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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   5368 thread views

Transnational Thursday for May 22, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I never knew MEMRI did military analysis, thought it was just light-hearted Israeli propaganda aimed to go viral on youtube (there are some genuinely hilarious memritv memes out there: https://youtube.com/watch?v=g8vqkzFpKYs).

Also, the whole 'deter China' strategy seems somewhat naive. America is going to struggle deterring a nation with a vastly larger industrial capacity and labour pool with their shrinking navy and diminishing technological advantage. US advantages diminish with time while Chinese advantages grow. Would they prefer 2030 to 2027 when China is less reliant on oil and has more advanced semiconductors, when they've pumped out yet more warships and more nukes? The strategy might make sense if they're ASI-pilled but they're almost certainly not.

How do you maintain a military advantage over a bigger country on the other side of the world? Just spend more? Rope in your allies (the present administration is doing the opposite of this)?

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