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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   36574 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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Yeah, was going to say the U.S. already fought a war in Panama in the modern era. It was over in a few weeks.

Obviously there are some other parties who might object to the U.S. controlling it this time. But I think there's probably a solution that falls far short of warfare here.

I think it bears mentioning that the reason that war was rather short was that it had no other goal than the capture of one rogue general usurping de facto rule over the state.

A few weeks is probably long enough for the Panamanian military(such as it is) to destroy the canal, or at least inflict enough damage to render it unusable for several years.

The US could almost certainly secure the canal faster than that. But it doesn't matter. The Panama Canal is Panama's raison d'etre. If they destroy it, the only thing they accomplish is to impoverish themselves if the US decides "LOL never mind". I don't believe they could repair or rebuild a substantially damaged canal themselves, and the US would certainly prevent any other power from doing so, so their only move at that point would be to allow the US to rebuild on its terms.

I suspect Trump is just bloviating and will eventually accept some token concession so he can say he got a "deal" -- the bit about "refusing to rule out military force" is meaningless of course the US will refuse to rule it out.

Probably?

From an engineering perspective, the Panama Canal is a system of 12 locks. If you want to destroy it, you need a handful of green recruits and a small amount of demolition charges. It's over before morning.

If you want the repairs to take years, you additionally need a few demolition crews experienced in concrete embankments. Drills, more charges, and every hour the marines don't take the locks adds a several months to the repair time.

The real question is ‘can panama repurpose construction workers before the marines land’. This is a very strong maybe.

Oh yeah, you've got to plan this, no way around it. But that's exactly what the military's there for, and they neither need a large chain of command to achieve that goal nor does it require a lot of resources. And totally surprising them will be very difficult, so first getting the charges and then the machines into position will be part of the posturing long before the marines even get into their helicopters.

But seriously, first blowing holes into the lock gates, then blowing the destroyed gates of their hinges and then blowing the drive units will be bad enough, especially if there's ships in or between the locks. There's a lot of force behind an 80' waterfall. And lead time on bespoke stuff like those huge gates is often measured in years...

Pretty much, and even this doesn't get into the issues of the cyber-vulnerabilities of someone who already controls the computer networks and what that can mean, or the ability to scuttle a ship already within the canal, or the fact that Panama is within drone attack range of various low-governance/hostile-to-the-US regional actors...

...and that none of those really go away if you capture the canal intact, since cyber-vulnerabilities are always there to be found, the whole point of the canal is to bring ships through, and, of course, regional reaction.

Anyone who thinks the Americans seizing the panama canal by force would be quick and easy and good is about as high on their own supply as the pro-Russians going into Ukraine.

My basic search is showing that panama lacks any Combat capable aircraft.

So IF it were actually going to be a fight, I dunno that they'd be able to pop their head out long enough to do much sabotage.

But more to the point, that's about the only piece of leverage they have to avoid a fight, so I suspect they might sign a deal rather than play that card.

The US could offer Panama statehood. We'd get the canal and a quarter of global shipping.

Wouldn't that make the problem of illegal immigration about 10 times worse?

How are they going to vote? Nothing is worth more D senators and electoral votes.

There'd need to be a 'Panama Compromise' that in addition to admitting Panama also allowed for Greater Idaho or Eastern Oregon and / or admitting the conservative areas of California to offset the adverse impact of Panama.

I imagine it’d be something like statehood for Puerto Rico and panama in exchange for the states of upstate New York and eastern Oregon. But if it goes sufficiently anti Republican Texas can split in two(or more, technically) without congressional approval- just sending the panhandle off on its own is two party-line Republican senators.

Just expel the locals and resettle Panama with Trump-voting loyalists. Maybe purge Puerto Rico and Connecticut at the same time.

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