Goodguy
1d ago
That's interesting. I'm not an expert in the topic, but my reading it seems to me that there is a rich history of political leaders ignoring the Catholic hierarchy's orders. Maybe political leaders, historically, even ignored its orders more often than they followed them, though I really don't know.
“America,” Colby and his colleagues told the cardinal, “has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world. The Catholic Church had better take its side.”
If this story is true, did Colby think that the cardinal is not aware of the military abilities of Russia and China?
Goodguy
1d ago
Good point. There weren't any US casualties in the aftermath from what I recall at least, but there was definitely use of military force.
I despise Pete Hegseth, but I don't see much reason to blame him for the conduct of the war. The military performed very well from what I can tell, it's just probably not possible for the current US military to open the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping without either a ground invasion or a several months' long air campaign, no matter how brilliant the leadership is. Based on how Hegseth acts, I suspect that he would have been all for a ground invasion.
I should probably also say that I don't give Hegseth any credit for the conduct of the war, either. You could have put a 10 year old in his position at the start of the war, and the war would probably have proceeded pretty much the same as it did.
In certain cases, you can just bomb and assassinate the enemy into submission pretty quickly and win that way. Iran happens to not be one of those cases because its political structure turns out to be more resilient and stable than many people thought and it has the Strait of Hormuz card. Of course, the latter should have been obvious to every US leader at the start of the war.
I feel like not enough people are talking about how Trump screwed over anti-regime Iranians who live in Iran. They got bombed, there has been no regime change, and now the regime is probably going to be even more wary of dissent than it was before the war.
Goodguy
1d ago
Most recent American wars didn't turn into forever wars, though. The first Bush's Gulf War, Clinton's Kosovo War, Obama's Libya war. I'm not a fan of any of those wars, but to be fair to those Presidents, they managed to get in and get out pretty quickly.
I think this civilian control of the military is normally a good thing, but there are edge cases: for example, I suppose it's possible that the President might order the military to commit some atrocity that is not clearly illegal under relevant law, but is clearly immoral. The military refusing an order is, I think, in most cases not as bad as what civilian control of the military is mainly intended to prevent, which is the military taking control of the country and supplanting the civilian authorities.
Goodguy
2d ago
The thing is, there's no way to shift blame away from Trump onto Israel without making Trump look weak in the process, and MAGA does not want to make Trump look weak. I think that most of MAGA, the rank and file rather than the strategists, also genuinely don't think Trump did anything bad or wrong in this war.
Goodguy
2d ago
In my observation, theories about Israel being a subversive and negative force in US politics are about equally common on the left and the right.
The US military has caused vastly more destruction to the Iranian leadership and military than the Iranian military has caused to the US leadership and military. This is just an objective fact. I'm not rooting for the US in this war, in case you're curious, though I'm not rooting for the Iranian government either. Actually I'd be pretty happy if Trump, Hegseth, and their entire crew somehow got blown up by an Iranian bomb tomorrow, although my happiness would be tempered by the knowledge that this would almost certainly lead to a devastating retaliation against Iran, and also by the knowledge that the Iranian leaders are complete scumbags to their own population. The thing is, the US military is so large and powerful that the lost soldiers and aircraft and so on that Iran has caused is just a tiny scratch. The carriers might be hiding, but that's because there is no compelling need for them to come closer that is worth, to the Trump administration, the bad optics of seeing a carrier on fire. In an existential war, they would come out. Same with the bases, the only reason they've been evacuated is because this is a war of choice for the US, not an existential war.
I'm not saying that Iran is losing strategically, although I think that is a complex and very fast-evolving matter. Note that I said "in terms of pure military-on-military action the US is dominating". Which is true, it's like a grown man kicking the shit out of an infant.
Goodguy
2d ago
Unless the Chinese leaders are total idiots, I think they probably realized many years ago that effective closure of all of their sea-going trade routes is a likely outcome of an attempt to invade Taiwan. So I doubt that the Iran war has changed their calculus in that regard. I'm sure that they have been very busy analyzing the war to get other kinds of information, though.
I don't know if China has any serious intention of attempting to grab Taiwan, but certainly they have plans drawn up for how to go about it if they do decide to try. My guess is that, unless they are total idiots, they have baked in the assumption that they will lose most or all sea-going trade for the duration of the war, and they might be banking on the assumption that their industrial might will compel countries to trade with them again after the war concludes. Not all countries, but at least enough countries that the invasion may end up having been worthwhile.
If I were the Chinese leaders, though, I probably wouldn't try an invasion regardless of how the Iran war is going. There is just not enough possible gain given the risk.
Goodguy
2d ago
One possible negative consequence of the Iran war that I haven't seen talked about much is that it might encourage both the American establishment and the American public to think too lightly of war with China. More the latter than the former, really - I am sure that the former at least understand the danger of nuclear war and have no interest in getting personally hit by nuclear weapons. But even they might become a bit too reckless as a result of these easy military victories. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the public has very little understanding of military affairs and probably don't really understand the difference in power between China and every other US rival. The way I would put it, the Iran war is like an NBA team playing a college team, maybe even a high school team. Yes, Iran is keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed and are pulling off the occasional successful strike against Israel and the Gulf countries. But that is happening because they are lucky in terms of geography to be sitting next to one of the world's most economically important waterways and are also right next to the Gulf countries. In terms of pure military-on-military action, the US military is dominating while suffering barely a scratch.
War against China would be like an NBA team playing another NBA team, maybe a weaker NBA team but an NBA team nonetheless. There is a danger of insufficient caution causing a series of minor escalations to blossom into full-scale war against China.
Goodguy
2d ago
Chronologically speaking, it's more like allowing the openly bloodthirsty (previous Presidents probably weren't saints in that regard, but generally kept their mouths shut) to occupy the government is the punishment for allowing endless immigration.
I kind of have the sense that Trump is actually going insane, or at least his emotional control over himself is slipping. It's not that he is bombing Iran - that isn't very different from normal US foreign policy. And it's not that he is being bombastic - he has always been bombastic. But his pronouncements lately have had a very deranged and openly sadistic frothing-at-the-mouth quality that is noticeably different from his usual previous posting style.
I don't think that he is just talking like this for strategic purposes. His base likes the bombast but would probably prefer a kind of bombast that seemed more composed and less emotional. They like the idea of "Trump the strong man", not "Trump the ranting lunatic". As for Iran, after having experienced assassinations and bombings for weeks, there is no reason why they would not believe a threat that was worded more calmly. If anything, I think a calm-worded threat would probably seem more plausible to them. I can't think of any way in which frothing at the mouth would help manipulate the stock market any more than a calmer tone would, either.
Goodguy
3d ago
I know very little about cars. What is it about highly computerized cars that makes automobile manufacturers want to manufacture them? I doubt there was ever much demand for computerized cars before the manufacturers began to make them, but I could be wrong of course. Do customers actually get some extra value out of their cars being computerized? Is it more that the manufacturers like being able to easily get data from their cars and change the cars' behavior without having to modify hardware?
Goodguy
3d ago
I think a lot depends on whether he puts the aluminum in the trash because he has a heuristic that recycling is useless or whether he puts it in the trash because it's a symbolic way to attack the libs.
Goodguy
3d ago
To be fair, the church was suppressed in the majority of their populations for a large part of the 20th century. Not that I really think they would have been great friends of the environment even if the church had not been suppressed. There wasn't really much of a choice, unfortunately. They had to either industrialize hard or be invaded at worst or reduced to economic backwaters at best.
Goodguy
4d ago
When you put it that way, I guess there's some investment ideas I could probably get from it.
Goodguy
4d ago
Ideally the point of a job is to get something done.
The problem is, the message that our society sends people through both words and actions is that hard, productive work is for idiots and if you want to ever escape the rat race you should hustle and cut corners and only focus on your own bottom line no matter what.
The average person might actually be most likely to succeed in life by doing good, honest, productive work. But even if that's true, the data that supports it being true would be buried in dry statistics somewhere. Meanwhile, we see an endless parade of people like Pelosi with her remarkable investment acumen, Trump the narcissistic bully who was born rich and genuinely does not seem to know any way of life other than corruption, and all the Kardashians of the world who are famous for being good at being famous.
Which is not to say that politics and entertainment can't be productive work. Politicians can do a lot of good to organize society. Entertainers bring joy to people. But the most visible exemplars of both politicians and entertainers are people who charismamaxxed their way to the top and/or are corrupt.
I think the major reason is not anything more complicated than "libs like renewable energy and often get annoying about it, so I like the opposite of renewable energy".
It's not that much of an exaggeration to say that you could get some right-wingers to jump off a bridge if you told them that the libs were against jumping off bridges, and vice versa that you could get some left-wingers to jump off a bridge if you told them that Trump was against jumping off bridges.
Goodguy
6d ago
Yea, Trump's wins in 2016 and 2024 are of course very impressive given that he came from a non-political background and defeated many very experienced rivals, but he's never had a landslide. He narrowly beat two of the least charismatic presidential candidates that I can remember ever seeing, Hillary and Kamala. To be fair, there's a good chance he would have beat Biden if it hadn't been for COVID, but Biden also isn't exactly a Bill Clinton or an Obama level candidate in terms of charisma so I don't know if that's saying much. Right-wing populism has a solid future - after all, it's a popular response to many real issues. But the Trump form of it is vulnerable.
Apparently Trump is seeking a 10% cut in non-defense spending and a $500 billion increase in defense spending.
These numbers are so high that I feel like this is probably some kind of bluster or a gambit to get a smaller increase by asking for a larger one.
This would raise US defense spending as a fraction of GDP to the same level as the height of the War on Terror, except with no 9/11 to motivate political will to support the increase.
A 10% cut in non-defense spending would hurt many people, including many Trump supporters, especially given that the DOGE experiment was cancelled and so one cannot expect much efficiency increase to offset the cuts.
A $500 billion defense increase makes no sense except if the US is increasing preparations to engage in a war with China. No other potential adversary even comes close to justifying such an increase. But China is not currently threatening any vital US interests other than Taiwan, and defense of Taiwan could be increased to effective levels without $500 extra billion. It is, after all, an island with rugged terrain, 24 million people, and its own military.
If a war does happen, it carries enormous risks one way or another, even with the extra budget. If a war does not happen, it is money largely wasted in that it could be spent better instead.
It would also be a huge experiment to add on top of the already ongoing tariff project, with difficult-to-predict consequences to the economy. The consequences might be hard to predict, but I feel like it's safe to say that the money could be spent in more productive ways.
The political fallout of actually getting these changes implemented, which seems like an extreme long shot, would drive everyone other than hardcore MAGA "I love the troops" types away and people who directly benefit from defense spending away from the Republican coalition and would give non-Republicans a huge amount of fodder for campaign material.
Even the fallout of just trying to get the changes implemented is bad. It is coming not long before the midterms and it is also a ready-made gift to Newsom or whoever else runs in 2028.
What is Trump doing with this?
Goodguy
6d ago
If ChatGPT is to be believed, though, the EU countries have spent slightly more on supporting Ukraine in the current war than the US has, despite having only about 70% of the US GDP. You can argue that because the US does other things around the world that benefit Europe, this is only fair, and indeed it would be even more fair if the EU had spent even more than they actually have. However, clearly the EU countries have not just been sitting around asking the US to help.
Which actually is rather strange. After all, if "everyone understands" that some people are just abusive, controlling drunks, then why doesn't "everyone understand" that some people are just insanely attracted/attached to dangerous men? The latter is just as much a psychological trait as the former.
Goodguy
7d ago
I think many men have adopted the whole stereotypical male ego "I'm tough and ready for anything" mentality so much that the idea that they are being abused by a woman in a relationship doesn't even occur to them. After all, they see women as weak and nonthreatening. So abuse might be happening, but they lack the cognitive symbols that would allow them to actually conceptualize it as abuse.
Whatever their conventional military abilities are, the US cannot do whatever it wants in the territories of Russia and China without a high chance of getting nuked. Thus the US does not have the military power to do whatever it wants in the world.
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