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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   8863 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

This is Vatnik-tier copium

"We shit up the world economy, of which we are a participant and susceptible to shocks in, so that we could hurt our allies to bait them into becoming their best selves while they attempt to recover from an energy+raw resources supply shock"

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?

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.

What makes yoiu think the world forgot about Greta?

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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 I don't see what UK interests are threatened by that.

"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.

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.

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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