Cunigulus [they/them]

It’s pretty chonky, to the point that it might only really be stealth-ish, still considerably more streamlined than the B-2. I imagine with the astronomical cost of these things it’s not envisioned as an old-school bombs away! bomber, but would be used to carry stand-off munitions through soft spots in China’s outer rings of defense to strike deep into Chinese territory while the existing fleet of B-52’s perform that role at the extreme margins. Meanwhile China has developed their own fleet of stealth aircraft capable of strikes at extreme ranges, alongside their considerable missile force. Strategic planning for a war in the Pacific has to be absolutely insane right now. No wonder high-level US brass have been talking about a strategic retreat from the West Pacific.

It reminds me a bit of some of the symptoms Pope Francis had on a similar timeframe out from his death, of course he was also missing most of a lung and developed pneumonia before he died. The decrepitude is definitely escalating, but Trump doesn’t seem like he’s at imminent risk of death. He seems like he’s still reasonably active despite his advanced age and obesity. You can tell he’s less energetic than he was even a year ago. Hopefully he kicks the bucket before the 2-year mark so Vance can’t have a 10-year presidency. A decade of that Thielite stooge in office would be absolutely dismal.

They’d actually have to care enough. I don’t think they have it in them unless Trump tries to make them do something truly insane.

Rubio as Sec State is pretty meaningful. He already had all the LatAm imperialist functionaries orbiting around him as Senator, and he hasn’t really delivered on any of their priority projects since getting installed in the State Department. Come to think of it, it really seems like Trump is running his Foreign Policy through these NY Real Estate guys like Witkoff and Barrack first and foremost and State is off on its own doing nothing in particular. Maybe Rubio is just a hopelessly incompetent administrator, or he’s dealing with a State Department filled with Obama and Biden guys and he can do fuck all as Secretary.

It’s really hard to believe we’ll see any meaningful escalation. On the other hand, Venezuela is a prime test for the US military. They’ve got a small navy that would make good target practice (they’ve at best got some limited stand-off capability), and a decent sized Russian-made airforce.

We’ve entered the Vergeltungswaffe stage.

Sure, but does Ben Gvir think that way? I think a portion of the Israeli government is dead set on keeping this thing rolling indefinitely so that they never have to face a reckoning. That doesn’t mean they’ll be able to pull it off. Israel’s driving right off a cliff, just cautiously enough that the most rabid genocidaires alive today can convince themselves they’re being clever about it.

Not if half of those weapons get blown up by the other half. No matter how aligned Egypt is, they’re not going to hand back the Sinai unless they’re too decimated to resist effectively. This war can drag on for years and right-wing Israelis have endless territorial ambitions.

I think those are good points, and we need to be looking for evidence to support such speculations rather than cramming this conflict into a broader geopolitical framework. Caution is warranted until we can get a clear perspective on what’s actually driving the conflict. Speculation, however, can be great fun. If the US is seriously considering a war with China, or knows that China is going to move militarily to retake Taiwan, lighting as many fires as possible in China’s backyard might be something the US would do. A more developed Laos and Cambodia in close strategic and economic alignment with China also constitutes a strategic challenge for Vietnam. Both the US and Vietnam have influence in Cambodia, and the US has basically dominated Thailand as a vassal for the past 80 years. It’s certainly possible for them to push Cambodia and Thailand into war to destabilize China’s strategic position in Southeast Asia.

Is it possible for Israel to use hatred of Israel to tear apart Egypt the same way Syria was destroyed? Release a popular dissident, back a terrorist attack, force a violent overreaction that feeds further resistance. Can Israel open that pandora’s box and keep from flipping Egypt to the resistance overnight? One thing about Egypt is if things get violent there’s no where for people to go. Where would Egyptian refugees escape? South through Sudan?

This is just lib spin relying on some somewhat over-simplified liberal economic understanding of tariffs. The importer pays the tariffs in America. This provides revenue for the government offsetting to some degree the inflationary effect of government spending, of course companies selling these goods have to charge higher prices which negates the revenue. Generally the exporting country can sell its goods elsewhere and doesn’t need to take a hit to their margins to offset the higher cost of the goods their selling, but in some cases they might choose to do so to protect market share, which would in effect be the exporter paying the tariffs. Basic lib economics doesn’t really model things in enough detail to capture some of the caveats, but conventional wisdom is that yes, the economic burden of the tariffs is borne entirely by the importing country.

Generally speaking, levying a tariff without facing retaliatory tariffs is a win in a trade war, but of course with countries like the Philippines and Indonesia there is very little they import from the US that they have domestic firms competing to produce so retaliatory tariffs wouldn’t help their industry and would only hurt their economy. The only reason they would be used is as a bargaining chip to reduce tariffs levied by the US.

I’ve been talking about this since they took Mt. Hermon. It’s a massive strategic gambit and they’d be taking on a population of half a million Sunni muslims with a ‘friendly’ local population of around 600,000 Druze and Christians. There are a series of ridgelines south of Damascus anchored on one end by Mt. Hermon and at the other end by an impassable volcanic waste north of As-Suweida (Damascus international airport is just north of this area, and Israel would hold it under fire control with conventional artillery). Their biggest problem is Daraa to their south and the several large towns in the province. It’d have to be a big operation involving tens of thousands of troops and could devolve into a terrible bloodbath both for the local populations and the occupiers.

Hezbollah wouldn’t be a fan of North Lebanon being occupied by these guys at all. It’s the one thing that might unite Lebanon. I don’t think HTS has any interest in picking a fight with them anyway, and I don’t think they’d do very well if they tried. They certainly won’t have the resources to do so while maintaining order in the country in the midst of an Israeli invasion in the south, which would involve the displacement and potential genocide of potentially hundreds of thousands of Sunni muslims in Daraa as Suwayda Governorates.

They’re a great cheap solution for the kind of air force most countries have. Doing some air policing and having some kind of air force on paper, maybe bombing a few rebels. It’s smart for these countries to spend as little as they can on that type of air force. The money is better spent on ground-based air defense, ballistic missiles, and large quantities of cheap drones.

The Islamic Republic doesn’t have the legitimacy to carry out such purges. Their regime is too interested in stability and supporting the interests of its own bourgeoisie and so they’ll be unable to defend themselves, even when such a course of action has widespread public support. They don’t care enough about the Islamic Republic to commit to the enormous costs of defending their state. Somehow these guys lived through the revolution and the Iran-Iraq War and they’re unwilling to sacrifice, even when it means personal doom for many of the leadership. They’re convinced they’re walking a careful strategic line, but they’re letting history slip through their fingers. If they had been strong and decisive in this crisis they would have secured their rule for a century, but with their weakness it’s hard to see it lasting a generation.

It doesn’t even look big. What’s the point of all that space if you’re not showing it off?