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We destroyed 80-90% of Iran’s military, what else do you want me to say? They’re running out of drones and missiles and boats and they have very little left to oppose us with and we didn’t even destroy their oil refineries or power plants. You keep wishcasting this into a stupid opinion. But destroying Iran’s military is victory and was one of the major terms of the operation laid out in the beginning by Trump.
Your predictions are also not even incompatible with mine. Iran will never be allowed to acquire nukes, and it’s also possible that in five years they’ll take another crack at it. I don’t see how that would contradict what I’ve laid out. If a bank robber is locked up and later gets out and robs a bank again, you don’t say that jail was a failure and we should have let him roam free instead.
You are trying to box me into a very stupid and simplistic opinion and then expect me to sign up for my chastisement if everything isn’t a best-case scenario for all time. No, I refuse. I notice accurately that we have destroyed the vast bulk of Iran’s military and the peace deal will reflect that because America is winning. Everyone else here seems to think America lost because Iran is still making increasingly-impotent threats at passing merchant ships.
You criticized my prediction that Iran would not toll the strait. Ok, so you think they will be allowed to keep tolling the strait? When this doesn’t happen because America actually won the war will you admit I was right? An apology? Anything?
I have advanced a consistent position since the war began that America was obviously winning and everyone else was being silly. How else would we explain Iran accepting a ceasefire? They’re winning but willing to show mercy? This is obviously delusional which is why I keep repeating that we have destroyed so much of their military. And yet you and everyone here seems to accept that that doesn’t matter at all.
Yes, I think destroying their military "matters." You are ignoring every objection raised to pretend your dissenters are blind and not responding to points they have responded to.
So that's a no. There are no conditions in which you will consider yourself to have been wrong.
It's very easy to declare yourself the only one able to see the truth with such a posture.
Correct, because I’m right. America is beating Iran and the peace deal will obviously reflect this.
How are you updating on last night + this morning's news? Peace talks totally fell through, the US Navy will blockade the Strait.
Contrary to many predictions here, America did not accept whatever terms Iran was offering because Iran won and America lost. It turns out America isn’t in a rush to end this war?
Supposedly the breaking-down point was nukes. Iran will never be allowed to have nukes.
I have been told that the Straits are this big global choke point the Iranians control now and America has to accept that. Turns out that America can just decide to blockade it. Will the Iranians stop them now that their navy is destroyed? Turns out in fact America doesn’t mind if the straits are blocked. (Probably because the deficit in oil caused by the blockade is somewhat exaggerated and the gap is being backfilled by oil tankers filling up at American ports.)
This all accords with what I’ve been saying all along: America is winning, Iran is out of cards to play, Trump is willing to use more force if he has to, the closure of the straits is not as big a deal as many make it seem. Supposedly, Iran beat America badly and America can’t do anything except try to take whatever terms Iran will give them. That’s clearly not happening.
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Since no matter what "peace deal" there is, you will say it's good, yes, you are just defining yourself to be correct no matter what.
This is cartoonish.
I’m making a prediction which you said I was too weasly to manage. Etc etc
Your "prediction" has no circumstances in which we could say it was wrong. I suppose if Iran literally conducts an atomic test, you might concede you were wrong about that (though I am not even confident of that: it seems you would spin it as "We did not allow them to do this until we did/until they snuck it past us, and obviously we will punish them for it and not let them actually use their nukes"). But otherwise, if we are in exactly the same place we are now a few years from now, you will say that's fine because we made our point and can always bomb them again. That, to me, is not a "victory." If you were actually willing to define victory and own that that's what you're saying-yes, we may be perpetually at war with Iran and we will have to keep doing this- then I would disagree with you that that is a favorable outcome but at least we'd have something to disagree about. Instead, you are just saying "We won, we will win, because winning is whatever Trump says it is."
The difference is my predictions have conditions under which I will have to say "I was wrong." I don't TDS out, however loosely you define TDS, and say "Everything Trump does is bad and nothing he accomplishes could possibly count as a victory." I am not saying "The US lost the war." I know some other people are saying we did, by virtue of not having accomplished our goals. I am also of the opinion that we have not accomplished our goals (though it's also not clear to me what our goals are), but there is a difference between "losing" and "failing to achieve victory." Militarily, we won. How many times do I have to no-duh that? But winning anything worth calling a victory requires more than just inflicting a higher body count. We could say we're going to put an end to lawlessness in Haiti and drop bombs on them and say we won. Yeah, and?
"What are we doing here and is it worth it?" is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask.
Look this discussion is probably too degenerated now for either of us to understand each other but in the spirit of dialogue I’ll try again like this:
The Iran War is part of a larger vision of rearranging the global order in America’s terms. In this context destroying Iran’s military is a major goal in and of itself.
The Middle East has been a sinkhole of American blood and treasure for almost 70 years.
In consequence, Trump and Kushner renegotiated a new framework for the region now called the Abraham Accords. Israel become a country with normal political status. The Saudis stop funding militias and promoting proxy wars. America comes to control the global energy supply. (Indeed fracking + Venezuela + Canada already makes America more dominant of an oil player than OPEC.)
The major obstacle to peace in the Middle East right now is Iran. The Abraham Accords can not be made to last if Iran continues to fight the Israelis and the Saudis. Therefore there are two options: they can be enticed to negotiate, or they can be bombed I until they are irrelevant.
In this context destroying Iran’s military is a primary goal. It isn’t just an instrumental goal. This isn’t Vietnam or Afghanistan where our political goals are separate from the major question of military success. Military success is our political goal, because an Iran that cannot project force in the Middle East is an Iran that is essentially already bound to the Abraham Accords.
I imagine right now all this is being explained to the Iranians and concessions are being negotiated to entice them to come to and stay at the table. Removal of sanctions is one reward that can be applied. If Iran integrates normally into the region it doesn’t matter if they have an Islamic theocratic government or not. Technically, Britain is a monarchy and has a state church.
I am not just wishcasting competence on an incompetent Trump administration. This is all obviously the plan and has been signaled as such. There is a clear throughline articulated in moves such as deposing Maduro and tariffs. There is a clear vision for the Middle East centered around the Abraham Accords. It’s articulated by Trump in speeches. It guides the actions of his diplomats. It’s advanced in white papers and November’s White House National Security Strategy. These are not random moves. Trump has a vision and he is using it.
So then, war with Iran breaks out and we destroy the vast majority of their military capacity. Now I’m supposed to believe that the war is an incompetent mess because, even though we destroyed their military, the Iranians responded by threatening the straits, a move every analyst going back to Carter has predicted they would do. Which is more likely: Trump doesn’t read plans and is an idiot and nobody can speak honestly to his face and Hegseth is a drunkard and the Israelis and Saudis sat back and watched it all happen without any of pointing out the obvious? — or that the war has only lasted for a few weeks so far and America is working through its list of options while the 24-second news cycle obsessively decries every predicted setback at the ultimate embarrassment?
Because, ultimately, if Iran refuses to cooperate over the straits, we can keep escalating. We can destroy basic power plants and electrical infrastructure and knock Iran back to the Stone Age. Then we can clear the straits by force, and Iran will protest and they will have no more power to stop us than they would have power to stop us from paving over the moon. But we would rather not do that when we can negotiate and find a deal that works for everyone. Because, yes, Trump prefers to cut deals and make his enemies into friends, like Naruto. Because although we have the power to act unilaterally it’s much more stable when we act in concert with partners and allies.
My theory entails specific predictions, which I have made many times now, about what the structure of the peace will look like. I feel confident it will come to pass exactly as I’ve described. Iran will not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, will not toll the strait, etc. etc. Of course I remain open to the possibility of the details coming out all wrong because they don’t matter all that much. Ie Trump (probably jokingly) said that he could charge a joint strait toll with Iran. I don’t think that’s the likeliest outcome, but if it did happen I’m not going to believe that it’s because Iran defeated the American military with plucky courage when they have no navy or missiles left.
Likewise another of your objections has been that Iran could always rebuild and we’d have to fight another war. My reaction is: so what? Maybe we will. I don’t see how it’s a failure of this war if it doesn’t prevent all future wars. I imagine after they were defeated so handily the Iranians are reconsidering their strategies and aims vis-a-vis America. But maybe they’re irrational. The Europeans certainly are. Well, in that case, we just bought a few years in which Iran has no ability to project force in the Middle East, and five or ten years from now if they re-arm we’ll be even stronger and can do it all over again.
Finally, I would like to discuss the mythic component, which is maybe the part of my theory most prone to caricature and misunderstanding and yet also to me the most important. They say that history is written by the victors but that doesn’t seem meaningful to me. It seems that history is governed by the worship of heroes. We relate within history most to the lives of individuals. Those individuals shape how we think about the whole and the designation of who is a hero shapes our perception of the entire history. Washington was a man but he becomes a hero so it doesn’t matter if he sins or makes a mistake. He comes to be identified with the founding of the nation and even his flaws acquire a holy taint.
Trump is obviously the hero of the moment. Sure there are systemic forces at play and lots of other people involved and Trump can even be a little ridiculous. But it doesn’t really matter in this sense. The entire global order is being rewritten right now and the man leading the charge is President Trump. Politics for generations now will be bad imitations of his tweets like Newsom trying a parody. Exaggerated “dealmaking” or land development will take on new important as imitators cargo cult every aspect of Trump’s personality. Even those who despise Trump will feed this hero worship as they react against him desperately and attempt to find their polar opposite anti-Trump. In the long run Trump’s image becomes more powerful. He reshaped New York, he met Elvis and Nixon and Michael Jackson and Muhammad Ali, he invented a new style of War, he vanquished the Clintons, etc. etc. You can respond with, well, he wasn’t such a hotshot his businesses failed nine times, but in heroic logic that his failures were so great only makes him more powerful. He did casinos before online gambling got big! He sold name-branded steaks and wine before social media invented grifters! Etc. etc.
Napoleon gambled on Russia and failed and was destroyed and his whole legacy ended and, basically, he was already so monumentally important that it was impossible to wash away his legacy and we now name a whole era of history after him.
I believe that Trump is such a figure. And the historic logic dictates that even if Trump “loses” on these terms it’s a kind of success on a higher meta-logic. Because nobody else could fail as spectularly as Trump, you see. And that’s also a kind of mythic power. Although I remain confident given the above that what we’re seeing in Iran is basically a huge success.
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It would be good to have the estimated number of missiles you think they had at the start of the surprise war and how many they have left? Since you are claiming "running out of drones and missiles" and "80-90% of their military.
If US has won, and Iran has come to the table in a defeated position, then why is the strait allowing <10% of traffic even now? and should be no tolls either.
I am repeating claims made by General Caine a few days ago see here:
https://www.themotte.org/post/3671/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/429651?context=8#context
Besides the missiles we have destroyed we have destroyed the vast majority of Irania factories that build missiles and the parts for missiles.
“Allowing” is the wrong verb. Iran has threatened shipping and some ships have paid the bribe to pass unmolested. Some ships have also run the strait without paying the bribe. The strait has never been completely closed but the risk is still higher than what most ships are willing to accept. Iran does not control the strait but still threatens it.
According to the terms of the ceasefire, Iran is supposed to allow strait shipping unmolested. Many ships are still not moving because of the perceived risk.
about the missiles, this is this account which estimated 20,000 missiles at 12-day war time.
https://xcancel.com/pati_marins64/status/2042087687406903788
Regarding Strait's traffic. The US has won, yet its ally is still fighting. The US has destroyed 80-90-95% of the opponent's navy, missiles, and missile production systems, and yet it is unable to:
While Lloyd's shows this:
Iran unveils its own Hormuz traffic separation scheme
Source
In reality, US appears to have been in a hurry to shut down the ill-conceived war while exaggerating its claims to have won. While in reality, Iranians haven't lost it. The existence of a toll (of $2 million, in yuan/crypto) will mean that Iran has the upper hand. And losers never have the upper hand.
I don’t know who Patricia Marins is or why her estimate is significant but her analysis seems at odds with General Caine’s. She claims that Iran has significant missile reserves left and also notes that Iran has a huge industry dedicated to building missiles. General Caine says that America believes we have destroyed 80-90% of this industry already.
Likewise I can’t read Lloyd’s paywalled report, but your summary seems at odds with some known facts. One is that some ships have run the strait without seeking Iranian approval. Another is that the terms of the ceasefire prohibit Iran from tolling the strait. — If they feel strong enough to do so anyways and the ceasefire breaks down, well, we will see who is winning the war after America bombs Iran’s electrical grid back to the Stone Age. It’s just as likely though that this war ends without Iran tolling the strait, which would prove what I’ve been saying all along.
Where are you reading this? Is it Caine’s remarks here? https://youtube.com/watch?v=aCCkrjlfyVk
There is a difference between “destroying 80% of the industry” and what I’m hearing from General Caine:
“attacked 90% of weapons factories” does not tell us what percentage of their total weapons’ industry has been degraded
80% of missile defense facilities being “gone” does not tell us about their ballistic missiles, or even what percentage of total missile defense has been gone, as their significant facilities are all below ground and only the numerous less important small-scale facilities are above ground. (Theoretically, you can destroy 80% of the missile defense facilities while only damaging 10% of the total missile defense production line).
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If we have ships routinely paying tolls, and America does not resume bombing, will you score that as a loss for America?
I am literally on record in this comment chain saying that Iran will not be allowed to toll the strait.
Noted.
I think your analysis and predictions are mistaken, but I really, really, really hope you are right and I am wrong. Time will tell.
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i think both of us agree to a basic yes/no point: whether Iran is/will be able to put a toll charge or not.
If Iran is able to, then it has won. If it is not able to, then it has lost.
There are new developments showing that Taiwan is in talks with China (for reunification). If it actually happens in that side of the world, US would have what we know as Pyrrhic victory.
lets see.
Yeah sure I’m already on record in this comment chain predicting that Iran will not be allowed to toll the strait
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