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PaperclipPerfector  26d ago (text post)   564 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 25, 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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A completely real, non-astroturfed revolution that is in no way shape or form affiliated with any foreign intelligence agencies has broken out in Tehran. The people have taken to the streets (in Tehran) demanding the return of Reza Pahlavi, the scion of great man who despite his single-digit approval ratings in Iran, is extremely popular with foreign intelligence agencies. This is quite possibly the single most important event for world freedom that has happened since the last three failed color revolutions in Iran.

I try to maintain a balanced diet of news, so I usually pick my daily intake pretty much at random. Today, Der Spiegel, a leftist newspaper. In there, this: https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/extremwetter-und-klimawandel-bericht-zeigt-brutale-realitaet-der-erderwaermung-a-d28ff7c1-ef67-4822-a85b-3a2c928e991a

Wirbelstürme, Feuer und Dürren: Im Jahr 2025 hatte die Welt mit Extremwetter zu kämpfen, das es ohne den Klimawandel so nicht gegeben hätte, so eine neue Auswertung. Die besagt auch: Vor allem Frauen leiden unter den Folgen.

i.e.,

Hurricanes, fires and droughts: In 2025, the world was forced to endure extreme weather that would not have come to be without climate change, according to a new study. Which also states that: Women suffer the most from the consequences.

Yes, it's once again almost word-for-word "World ends, women most affected". Sensible chuckle time.

The first sentence: hmm, sounds a little biased, I wonder whether it's solid science or just a piece of propaganda... further data required. The second sentence: oh, well, that settles the question.

The Russians are claiming that Ukraine attempted to assassinate Vladimir Putin with a drone attack on one of his houses in Russia. The Ukrainians claim this was a false flag by Russia. I could buy either explanation to be honest.

Reuters article

What exactly is the history and legal and moral etiquette on assassinating heads of states you're at war with? Surely if Ivan can be killed in a trench, Vlad ought to be killed in a mansion?

The allies famously nixed a hitler assassination plan because they feared he might be replaced by a more competent leader. The americans tried killing Castro, Stalin Tito; recently, and pertaining to this current issue, russians poisoned Yushchenko, allegedly.

I think from the Ukrainian POV putin is very much worse than his replacement. It's his war, his costs are sunk, he has no interest in fessing up to what a giant waste of life, treasure and power his 'special military operation' has been. Can't really think of a reason to spare him. He just needs to die, it's a win-win situation for all.

IIRC there were a lot of Allied plans to kill Hitler, it’s just that none of them got very far. The CIA supposedly did attempt to kill Kruschev. In the second half of the 20th century, I’m not aware of them ever attempting to kill the leader of a major world power. The State Department did make a last minute intervention last year to try and stop a Ukrainian attempt to kill Putin, which is something that makes me think it might not be bullshit.

Regardless of the morals and legality, I think it’s pretty irresponsible to try and kill the leadership of a nuclear state. I don’t think the attitude of Putin’s hypothetical successor would be “hey it got me this nice chair, so all is forgiven!” I think it would be anger and a need to set an example so that kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

I have seen other behaviors by Ukraine attempting to bait the Russians into a limited nuclear strike against Ukraine to try and bring NATO into the conflict.

I believe the 'Ukraine trying to bait Russia into a nuclear strike' is well-worn Russian disinfo, whose main trick the whole war has been nuclear threats. If russians are that weak, and so desperate to nuke Ukraine, let's just go; I'll blame them, obviously, and not the victims of the nuclear strike, for 'baiting' the psychos.

I think it would be anger and a need to set an example so that kind of thing doesn’t happen again.

What are they going to do? Continue the war, but angrier? Nuke ukraine? Really? I'm trying to understand a moral framework where killing one murderous dictator is 'irresponsible' but nuclear strikes & risking nuclear annihilation, are justified by the various 'baits' of ukrainians.

Ukraine previously drone striked a radar installation in northern Russia the sole purpose of which is to monitor the North Pole for incoming ICBMs. It had zero utility for any of the Russian military activity in Ukraine. Sure it’s war, Ukraine can hit anything they want, but I fail to see why else they would do that.

moral framework

Personally I would rather not die of radiation poisoning and end human civilization just because it’s within your moral framework

They also destroyed poor old innocent nuclear-capable bombers with the drone-truck attack.

Why would they not hit anything of value to russia they can? Do you think they need a suicidal reason(let's bait them to nuke us!) to not respect russian property? Why is all the onus of restraint on them, and never on the giant aggressor with nukes?

Why is all the onus of restraint on them, and never on the giant aggressor with nukes?

Blockades are an act of war too. Cuba could have just fired a nuke at the American fleet in ‘62 and been done with it. They had the nukes. They had launch authority. Hell, that’s what Castro wanted to do. Thankfully for all of humanity the Soviet presidium wasn’t taking your advice.

Ukraine does not have nukes, this analogy does not work at all.

Ok but why not? If Russia is the aggressor, and Ukraine has zero responsibility to restrain themselves in their defense, why not just give them four hundred hydrogen bombs and let ‘er rip?

More comments

Putin has many of those palaces and hideouts. And Ukrainians likely don't have minute-for-minute data of his movements. So did they try to hit one of the large building complexes in which at some other point of time Putin may have stayed? I can believe that, the locations are known and getting a drone in there is not much harder than getting a drone into a strategic airfield, which Ukrainians already did several times. Is it enough to call it "attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin"? Not even closely so. Maybe "attempted to assassinate Vladimir Putin's pride" would be more appropriate.

Of course, since the talks are going on, as likely as not the Russians are faking the whole thing to get some PR advantage. But it really doesn't matter too much - Ukrainians can hit stuff within Russia, had been done many times. They can't hit enough of stuff for it to be of any consequence to the overall war, and they don't have operative capacities to pull something as big as hit on Putin personally. But they can hurt Russians' pride and piss them off, and cause them some tactical setbacks. Which is not a bad thing by itself - but better to concentrate of degrading Russia's refining, manufacturing and transport capacities. Unfortunately, that's also not going fast enough to matter on the ground.

Some items I'm looking at:

Geopolitics

United States

Trump announces new class of U.S. battleships named after himself

Rest of the Americas

Iran and Venezuela Strengthen Alliance Against US Actions: Cooperation to Combat Caribbean Piracy

U.S. strikes another alleged drug-smuggling boat in eastern Pacific

US pursuing third oil tanker near Venezuela, officials say | Reuters

Great Satan US Steals Tanker Off Venezuela in Another Act of Piracy

Russia evacuates diplomats' families from Venezuela as US seizes oil tankers

also

Europe

EU anti-Russian influence operations, also decried as censorship

Pair convicted of plotting gun attack on mass gathering of Jews in Machester

Middle East

Israel plans to invest $110 billion to develop its indigenous defense industry.

Iran

Iran: 357 Executed Since November 22

Iran refuses inspection of nuclear sites until IAEA provides new guidelines after bombing

Gaza

Government announces 19 new West Bank settlements and legalized outposts | The Times of Israel

Land Grab: Inside Israel's Escalating Campaign for Control of the West Bank

Yemen

Asia

Japan's attempt to 'go nuclear' must be prevented, says North Korea

India announces USD 450 million reconstruction package for Sri Lanka after Cyclone Ditwah

India/Pakistan

Pollution in New Delhi is so bad that people's DNA is getting damaged

Air Pollution in New Delhi,India: Effecting: DNA, Reproduction, Grand Children

Africa

Summary of Sudan toll in numbers

Hundreds of thousands newly displaced as Islamic State insurgency expands in Mozambique

President Trump announces strike on ISIS targets in Nigeria

Biorisks

Resistance to antifungal therapies

Artificial Intelligence

Google 2025 recap: Research breakthroughs of the year

ARC-AGI 2: Poetiq reaches 75% at less $8 / task

More tech

Russia's new anti-satellite weapon project would target Starlink with space shrapnel | AP News

Drones causing alarm in Thailand airport

Economy

Climate and Nature

Others

Somaliland has finally been officially recognized as an independent country (by Israel).

What’s the angle here?

It's right over the bay from Yemen. Guess how Houthis would feel when Israel has a foothold right at their door. That's only one of the angles of course, Israel has been working on making friends with minor Muslim powers for a while now. Eventually converting "all Muslims oppose Israel" to "some Muslims oppose Israel" then maybe "opposing Israel has nothing to do with being Muslim" then maybe "a lot of Muslim countries have ties with Israel, why shouldn't we do it too?". Israel has a very long history of dealing with various small African and Asian countries on the down low, whether Muslim or not.

Associated Press says:

It wasn’t known why Israel made the declaration Friday or whether the country was expecting something in return.

Earlier this year, U.S. and Israeli officials told The Associated Press that Israel had approached Somaliland about taking in Palestinians from Gaza as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan at the time to resettle the territory’s population. The United States has since abandoned that plan.

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