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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1393 thread views

Transnational Thursday for July 9, 2026

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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"Destroyed" is... a tremendously strong word. It's not like FORD went full BONHOMME RICHARD.

Reports have varied, but we're looking at a return to service in 2027 on the optimistic government timeline. While "destroyed" is perhaps aggressive, "damaged sufficiently to be removed from operation" is infelicitous, and anyway we're being weirdo skeptics so we're rounding up and assuming the damage is worse than we were told.

If we were at real war, it'd be operating. But since they can very well do without it, nobody wants to take a risk, so everybody is covering their asses and crossing the t's and dotting the i's. That's very different from being "destroyed" or even substantially "damaged".

How much of that is due to the fire, and how much is standard/deferred maintenance cycles, though? I have a feeling they'd be in port close until 2027 even without the fire.

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