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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1545 thread views

Transnational Thursday for February 27, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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After yesterday's events in the White House, Haltbakk Bunkers, one of Norway's largest marine fuel companies, appears to have announced that it will no longer refuel American Navy vessels.

https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1895896267269808193/photo/1

There's some speculation that this has already affected US submarine patrols.

This is pretty obnoxious behaviour IMO. Unlike Ukraine, Norway is a US treaty ally. Good allies refuel eachother!

It also reminds me a little of New Zealand's decision in the 1980s that they were going to be a 'nuclear-free' zone. That meant NZ required any vessels that entered their waters to certify they didn't carry nuclear weapons. The US refuses to declare which vessels are nuclear-armed. The standoff resulted in the US downgrading its alliance with New Zealand for many years, they 'suspended' their obligations under the ANZUS treaty. The treaty remained in force technically but the Kiwis got kicked out of military exercises, less intelligence sharing, less access to technology.

Ultimately of course New Zealand is totally irrelevant to world affairs and it doesn't really matter if the US only sends ships known to be conventionally armed and powered over there. Europe and Norway is quite a different matter, there seems to be a dangerous level of broad-based hysteria over Ukraine.

When is the allure of ineffectual posturing going to wear off? Is anyone really impressed with this kind of behaviour?

Norway is a US treaty ally

Norway was a treaty ally until Trump signaled extremely clearly that Nato countries cannot depend on US if the push comes to shove by making threats about annexing another Nato country's territory into US and cosying up to the country Nato was founded to protect against (that's actively engaged in sabotage in Norwegian territory as well as Norways neighboring countries' territories).

If the US says "Fuck you, you're on your own now!" to a group of countries, it's no wonder when those countries say "Ok, if that's how you want it..." in response.

cosying up to the country NATO was founded to protect against

This is called diplomacy. Ten, twenty years ago it was Western Europe that was interested in good relations with Russia, fuel imports and trade... while the US was very keen on NATO expansion and taking a hard line on Russia.

Now it's the other way around as the US is more interested in Asia while Europe seems to be mentally stuck with the old US policy platform.

The mature and sensible thing for Norway and other European countries to do is not throw a tantrum but to adapt to the changing global dynamics and reflect on the workability of their strategy. Maybe it was a poor decision going out of their way to get Russian soldiers killed with military aid? I wonder why there are Russian sabotage operations going on, what could possibly be the reason why these munitions plants keep having anomalous explosions?

If the Russian threat is so great, why antagonize the US? Wouldn't you want to appeal more to the US? If the US is a threat, maybe consider rapprochement with Russia? Or China? There's a massive shortage of strategic flexibility in Europe.

so is it "ineffectual" or "dangerous"?

This stunt is ineffectual but it reveals a dangerous and hysterical attitude. It doesn't help the situation in any way!

Also it seems that Haltbakk Bunkers is a bit of a nothingburger company according to the community note. I get what I deserve for trusting Osinttechnical!

https://x.com/i/birdwatch/n/1896196567369232513

That'll show Putin! Or something.

The Russian economy is the size of Italy’s and they were never going to use nukes. The need to appease them was and is minimal, it’s weird that Trump cares so much.

"Minimal" to the US, the EU or Ukraine?

In purchasing power, Russia’s economy is the size of Germany’s, and purchasing power being what actually matters is at least as true as GDP being what actually matters.

How do you think a war between Russia and Italy would play out as a 1v1? How about Benelux vs Russia? According to the economists they have similar sized economies.

These economic figures are just numbers. There's no relation to real world performance and strength, it's pure fantasy. Nominal GDP figures don't even measure the economy, they measure the imaginary value of goods and (imaginary) services in imagined dollars by some arcane metric. 'Imputed rent' is 6% of US GDP - homeowners enjoying their house is not real economic activity but they count it anyway.

Measure the number of workers in arms manufacturing, measure steel production, measure the count of soldiers, measure anything even slightly tangible rather than the 'economy'.

The wage of my job doesn't determine my chance to win in a fight, what matters is my size, skills, environment and weapons. Money may buy those things. Or it may not. There are things that money cannot buy that require time and effort and natural ability. Money does not matter, what matters is capacity.

Bizarre Soviet-style denial of basic economic capacity isn’t a rebuttal of any value to this argument. Of course military production matters; after all, Pyongyang is capable of destroying Seoul. But Russia has no desire or intention to conquer the West and isn’t going to be nuking London, Paris or Washington any time soon because of a minor regional conflict in Ukraine, that being utter WW3 hysteria.

Strange that someone defending Vance’s comment would appear to have a much lower opinion of Russian strategy than someone criticizing it.

It's not bizarre or Soviet style to acknowledge that Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are no match for Russia, nor is Italy.

Nominal GDP is just a made-up number, it doesn't mean anything significant. It is silly to write off Russia as weak because some economists made up some numbers.

It is also the case that Russia is not nearly strong enough to conquer Europe (IMO, others like Shrike seem to think it's more even and he is at least initiated in these matters). Nor does Russia have the intention to conquer Europe. But Russia isn't weak enough that it's wise or cost-efficient to force Russia from Ukraine, as is now being recognized in the US government. You seem to consider this appeasing Russia.

isn’t going to be nuking London, Paris or Washington any time soon because of a minor regional conflict

The US seriously considered nuclear strikes in Korea and Vietnam, faraway wars without major ramifications at home. The Ukraine war is much more important for Russia and nukes should not be discounted. If as you say the Russians weren't willing to use nukes over Ukraine, then why not simply demand Russia withdraw or face direct NATO intervention backed up with nukes? Easy win since Russia was never going to use nukes! In reality, it's not that simple. There is a certain point at which Russia would use nukes, just like there's a certain point at which they'd give up on diplomacy and invade.

Strange that someone defending Vance’s comment would appear to have a much lower opinion of Russian strategy than someone criticizing it.

I don't even know what Vance statement you're talking about or how this relates to anything I've said.

If as you say the Russians weren't willing to use nukes over Ukraine, then why not simply demand Russia withdraw or face direct NATO intervention backed up with nukes?

When did I advocate that? I advocated a negotiated peace early in the war. I don’t believe in escalation. But I also don’t believe Russia is this terrifying for where, if we don’t make a deal with them right now, we’re risking WW3. That’s hysterical.

The problem with GDP as a measurement of war-making capability is that the United States can’t actually nationalize Netflix, Facebook and Pornhub and use their factory floors to build tanks.

But the US can nationalize those companies and force them to show propaganda-- or they can conscript their programmers out from under them and force them to work on software for autonomous killing machines. American deindustrialization is strategically dangerous... But it's not like the US gets no strategic advantages in return for being the global center for information engineering (inclusive of coding, financial services, and software.)

The US can, within reason, print money and build more factory floors very quickly. Russia’s manufacturing capacity prewar was also heavily overstated and very outdated. China is a much bigger threat in those terms.

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