the hypothesis seems pretty important and interesting, even if hard to study (and hard to classify companies, and sustainability, way too many degrees of freedom, so it would need preregistration, etc)
They could at least send the paper with the reported problems out to a new set of referees.
And just as they decided to take responsibility for publishing, they can take responsibility after a similar review for retraction (or issuing an errata or whatever fancy way they want to signal the result of the process).
> If a story is spam or off-topic, flag it. Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. If you flag, please don't also comment that you did.
> Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
But it didn't really. Iran is poorer than it was before, even more of a problem than it was before. NK has two very special advantages (Seoul is within artillery range, and it is literally in the backyard of one or two relevant superpowers over the decades) whereas Tehran's "force projection" is mostly through proxies and affecting global commodity trade.
Without NK's hard deterrence (and without being next door to its allies)
Tehran is an easy target up until the last second. And even then what's going to happen if they detonate a nuclear bomb? Everyone will sit back and let them build as many more as they feel?
> Iran is poorer than it was before, even more of a problem than it was before.
Iran seemingly is coming out of this mess stronger than it was before.
The regime remains unchanged, and is likely less willing to make concessions now. Hell, even sanctions on it being able to sell oil have been lifted, which is a boon to their economy.
They are in effective control of the strait, and justified in exercising it now. Yeah, other gulf countries may try to circumvent it with pipelines and whatnot, depending on how poorly they come out of this war - and it is not like you create a pipeline in a few days. Those are big engineering projects.
If I were a betting man, which I am not, I think they will just resume their nuclear weapons program unchallenged after this, and will likely achieve it. It is clear that no one can stop them doing so.
And frankly, they should. Every country that can have nuclear weapons should develop them, that much is very clear, as the last decade taught everyone.
> Iran seemingly is coming out of this mess stronger than it was before.
This is a wild take. Their top leaders and generals have been killed, they have no control over their own airspace, have their military and civilian infrastructure completely at the mercy of their enemies, and have no navy/airforce any more.
Yeah, and for some reason this place that has "military and civilian infrastructure" completely at the mercy of their enemies is right now exercising full control of one extremely important sea trade route, and is wreaking havoc on all gulf states allied to the US, and is successfully hitting targets on Israel.
Facts have this annoying tendency of getting in the way of propaganda.
1) What defense? They have been punching back but have been unable to stop enemy strikes. Do you understand what the word "defense" means?
2) That happened before the war, and the protesters have been told to hold off for now. Its completely irrelevant to this war.
3) They control it for now. We'll see how long they can continue threatening global trade. My money is not for long. [1]
4) Attacking radar systems is not weakening the US presence in gulf countries. What they have succeeded in doing is attacking almost every gulf country souring relations.
5) This makes no difference since they were selling to russia and china regardless
6) This makes no sense, as they had operational Nuclear facilities up until the moment Israel/US blew them up. There is no reason to think we wouldn't do it again.
> They are not afraid to spend money (and blood) on a problem, even if it turns out to be bigger than expected. How much? We'll see.
I agree, but it is unclear if "more money" is the answer here. Iran is a much tougher nut to crack than Afghanistan. Afghanistan is barely a country. Iran is an actual, functioning country, with a territory that is geographically very defensible. And on top of that, they have actually been preparing for this for decades.
The ironic bit is that I thought the Iranian regime was on an irreversible decline, as the unrest amongst the population was growing in recent years.
The analysis I have read point out that this attack actually further legitimizes the regime and takes steam away from internal unrest, especially if Iran comes out on top.
Every authoritarian government needs an enemy. The US-Israel axis provided a very real, tangible one.
> The analysis I have read point out that this attack actually further legitimizes the regime and takes steam away from internal unrest, especially if Iran comes out on top.
Yes. Unfortunately both things can be true (irreversible decline) and solidified regime due to any external intervention.
Tehran "spent" 2T USD on the nuclear weapons program, which they could have spent on water desalination for example.
Yes having the deterrent is strategically beneficial, but working toward it paints a huge target on your back, while you need to pay for development, endure sanctions, etc.
Any state considering such weapons development already knows this. So this war is not new information.
And it's far from over yet.
Iran could very well end up cut off from the strait as rival gulf states build pipelines, rail, and drone defenses. (Sure this kind of long term thinking is not characteristic of the actors involved, but politics change easier around Iran than inside it.)
> Tehran "spent" 2T USD on the nuclear weapons program, which they could have spent on water desalination for example.
(Side note: That... seems like a very high figure to me?) For comparison the US spent close to $1 trillion in 2024 on the military. It could have saved lives and spent that money on healthcare. But that's not how govts work. Iran didn't get a drawstring bag with 2T in it and chose to throw it all on nukes.
Additionally, you're trying to bring a (totally valid tbf) logical argument ("Desalination is critical and an excellent place to spend money that's not going into saving lives") to a government that behaves like a cornered wild animal. It will act to save itself first, even if attacking the aggressor hurts itself too in the process.
> It will act to save itself first, even if attacking the aggressor hurts itself too in the process.
Of course, but as we see simply focusing on ground forces, drones, and anti-air defenses would be strictly better. (Because they wouldn't be this sanctioned, and they could even have a civilian nuclear energy program too.)
> 2T USD
It's a number coming from an Iranian trade official.
I heard it in this video: https://youtu.be/OJAcvqmWuv4?t=1084 and unfortunately there's no source cited, but I think it's this one: "As former Iranian diplomat Qasem Mohebali admitted on May 20, 2025, “uranium enrichment has cost the country close to two trillion dollars” and imposed massive sanctions yet continues largely as a matter of national pride rather than economic logic."
Iran claims 1T USD damages as a result of US leaving JCPOA alone - in 2021. Now add in 5 more years, wars, sanctions before JCPOA was signed, direct expenditures on enrichment...
That's their claim for how much less economic activity Iran (not just the government) had in total due to sanctions, not how much the government "spent on the nuclear weapons program" that could have instead been spent on desalination plants.
But without a nuclear weapons program, the entire sanctions regime wouldn't have started (yea, I know today half of those are anti-terrorist sanctions, but that's not how it started, it was morphed later on). It should be considered as part of the losses.
the nuclear weapons program has cost about 2T USD for Iran, and definitely makes certain arguments for intervention more acceptable, but it doesn't negate the other side of the equation. the cost of intervention is still enormous. (and since the enriched uranium is an obvious target it is obviously even more protected)
I remember his protracted war posts, and ... indeed there's still a war going there, and fortunately it did not even get into the anticipated guerilla phase.
Can you elaborate a bit on what was unrealistic? (Maybe you have different posts or claims by him in mind?)
I checked the blog, You have a point. Brett Devereux was more cautious.
"If you are trying to follow the War in Ukraine, I strongly suggest watching the War on the Rocks podcasts for the times they bring in Michael Kofman."
I’ve been caught up in “guilt by association” here. Michael Kofman always struck me as a cheap propagandist. (but I should shut up now)
Paying WoR subscriber here. Kofman likes to talk a lot and can't interview others because of it. He is also clearly pro-Ukraine.
But I never saw him as a cheap propagandist. Not even an expensive one.
Despite his obvious allegiance, he regularly criticised UAs actions and never went for any of the hurrah-hurr-durr delusions you had anywhere else. During the siege of Bachmut he repeatedly and clearly said that UA has nothing to gain from holding out. I remember him openly critical of the sacking of the defence minister, candidly describing the problems in UAs recruitment, never hyped up drones, avoided predictions and after that first fiasco with Trump and Vance last year he did not hold back criticism towards Zelensky and not once can I remember him painting the Russians as morons. On the contrary, in one episode he dismisses any sort of essentialism and related chauvinism, this was when refuting the idea that broad parallels can be seen between Napoleonic and today's Russia.
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