site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7hr ago (text post)   59 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 11, 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.

Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Don't know if this belongs here or the culture war or small scale questions. But the US has sized a Venezuelan oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. I would like to know what makes this different than piracy, if anything.

The US says it had a "seizure warrant" for it. What does that mean? Was the vessel subject to US laws at any point, violated them, and this is the result?

The US says that the tanker is sanctioned. What does this mean? Economic sanctions usually mean, "I won't do business with you," can a sanction mean, "I won't let you do business with someone else, and if you do I'll seize your vessel in your waters?" At what point is a sanction a war with fancier language?

"Guyana's maritime authority said Skipper was falsely flying the country's flag." Does this impact the legal calculation?

Outside of the numerous questions, I'm getting Iraq war vibes from this. "They support terrorism! They have weapons of mass intoxication! The people will thank us, the leader is a dictator, etc etc."

Will the US have boots on the ground in Venezuela in a year? It seems so contrary to Trump's MO, what is going on here?

The US says it had a "seizure warrant" for it. What does that mean? Was the vessel subject to US laws at any point, violated them, and this is the result? The US says that the tanker is sanctioned. What does this mean?

The United States issued a number of sanctions in 2022 related to the transfer of Iranian-originated oil in violation of US law. The Skipper, then operating as the Adisa, was one of the ships in question. See here for another example.

The seizure warrant is sealed, unsurprisingly, but it's almost certainly issued based on further evidence that the ship was being used to transport oil to sanctioned countries.

There's some messy legal philosophy stuff involved, here; the actual behaviors are not new.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats