These people live on manufacturing crisis after crisis in order to exploit the manic status that they generate. Why worry about how the midterms, if you can create a situation where elections cannot be held at all...?

Yes, it sounds crazy right now, but a lot of things sounded similarly crazy 10 years ago, and here we are.

Depends, I just want to point out that the US is a net exporter of Oil. They also secured oil imports from Venezuela while at the same time in 2 strokes seriously hurt Chinese oil imports.

If the goal was to hurt China / BRICS and kneecap Iran it seems on point.

It's always hard to predict how the USA will vote when "war" is happening.

Whatever your political affiliation and thoughts on the war, I hope we can all agree that it would an awful thing to base our foreign policy on the US election cycle.

Tactical win, strategic defeat, a classic for the US military, especially in the middle east, you'd imagine they learn after so many blunders

What’s baffling to me is how they’re going to attempt to spin the colossal fuck up this is from a “Best Military in the World” perspective, particularly after their unapproved relabeling of the DoD to the DoW.

The nation is one terrorist attack away from rallying behind the president. And sadly the chances of that happening have gone up significantly in recent days.

The Biden administration was actually extremely competent, handled global inflation after the pandemic and Russia's war fairly well relative to peer nations, and set US manufacturing on course to provide us with all the batteries, solar panels, and EVs to prevent oil crunches like this from causing future inflation.

I expect more competency from US Presidential administrations, and also expect more competency and indpendence from the various parts of the executive branch, which should execute their missions without micro-management from the President, and I further expect far more competence from Congress and the US Supreme Court in setting law and enforcing law. It's bad enough that we have an incompetent Presidential administration, but that damage should be limited by the independence of the other parts of the government. The blast radius should be far smaller, we shouldn't have a King.

I would bet Trump just shot himself in the foot with this war, after midterms he will be a "lame duck" pres the remainder of his administration, relying on executive orders, which his opponents will merely take to liberal judges to have them stricken down. The final straw near the end of his term may be selling pardons to any takers.

Lockheed Martin already paid for Trump's ballroom (not a joke) and so needed the guy to start a War as their investment must be repaid a hundred fold. Who cares about American voters ?

The previous one, while not great, was reasonably competent.

I have no idea how American will extricate itself. We are nowhere near a Nixonian "Peace with Honor" exit. The Trumpian manuver of declaring victory and walking away seems increasingly infeasible. I think the best case senario is a Pyrrhic victory. The worst case is probably more like Russia's exit from the Soviet-Afghan war.

Curious timing given the latest from the Epstein files.

But where are the Epstein Trump documents?

Someone really hopes you forgot about them...

This is very much a 'you break it, you buy it' situation. The US should be running destroyer screens for convoys a la WW2 today, yet AFAIK the US fleet is sitting hundreds of miles out of the Persian Gulf, within bombing range, outside of easy strike range.

I'm actually somewhat surprised Iran is openly telling us they are using underwater drones for this. That piece of technological advance has gone mostly under the radar (!) so far.

They forgot to add "check all angles (including the OBVIOUS ones!)" in the AI prompt.

I see what you did there

Iran has two clear win conditions in this war: cause enough pain that the US withdraws (unlikely given the current admin), or wait until US midterms and hope the Dems secure a victory and use the war powers resolution to end the war.

The more FUD they can generate around transport in the strait of Hermuz the better for them.

Maybe they have this capability and maybe they don’t, but they are clearly able to hit these tankers with something. Ukraine has been using these drones so it’s entirely possible Iran has this tech too.

It might have been a low-observable watercraft like the Sea Baby: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Baby

A true UUV attack is probably outside Iran's wheelhouse, but cutting-down an attack speedboat to the waterline seems very realistic.

>why would they boast about it and invite attacks upon that weapon and its deployment systems?

To complicate adversary targeting priorities. If you have to shift your pre-planned bombing sorties away from, say, local Basij HQ buildings, it takes pressure off of the Iranian government. Assigning aircraft to find/fix/target/track/engage "underwater drone launch points" is probably like searching for a needle in a haystack given the size of Iran's coastline.

"If Iran has missiles why would they boast about it and invite attacks upon that weapon and its deployment systems?"

See how that doesn't make any sense?

These particular ships technically were not attempting to pass through the strait, they were anchored in Iraqi territorial waters. The backlog will extend even further now that it can be considered risky to be anywhere near the strait.

some of them were not in the straights just near.

Not so much 'terrify' as a hint to the insurance adjusters who set prices and therefore control the flow.

'Nope'

They'll signal something else later and things will open up.

Why? Aren't drones just as bad as guided missiles?

A done attack is utterly predictable though? Ukraine and Russia have been doing drone attacks on each other by air, sea and on land for years now. To great effect. It should be expected, not surprising at all.

It's because technology doesn't change the fundamentals of global geopolitics. Which is that nearly all of history can be explained as a struggle to control basic resources such as arable land, oil, minerals, etc. Everything you're seeing today is because those resources are becoming either increasingly scarce, or increasingly valuable.

Technology is at the mercy of our social and financial systems, it rarely leads social advancement. As with other tools, it can be used in many ways

In surveying my friends in Silicon Valley, it seems that most VCs/techies know that: 1. This administration is likely leading us into long term wars and social instability 2. American Dynamism and Defense Tech (or more politely bundled into "DeepTech") are war profiteering, benefiting from greater instability

Speaking / acting out against the American military complex and Big Tech/VC's role in this carries 3 big risks: 1. Not being invited to parties ("too much negative energy, we want to be surrounded by positivity" or "don't talk politics") 2. Censorship and reduced following across most major social media platforms 3. Being economically left out as the world bifurcates into a K-shape economy

As a result, most of my community (generally peace-loving, music-loving humans) seem to be either taking a position of "the world has always been at war and will always be at war, I'm just a realist" or "I'm just going to focus on my locust of control and my personal wellbeing" or "if it's gonna happen anyways, I might as well make money off of it". There is a strong contingent of the resistance as well (still fighting for climate, social justice, peace) but much higher rates of depression and social isolation in this group

So it does not seem to be a problem that can be solved by more information and more technology (though k-12 and higher education assuredly is worth investing in), but perhaps by less nihilism and a stronger social/moral fabric

A big reason I am considering starting a company again is that we need more flags of institutions that carry large weight/reputation and stand for a set of values that is different than the current (and historical) status quo. I expect most of my community would be thrilled to align with those flags if those flags where held up tall and broke through the noise

Which is to say, if you're considering setting up one of those flags, please please do. The world doesn't have to be this way.

Because it is much easier to do more damage (disinformation, propaganda etc) with today's technology than ever before. Radio could do more damage than newspapers, TV could do more damage than radio, internet can do way more damage than TV...

Someone with a 500$ laptop, internet connection and a handful of social media accounts can do a level of damage and cause pain that would be impossible 3-4 decades ago.

Technology might advance, but people are still people. Greed, stupidity, ego, jingoism...these don't change no matter how much tech advances

People are people. Adding tech doesn't change the people very much.

>Why did we have to go through all this pain. Was that really necessary?

Because the United States government is so grossly dysfunctional that a blatant real world re-enactment of Wag the Dog[1] has gone off without a hitch. "Without a hitch" in the "distract from the President's rape of a child" sense of the original film, of course.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog

This is a tale as old as humanity itself. Power-hungry people will always push lies to foster their version of events. This always causes pain and destruction.

There are a surplus of tankers, that's not the problem.

The problem is they are halted, which causes price spikes.

$120/barrel Oil will screw up the whole world.

Roughly 3 years. That being said, there’s thousands of carriers globally and they have maybe a 25 year lifespan, so a couple of ships becoming inoperable is largely negligible.

https://public.axsmarine.com/blog/build-time-for-new-vessels...

Oh yeah, The Oil crisis in the 1970's effects were felt until the mid 80's this is just starting and it isn't going to go away anytime soon.

Restarting the oil wheels that are closed now will take years already.

They don't even need that many mines or bombs to start with, presence of wreckage on the shipping lanes that aren't more that 75m deep would already put all shipping at risk.

Also, the amount of oil spilling into such a small area can't be good for the environment, can't be good for local marine life (if there is any), etc....

The two which got hit are pretty small and old ones. They were probably used to test the water after the CEO of the Greek one said they want to try to run it. If Russia didn't suck the graveyards dry for use in their shadowfleet there should be some skeletons around that could be refurbished pretty fast.

It seems like a huge self own but he benefits from an extremely loyal fan base and a militaristic culture that loves rallying around the flag.

Does he even care if his actions hurt the country or global stability at all, so long as his supporters remain unwavering? It seems like he doesn't, so here we are.

There is no plausible stimulus that he might actually care to respond to.

The stepping was done years ago when Epstein got kompromat on him. That's why he ordered this war for no apparent reason. His life is over if he doesn't, his life lasts a few more years if the blackmail is withheld, at the cost of innocent lives.

You forgot to put a /s at the end.

A lot of the world tried to shift to renewables during the ~10-year-long 1970s embargo. They went straight back to sweet old oil afterwards. This isn't gonna last nearly as long. Don't get me wrong, I hope and pray that renewables get a boost out of this, but I don't think it's gonna happen.

Unless you are sending ground troops that's not happening.

Or we stop attacking sovereign countries simply because our allies (why are Israel our allies?) want to start wars.

Does this mean that Greece will join the US/Israeli side in this increasingly global conflict?

Attacked nation fights back. The comments are in uproar.

In the article:

> IRAN has claimed responsibility for an attack on two oil tankers anchored in Iraqi territorial waters, as conflicts in the region continue to escalate and strikes on commercial shipping spread beyond the Strait of Hormuz.

They were docked. And who gets to say a waterway is open or closed?

What does "closed" mean in this context?

trespass*

More specifically a few oil companies and their shareholders. Everyone else suffers. Ie privatizing profits and socializing costs.

Is this how it really works? With demand outstripping supply, prices rise across the globe. Prices at gas stations go up as well. The only ones earning a „LOT“ of money are Big Oil shareholders?

Either it's purely for monetary gain and it's dumb.

Or it's for "Da NuKeS ThEy AbOuT To GeT" it's even dumb because they killed the only dude who was against Iran getting nukes. [0]

Or he got tricked by bibi &co into yet another middle east war I don't have words to describe how dumb it is.

[0] Iranian intelligence minister Esmaeil Khatib said that the country may nevertheless change their stance if "pushed in that direction" like a "cornered cat". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against...

Well and Russia. Trump essentially crippled the impact of 4 years of sanctions against Russia with these new oil prices he created.

That is hilarious cope. The US benefits far far relatively more when the global economy is running smoothly than when able to sell oil higher, like some shithole petrostate. Appropriate I suppose.

Unsure if this is sarcasm or not.

Plus gas is largely immune to sales tax and we don't really tax corporations so this will largely lead to no revenue for the US and instead just record profits for Exxon.