Dean
Flairless
Variously accused of being a post-modernist fascist neo-conservative neo-liberal conservative classical liberal Nazi Zionist imperialist hypernationalist warmongering isolationist Jewish-Polish-Slavic-Anglo race-traitor masculine-feminine bitch-man. No one has yet guessed multiple people. Add to our list of pejoratives today!
User ID: 430
Sure. Bannon is a 'big deal.' But it's also clear he's not as big a deal as he wants to be, wishes he could be, or compares himself to.
Bannon is fundamentally trying to reverse one of his worst mistakes of his political career, which was his break with Donald Trump after being chief strategist the first time. Trump has his peculiarities, and it's not uncommon for him to welcome in former foes, but one of his apparent dividing lines is post-separation loyalty. He can respect a parting of ways, but if the person then wants to write a tell-all / slam piece, that's an act of betrayal in a way that simply parting isn't. Bannon did the slam piece tell-all, thinking Trump was done without him. Bannon went from being 'the man behind the curtain' to outside the wire, and has spent a good part of the last few years trying to get back into Trump's good graces to the position he once had.
The envy dynamic is emblematic of his recent-ish feuding with Musk. Musk has the power that Bannon wishes he was, even though has never been the sort of 'big deal' that Bannon has spent a lifetime trying to cultivate. Musk has agenda-setting power, can come in and shut down entire government agencies in weeks, and has an influence that Bannon lacked even when he was on the 'inside.' In the first major inter-right dispute of the administration, Trump pretty clearly sided with Musk over the Bannon-esque faction.
None of this means Bannon has nothing. Bannon even has power that Musk does not. Musk is very much an ideological outsider in the right circles.
But when it comes to setting government policy- and especially Trump administration policy- that's nowhere near enough. Bannon is out, when he really wants to be back in, and he's trying so hard he's being a try-hard in echoing his foil's own recent fake-scandal.
Dean
Flairless
14hr ago
So I think there might be something to the USAID cuts being able to kneecap advocacy.
I would just make a point that even modest cuts can paralyze many sorts of organizations.
A 10% cut in resources isn't just 'you can do 10% less.' While the deadwood theory of waste is that if you cut off the waste (and some small part of the good) the rest of the body can grow / work better, in a lot of contexts a 10% reduction in the ability of healthy parts of a system to operate creates complications for other, also, healthy parts. Due to how responsibility loads tend to flow (you hyper-specialize roles to certain people), this can create administrative/logistical chokepoints with non-linear effects.
To give a vague example, going from, say, 2 officials to 1 on Job X does not mean the 1 takes twice as long to do the same amount of work- it can mean 2.5x as long, since the burden-sharing between two allowed better efficiencies / redundancy / surge capacity / so on unavailable to the 1. Particularly when 'flat' requirements that apply to a administrative unit (at least 1 person from each directorate is represented at a meeting' are constant, which in turn takes up a larger % of the single person's man-hours.
Eventually the system may rebalance and be better, but depending on the compliance requirements for the remainder, you can sometimes cripple organizations by making them just barely able to sustain themselves, with little ability for organized efforts. Like a skeleton without muscle that was lost in the name of cutting fat, it can exist, but not necessarily move.
Dean
Flairless
15hr ago
That was the correct call. It will be disruptive / stressful to have to search for another job so soon before you even started the last, but if you'd submitted to this you would have been preyed upon worse.
Best of luck getting your feet back from under you, and it will be easier in the future to speak for yourself (or others) having done this once already.
A competent "They" would have thrown the full power of the state against Trump the second he lost power the first time. Either that or used media manipulation to turn the page on him. In the end, they lacked the resolve to do either. They waited until it was clear he wasn't going away on his own, then launched a last minute, poorly orchestrated series of legal assaults that did little more than boost his popularity.
You can argue that 'they' tried and failed, but not that they waited until the last minute.
The Mar-a-Lago raid, which was on August 22, was among the start of the legal cases against Trump, timed in part with the New York business fraud case where Trump was sued by the NY AG in September 22. However, the Fulton County legal case was launched in February 21, and the prosecutor team was coordinating with the White House by at least May 22' when Nathan Wade went to DC for a conference with the White House counsel, which was a period where the Democratic-aligned cases were implicitly being coordinated. The '22 legal offensive, in turn, was not only timed for the summer at a time that would create maximum pressure on the Trump wing of the party in the mid-terms, but staggered / set in such a way that the 2023 indictment stacking set the initial stage of the Republican primary season (where it might have been used by anti-Trump factions against him), and with the potential convictions for the '24 election (where the 'Trump is a felon' line would be used as planned).
The legal cases, in turn, were the supporting strategy after the Democrat's initial main effort, which was a coordinated effort to try and help the Never Trump wing of the Republican party, represented/led by Liz Cheney, retake control of the Republican Party via the medium of the January 6 hearings. This was in play in 2021, not only with the second Trump impeachment, but also by July 2021, when House Speaker Nancey Pelosi pulled rank and refused to let the Republican House Minority Leader seat his Kevin McCarthy seat his selection of Republican members, while keeping seating- and prime (and favorable) media coverage of the anti-trump remainders like Liz Cheney, who was used to promote the hearings bi-partisan and in turn received glowing coverage from the Democratic party-media alliance in an attempt to boost her and her faction in the inter-Republican leadership struggle that was building after Trump's loss. During this period, the Democratic Party was going all-in on the January 6 investigations and prosecutions as the way to discredit and delist Trump.
The issue for this 'Plan A' was that it failed on two fronts. First, Liz Cheney lost the Republican leadership struggle, decisively, and ended up getting the Never Trump wing of the party more or less branded as controlled opposition. Second, the January 6 hearings were timed to coincide with summer 22', and thus shaping the lead-in for the fall mid-term elections, but did not actually get the political impact the democrats were hoping for.
So, in timeline review-
2021 - Initial Reaction year Jan 6 line of effort: Initial shock reaction / reconsolidate control of government / start building the narrative Legal line of effort: Second Trump Impeachment, begin legal case building on both Jan 6 and non-Jan 6 lines. Republican party line of effort: Start never-Trump alliance with dissident faction of Republican party
2022 - Mid-Term year Jan 6 line of effort: Summer hearing fiesta, intended to establish dominant narrative for mid-terms and history Legal line of effort: Coordinate, begin initial suites, summer Mar-a-Lago raid kickoff Republican party line of effort: Attempt to leverage never-Trump splits, Trump association for mid-term advantage
2023 - Republican Primary year Jan 6 line of effort: Hearings largely concluding with Republicans retaking House, drawing down hearings Legal line of effort: Stacking indictments by summer, setting stage for '24 convictions Republican party line of effort: Attempt (but fail) to support Nikki Haley in Republican primary
2024 - Election year Jan 6 line of effort: Line of effort broadly expended; voters not responding well to it Legal line of Effort: Secure New York conviction, attempt ballot bans off of Insurrection theory Republican party line of effort: General election strategy
The lines of effort might have failed, but this was because they had largely burned out by 2024, rather than because they started at the last minute.
Dean
Flairless
17hr ago
The thought occurred to me as well. Between 'no one else has our data!' and 'we didn't realize someone else might have our data,' I tend to default to the later.
Let it never be said Bannon wasn't above cribbing from those he loathes, to piss off those he also loathes, to stay relevant in a media cycle.
For a guy who tries so hard to be a political kingmaker, though, he seems pretty far on the outs of the Trump Administration, despite his attempts to be let back in.
Are you familiar with the details of Mearsheimer's position?
Yes.
I am, in fact, familiar with several years of Mearsheimer's positions, having followed him for around two decades at this point, read into his earlier career, and been tracking his positions on the Russia-Urkaine issue since well before the current war, where his profile raised more for propaganda reasons than on the accuracy of his forecasts. My familarity not only with the details of Mearsheimer's positions, but how he goes about justifying them, is why I generally regard him as ranging from unexceptional to inept outside of his specific area of expertise- which is geopolitical theory, independent of actors. As soon as the man gets into geopolitics from an analytic, diplomatic, policy, or even political level, his limits show, particularly his lack of subject matter knowledge on issues he opines on, or his ability to acknowledge the validity of arguments that contradict his own.
Rather than a foreign policy expert who should be considered a wise man and whose views should be heeded by all, Mearsheimer has a history of some particularly bone-headed policy proposals, which variously entailed items that would provoke Russia far more than the post-cold war NATO expansion (such as the proposals for nuclear proliferation to germany and Ukraine), presumed American hyperagency to force and affirm deals (such as the proposals to trade influence in Europe for a combined Europe+Russia military alliance against China for Russia to fight), and his later-career tendency to critique the application of his own models for policies he didn't like while simultaneously calling for greater deference to his model despite it's inability to model relevant actors.
Mearsheimer is a classical 'black box' realist, who models states as unitary actors (the black box whose inner workings are unknown / irrelevant) who act according to his realist principles, as opposed to overlapping coalitions of groups which frequently don't (and thus make Mearsheimer's claim to analytic relevance- the accurate modeling of states- irrelevant). When Mearsheimer tries to build a model to justify the box, he tends to make gross oversimplifications that reveal the limits of his inputs. Among them is a not-particularly curious tendency to credulously take at face value things government and politician statements that support his argument and ignore / dismiss the same level of statements that do not, sometimes even from the same politician.
Yes, I agree Russia sent their troops into Ukraine... but arguing that this means they're solely responsible is like saying that a bullied child who finally snaps and punches their bully in the teeth started a fight.
This framing presupposes that Russia is the bully, when both the Russian position and Mearsheimer's thematic echoe is that they have been the bullied child variously forced and ignored into lashing out for not being protected from the (western) bully.
This framing is often falsely claimed- both in geopolitics and in schoolyards- to offset the responsibility on the ambiguous force that 'snapped' the child, and is why the Russian framings of the war was that it was an attack against the Anglo-Americans and why the crux of Mearsheimer's thesis is to shift the blame to the western coalition rather than permit events be a consequence of Russia's own actions and mistakes.
That said, I won't litigate it here - Mearsheimer himself actually wrote a much stronger version of the argument which I will just link https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/who-caused-the-ukraine-war
Why so down on yourself? If Mearsheimer tried to make a hobby of posting on the Motte, he'd get eaten alive.
Mearsheimer is already engaging in various forms of confirmation bias and other fallacious tehniques as early as his first major line of argument, which itself exists as a way to retroactively defend/justify Mearsheimer's own (disproven) positions before and early in the war, such as the Russians wouldn't invade / wouldn't try to take territory / wouldn't try to take over all of Ukraine.
Mearsheimer does this in multiple ways as early as the very first main line of argument, from gerrymandering the criteria of acceptable evidence ('anything Putin wrote or said', which disqualifies things Putin directed or approved of written or said that would proxy Putin's views'), bounding the views of those he will consider (proponents of the 'conventional wisdom'- as opposed to unconvention wisdom, or just wisdom not needing the caveat), and cherrypicking the evidence he chooses to engage or acknowledge as 'evidence' (such as focusing on Putin's dismissal of Ukraine as a non-state as opposed to the claims of the Ukrainians as Russians... and then disproving the former with the quote of the Soviet Union, which itself does not disprove any point on conquest).
Mearsheimer's tendency to simply reject evidence and then claim there was no evidence at all or that the evidence only supports his own conclusion carries forward.
In his second rebuttal, for example, Mearsheimer sets up a position-
SECOND, there is no evidence that Putin was preparing a puppet government for Ukraine, cultivating pro-Russian leaders in Kyiv, or pursuing any political measures that would make it possible to occupy the entire country and eventually integrate it into Russia.
And rebuts-
Those facts fly in the face of the claim that Putin was interested in erasing Ukraine from the map.
-when there are three basic competence issues in this argument structure.
First, Mearsheimer attempts to smuggle in a conclusion in the claim he will rebut. The conclusion is 'there is no evidence that Putin was preparing a puppet government,' which is not defended at all in the rebutal.
But there is! It might not be evidence that Mearsheimer or many others were aware of at the time (which is different from 'no evidence'), and it might not be evidence Mearsheimer cares to acknowledge, but there were multiple data points that serve as grounding for the theory of a puppet government approach to further incorporation. These include, among others, the Russian attempt to invade Kyiv in the first place, the Russian riot police who memorably tried to storm Kyiv after driving past the Russian front lines because that's what the plan had them to do, the Russians in the initial invasion bringing dress uniforms for anticipated ceremonies in Kyiv, the Russian automated-release propaganda that released about a week into the invasion claiming and characterizing victory, and so on. These are all compatible with the forecasts of Russia attempting the proxy-imposition strategy as a means to an end.
These elements DO exist, and they exist regardless of what Mearsheimer or others knew (or admit to knowing) beforehand, let alone dynamics that were very much observable not just months in advance (Belarus buildup, the Nazi regime needing to be replaced narrative line), but years (the nature of the Nova-Russia uprising after Crimea, the efforts to formalize ever-tightening ties with Belrus in the federal-state structure, etc.). What Mearsheimer does is attempt to discredit both clauses (proxy state and purpose of the proxy state) by tying them together and insisting there is no evidence for the later (the purpose) by time-bounding ('preparing'- as in apparent in advance) and ignoring elements that support the thesis (such as Putin's proxy-support for factions for whom territorial incorporation into Russia is an explicit goal).
But Mearsheimer's tactic- the second error here that is actually common to many of his arguments- is to claim an absence of evidence that he might have to address. Often he does this by gate-keeping criteria such as things he will present as reputable ('serious people') or timely ('before the invasion'). But not only does he not make even a caveat to credibility here, he doesn't even go into things that were available beforehand, such as the size of the Russian force (which is consistent with a 'prop up a puppet government' strategy but which Mearsheimer- inaccurately- insisted was proof against an invasion intent from the start), or the Russian-fronted corruption for local leaders to flip to Moscow (as some did), or the various pre-war Russian propaganda narratives (and the expectation to be greeted as liberators).
But the third fundamental error is that Mearsheimer's response to his own setup not even a rebuttal- or even a defense against the claim. The claim, after all, is that the proxy is 'make it possible to occupy the entire country' is an interim step for 'integrate into Russia.' Mearsheimer's sole objection is that this is at odds with erasing Ukraine from the map- even though 'erasing from the map' is consistent with what many people would consider integration of the entire country of Ukraine into Russia to mean. Mearsheimer is basically pointing at a mid-point in a process to claim that the theory that it is a process is false.
It's a terrible argument structure that is made worse that it's best defense is front-loading accuracy issues on the front end that- if engaged in order- obfuscate his structural issue.
Techniques and trip-ups like this continue unabated.
According to Mearsheimer, Putin's pre-war diplomatic maneuvers were proof he was trying to avoid war, as opposed to the very classical diplomatic trick of using the refusal to engage with unreasonable demands as a measure to reduce the cost of a pre-planned war, while Western (and American) maneuvers like offering guarantees that Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO for the foreseeable future were a 'refusal to negotiate.' Putin's withdrawal from Kyiv was a good-will gesture, rather than the failure of the axis of advance that couldn't defend its flanks due to the general forces shortage. 'Hardly anyone in the West argued that Putin had imperial ambitions from the time he took the reins of power in 2000 until the Ukraine crisis started on 22 February 2014...' ignoring the non-trivial amount of people who did (and were mocked for it by people including Mearsheimer), while 'a substantial number of influential and highly regarded individuals in the West recognized before the war...' aligned with Mearsheimer's favored position (with no equivalent screening or consistency for the 'hardly anyone' criteria). Objectivity and subjectivity trade places at argument need: Russia's view of an existential risk is an objective reality to be accommodated, how such an existential risk is supposed to be existential to a nuclear power is a trifling matter, let alone had the nuclear power not repeatedly attacked and invaded.
The usual Mearsheimer tics aside, I particularly enjoyed this one as representative-
All the available evidence indicates that the Russia was negotiating seriously and was not interested in absorbing Ukrainian territory, save for Crimea, which they had annexed in 2014, and possibly the Donbass.
Not only is there no mention of what the terms offered in the 'negotiating seriously' were- such as the demilitarization of the Ukrainian military to fewer tanks than they would lose in the next year of the war, and thus render them unable to credibly resist a third Russian invasion- a balance of power with implications that a nominal offensive realist practitioner would pay considerable attention to, but which Mearsheimer himself has never cared to-
-but not even Mearsheimer can defend the claim of 'not interested in absorbing Ukrainian territory' with a straight face, and had to include the caveat that include a re-framing of 'except where they were invading and not being forced to withdraw' in the same sentence.
And this is without discussing the political relevance of the Bucha massacre, and how the public awareness of a visible-from-orbit Russian war crime in territories the Russians believed they would not be driven from would not only shape the decision maker perceptions against a Russian deal (the onus of which is instead pushed to western political elites), but the domestic political capabilities of the Ukrainian government. I.e., the sort of black box consideration that realists like Mearsheimer struggle to grapple with, and which Mearsheimer will retreat to abstractions rather than actually deal with.
Rather than being well-argued, Mearsheimer's article is a sophist's grab-bag of framing techniques to try and defend Mearsheimer's early-war and pre-war positions, which he repeatedly got wrong compared to people and predictions he dismissed at the time and is still trying to dismiss as irrelevant now, which has the not-exactly-selfless side effect of maybe defending his reputation and credibility from those who might remember. It is structurally set up to insist that no one could have reasonably known better beforehand, things that happened afterwards don't count against his previous assessments, and that since he was the soundest thinker at the time as evidenced by his thorough referencing and framing of past things that agreed with him, he mains the most reasonable expert and people should defer to (and consider paying for that substack subscription for) his geopolitical expertise.
The alternative to a Russian victory would be a nuclear war that destroys advanced civilization.
Motte, bailey.
Russia has lost wars before. Russia has lost wars since being a nuclear power. Russia has even lost wars in its post-colonial space after the fall of the Soviet Union while being a nuclear power. By its own standards of what victory were at the start of the war with its pre-emptive victory propaganda, even a current ceasefire with the capitulation of all the uncontrolled provincial territory that Russia has 'annexed' would be an alternative to victory.
There are certainly reasons to oppose opposing Russia's war in Ukraine, but the alternative being 'nuclear war that destroys advanced civilization' is not a sound one, particularly for anyone who puts any particular weight on russian strategic thinking (which makes no such premise) or realist paradigms (in which case over-caution to such nuclear threat increases rather than decreases the threat of nuclear armegeddon by incentivizing nuclear bluffing until it is called).
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
How seriously should we take this reproach?
Not very. Or at least, not as seriously as presented in the coverage of the reproach that wants you to take it very, very, very, very seriously for differing reasons of common propaganda interest.
Is it just another tactic to extract concessions from Ukraine before sitting down with them to negotiate a potential deal?
As much as it is to butter up the Russians to divert blame for any deal failures, though the actual target of concessions is far more likely to be the Europeans (who actually have concessions to give to the US).
People further down have noted that the language has been taken out of the context of Trump's point, and so that's not worth belaboring. The first Trump-Putin engagement was always going to be a propaganda fest, and as usual Trump is the gift that keeps on giving.
What's less noted below is that the talks earlier this week were not, in fact, a substantive negotiation. They were talking about having talks. It is a format for people raising what they want to have in talks. There's the reason the only significant output of the summit for the end of the Ukraine war- aside from the propaganda wave we are all riding- is... working groups. The sort of format that can go for not just months, but years, and fail.
Which, if- hypothetically and not at all based on common failure modes of things that go to committee especially if one party has demands of multiple different actors not party to the working groups- they don't work out, won't be something that will be taken to the Ukraine-skeptic American public as 'these had no chance to work because the American president was to blame from the start.' Who is to blame will vary on the context and the propaganda of the hour- the typical internal faction splits that alternatively blame the other or the russians- but it is less likely to be on Trump within the Republican political context, which is the one that matters for the next two years. Trump, after all, said all those nice things about Putin / mean things about Ukraine, and if even he thinks it's a bad deal...
...well, when the current peace movement, such as it is, hinges on the sustained support of Donald Trump, never a fickle man, and who certainly would in no way ever be so crass as to be open to a geopolitical bribe between two broader coalition parties...
Dean
Flairless
1d ago
It is, however, a perfect example of how (not) to engage in media coverage over him.
Dean
Flairless
3d ago
I generally agree with you. I deleted the above post because I realized that you were characterizing a view rather than advancing a claim, which upon realizing my mistake made my skepticism a non-helpful response that might have come off more aggressive than intended.
I have my doubts on the characterization of Deep Seek, since to me its corporate history reads less like a moonshot and more like a planned / choreographed emergence, but we agree on the general point that the change is people suddenly noticing pre-existing efforts.
It's cultural empowerment power fantasy, in the same way that a lot of anime is Peter Pan Syndrome, or how there's a significant undercurrent of classic Marvel in which X-Men is schoolage nerd oppression fantasies (we go to school, we're hated for what we are, but we're actually the super cool and powerful -n-e-r-d-s- mutants!).
Recognize that in the China cultural context, and thus a lot of the Wuxia/Xianxia, those 'heavenly' and 'god' allusions aren't the sort of Christian heaven or greco-roman gods where the gods are an anthromorophization of a concept (greek gods). It is often a literal government bureaucracy with the gods as much assigned to certain roles as 'naturally' holding them, and it's very hierarchical, and the gods have great power over mortals who are accountable to them, even though they are of course not accountable to the mortals in turn. And when you go that that 'next realm,' it is... yet another hierarchy of bureaucrats, each more powerful than the last realm, with more power, wealth, and beauty.
Which is to say- it is a cultural metaphor for Chinese government, and the strata upon strata of hierarchical positions of people with power over you.
And it's not referring to a specific government either. The mythological metaphor well, well predates the Chinese Communist Party, so it's not anti-CCP (unless it's trying to hard), and so it's a form of government commentary for which there's a bit of a cultural blindspot. After all, no one really believes the Chinese government is made of super-human magical power cases who are often arrogant, insufferable, flaunting their power (and mistresses), and deserving a punch in the face, each just a strata below the next level of even more powerful, more arrogant, and more beautiful mistresses...
So when Protagonist rises from nothing to soaring the heavens realms above where they started, punching arrogant pricks in the process and getting the babes that come with such power level, it's a pretty conventional metaphor for beating the petty-bureaucrats and the less petty-but-still-infuriating bureaucrats of the governmental hierarchy, which starts from local officials to provincial to party to national and so on. It's a 'rise to the top of your society' metaphor in the same way that the American anime sphere saw Naruto and quickly characterized it as 'Kid wants to grow up and be Ninja President.' And like Naruto, which was also at heart a mix of 'lonely kid wants to be popular with schoolmates' and 'dismissed loser finds his special skill and humiliates arrogant geniuses,' there's an element of not just rising in the system, but punishing the jerks who inhabit it.
The thrill- beyond the action and the babes- is beating the system that the reader intuitively understands, and the sort of pricks they've come to hate.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
But I assume either we've cut Germany a sweetheart deal (in which case I imagine that will be revisited soon!) or US LNG is cheaper than LNG from most other countries (otherwise Germany wouldn't buy US LNG).
Kind of both / neither.
There are two main approaches to buying massive amounts of energy fuel (such as LNG) off the market: you either do spot-market purchases (paying what the market is charging at the moment), or you do fixed-price contracts. Fixed price contracts are often a bit higher than market price forecast at the time of purchase (or else there'd not be reason to sell it), BUT it protects you from price fluctuations if the market suddenly spikes (like if the Russian natural gas suddenly goes off the market and the Europeans with big checks start looking for less available supply).
When the gas crisis hit, Germany's limiting factor wasn't necessarily the gas on the market (though it was bad), but rather import capacity / throughput. This is why floating LNG terminals were brought in- they were faster than land-based- infrastructure.
While these were being arranged, the Europeans went to the American markets. In 2022/2023, the Biden Administration relaxed some regulatory controls to allow LNG exports to the Europeans. However, because the US government doesn't actually control the LNG companies, those were treated ass commercial transactions, and so the Europeans various bought off the spot market or made contract purchases. This was a basis of the later 2022/2023 European media stories / war propaganda narratives about how the US was trying to price-gouge Europe like a bad ally (because it wasn't offering discounts).
In 2024, this reversed for not-at-all electoral politics reasons. In January 2024, the Biden administration announced a pause in LNG exports in order to do an environmental / economic impact study. During this period, that coincidentally prevented more contracts to Europe or Asia, the gas was thus kept in US markets, reducing energy prices. It mysteriously also found that if you sell gas for more at global-market rates, then it raises the gas-energy prices for Americans who have to compete. This was realized in December, which is to after the election.
Which- to return to PB's point- is kind of why the 'US gas as a leverage tool' doesn't quite work like that. The Germans are back on the global market, so you can't exactly 'raise' their prices without either (a) shaping the entire global market, or (b) destroying their important infrastructure. Which- despite some conspiracies- the US hasn't been in the habit of doing. And similarly, the US can't get leverage by giving the gas away for cheap because (a) it isn't the government's gas, and (b) that comes with electoral consequences. Russia never cared, because Russia's been an oligarchy for decades, but it's not the sort of policy to survive a transition to 'drill baby drill.'
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
I had a discussion last year with a rather elderly person who'd spent most of their career in the middle east, and one of the points that stuck out to me was the point made about how not regionally explosive the Gaza War had been amongst the Arabs, or even the Palestinians. Not only was there not a pan-Arab coalition, there wasn't even a pan-Palestinian intifada, despite the efforts of some.
There was debate about whether that was more due to a change of political Islam or the death of pan-arabism in the middle east, but I loosely recall an opinion poll survey from the early 2010s (right before / as ISIS was getting started) that showed how support for suicide bombing had dropped over time, corresponding loosely for when religious suicide bombings shifted from being a 'resistance against the outsider' to 'domestic civil war tactic' in Iraq.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
Why would America want to keep Germany down? We don't expect another reich anytime soon.
It's not an American expression.
When NATO was formed, a British 'person of influence' (Lord Ismay, the first Secretary-General of NATO) summarized the purpose of the Alliance as 'to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.' Which is to say- to the Russians were only a middling reason, compared to the benefits of keeping the Americans involved as a way to mitigate of the issues of the European balance-of-power struggles (historically between France and others) and mitigate the Germans (whose mass destabilizes the European balance of power often unintentionally).
Due to its disproportionate size and position, the German Empire- even in its modern iteration as German- is disproportionately in the European strategic context. Just in terms of economics, the German economic unit starts to warp and shape its peripherary around itself (see how German media industries dominated much of the post-Soviet Warsaw Pact, including Poland) and militarily. Just on the basis of scale, if/when/whenever Germann militarizes, the resulting mass gives the German state disproportionate ability to influence its neighbors, and starts to form coalition that form to resist/teardown Germany... i.e., the European theaters of both world wars, among others.
Note that the German dynamic doesn't even require Germany to be 'a reich' or any equivalent thing. Any military alliance that can coopt Germany starts to shape the surrounding context as a coalition buildup for another major war- and that includes both OG-NATO (Warsaw Pact) and the Soviet Union (who- empowered in no small part via East Germany- led to NATO).
In the original formatting, among the narratives that convinced the Americans to join into NATO in the first place was a sense of inevitability of a European dissolution and another war if Germany was ever a dominant power in the European continent. America- as an offshort power greater than Germany- prevents the European power politics from balancing around- and against- Germany, which in turn prevents the need for buildup (in case Germany changes its mind) or the German counter-buildup (for fear of its neighbors).
In this sense, Germany down is about preconditions. As long as Germany is not 'up,' it can't lead to the conditions that led to the anti-german coalitions and the industrial era wars in Europe. As long as the Americans are the pre-eminent military power in Europe, Germany will be 'down.'
However, the American rational also has another, less spoken, point. Call it a realistic geopolitical priority.
It also included the point that the American has no fears of Europe so long as the European peninsula is not united under a polity hostile to the United States. Only a united European continent could conceivably muster the resources / naval capacity / means to credibly threaten a bridgehead into North America (likely using Iceland and Greenland as north atlantic staging grounds).
In the current context German reich-dom seems unfathomable because Germany and France are aligned and who would bound against them?
...except that Germany was quite happy to partner with the Russians not even a decade ago despite the security concerns of their eastern neighbors, and the German-French cordiality is generally dependent on France feeling it gets its way as often as not in a European Union framework it views itself as leading but which Britain no longer exists within to help counter-balance Germany, and all of this still occurs in a system where Germany is still a military dwarf and the US is uninvolved.
...and if the US and European alliance breaks, then Europe could conceivably be united under a single European polity (the EU), led by people who could adopt an anti-American posture (such as justifying EU centralization on grounds that the Americans are the real security threat), which could second conditions.
...at which point- on the theory of preventing preconditions- you start introducing an interest for the Americans to start encouraging the fragmentation of Europe- just so there isn't that sort of geopolitical threat vector.
Which would mean breaking the grip of the European Union...
...which the Germans, as a central figure / beneficiary for, would try to resist and enforce the EU as it benefits from...
...which could lead to a different sort of anti-German coalition, even if it would nominally be under anti-EU terms, as there are a number of states that are currently comfortable-enough with the EU which would very much not be if the EU started militarily suppressing it's dissidents and trying to enforce European sovereignity/suzerainty.
Another 'civil war' in Europe between the Germans and others in the European sphere is far from unthinkable. Unlikely in the near term, certainly, but less and less unlikely the further the rearmament goes and the more the Americans disengage.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
NeZha2 is China's first big blockbuster. It's being heralded as a 'Deepseek moment' for Chinese cinema
By who? What is this supposed to mean?
With a few weeks of space between the initial marketing hype and observation, and Deepseek seems to be most notable for (a) claiming to have taken less money to develop (which is unclear given the nature of China subsidies), (b) being built off of other tech (which helps explain (a), and (c) being relatively cheap (which is partially explained by (a).
If someone feels it's inspired, okay- the vibe war for propaganda is what it is and anyone in a different set of contraints is liable to feel it's novel rather than just different- and it's not like it's impossible for good cinema to come out of a state censorship apparatus. But is 'Deepseek for cinema' supposed to imply 'Chinese government constraints, but cheaper'?
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
Sure.
And just to add to it- when I first read through Lord of the Rings many years ago, I never felt anger/contempt that the old alliance of history might not be honored. It was sad, sure, and unfortunate in the context, but also understandable- the spirit of the alliance had died long before the crisis came. The fact that the allies came was uplifting, but it was all the more uplifting because it was not an expectation/obligation- it was people who chose rather than were obligated to. Were it people who grudgingly showed up to because they had to because their masters made them on behalf of promises none of them were alive for, it would have been lesser, maybe even worse than if they had not at all. After all, if they only showed up because of a piece of paper despite the apathy or neglect, they would practically be slaves to their forefathers' whims. There's little agency in 'I'm going so because I was told I have to,' and little health in an alliance built on the same.
I think it's also worth noting / remembering that Putin is not Sauron. For all the memes of the Russian orks, the antagonist of [current year] is not the beneficiary of Tolkein-style plot armor / power. Putin is inept, incompetent, a warmonger with a midlife crisis, and even genocidal by the UN definition used in other conflicts in the world, but he is not fated by the power of plot narrative to win if Gondor's Call to Aid is not answered... and in this case, the Call to Aid, while certainly worthy, is no Gondor-scale cataclysm if it fails either, with the mobilized armies marching on without resistance.
Mind you, I was also one of those people who never really 'got' Sauron as a narrative force, and even now I can understand without sharing the sentiment some feel.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
Based on my experience with Americans, most would conflate the Dutch and the Danes, not be sure who was in the Netherlands, and generally just think that being along the North Sea was enough to qualify for 'northern Europe.'
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
It will be darkly amusing if-when anti-western sentiment in Russia shifts from being because of ethnic-Russian-centric narratives, and more from Islamic-centric sentiments that make political alliances with them.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
The EU Digital Security Act was meant to be an end around of the US bill of rights by handcuffing multinational tech companies.
Yeah... that was definitely one of those 'really bad ideas that no one will directly address because it would be acknowledging how bad an idea it was' that will probably be looked back upon unkindly. It was a case where the European desires to be the regulatory superpower create mutually incompatible interests with those who don't care to be regulated. There were non-trivial parts of the Democratic party who were okay with it for the same reason they were okay with setting up Newsguard-esque media policing via indirect regulation, but that's absolutely the sort of thing many of the American right would happily raze the internet for and let the world wide web be partitioned for, let alone other governments.
It's not run its course yet, so I fully expect it to matter more in the future, but since it was passed I've viewed that as the start of the European internet partition- it's just a matter of when others break from it.
Define 'screwed.' My bet on Trump would be no, not really, unless your government joins the French line on maximum-anti-Trump-resistance. At which point it's just classic patron relations.
The Trump-side of the Republican party is more about 'we aren't obligated to help people who aren't allies' and 'don't help those who don't help themselves' than 'don't help anyone.' The former is a reaction to scope creep- such as the resistance to leaving the Syrian conflict justified on the grounds of Kurdish partners that two elections prior would have been considered terrorists- and the later is one of the points of 'why Americans lose war' (because they try to fight instead of rather than along with partners).
Assuming you are referring to Poland, Sweden, or Finland, the Trump-end is far more sympathetic / willing to support those countries precisely because they have spent so much. That's not in the 'and bought American too', though that helps, but just in the general 'spending like it sees a threat.' Which is completely compatible with Trump's own past points, such as not helping NATO states that did not spend to the targets... but making no such claim about those that did.
The risk - screwed, if you will- is less about direct intention, and more of indirect complications of conflict with Germany on bases. The American presence / force flow for a Baltic contingency fundamentally relies on flowing forces into Germany, because that's where the infrastructure is. That risk, in turn, is that the bases close before an alternative is built up- and if that alternative is as good / reliable / not as vulnerable to disruption. It's not impossible to do so, but I wouldn't count on Trump setting timelines with that in mind.
Which leads to the risk that Trump closes bases over a basing break with Germany, and the US losing force-flow access into Europe for a contingency which occurs during the drawdown / before the alternative is created. It's not that alternatives aren't possible, but rather that they'd be less good / easier for the Russians to disrupt.
At which point my bet wouldn't be that your country would be screwed for lack of help, but rather screwed by the disruption to reinforcements before equivalent / alternative lines could be made.
The bright side to this is that Sweden and Finland entering NATO has significantly reduced the ability of the Russians to project disruption power into the western baltic, which in turn makes Poland more viable an intervention route than Germany, especially as American airpower can base in the northern baltic rather than also have to compete through the more dangerous southern baltic coast region.
Dean
Flairless
4d ago
Do American on The Motte feel that the country is generally in favour of breaking from its old European alliances?
What old alliance are you thinking of?
Define the alliance. What sort is it? What does it entail, who is providing what, and when was this understanding established?
For example: if I was to characterize the transatlantic alliance from 1975, it would be something along the lines of 'the Americans bribed the Europeans to be the front line fodder in a war with the Soviet Union.' Yes, it was in the Americans own interest to fight with the Europeans to prevent Soviet domination of Eurasia, but the Americans were paying for strategic deference (such as via the Marshal Plan and establishing favorable trade flows / market access for the Europeans), and the Europeans were the ones who would be the front line shield. In the crudest oversimplification, it was a mercenary relationship, where the Europeans were the mercenaries.
Around the late 90's/00's, however, my perception is that the desires of at least half of the alliance shifted. The Europeans did not want to defer to American strategy, but did want preferential market access. Which is why the EU formed with the common market barrier with often explicit purpose of negotiating a better deal vis-a-vis the Americans, and they had the strategic break over Iraq when the French and Germans tried to muster a pan-European boycott of strategic cooperation with the US. (This is not a criticism.) Come the 2010s, and the Germans were outright laughing at American warnings of vulnerabilities vis-a-vis Russia, and some of that was after Crimea.
Which is fine enough. Again, observational, not a criticism. But if the alliance has shifted from a mercenary dynamic, what sort of alliance is supposedly being broken?
Come the 2020s, if I were to characterize the sort of alliance the European establishment media and media spheres signals they want, it would be something along the lines of 'the Americans are to be the front line fodder in a war with the Russians... but also pay us for non-military cooperation on China.' Hence why when the US finally adopts a European-style domestic industrial policy as part of the anti-China strategy, there is significant lobbying for exceptions to let American subsidies to go to European factories importing Chinese material. And why the scandal of the hour is the US is failing NATO by... not sending yet more material support to a non-NATO country. When over the last few years, in the face of the biggest military crisis on the continent, major European power centers wanted to approach critical logistic shortfalls in things like Artillery shell production by... limiting contracts with these funds to only European manufacturers, and cutting off American producers who had already started expanding production at significant expense on the expectation of there being demand for such products.
Like, I'm not against supporting Ukraine. Even saying that is an understatement. I could even make a number of arguments why carve outs for the Europeans in industrial strategy is a good thing. But if you approach a major logistical bottle neck as the basis for a jobs program, it might just give a signal that the security issue is not actually the biggest concern, and that protecting your jobs program from competition from your security partner is.
Which, again, is fine. I have been an outspoken proponent that other countries have agency, and such decisions should be respected. If the Europeans, as I have been led to believe by the last few weeks of European media, truly believe that the US military is a security threat to them, I would not bat an eye if they demanded the US military leave germany, and I would expect the Americans to do so at all due (albeit deliberate) speed.
But that certainly isn't the same sort of alliance that was formed with NATO and the Marshal Plan and the Cold War.
As for what's going on in the present-
But the current situation re Ukraine is also sending confusing signals, as it had previously seemed as though the US wanted Europe to step up and be part of a solution for Ukraine, whereas currently it seems they actively want to stop Europe from having a role in peace talks. The motive for this appears to be stopping Europe from asking terms of Russia that would delay a solution the US and Russia find jointly satisfactory, though perhaps there is more going on beneath the surface.
Part of this is transactionalism, and part of this is that Trump has a memory and many of the major Europeans not-so-subtly loathed him and celebrated the partisan efforts of the previous administration to put him away.
The later is just choosing the wrong side of the American electoral culture war, which has been a European choice / mistake since the Obama years. When Trump came into office, the European center-establishment eagerly accepted the premise of the Russiagate conspiracy due to its parallels with European actors, generally accepted / echoed American-left framings in a symbiotic cycle, and greatly rejoiced when Trump left. When you choose political favorites, and join in to various degrees on the political warfare, you pay political costs when their enemies come out on top. By contrast, the Japanese and Koreans never joined in, and broadly got by without issue. It certainly also helps that Japan has always spent significantly on its navy, and the Koreans on their army, so were forced to be fought alongside of instead of in place of.
The point on transactionalism is more important, and goes up to what was stated before- the nature of the 'old' alliance has been changing, and with it the underpinning logic. The alliance going forward will be as strong as the clear and convincing benefit to the American electorate, as judged by the American electorate.
Is Trump vain / greedy / [insert pejorative here]? Sure, why not. But he is also underscoring the benefits, or lack of benefits, by demanding things that would be beneficial to receive, while allowing the reaction to serve as a contrast. The contrast is the point, because the contrast is what will legitimize future decisions under the transactionalist paradigm.
Does Trump really expect Ukraine to sign over 50% of the resources (however you want to define that)? Almost certainly not. Does it make a big flashy point that the expenditure of aid does not directly increase future American wealth? Almost certainly so. Cost of support versus benefit from continuing.
Similarly with the Greenland saga. Does Trump actually in his heart of hearts believe Denmark will sell Greenland? Who knows, though obviously any businessman would insist he does. Do various European establishment media characterizations of the US as threatening invasion, and calls for sending european troops to the island make a big contrast with the lack of troops being advocated for Ukraine for the last few years? Probably. And it would also make it easier to draw down forces in Europe, if there are multiple major European media outlets and officials who can be caught on camera saying they think the American military is a threat.
Which, in turn, can be leveraged when engaging in the next round of, say, US-German base agreements and cost-coverage of American presence. Angela Merkel allegedly once protested to Trump that the US couldn't withdraw from German bases, because of the impact it would have on those German localities dependent on American military and soldier spending. This is not the right line of argument to take with Trump, who generally views such expenditures as a financial net cost (which is generally true) not worth the cost (which is debatable, but he's the one who has to be convinced).
Trump's approach to the European alliance this time around is fundamentally not going to be about equitable burden sharing. The Europeans laughed at him about that last time around. It is likely to be a very clear-cut transactional 'what about this is self-evidently advantageous to an American skeptic,' so that the American leaders gain rather than spend political capital working with Europe.
Helping Ukraine, while popular in many corners, was not exactly an election-winner. Giving military equipment away or at massive discounts while major European powers and media spheres moot the merits of blocking the US from the European arms market is certainly not an election winner in any way.
The flip side of that transactionalism, however, is that partnership will be available when there is clear, unambiguous benefit to the US for doing so, something that could be shown to the American electorate.
And since the Europeans generally lack military capabilities that would allow the US to achieve things it otherwise wouldn't, that's going to mean non-military trades for the American to point to.
Or- to return to the crudest metaphor of alliance logic-
Cold War NATO was an alliance in which the Europeans were the mercenaries being paid for on retainer by the Americans.
Cold War NATO died brain-death when the Europeans didn't want to be mercenaries, but still wanted the Americans to pay them.
Trump-Europe can be an alliance in which the Americans are the mercenaries paid for by the EUropeans... but mercenaries still have to be paid.
Dean
Flairless
5d ago
But at least we can assure he was of a very average height, for his time.
Dean
Flairless
5d ago
Or/also- that the regular media was aligned enough to be partisan allies. Had GamerGate stuck to just the gaming media, it would have been a tempest in a teacup. When major media influence networks began weighing in, it both demonstrated it was a broader issue, and that the broader media was inclined to picking sides rather than neutrality (which was still the nominal stance of the media of the era- the Obama-era 'we are objective, it's just that reality has a liberal bias,' which started as a Steven Colbert comedic gag line but was unironically adopted).
What was also notable about GamerGate is that it was one of the first major sustained partisan media cancellation storms of its type that didn't actually crush the targets. While 'victory' was proclaimed in the ability to dominate the wikipedia and establishment media records, it lacked the career / identity destroying effect that previous such media storms had, which were known for forcing Republicans to drop Problematic People or deplatform people from, well, entire platforms. GamerGate, while driven off of some platforms as part of the partisan push, survived in others, which started to establish the lines of what spaces were / were not controlled by the party-media, which in turn is what allowed the alternate/right (not alt-right) media systems to grow beyond progressive-media control.
This led the a reduced-but-defiant rather than beaten-and-cowed demographic, which by existence demonstrated both (a) the ability to survive attempts at media cancellation and (b) the nascant support base for the unapologetically-resistant.
Previously, this was broadly thought impossible. Afterwards, Donald Trump took a similar approach- openly confrontational and defiant to attempts at Gamergate-style coordinated media warfare- that ultimately won the white house in 2016.
It wouldn't be right to say that Trump won because of gamergate, but gamergate was a paradigm shift that increased not just hostility to coordinated media efforts, but the belief in the ability of a force to survive such attacks, and thus view such a strategy as not intrensically doomed.
Put another way- the media-juggernaut that 'won' gamergate was shown to be more limited and vulnerable than it had been believed, and so more people were willing to believe it could fail.
While I am glad you've now moved your position to 'it was milquetoast' rather than 'it was last minute,' your starting premise is still incorrect- the Democrats did not have full control over institutions, which is why building public support is a requirement, especially when survival is on the line.
The state is not actually a monolith of power. The state is an abstraction for groups of people each with their own host of powers, and 'the full power of the [group of people]' hinges on the ability of those component groups of people to agree to work together. But the flip side is that is you are too hostile to the sorts of power centers in the state, i.e. groups of people already within the state, then the state is in conflict with itself. And in the case of the United States of America, the state is deliberately designed to be able to shut down the power of the state.
When the Democrats came into power in 2021, they- rightly and wrongly in different ways- perceived they were not in full control of the entire system. They did not, in fact, control the Judiciary- hence the numerous proposals to pack the Supreme Court. They did not, in fact, control the entire bureaucracy- much as they were able to do Resistance activities from within the government, there were/still are substantial parts of the behemoth of state that are not firmly or uniformly Democrat. This is particularly true for the security state apparatus. And, finally, the Democrats were not in total control of the Legislative branch- they had a majority, but a fragile majority, and it only would have taken a handful of Democratic dissidents to paralyze the Senate and thus the ability to legislate.
To utilize the 'full power of the state' against Trump, the Democrats leading anti-Trump efforts didn't need to keep their base appeased, they needed to keep their political rivals appeased as well, because their rivals- not only Republicans and Red Tribers but also Democratic party rivals- are part of the state whose power / assent / cooperation is required to use the 'full power of the state.'
Hence, in turn, the attempts in 2021- from the very start- to establish a managed opposition relationship with the Never Trump Republican wing of the Republican Party. Because if the opposition party leadership were to be on board, then that would be a whole host of powers of the state additionally available.
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