We got through it in 2022. We can get through it again.
Though unfortunately Americans will learn the wrong lesson from this which should be to reduce dependency on oil for every day life. We should be aiming to have fewer cars and abandon car-only transportation as policy, and more sidewalks, trams, bike lanes, and better medium density mixed-use development. But if folks want to have Ford F-250s and drive 15 miles for a loaf of bread, you have to care about the Straight of Hormuz which Iran could threaten to shut down anytime and as they continued to strengthen their military capabilities increasingly likely to shut down in the future.
-edit-
Also to be clear EVs aren't the answer either. Can't be dependent on China for rare earth mineral processing, still doesn't solve c02 emissions, still have traffic and all the negative externalities.
The rare earth dependency on China is very much overblown. The U.S. has very significant natural reserves of rare earth minerals. The problem is the same with all mining - it's uneconomic to mine minerals in the U.S. because the job of "miner" is unattractive to Americans (both the laborers and the governments that sign environmental permits) when there are cleaner, safer, and more highly paid jobs available.
They're also just as much of a CO2 solution as electric trains are, i.e. it depends on the fuel source for the local electric grid (which today is overwhelmingly solar in most of the places where EVs are popular).
We're dependent on processing and refining, not the minerals themselves. Takes, from what I understand, 10-15 years to stand up that capability.
Overall EVs are great and all and that's what I have, but they're not addressing the underlying concerns and sticking with car-only or car-based infrastructure whether that's ICE or EV is a losing proposition.
> They're also just as much of a CO2 solution as electric trains are,
No, you need fewer electric trains to move much more people plus you don't replace the trains as often, &c, and then add in all the miles and miles of paved roads you need, parking lots, you name it. There's no way around this, if you care about the environment or care about human wellbeing you have to move away from car-only infrastructure like the US has and move toward more European models. And no, the geography isn't a challenge, most people live in urban areas in the United States, China is big too, and so forth.
10-15 years to stand up legacy refining capability, which is heavy in pollution.
China invested decades into research and has made significant progress in extra refined, four nines purity rare earth minerals, required for advanced industries.
They may be two decades+ ahead of US at least, plus the talent pipeline
Sure no disagreement there - I think that just strengthens my point. Though I don’t think they are really 2 decades ahead because we can just start stealing their research and reverse engineering products as we see fit.
Another good lesson could potentially be that going to war as a sideshow to distract from a news cycle that threatened people in power is not the best choice for the world at large.
The people who are benefiting from that distraction are not the same who are being harmed by the distraction. The leaders seem to be quite okay with these turn of events.
I agree that we should abandon car-only transportation and instead move cars much further down the transit hierarchy. Ideally we would be relying on trains, bikes, and buses for most daily movement, using cars as needed instead of by default. But,
> still doesn't solve c02 [sic] emissions
This is incorrect. It doesn't magically make the entire grid carbon neutral but it does let us use much more efficient forms of power generation to make the electricity, and electric cars themselves do not emit CO2 (Carbon with 2 Oxygen). Effectively, switching to electric cars would remove cars themselves as a source of CO2 and make decarbonization much much easier.
> aiming to have fewer cars and abandon car-only transportation as policy,
impossible in the US due to (sub)urban sprawl. The only way to get rid of car-only mode is to get rid of suburban sprawl and put people back into dense Eastern European style commieblocks.
Also it is impossible in the US due to market economy. People will inevitable have to commute long distance to reach job sites or customers. Eastern commieblocks could solve that because people worked in large industrial factories, and there were only a handful of factories per town, and one downtown, and all routes were predetermined and planned.
car-only mode is the expression of the American Dream (tm), that you can live in your SFH in a burb, and hop into your personal car any second and go anywhere you want. It is the Ultimate Freedom (tm) and anything else is a significant downgrade in a lifestyle
We certainly face headwinds and challenges and we will never be totally free of suburbs or anything - even Europe has those, but we can make great progress in specific areas and to your point leverage market efficiency to drive the progress we need to make as a country. When I think about my hometown of Columbus I think about the hundreds of acres of surface parking lots, those can be converted to economically useful land with shops, small-scale workshops, housing of various types, offices, and more. And by doing so we can build up appropriate density without too much of a challenge. Younger folks than me are clamoring for better living conditions - we should make it happen. That doesn’t mean we abandon cars or anything - I like mine, but with better building patterns we can reduce the burden on everyone to have to buy all this stuff just to get a loaf of bread, go to school, or any other normal daily activities. Then we can make more use of our existing infrastructure instead of building more and then not being able to afford to maintain it (state DOTs are big jobs programs and they build even if they don’t need to so that they don’t have to lay people off - biggest scam in the USA and maybe the world).
There’s a really well known photo of Amsterdam before and after their car-first infrastructure. I can try to find it later but if you search for it, you could find it pretty easily I think. You’ll know it when you see it and it’ll blow your mind.
You'd get additional specific training for deployments and the skills are transferrable. But obviously they can't train everyone in every biome that we have, otherwise you'd spend a whole year just flying around to different areas of the country to train and on a 4-year contract it's just not going to work time-wise.
By that same logic that fact that we only lost 1 F-15 in, what, almost 3 weeks of bombing is actually a pretty good sign. Especially when you factor in that the Russians (proven) and Chinese (yet to be proven) are assisting Iran and Iran has been buying and building all of this military infrastructure at the expense of living conditions for its people just for this very attack, only to have almost everything obliterated.
And 3 weeks in to the war and the US is flying refueling tankers to refuel Blackhawks in the very area the F-15 was shot down to recover the pilots (1 so far has been received) should be much more informative than it seems to be.
Is that reliable? The IRGC basically runs the economy and takes a significant cut. The IGRC is also separate from the military. The nuclear program, quite obviously for military use, may also not be included. What about support for proxy groups? Hezbollah alone gets support above $1B per year.
I tried to check the amounts normalized for % of GDP.
Conservative estimates put them at half of the 2% GDP military spend. However, the IRGC's tentacles are also estimated to siphon off something like +50% of the GDP.[0]
Not all of that money's going to military hardware, but they have a substantial slush fund and use the Iranian resource base as a military piggy bank.
Which is a logical result of decades of sanctions, allowing only the insiders to profit from the country's ressources while the common man is bared from providing an alternative. Sanctions do not work and only entrench regimes, as we see in Russia, Cuba, North Korea and now Iran.
I've just been at a conference where some high-up guy from germany was talking about the effect of sanctions... russia used to sell wood pulp to germany, german factories would produce paper products and then sell a lot of them back to russia.
Then sanctions came, no more very cheap wood pulp for the german industry, and after a year of sanctions, the russians built (i think) 4 large paper factories, so even after the sanctions end, that business is not coming back to germany.
Why? If the objective is to weaken a regime, and the sanctions strengthen it, why should you help your “enemy”?
The classic mistake here is to consider that dictatorships are like democracies—they aren't, and their power structure is different and more resilient to economic shocks. Even Bachar Al-Assad, who was much weaker, took 13 years to leave power.
At some point, one should question if wide sanctions targeted at increasing the suffering of the civilian population are really worth it.
Your assumption here is that, since sanctions strengthen the regime, not having sanctions weakens the regime, which is not logical.
Not having sanctions potentially strengthens a regime more than sanctions do, embeds them in the global geopolitical/cultural/economic stage, normalises their behaviour, and goes against a lot of people's deontology.
Look at Israel: no sanctions, strong Zio regime, majority of US/German pop supported the "self-defense" argument for decades, complete normalisation of Palestinian genocide until the horror reached an unbearable threshold. Etc., etc.
Yes, sanctions are far from perfect, but I strongly believe that a world with Israel santioned would have been a much better place for everyone, including the Israelis (from having to contend with their ideology).
Edit: I'm also aware that my argument is not perfect either. For example, I wouldn't qualify what Cuba has or what Iraq had as sanctions in the sense that I'm talking about: these are to my eyes an economic war of aggression by the US/West. What I'm defending is sanctions on fascist and ethonationalist global/regional superpowers that are engaging in large-scale horror. But I'm aware how leaky my definition is.
You can do sanctions on items that allow the regime wage wars (weapons and dual-use products), yes, that can work. Or wide sanctions on small countries such as Israel can be a credible deterrent, since it lacks economic depth to find substitutes.
However, wide sanctions on large countries such as Russia or Iran are now proven to be quite ineffective in the long run. Even worse, by preventing the creation of a middle-class, you won't have the conditions to start a democracy later, after a possible regime change.
I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but it's what data shows.
And sanctions don't prevent countries from committing atrocities either. What about the deaths and suffering induced by sanctions? 500k Iraqi children were estimated to have died due to the US sanctions. The architect of the policy told that it was "worth it". Was it?
Sanctions also affect population and create indirect deaths and suffering in the civilian population.
I guess that, just like Madeleine Albright, you believe that 500k Iraqi children death caused by US sanctions were "worth it"? (US still wanted to invade after, proof that sanctions worked!)
Hypothetically, imagine that you become president of US today, inheriting current situation. What would you do regarding Iran situation?
What is the correct action now in current situation?
Spoiler: I think there is no “correct” solution, somebody will be hurt in the end despite best wishes.
Note: Lower supply of oil and fertiliser affects poorer countries more than the rich ones (possibility of famine in Africa).
Current Iran government just killed their own civilians a month ago in thousands to end protests; and repressions will likely repeat as protests are likely to repeat. (Irans populace seem to be quite educated and want some reforms)
Ground invasion of Iran would cost a lot of lives - civilian casualties always exist.
Paper is definitely not the only thing Russia was importing. Check statistics of Russian aviation accidents (not sure if Germany was in supply chain for aviation, but this is visible thing that clearly was affected by sanctions)
Is there evidence sanctions strengthen a regime? With Russia at war right now, sanctions do indeed seem to be helping Ukraine with Russia having a budget crisis.
Sanction strengthen the political grip of a regime on society, which can use them as a justification for its repression. They also hollow-out the middle class, which prevents a democratic societal change, which requires it.
In the case of a war, it is of course useful, but it won't solve the long-term issue of the nature of the Russian regime, which has gotten only more entrenched since 2014.
Extensive domestic economic control by security forces is also a feature of Egypt and Pakistan. America does not complain about those examples of course, because those countries bend the knee.
Half the world chants that. Currently, probably more. Americans have managed even to alienate the ass-kissing politicians from europe. Even in US, the people are protesting against the current president, and no wonder... trump wants 200 billion more while people can't afford healthcare and education and some cities look like cities from apocalypse movies, with homeless camps everywhere.
Currently lot if people dislike/distrust america. Which is understandable and rational thing to do. Chanting “deato xyz” is very irrational and unproductive and just bad.
if I was disliked and distrusted by a lot of people I’d think long and hard about why that is vs. complaining about how that dislike/distrust is communicated
They should probably be closer to 0 or more in line with European countries but these numbers aren’t accurate and don’t tell the full story. They don’t, for example, include money paid to and missiles transferred to Houthis to launch from Yemen. Nevermind Hamas and Hezbollah, rebels in Iraq and so forth.
> European countries are protected by NATO and a nuclear umbrella.
Well, protected by the United States primarily. They've mostly divested from military spending and capabilities over time, which is the ideal thing, but it seems like maybe we can't live in that ideal world, anyway...
I'm not suggesting that Iran shouldn't have a military, but instead questioning the purposes for which it would have one. Today its military is used for sending missiles at Gulf States, funding Hezbollah, and oppressing its people. So for it to have little to no military practically speaking would be a good thing.
Second at 2.5% GDP (again these figures are highly questionable) that's plenty to have defensive capabilities versus neighbors. There's nobody there to really worry about because who outside of the United States is going to invade Iran? And even then the US is only doing it because they won't stop doing crazy shit and launching missiles at everyone.
Yes, Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy who has, in violation of UN actions and against Lebanese government wishes seized and held territory in Lebanon from which to launch rockets into Israel lol.
If you're going to use that as such a loose category than the list of countries that have been attacked expands quite a bit. Israel has attacked Iran, while Iran has attacked Israel, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, UAE, USA, and maybe one or two others that I'm not thinking of.
Do we now start listing American proxies and their terrorism? CONTRA alone should make the USA deserving of several nukes dropped on its lands by that measure.
It’s been ones of months since USA attacked Venzuela. We are openly musing about invading Greenland. We are actively embargoing and threatening to invade Cuba. We are the unhinged aggressor in all of this.
There is no civilization on the planet that would accept full disarmament under the logic that they should just trust that you won’t attack them if they weren’t armed.
Let's be fair, if someone bombed trump right now, most of the world would be happy, including a lot of americans.
Does that mean that someone should bomb US because of your regime? I mean... you have more homeless people living in tents than most cities post some natural disaster, your people can't afford education, healthcare nor (as above) homes, and you guys are spending money to bomb a place half a planet away that is in no way endangering you... and that after you've bombed it once before and "completely destroyed the nuclear program"... and before that and before that.
I mean... i understand americans are well... americans, but you guys can't even imprison pedos running your country, why should you decide who to bomb?
I mean.. what's next? Iranian special forces will eventually start destroying stuff in US, and you guys will claim "terrorism" or something again... well, it's not terrorism if you're in a war.
> Well, protected by the United States primarily. They've mostly divested from military spending and capabilities over time,
UK and France have nukes, european nato part isn't going to be invaded without nuclear exchanges.
Apart from that, each country is specialized on various things and combined military is quite capable.
Sure, it's not US level of spending... which is probably a good thing given the US basically cut education and healthcare for a few generations for that.
> UK and France have nukes, european nato part isn't going to be invaded without nuclear exchanges.
I like to think this is true, but how many French soldiers coming home in body bags defending Lithuania will it take before they say enough? Are they going to just resort to nuclear weapons against Russia immediately? I don't think the nuclear umbrella is the trump card that it you might be portraying it to be. It's really difficult to say who would use those and when. There are some obvious cases, but there are also some not so obvious ones.
But nukes aren't enough. You're not winning the Ukraine war with your nuclear umbrella for example - that's being won on the ground with Ukrainian blood.
> Apart from that, each country is specialized on various things and combined military is quite capable.
Combined command of a military like this is incredibly difficult, and while I'd certainly agree that some specific militaries are quite capable of [1], I think the political and organizational system in Europe really poses a challenge. But even so those militaries lack power projection capabilities and lack in some other key areas.
[1] In order probably Ukraine -> UK -> France -> Poland and then nobody else registers. Ignoring Russia because they're not really European IMO.
> Sure, it's not US level of spending... which is probably a good thing given the US basically cut education and healthcare for a few generations for that.
Nah, we actually have money to easily afford both we just have a bunch of morons in charge (Democrats and Republicans) who, particular to healthcare, have gotten us the worst of both worlds. Education we're #1 there's no question about that.
France trained the most efficient recon crews, and the most efficient Ukrainian sniper units (some of them led by ex french soldiers. At least with a french passport, or on the verge of getting one). Caesar MK1 are the most efficient howitzer by a large margin in Ukrainian conflict, and Ukraine have half the French number, and first MK1 units, when France is starting to get Caesar MK2. Our MBTs is so much better than Ukrainian tanks it isn't a comparison, and French rafales are not a joke, unlike su57s. When it come to boots on the ground and artillery support, nobody can beat Italy in Europe, though Finland probably can give it a run, and both countries would have defended Russia aggression easily. Special units are not even a consideration tbh, both French and Italian winter units are incredibly better trained than Spetnaz it appears (and they have the advantage of like, not being dead), and even they are less well trained and equipped than those in Finland/Sweden/Norway/Denmark or UK.
If you're talking about global capabilities, including power projection, then the ranking have to start with France, and have Italy very, very close to the UK if not ahead (if we don't take into account nukes), and then Spain should be slightly above Poland and Ukraine, maybe with Finland and Sweden in the mix (gripe3 and CV90?). German have the Gepard which seems to be the best response to drones, but their army is too new. The only thing Europe truly lacks is a strong IFV with reactive armor like the Bradley, maybe the Lynx would qualify but the quantity is clearly not enough.
And here I didn't talk about military doctrine and how well both French, Italian and German equipment fit their own, which to me is a huge advantage right after the early days of a conflict, because even when no one really know what to do and improvise, at least the whole army group improvise in the same direction.
True, Turkey is a bit harder to rank. Or was hard to rank before February. They showed during NATO joint exercise projection capability i didn't know they were capable of, and imho they should be ranked around UK/Italy on projection capacity (though special forces seems to be a weak point, so probably below them tbh). If the fight is local though (in first sphere of influence), yeah, they probably are the first fighting force in europe (including Russia), with their army size, drone, artillery and AA capacity.
> Education we're #1 there's no question about that.
I am wondering what you mean. Top-tier universities full of foreign nationals doing excellent research and funded by exorbitant fees? Sure.
But what about pre-college education?
Reading this thread, with people variously claiming things about Israel as if the country had sprung up from nothing with divine rights on the 7th october, or about Iran, as if the regime had suddenly appeared in 1979, without any US involvement in its suffering before (1953) or after (1984), makes me willing to question that education in the US is promoting critical thinking. Maybe the time spent singing the anthem would be better used actually reading history?
> Education we're #1 there's no question about that.
Education is about social mobility, a chance for anyone to participate depending on their intelligence/grit/motivation.
You guys only have education for the rich/elite.
If you have to pay for it, or be lucky to have parents next to good schools then you've failed.
> But nukes aren't enough.
Lookup french nuclear doctrine to see discouragement effect.
Also, european NATO is capable of bombing conventionally moscow/other russian cities in case of war with some losses.
Eliminating Putin/Leadership would probably stop any war.
That would probably be the first counter to any invasion with threat of using nukes as a threat to keep russia from going for nukes. (losing moscow/sankt petersburg might be too much for russia same as paris/berlin would be for other countries)
The other counter is some rapid deployment of troops to hold off any russian troops and make it very deadly for them until leadership decides to retreat.
> By that same logic that fact that we only lost 1 F-15 in, what, almost 3 weeks of bombing is actually a pretty good sign.
"Good sign" of what, though? Air superiority? I guess, sure. But we've constructed a strategic situation for ourselves where mere air superiority is losing.
The straight remains closed. Because let's be blunt: if we can't reliably fly a F-15E or A-10 in the region, there's no way an oil company is going to bet its crew and cargo.
Honestly the best situation here is that Iran merely decides to toll the straight. That's "losing" too, but at least one with a merely "large financial overhead" on international energy traffic instead of a disastrous 15% off the top cut in capacity.
Iran is winning. This is the difference between tactics and strategy.
In a practical sense, from the perspective of the world as a whole, sure. It's also true that it leaves Iran in a much more powerful position than they held before the war[1]. So it's a "loss", strategically.
It's uncomfortable to admit given the context, but the truth is that the Islamic Republic of Iran really is a terrible state, both to its own people and its neighbors, and a much wealthier Iran represents a genuine threat to world peace on its own.
[1] To wit: "This is Our Water now. Pay us what we want. Don't like it? Come bomb us again and see how your oil markets like that. We can take it. You soft infidels can't, and we proved that already. Now it's $4/barrel, btw." Imagine that delivered on Truth Social for more ironic impact. It's Trump bluster, but with actual teeth.
The US has lost mutiple KC-125 tankers and an E3 as well, although those were destroyed ont he ground rather than shot down.
building all of this military infrastructure at the expense of living conditions for its people
Just yesterday, Trump was talking about another $1.5 trillion for defense in the coming fiscal year, and saying the US can't afford things like daycare, medicare etc.
US welfare system seems to contain a lot of fraud, waste, abuse and grift across the board, so this will be a good chance to cleanse the system of fraud.
Taking money from social programs and piling into the military which contains "a lot of fraud, waste, abuse and grift across the board", certainly is a choice. Sort of the opposite of a smart choice, but definitely a choice for sure.
> The US has lost mutiple KC-125 tankers and an E3 as well, although those were destroyed ont he ground rather than shot down.
Which makes them irrelevant here in this discussion but sure yea. Russia (those sneaky guys who invaded Ukraine and are being supplied by Iran) provide targeting information to Iran, Iran has missiles, we can't shoot them all down, and here we are. It's unfortunate but that's what happens in a war. Frankly, these are very good lessons learned by the United States and they're going to come in handy if we end up in another war.
> Just yesterday, Trump was talking about another $1.5 trillion for defense in the coming fiscal year, and saying the US can't afford things like daycare, medicare etc.
We can easily afford both, but we choose not to because our political system is full of morons and corruption, but instead of Iran being more like the US and being dysfunctional in this regard, it should be more like Norway (excluding population differences) and pump and sell the oil and do so for the benefit of their citizens instead of this authoritarian rah rah death to America and death to Israel nonsense.
> Iran's military budget as a % of GDP has historically been inthe low single digits:
Figures provided here are inaccurate and don't account for spending on proxy groups, for example.
> Frankly, these are very good lessons learned by the United States and they're going to come in handy if we end up in another war.
This is an interesting take given that the US seems to have ignored many of the most important lessons from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.
As for "end up in another war", the language you chose is very revealing. You don't just "end up in...war". Wars don't start themselves. Someone starts them and in the case of the US, it's almost always the US.
> we don't care what militarily irrelevant countries think about our activities because, well, we don't and they don't matter and we don't really care what they think.
America has its own oil. Europe is buying it, which increases the price.
To lower prices, America can help Europe get their oil back from the strait or it can ban sales to Europe both of which could make American oil cheap for Americans.
By not helping, Europe is screwing Americans. And, pretty soon, screwing Europeans too because Americans will be fed up with high prices. They will move to stop exports.
But the US already buys only 8% of it's oil from the Middle East. How long do you think they will care to help people that don't want to help themselves? It's more likely they will stop selling to Europe.
If I had to guess, I think American oil companies that operate in the strait selling oil to Europe are the only reason the US is still working so hard to control the strait. It's a lot of money on the table. But it's certainly not for Americans, just for a few rich American oil companies and their European customers.
1. Oil is a global market. Global supply and demand affects prices everywhere.
2. Oil isn't the only commodity that is at stake here. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted the global helium supply, for instance, and helium is used in critical products Americans need.
3. Asia relies heavily on oil and other commodities that pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Asia is the factory of the world and manufactures tons of the goods that are exported to the US, from clothing to electronics. Obviously, an energy crisis in Asia has the potential to disrupt American supply chains.
4. The petrodollar system creates artificial demand for US dollars. This is a massive financial and soft power benefit to the US. If Atlas shrugs and the petrodollar system starts going away, the rebalancing/recalibration that takes place is not going to be very pleasant for Americans.
1. So the US is responsible for reclaiming a global market by itself? Or is the US required to be terrorized for 4 decades as a sacrifice for the global market?
2. And Europe doesn't need any?
3. But not European supply chains?
4. That's probably true. So the US is required to serve the EU with its military because the EU is their customer? I can think of several ways that the US can keep this position without the strait. But it's much more expensive for Europeans.
1. "Reclaiming" what? The president of the US, without Congressional approval, decided to launch a war against Iran. He broke it and now, like a petulant child, he wants everyone else to help him fix it. There was no credible evidence that Iran posed an imminent threat to the US. Virtually all of Iran's actions against the US in the past 40 years involved targets in the Mideast and once again, the history explains why Iran and the US aren't friends. In addition to the fact that the US was instrumental in the 1953 coup and supporting the Shah's brutal dictatorship that terrorized millions of Iranians, let's not forget that the US provided significant aid to Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War and it's pretty much accepted as fact in the Arab world that the Iran-Iraq War was a US design. Bottom line: the US needs to accept responsibility for creating the very environment that it says threatens it.
2. Europe didn't launch a war against Iran. They are obviously going to suffer (like everyone else in the world) but that doesn't mean they have an obligation to allow the president of the US to effectively commandeer their resources to clean up the mess he made.
3. Of course it affects European supply chains. It's going to affect everyone on the planet basically. But again, Europe didn't launch this war. Why do you seem to think they have a moral obligation to get involved in what virtually everyone in the world sees for what it is (a foolish war started by the US and Israel)?
4. The US isn't required to do anything. Your perspective seems to be that the US is God's gift to the world and everyone else is just freeloading. Another perspective is that alliances like NATO, the petrodollar system, etc. have been the sources of America's outsize economic, political and military power post-WW2. In my opinion, Americans have no idea what is coming as Pax Americana dies. It's not going to be pretty and I believe it is an existential threat to the way of life Americans have come to expect.
It's funny your link starts in 1979. Perhaps you should read about what the US did in Iran before that.
Here's a teaser: in 1953, the US and UK instigated a coup that overthrew the Prime Minister of Iran. The goal: keep Iran from nationalizing British oil interests.
The coup put the country in the hands of the Shah, who was basically a pro-Western dictator.
In 1957, the Shah set up SAVAK, which was basically secret police. Per Wikipedia:
> According to a declassified CIA memo citing a classified U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, the CIA played a significant role in establishing SAVAK, providing both funding and training. The organization became notorious for its extensive surveillance, repression, and torture of political dissidents. The Shah used SAVAK to arrest, imprison, exile, and torture his opponents, leading to widespread public resentment. This discontent was leveraged by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then in exile, to build popular support for his Islamic philosophy.
Also EU can be reached and bombed by Iran so we have more to loose than some army bases in the desert like you guys. I assure you that Europeans wouldn't support getting bombed because we had to help Trump make more money.
Also, let's not forget that most of the people responsible for murdering ten thousand protesters a few weeks ago are now dead. No matter what else happens in this war, that is an excellent precedent.
Vietnam. We "won the peace." Sure, after 50k casualties, in a war that never mattered. Primarily "won the peace" because Vietnam was neighbors with China (even fought a war) and wanted to reach out to the west. BTW, Vietnam is still communist, and goodness, the dominoes didn't fall after Saigon.
Iraq. A functioning parliament. Sure. This is a country barely held together. And thousands upon thousand died in our invasion and its aftermath. And $1.5 trillion sure would go far today (adjusted for inflation).
Afghan. "So you cut your losses." Afghanistan is a complete wreck, a graveyard of empires. Trillions spent there, so many lives lost for almost nothing.
Iran. "We're not going to like invade...though we could." Iran is physically huge and has 90 million people. The idea that the US could invade and occupy without a tremendous cost is just a fantasy of neocons. And they'll naturally assemble a more "reasonable government" just because we blow their shit up. When has this ever worked?
The US hasn't really been the world's policeman since WW2. Almost all of its interventions have been mildly corrupt if not outright. Even Desert Storm wasn't a necessary fight. Who really cared about the Kuwaitis? Only the threat that Saddam would continue into Saudi Arabia motivated the West.
> Vietnam - actually has great relations with the US and we won the peace.
Ironically, I used to teach English in Vietnam and my wife is Vietnamese.
The US didn't win anything. What Americans call the "Vietnam War" was and is called the American War in Vietnam. The country was absolutely decimated and left with scars that are still healing today (see for instance Agent Orange). After the US fled the country, it continued to wage what amounted to an economic war against Vietnam, excluding it from the global economy. Into the 90s, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world. My wife's parents had relatives who survived the war only to starve to death after the war.
Vietnam, largely because of its geography, is a very smart and pragmatic country. It's the only country in the world that has comprehensive strategic relationships with the US, China and Russia.
Relations between the US and Vietnam are good because Vietnam's "bamboo diplomacy" policy allows it to leverage its unique position to extract benefit from all of the superpowers. Relations are not good because of US exceptionalism.
> The US usually starts the war because the US is the only country in the world actually trying to do anything about nefarious actors.
The good old, "I had to beat my wife because she wasn't acting right!"
> Iraq - well they had Saddam and now they have a functioning parliament and things seem to be going a lot better for them.
An estimated 300,000 to 1 million Iraqis died as a result of the war. But yeah, they have a parliament and "things seem to be going a lot better for them."
> Afghanistan - We wanted to provide schooling for little girls and stuff like that and, well, the population didn't want it. So at some point you cut your losses.
Do you actually believe anything you write? The US went into Afghanistan to get bin Laden and attempt to eliminate Afghanistan's role as a safe haven for Al Qaeda. Ironically, through Operation Cyclone, the US directly supported militant Islamic groups during the Soviet war, and where do you think the Taliban came from?
> Iran - We're not going to like invade and occupy Iran, though we could. We're just going to have to keep blowing up their military capabilities until they have a more reasonable government.
Iran has about 4 times the land area and double the population of Iraq. Given the amount of debt the US has and Trump's ecstatic destruction of Pax Americana by defecating on all of America's most important alliances, I think the most optimistic scenario is that the cost of making the Persian Empire again would be the collapse the American Empire.
> Vietnam - actually has great relations with the US and we won the peace.
They won the peace (and the war). You didn't win shit. You lost, badly. The wound in the American psyche by this defeat will never heal, to the point we have to witness claims such as yours.
> Afghanistan - We wanted to provide schooling for little girls and stuff like that and, well, the population didn't want it. So at some point you cut your losses.
So you lost. Mainly because you went on a military adventure, with unclear goals, with a population you didn't understand. Much like in Vietnam!
And here you are, in Iran.
I think the one lesson you did learn is to heavily control the media and the narrative. Body bags and mission failures are bad press. Lesson learned.
US is providing targeting information, weapons and money for ukraine... it seems totally fair that russia is providing the same info for iranians, hopefully they (and china) will send them some weapons too.
> instead of this authoritarian rah rah death to America and death to Israel nonsense.
After US and israel bombing them.... again... what do you think, will there be more or less "death to US" chants? Also, considering the number of dead people in iran, lebanon, palestine and other countries, the next step is probably special force work in US... the ones you guys call "terrorists".
Good lessons. Like ignoring previous military plans that showed how tough a nut Iran would be to crack.
Lessons like the value of AWACs. Now we're down to 15 and the availability rate is like 50%. So 8 or so WORLDWIDE. Yeah, that's a good lesson. And we've cancelled its replacement after someone (probably Elon) whispered BS into Trump's ear about space based sensors.
I'm sure China is watching with a notepad out about all these lessons. Thucydides is rolling in his grave.
I’m reading one of those Blackhawks was shot down. An A-10, F-16, and a refueling plane, in addition to the F-15 so far today. Which, if true, is not a good sign.
We must be using different definitions for ‘complete’. I think Iran is using loitering anti-air missiles with IR seeking which seems to be effective. Maybe this sudden spike is reflective of receiving new equipment from China.
> Yes the US probably is still using precision weapons because, well, unlike the Iranian government we don't want to use so-called dumb munitions and indiscriminately bomb civilians or civilian targets.
Are you referring to the "precision" weapons that hit the girls' school?
The us has air dominance but not air supremacy, which is why missiles are mostly used rather than bombs with gps kits, requiring to get much closer.
And the US has been very keen to bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure, along with Israelis, since the start of the war [0]. The US-Israelis are guilty of war crimes.
The recent bombing of an unfinished bridge is another example of the US-Israeli actions, especially since they did a double-tap to kill rescuers. [1]
One could argue that the IRGC, much like Hamas, purposely builds military headquarters and other facilities near hospitals, schools, and civilian infrastructure precisely to use civilians as human shields.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It is completely expected to lose aircraft in an operation of this scale, against an opponent with this level of sophistication. People put way too much stock in all of these modern stealth systems and whatnot. Stealth, for example, is a buzzword. It will give a slight edge, but it's not going to make your aircraft completely invisible and unshootable.
> You mean like bombing a school and killing about 150 schoolgirls?
Even Hamas knows western powers don’t do this on purpose - which is why they take up arms inside of civilian facilities. The Iranian people know the US doesn’t intentionally kill little girls.
Meanwhile the Iranian government quite literally has killed upwards of 30,000 people (maybe some were little girls even) and is hanging people in the public square for protesting.
Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region. Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school? We should be talking about Iran and their revolting crimes instead.
The US attacked Iran because Israel was going to do so anyway. If they didn't attack, that missile wouldn't have killed 150 schoolgirls. Sure, the target was a mistake, but mistakes happen when you shoot thousands of missiles and drop thousands of bombs. If they had not attacked, the girls would be alive.
If Iran hadn't funded and supplied Hamas who then attacked and killed how many people (how many were little girls who were murdered and raped by Hamas?) then Israel wouldn't have had to bomb Iran.
You can go back and forth on who did what first but it ultimately accomplishes nothing in this scenario.
If Israel wants to bomb Iran, whatever, that's Israel's problem. The fact that we (the United States) continue to give unquestioning support to Israel is the problem. If Israel want's America's help, they should need to heel to America's interests, and I completely fail to see how fucking up the global oil trade benefits us.
I don't think it's quite that simple. Of course you know the isolationist point of view goes many directions. If Russia wants to bomb Ukraine, whatever, that's Ukraine and Russia's problem, &c. (I believe in engagement in both conflicts myself). Israel alone can't really stop Iran anyway besides their "mowing the grass" strategy but how long will that work?
But you have to think about the future state. What does an Iran that continues to:
- Build and supply drones and drone technology to Russia
- Build and purchase missiles and missile launchers
- Continue to pursue a nuclear weapons
- Continue to fund groups recognized as terrorist organizations by the United States, European Union, and others
.... look like?
Well, if they have 1,000 missiles today and that's giving us a problem (I'm not sure the true extent to which it is a problem really) and then they have 5,000 missiles tomorrow maybe sprinkle in some Chinese hypersonic missiles just to see if they can take out an American aircraft carrier or other sensitive military equipment, and now when Iran decides to close the Straight or tax the Gulf States or whatever other crazy idea they get in their heads we're facing a much, much bigger problem. It's like having a North Korea in the Middle East. We can't have that. We have seen that movie already and it does not turn out great.
And that's excluding nuclear weapons or an arms race in the Middle East. You can certainly see how easy it would be for the Gulf States to decide Iran is such a threat that they start loading up on missiles and maybe everyone decides they need a nuclear deterrent and now we've got maybe 2-3 countries including Iran with nuclear weapons and there's nothing we can do about it.
Folks like to paint this as an Israel problem, and yea they've done some bad stuff too but this isn't just an Israel problem nor is it just an America problem. It's just that unfortunately the United States is the one that yet again has to go be involved to try and deal with some chaos now to prevent an untenable situation later.
I think it's certainly worthwhile to debate various assumptions, capabilities, &c. but at the end of the day it's important to actually take a look at many aspects of this situation and to try peace together what's really driving this conflict. If your frame of reference is just "what are we doing there?" I'm afraid it puts you at a real disadvantage in terms of understanding the conflict and its repercussions.
I firmly believe a nuclear-armed Iran would be a net positive for world stability. It's not an ideal state of being, but with the existence of a nuclear armed Israel destabilizing the entire region, there needs to be a check against them. But that's besides the point, because by all accounts except on odd-numbered days the Whitehouse's, Iran was responsibly following the non-proliferation agreements that we had made with them under the Obama administration. Either way "Iran might make nukes" is bad reason to start a war.
If "Iran is aiding Russia against Ukraine" was a good reason to start this war, then we should be a lot less wishy-washy about our support of Ukraine themselves. The fact that we keep playing "will they won't they" with ongoing support to Ukraine is in no small part why that war is still ongoing.
And Israel is, absolutely, unequivocally, America's problem. They exist because we decided they should exist, we armed them to keep them existing, and we get involved in absolute quagmires in the Middle East every time that they do something stupid. Every time Israel does some fucked up shit, the UN goes "wow, we should acknowledge that was some fucked up shit", and the only country that consistently backs Israel is the United States.
I am not an isolationist. I fully recognize, and appreciate, the US's (potentially soon to be former) place as global hegemon. But we achieved that position by leveraging soft power, while maintaining the capability to absolute smite parties that won't play ball. And that worked. It worked great. It's why backing Ukraine was a great play: No American lives at risk, we pay a few bucks, Ukraine damages Russia, we remind our allies just how great it is to be under America's umbrella.
But Israel bombing Iran is not the same thing. Israel and the United States are the aggressors in this conflict, plain and simple. We had half-normal relations with Iran, then because Israel decided they weren't content being one of two regional powers, we decided to kick off another damn war in the Middle East.
> Either way "Iran might make nukes" is bad reason to start a war.
I think we disagree here, but that's because I believe in nuclear non-proliferation. More countries have them, more likely they are to be used. If Iran gets them, well maybe South Korea, Japan, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Brazil... the list goes on. Is that a better and safer world? I doubt it. Not only are arms races probably bad, they take up resources that could be used for making the lives of everyone better.
> If "Iran is aiding Russia against Ukraine" was a good reason to start this war, then we should be a lot less wishy-washy about our support of Ukraine themselves.
I think it's a contributing factor, but not the sole reason to start (or depending on your perspective, continue) a war here.
> And Israel is, absolutely, unequivocally, America's problem. They exist because we decided they should exist, we armed them to keep them existing, and we get involved in absolute quagmires in the Middle East every time that they do something stupid.
I don't follow this line of reasoning. Israel has existed long before the United States. Admittedly the modern state of Israel as we know it today was carved out in the last century, but the fault there lies primarily with European countries who created empires and then failed to maintain them. But you sort of seem to be justifying things like October 7th or other aggressive actions perpetrated by Iran and its proxies as though Israel existing is just somehow a problem. Last I checked Iran is its own country. What justification does it have to bomb Israel in any way?
> But Israel bombing Iran is not the same thing. Israel and the United States are the aggressors in this conflict, plain and simple. We had half-normal relations with Iran, then because Israel decided they weren't content being one of two regional powers, we decided to kick off another damn war in the Middle East.
Don't recall the US being in a state of war prior to October 7th. Iran overplayed their hand, Israel absolutely fucked up Hamas and Hezbollah with little effort, and then we found out Iran was pretty weak and so we did something about it before they accumulate so much military power that stopping them from effectively taking over the Middle East is untenable. I'm not sure your cause-effect reasoning here makes a lot of sense. We haven't had half-normal or normal relations with Iran for a long time - like 50 years.
> I am not an isolationist. I fully recognize, and appreciate, the US's (potentially soon to be former) place as global hegemon. But we achieved that position by leveraging soft power, while maintaining the capability to absolute smite parties that won't play ball. And that worked. It worked great.
It seems that you're cherry-picking here. The US attacking Iran can just be another case of smiting parties that won't play ball. Same with Iraq, or Vietnam, or Korea.
> It's why backing Ukraine was a great play: No American lives at risk, we pay a few bucks, Ukraine damages Russia, we remind our allies just how great it is to be under America's umbrella.
I generally agree and watching Russia's military be absolutely humiliated was exhilarating, but providing money alone isn't enough to win or stop that war it seems.
The US is still helping, but for some reason when it comes to Iran actually selling and supplying drones that kill Ukrainians it's all of a sudden well that's not a good reason to go to war, Iran isn't the aggressor, Trump is bad, how dare the US stop Venezuela from evading US and EU sanctions, blah blah blah. You're twisting yourself into circles trying to defend Iran for some reason when they're murdering their own population for protesting, helping Russia bomb Ukrainians, and starting wars and destabilizing Yemen, Lebanon, and more. Speaking of the UN, weren't they supposed to stop Hezbollah from indiscriminately launching rockets into Israel? Now Israel is there cleaning house and all of a sudden well that's Americans problem, Israel is America's problem, how can Israel do this? Who cares about the UN in today's world?
You're blindly believing the propaganda from two truly evil governments (Israel, USA) about a country that they absolutely want to destroy. Why don't you question the legitimacy of what they tell us.
Not an American problem. Its a problem between Iranians, Palestinians, Israelis and other relevant middle eastern countries. If they want to fight and kill each other, it's their right to do so.
Iran didn't start the war. Israel did. While pretending to negotiate with Iran. The USA wasn't even involved as a target in this at all before they jumped in stupidly. It wasn't an American headache and it shouldn't have been. Its Iran's, Israel's, Palestine's and whoever else's headache.
This "ally" is proving more pain than gain for several decades. They made their mess, they shat their bed, they should live in it. At this point there is zero point for Americans to die for Israel. If anyone wants to go fight for Israel nobody is stopping them, just don't use the government coercion to force others to. Australia, the Philippines, the Europe are much better actual allies.
You will say they are providing a vital outpost in the middle east for intelligence and launching operations. I will say, are they doing that or are they themselves the destabilizing force that's shitting up the place and send off American blood to die in their messes? How much interest or involvement would these countries have in the USA if Bibi didn't get his American neocon friends to the Iraq boondoggle for example?
> Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region. Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school? We should be talking about Iran and their revolting crimes instead.
My family are in the GCC, and my parents live near the coast. Iran has not once targeted a civilian infrastructure there directly, except for specific landmarks (Burj al Arab, the Palm, etc.). Whenever Iran prepares a barrage, they usually announce it on state TV, which is then picked up by local authorities or by social media channels. All the attacks that have resulted in deaths in civilian settings are due to intercepted debris falling on civilians. If Iran wanted to destroy Dubai and kill civilians, they could've easily done that by just swarming the skies with drones and exact maximum damage - but they haven't done that. It also doesn't help their case either - most civilians in the GCC are foreign expats, and the backlash against Iran from most countries like Russia, India, China and Pakistan would be severe. Iran isn't stupid, as much as you'd want to believe that.
Civilian life in the GCC is still pretty normal, except for the downturn in business and the lack of tourists during the season. People are losing jobs and Airbnbs are turning into long-term stays. But otherwise civilian life is still pedestrian - heck, my younger brother is going to the Atlantis water park tomorrow because they offered him free tickets.
Israel is obviously a different story, being directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Iran.
> My family are in the GCC, and my parents live near the coast. Iran has not once targeted a civilian infrastructure there directly, except for specific landmarks (Burj al Arab, the Palm, etc.).
That's still not ok, still targeting civilian settlements and infrastructure which is of no military value. Stop making excuses.
> But otherwise civilian life is still pedestrian - heck, my younger brother is going to the Atlantis water park tomorrow because they offered him free tickets.
That's really cool. Life is pretty normal here in the US too. In Israel from what I understand most folks just have to go to the air raid shelters once in a while but life is otherwise pretty normal.
> Israel is obviously a different story, being directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Iran.
Likewise Iran is directly responsible for attacking civilian targets in Israel and other gulf states. I'm not sure life in Iran is really all that normal though. Tehran ran out of water in part because Iran instead spent money on offensive war capabilities and funding terrorist groups, and then they murdered around 30k of their own people. Sounds like most everyone else is living normal lives (Israel, Gulf states, US) but things are not great in Iran under the current leadership and their mismanagement of the country.
1.) Iran warns civilians days in advance with the exact date and time - establishments are warned beforehand. Pray tell, when did the US or Israel warn Iranian civilians in Tehran about the same? This is about equivalence, not whataboutism.
2.) Unlike for the privileged West, this is Iran's last stand for survival. What started as a "regime change" operation has turned into a "send Iran to the Stone Ages" operation. While I don't condone their regime's actions, I can understand them applying pressure on the GCC countries, especially the ones that goaded the US into the war. More importantly, it's telling when citizens of said GCC countries are on the Iranian side in spite of being attacked. Just check Al Jazeera (the most popular Arabic media outlet) and their coverage in spite of being an Iranian target. Check all the open criticism coming from business circles of the wealthy magnates in the GCC.
3.) Unlike Israel, the GCC countries don't have air raid shelters, but because of the above, casualties have been much lower. Again, that's because of Iran's early warnings and the respective countries' countermeasures. Iran has a vested interest in preventing civilian deaths in the GCC, unlike the US and Israel have in Iran.
4.) Iran's attack on Al Minhad airbase (which is close to where some family live), showed that they can inflict casualties and turn any GCC country to glass if they wanted to, just by concentrating force.
5.) Life in Iran isn't normal, precisely because Israel and USA are intent on bombing it to smithereens. Your arguments otherwise about water in Tehran and protests are pre-war tangential arguments. As mentioned above, Iran could make life in the GCC "abnormal" if they wanted to - they just haven't yet because they haven't been pushed to the brink.
> Pray tell, when did the US or Israel warn Iranian civilians in Tehran about the same? This is about equivalence, not whataboutism.
Why would they warn them when they don't intentionally target civilian infrastructure?
> Unlike for the privileged West, this is Iran's last stand for survival.
We're privileged because we generally don't do really dumb and awful things like what Iran is doing. If they spent their wealth improving the lives of their citizens instead of on missiles Iran would be in a much better state. The responsibility for that failure and lack of "privilege" falls squarely on the shoulders of the regime running Iran.
> Unlike Israel, the GCC countries don't have air raid shelters, but because of the above, casualties have been much lower. Again, that's because of Iran's early warnings and the respective countries' countermeasures. Iran has a vested interest in preventing civilian deaths in the GCC, unlike the US and Israel have in Iran.
I'm not interested in excuses like this for targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure. The United States and Israel have done much more than Iran has to protect civilians and it shows in the way that the United States and Israel only target military infrastructure which Iran is using to lob missiles at... civilians in other countries!
> Iran's attack on Al Minhad airbase (which is close to where some family live), showed that they can inflict casualties and turn any GCC country to glass if they wanted to, just by concentrating force.
Likewise the United States can turn Iran into "glass" if they'd like.
> Life in Iran isn't normal, precisely because Israel and USA are intent on bombing it to smithereens.
Factually incorrect statement. Life in Iran isn't normal because of the actions of their government.
> Your arguments otherwise about water in Tehran and protests are pre-war tangential arguments.
It's a common theme and actions pre-war are related to actions during-war as well. It's a bad government that has mismanaged itself into the situation it is in now and that mismanagement falls squarely on their shoulders.
> As mentioned above, Iran could make life in the GCC "abnormal" if they wanted to - they just haven't yet because they haven't been pushed to the brink.
"I'd kill you but you just haven't made me mad enough yet". Sounds like an unhinged viewpoint to me. That's no way to run a country or treat your neighbors.
> We're privileged because we generally don't do really dumb and awful things
Except for right now, right?
> "I'd kill you but you just haven't made me mad enough yet". Sounds like an unhinged viewpoint to me.
How do you feel about most things coming out of your president Trump's mouth, or Hegseth's (when he's sober)? Those guys are deranged. Hegseth is on a mission from God to purge the unclean.
> Even Hamas knows western powers don’t do this on purpose - which is why they take up arms inside of civilian facilities. The Iranian people know the US doesn’t intentionally kill little girls.
You really think someone who just had to bury the mangled, burned corpse of their daughter cares whether it was intentional, or because the US military couldn't be arsed to update the data their targeting system operates on?
And it's not going to end with that one "accident". The war hasn't even really started, and the US military is led by a vaguely human-shaped lump of feces who absolutely will start ordering the intentional bombing of civilian targets and gleefully boast about it once he's starting to feel personally offended by the continued failure of "the Iranians" to submit to his will.
> Why are we even talking about the US accidentally blowing up a school?
Asking that question puts you outside the boundaries of polite conversation, so I'll end with a hearty "may you get what you deserve".
> Not to mention Iran intentionally targeting apartment complexes and other civilian targets throughout the region.
You realize that Iran provided 24h notice about attacks that were upcoming today advising people to evacuate and Israel bombs hospitals without warning, right?
> What does that have to do with Iran indiscriminately bombing apartment complexes and high rises and civilian infrastructure in countries like the United Arab Emirates?
USA soldiers were in those buildings because they'd been moved off-base. But at this point, you're not arguing in good faith. You wouldn't know about that without the part about our people being the targets so I don't trust you to be forthcoming at all.
> USA soldiers were in those buildings because they'd been moved off-base.
Source please.
> You wouldn't know about that without the part about our people being the targets so I don't trust you to be forthcoming at all.
Iran launched 2500 missiles at the UAE alone, and those missiles hit obvious civilian infrastructure including where US soldiers weren't, airports, &c. and has threatened unprovoked to blow up desalination plants to cause mass famine and destruction. No excuse for that. Sorry, Iran is the bad guy here and their actions prove that without question.
Ok by that same logic almost all areas of Iran are valid military targets because IRGC soldiers are spread throughout the country. Nevermind that they're recruiting children now. [1]
By that same rationale you'd justify blowing up schools. I don't find that to be a good enough argument to deliberately target civilian infrastructure. But if you do, then it justifies the US and Israel too.
I am not saying this. Israel is saying this. Israel bombs schools and hospitals claiming they are housing military. So I say why not then, most of Israel is a valid military target too by their own rules of engagement. Israel even fired missile into a residential building in Qatar to hit someone that was not a combatant or military officer. So clearly civilian buildings are anyways valid targets too. Israel has murdered civilian Iranian scientists. So likewise Israeli scientists and intelligence agents are valid military targets too.
Ok that's fine if that's your justification, but then the US and Israel get to target civilian targets just like Iran. So morally they're the same when it comes to targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure and now I won't be concerned if the US or Israel bomb apartment complexes in Tehran. Everyone is a combatant!. Though Iran has obviously killed a lot more civilians including over 30,000 of their own so they're doing quite a lot of damage to themselves without anyone else's help.
I didn't break the conventions. Israel did, repeatedly and egregiously. Why are you blaming Iran when its Israel and specifically Israel who did all of those vile acts. Its just Israeli national character at this point to perform such vile acts in the name of war.
We can remove them and do the isolationist thing as many have been clamoring for. Then we have no need for bases in Europe or the Middle East. Gulf States can figure out how to live with a nuclear armed Iran or one that has a repository of thousands of missiles to blow up gulf state infrastructure when they misbehave. We can remove the bases in Europe too, and when Russia invades Lithuania the Spanish and Germans can take care of it.
Or perhaps these bases aren’t just in allied countries “at their grace”. These alliance systems don’t just solely benefit America.
I mean, theres meant to be intangibles, and some financial support. Most of the financial support got cut by doge and the rest would go with leaving NATO. The intangibles literally never eventuate. Australia tried to invoke ANZUS with East Timor and got brushed off, despite the various US facilities in Aus being sold to the australian voter as insurance that the US would help if requested.
Honestly the US as a strategic partner is just a joke. its nothing but sigint.
I don't disagree with you, but just pushing back on this high-and-mighty "we let you be here" sensibility from the OP. For some reason folks seem to have become convinced the opposite way from MAGA that these bases only serve American interests which is certainly not the case. Likewise the bases also don't only serve the interest of others, they allow us to have more flexibility in our objectives and responses to issues that we see.
Its equally misleading to pretend like the bases have just a couple small benefits for the US. Come on, please. You dont believe it either. Ah yes, the post world war doctrine has been so that the us can have more flexibility. Sure thing. What a waste it has been for European Nations to have sacrificed lives for Americas wars the last decades.
I agree with you, it is misleading. But there are two sides who are both being misleading - that's all I'm calling out here.
> What a waste it has been for European Nations to have sacrificed lives for Americas wars the last decades.
I personally don't support any comment suggesting that Europe hasn't at times been there for us in these conflicts or that their sacrifices weren't meaningful. But that's only part of the equation. We're in a different world from where we were in 2001 and things change and so you can't just hang your hat on this one thing, else we (Americans) get to hang our hat on any time period we want to as well where Americans sacrificed for Europe.
The whole "we did this then" is driving a lot of folks into lunacy, but there does seem to be material differences and that is concerning if you believe in these alliance systems which I generally do.
You have folks on this website who would tell you the US is actively working with Russia against Ukraine, and then in the same breath defend Iran from the US blowing up drone factories that Iran is using to manufacture drones for Russia to use to go murder Ukrainians! Kind of hard to have a conversation or an alliance if a population is being convinced of absolutely crazy things like this.
Well, in part you are asking about the world economy. Most of the world doesn’t have 401k retirement vehicles, good access to financial markets, or the spare funds to save at all, whether it’s in stocks, bonds, or other investment vehicles.
So the reason you haven’t gotten an answer is because your question doesn’t make much sense.
A 401K is just an investment in indexes linked to your pension, there's nothing stopping everyone putting their own money into an index themselves. The question makes sense, how many people could the market support if everyone was investing and not spending.
>how many people could the market support if everyone was investing and not spending.
I think the more salient question is how many people could the market support if everyone was consuming and not producing.
Not producing as in the goods and services that people want such as clean toilets and food and nursing home care. Or not producing the kids who will go on to produce the aforementioned goods and services.
> A 401K is just an investment in indexes linked to your pension, there's nothing stopping everyone putting their own money into an index themselves
This is mostly incorrect.
A 401k in the United States is a tax-advantaged investment account. You can buy shares of individual companies, you can purchase index funds, you can leave it there as cash, buy gold, or just about anything you want or you'd expect to be able to purchase using a brokerage account. Depending on the route you take (Roth or Traditional) you can realize tax savings now or at a later point. 401k Accounts are programs offered by your employer as well [1].
One of the many reasons the OP's question doesn't make sense is because not every country in the world has a 401k program.
[1] There are other programs for individual owners or for those who have an employer that does not offer a 401k.
People can invest in markets without a 401k with more options (plans commonly have only a handful of funds available) and less fees (both admin fees and inflated fund expense ratios). And you may pay more taxes with a 401k than otherwise depending on your future tax rate (which is unknowable).
The only pure advantage is employer matching if you have it and stay employed long enough for it to vest.
An overabundance of investment without an outlet would just decrease yields. Hypothetically the yield could go negative.
It is a self correcting problem. If the yields are too low people can spend it on hookers and blow before dropping it into a money shredder. The yield shouldn't drop much below the premium for the time preference of money.
Self-sufficiency is a myth. Even if you wanted to try and be energy independent, for the short and medium term (and maybe longer, who knows?) you will be dependent on China and all the baggage that they bring because of their dominance of rare earth mineral processing. Need a new solar panel? Don't make a certain country mad (whether that's your local Ayatollah or CCP official).
And that's just energy. What about pharmaceuticals? Financial markets? Who protects your shipping lanes? Who builds your semiconductors? Where do those factories get their energy from?
I support the diversity of energy sources because they all have strengths and weaknesses. We've got to figure out climate change. But we also can't have, even if you want to somehow "move off of oil" a single country run by lunatics who can decide whenever they don't get their way that they get to seize 20% of the global oil supply. We can't have China dominating rare earth processing either. For some others it may be a reliance on American military technology.
There is a huge difference between buying a solar panel once and having it generate energy for the next 30 years vs. buying a barrel of oil now and consuming it by next week.
It's the same difference as buying a house now and owning it until it collapses vs. renting a house and being at the mercy of your landlord, or buying a piece of shrink-wrapped software and using it for the next 18 years vs. renting a SaaS subscription that provides a different product next month.
Old hardware or emulation of old operating systems on new hardware.
Quite common on old industrial machinery and other capital equipment like lab equipment. San Francisco BART for example has to scrounge eBay for old motherboards that still allow DMA to parallel ports via southbridge because it’s too expensive to validate a new design for controllers.
I have a G5 with a bunch of old boxed software that runs as well as it did the day I bought it. And an Xbox 360 with the same. Not everything has to keep up with the times.
Not all software can be sufficiently insulated from external changes, but almost all software I care about can be. My normal update cadence is every 2-3 years, and that's only because of a quirk in my package manager making it annoying for shiny new tools to coexist with tools requiring old dependencies. The most important software I use hasn't changed in a decade (i.e., those updates were no-ops), save for me updating some configurations and user scripts once in awhile. I imagine that if I were older the 18yr effective-update-cycle would happen naturally as well.
My gut reaction is that the software you're describing relies heavily on external integrations. Is that correct?
He had upgrades, but I was running Kubuntu about 20 years ago, still have a bunch of Red Hat and Mandrake ISOs from the early 2000s, and can confirm they still work.
Beside, on the rate earth materials, it just happen that China is able to exploit it cheaply but other countries also have access to them and could very well exploit.
> other countries also have access to them and could very well exploit.
only in your wet day dreams.
let's just look at Gallium which is arguably one of the most critical for defence. to produce 100 tons of Gallium, which counts for 10% of the global supply each year, you have to have 200 million tons of Alumina capabilities. "other countries" won't be able to do it, as they don't have affordable electricity and skilled workers to make the Alumina business itself profitable. how they are going to use or sell those Alumina? to absorb loss of 2 million tons of Alumina for each 1 ton produced Gallium, "other countries" will have to lift their Gallium prices to stupid level.
that is assuming Chinese choose not to fight back on the Alumina front - they control 60% of Alumina production worldwide, they can just flood the global market with cheap Alumina to bankrupt your Gallium production.
remember - 2 million tons of Alumina for 1 ton of Gallium.
Well I am referring about rare materials for battery, energy storage, solar panel because the discussion was about that.
I don't know about defense needs, could be true, but I guess they are much less important in volume that the other. You may be able to store them in case of disruption.
>It's the same difference as buying a house now and owning it until it collapses vs. renting a house and being at the mercy of your landlord,
I always take issue with the expression "buying a house now" when you actually mean "pay a mortgage for a house now". With a mortgage, you are at the mercy of the bank and whatever contract you signed. With a rent tenancy, you are at the mercy of the landlord and whatever contract you signed. A landlord will wake up tomorrow and tell you to leave, you have some notice period. Your fixed period deal ends and you can only get a deal that triples your rate.
It's like when people say that self-employed people have no boss, your customer becomes your boss. And you always have one. Everyone that exchanges services/products for money has one.
For some people "buying a house now" actually does mean "buying a house now, with cash". My mom bought her last house with cash - she just rolled over the money from the sale of my childhood home, which they paid off in the 80s. I needed a mortgage for mine, but now that I have it I'm clinging to my 2.75% rate, it's less than I can make with basically every other investment. In Silicon Valley it's not uncommon for people to buy houses (even $4-6M ones) with cash because they're sitting on an 8-figure exit.
Even besides that, there is a dramatic difference between a typical (U.S.) mortgage that locks your payments for 30 years, and a month-to-month rental where your rent can go up next month. It's the same difference as buying a solar panel that fixes your costs for 30 years vs. paying whatever electricity rates the local utility charges this month.
(And there is also a dramatic difference between having 1 boss vs. 10 clients vs. 1000 customers vs. 3 billion users. The amount you can ignore any one of them goes up exponentially, and the risk that they will all stop paying you goes down correspondingly.)
"For some people", yes nowadays, it's for wealthy people only unless it's a house in the middle of nowhere.
In a tenancy, your rent can go up but most decent countries have legal restrictions in regards to how many increases you can do in a period of time and by how much you can increase it at any given time, and gives tenants legal tools to contest it if needed. And you still get the freedom to move to a different city without losing money. Here, most people don't do anywhere near 30 year mortgages so maybe that's more of a US thing.
In an ideal world, businesses would have customers that are all equally valuable. But in the real world, many businesses have a few customers that account for most of the revenue and the rest of the customers. Those few customers become your boss and they indirectly dictate significant parts of your business because an average customer not spending as much will be ok but a major customer not spending as much will get you sweating and looking at your cashflow.
Self sufficiency exists on a spectrum. On the idiot end is autarky, which only works to keep a small group in power at the cost of national weakness. On the other end is a lack of stockpiles and domestic production that essentially negates sovereighty.
A country running a solar grid with EVs can withstand more economic shocks for longer than one importing oil. And while mining metals is geographically limited, making solar panels and batteries and cars is not.
Recycle one of your old ones. You don't burn solar panels to make energy.*
I think people are still stuck in the fossil fuel mindset. I've started calling it gas brain.
* What happens if China stops selling you panels while you embark on electrification? Nothing. You already have enough electricity from your existing sources (presumably) so you just pause the PV rollout until they wise up. And other countries are starting to get into PV manufacturing. Exhibit A: https://solarmagazine.com/2025/08/india-solar-supply-chain-f... So you can always just buy from someone else.
It doesn't though, it's the illusion of removing of a dependency which is rather dangerous. You're not only swapping one dependency for another in this specific case, but you're ignoring the rest of the global economy and its own dependencies and how they affect you.
You're swapping a dependency which hits very quickly if disturbed, for one that would take a much longer time to manifest.
When Russia invades Ukraine or Iran cuts the straight of Ormuz energy prize go up instantly, chocking the entire world economy in the course of a few weeks. Even if China stops exporting rare earths, it would take years before it affects the energy market.
It's absolutely incomparable.
Cuba is a good example by the way: a country can survive for decades while being cut from most technology import due to sanctions, but if you cut its access to oil, it becomes dirty real quick. And because Cuba has been stuck in the middle of the 20th century, it's actually much less dependent on energy than most developed or even developing countries.
> You're swapping a dependency which hits very quickly if disturbed, for one that would take a much longer time to manifest.
That's not the entire point. You still rely on global supply chains. Those semiconductors in your MacBook Pro are made in Taiwan - many steps (perhaps most) in that supply chain to go from raw material to MacBook Pro, or EV, or fresh produce rely on oil. When Iran holds 20% of the world's oil supply hostage then prices go up for you too. Even if you are 100% renewables you are still dependent on oil for your economy.
Even the renewable power grid relies on fossil fuels for maintenance and service, many parts and components are built using materials made from oil (hello plastic), &c.
Right: My body will never be able to survive without taking in elements from the outside, but I'd rather have an interrupted supply of calcium than an interrupted supply of oxygen!
> A country that goes all in renewable is in a stronger position.
Depends on the country.
> UK power grid doesn't give a fuck about this war.
Power grid =/= economy. You're missing the point. Rising prices affect the United Kingdom economy even if it was fully run on renewables. The ships bringing products to the country don't run on renewables, the cars mostly don't, your fighter jets don't, your fertilizer doesn't. &c.
It's important to not be dogmatic and be practical about this stuff. Every country on the planet needs and utilizes oil and gas and that will remain true for the foreseeable future because of globalized supply chains.
> Sure China. But unless they send in an army to retreive previously sold panels, or block the sun they can only harm future increases to supply.
Which, in the case of a war with the US would be true because the UK will be involved and sided with the US and/or certainly assumed to be by China. (This is indisputable). So sure you build up those panels, but then you see a war and now you lose access to those materials and if it isn't solved in the near term you have to switch all of your energy back to fossil fuels. No new EVs during the war, for example.
It is a sliding scale though. Having more renewables in the mix seems better than fewer. But indeed no one is immune to global trade and higher global prices.
1. It’s closer to 50 years, and even a partially degraded panel will work, just with less output
2. Even if we say 20 years, that means that you only need to buy panels once every 20 years! Not continuously. A complete and total interruption of solar panel production lasting 4 years will only mildly interrupt current output. How long can we last with a total disruption to oil supply chains?
The long operating life of a solar panel compared to a barrel of oil is a selling point when it comes to self-sufficiency. With 20 years of warning, any country that pretends to be a globally-relevant power can get itself to the point of producing acceptable solar panels if its survival depends on it.
Eh, an operational dependency that immediately raises costs across your entire economy, across all geographies, all industries, within a couple days of disruption is very different from these more strategic dependencies.
The key would be to simply not ignore all the other dimensions of dependency.
Oil is disposable, solar panels are not. If you have solar, and then piss off the CCP to the point where they attempt to stop you from acquiring more of it, you don't lose the solar you already have. Those solar panels will continue generating energy for years, if not decades, afterwards.
It's also important to note that the US also produces oil[0]. There are some quirks of the market and refineries that make it difficult to consume our own oil, but we could potentially build more domestic processing. The real problem is that pesky global market that puts costs on the state's ambitions for power. To put it bluntly, American oil is expensive. We can survive an oil crisis iff we are willing to pay astronomical prices at the pump; but if we are doing this assuming we can just enjoy cheap gas while the world burns, we are going to get a rude awakening.
Think about it this way: buying your energy in the form of oil is like exclusively using streaming services for your entertainment needs. It's cheap, easy, convenient - until the plug gets pulled and it suddenly stops being those things. Buying solar is like buying physical media - you have to pay up front and it's more of a hassle to get started, but it can't be turned off on a whim.
[0] It also used to produce rare earths, too. The mines closed down because they were too expensive to operate - not because rare earths are actually rare.
It's really strange too. I thought these settlements and 3rd party app stores would lower prices, but prices continue to go up! And now as prices are going up, Epic is also laying off workers? Hmmm.
Plus if gas prices rise more people might switch to EVs, drive less often, and/or hopefully begin to understand the fragility of our car-only infrastructure and mandatory car ownership and demand better urban planning and transportation options.
Can't wait to get my new iPhone shipped here on an electric cargo ship, and it shouldn't be too much more expensive for my food transported by a fleet of electric semis and trains. Totally worth exploding billions of ordnance and killing a few thousand people!
> And I don't buy the "but China fuels money into their EV industry" either.
Well, you’re wrong. There’s not much else to say bout that.
> And why would I care if Chinese taxpayers subsidize my car? I really don't.
Because it prices the vehicles below points where others can compete. Then they go out of business, and then the remaining winner raises prices. If you are Germany, Japan, or the United States that means lots of bad things for jobs, and starting a new automaker to bring down high prices later is very difficult.
It’s like, who cares if Amazon or Walmart comes in to your country, subsidizes the prices, and then runs all the competition and small mom and pop stores out of town until you have nothing left but Amazon or Walmart. Right?
> Well, you’re wrong. There’s not much else to say bout that.
That's an opinion, not a fact.
> Because it prices the vehicles below points where others can compete.
This is way too expensive for something like that to last. The rush to the bottom is already killing so many chinese automakers locally. The idea that they can sustain such a money bleed globally is hard to believe.
It's either a correct fact or an incorrect fact. And if you don't know whether it's correct or incorrect, that doesn't mean nobody does, and it certainly doesn't mean it's an opinion.
An opinion would be "I think the way China is subsidizing its EV production is bad."
It’s not an opinion. You’re welcome to go read China’s own self-published strategic plans on this or a litany of news and policy journals discussing this.
> This is way too expensive for something like that to last.
How can you claim it’s too expensive if you’re claiming you don’t even buy that it’s happening??
> The rush to the bottom is already killing so many chinese automakers locally. The idea that they can sustain such an money bleed globally is plain asinine.
Look at German automakers in China for a view of the future.
As Chinese automakers compete and then consolidate they’ll raise prices of course but the level of competition and capacity build out will still have them underpricing other automakers due to economies of scale, cheap labor, and advanced manufacturing. They don’t need to sustain it really, globally they’re already poised to win which is why US, EU, Japan are going to have a lot of import controls, tariffs, and will utilize other tools to protect domestic industries.
There are plenty of countries that lack domestic automotive production that are very OK using Chinese EVs. Nepal for example, is all in in Chinese EVs now since it’s people couldn’t afford much gas or ICEs before, and with some hydro investments (also aided by China), they can now better afford to buy (cheap Chinese EVs) and drive cars (cheap hydro). There are a hundred nepals out there that the western and Japanese countries aren’t going after.
There's nothing wrong with Chinese EVs (or any EVs) going to Nepal or something. China is closer, it's a tough country to get to, makes sense that China (or India perhaps) would be their primary supplier.
Logistics through Tibet wasn’t really a thing until recently, China had to invest there. But it’s not just Nepal, it’s most of Africa, southeast asia, as well as Australia/NZ. China is literally creating markets for its products that simply didn’t exist at all before.
Sure, though I'm not positive that's a good economic strategy outside of perhaps SE Asia. Market size in places like Africa, along with general instability presenting challenges has not made it a great place to invest, unless of course you have state backing and subsidies from, idk, China?
But let's say China develops these markets and they can afford more cars. That's great. That means after China develops them, Western countries can come in and sell their cars too at China's developmental expense. Seems like a win-win all around.
Western countries don’t have a product to sell without protectionism. Look at Australia, a first word country by any measure but without an auto industry to protect has wholly embraced Chinese EVs.
China is creating and making markets where they are allowed to create/make markets. The western auto manufacturers are turtling up via protectionism, and they are no longer aiming to compete on their products.
> China is creating and making markets where they are allowed to create/make markets.
What's the median income in Africa, and how much is the cost of a new Chinese EV that is supposed to be sold in Africa? I'm not sure, do you happen to know?
> The western auto manufacturers are turtling up via protectionism, and they are no longer aiming to compete on their products.
Chinese automakers were/are subsidized by the CCP (including "investment" deals via Belt and Road), it's a response to that. Even today China requires joint ventures for western automakers to operate in China (to my knowledge). China already turtled up via protectionism.
When you say western automakers aren't aiming to compete on their products what do you mean? The quality of the vehicles? Capabilities? Cost? All of the above?
> What's the median income in Africa, and how much is the cost of a new Chinese EV that is supposed to be sold in Africa? I'm not sure, do you happen to know?
Africans are poor but Chinese EVs are cheap. What’s more, they can earn more with better tools, like Chinese EVs and Chinese investments in green energy. If you’ve been to a bunch of poor countries you know how it works by now. Yes, $10k is a lot of money in those places, but it isn’t a horrible amount of money and is realistic for lots of non-rich people.
> Chinese automakers were/are subsidized by the CCP (including "investment" deals via Belt and Road), it's a response to that. Even today China requires joint ventures for western automakers to operate in China (to my knowledge). China already turtled up via protectionism.
Yes, thats definitely fair. But they didn’t turtle up, they innovated and developed new tech instead. The difference is that China used protectionism to catch up, the USA is using protectionism to…be lazy and dumb. Which one do you think will pay off?
> When you say western automakers aren't aiming to compete on their products what do you mean? The quality of the vehicles? Capabilities? Cost? All of the above?
Yes. Germany has the best bet of catching up, the American auto corps have been dying for a couple of decades now and are probably beyond help. Japan (not western, but usually included) made dumb bets on hydrogen that it still isn’t walking back.
> It’s not an opinion. You’re welcome to go read China’s own self-published strategic plans on this or a litany of news and policy journals discussing this.
I didn't say they don't prop their carmaking, battery or ev industries. I said that I don't buy the argument it's bad for us.
> They don’t need to sustain it really, globally they’re already poised to win which is why US, EU, Japan are going to have a lot of import controls, tariffs, and will utilize other tools to protect domestic industries.
Protectionism historically only helps industries in their earliest stages when you need to kickstart them, never when they are mature.
At the end of the day western consumers and workers are always left with the bill if they cannot compete. It's us who will end up paying twice the amount for cars that aren't competitive, and don't have incentives to compete because they are protected anyway.
You also need to understand I'm European. Not American.
German/Italian economies are strongly export dependent. Exports amount for 50% of german economy and 30%+ of Italian one.
Protecting internal markets achieves little to nothing, which is why Germany and Italy were among those less willing to tariff chinese cars.
US has a giant internal market and is not a good exporting economy, it's core exports are financial and IT services.
> I didn't say they don't prop their carmaking, battery or ev industries. I said that I don't buy the argument it's bad for us.
And I explained why it was bad for us.
> Protectionism historically only helps industries in their earliest stages when you need to kickstart them, never when they are mature.
Never is a strong word. You're assuming that the Chinese EV industry isn't still in the kickstarting stages. The goal is to, via subsidies and capability to deindustrialize other parts of the world. Through that lens you can see their actions quite clearly.
As a European you should be particularly worried if you value labor. When you say things like German and Italian economies are export dependent it begs the question: what happens when those exports to their #1/#2 export market (China) collapse, and then China - because as you said of course Germany and Italy aren't willing to tariff Chinese cars - comes in to the EU and then outcompetes German and Italian automakers too?
What does that leave you with? It leaves you with:
China - dominating EV sales and a massive player in the auto market.
America - protected domestic industry that's not reliant on exports, little to no competition from China
Japan - serving US/EU global markets and protecting domestic industries
Europe - Collapse of industrial capacity to make vehicles, maybe with tariffs or import controls will have workers at Chinese factories making cars (with profits and capital of course heading back to the home market). Follows the British model a bit with focus on luxury automobiles (Ferrari, Aston Martin, things like that)
I hear your point about subsidies in American and European markets and how regular people are "left with the bill", but that's mostly because regulators and those working in government are incompetent, by and large, not because there aren't actions one can take. China serves as a clear counter example. And then you could also look at other countries and steps they've taken to shore up their domestic industries or otherwise.
> Exports amount for 50% of german economy and 30%+ of Italian one.
And in China its barely 20%. But most of German and Italian exports go to other EU countries so its not exactly a fair comparison. Not quite the same but not that different to trade between different US states.
The ev and chip market may indeed be insurmountable to their subsidy model, but it has worked on so many other sectors that now only exist in China. They do have troubles discontinuing subsidies to sectors that capture government. But mostly the subsidize to bootstrap has worked wonderfully for them. Tariffs are one counter. But subsidizing your own existing sector to counter it is necessary as well and tariffs have the down side of making your industries uncompetitive globally. Argentina demonstrated this for us. An evenhanded subsidybthat doesn't pick winners is also necessary. China broke capitalism the same way VC does. Come in with a big enough bank roll and it doesn't matter if you are better if you can keep spending until the competition folds. The open question is if China's demographic issues will outpace productivity gains.
Though unfortunately Americans will learn the wrong lesson from this which should be to reduce dependency on oil for every day life. We should be aiming to have fewer cars and abandon car-only transportation as policy, and more sidewalks, trams, bike lanes, and better medium density mixed-use development. But if folks want to have Ford F-250s and drive 15 miles for a loaf of bread, you have to care about the Straight of Hormuz which Iran could threaten to shut down anytime and as they continued to strengthen their military capabilities increasingly likely to shut down in the future.
-edit-
Also to be clear EVs aren't the answer either. Can't be dependent on China for rare earth mineral processing, still doesn't solve c02 emissions, still have traffic and all the negative externalities.
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