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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   26590 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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This is more geopolitical than culture war. There is a guy with naval experience that has been writing a theory that the US does not want to open the Straight of Hormuz. And Trump has hinted at the thesis. Especially Europe but the rest of the world has depended on the US to keep global shipping open. Europe also looks down on the US as Neanderthals. They do not have the guns to go do things like reopen the Straight and are dependent on the Americans. The US does not directly suffer from the closure as we do Neanderthal things like put little straws in the ground all over Texas sucking oil out of the ground. Europe hurts much more than the modern US today in an energy crisis (US may be net winner).

Besides being a nice FU to Europe it also exposes their geopolitical weaknesses as real. Which hopefully gets them to do things like build big guns, drill for oil, restart nuclear programs, forget Greta ever existed, etc. Which long-term I believe a strong Europe is in Americas interests. America’s relationship with Europe historically and especially Dems has been to go over there and talk nicely to them. Trump has a different philosophy which is basically poke them with a stick. On immigration it does seem like Europe is getting better.

And here is the article. [https://gcaptain.com/the-hormuz-hypothesis-what-if-the-u-s-navy-isnt-in-a-hurry-to-reopen-the-strait] (The Hormuz Hypothesis)

He talks about it more on his twitter. I am mostly posting this to see if he’s crazy or is this a good example of Trump playing 4D chess.

Edit: Based on early comments FU Europe is appropriately culture war

Konrad is a captain but he's not a military or strategy expert... You can tell in the diction these guys use, the difference between amateur and expert. I have no doubt he knows lots about freighters but he overestimates the relevance of shipping. You do not take risks in a major war for 'the SHIPS Act, the Jones Act, the U.S. flag fleet, and CMA CGM’s unfulfilled promise to triple its U.S.-flag vessels or Greenland.' None of that matters much at all in contrast to the huge stakes here. He sees everything through a shipping angle and neglects to take a wider view.

If the US had the power to open the straits they would. Firstly, oil and gas and helium and fertilizer are traded on the world market. High oil prices harm America since the US consumes lots of oil domestically, trades with other countries that use lots of oil! Konrad makes this weird point about prices bifurcating but Brent has still gone up a lot. That hurts the US.

Secondly, not opening the straits shows the US to be weak and incapable of defending the petrodollar.

Thirdly, not opening the straits gives Iran leverage and confidence in victory. To win wars you need to take the other side's cards away from them. Iran will hold out for more favorable peace terms if their primary means of leverage remains. They're even charging fees! Trump certainly wants to win, win bigly like nobody's ever won before. He wants to open the straits, fastly!

The US isn't opening the straits of Hormuz because they can't. An Arleigh Burke only has 96 VLS tubes for missiles. Some of those will be taken up with Tomahawks, already fired. The straits are a very confined space by maritime standards, it's like fighting in a telephone box. The destroyers would have to escort dozens of freighters every single day, under drone and missile attack night and day. Drones and missiles get through, that's just how things go. Not to mention that the destroyers could just get saturated, even if US air defence missiles were magical, perfectly accurate wonder weapons (they aren't). The escort would fail and possibly lose some destroyers too. That's why they haven't tried it.

A more plausible model is that Trump has demanded that the straits be reopened and the navy is deliberately trying to slow things down because they know if they just charge in it'll be a disaster.

IMO you can deal with high domestic oil prices but banning the exportation of oil etc. Producers in US would still make good money but would limit spikes that the rest of the world would deal with.

Iran gaining power would be concerning.

In the short term you can't because America lacks the refining capacity to handle the domestically produced light crude. This is not something that can be fixed in time for the midterms and possibly not even in time for the next general election.

Refineries which can process heavy crude can process light crude; they just need to disconnect half the equipment.

They need to do way more than that.

America lacks the refining capacity to handle the domestically produced light crude

It only lacks the refinery capacity to handle it at maximum economic optimization, right? All those gulf refineries could process light crude, maybe with minor retooling. But they're not optimized for it, and a lot of expensive equipment specifically built for heavy crude would sit unused. Going the other way (refining heavy crude in a light crude refinery) is significantly more complex and actually has many years of lead time for the equipment that's required additionally.

So, the interesting question is really: at what cost? You could ban all oil exports, and refine the light crude for domestic consumption in the gulf refineries. But the price at the pump would be difficult to guess.

There needs to be a retooling of plenty of the physical infrastructure to make it compatible. Going the other way would be much harder but this isn't something you can solve with a snap of your fingers either.

Banning exports is the "make shit worse for yourself and piss everyone else off"-option. Not a magical solution to a short-term price shock.

Going the other way (refining heavy crude in a light crude refinery) is significantly more complex and actually has many years of lead time for the equipment that's required additionally.

Except Iran could produce it in a week or two, a month at most, under heavy bombardment. Probably all that lead time is due to the thicket of rules and regulations the West has and not actual physical requirements.

I'm not sure what exactly the Iranians have been building exactly, but they probably don't run refineries with processes as sophisticated as the Golf refineries. The thing that makes suddenly processing large amounts of heavy crude difficult is that you need to build additional cokers, and in the west those are multi billion dollar projects. How much of that is due to economical, ecological or bureaucratic reasons I can't tell. Probably all of the above, and an Iranian refinery will certainly have more slack in all three dimensions.

You can find a guy with XYZ experience anywhere. This one doesn’t even advertise double-Ds!

You can also find Trump hinting at anything and everything. In fact, a lot of the early opposition to him came from people convinced he was hinting at various flavors of racism. This is not strong evidence of his actual motivations.

The U.S. does suffer from these things. Maybe Europe has it worse? But then again, they aren’t actually expending munitions and fuel to putter around outside the Straits. That’s got to make them feel at least a little smug.

I think you have to be really motivated to find reasons to come up with shit like this.

After reading John's (clearly partially written by AI) article, and I think him/those calling the current situation "4d chess" are engaging in Vatnik-tier copium. There is so much more downside than upside here for America. His thesis that this could be used to wield leverage over allies for protection isn't wrong, but it's a really, really stupid plan.

Especially Europe but the rest of the world has depended on the US to keep global shipping open.

I really cannot understand why this is constantly pointed out like it's a bad thing. Do you really, genuinely think that the last 100 years of American geopolitical strategy in shaping the entire world order to our advantage and then growing like crazy on top of that was a mistake??!? That every member of the American government up until now was massively deluded and accidentally giving away American prosperity/resources to the rest of the world from a sense of altruism or stupidity? And then of all people, TRUMP and his gang of blatant sycophants are the only ones to notice this. Really?

On immigration it does seem like Europe is getting better.

Because oil got more expensive a month ago? This was already the trend in Europe for the last like 5 years.

That every member of the American government up until now was massively deluded and accidentally giving away American prosperity/resources to the rest of the world from a sense of altruism or stupidity? And then of all people, TRUMP and his gang of blatant sycophants are the only ones to notice this. Really?

Yes

I mean, maybe I didn’t until you write it down and I read it, but yes I believe that the entirety of the last 46 years is cruise control by dummies.

Not the last part however - more of an accidental discovery on there end that they still aren’t aware of, probably.

Take Dillards for instance.

Absolute fucking clowns over at Dillards. Two good ideas (get rid of sales, lower overhead) and all of a sudden everyone is sniffing their own farts.

Dillards is good because everyone else is really bad. Dillards is still very bad, but hey it’s not Macys … even tho Macys is a nicer place to visit and has clean carpet.

Don’t paraphrase unflatteringly.

It’s fine to ask what people are thinking; the problem comes from assuming that you already know.

Fair enough, that was too inflammatory, edited.

I don't think that theory is likely to be true because:

  1. Not opening the Strait of Hormuz gives Iran leverage, and it seems to me from observing their utterances that the people in charge genuinely and emotionally, not just performatively, hate the Iranian government.

  2. Not opening the Strait of Hormuz hurts the Gulf Arab states. Keeping those states dependent on the US is geopolitically important to the US. Also, Saudi Arabia's leadership has personal connections to the Trump family.

The Arab States do get complicated for the hypothesis. Can’t say they are not buying US and participating.

That analysis would have value (and good chance of being true) if Kissinger was alive and in charge. Unfortunately Washington is completely taken over by the IYI class and the MAGA implants are ... not that cunning.

Trump has great instincts in finding problems and opportunities and very bad instincts about finding a solutions and realizing them.

For the Iran situation - all of the 3 big players - US, EU and the gulf know that Iran has to be beaten into compliance once it started. Right now they are just playing a dance because everyone wants the others to pay for the solution.

For the Iran situation - all of the 3 big players - US, EU and the gulf know that Iran has to be beaten into compliance once it started. Right now they are just playing a dance because everyone wants the others to pay for the solution.

Or hoping one of the others comes up with a solution - as @RandomRanger and @Goodguy pointed out, if Trump had a plausible way of pulling off a YUGE WIN he would take it, and we all know that the EU and the Gulf Arabs are too weak militarily to open the Straits (other than by cutting a deal with Iran) if the US can't. The only country that might be able to do pull out a win the Americans can't is Ukraine, because they actually understand modern drone-first warfare. I think it is possible but unlikely that the Ukraine-Saudi alliance turns out to be a Big Deal, but I have no idea what happens after that.

If the US bugs out, there are a lot of people with a shared interest in cutting a deal. A return to normalcy in the Gulf is good for almost everyone, apart from Russia, the US domestic oil and gas industry, and Trump's ego, and good for Iran most of all.

The only country that might be able to do pull out a win the Americans can't is Ukraine, because they actually understand modern drone-first warfare. I think it is possible but unlikely that the Ukraine-Saudi alliance turns out to be a Big Deal, but I have no idea what happens after that.

Ukraine can't open the straits because there's essentially three ways of opening the straits against the will of the Iranian regime.

  1. Destroying the Iranian regime. Then you have a new regime which presumably will not be shooting at ships. Ukraine can't do that; it's an open question if the US can.

  2. Completely and provably destroying the current regime's capacity to shoot at ships. Even one potential remaining drone within range is too much for the insurers. I do not think this is possible for anyone, let alone Ukraine. Ukraine knows modern drone warfare (because they invented a good deal of it) but they take losses.

  3. Substantially destroying the current regime's capacity to hit ships, and insuring them to accepted international standards outside the cartel. The US might be able to do this; Ukraine definitely can't do the insuring part, and I don't think the Saudis can either (they have the money but they're not named as proper certifiers in the treaties).

Ukraine knows modern drone warfare (because they invented a good deal of it) but they take losses.

Ukraine invented it, Russia perfected it. And both countries are not that successful with it anyway.

Just beat insurers over head. Larry Ellison and Elon Musk will jump over the opportunity.

By the way, if your goal is to reduce immigration, then starting a war which will invariably result in Iranian refugees that the European countries will have to deal with, seems counterproductive to say the least.

Iranian refugees are already a thing with a large overseas diaspora. A functional European state could also deal with them by saying 'No go away', acting as if the majority of refugees are created by actual pitched conflicts as opposed to random economic opportunism in the year 2026 is a circle jerk

A functional European state could also deal with them by saying 'No go away'

Any reasonable state would say this, but doing so violates a deepseated liberal urge to "help others", and provides talking points and photo ops for immigration advocates. Did people forget the picture of that random dead Syrian kid that got blasted everywhere for months? Silly stuff like that can sway elections at the margins.

Yeah but refugees are downstream of the populist urge more than they have much to do with whatever actual active unrest or war is going on in the third world.

All I am saying is that literally bombing people's homes will result in refugees. Not that all refugees come from war.

Although war is correlated with refugee waves, and if a war is ongoing it is very hard to reject the refugee due to the European convention on human rights. The longer the refugees stay, the higher the risk that they are made permanent citizens, as they grow stronger ties to their host country the longer they live there.

Thus, this war will result in more refugees the longer it goes on, and it will be difficult for European governments to reject the refugees without making drastic changes to their laws. If the goal here is to reduce immigration, invading Iran is thus completely counterproductive.

Iran isn't Syria. It's really not clear that an Iran war causes Iranian refugee waves. Iran is a big place with a more middle income economy, so far we've been seeing internal migration to more rural areas

All I am saying is that literally bombing people's homes will result in refugees. Not that all refugees come from war.

No one except Iran is bombing people's homes.

No one except Iran

and Israel

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/24/israel-kills-two-in-beirut-as-it-intensifies-attacks-across-lebanon

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260315-hamas-official-said-killed-by-israeli-strike-in-lebanon

Officials, functionaries and so on are not people. For the civilians that are not living right next to them - they are not in danger.

Officials, functionaries and so on are not people.

What a curious thing to say.

Is the destruction of houses containing 'not people' somehow less likely to generate refugees than houses containing people?

I'd suspect it's the explosions that generate the refugees not necessarily who's being exploded.

What a curious thing to say.

Well I think the charitable interpretation is to read the claim in context. And the context is this:

literally bombing people's homes will result in refugees.

It seems unlikely that bombing the homes of elites will result in refugees, at least in the sense of a large wave of poor people flooding in. Although I could see it resulting in the sort of refugees who have numbered bank accounts.

Yes. Because the elites are small fractions and they usually stick together - so there is not much surface area to generate refugees. Iranians know well enough that the USA and Israel are not doing indiscriminate killing - and if you are living in working class neighborhood or rural village or whatever - you are totally safe.

What a curious thing to say.

Not surprising thing to say if you are consistent anarchist rejecting all forms of statism and political authority as robbery, extortion, kidnapping and murder. From such POV, government officials and their lackeys are not human, but two legged predatory beasts.

Easy to find if it is the case - would OP also list Israeli officials and functionaries among "non-people"?

More comments

If an explosion rings out in the forest with no one to hear it, does it produce refugees?

No, not really.

For one, the whole "Europe freerider reeeeee-" screeching is stupid personal projection onto international relationships; the US would need to have all that thang on 'im no matter what, given that all our shit comes from across two oceans so we need the ability to police the oceans. Given that we needed to have the tools of the hegemon, using them to do hegemon shit came free with our navy, so to speak.

In exchange, we get the consent of europe to do pretty much whatever we want outside their backyard, basing rights, a voting block, an economic ally, the ability to impose our idea of commercial law across most of the world by fiat, and a financial backstop (at least until the cheeto in the Whitehouse and his retard hangers-on started dynamiting the careful work of decades like Hong Xi burning the fleet)

For two, anyone who gives a shit about being looked down on as a Neanderthal is an emotional weakling and deserves to be metaphorically swirlied until they disappear down the drain, never to trouble me with their squeaky voice and bitchy tears again.

It's not even true, on top of that! Yeah, America was looked down on as boorish and uncultured, as a component of (formerly at least) being admired as vigorous, strong, cunning, and forward thinking! (Less so now, unfortunately. We've proven to everyone that no, we are that fucking stupid. It's gonna take another 8 years of an Obama tier genteel speechmaking lawyerly type to wash the stink off.)

Also the irrational personal antipathy toward Greta and not being petro-dependent is crazy to me. You're gonna turn down +/-infinity energy at below market rate because it's woke to not inhale carcinogens and die on average 2 years earlier than you would otherwise?

Just shut up, eat the bug, and install solar panels and a heat pump. It was cheaper for me to wire my tool shed with panels and batteries suitable for a home server, a heat pump, networking gear, resin printer, and a bunch of 240v shop tools than it was to extend new service to it, and I did it with no rebates and after the incentives got cancelled. (admittedly I had a decent amount of the materials just laying around and did all the labor myself and I do need to have a light hand with the bandsaw, allow me my point though)

For one, the whole "Europe freerider reeeeee-" screeching is stupid personal projection onto international relationships [...] It's gonna take another 8 years of an Obama tier genteel speechmaking lawyerly type to wash the stink off.)

Robert Gates, Obama's SecDef, specifically warned that European free-riding in NATO was causing serious problems back in 2010, during Obama's first term - more than 15 years ago, before Russia invaded Crimea or President Trump was even considered a serious possibility.

Despite this (and the subsequent deterioration of the European defense situation) it was not until 2024 that more than half of NATO countries met their 2% GDP defense spending benchmarks.

The trend is definitely much better now, but US defense thinkers have been warning about European allies free riding for decades, since the Clinton administration. Just accepting for the sake of argument that this has all been "stupid personal projection onto international relations," a wise strategist understands that in a democracy, it is quite possible for there to be a certain amount of such personal projection onto international relations and one should avoid doing things like "failing to meet mutual defense spending targets" specifically to avoid such wrongly-placed personal feelings.

Solar panels are popular because it's giving stuff to middle class people(homeowners). Heat pumps are probably more red-coded than blue at this point, for climate(not change) related reasons, but Americans will eat rice and beans before embracing bugs as food.

I don't know where you're getting 'infinite energy' from though. Solar has serious drawbacks that make it a not-infinite energy source.

Just shut up, eat the bug, and install solar panels and a heat pump.

Heat pumps are ubiquitous in new American construction in red states: most don't get cold enough to need a dedicated gas furnace, and already needed air conditioning. Residential solar isn't ubiquitous, but seems popular on all political sides where it's practical: reds like the off-grid resilience. Combustion-based fuels are powering only about 30% of the grid in Texas today, per ERCOT.

Bugs, though, are probably a bridge too far.

Don't knock bugs till you've tried them. I've had crickets and ants in mexico that were delicious, and some sort of beetle and what I'm pretty sure were deep fried silkworms in thailand that were incredible. Like a more meaty peanut.

Remember, shrimps is bugs.

You can de-vein a shrimp. There only so much bug shit I can contemplate eating voluntarily.

Well, uuuh, don't eat shrimps then. Also are you not at all concerned about auto-immune issues wrt chitin in the bug carapace?

Not even a little. I reject basically all influencer coded supplement chugging anti-vax associated info, you would need to show my a meta analysis and I would need to really trust it for me to be worried about chitin. I've been eating mushrooms my whole life for one, and I'm pretty sure they are 15% chitin by weight.

Do arthropods broadly taste like crustaceans?

I remember being very surprised a few years ago to be given alligator and find out it really does taste like chicken. Exactly like chicken, to the point where if you close your eyes you can’t tell the difference. But the line of descent is clearer on that case.

Not in my experience. I've eaten fire ants in the old country just because they got into the food, and I'm not gonna not eat it just because it bites back. They ironically tasted peppery.

The bugs in thailand tasted really nutty, but with even more structure and a kinda meaty, protein sensation. The ant eggs in mexico were rich and kinda fatty, like fish eggs but not fishy.

As for the crickets, I couldn't tell you. I think they were fried, but they were covered in so much salt and spice I just got a pleasant crunchy/oily sensation; like a fried nut but with legs.

I'm not surprised, considering chicken are basically dinosaurs.

Not just basically. Chickens are straight up dinosaurs, while crocodiles are only archosaurs. Peasants.

The lizards --> birds lineage is made very apparent by chickens and roadrunners.

Remember, shrimps is bugs.

I deliberately try to forget this

Remember it and expand! There is a whole kingdom of life you haven't crushed between your slavering jaws yet! Get out there and start eating!

I did enjoy deep fried crickets but realistically they were probably 60%+ fried batter by volume so it wasn't hard to like them lol

Ah yes, the "Was that the cricket or did a bit of spatula get in there by accident? I don't actually care" effect.

I prefer to remember that woodlice (which are ubiquitous in these parts) aren't insects, but are crustaceans. But I hear they don't taste any good.

Shrimp aren’t technically bugs. But yes a lot of conservatives “anti-bug people” eat a lot of things that seem like bugs.

Never asks a southerner chowing down on 2lbs of crawfish why he’s opposed to eating bugs.

I agree and I’ll note that Utah (a red state) has by far the most liberal laws about setting up your own pv systems without having to contract with your utility company (in contrast with states like California where a solar system can easily cost 20-30 k, largely driven by regulatory burden)

I own a home in another state and I’ve looked into replacing the AC (all of which are in great condition) with heat pumps but I haven’t heavily researched the long-term, household upside to them apart from the general environmental benefits to the community. Same with SP’s. The problem with that though is the slope of my roof is very steep and unless a modification or minor construction to it was able to plateau a ledge out for it to absorb the sunlight, I don’t know how much of a gain I’d get from it; but I haven’t done the math on that yet.

I haven't bothered with solar for my house, I have the grid tie already. Maybe when the roof finally gives up.

re heat pumps, if you are a modern softie who runs the heat when it gets below 60 and the ac when it gets above 80, you will see returns in a couple years IF you install it yourself. I don't even know what they cost to install because they are so easy; only the really complicated multihead setups are hard enough I would consider paying someone to do it.

CAVEAT: I would install heads in at most two rooms of a house at most, one bedroom and one office. I feel cooling your whole house defeats the purpose of the efficiency gains.

The issue is getting electrical service to the unit, and getting ahold of an hvac tech that won't rob you blind for to charge it with refrigerant.

I know they sell precharged units somehow, but I don't trust it. Seems like magic.

Precharged units have a special fitting on either end of the lineset that allows them to stay sealed, even when disconnected. There is a higher failure rate, but whether that justifies paying what I'd charge you for side work is in the eye of the beholder and it definitely doesn't justify what a company would charge you. The bigger issue is that this is almost certainly going to be manufactured by an el cheapo manufacturer, so you're not buying the highest quality unit.

Electrical service shouldn't be difficult, if you're not comfortable running power you shouldn't be doing self install.

I would caution anyone running service not for the increased chance of failure, but the increased effect of failure. You fuck up installing the split? you're out a couple thousand and need to do the call of shame.

You fuck up installing 240v? Your house might burn down/you might get to have the penny fuse experience.

Best to shadow someone/get your electrician friend to walk you through it a couple times before fucking with the kills you juice.

Heat pumps will save you money over electric heat, but perhaps not over gas. They may not be able to keep up in the depths of winter, depending on local climate- of course, if this is a vacation house you use only in the summer, that doesn't matter very much. That's about the tradeoff- gas works better and the cost advantage could go either way depending on circumstances, electric furnaces are much more expensive(but do work better) to operate.

No, if you combine them with solar and install them correctly they will for sure.

Worst comes worse, you can do a ground source heat pump, but even as I say that I realize that not everyone is as handy with the shovel and pipe flarer as me, so I should extend some grace.

But then you have to pay for solar.

They may not be able to keep up in the depths of winter, depending on local climate

This is solved if you just buy the right heat pump.

According to IRC § N1108.2.2(14) (part of a complicated section where you have several options for earning 10 "additional energy-efficiency credits"), the recommendation (worth up to 16 credits by itself, depending on your climate zone!) is to buy a heat pump that, at 5 °F (−15 °C), maintains at least 70 percent of the heating capacity that it has at 47 °F (8 °C). You can read the heat pump's specifications to determine whether it meets that requirement. For example:

  • This heat pump has rated capacity of 24 kBTU/h at 47 °F and 19.2 kBTU/h at 5 °F, for a ratio of 80 percent.

  • This heat pump cheats with a backup electric-heating system to maintain 70 percent of rated capacity all the way down to −5 °F (−21 °C).

Combustion-based fuels are powering only about 30% of the grid in Texas today, per ERCOT

Not sure why you are emphasizing this in Texas. It's not that they're using little gas, it's that Texas has had an enormous solar buildout (based) for reasons of having good solar resource and being generally pro-building-stuff (based). In any case Trump himself, and his crew, are not representative of the entire population of Red Tribe or Conservatives but more a culture war caricature thereof, and seem to be solidly in the pocket of Big Fossil, so express only marginally less skepticism of solar than they do for wind (cf. Trump's repeated appeals to Chynese windmills that are a scam which Chyna supposedly doesn't use domestically).

Chyna

I'm sad to see this comment.

First off your link is broken and is pointing to this article when I think this article was your intention.

is this a good example of Trump playing 4D chess.

It's never "4D chess" when it comes to Trump. The 4D chess argument is cope MAGAs use when Trump does something blatantly foolish or contrary to MAGA principles. That's not to say the actions Trump takes never have beneficial second-order effects. But Trump is clearly flying by the seat of his pants, as basically all leaders have done, even the greatest ones you can think of. At most they have 1 or 2 major priorities that they angle towards.

a strong Europe is in Americas interests

Agreed, but this would be a lot less true if Trump shreds the US alliance system. Also, it must contend with Trump promoting pro-Russian political parties like AfD and Fidesz that tend to naturally be anti-American (though that may be becoming less true these days), and which try to sabotage the EU. Without the EU individual European countries just won't matter that much in the modern world. It'd be like if every US state was independent. The EU has problems, but the only solution that would keep Europe relevant is reform, not obliteration.

Europeans claimed the Ukraine war woke them up, and to some extent it did, but 4+ years after Russian tanks rolled across the border it's pretty clear that the awakening was only moderate at best. It's not clear if much of anything could shake them out of their preference for welfare over weapons, but each reminder driving home the current state of the world is not a bad thing.

As to whether the US needs to open the straits, the answer is probably "no" as long as the US is willing to lose some face and perhaps abandon the Middle East entirely, the latter of which is something I've been advocating for for like a decade.

To your point, the opposite was true historically and the US played a strong role that worked to sabotage good relations between Europe and Russia.

For a long time the US accused Russia of weaponizing its energy sales to Western Europe as a means to conduct war against their neighbors and also Ukraine specifically. And that’s true if you rely on omitted facts, distortions of real events and outright fabrications. This reality of this account though is actually a much more easy one to unravel.

The standard accusation against Russia for a long time was they weaponize and leverage the flows and sales of natural gas to exercise political primacy over Western Europe. This actually isn't a new line. It's one that's existed ever since the the Cold War. But to really understand where this comes in and how it all fits together, you have to go back to the 1960's. One of the things US Cold War policymakers found out was that any conflict that had the potential to involve nuclear weapons against the Soviets then would likely take place in Europe, rather than the US mainland. So the US feared the potential possibility that at some point in the future, European public opinion would turn against their battlefield designs for the region, and they were fearful that closer ties between Europe and Russia would negatively impact US strategy. Because of that the US has, all the way up until today, aggressively sought to avoid 'any' reconciliation or peaceable relationship between Europe and Russia; and that's where you see the US accusation of Russia seeking to divide the west card always getting played. It's basic geopolitical self-interest and hypocrisy at work. Accuse the other side of what you yourself are guilty of.

The US naturally tries at every turn to convince the public that Putin isn't a reliable actor. But that was always a false notion about Russia generally speaking, even going back to the Cold War; Russia very much respected it's contracts and arrangements and never tried to use them to politically sway their neighbors. Russia had consistently been supplying gas to Western Europe all the way back since 1960. There were turbulent times, but Russia always delivered on those arrangements. In 1982 Russia was making a pipeline between Siberia that stretched into Ukraine as a way to increase its supplies to Europe. When the oil crisis happened back in the 1970’s, Europe became worried about their energy supplies and deepened their relationship with the Soviets to keep their supplies. That was as a result of the unpredictable nature of Arab politics. That increased the US worry that a greater dependence of Europe on Russia would have bad effects and alter the support against American policy in the region.

In the 1980's demonstrations and protests were actually increasing in Europe against the US deployment of the Pershing II missiles, and they were afraid that Europe's improvement of relations with Russia would stop that deployment from happening. So then Russia had to be presented as an unreliable supplier. So what we did was we sabotaged the pipeline under the Reagan’s presidency. Not a long of people know that. But that didn't stop Russia from ultimately completing the pipeline anyway. So in response, the US declared an embargo on Russian gas to force the Europeans to quit buying it. We said we'd compensate Europe for how they might be affected by it by increasing our coal supplies to them, but our production and shipping capacity wasn’t good enough to be able to keep up with demand. Eventually the embargo was forced to end and Russian gas deliveries to Europe resumed as normal.

So it's pretty reasonable to think that if there was some kind of armed conflict that happened at that time, then Russia would've cut it's hydrocarbon supplies. But during the entirety of the Cold War, they never did. The US on the other hand, fought tooth and nail in every way it could think of to prevent any strengthening of ties or good rapport between Europe and Russia. And that's where you see the hand of US foreign policy's "You're either with us or against us," mentality at work. And you don’t have to be a partisan to see this.

Now go back to Ukraine in 2014. After the crisis happened, the US imposed sanctions which stopped western companies from delivering ‘any’ hydrocarbon related equipment to Russia. The idea was that Russia was clearly dependent on western technology to continue their energy operations, so if we restrict the transfer of technology, that will stop their energy production. What happened in reality was that it stopped Exxon and Shell from cooperating with Russian energy companies. Because of the delay in production, Russia simply developed the technology domestically instead. And today in 2026, they no longer need western technology. This is exactly the reason why the discussion of US policy began to shift to sanctioning US allies like Germany over Nord Stream 2. Because Germany simply sees the Europe-Russia trade as a commercial bridge between the two, the US sees it as a division in the western camp of things. As it relates to Nord Stream 2 more generally. The US doesn't care one damn bit about European dependence on Russia. What it does care about is Europe fostering good relations with Russia, which the US is opposed to.

It isn't Russia that's an unreliable seller. It's the Europeans who are unreliable buyers. I think it's very likely that Russia will continue it's contractual obligations with Europe. But it'll be less willing to take on any new obligations. Because of the US meddling, pounding it's hands and stomping it's feet to terrorize Europe into following it's policies, it's making the European market less attractive to Russia and more attractive to Asia. This is where things really began to pivot to the strengthening of diplomatic relations between Putin and Xi, and that's where things stand at today. That's how we got where we are currently.

Incredible analysis. I always thought the motivation was "EU + Russia could actually have a chance to mog us, thus we must never give them the chance" which I'm sure it partially is.

But "Euros might get cranky if they realize we'll be using tac nukes in their backyard" is also quite logical, and darkly so fucking funny in a realpolitik sense.

the 1950s-1990s CIA may have been assholes, but man those boys were cracked.

I know I was arguing "good times>soft men>bad times>good men" was silly the other week, but we've lost something for sure as a society.

European dependence on Russian energy was an obvious vulnerability. The Soviets never cut off supplies during the Cold War since there was never a conflict as divisive as Ukraine is today, while when Russia invaded Ukraine it did weaponize energy flows. The US was right to oppose gas dependence and stuff like the Nordstream pipeline, in terms of both liberal idealism and simple power politics.

Most of what you've written here isn't wrong, but it's mixed with a lot of rhetoric implying the US is a uniquely evil, conniving nation that wanted to sabotage Good Guy Russia from living in peace and harmony with the rest of Europe.

Most of what you've written here isn't wrong, but it's mixed with a lot of rhetoric implying the US is a uniquely evil, conniving nation that wanted to sabotage Good Guy Russia from living in peace and harmony with the rest of Europe.

I don't think Tretiak's rhetoric is implying any of that unless you're looking at the world through the basic lens of good and evil. It's more like US benefits from Europe that's more US dependent, while Russia is weak, poor and kept on a leash. Because the alternative is a possibility of strong Germany-France-Russia alliance that is able to project its power on the rest of the world. A Europe that is able to do things beyond writing strongly worded letters and accepting refugees as blowback from US's actions like a good boy is not in America's benefit and that's why things are the way they are today.

Again, I don't disagree with this in vague terms but it's a glass half-full vs glass half-empty sort of thing. It's like if you saw your friend about to shoot themselves in the foot, so you stole their gun. You took something from them, sure, but you also prevented something that was obviously going to end up going badly.

Also, the US was not as monolithically opposed to EU and Russian detente as is being implied here. The US publicly supported the Minsk agreements instead of trying to sabotage them.

A Europe that is able to do things beyond writing strongly worded letters and accepting refugees

This is literally what Trump and MAGA wants and the response from Europe's political leadership has been a genteel, refined, well-bred, exquisitely credentialed version of a toddler throwing themselves on the floor and screaming because you asked them to put on their own trousers.

The response from Europe's political leadership for the general current situation, ever since 2022, has been steadily hiking up defense expenditure. Despite this being presumably exactly what Trump wants, this hasn't led to a positive change in American attitudes, to say the least.

Make no mistake, 'MAGA' wants EU states to 'contribute more to NATO' aka flow more capital into (mostly) American arms manufacturers. They don't want Europe that unilaterally decides to stop letting American planes use their airspace to, for example, bomb Iran whenever they want. Big difference. Not to say that Europe would prefer either in its current state. They would rather close their eyes and pretend it's 2007 again and it's all sunshine and rainbows.

I will also just add that while I myself have made the point that a strong (and especially unified) Europe is not in American interests – and I think the US has acted in ways cognizant of this – to be fair to the US, it has consistently asked its NATO allies to step up to the plate and spend more on defense. SecDef Gates was EXTREMELY pointed about this! So it's not like the US is suddenly rug pulling Europe, they've been ignoring increasingly pointed US complaints about the state of their armed forces going back to the Clinton administration.

I think (from the US POV) there's a sweet spot where Europe is strong enough to deter Russia and not strong enough to meaningfully threaten the United States, but it seems like we've somehow instead found ourselves in a weird spot where Europe might not be strong enough to meaningfully threaten Russia and is desperately casting about for ways to deter the United States.

I will also just add that while I myself have made the point that a strong (and especially unified) Europe is not in American interests

I'm self-aware enough to admit that a strong, muscular Europe would probably also annoy me, if in different ways. But it's hard to imagine it would be less pleasant to look at than the current version of a suicidal Europe that hates itself - not even for it's sins, but most of all for it's former muscular virtues!

It's like watching your dad mainline MSNBC until he looks like Rosie O'Donnell.

The problem is that we don’t have undisputed control of two continents and loads of homeland shale. The closest we can get to energy security is diversifying our in-flows and buying from people who don’t like each other to keep prices down and make it hard to cut us off and this is what the US has been determined to prevent.

Personally I am cynical enough to think that the US is quite happy with gas dependence as long as we’re dependent on the right country, viz. the US, but that’s by the by.

Diversification is good, but really it's just "don't become dependent on Russia" specifically. I bet the US would probably be upset if Europe became dependent on Chinese hydrocarbons too, but they don't export much of that so it's not an issue. Buying from Azerbaijan or Kuwait or KSA is all mostly fine. They're authoritarian, but have much less leverage to blackmail large concessions compared to Russia, and also far less likely to have diverging core interests. Buying from nations other than Russia will be a little bit more expensive but it's worth it in the long run.

EU countries could also put a bigger emphasis on renewables and nuclear too. They're better than the US there, but still haven't pursued it nearly as far as they could have.

Their preference for welfare over weapons can be seen as rational, since the only country they have any realistic chance of fighting a major war with in the foreseeable future is Russia, and Russia is not strong enough to seriously endanger anything more than the Baltic states. I'm not sure that the Russia of January 1, 2022 could have even conquered Poland in a 1-on-1 war, and now Russia is bogged down on another front. Essentially, the EU is already militarily strong enough to effectively deter Russia even without increasing military sizes or spending. Despite the occasional claims by EU politicians that Russia is an existential threat, the reality is that the current war in Ukraine is not an existential war for the EU, it is a war that is being fought for ideological, moral, and sphere-of-influence reasons. Even if Russia conquered all of Ukraine, it still would not have the power to existentially threaten the EU.

Their preference for welfare over weapons can be seen as rational, since the only country they have any realistic chance of fighting a major war with in the foreseeable future is Russia, and Russia is not strong enough to seriously endanger anything more than the Baltic states.

What's your definition of 'endanger'? Ukraine have had to force like half a million men in the meatgrinder to barely stalemate them. I'd say that's a real danger to any country.

I think that after the experience of the last 4 years, Russia would not risk attacking say Poland even if NATO was dissolved, and no matter how much in doubt EU unity was. There would be just too much risk of getting drawn into a direct war against the entire EU, which has 3 times Russia's population, 7 times its GDP, and two nuclear-armed countries. So while being attacked by Russia would be very painful for, say, Poland, the actual risk that Russia would decide to do something like that is very small.

I think the risk is high that Russia will attack some small country though. 2014 style at first, probably.

Their preference for welfare over weapons can be seen as rational, since the only country they have any realistic chance of fighting a major war with in the foreseeable future is Russia, and Russia is not strong enough to seriously endanger anything more than the Baltic states.

I mean, you're not wrong. There's not much of a European identity, so nations are happy to treat every nation to their east as a buffer state against Russia. And if the buffers haven't fallen yet then there's no need to really worry.

As a (classical) liberal I had hoped that Europe would rise to the call of a changing world order, but it seems they're happy enough to rest on their laurels as 2, or really 3, illiberal powers run roughshod over the planet.

I had hoped that Europe would rise to the call of a changing world order

Me too , but the language and cultural differences just make the unity to really play against the big kids impossible. Especially because everyone wants to protect their national champions too.

I'm not sure that the Russia of January 1, 2022 could have even conquered Poland in a 1-on-1 war

It's actually so crazy to me how they were seen as debatably the 2nd or 3rd strongest military power on planet earth and how wrong we all were. And how obvious it feels in retrospect lol.

That being said they might still be top 3 just based on how shit everyone else is (doesn't matter if you mog Russia in gear quality and training if you only have 2 days worth of munitions and don't have the factories to make a metric fuckton more on short notice).

It also should be noted that Ukraine has a way better military than anyone gave them credit for. They have massive Soviet inheritance which is frankly the only reason they could stay in the fight long enough to start getting serious aid.

Vast and deep pools of gear, most notably the second largest fleet of GBAD in Europe (and by proxy, one of the largest in the world). Poland definitely punches harder per capita, but idk if it would have been able to achieve the same level of air denial Ukraine has. Although I don't know anything about the pre 2022 polish army.

matter if you mog Russia in gear quality

This misconception is so funny. Who "mogs Russia" in gear or training, other than the US and China? German and British tanks are so much worse it's laughable. Maybe they're mogged by European soldiers in training huddle together really closely waiting for drones to come? Training to pretend it's 2020 warfare?

Ukraine would steamroll most of European NATO, actually.

given their Soviet inheritance.

Because of it, actually.

I'd say Germany/England/France all have better precision strike weapons. Although way too few. Also better planes marginally (maybe not France).

Given their Soviet inheritance.

Because of it, actually.

Are we not saying the same thing? Or did I use the word "given" wrong?

I read your sentence as

It also should be noted that Ukraine has a way better military than anyone gave them credit for [in spite of the rubbish inheritance they got from the Soviets].

Whereas Ditto is saying

[Ukraine has a way better military than anyone gives them credit for, because the Soviets gave them a good military]

Oh I did use it poorly then. I very much meant the latter.

Presumably we would be getting similar amount of support that Ukraine is getting now.

They would, unless they were rolled up quickly, which is unlikely.

As a NATO member, almost certainly much more, including the entirety of NATO actively joining the conflict rather than just providing intelligence and materiel.

Ok I think this works.

https://gcaptain.com/the-hormuz-hypothesis-what-if-the-u-s-navy-isnt-in-a-hurry-to-reopen-the-strait/

Personally love the AFD. First thing Germany needs to do is massive deportations and they are the most into it.

The US needs to re-open the strait for several reasons.

  1. Having Iran in control makes a case for Iran having won.

  2. The US's Gulf allies need the strait open. Saudi Arabia can redirect most, but not all of its oil elsewhere, but Kuwait cannot.

  3. Iran tolling the strait helps Iran rebuild its weapons programs, which means the job isn't done.

  4. Sustained high oil prices will hurt Trump domestically, despite the US being a net exporter; there's a lot more gasoline buyers than oil company workers.

The hypothesis that the US would destroy the Iranian regime but leave the strait closed or tolled doesn't make sense. Either the new Iranian regime would have to keep the strait closed by force (in which case it's the enemy), or Oman (in coalition with the rest of the GCC, probably) and the new Iranian regime and the US would have to agree to do so in violation of long-standing treaties, which seems unlikely. That would throw freedom of navigation worldwide into utter chaos, which the US has long considered against its interests.

There's one way of threading the needle, which is that the US beats back the Iranian regime but they can still fire a few missiles or drones from a distance (which can be shot down with high probability). In that case the P&I cartel might decide to continue their effective blockade, at which point the US can probably spin up and certify a new insurer, effectively collecting the same "toll" the P&I clubs used to. This would require utter stupidity on the part of the cartel, but given what Europe has been doing lately, it's not impossible.

Counterplan: Stop the war, and abandon US involvement in the Middle East more broadly.

  1. Doesn't matter much politically since Trump can just emphasize how much destruction was wrought on Iran and MAGA will buy it while the Dems would never buy any explanation he would ever give anyways. MAGA has been very accommodating to Trump in this war, and the isolationist excuse of "we're not the world police any more" is right there.
  2. Doesn't matter much if the US abandons the Middle East.
  3. Doesn't matter much if the US abandons the Middle East.
  4. Higher oil prices hurt a little bit in the short term, but in the medium term more oil producers will come online if oil prices remain high, and the US can more efficiently deal with high oil prices through electrification subsidies, which would be a far more efficient use of money than everything we've spent on Middle East adventures in the past few decades.

All this assumes a relatively worst-case scenario of Iran remaining ascendant afterwards and other countries not reacting. In practical terms it's likely that a coalition of Gulf nations come in and try to deal with Iran tolling the straits if it's clear the US won't. They're just free-riding now because they think the US will spend the blood and treasure so they don't need to.

Doesn't matter much politically since Trump can just emphasize how much destruction was wrought on Iran and MAGA will buy it while the Dems would never buy any explanation he would ever give anyways. MAGA has been very accommodating to Trump in this war, and the isolationist excuse of "we're not the world police any more" is right there.

It's not the MAGA that's the issue, it's the neocon elites that would be cause trouble here. We'd probably see the home front revert into Trump-I state, possibly worse.

IMO it doesn't make sense long term for other Gulf states to accept Iran unilaterally defecting and seizing control of Hormuz shipping. They are at least as capable of blocking traffic and there is no reason to let Iran's ships through unless theirs do too, unless they're accepting it for short-term reasons (international relations on oil prices, expecting long-term gains via regime change, maybe others).

Investments in alternate routes make sense, but even without them, defecting back (closing Hormuz and Iranian ports to the rest of the traffic) seems easy enough and a viable response. I'm sure US ROE won't allow naval mining in this conflict ("free navigation", you say), but it's less clear that this would bind KSA or UAE.

But maybe it does seem like the entire conflict was poorly-thought-out.

Investments in alternate routes make sense, but even without them, defecting back (closing Hormuz and Iranian ports to the rest of the traffic) seems easy enough and a viable response.

Except that Iran could then respond by destroying most of the oil infrastructure of the GCC. This is MAD, of course, but MAD doesn't work against an actually-fanatic opponent.

But maybe it does seem like the entire conflict was poorly-thought-out.

Maybe. Won't know until it concludes.

What's strange here is the degree of distance from what's obviously reasonable and necessary to do, and what's been said by the Trump admin in the last day or so. More troops and planes (A-10) have been moved into position. "Watch the feet" is a sports term that tells you to weight actions/movements a lot higher than cheap words and appearances.

However the communications are totally different from what you'd expect before a major escalation. And no one can put it past Trump to declare victory when he has achieved no such thing and has effectively left the rest of the world in the lurch, and strengthened Russia by pretty much announcing the end of the US in NATO...

The communications from Trump are almost 100% market manipulation. Like, what on Earth is he even talking about here?

Iran’s New Regime President, much less Radicalized and far more intelligent than his predecessors, has just asked the United States of America for a CEASEFIRE! We will consider when Hormuz Strait is open, free, and clear. Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!

Iran’s president is Masoud Pezeshkian. He has been in office since 2024. He is still alive. Did he mean the new Supreme Leader Khamenei? It doesn’t really sound like it. He’s just making shit up.

The bull case for Trump here (and I have a bridge for sale if you take his words at full face value) seems to be that they've, uh, "replaced" enough political-side leadership that the current folks there are willing to make a viable deal (details unclear), but the IRGC isn't willing to go along with that and intends to keep fighting, which is why all the recently announced targets are it's leadership. Some sort of civil war or standoff between domestic powers sounds plausible there. I don't claim to know any specifics, but it does seem they're trying to avoid destroying economic assets that would be valuable for a future regime (Kharg, as one example).

But I'm certainly not the expert to listen to on this topic.

Pezeshkian (who comes from the reformist faction in the mullahocracy and won the genuine-but-not-free Presidential election on that basis) actually taking power and cutting a deal with the US was always the most plausible Venezuela-like regime modification scenario.

I think the point is to delegitimize the regime, he will declare soon who that "New Regime President" is and the hope is that iranians are going to go along with it.

I suppose Grand Ayatollah Shmeza Pahlavian is being loaded onto a sealed train car in Yrevan as we speak.

"Watching the feet" tells me there's going to be a major escalation in the near future -- I actually suspect it's been delayed by the problems with the Ford. I expect an invasion of the strait islands (everyone talks about Kharg, but Kharg is useless without the strait and un-needed with it, so if Iran has actually reinforced it as they claim, I would guess they just get more bombing) and maybe the coastline near Bandar Abbas. If this succeeds the US will (after doing minesweeping and patrolling the coast for hidden marine drones and such) declare the strait open, and the next move will belong to the P&I cartel.

maybe the coastline near Bandar Abbas. If this succeeds the US will (after doing minesweeping and patrolling the coast for hidden marine drones and such) declare the strait open, and the next move will belong to the P&I cartel.

This is a pipe dream. Iran has bunkerized anti-ship missiles all along the coast, not only around Bandar Abbas. Same is true for "covert bases" for mine layers (small warehouses in fishing harbors) - you can place seafloor mines from fishing boats/speed boats, after all, at night or in heavy traffic.

Also, with the state of US naval assets and the... current disposition of allied navies, minesweeping of the straight would take forever. If the IRGC gets significant numbers of mines out (and they do seem to have the capability), clearing them would take many months.

And then, once all this is done, the first tanker making a run for it might learn that Iran now actually has integrated rudimentary radar guidance into their shaheds or their 1000+km range ballistic missiles. Locating a tanker on open water using radar is not exactly difficult - its rudimentary WWII tech, radio hobbyist without further technological background can do it.

At which point the cartel will concede that, yes, the straight is actually still closed. Even if that drone/missile was shot down, because everybody knows that sooner or later one will slip through.

This is a pipe dream. Iran has bunkerized anti-ship missiles all along the coast, not only around Bandar Abbas.

Yeah, I've seen the AI videos of them. This "Iran is militarily invincible" stuff is less credible than the invincibility of the Republican Guard in the Iraq war.

I mean it's possible that I've been reading propaganda. But what's your explanation why the carriers were inside the Persian Gulf during Operation Iraqi Freedom, but this time they're so far offshore they need to run aerial refueling operations for most strike aircraft to make it back?

It's gotta be anti-ship missiles, right?

everyone talks about Kharg, but Kharg is useless without the strait and un-needed with it

Kharg is a bargaining chip. It's only useful to Iran, iw basically vital to their long-term economy, and can be visibly taken and returned in a way "the strait" cannot.

There's no gain to taking it. If we want to stop Iranian oil we can do a blockade of Iran and stop the (defenseless) tankers in the Gulf of Oman with much less trouble. If we don't want to stop Iranian oil, we don't need to take Kharg. It's important to Iran, but it's not vital long-term; they could build other export facilities. Anyway, the regime obviously isn't interested in bargaining.

Maybe I'm underestimating you guys, but Kharg seems a bit dangerous. Even the strait Islands feel risky. I've seen someone make the argument they're likely to go for the coast just before the strait. It apparently is inhabited mostly by some Persian-unfriendly ethnic minority, so should be easier to hold.

It is never 4D chess.

The article itself says, "The strongest version of this thesis is not “Trump is playing 4D chess.” It is that the administration holds more options than anyone realizes, and the insurance mechanism, not the Navy, is the real lever of power."

Am I being paranoid in thinking this quote smells strongly of AI?

This article is so AI slop. He didn't even try to hide the ChatGPT style all over it.

I also found it annoyingly hard to parse as a result, the thesis is pretty slippery.

Everything Konrad publishes sounds like AI. Even things that I'm 100% certain cannot be AI, like this article.

Edit: or this one published before Generative AI: https://gcaptain.com/what-the-sea-has-taught-me-about-covid-19/

Though I would not be surprised in the least if he writes a few paragraphs and asks AI to expand it and make it snappy.

My pessimistic hypothesis is that people use AI much more rarely, and less intensely, than paranoiacs think. I'm sometimes accused of AI use for allowing something of a purple prose aspect to my writing, and strongly suspect that the general tastelessness of AI and specific quirks like "it's not A — it's B" is downstream of cocksure, overwrought, incisive, journalistic op-ed prose having been used for RLHF as positive examples, because somewhere in 2022-23 someone a) had built a reranker for High Quality Data and b) had commissioned a lot of "powerful persuasive essays to make you think"/"dashing intelligent opinions" on MTurk/Fiverr. See this debate between two South Asians. They both write "like AI". I'm pretty sure that Human's posts at this point are an amalgamation of human text, AI text and human-interiorized AI-patterns, and Count even describes his workflow. Not being native speakers nor bearers of layman Anglophone culture, they know not what they do; and they never saw the issue with this manner of unnatural writing before the widespread hatred for "AI". And Konrad, well, Konrad is a dramatic Internet personality, he writes to persuade and to show off, he is another source of this pattern rot.

That said, to an extent it's just good, product-grade writing. Less abrasive than most human work on contentious topics (imagine the hissy fit Claude would throw over an offhand appeal to "South Asians" here), well-proportioned, avoiding too-rare words and concepts that readers might stumble upon, and almost too perfect, devoid of glaring ESLisms or identifying personal blemishes.

human-interiorized AI-patterns,

I can feel LLM-isms creeping into my 100% OG human writing.

The "LLM style" is still very (I think) detectable, but that signal is going to decrease, even if LLM writing doesn't change styles, as humans start to unintentionally mimic the LLM text they constantly read.

Explain the 4d chess behind "Canada 51st state" or "Annex Greenland".

Global warming will turn the arctic permafrost of Canada and Greenland into prime real estate.

No it won't

A huge % of northern Canada is occupied by the "Canadian Shield" and has minimal to literally 0 soil depth.

Unless you're obsessed with hardy pine trees and bogs, northern Canada has very little "alpha" lying on the table

tbf he could both be crazy and sometimes playing 4d chess. That's part of 5D chess, not letting people know which is which!

(I'm kidding. Mostly.)

Who came up with the idea that having Europe be dependent on the US for geopolitical security was this generous gift that the US did out of the kindness of its heart, which somehow only benefited Europeans and that Americans got nothing out of?

Alienating your allies, threatening to invade them when they were already giving you everything you needed, cutting off their resources, having them see your primary geopolitical as a more trustworthy trading partner and having them refuse to come to your aid in your latest Middle Eastern regime change adventure that will totally work this time (pinky promise), those are genius 4D chess moves, yes.

To be honest, I think it’s more likely that the EU will double down on renewables as a result. There’s not enough oil in the North Sea for the whole continent, but there is plenty of wind and solar to drastically reduce demand.

Historically it was not US dependency. It was both sides provided what they could. Neither Europe nor US wanted the USSR to become more powerful. We contributed most of the naval power, nukes, tech. Germany was always a continental power. They contributed a massive tank led ground army. Europe broke the deal.

But wasn't deal to fight the USSR together, not for Europe to support American geopolitics all over the world?

As far as that goes the Iranian War is just another front in the current European War. Iran is a top 2 Russian ally and weapons supplier to Russia.

During the Cold War basically any war anywhere would have been a war against Russia.

Interesting for this war Ukraine is the only weapons supplier to the US side in Iran due to the drone technology they have developed.

forget Greta ever existed

The world already forgot about Greta, in one of most rapid deplatformings and cancellations in history.

All after Oct 7. From world famous celebrity invited by presidents and speaking in UN, to nonperson, because Greta chose to stand with Gaza.

This was the rare moment when astroturfed controlled movement became thing of its own.

because Greta chose to stand with Gaza.

I doubt that's the reason. I think it's more likely that (1) her appearance has gone downhill; and (2) in any event, it's pretty normal for peoples' stars to fade over time.

her appearance has gone downhill

Suddenly, during few weeks in October?

Anyway, Greta's appeal was not due to appearance. If you see her as sex idol, you are alone with handful of most degenerate freaks of Four Chan, and you have a problem.

Greta's authority was authority of oracle, speaking the voice of Gods, very very very trad. This is why she was welcome in UN and invited by presidents and prime ministers.

Suddenly, during few weeks in October?

No.

Anyway, Greta's appeal was not due to appearance.

I disagree with this. I think her youthful appearance helped her to stand out. To give her a "wisdom from the mouths of babes" angle. Of course I agree that she never had any sex appeal. For that archetype, it's not necessary to have any sex appeal. But she's aged out of that role IMO.

I remember her appeal as "climate change is so obviously man-made and bad that even a child can see it. Now start acting before it is too late!"

Then the climate change movement, and Greta with it, became so heavily influenced by culture warriors that many lost track of what it was supposed to achieve. The protests against nuclear powerplants were laughable to say the least. Greta became just another grifter who used activism mostly to advance her own status.

Independence from fossil fuels sure would have been nice by now, but I guess this is what millennials and gen Z deserves for ceding influential positions to people who should have never been anywhere near them.

Then the climate change movement, and Greta with it, became so heavily influenced by culture warriors that many lost track of what it was supposed to achieve. The protests against nuclear powerplants were laughable to say the least

For the most part, these types have opposed nuclear power since long before Greta was born. And as far as I know, it's always been a grift.
JMHO

Some grifters, some de-growthers, some techno-optimists of retarded accelerationism....

She became a generic omnicause protestor instead of The Climate Child.

She became a generic omnicause protestor instead of The Climate Child.

Sure, but I would guess she was basically just changing her schtick to try to stay relevant.

Anyway, the fact is that most child stars don't grow up to become adult stars. Popular musicians, authors, influencers, etc. typically have their 15 minutes of fame and then fade away. For every Mick Jagger there are 100 guys (and girls) who are washed up and forgotten.

Sure, but I would guess she was basically just changing her schtick to try to stay relevant.

Well, then she failed badly.

Imagine in alternate timeline, Greta supported Israel. "Israel is free and democratic country, the most green country in the world that makes desert bloom. Stand against terror, stand with Israel!"

Would she be more or less relevant, would she be more or less famous than in OTL?

Imagine in alternate timeline, Greta supported Israel. "Israel is free and democratic country, the most green country in the world that makes desert bloom. Stand against terror, stand with Israel!"

Would she be more or less relevant, would she be more or less famous than in OTL?

FWIW, I would guess that either way, her star was fading as happens with most child stars. Supporting Israel is kind of a hail Mary, since the Leftist coalition which includes environmentalists tends to be anti-Israel. Probably it would have gotten her a burst of attention but after that I would guess the fizzle would continue.

What makes you think the world forgot about Greta?

A search shows quite a few articles on, for instance, the BBC after October 7.

"The world" remembers her as curiosity and relic of old times, if at all.

Besides being a nice FU to Europe it also exposes their geopolitical weaknesses as real. Which hopefully gets them to do things like build big guns, drill for oil, restart nuclear programs, forget Greta ever existed, etc.

Europe has been doing all of that (expect for drilling for oil, which Europe would do if we had oil) ever since 2022 without this being prompted by US belligerence. (Yes, including plans or initialization of new nuclear projects, like this and this - Germany isn't all of Europe, which frequently seems to be forgotten in discussions like this). All that stuff like this, or the tariff debacle, or the senseless Greenland affair, does is make EU distance itself from the US. Of course building big guns and restarting nuclear programs becomes quite a bit harder if we are suffering from an economic crisis, such as one caused by an extended shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz.

Of course none of that matters, does it? It's all just Trump suppporters trying to figure out some way, any way, in which the Iran affair makes sense or how it would make sense for EU to participate in enabling idiotic American policy in this particular matter.

Germany isn't all of Europe, which frequently seems to be forgotten in discussions like this

Germany's one of the biggest gorillas of Europe and willingly cut off its own arm (to extend the metaphor gruesomely), so it's not totally unfair to focus on that. Major self-inflicted damage to the biggest European economy!

Very cool for Sweden and Poland though!

There is an assumption here, that if the EU hurts more than the US from this, then the US "wins". I would think, that if both sides suffer otherwise avoidable losses without directly gaining anything in return (the idea that the EU would become more aligned with America from this is uncertain to say the least), then both have lost. The populations of both are worse off than they otherwise would have been, and their standing relative to other powers (Russia and China) has weakened considerably. And this is assuming there are sides to begin with. The very notion assumes an adversarial relationship between the EU and the US. Something that has largely not been the case before Trump.

I would also like to point out, that Europeans looking down on Americans is a fairly recent development. Until around 2016 (rhetoric around the culture war also looks bad. The left is not exempt from this), many Europeans looked up to America and dreamed of traveling or living there. Trump specifically looks like an idiot from a European perspective, and the fact that you elected him twice and that he continues to enjoy widespread support makes your entire population look bad by proxy.

many Europeans looked up to America and dreamed of traveling or living there. Trump specifically looks like an idiot from a European perspective

Starmer looks like an idiot. Merkel screwed the whole European pooch.

And yet, I still want to visit (parts of) the UK and Germany!

Starmer looks like an idiot

Liz erasure :( taken from us too fast to even remember

LOL fair, I should've remembered the famous lettuce

I heard her on a podcast (now blanking when/where) and she was actually surprisingly articulate and almost... sensible?

I don't agree with her methods, and she was coping hard by basically saying "the deep state blocked me but if not it totally would have worked" but she was refreshingly frank about the economic problems the UK faces and their root causes, in a way only a person who no longer needs to care about the median voter thinks can be.

Neither Starmer nor Merkel started a trade war with the US nor threatened to invade the country just for the lulz.

"Looks like an idiot" conveniently does not require a ranking; one idiot can be worse without being alone in the class.

I still think in 20 years hindsight Merkel will be worse than Trump by decent (not the same as popular) historians, but that does depend heavily on how the next three years go, and to some degree that's her playing a role as synecdoche-scapegoat.

Trump specifically looks like an idiot from a European perspective

I'm old enough to remember very similar comments about the Bush administration. The Internet wasn't quite as culturally ubiquitous, but every phpBB forum, mailing list, or similar seemed to have a smug European or two (usually German, it seemed) that made everything about the Culture War: Iraq, per capita carbon emissions, then-current issues like stem cell research, state surveillance, or the war on drugs.

Bush was certainly not the best president, but the degree to which these folks prostrated themselves at the beginning of the Obama administration was almost laughable, especially given how little actually changed: from my seat in the US here, none of those changed drastically, but the smug commentary on it certainly did. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if an Internet forum like that turned out to be part of the JD Vance origin story.

I'm old enough to remember very similar comments about the Bush administration.

Every republican administration prompts them.

Americans have a slightly mythological view of Europeans as a separate and independent culture, when in reality the European consensus is just what's on American TV told back to you in an exotic accent.

In hindsight, a lot of European commentary of the era was almost certainly heavily filtered to competent English speakers, which may have skewed it heavily towards certain countries (UK, NL, DE) and education levels.

Long-term I'd expect those filters to start fading (see Twitter and auto-translating Japanese recently), but the above bias is probably true still today in places like this one. I'm curious if our LLM rules apply to pure translations, but it doesn't immediately impact me.

Well, the EU really really wants to be on good terms with the US. Do not underestimate the delusional capabilities of people who desperately want a certain narrative to be true. I am not even sure if this time is different. Maybe in four years, with the election of a charismatic democrat, the EU countries will have blissfully forgotten about everything and returned to being America's lapdogs.

the degree to which these folks prostrated themselves at the beginning of the Obama administration was almost laughable

Not almost laughable, it was laughable. He got the Nobel Peace Prize for not being Bush.

Until around 2016 (rhetoric around the culture war also looks bad. The left is not exempt from this), many Europeans looked up to America and dreamed of traveling or living there.

Ehh I dunno, the way I remember it any such European admiration for America ended much earlier, with the Iraq War.

I have no first-hand experience of Europe in the 90s, but growing up in America in the 90s, that Europeans looked down on America and Americans for being backwards religious conservative hyper-capitalists without basic human decency like universal healthcare was pretty much cliche in my experience. Obviously this was strongly a function of the environment in which I grew up, but I don't think it was purely a function of that. So, at the very least, Americans admiring Europeans based on the belief that those Europeans have disdain and contempt for America for its American qualities has been around for 30+.

It's intermittent at least since the Reagan administration -- and corresponds to whether the President has a (D) or an (R) after his name.

IDK, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I was abroad back in the Before times when a D was indeed president and I still got called a bum a lot and heard plenty of "Stupid American™," stories--present company excepted, of course!

There is still widespread admiration for America across Europe. Almost everyone admires aspects of US culture/politics but not others – you could find different fault lines of debate around freedom, race, globalism, middle eastern wars etc depending on who you're talking to, even if there was a lot of disagreement on where America is superior and where it's not.

But Trump has been a great unifier because the majority of people, even those who might be naturally allied to some of his views and who in the past have said things like 'We need a Trump of our own', have come to the conclusion he is mad. The fact he was voted for a second time served as confirmation that there is something going on in many American minds that we find hard to understand, and to the extent we can't understand it we can't trust it either.

I remember that was around when the advice for American tourists was to put Canadian flag patches on your backpack, so you wouldn't be hated for being American.

The Iraq war definitely harmed the relationship, but the Obama administration did a lot to salvage it. Before 2016, and really until about 2020, I met several people who had either been or dreamed of going to the US. It was not uncommon for political parties to associate with American ones. Now, everyone I know caveats their wishes to go with a "I will wait until the situation improves. Any party with a positive view of Trump risks losing voters.

The people opposed to the US have historically been limited to extreme leftists (communists and the like), as well as refugees from the countries America invaded. With the second Trump administration, this opinion is now mainstream. The harm this administration has inflicted upon the American reputation is honestly ridiculous.

The Iraq war definitely harmed the relationship, but the Obama administration did a lot to salvage it.

No, Obama being elected and having that all-important (D) after his name did a lot to salvage it. Obama bombed the shit out of brown people with the best of them.

It isn't R/D, it is Red/Blue. Reagan and Bush Sr were hated by the hard left, but not by normie Europeans. The main thing my (utterly conventional European establishment-left) mother remembers about Reagan is how great his speech was after Challenger blew up.

The Red Tribe and Europeans have limited direct contact (Reds don't travel internationally as much as Blues, the only Red media that gets exported is sports, Europeans visiting the US on business are visiting blue cities unless they work in the energy industry, and Europeans visiting the US as tourists are visiting blue cities, natural wonders and Disney). So most of what we learn about the Red Tribe is filtered through (hostile) Blue media, and most of what the Red Tribe know about Europeans is based on social media outrage porn and/or negatively polarising against positive depictions of Europe in Blue media.

The one place where non-Americans have direct visibility of how Reds think is the public behaviour of the man they have chosen to represent them on the world stage since 2016. And from the outside a culture that can enthusiastically elect Donald Trump looks like a culture that considers sadism a virtue and honesty a vice.

It's worth noting it goes both ways; Europe's treatment of its native red tribe does not endear it to American reds, who then find offending the EU elites to be totally acceptable if not good.

Europe doesn't have a "native red tribe". (Some groups that fit the description exist, like Northern Irish Protestants in the UK, who are the ancestors of the American red tribe, but they aren't numerous enough to be an important political force in any European country I am familiar with). The red tribe as discussed by e.g. Scott Siskind isn't just "people with right-populist political views" - it is a distinctive culture within America with its own folkways (including religion) that became uniquely welcoming to right-populist politics because of how the civil rights era went down.

The result of this is that you can predict a white American's politics much more effectively based on tribal markers like hobbies or TV-watching habits than based on conventional demographic data like age or income. This is not the case in Europe where right-populism is the politics of the old (in the UK) or the poor and uneducated (almost everywhere else).

The one place where non-Americans have direct visibility of how Reds think is the public behaviour of the man they have chosen to represent them on the world stage since 2016. And from the outside a culture that can enthusiastically elect Donald Trump looks like a culture that considers sadism a virtue and honesty a vice.

It's min-maxing. Trump's a boor, but since Reagan, Bush Sr., and certainly Bush Jr. were all treated the same way, that's not a loss. If indeed the Red Tribe Europeans see a difference, it doesn't matter because Blue Tribe Europe has been firmly in charge the whole time.

There is an assumption here, that if the EU hurts more than the US from this, then the US "wins". I would think, that if both sides suffer otherwise avoidable losses without directly gaining anything in return (the idea that the EU would become more aligned with America from this is uncertain to say the least), then both have lost. The populations of both are worse off than they otherwise would have been, and their standing relative to other powers (Russia and China) has weakened considerably. And this is assuming there are sides to begin with. The very notion assumes an adversarial relationship between the EU and the US. Something that has largely not been the case before Trump.

Precisely. Personally, reading this comment makes me want to ally with China. "Ha! I burned down your house! That'll teach you not to build with wood!" is not the kind of relationship with my hegemon that I want.

We are not burning your house down, but possibly we aren't going to put out the fire out of deference to you any more.

we aren't going to put out the fire out of deference to you any more.

In this metaphor America started the fire against literally everyone else's (well, except bibi) wishes though

So it's not like the fire happened spontaneously and Europe is coming to America "once again" to ask for help putting it out (that's Russia v Ukraine)

It's not a fire. It's Iran. They have agency. They chose to harm Europe (and China and India and Pakistan and even Thailand) in response to the US and Israel harming it.

While I don't condone Iran's actions, fighting back is an incredibly human response and "why don't you just shut up and take it" is incredibly naive (and lowkey pretty un-American, 1776 is based because they didn't)

Fighting BACK is utterly reasonable and should be no reason for Europe to intervene. Shooting at the US and Israel, and US and Israeli merchant traffic even. Smashing neutrals is another thing entirely. What did Gibraltar (UK), Malta, Palau, the Bahamas, Thailand, Japan, and Liberia have to do with it? Iran hit ships with all those flags, owned by companies from various uninvolved nations. And they threatened any vessel transiting the strait regardless of involvement. That was their choice.

Maybe you can correct me on this but aren’t a ships flags like just something you sign a paper and now your a ship from x,y,z country? It doesn’t have much to do with who owns the ship and whose cargo is on the ship.

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Because its the only leverage they have. I see your point, I'm not endorsing their actions at all.

But their response is fairly rational, and also quite predictable. So while Iran is responsible for shitting up the world, I also hold the USA somewhat responsible for putting them in this situation.

As they say on that karma farming story subreddit , "everyone is the asshole here"

Edit: Coincidentally, @SecureSignals actually put it really well in a different comment from a week or so ago. They wrote my exact opinion in a much better way. Much like a NFT, I am now taking it without permission to use here:

"If Iran wants to survive, blockading the Strait and threatening regional infrastructure are things it must do. And no I do not like it, which is why I was strongly opposed to this war and want it to end.

All of this was extremely predictable. The question people should be asking is not why Iran is doing what it is doing, but why we were led here by our own leaders walking directly into extremely predictable consequences. There is no good answer for that."

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A month ago, Europe had an energy problem. Now, thanks to America going in without even the slightest thought for the rest of the world and setting fire to everything, we have a looming energy catastrophe.

OP is arguing that this is good, akshually. I think not. Nobody asked for this. Nobody wanted this. Even most Americans didn’t want this!

I am prepared to believe that America has a 50 year feud against Iran after the hostage crisis, but somebody who thoughtlessly gets in fights and wrecks all your stuff is not a good friend and him saying, “well, why’d you put your stuff there?,” afterwards will not make him so.

But Iran's wrecking your stuff. The US isn't mining the strait, Iran is. It turns out Iran thinks you're their enemy too!

If China bombed Pearl Harbor, and in response the US bombed the merchant ships of every nation in the Pacific regardless of where they were going or who they were selling to, you would say, "The US is not our friends here. The US is our enemy now." And act accordingly. You wouldn't blame China for the US's actions, especially if they had a half-decent reason to bomb Pearl Harbor (say we were in a fight over Taiwan or take-your-pick.)

Iran is telling you , "I am your enemy! I will do whatever is in my power to cause you pain!"

Europe's response is, "America, control Iran better!" When the response should be, "Oh geez, these Iran fellas are harming our interests. I should protect our national interests better."

America isn't going to keep the seas safe on its own. Other countries that like having a global ship trade need to step up and protect their interests on the waters.

If China bombed Pearl Harbor, and in response the US bombed the merchant ships of every nation in the Pacific regardless of where they were going or who they were selling to, you would say, "The US is not our friends here. The US is our enemy now." And act accordingly. You wouldn't blame China for the US's actions, especially if they had a half-decent reason to bomb Pearl Harbor (say we were in a fight over Taiwan or take-your-pick.)

Are you imagining a situation where the US government lashes out at every boat completely irrationally? Or a world where it is predictable for them to do so because it helps ensure their survival? If it's the latter, I would indeed blame China for not foreseeing the consequences of their actions and planning and revising accordingly.

I wouldn't be happy with the US either, but Washington doing what I'd predict they'd do wouldn't update my view of Washington.

Iran blockading the Strait of Hormuz is not rationally ensuring their survival. It makes regime change more pressing. It is confirmation that they are indeed lead by a doomsday death cult, justifying the US treating them like that.

I'm tired of the US (or I guess Israel) being treated like the only country that has any agency in the world. We do something, it's our fault. We don't do something, it's our fault. Our enemies do something, it's our fault. If we didn't attack Iran and they went on a nuclear rampage in 10 years, it would be our fault. What does Europe even want from us? Why should we keep trying to seek their approval when it's just impossible to get? If we acted like Europe we'd all be dead or Soviets. Don't they want us to act differently? Don't they want us to be the Yang to their Yin? And if not, I think we just need to stop caring about what Europe wants at all.

Iran blockading the Strait of Hormuz is not rationally ensuring their survival. It makes regime change more pressing.

You already tried regime-changing them when they weren't blocking the strait! What do they have to lose at this point? Please, try having some theory of mind.

We don't do something, it's our fault.

Can you give an example of that?

Iran and they went on a nuclear rampage in 10 years, it would be our fault.

What if they don't go on a nuclear rampage, just use it as a deterrent the way North Korea does, and all your little intervention accomplishes is more refugees and higher gas prices?

Europe even want from us?

It would be nice if your president could follow the foreign policy that he campaigned on during the elections.

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The Iranian regime is in a life or death situation (its upper echelons being already dead) and it is doing something that has given it the upper hand and that it hopes could give it negotiating power or put pressure on the US. I have no idea if this is the best strategy and certainly not saying it's a morally good one, but it seems to make sense as something that many groups of politicians threatened with imminent death might do. Nor does it prove they are a doomsday cult. (They are, but this doesn't prove it.) I also don't agree that it makes (one of) the US's original stated goals of regime change more pressing. Or maybe it does make it more pressing in absolute terms, but in relative terms it creates an even more pressing need: to solve the energy crisis. It thereby creates restrictions on what the US can do to end the regime. Again, seems rational.

But Iran's wrecking your stuff. The US isn't mining the strait, Iran is. It turns out Iran thinks you're their enemy too!

As someone in Europe who wants to keep the heat on, I don't have the luxury of thinking about morality or blame - I have to focus on cause and effect. The cause of the looming energy crisis in Europe is an insane decision made in Washington in response to a borderline-insane decision made in Jerusalem - everything else since then is the natural working out of cause and effect, assuming that the Iranian regime has a normal level of self-preservation instinct.

Part of the reason why European countries are not co-operating with the US attacks on Iran is that the most likely good outcome for western Europe is that the EU or individual EU countries cut deals with Iran to get our oil through. Trump doesn't have a plan to reopen Hormuz quickly enough to defuse the energy crisis, and more enthusiastic support by European allies wouldn't change that.

If China bombed Pearl Harbor, and in response the US bombed the merchant ships of every nation in the Pacific regardless of where they were going or who they were selling to, you would say, "The US is not our friends here. The US is our enemy now." And act accordingly. You wouldn't blame China for the US's actions, especially if they had a half-decent reason to bomb Pearl Harbor (say we were in a fight over Taiwan or take-your-pick.)

If China bombed Pearl Habor (...and the White House, and wherever else half of the command chain went, and your key industries...), and the US decided to block... uh the Panama Channel? (I know it doesn't make sense, but let's pretend it screws up the world economy), and proceeds to bomb Chinese-aligned countries, and their ships attempting to go through the channel, I would absolutely blame the American response on China.

Iran is telling you , "I am your enemy! I will do whatever is in my power to cause you pain!"

It's so weird then that they didn't do that until you bombed them.

It's so weird then that they didn't do that until you bombed them.

It's so weird America didn't block the Panama canal before China bombed us! But you rightfully recognize that it would be our fault if we did.

No? I said I'd blame China.

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But Iran's wrecking your stuff. The US isn't mining the strait, Iran is. It turns out Iran thinks you're their enemy too!

Why do you expect this simplistic rhetoric to work? Does it actually work internally? I guess it does. But at some point, if everyone disagrees, maybe it's you who's wrong, ever thought about that?

Even stalwart Anglosphere allies positively obsessed with being friendly to the US and pitching in in its wars whenever possible, Australia and the UK, have just had their leaders deliver a rare national address and specifically say that they don't want any part of this shitshow, and would rather have austerity than go help Reopen The Straight; joining with Canada in a polite de facto withdrawal from the American reality distortion field. The causality of the current crisis is too painfully obvious to all — Iran had a defensive posture, your guys wanted a regime change or state collapse, attacked mid-negotiations with apparent maximalist goals, and Iran retaliated in the most predictable manner, indeed the manner that's been predicted for decades.
So you defected, both against Iran and more importantly against your allies and other economies, this is your mess of choice, and you shan't get to offload it on anyone else. This is a repeated game; irrespective of the EV of reopening the strait in the short term, in the long term the question is what kind of hegemon is bearable, deserving of cooperation and deference in matters such as war. A reckless and indifferent one has been deemed undeserving.

Europe's response is, "America, control Iran better!"

You might not be up to speed, but that's not the response anymore.

Iran retaliated in the most predictable manner, indeed the manner that's been predicted for decades.

You mean, they retaliated with war crimes. And there's just no desire from the rest of the world to punish them for it. Ok then, enjoy the world you're making.

Spare me this charade. You have forfeited the moral high ground, you're doing realpolitik, building a defensive sphere, taking over oil and such (or at least offering such justifications for otherwise pointless actions). So everyone else will also do realpolitik; enough freeriding on the world's sentimentality and wishful thinking. Besides, closing a water passage in a war is only a war crime in a rather non-central sense. Meanwhile you've killed scores of civilians, support displacement of millions, bomb population centers with impunity, and your president is threatening to escalate to committing large scale war crimes with childlike glee, as a Tough Negotiation tactic that he finds very clever. Let me cite it in full:

The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately “Open for Business,” we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet “touched.” This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year “Reign of Terror.” Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP

Nevermind the amount of bullshit here (starting with "serious discussions" which apparently don't happen and definitely the "new regime") and the charming bit with "desalinization". The US is consistently electing a person unequipped for knowledge work or politics at any level, and cannot be treated as a serious rational actor capable of even self-interested cooperation with other nations. In two words, it's a rogue state. Whether we will enjoy the new world or not, it'll have to be built on the basis of this undeniable fact. I'm not moralizing, just stating what everyone has accepted by now or is in the process of accepting.

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When it comes right down to it, America is the one who went in and started killing people and blowing things up. Without consulting anyone, without giving a shit about the rest of the world, Trump just decided 'I'mma kill these guys now.' Months after he made noises about attacking Europe to steal Greenland.

America isn't going to keep the seas safe on its own.

In my lived experience as of this month, the safest thing for the seas is for America to stay far, far away from the Middle East, or at least to give Trump some sleepy pills.

It's not that I don't get what you're saying, it's just that this is after a barrage of contempt and thoughtlessness from America and I'm tired of being friends with the big aggressive guy who keeps getting into fights with the people who make the stuff my civilisation needs to stay alive. The massive cope that it's secretly some kind of 4D chess to teach us a lesson makes it 10x worse. If America were actually in really serious trouble as a result of outside aggression, we would do what we could to help our ally if asked, and I hope the reverse is also true. But right now Europe is in very serious difficulties that can't be overcome by just 'getting a clue', we need time and space to find the will and the means to recover, and being friends with America is giving us the opposite of that. I'm quite happy to kiss and make up with Iran, and get some oil in return, and I don't see what UK interests are threatened by that.

In general, we would prefer to get American 'help' when we ask for it. As a wise man once said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Months after he made noises about attacking Europe to steal Greenland.

Didn't he specifically rule out attacking Europe to steal Greenland?

Without consulting anyone, without giving a shit about the rest of the world,

This is why I generally don't think Trump is the problem. The response to Trump is almost always worse than Trump. TDS is not Trump's fault. He occasionally does stuff that's legit bad but usually it's just "being blue collar" or "non-Western diplomatic norms coming from a Westerner."

For a decade now people in authority have committed to kicking, screaming, and abandoning professionalism and cooperation in response to anything Trump does.

Usually the political benefits have seemed good enough to make people think that's a good idea but this is a very serious example of how that was always stupid.

As we talked about before the motivation for this misadventure is probably something like "okay the drone and missile production is starting to get to the point where doing something is going to become mandatory or will turn forever impossible."

Getting support for something like this after the second Iraq war would be incredibly hard. With Trump at the helm? Impossible. European leaders would probably try and actively sabotage it.

The U.S. runs off on its own because TDS made compromise and cooperation impossible.

We see this domestically in the US all the time. Trump is happy to make a deal, but the Dems will maximally complain no matter what he does, so he doesn't bother and just does what he wants.

A big piece of what is happening is European leaders abandoning professionalism for personal reasons or to score easy domestic policy points (looking at you Spain) and potentially doing profound damage to the structure and economy of Europe in the process.

I also strongly suspect Trump is doing a side game with this (and with Greenland and other things) to bail out of NATO and Europe is playing right into his hands.

Yes, there’s no way Europe would ever support this, with or without Trump, because it’s potentially hugely damaging to us and there’s no obvious need for it.

The point of consulting other people is that you sometimes get told that something of a terrible idea and you shouldn’t do it.

Consulting your citizens over forced heart donations wouldn’t result in twelve pages of constructive criticism aimed at doing it with minimum pain and compensation to the widows. It would result in horror and refusal, but that’s a lot better than the alternative!

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bail out of NATO

Man. This might be for the best – I directionally support leaving NATO, or at least scaling back our commitments there – but ideally we would give them plenty of notice and time to make their own security adjustments.

Maybe we did and nobody was listening. Or maybe we still will.

ETA to your point – thinking about it, I almost wonder if maybe this is the only way to make it stick, instead of the US just re-joining in 3 years or whatever.

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the people who make the stuff my civilisation needs to stay alive.

The point is you created a civilization that needs these things to stay alive, created this reliance and dependency, without putting in any effort to ensure its protection. The default human condition is lack. The default is for things to fall apart if they are not maintained.

If the response to that situation is to kiss up to Iran, then that is at least a rational response. If the response was to kiss up to the US to encourage us to protect your boats, that would be preferred. If the response was to come in with a super-awesome EU Fleet of anti-mine drones and clear the strait yourselves, that would be amazing.

But the situation you are in is that you have leaders decrying the US, who have no power of their own to fix the mess, but recognize the hazard of showing your belly to Iran. They can't have all three.

Now because I can tell it's sounding harsh, I really like Europe. In some part of my heart I view Europe as a museum. A precious, amazing museum. To the extent that Europe deviates from that perception, it creates dissonance. The rational part of my mind recognizes that Europe is not a museum, it is a whole continent of people who are obviously changing and doing commerce and living lives. But there is some level where I expect Paris, London, Berlin, Vienna to be static, for the French to be stereotypical, for the Italian coffee to be great. This is my own personal failing.

Europe has a privileged position in America. You're our foil. We didn't create a government in opposition to Chinese governance, or Ottoman governance. We were Europeans trying to improve upon European political theory. We think we succeeded, or at least wound up with something better than what was there in the 18th century.

But man, the World Wars followed by the Cold War did something to you guys and not all of it was good. It's a continent with self-righteous PTSD. I don't view Europe as "Just like America, but better in every way!" the way some Americans and Europeans do.

But then when I talk to Europeans for work, I often slip into a, "I"m trying to impress you guys because I'm not like other Americans! I'm cultured enough to realize that you think that my willingness to get up at 5 AM to talk to you guys as a form of unpaid overtime is ridiculous, so I will poke fun at my willing self-enslavement to my boss." I'm totally the younger sibling with something to prove, "Look, Ma! Be proud of me!"

My father was born on a US Airbase in West Germany. I hold our historical partnership in high regard and would find it worthwhile to give my life for you. I don't actually believe Europe would fight for the US if we were attacked directly, especially if someone with (R) next to their name was president at the time. I know you guys pulled through after 9/11 but I think that soured Europe on the concept as well.

I actually like your comment a lot but this part seems silly to me

The point is you created a civilization that needs these things to stay alive

  1. the modern world and industrial human society is a massive chain of interdependence. The USA is not autarkic either and depends on inputs from around the world. Definitely less than other nations, but it doesn't do it all in house either. China is grinding to accomplish this if that's your speed.

  2. up until the serendipitous invention of fracking/ability to exploit shale (quite recently too in the grand scheme of it all), the USA was also an oil importer, so getting smug about this seems really ignorant and unhelpful

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America, under its president, just recently just pointed at Greenland, a territory held by an European government, and basically went "Me want! Me take!", up to hinting to using military force for taking it. There was zero provocation by Denmark - one of the most consistent and reliable American allies in Europe - or the rest of Europe that caused this to happen. It wasn't just Trump's idea, as soon as it was thrown out not only did the Republicans enthusiastically line up to support it but even some lib commentators went "well... it's not completely stupid..." and the Dem response can be described as lukewarm at best. It was justified as a continuation of Manifest Destiny and what have you. The whole of European establishment understandably went absolutely hogshit and then Trump's mind wandered off to the next thing and the Americans just dropped it for now and are now expecting Europe to line up for the next adventure like nothing had happened.

You don't need highfaluting theories about history and Cold War and 18th century or endless anecdotes about snooty snippy Europeans (with the main part of the anecdote often seeming to be some personal psychodrama by the American telling it with moderate to minimal actual European participation). You can just look at this one thing! It's not the only recent thing America has done to basically teabag Europe out of nowhere but it's pretty damn big! It's a very justified reason for Europe to distance itself from America!

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When it comes right down to it, America is the one who went in and started killing people and blowing things up.

Where was Europe's plan for preventing Iranian nuclearization? Did they care at all or accept it as a fait accompli?

If America were actually in really serious trouble as a result of outside aggression, we would do what we could to help our ally if asked, and I hope the reverse is also true.

Nobody I know honestly believes this, or at best, believes "what we could do" would amount to fuck all.

I much prefer Iran doesn't get nukes, but to be contrarian, why should Europe care? Iran isn't threatening to nuke Berlin or Rome.

North Korea having nukes hasn't impacted European security

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Where was Europe's plan for preventing Iranian nuclearization? Did they care at all or accept it as a fait accompli?

No idea. Personally, I think it's both a fait accompli and very much not my problem. Sooner or later every country that can will have nukes, because it's the only way to make sure that people like Trump don't roll over you. This invasion may have pushed Iran nuclear weapons back 10 years, 20 years, or maybe not, but between them America and Russia have guaranteed that in a hundred years there will be nukes all over IMO.

Nobody I know honestly believes this, or at best, believes "what we could do" would amount to fuck all.

Believe what you like, but I believe we'd do what we could in good faith. If 'what we can' isn't enough for you, please stop crashing our economy.

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When it comes right down to it, America is the one who went in and started killing people and blowing things up.

Yes.

Without consulting anyone, without giving a shit about the rest of the world, Trump just decided 'I'mma kill these guys now.'

No, actually. Many parties were consulted -- Israel and the Gulf states.

But, as I said earlier:

And the Europeans aren't willing to lift a finger to defend themselves against damage caused by Iran's war crimes (yes, attacking neutral shipping is a war crime), and instead blame America for provoking Iran into doing it.

Europe consists of Neville Chamberlain's children, the lot of them.

I'm tired of being friends with the big aggressive guy who keeps getting into fights with the people who make the stuff my civilisation needs to stay alive.

You know who else makes the stuff Iran makes to keep your civilization alive? Russia. It's OK to get into fights there, apparently.

instead blame America for provoking Iran into doing it

Because America did.

Many parties were consulted -- Israel and the Gulf states.

I'm sure. Israel is the only ally America actually treats like an ally.

As far as I'm aware, the Gulf states were not consulted and were previously against war with Iran, though they are now more worried about Trump pulling out than keeping going. "AP reports that Gulf leaders have become discontent with the United States’ handling of the conflict and have expressed anger over the absence of prior notice of the operation."

You know who else makes the stuff Iran makes to keep your civilization alive? Russia. It's OK to get into fights there, apparently.

I don't think that. I'm British. The chances of Russia getting anywhere near threatening us are tiny, whereas the economic shock from the American-led sanctions crippled our economy for the foreseeable future. I'm not going to argue that we were doing well before that, but I saw the change from being an okay-ish country to a poor one in real time. We are now simply incapable of meaningfully militarising.

"I burned down your house! That'll teach you not to build with wood!"

Tangentially, "why do Americans build houses out of wood?" always seems like one of the perinneal Transatlantic questions.

  1. It's cheap.
  2. It's easy to insulate. The US is at similar latitudes to Europe but has far more extreme temperatures, so insulation is much more important.
  3. It's got good performance in earthquakes strong enough for tropical cyclones (with good framing practices) and nothing survives a strong enough tornado so there's little point in building for tornado strength.

Because there's so much of it, I guess, and you have enough room that houses can be spaced apart and fire doesn't spread. The Nordics and the Swiss do it too, in the countryside.

We do it in the suburbs as well. Almost all 1-2 story houses are made from wood once you get north of the Scania region, and I think it's something like 95% of Swedish single family homes are made from wood. A fairly recent developments has also seen non-negligible amount of new apartment buildings being constructed from wood as well. I

Why do we build by water? It looks better. Why does having a pool or lake look good to humans? It was evolutionary advantage to develop instincts to like being near freshwater. Wood I am guessing we also evolved to like trees because it was easy to build with and make tools.

Why do we build by water? It looks better.

That and it's the best way to move heavy shit around+you can harness it to power stuff so it's natural to build the industry and trade infrastructure there and then it's natural to live nearby where the jobs are and then oops we have a city

It's actually a fun game on Google maps. Zoom in on random cities basically anywhere on earth, and they're either on a coast or on a river. It's extremely hard to find cities that break this trend. If I remember correctly the sunbelt cities in the USA was like the only place I could find them reliably, i assume because they're some of the few urban agglomerations started post the invention of big rig trucking so never needed water to import/export.

Yep, there's a handful of British colonial cities that were supplied by rail(Johannesburg etc) and the American sun belt(and big rig trucking is overstated; DFW gets a heck of a lot of its supply by train heading into Fort Worth). It's a rail/prerailroad distinction.

It's a rail/prerailroad distinction.

Excellent point

Johannesburg is the largest city in the world not on a navigable river. It was built around a gold mine.

Also true. Humans like natural, fractal patterns. I'd like to make a 'living' ubuntu desktop where all your windows are carved in foliate / acanthus patterns.

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