Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being an insufferable reactionary post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal critical theorist Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man Fox News boomer. No one yet has guessed a scholar, or multiple people. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
If the courts are ICE's own, this emphasizes rather than undercuts the legal catch-22 characterization. Then this is not an issue of lack of authorities or fundamental human rights, but merely misfiled paperwork. If the issue is merely misfiled paperwork, then it may be a fuckup but hardly the most egregious or the most damaging of the last half decade, or even the last half year.
Note- I do buy into to the Court's position on the process issues. I am speaking instead on the basis of the political reaction.
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
A crucial element of this that you're missing is that almost everybody, liberals included, wants illegal criminal gang members deported.
Most sanctuary city or state policies I am aware of do not have any meaningful exceptions for criminal gang members as part of the nullification / sanctuary theories. As such, I am not convinced this claim should be taken as a basis of mutual understanding, or even shared values.
Serious estimate? Here's one- the war this year will get harder for Russia, but for reasons that go beyond volume of American aid.
I've tried to decrease Ukraine war posting discussions this year as part of a new year's resolution. (I do intend to do a 'how did predictions from last year' pan out post later. Maybe next month.) But I think this is a fine enough case to register some positions and predictions. (Sadly, no links this time.)
My position is that predicted issues in the Russian war effort have started to materialize in ways that mean less and less novel American aid is required to cause equivalent levels of difficulty to the Russians. Further, these issues will occur in ways that play into Putin's habit of strategic procrastination, which will delay a possible war-ending deal.
This is a long one, so...
First-
I think Trump (and the Europeans) will maintain a relevant level of aid to Ukraine to keep from any sort of foreseeable logistical collapse.
I agree that the 'high water mark' as far of effort and impact goes is probably in the past. I'll even say Trump aid may be intermittent / there may be coercive plays. But I think the 'serves his domestic politics' play to that, even if aid is more 'sold' than 'given.'
In particular, I'd expect the next major aid package announced to be tied to the announcement/passage of a more final version of US-Ukraine mineral deal terms. I raised earlier this year that the deal could provide for a payment mechanism of sorts for future US aid. I also wouldn't be surprised if signing the (US-favoring) deal is an explicit or implicit condition for another major aid package. At the most coercive, I could see the Trump administration holding out on aid even if it led to Ukrainian battlefield setbacks. But I suspect that, one way or another, some deal to keep aid flowing will be made, even if it's the Europeans paying for it.
The Europeans in particular are an often under-appreciated part of not just the Ukrainian financial support, but the military gear support. This capacity has grown slower than they want, but it has grown over the last years. Without claiming/implying the tradeoffs are equal, even a reduction in US aid in various categories can be mitigated by an increase in European deliveries. Note that the Europeans in this context also include Ukraine, which has substantially expanded its own military industries in key categories, especially munitions. And especially-especially drones, which matter more for reasons in a bit.
Second-
I suspect by the end of the year it will become an increasing common take that the Russian military mobilization engine has plateaued in ways that limit perception of its further growth potential.
Last year and a bit before, I've been registering a prediction/characterization that the Russian operational tempo of 2024 was not sustainable for all of 2025 absent significant external support. This was based not only on personnel losses, but the expenditure of munitions, loss of systems versus the soviet stockpiles, and the Russian economic capacity. This was not a prediction that the Russian economy would collapse in 2025 or even 2026, but rather than the rate of exertion- and thus what is needed to stop it- would have to be dialed back to be sustainable.
There is certainly reporting and indicators out there suggesting these are occurring to various extents. The Russian economic forecasts by the state financial institutions certainly haven't been planning on a much-longer war. No one talks about overwhelming Russian artillery fires advantages anymore because, well, it's not so overwhelming. It's higher, but earlier this year we were looking at 2-to-1 ratios rather than the 10-to-1 from 2022. This has significant implications because ratio effects aren't linear- a higher advantage is greater due to what it means for the ability to suppress / deny enemy capabilities.
The ever-increasing enlistment incentives are meeting a certain level of needs, but are also indicating all the previous record high incentives were not meeting recruitment needs. The fact that Russia made a deal for North Korean forces, and more recently may or may not be trying to recruit from China with a Chinese blind eye, are also indicators of attempting to find manpower by any means.
The Soviet stockpiles in certain conditions are certainly lacking. Depending who you follow (and I vouch for Perun), the industrial investments may or may not be plateauing. There is always a capacity limit of how much more a society can militarize without even more serious consequences, and there's a reason why the pro-Russia economic characterizations emphasize the living standards of the Russian worker rising rather than what that means on the industrial side of a militarized economy (i.e. that the government is having to pay more and more for the labor, i.e. diminishing returns on top of other implications).
The most relevant issue, though, is the continuing and visible de-modernization of the Russian military. Outside of some very specific areas- and those do include drones and drone defenses- the Russian military is regressing in capabilities. Earlier in the war, this was going from an information-age army to a soviet-era army as the good stuff died and the soviet standard was brought out of storage. Now its transitioning from an Cold War armored force to a Great War army that is a far greater proportion of infantry as well as motorized non-armor units.
One of the reasons the Russian army was / has been very very scary over the years has been the amount of metal it can drive into battle. Tank fleets that dwarf the Europeans, armored fighting vehicles for miles, and so on. Every Russian offensive was carried into battle with a good degree of protection. Those days are not gone, but the armor is visibly thinning, in literal and metaphorical senses. Armies tend not to conduct infantry assaults with commercial vehicles when they have armored personnel carriers to spare, and they don't increasingly use donkey-logistics when they have an excess of civilian vehicles to supplement the supply trucks.
The Russian army at scale is increasingly not only de-armorizing, it is de-motorizing. This doesn't mean it's incapable or that nothing has improved- their drone force is quite capable. But drones don't move front line forces, and this matters because...
Third-
In 2024, the types of military aid thought essential for Ukraine to defend itself will become less novel / cutting edge than in previous years, where the US was providing exclusive capabilities.
One of the points of last year was the Ukrainian need for fortifications in their east. The Ukrainians didn't fortify as early / as effectively in various regions as the Russians did when Russia made its defensive line in late 2022/early 2023. The Ukrainians had started the far east with extremely well developed fortifications in the Donbas. As the Russians ground forward on weight of artillery, however, the Ukrainians didn't replace them fast or effectively enough. As a result, part of the grind of 2024 was that the rate of advance kept making it harder for the Ukrainians to develop new fortifications.
This saw a broader reversion around the time of the Kursk offensive. I noted at the time that part of the value of the offensive was to fight somewhere other than the east. Russia kept some offensive pressure growing, but ultimately the resources spent sieging the Kursk pocket weren't pushing the eastern front. With that time came time to fortify, even as the Russian armor quality continued to degrade. This is one of the reasons why even though the last month or so of Kursk was bloody for the forces in Kursk, other parts of the front were continuing to do generally well. That may change when the Russian Kursk forces are free to reoreint. I'd certainly expect an offensive of note in the coming notes, especially against the Kharkhiv area.
The issue is that- pairing with the de-armorization- there are types of defenses that work far better against non-armor forces than armor forces. Not just 'more' defenses, which the Ukrainians have been working on, I'm talking the mechanical efficacy of things like 'barbed wire.' Military vehicles, especially tracked and heavy vehicles, are built to resist / ignore barbed wire. Infantry and light vehicles are not. But barbed wire alone isn't what matters- it's what it is supported by. Like artillery fires, which are far, far more effective at suppressing or devastating assaults if done at 2-to-1 ratios than 10-to-1 when the Russian artillery might suppress Ukrainian fires. Or drones- particularly those with EW-resistant controls, like the fiber-optic drones that are increasingly common. Drone that Ukraine is increasing in ever-greater numbers, and which are effective against light-armor / no-armor vehicle and infantry targets.
These are mechanisms that are less capable than the sort of cutting-edge precision needed more when the Russian military was more capability. You need precision munitions more when you have fewer rounds and the enemy has more armor, meaning a vehicle kill needs a direct hit. If the Russians are moving in scooby doo vans, all you need is an airburst round, and that's WW2 technology. There was a time when the US was the only meaningful provider. But while that is still good and needed, drones are in many ways a substitute, and Ukraine can produce drones. The things that will be needed will be less 'only America can bring this' and more 'only American can bring this much... maybe.'
But less novel or not, they will contribute to inflating those infantry assault costs, which increases the need for more replacements, which increases the needed signing bonuses and foreign equipment and-
And this is different than earlier in the war.
In 2022, Ukraine was desperately dependent on foreign aid for munitions, not least because it was literally running out of soviet-era artillery ammo. That artillery ammo issue let the Russians enjoy 5-to-10-to-1 artillery fires for years. The Ukrainians were being flooded with anti-armor weapons like Javelins because, again, the Russians had huge armor advantages. Not only did the Russians have their standing, substantial stocks, but they had the best and easiest to re-activate armor stockpiles. Last year, the Russians resorted from their own stockpiles to buying the North Koreans. They can certainly do so, but how much is for sale and for how much is now a limiting factor that could technically be detected from orbit.
In late 2022 / 2023, the Russians manpower generation situation and future potential was considerably better. The late-2022 conscription not only brought in a lot of bodies to plug the line, it brought in cheap and young bodies (sometimes). So did the prisoners. Contract incentives mattered, and they were sufficient, but they weren't escalating. Putin was nervous about further mass mobilization, but it was still very credible. Now, the main new inputs are the most expensive recruits... and not the best, either. And looking abroad is increasingly a matter of policy, which can in turn be disrupted by, say, the Chinese interest in their European relationships.
This can go on for various categories. The Black Sea fleet used to credibly blockade the Ukrainian coast. Anti-ship missiles do a lot for that. More anti-ship missiles have little impact if the Russian navy hides on the other side of the Black Sea. Similarly, Russian economy had more room to militarize more earlier in the war. The Ukrainian economy needed more American and European aid while it's own economy militarized. But the if the Russian war economy plateaus, then it's not growing relative to the Ukrainian one, even if the Ukrainian economy plateaus, and the more the European (and American) economies- which are much larger- start to reverse relative size trends. In 2022, US ATACM was a huge impact for letting Ukraine strike major ammunition stockpiles, slowing the Russian logistics trends. In 2025, Ukraine is capable of its own drone attacks on Russian airbases and refineries. The American stuff still matters, but it's no longer about bringing novel technologies or opening them up for new uses.
Yes, there are things that Russia has improved as well. Again, drones. The glide bomb program has proven to be a good standoff program. The size of the force has increased. But these are not the same as a better force overall. And, as a result, more people can translate to more targets if those people lack the systems to enable the critical-mass breakthroughs that let maneuver warfare occur.
Which leads to an either-or-or. Either the Russian army gets qualitatively better suddenly to regain capabilities it lost years ago, or the Ukrainian army needs to crumble in the face of one more big kick (which has been the prediction any month now since technically before the war started), or there will be a heck of a lot of squandered Russian lives and assets for yet more meatgrinder gains.
Ultimately, I suspect the last. And the consequence of the last isn't Russian collapse, but an increasingly balanced equilibrium... aka 'things getting tougher.'
Fourth -
These are problems that Putin is prone to letting add up because they will not 'lose the war' (and he's a strategic procrastinator who's liable to miss his 'optimal' deal moment)
None of what I said should be perceived as saying 'Russia will lose the war.' That's not the point or the claim. The point is that these are problems that will make things harder for Russia over time, because Putin has been the sort of leader to put off hard decisions if he thinks waiting can produce a better opportunity. This has repeatedly been a tendency in this war, including the mobilization debacle, the delay on bringing in North Korea (it would have been worth a lot more a lot earlier), and so on. I fully expect that sort of delay to kick in for when Putin decides to get serious about cutting a deal... if he does.
I've said many times over the years I find Putin to be strategically inept. That doesn't mean I don't see a reason for his decisions, I just think they are unsound in quality. And I can absolutely see unsound reasons for Putin to put off a deal. The worst reason to put off a strategy of 'end this bad idea of a war from a position of strength' is to look at the last year and a half or so and think 'Russia is accelerating and will keep accelerating.'
Yes, I know many people believe Russia is steam rolling Ukraine and thus Putin has no reason to compromise. One of the big themes of last year was that the Russians were significantly more gains in 2024 than 2023. I also note that a large % increase of a small number is still a small number, and that the nature of unsustainable inputs is that the inputs won't be sustained. If the dispute isn't over whether the inputs of sustained offenses (manpower, mechanized systems, material advantages) will decrease, but when, then it's really, really important to make to try to make a sell before the peak, not after. If you miss the peak, it's much harder to stop when and where you want when things are going downhill than uphill. You have to conclude negotiations while you have an advantage, lest the other parties change their perspective and their willingness to close a deal. And given some of the negotiating demands allegedly claimed not just of Ukraine, but from the US and EUropeans...
Finally-
I am increasingly comfortable predicting the war won't end this year. If it does, I would expect a late-year cease fire around the late-fall mud season, when most movement would be stalled regardless.
I fully expect it to easily continue into 2026. If this is wrong and Putin changes tack, it will be either after internationally-obvious Russian issues that create a notable-even-for-Russia casualties (extremely unlikely), and/or a withdraw of Chinese support (likely at European pressure/quid-pro-quo, also unlikely outside of the context of global trade war concessions).
Last year I mooted summer negotiations in earnest at the earliest, but was willing to hold judgement until a Trump policy became clearer. I didn't think a Trump-Putin ceasefire was likely, particularly as long as the Kursk offensive held territory, but I was optimistic Trump would accept if Putin wanted to offer a quick ceasefire to freeze the conflict instead of dragging out negotiations as long as an appearance of strength was maintained. I strongly suspect Putin will attempt the later.
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
The biggest lib on the Motte.
Arjin, I... I thought I knew you.
Were all these years just a lie?
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
Unfortunately no, or rather not without more internet archeology than I'm inclined to spend additional time to. I've just spent a bit longer than I'd care to admit looking through the last several months of pages (admittedly reviewing the quality contribution threads along the way), and not recognized the thread.
Very little to say other than that this is a terrible post. It hinges on the word "does" meaning "accomplishes," not "carries out."
Scott has begun to lean more and more into semantics over substance as the basis of his arguments. Some months back someone posted an argument from which structurally ran on a no-true-Scotsman fallacy established in the opening lines.
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
Depends if you believe the UN report last year alleging around €169 million a month.
Though that article does cite more concrete examples of Somali pirates as well, such as paying them by dumping suitcases of cash.
Procedurally, it's relatively simple. As long as you can see / monitor the area you'd shoot in, you just advertise by any means that anyone who goes through that area may / may not be shot. The risk alone is what drives most people away- for insurance reasons if nothing else in the modern era.
From there, you just also communicate that you won't shoot at people who buy your pass. In exchange for money, you give some sort of authentication measure tied to the sale. This could be anything like 'broadcast this code at this time when sailing through this area.'
Then you have your sensor-people look for the authentication measure. If a ship has it and matches the ledgers of who paid, don't shoot. If a ship does not have it, shoot. If a ship tries to broadcast a 'I paid' code, but isn't on the ledgers, shoot.
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
#Resistance is over a decade old at this point, so more of 'already costed in.'
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
I forget who said it at the Reddit, but the first-term Trump advice of 'wait a week before forming a strong opinion about anything Trump does or is alleged to have done' remains sound advice. It typically takes a few days to separate the statements from the coverage from the actions, if any, that were being claimed / insinuated.
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
Chinese manufacturers will have to find some country, somewhere, that has a GDP roughly comparable to the USA, a growing middle class of hundreds of millions of people, and room to shift from savings to consumption.
The effects you highlight are real and interesting, but the country that will absorb most of the displaced exports is China itself. And that is going to be difficult and straining, even destabilizing.
And questionable. I agree it would be the ideal solution for China, but it runs into the issue of the implications of the Chinese property market earlier this decade: the population does not have the room to shift from savings to consumption, due to the literal rooms the household savings were being invested in falling out due to the property crisis.
This was an economic issue that was particularly affecting the middle-class, which had the spare money to try and invest. Hence the relevant policy decision during the post-COVID period to double-down on export-led growth post-COVID, which has somewhat contributed to already-ongoing deflationary pressures that will get worse if no-longer-exported products further suppress prices, feeding into the 'prices will keep going down, might as well hold out' dynamic that creates deflationary spirals.
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
After an actual coup attempt would probably have been more fitting.
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
The tiktok ban talk also increased in earnest after notable Democratic-aligned media reported it was favoring Trump during the 2024 elections. Particularly after Trump's formal emergence on the platform surpassed the Biden campaign's results.
Now, correlation does not imply causation...
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
Two questions. With the second question being-
'When the Trump tariff rollback doesn't happen over the next two years, what next?'
The old-guard GOP establishment helpfully defenestrated itself when Liz Cheney led her failed useful-opposition ploy with the post-Jan 6 hearings. That may have been courageous by a certain standard of courage, but it was also foolish by the standard of remaining politically relevant within the GOP, and led to both a direct diminishment and further party-base skepticism of the neo-liberal wing that she was a part of.
Wrong box copied from for the intended argument, thank ye.
But France can, and only France can, and thus it remains a form of European protectionism even if it privileges part of the EU over others.
'Everyone is under the same restriction that they can only use [brand recognition name] if you produce from my market' is simultaneously a 'same' requirement and not-same impact. Which is why 'same' requirements for all is a common form of contract corruption- you write requirements into a contract that you know only certain favored applicants will be able to reasonably meet, and thus you have the 'same requirements for everyone' and can dismiss accusations of systemic bias.
The trade flow diversions across the globe, who will receive what runoffs and to what effect, will be the most interesting part of these interesting times. One of the most pressing macro-economic questions of the trade war is 'who in the world is supposed to absorb the Chinese exports no longer going to the US?'
One of the limits of a lot of the recent discussion has been that it focuses on the Trump tariffs as a bilateral or even unilateral effect, i.e. how bad this will be for the US specifically. Part of that is understandable- the way you generally try and end a trade war is to sap political willingness from the pursuer, and convince them it's worse for them than pursuing. Totally normal, and I'm not implying that's necessarily wrong on any sort of factual or ethical level, though such arguments do have an incentive to exaggerate. (You can probably find plenty of online threats of, say, the EU cutting the US service exports at the knees in retaliation- instead, the EU so far as gone after certain red state good exports, a fraction of the fraction. This is a strategy tailored for political effect, not maximizing cost, which is what discussions/threats over the service economy exports would have been. However, those are focused more in Blue states, so...)
But what those types of arguments don't address is that the mountains of trade goods and oceans of trade flows will go elsewhere, and when they do that will cause second and third order trade conflicts that don't directly involve the initial party.
Take the US goods exports to China. On page 5 it breaks down various categories by share and volume of trade. While no category measured in the billions of US dollars should be considered 'small', note what some of the larger categories are. Food products. Oil and gas. Basic chemicals. Other forms of input products.
A lot of these are relatively fungible goods, but also where global demands itself is relatively static. If China refuses to buy, say, oil and gas from the US, that doesn't mean that china does without and stops all things that previously used the US export. It means China pays for an equivalent amount of oil and gas from somewhere else, possibly outbiding other market equilibriums for the privilege. Which takes that oil and gas off the market, and leaves the customers who would want them available for... the US oil and gas not going to China.
Now apply this to other categories. If you price-out, say, medical equipment via tariffs, then either you go without or you go elsewhere. If you go elsewhere, then you're taking from that status quo. The American goods are, nominally, available to fill the void. There may be complications- quality standard disputes, language and labeling barriers, etc.- but the underlying fundamental demand (the people who had been willing to buy Good X before China came in and bought it), and the potential supply (the American goods no longer going to china) exists.
At the end of the day, economic actors don't either produce to make maximum products or not produce at all. They will continue to produce as long as even decreased margins are preferable to no income. As long as it makes economic sense for the producers to keep producing rather than shut down, the goods will continue to be produced for the market while substitute transactions are sought. This is why input-producers, such as Russia, are often able to survive disruptions with major established trade partners as long as they have the ability to get their goods to global markets. The former-importer still needs to import something like the no-longer imported [thing], and the former-exporter can now export to whomever the former-importer is buying up the [thing] from.
This substitute process is generally not economically efficient. It costs more, in absolute and opportunity costs. It often gives less profit due to higher transaction costs (though politically-influenced deals are a wild card). This is less beneficial to most people involved, though the intermediaries who can make the connections can make a killing. There will be all sorts of compliance costs to try and access the demand that opened up when China bought out [thing] from [elsewhere], whether it's relabeling to new languages or trying to regulate regulatory approval or whatever else. Not all businesses will be able to survive that transition, and will be bought up or close down when they otherwise would have carried on. The people who say this entails high economic costs are not lying.
But that economic inefficiency does not change that an absolute mountain of goods are about to be redirected and crash into national markets that are magnitudes smaller in scale, and upset the political-economic equilibrium in different ways.
It also is not an argument that is specific to the US. A point was made that the US goods to China were in some respects relatively fungible. People gonna eat and put gas in cars to go to work or fuel factories. Demand for these is relatively inelastic. If China buys food and gas from elsewhere, then elsewhere will want to buy food and gas to make up what they would have been consuming but China purchases.
But if the US isn't buying from China due to the trade war...
Above I linked a product to show the US exports to China. If you looked at it, did you notice anything that ought to have been there, but wasn't? I'll link again. Can you spot it? It breaks down exports by type, exports by US state sending to China, exports volumes...
Can you find the word 'import', and find where it is used outside of the context of what China imports from the US, i.e. US exports?
Here is another (Biden-era) product of exports and imports by category.
Three of the top US import from China categories include-
- Machine appliances ($268.5 billion)
- Textiles ($50.3 billion)
- Misc. Manufactured Items ($69.4 billion)
$388 billion dollars, or $388,000 million dollars, is a significant-but-not-overwhelming amount to the scale of the US economy, which in 2023 the world bank estimated was over $27,360,000*... million USD.
*Edit: used wrong box in first post, corrected. Same point to argument.
But if you sort that wiki-list by size and scroll down, that $388,000 million starts to match and then even exceed, by multiple magnitudes, the GDPs of the smaller countries in the world. Which- if the China-originated formerly US-bound trade flow of manufactured goods has to go elsewhere- are not going to be the only places that good surplus will redirect. After all, countries can't subsist on nothing but machine appliances, market saturation will be reached, which means going to the next markets and so on.
Except, some of those countries like having their own manufacturing economies of their own. And would want to protect their own markets from Chinese dumping. When even the EU is in internal conflict over the implications of the forecasted wave of Chinese products no longer going to the US...
Manufactured goods aren't necessarily fungible in the same way that production inputs are. Arguably if the Chinese had the same sort of tariffs overall as everyone else, they'd keep (or even slightly grow) the same general market share of American imports for these categories as long as it remained a roughly even playing field with everyone else. But the nature of the US-China trade war in particular vis-a-vis the rest is that as the US and China put higher tariffs on eachother, then every exporter-to-the-US isn't hitting the same impact. Americans will still buy goods, even if at higher prices, just not as efficiently. Which also means that those manufactured goods that previously would have gone to [place] because China had such a share of the US market are now subject to go to US as the China market share in the US is up for grabs.
Which also means that there's fewer goods in [other markets] even as China's manufactured goods are looking for a place to go.
Anti-dumping practices exist for reasons, but it's less obvious that it isn't the US most at threat of price-dumping. And while the World Trade Organization has historically tried to discipline anti-dumping practices, the WTO dispute resolution mechanism (i.e. judges to make rulings) wasn't exactly resurrected before Trump came back. Which is to say, there's no WTO authority to make a formal and binding judgement against you, the national politician, taking actions in your national (and domestic political) interest.
None of this is an argument that the US will 'win' a global trade conflageration. Whether you think that's because there is no way to win / that Trump won't cut any deals / whatever reason, this isn't an argument about what will happen for the US. The US outcome is separate from the point.
The point is that the more that China's trade-to-the-US is diverted by the US-China trade war, but still produced by the economic incentives within China to keep producing, the more that will put China into its own trade tensions / conflicts with other states, as it seeks to have them absorb the consumption of China exports that the US no longer is. It's not like China has no cards to play- the rare earths mineral supply chain has been a topic of concern for years, as China has used it to coerce and punish neighbors on various issues.
And that will have its own interesting follow-on effects, both for the success and political dynamics for pressuring countries to accept the export flood not going to the US, but also the impacts to states that resist those pressures. But also the impacts on relations between those countries who took the Chinese exports and their neighbors who might not want the same sort of deal and now face overflow from their neighbors who they previously had a tolerable equilibrium with.
That is the sort of global trade issues that I feel have been under-recognized in the last week's focus on arguing about the American-specific element of the Trump tariffs. It's not all about the United States, and the longer the trade system upheaval goes on, the less proximal the US (and Trump) will be to future, predictable, trade conflicts.
That is not what the face-eating leopards meme is supposed to be about.
Then it would seem the face-eating leopard meme should not have been used as the framing device.
That bad metaphors break down when subject to context is a merit for using them accordingly to demonstrate their flaws. If the metaphor breaks down because, as @TIRM notices, the previous party happily engaged in the use of face-eating leopards against others, then this is a very relevant use of the metaphor beyond it's intended role. If this discredit's the original proponent's base of argument, all the better.
You may dispute whether there was an intent to eat the faces of tech types, but 'Those idiots supporting the other party never thought the leopard would eat their face' loses a bit of the sting if preceded by 'After a sustained campaign by my party to send face-eating leopards against politically unfavored businesses, which by the way totally wasn't the point or grounds for business leaders to look at the other party...'
Now, you could argue the accuracy of the counter-accusation. Intent alone isn't particularly compelling, but you could dispute whether TIRM's charge of leopard-like conduct is fair or not. But 'you can't the pejorative metaphor against the sender, it's not meant to be used like that!' is not particularly compelling.
Second, while it is good to know that his administration is also cutting funds in areas of the military, you did not contest that the overall DoD budget will increase, which is the story here.
The point would be that the raise in the overall DoD budget without the additional context of the structural reorientation of the DoD is a misleading boo-outgroup story rather than the story. It is fodder to insinuate corrupt motive, as opposed to a policy shift consistent with years of bipartisan consensus that had been delayed by the middle eastern wars, and later the focus on the Ukraine conflict.
I don't deny this is a common dynamic, but I disagree that what I talked about can be discarded as belonging in this bin. This isn't Americans gracefully outbuilding others, but Americans looking to extort and suppress.
I struggle to think of a time where 'Americans' and 'gracefully outbuilding' were characterizations that went together outside of anachronistic self-flattery.
Extort and suppress accusations, however, has plenty of historical occurrences, including the Iraq War (Bush invaded for oil), the earlier Iraq War (Bush intervened in the muslim world for oil), the Cold War (capitalist-imperialist exploitation), the Vietnam War (fighting as an extension of the direct imperialist-capitalist exploiters), WW2 (naked exploitation of the British before the war, the post-war dismantling of the allied empires), and many, many more.
Dean
Flairless
5mo ago
Given that the US and Ukraine coalition didn't provide older helicopters, I doubt they would have given it a cutting-edge helicopter either. And that decision wasn't simply for a lack of helicopters- it was consistent with the relative(ly low) utility of combat helicopters in the war after the very early period.
For the alternative to exist the alternative must be identifiable. Who else has agreed to take payment for American deportations?
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