties change with the political winds and tribe leaders neogtioate with other leaders. Twitter is also ubiquitous in Arabia and the natural place for political announcements.

While that's helpful and insightful, it's not hugely the issue.

The military units are not very well organized, they don't have clear and stringent command, control and communications.

They understood a regional commander to be fleeing, units fell back.

This is kind of stuff is absolutely as old as time, and it's #1 rule in conflict aka deception.

The parallel would be reproducing a General's order to withdraw - meaning the command would have legitimacy among troops and junior officers, believing their own commanders were just out of the loop.

And yes - their command structure will be de facto organized along social lines, but it's more descriptive.

> This is kind of stuff is absolutely as old as time,

I've only very recently become interested in ancient history, so I'm still very ignorant about this.

Are there any particular examples of this tactic you'd suggest studying?

Not the military stuff but Arab tribal society, read "The First Muslim" by Lesley Hazleton, about Arab society around the year 600. It's an absolute eye-opener.

Thanks for the tip about that book!

I'm case it's helpful to anyone, here's one review of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2vxts5/comme...

Seems like a tough area of history to be certain about.

It's Art of War.

"18. All warfare is based on deception. "

AoW is one of the most important historical treatises, it's not just 'something that was written in history', maybe the oldest true 'textbooks' of objective knowledge, and also realpolitik. Also there's hints of metaphysics in there, in a way. It absolutely stands up today.

The very first work of the Western Cannon: Trojan Horse.

Information / espionage and deception has made most of history; Hannibal, Caesar, Alexander etc.

A fun exercise would be to look at battles of history from the lens of information warfare and deception, and contemplate the outcome without it.

Canon, not cannon. Then again, since this is about war, maybe it should be cannon. Lol.

While that may be true, most of the forces fighting the Houthis are Saudi hired mercenaries. Many of them are literally children from Sudan.

The US President routinely announces policy decisions on social media…

You’d lose a lot of money always waiting for news through officials channels.

Who knows how slow Yemini military channels are.

You’d bet your life on it?

> The US President routinely announces policy decisions on social media…

Yes, our current President also does stupid things, and our military forces shouldn't be using his incoherent ramblings on Twitter to make snap judgements on the battlefield without checking with their chain of command either.

> ...and our military forces shouldn't be using his incoherent ramblings on Twitter to make snap judgements on the battlefield without checking with their chain of command either.

You mean the chain of command that has been purged of experienced professionals?

We really are in a bad spot aren't we. In so many ways, strategically, reputationally, introspectively. It's hard to imagine coming back from this.

> It's hard to imagine coming back from this.

You don't even need to try because it's not happening.

You don't come back, you slide back to normal country status while 2 generations of people pretend you're still an empire until you really can't anymore.

Most European countries know this feeling. :)

> You’d bet your life on it?

This is why it succeeded: lizard brain decisions overcame training in the armed forces.

Twitter is huge in KSA. Much more significant a share than other countries. Something like 60% to 70% of the population are active users.

Donald duck lies every other minute, especially on Fridays it seems. Fog is a tactic of war and a way to make money I guess.

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