one described it as “clumsy, chaotic and poorly planned.” Hmmm, do I detect a hint of bias in the writing at the AP? Why does this need to be included if all but one of the groups seems to ‘welcome’ it?

It’s all up-front costs! /s

Username… checks out?

Don’t give them any ideas.

Now I’m imagining laser derby matches.

There’s multiple levels so the answer is “sort of.” Very generally, the Minister of Defense (or equivalent) has a national defense council that will have heads of armed forces and maybe a few senior civilian members. The council creates the overall battle plan with specific generals or admirals creating plans for specific battles or campaigns that conform to the overarching goals set by the defense council. The Prime Minister has a cabinet. The cabinet will receive info from the defense council. Intelligence agencies and departments involved with any economic warfare. The PM and cabinet can give direction to individual councils and departments to coordinate the overarching strategy of the entire country. The defense council will then adjust plans based on Cabinet’s directives. The PM is probably given detailed briefings of battlefield progress and aims for the military for the short-, medium-, and long-term for the conflict and can veto specific plans. But the PM won’t help to plan attacks or modify those plans usually. That’s the purview of generals and admirals.

36.005970N , 114.976380W

Your own comment above basically supports the definition of tankie. Specifically, this:

The term is also used to describe people who endorse, defend, or deny the crimes committed by communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin,[9][10] Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Enver Hoxha, Pol Pot, and Kim il-Sung. In modern times, the term is used across the political spectrum to describe those who have a bias in favor of illiberal or authoritarian states with a socialist legacy or a nominally left-wing government, such as the Republic of Belarus, People’s Republic of China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Nicaragua, the Russian Federation, the Republic of Serbia, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Additionally, tankies have a tendency to support non-socialist states with no socialist legacy if they are opposed to the United States and the Western world in general, regardless of their ideology,[4][11] such as the Islamic Republic of Iran. (emphasis mine)

I would take issue with the single word ‘fascist’ that @figaro@lemdro.id is using, as the government doesn’t need to be full-on fascist to it qualify for tankies to defend it. It only needs to be illiberal with a socialist legacy or nominally left-leaning government. So the definition is more broad than what figaro defines. But all the elements of Figaro’s defintion are literally there in your own linked Wikipedia article.

Someone has to take Ted Cruz to Mexico.

ADL would almost certainly file an anti-SLAPP claim and probably win. California’s anti-SLAPP law even says that it’s contents should be broadly considered as a bulwark against assholes using the courts to prevent public participation. If ADL does win an anti-SLAPP motion, Musk would end up paying their lawyers fees down to the cent.