"Come now, don't exaggerate," said numerous apologists. "How bad can a bad person possibly be?"
It would seem that a bad person, elected to the highest office, surrounded by equally corrupt appointees, can do harm on a global scale. And all of it is home-grown. The entire population of deportees posed less of a threat then what the US has bestowed upon itself in one presidential term.
I'm starting to believe that China isn't going to make the move. It's winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the world and will be able to leverage its growing soft power well beyond what Taiwan would provide. I just don't see them giving up the position the US has abandoned.
I suspect that they are willing to wait a few more years until they have built up their own chip making capacity so that disrupting Formosa won’t strongly affect their own economy, while it will hinder other developed countries.
I'm starting to think so as well. The Chinese are typically cautious geopolitically, and very strategic. They may well have made the calculus that for the foreseeable future, they have more to gain from keeping the status quo re Taiwan while their rivals score own goals, waiting for a possible rapprochement with Taiwan on favorable terms.
That's something the factions in the Middle East miss: sometimes great change comes from patiently applying pressure and infiltrating from within, rather than a frontal attack.
Not just yet, they should wait for a little bit. The US isn't done depleting its inventory yet, the US might get itself in a lot deeper yet, and the US population will only detest the war even more given time. All of those things will help China take Taiwan. If Iran gets ugly enough the US population will just have that much less willingness to get involved in another major conflict. 3-18 months for Taiwan (9-18 more likely; China still needs some prep). There's no scenario where China isn't going to successfully take the island after this. They now know the US isn't at all prepared to stand off with them in coastal Asia. It would take years of surge production to get ready, the US doesn't have years re Taiwan.
If China is going in, we'll start to see large signs of that. They'll begin a number of prominent campaigns, including sabotage, propaganda, extremely large supply movements, and so on.
What do you think American Empire is all about if not controlling the oil rich countries in middle east, as well as extremely oil rich countries like Venezuela?
The only failing here is that America has decaying, hallowed out industrial base where it can't just cheaply mass produce and replenish hi-end rockets and tech to take care of business-as-usual quickly, because everything down to raw materials is just so expensive.
Genuine question for Americans: donyou not think that a Democrat today would be leading the same war? We're talking about a party that facilitated, and took part in, 1 year of genocide.
In what world could you imagine Israel's planned war against Iran not being automatically supported by whatever US party was in power?
The default US policy tends towards starting wars in the middle east. But even very hawkish previous administrations never started this particular one, for the reasons we're seeing right now. So I strongly doubt a Harris administration would have.
You're also ignoring just how far outside the norms Trumps administration is. They're entirely dysfunctional, breaking all kinds of laws and full of unqualified extremist with their own agendas.
You are being downvoted for stating the truth - you are absolutely right that the Democrats too would have fully supported Israel's attack on Iran. Let us not forget that Biden played a major role in Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now in West bank) by helping the IDF spread its propaganda hoax that "Hamas beheaded babies", in the western media (Biden lied that he had personally seen the "horrific pictures " - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_baby_beheading_hoax ). Of course, unlike Trump, a Democratic party administration would have resorted to hypocrisy and propaganda that the war was for "democracy", "human rights", "save jews", "fight terrorism" etc. etc. But it would have been much shorter - they would have killed the Iranians leaders too, and struck military targets and then stopped.
Iran has been preparing for this for decades. I wouldn't be surprised if they held a hidden reserve for air defense and let the USAF 'get comfortable' before redeploying
There was a ("propaganda") video by the Iran Forces some weeks ago showing some underground facilites: If even half of it is true shown there, then they have large capacities.
Even if they don't, US war planners now have to factor the possibility of hidden AA defenses in their risk calculus moving forward. So no matter what, a win for Iran to some degree
If your enemy loudly proclaims for decades that their strategy is to initially destroy AA capability then roam at will through clear airspace, presumably it doesn't take much imagination to plan to not reveal some proportion of your AA capability initially?
Contrary to popular belief, Iran's most important arms supplier has been China, and not Russia, in the last decade. To preserve its ties with Israel and Saudi Arabia, Russia has sometimes compromised arm shipments to Iran. Historically too, Russia has worked with France and Britain to undermine Iran, through the Shah.
And what better way to support that by making some money selling weapons, especially if it gives you a chance to expand your manufacturing base due to increased demand?
Iran claimed today that they have a new homegrown air defense system in use. I saw another report about a new Chinese system deployed in Iran that was used to hit the F35.
Who knows what’s true, but it’s 100% clear that the administration is lying to us and maybe even to themselves. We lost multiple aircraft yesterday. That F15 would likely only be used in situations where we believe we have air superiority. The fact that it was shot down is a big fuck up and suggests the people in charge don’t actually know what they’re up against.
Because arms manufacturers need to sell a lie, "lack of stealth makes everything vulnerable", when it may have applied to symmetric conventional warfare 30 years ago. These days, peer adversaries have multi-modal IRST/EO systems in addition to AESA that make radar-obsessing "stealth" completely lose the plot on other risks and considerations. The F-35 damaged in Iran is just one example of this.
There’s a tweet by Radigan Carter from a few weeks ago that has a great historical perspective - If you’re not interested on the possible financial outcomes skip to the “How This Started” section.
>In Shia theology, standing against injustice is obligatory especiallywhen you cannot win in conventional terms. Defeat and death are not failure, capitulating in the face of overwhelming injustice is the failure.
There is a lesson in Ukraine and Iran being that invading a prepared country isn't easy and takes full commitment. Taiwan is most likely very prepared to defend itself.
It might be prepared, but opportunity like that doesn’t present itself very often. Both US and Russia are tied in huge wars and won’t have spare capacity to answer Chinese aggression.
At some point someone will stop joking that Trump is a "Russian asset" and start assuming that he's paid by Xi to ensure a millenia of Chinese domination.
Which would be wrong of course : he's ensuring millenia of Chinese domination, and he's getting paid for it, just not by China.
2028 is going to be... Weird. But it will be Rubio or Vance of Heghseig's problem.
Do not pay attention to the many war crimes the U.S perpetrates on a daily basis in Iran and elsewhere... LOOK THERE CHINA, CHINA BAD, CHINA BAD, CHINA BAD, [...]
The fact of the matter is that OP's statement is so vague it could be interpreted any way. You are just projecting your own interpretation onto it. Without knowing anything else about what OP intended to say, one should make a good-faith read of it. I just read it as "war is escalating across the globe". To somehow assume that what he meant is that one country is bad and the other good is a childish way to understand geopolitics and bad-faith interpretation of the statement.
Still, the war is very complete, pretty much, according to the most powerful man in charge of the most powerful military...practically every day since day 3.
Was there ever a plan or even a goal?
So now the US is spending more of its own vital weapons, which will leave Taiwan largely undefended on a war without goals and without end.
China must be laughing about.
Once all these US weapons have been squandered on an unwinable war with Iran, then China surely must invade Taiwan, as a better opportunity may never present itself.
* What's with the downvotes? Don't like the truth?
Hardware and equipment aside, there's been an ongoing purge of personnel in the DoD (DoW) since the admin took office. The pentagon was recently described as 'like game of thrones' due to military personnel getting axed over disagreements with the admin on Iran.
This has been the case for a while now but the US military is steadily being filled with sycophants and MAGA ideologues
Before the war started, they thought they could mobilize the protesters by just whacking some top officials. That failed.
Then they thought that they could mobilize the usual proxies like the Kurds against Iran. Unfortunately, the Kurds have been used and dropped multiple times in history already. And they see what happens to a US proxy in Ukraine. So it failed.
Now Hegseth has fired the top general and replaced him with a loyalist. Probably the previous general opposed depleting all stock piles for the Führer's great vision.
Most likely: After 48 days Trump will declare "mission accomplished", retreat, leave the FUBAR situation in Hormuz to other people and prepare for the next grand excursion in a year or so. While his cronies are selling US oil and gas to the EU morons.
Reminder that the US is responsible for the precision strike murder of at least 175 people including 150 school children[1] and Trump, Hegseth and the entire rest of that criminal administration are still not in prison without the possibility of parole.
There's a "converted military building" in Bozeman Montana.
It's literally called "The Armory", a hotel now.
So presumably Iranian operatives can blow it up, and any deaths/damage
would be the fault of the US government for deliberately
converting a military building for some other purpose?
It's impressive how the US intelligence agencies must have been gutted under Trump. I'm guessing if there were anybody competent left, this is the kind of thing they would have known.
I can't imagine the level of secrecy it would take to hide something like this from a competent NRO - the amount of construction work, the little girls coming and going - what did they think, it was a military Epstein island?
"President Trump has cemented his legacy as The President of Peace."
"Stopping regional conflicts before they spiral into global wars that drag down
whole continents is worthy of the Commander-in-Chief’s attention, and a priority for this administration. A world on fire, where wars come to our shores, is bad for American interests."
"The key to successful relations with the Middle East is accepting the region, its leaders, and its nations as they are while working together on areas of common interest."
"America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, that the Strait of Hormuz remain open, that the Red Sea remain navigable, that the region not be an incubator or exporter of terror against American interests or the American homeland, and that Israel remain secure."
"But the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over—not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was. It is rather emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment—a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged."
Next time you look at the gas price when topping up your car think about this strategy was either hallucinated by your administration or AI.
This whole war has already been a weird suicide ritual when it comes to American soft power.
I guess hard power is next.
The American Empire, burnt down by its own Nero/Caligula hybrid, while the population just watches it happen...
"Come now, don't exaggerate," said numerous apologists. "How bad can a bad person possibly be?"
It would seem that a bad person, elected to the highest office, surrounded by equally corrupt appointees, can do harm on a global scale. And all of it is home-grown. The entire population of deportees posed less of a threat then what the US has bestowed upon itself in one presidential term.
> while the population just watches it happen...
About 1/5 of America voted for this guy after seeing the trainwreck of his first admin.
At the same time, protests response is continually growing and breaking records as economic disparities and totalitarian responses intensify.
Looking at all Americans in deceiving. For starters, 1/5 are below the voting age.
49.8% of voters voted for this.
Yeah, most people who voted, voted for Trump.
Almost, but not quite. Only 49.8% of votes for President were for Trump: https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/president
A more accurate claim might be "More people voted for Trump in 2024 than any other candidate".
I guess now would be a good time for China to make its move on you-know-who.
I'm starting to believe that China isn't going to make the move. It's winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the world and will be able to leverage its growing soft power well beyond what Taiwan would provide. I just don't see them giving up the position the US has abandoned.
I suspect that they are willing to wait a few more years until they have built up their own chip making capacity so that disrupting Formosa won’t strongly affect their own economy, while it will hinder other developed countries.
I'm starting to think so as well. The Chinese are typically cautious geopolitically, and very strategic. They may well have made the calculus that for the foreseeable future, they have more to gain from keeping the status quo re Taiwan while their rivals score own goals, waiting for a possible rapprochement with Taiwan on favorable terms.
That's something the factions in the Middle East miss: sometimes great change comes from patiently applying pressure and infiltrating from within, rather than a frontal attack.
China's better move rn would be to go for the big soft power play and ditch the Russians for the abandoned Europeans.
Not just yet, they should wait for a little bit. The US isn't done depleting its inventory yet, the US might get itself in a lot deeper yet, and the US population will only detest the war even more given time. All of those things will help China take Taiwan. If Iran gets ugly enough the US population will just have that much less willingness to get involved in another major conflict. 3-18 months for Taiwan (9-18 more likely; China still needs some prep). There's no scenario where China isn't going to successfully take the island after this. They now know the US isn't at all prepared to stand off with them in coastal Asia. It would take years of surge production to get ready, the US doesn't have years re Taiwan.
If China is going in, we'll start to see large signs of that. They'll begin a number of prominent campaigns, including sabotage, propaganda, extremely large supply movements, and so on.
I believe Trump when asked about climate change said something to the effect of "I'll be dead by then."
I think that applies most everything he does in a way.
What do you think American Empire is all about if not controlling the oil rich countries in middle east, as well as extremely oil rich countries like Venezuela?
The only failing here is that America has decaying, hallowed out industrial base where it can't just cheaply mass produce and replenish hi-end rockets and tech to take care of business-as-usual quickly, because everything down to raw materials is just so expensive.
Oil itself is becoming irrelevant quickly. It's a play for becoming king of the ashes.
Familiarize yourself with this: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
Top reserves by country, historical data on consumption (including by country).
These basic data points explain US foreign policy better than anything.
There is no data or trends that supports the notion that oil is becoming irrelevant, much less quickly.
US with it's current reserves and oil consumption rate would last roughly 12 years, btw.
This is simply not true by most objective metrics... unless you don't like plastic and fertilizer?
We produce a lot of biofuel from corn which can in principle be converted and used to make some but not all types of plastics.
Genuine question for Americans: donyou not think that a Democrat today would be leading the same war? We're talking about a party that facilitated, and took part in, 1 year of genocide.
In what world could you imagine Israel's planned war against Iran not being automatically supported by whatever US party was in power?
The default US policy tends towards starting wars in the middle east. But even very hawkish previous administrations never started this particular one, for the reasons we're seeing right now. So I strongly doubt a Harris administration would have.
You're also ignoring just how far outside the norms Trumps administration is. They're entirely dysfunctional, breaking all kinds of laws and full of unqualified extremist with their own agendas.
You are being downvoted for stating the truth - you are absolutely right that the Democrats too would have fully supported Israel's attack on Iran. Let us not forget that Biden played a major role in Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza (and now in West bank) by helping the IDF spread its propaganda hoax that "Hamas beheaded babies", in the western media (Biden lied that he had personally seen the "horrific pictures " - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_baby_beheading_hoax ). Of course, unlike Trump, a Democratic party administration would have resorted to hypocrisy and propaganda that the war was for "democracy", "human rights", "save jews", "fight terrorism" etc. etc. But it would have been much shorter - they would have killed the Iranians leaders too, and struck military targets and then stopped.
Doubtful.
We've been told their air defenses are completely wiped out.
Why do we need stealthy cruise missiles now?
To win the war another time, I guess ? To be fair, he told us we would get "tired of winning".
On a more serious note : could it be that iranian air defense is being supplemented by an ally ? Someone further east ?
Or, simply, that they kept some reserve to keep the war long, and play with the American customer's never ?
Iran has been preparing for this for decades. I wouldn't be surprised if they held a hidden reserve for air defense and let the USAF 'get comfortable' before redeploying
There was a ("propaganda") video by the Iran Forces some weeks ago showing some underground facilites: If even half of it is true shown there, then they have large capacities.
Even if they don't, US war planners now have to factor the possibility of hidden AA defenses in their risk calculus moving forward. So no matter what, a win for Iran to some degree
If your enemy loudly proclaims for decades that their strategy is to initially destroy AA capability then roam at will through clear airspace, presumably it doesn't take much imagination to plan to not reveal some proportion of your AA capability initially?
Why make up unsubstantiated claims about Chinese support, when it is known that Russia supports Iran with military hardware?
Contrary to popular belief, Iran's most important arms supplier has been China, and not Russia, in the last decade. To preserve its ties with Israel and Saudi Arabia, Russia has sometimes compromised arm shipments to Iran. Historically too, Russia has worked with France and Britain to undermine Iran, through the Shah.
Russia's pretty busy with its own war.
But probably itching to do to the US what the US did to them in Ukraine.
(And doing so is likely to reduce US aid to Ukraine, as a bonus to them. Ukraine's certainly not likely to get Tomahawks and Patriots right now.)
What US aid? Trump's been stonewalling it for them just fine.
I said "did to", not "is currently doing to".
And what better way to support that by making some money selling weapons, especially if it gives you a chance to expand your manufacturing base due to increased demand?
Iran claimed today that they have a new homegrown air defense system in use. I saw another report about a new Chinese system deployed in Iran that was used to hit the F35.
Who knows what’s true, but it’s 100% clear that the administration is lying to us and maybe even to themselves. We lost multiple aircraft yesterday. That F15 would likely only be used in situations where we believe we have air superiority. The fact that it was shot down is a big fuck up and suggests the people in charge don’t actually know what they’re up against.
Because arms manufacturers need to sell a lie, "lack of stealth makes everything vulnerable", when it may have applied to symmetric conventional warfare 30 years ago. These days, peer adversaries have multi-modal IRST/EO systems in addition to AESA that make radar-obsessing "stealth" completely lose the plot on other risks and considerations. The F-35 damaged in Iran is just one example of this.
There’s a tweet by Radigan Carter from a few weeks ago that has a great historical perspective - If you’re not interested on the possible financial outcomes skip to the “How This Started” section.
https://x.com/radigancarter/status/2035073252134129757?s=46
>In Shia theology, standing against injustice is obligatory especiallywhen you cannot win in conventional terms. Defeat and death are not failure, capitulating in the face of overwhelming injustice is the failure.
While China is preparing for annexation of Taiwan in 2028.
There is a lesson in Ukraine and Iran being that invading a prepared country isn't easy and takes full commitment. Taiwan is most likely very prepared to defend itself.
It might be prepared, but opportunity like that doesn’t present itself very often. Both US and Russia are tied in huge wars and won’t have spare capacity to answer Chinese aggression.
One thing to note, is that Ukraine has received billions of dollars of aid from EU and United States.
I'm not sure if the West has that kind of cash to dish out after the current war with IRAN.
At some point someone will stop joking that Trump is a "Russian asset" and start assuming that he's paid by Xi to ensure a millenia of Chinese domination.
Which would be wrong of course : he's ensuring millenia of Chinese domination, and he's getting paid for it, just not by China.
2028 is going to be... Weird. But it will be Rubio or Vance of Heghseig's problem.
'‘Comrade Nation Builder’: How China views Donald Trump’s indictments in US'
http://aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/25/comrade-nation-builder-h...
TIL: Jiangou.
I've never heard anyone joke about it. It's an obvious fact of the world we live in.
Do not pay attention to the many war crimes the U.S perpetrates on a daily basis in Iran and elsewhere... LOOK THERE CHINA, CHINA BAD, CHINA BAD, CHINA BAD, [...]
That's not the point of parent comment, at all.
It is, OP is repeating anti China talking points of the Mainstream Media, pretending that China is a legitimate future military target of the US.
The fact of the matter is that OP's statement is so vague it could be interpreted any way. You are just projecting your own interpretation onto it. Without knowing anything else about what OP intended to say, one should make a good-faith read of it. I just read it as "war is escalating across the globe". To somehow assume that what he meant is that one country is bad and the other good is a childish way to understand geopolitics and bad-faith interpretation of the statement.
That wording is inflamatory. You meant China and the US might enter in military conflict in a not too distant future.
The point of parent is that the US is not considering an intervention in the conflict agaisnt Taiwan. It is doing nothing for Ukraine, either.
Someone make a plugin that replaces all war equipment headlines with theie costs
Still, the war is very complete, pretty much, according to the most powerful man in charge of the most powerful military...practically every day since day 3.
Was there ever a plan or even a goal?
So now the US is spending more of its own vital weapons, which will leave Taiwan largely undefended on a war without goals and without end.
China must be laughing about.
Once all these US weapons have been squandered on an unwinable war with Iran, then China surely must invade Taiwan, as a better opportunity may never present itself.
* What's with the downvotes? Don't like the truth?
Hardware and equipment aside, there's been an ongoing purge of personnel in the DoD (DoW) since the admin took office. The pentagon was recently described as 'like game of thrones' due to military personnel getting axed over disagreements with the admin on Iran.
This has been the case for a while now but the US military is steadily being filled with sycophants and MAGA ideologues
nam 2.0
Before the war started, they thought they could mobilize the protesters by just whacking some top officials. That failed.
Then they thought that they could mobilize the usual proxies like the Kurds against Iran. Unfortunately, the Kurds have been used and dropped multiple times in history already. And they see what happens to a US proxy in Ukraine. So it failed.
Now Hegseth has fired the top general and replaced him with a loyalist. Probably the previous general opposed depleting all stock piles for the Führer's great vision.
Most likely: After 48 days Trump will declare "mission accomplished", retreat, leave the FUBAR situation in Hormuz to other people and prepare for the next grand excursion in a year or so. While his cronies are selling US oil and gas to the EU morons.
Reminder that the US is responsible for the precision strike murder of at least 175 people including 150 school children[1] and Trump, Hegseth and the entire rest of that criminal administration are still not in prison without the possibility of parole.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Minab_school_attack
[flagged]
err, this is an odd response given that this assessment has been thoroughly and repeatedly debunked every time it is offered up.
[flagged]
1-for-3
There's a "converted military building" in Bozeman Montana. It's literally called "The Armory", a hotel now. So presumably Iranian operatives can blow it up, and any deaths/damage would be the fault of the US government for deliberately converting a military building for some other purpose?
[flagged]
It's impressive how the US intelligence agencies must have been gutted under Trump. I'm guessing if there were anybody competent left, this is the kind of thing they would have known.
I can't imagine the level of secrecy it would take to hide something like this from a competent NRO - the amount of construction work, the little girls coming and going - what did they think, it was a military Epstein island?
They've hit about 8000 targets.
One in 8000 is incredibly good for an actual conflict.
Just leaving this here. Feel free to compare it to current reality.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-N...
"President Trump has cemented his legacy as The President of Peace."
"Stopping regional conflicts before they spiral into global wars that drag down whole continents is worthy of the Commander-in-Chief’s attention, and a priority for this administration. A world on fire, where wars come to our shores, is bad for American interests."
"The key to successful relations with the Middle East is accepting the region, its leaders, and its nations as they are while working together on areas of common interest."
"America will always have core interests in ensuring that Gulf energy supplies do not fall into the hands of an outright enemy, that the Strait of Hormuz remain open, that the Red Sea remain navigable, that the region not be an incubator or exporter of terror against American interests or the American homeland, and that Israel remain secure."
"But the days in which the Middle East dominated American foreign policy in both long-term planning and day-to-day execution are thankfully over—not because the Middle East no longer matters, but because it is no longer the constant irritant, and potential source of imminent catastrophe, that it once was. It is rather emerging as a place of partnership, friendship, and investment—a trend that should be welcomed and encouraged."
Next time you look at the gas price when topping up your car think about this strategy was either hallucinated by your administration or AI.
I am not sure what is worse.
They need them to murder more school children?