I think you're grossly underestimating the power of the United States.

Of course it has various domestic issues, and corruption is undoubtedly one of them.

However, settling on 'incompetence' as an explanation for US behavior is, as I said previously, not something I find convincing - not as long as there are clearly discernable patterns that betray a strategy like the ones I have pointed out.

Calling this '5D chess' is a bit ridiculous. The US has always behaved according to the tenants of realism, and used elaborate schemes to outmanoeuvre - often successfully - geopolitical rivals and unfortunate assets.

Your view is in line with the image the US tries to export of itself, namely that of a 'benign hegemon,' that only does ill out of incompetence and clumsiness. One glance at history, even recent history, however, betrays Washington's utterly Machiavellian disposition, and I see no indication that this has changed in recent years.

the idea the US needs Israel to commit a genocide for "geopolitical reasons" is simply laughable — boethius

This is a strawman that I rejected in the very post you replied to.

The Israeli government clearly believes a genocide is in its best interests. The US may tacitly accept that and let the Israelis carry it out.

And it is not hard to see why the Israelis believe that. I've given you the reasons.

(I decided to put my response in this thread, because the main topic is becoming the Middle-East)


Personally, I think it is self-evident that the US action is guided by a geopolitical strategy. The idea that a nation achieves, maintains and defends hegemony 'by accident' is just not a very convincing argument to me. I also think there is plenty of historical and contemporary evidence to suggest that the US follows deliberate geopolitical strategies.

That does not presuppose that the US is always correct in its assumptions or successful in its execution.

Nor does it deny that there is a wide variety of domestic and external factors that impose limits on what those strategies can feasibly entail.


As for the list of things you named - I don't think those are very self-explanatory at all. Take the draft for example. Vietnam showed the draft to be completely unfeasible for the types of foreign intervention wars the US was fighting.

I could go through the whole list, but I don't think that is very constructive. If you want we can zoom in on one or two items which you think best illustrate your point.


On the topic of Israel's genocide:

I did not call Israel's crimes part of a "US cryptic plan." What I said was that the US may tacitly agree to let Israel carry out the genocide.

The US is supplying the very ordnance Israel uses to bomb refugee camps, and the US could stop those weapons deliveries today if it wanted to.

Israeli hardliners clearly believe genocide is in their interest and worth the cost, because otherwise they wouldn't be pursuing it with such fervor. Perhaps the US government agrees, but doesn't want to be seen agreeing with it in public.

Like I said, in the case of a large-scale conflict, Israel is completely strategically compromised for various reasons, one of them being the existence of a large Palestinian population which will likely rise up the moment the Israeli state gets under military pressure.

So it's not hard to see (albeit from an utterly cynical perspective) why the Israelis want to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, and will even resort to genocide.

Yes, it kills any chance for a rapprochement in the Middle-East, but perhaps that was never feasible to begin with, and perhaps the US isn't even interested in a rapprochement. Since the Middle-East is slipping from the US' grasp, it will be more interested in denying the use of the Middle-East to its rivals.


To be clear, I have often argued that Israel's belief that it can survive without first becoming a normal Middle-Eastern nation is foolish. In the long-term, the balance of power will inevitably shift against it at some point, and that's when it will be presented with the bill of decades of belligerence.

However, as I said before, the fact that I believe the Israeli government is deliberately pursuing a strategy of belligerence does not mean they are correct in the assumption that it will bring them long-term security.

The Americans on their part may understand the long-term implications of Israel's actions, but ultimately Israel's long-term survival may not be something that concerns Washington.

Washington is gearing up for a massive clash between itself and the rising powers. Israel is going to be used as a pawn in that clash, and its survival is of secondary importance to the defense of US global dominance.

The US will happily entertain Israeli delusions if it means the Israelis will voluntarily put themselves before Uncle Sam's cart. That's exactly how the US played Ukraine.

And second, solve that strategic weakness to do what exactly? Conquer the whole Middle-East in a giant US-Israeli war on everyone and then occupy the place forever? — boethius

First of all, Israel is (correctly, in my opinion) anticipating a period in which power relations in the Middle-East will shift, and Israel itself may come under heavy pressure from other actors in the region, most notably Iran. The fact it is housing an oppressed population of several million within its borders means it is defensively completely compromised.

And secondly, the Israelis themselves are openly talking about 'remaking the Middle-East' - they clearly have great plans for what the Middle-East should look like in the future, and they're probably correctly assessing that this may be the last window of opportunity they will have to drag the United States in.

I do not know the details of such a plan, if it even exists, but the most obvious part of such a plan would be a 'reset' on Iran, aka, knock it down from 'regional power' status. This is what the US has already done once with Iraq, and what the Israelis are hoping it will do again with Iran.

And the reason the US may be willing to take part in this is because Iran, as I have argued, is an incredibly important trade corridor that connects all US geopolitical rivals to each other - Russia, China and India.

Note that Iran doesn't just cover Persia (the gateway between Central Asia and the Middle-East) but also touches the southern Caucasus (the gateway between Russia and the Middle-East).

It is of paramount strategic importance, which is why US meddling in Iran goes back almost a century.


By the way, not to be snarky, but your posts have a tendency to be a bit long-winded, with it being difficult to discern exactly what parts of my argument you take issue with, and what you want me to react to. Usually I respond to sentences that have a '?' at the end, but they're sprinkled all over so responding to all of it would become rather tedious.

Lets try to discuss topics one at a time, to avoid overly lengthy exchanges. I'll let you decide what you want to discuss first.

On the topic of Israel's genocide:

Arguably, ethnic cleansing and genocide are the only options the Israelis have left if they want to cling to their ethno-state ideal.

The fact that they are occupying millions of Palestinians makes them extremely vulnerable in a large-scale conflict since there is a good chance the Palestinian population would rise up and/or join in a partisan war.

That's the reason the US may tacitly approve of Israel's genocidal actions, since, if successful, it gets rid of a critical vulnerability of their Middle-Eastern proxy.

Of course, there is a cost to this as well. The question is how heavy that cost will be. It's entirely possible that we are overestimating the damage to US reputation and the consequences it has on the balance of power.

The idea that the US will somehow be 'punished' for supporting genocidal regimes may just be wishful thinking. Israel has been at this for decades, and it isn't the first genocidal regime that the US and allies have supported.


On the topic of geopolitical strategy:

The red thread throughout US Eurasian strategy today is the denial of land-based trade routes. The US wants Eurasian geopolitical rivals to be reliant on sea-based trade, since the US has an overwhelming advantage in naval power.

To deny a trade corridor, it is not always necessary for the US to control it directly or to completely deny it to the rival. Sowing chaos and conflict in these areas is often enough to stop trade from flowing.

In all the places that connect US geopolitical rivals to the rest of the world via land, we see long-standing US involvement, the most important ones being:

Eastern Europe, the Middle-East, the Caucasus and Central-Asia (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan). Forever wars in these areas are perfectly suited for long-term denial of trade. Of course, the US does not want to fight these costly forever wars themselves - much better to let the Ukrainians, Europeans, Afghanis (etc.) and Israelis fight these wars for them.

Note that even a neutral actor like India had to suffer both of its land corridors (Pakistan and Bangladesh) falling under long-standing US influence.


Of course, in conjunction to this we see a very successful effort at the control/denial of sea-based trade as well, with the US and cronies completely boxing in China, and seeking to deprive Russia off its central position in the Black Sea.


Finally, there is another element to US global strategy which involves stopping regional powers from rising. The theme here being: the US is unable to divert its attention to many powerful actors at the same time, so must work pre-emptively to keep potential regional powers weak.

Iraq was one such potential regional power. Iran is another. The US has been interested in curbing both of these nations since the end of WW2. This is of course where US and Israeli geopolitical strategy meet.

These countries are also somewhat unique is that they are both a potential regional powers (Iran already is a regional power) and they are located on a vital trade corridor.

This is especially problematic for the US, because destabilizing a regional power is much more difficult, which is why it now is using Israel. Israel is able to cause a lot of chaos with its intelligence aparatus, high-tech military and nuclear arsenal.

All indicators are that (unlike Iraq) Iran has slipped the window of a US intervention (mostly because Chinese pressure in the Pacific is keeping the US from being able to commit elsewhere in the world), so the US must now rely on harsher means to protect its interests.

Excommunicated? But...

How can they be wrong about what it means? :chin: — BitconnectCarlos

' :chin: ' indeed...

Jews can't be wrong about Zionism?

Well, then I have some unfortunate news for you...

Facing war in the Middle East and Ukraine the US looks feeble. But is it just an act? (The Guardian, 2024)

An interesting article that appeared in the Guardian (of all places) written by historian and writer Adam Tooze, echoing a sentiment that I have expressed in this thread pertaining to the nature of US actions in the current crises.

Tooze questions the surface-level appearance of the Biden administration as being incompetent, and instead hypothesizes that Biden's neocon administration is rolling out an elaborate strategy:

There is one school of thought that says the Biden administration is muddling through. It has no grand plan. It lacks the will or the means to discipline or direct either the Ukrainians or the Israelis. As a result, it is mainly focused on avoiding a third world war.

[...]

But what if that interpretation is too benign? What if it underestimates the intentionality on Washington’s part? What if key figures in the administration actually see this as a history-defining moment and an opportunity to reshape the balance of world power? What if what we are witnessing is the pivoting of the US to a deliberate and comprehensive revisionism by way of a strategy of tension? — Adam Tooze

And I agree with Tooze on various points.

I've made similar arguments pertaining to the crises in Ukraine and Israel - namely that Washington feigns weakness and reluctance, when in fact it is doubling down on all the policies that drive towards escalation in a way that suggests it is following a coherent strategy.

Countries outside the West have long understood this. These sentiments aren't exactly new. But what is interesting is the fact that a big Western media outlet would publish such an article.

Could it be that Europe is slowly starting to regain some of its geopolitical wits?

One year on since the Hamas attack,


- Hamas remains undefeated while tens of thousands of civilians lay dead.

- Israel's international reputation has evaporated and it is probably the most isolated it has ever been in its history.

- Israel now finds itself at war with another adversary, Hezbollah, in a war that it is equally unlikely to win.

- Tens of thousands Israelis have already left the country.

- Recent seismographic anomalies suggest Iran may have tested a nuclear weapon.


A right clusterfuck if ever I saw one.

When people start talking about 'revolutionizing the home' I get chills down my spine. It smells of authoritarian tendencies that have often assaulted the home, and that the home was often the last bastion against. (Though you haven't added Coccia's thoughts on what this 'revolution' should entail)

When intellectuals and (god forbid) politicians start making claims about what the home should be, we are on a dangerous path. There is no greater 'We' when it comes to my home.

The home isn't anyone's business except of the people living there. A fundamentally human castle, indeed, against the clutches of the inhuman mass hysteria that goes for politics these days.


On the topic of mobile/electronic devices - I think in time societies will start to regard these with caution, as we do alcohol and smoking. Not just due to physical and mental health risks, but also due to them increasingly infringing upon people's privacy through mass data collection.

How is that a rabbit hole? Irish resistance against British rule lasted multiple centuries. The Dutch resisted Habsburg and Spanish rule for hundreds of years too, and fought an eighty-year-long war to end it.

The suggestion that the Palestinians are somehow uniquely violent or unable to compromise simply has no basis in reality.

Of course, each one of those cases/regions is different, and culture plays a factor in this. At the end of the day, whether uneasy peace or not, the Irish resistance compromised with the British. — schopenhauer1

It took them eight centuries of resistance.

Israel is not going to last eight centuries. It will be lucky if it lasts another eight years by the way things are going.

Arguments about what belongs to who have no other purpose than to justify apartheid and/or ethnic cleansing, and don't need to be taken seriously from either side.

The only real solution here is equal rights for Palestinians, and for Israel to become a normal, modern state where multiple ethnicities can coexist.

And it's Israel's only option for survival too. It cannot solve any of its problems with the sword, and attempting to do so is just going to ensure its adversaries will treat Israel in kind once the pendulum swings.

In those cases I think 'oppression' is indeed a strong term. In the case of Ireland there were various historical grievances that fueled the resistance to English rule. In the case of the Basques I am not sure.

But people's sense of identity and the desire for self-determination which flows from that - basically nationalism - is a very powerful force.

Self-determination is also a human right cemented in international law, the denial of which historically has led to all sorts of bloody conflicts.

In other words, it appears the denial of self-determination is in itself perceived as such a grave violation of human dignity that it alone is enough to spur people towards violent resistance.

To suggest that World War 2 and the Israel-Palestine conflict are in any way comparable is a ridiculous argument that I cannot fathom anyone takes seriously.

The fact that you would try to make the comparison while simultaneously ignoring much more obvious examples like the Irish IRA and the Basque ETA (which undoubtedly would be much less suited to support your arguments) tells me all I need to know.

And no, partisans taking part in a wider military effort are not the same as civil resistance against long-standing oppression.


What even are these arguments?

Is it a classic example of flinging shit at a wall hoping something might stick? Or are you really that far gone that you genuinely believe in these nonsensical comparisons?

Anti-Nazi partisan groups largely focused on weaking German military infrastructure, not going on rape & murder sprees of uninvolved German civilians. I am not familiar with anything comparable to 10/7 among groups persecuted by the Nazis. Being oppressed shouldn't automatically turn one into a complete animal free from all moral considerations. — BitconnectCarlos

Apples and oranges, as usual.

The Serbs tried to justify their violent ethno-nationalism in exactly the same way during the Balkan wars. Netanyahu is literally a Jewish Milošević.

Violent resistance movements tend to use very comparable methods, that usually extend to acts of extreme cruelty and targeting of civilians.

You can even find contemporary examples in Europe that followed those patterns, like the Irish Troubles and the Basque conflict in Spain.

I think it's a human tendency to prefer peaceful solutions over costly violent conflicts, but when there are no peaceful paths available its equally human to resist violently.

Violent resistance against oppression is historically quite common across all regions of the world.

All cryptocurrency, at least all that is valuable, is scarce. — hypericin

Is it? Or just expensive and sometimes artificially so? — Benkei

Loss of "value stability"(that is, decline) happens in proportion to loss of scarcity and loss of confidence in future scarcity. — hypericin

Scarcity means that something is in limited supply. Colloquially one may refer to goods which are 'very scarce' (like precious metals) and goods which are 'less scarce' (like food), but ultimately both are scarce.

In order for a good to be considered 'not scarce' it must be so readily available it has no value whatsoever. Like seawater, earth, air, etc. - obviously such goods are unsuitable as a means of exchange.

The lack of value stability with cryptos does not have anything to do with a changing nature of its scarcity, nor with sudden increases in supply, which is what some people mistakenly believe.

To illustrate, even if the cryptomarket would be flooded with ShitCoin XYZ, BitCoin would remain largely unaffected, because ShitCoin XYZ is not the same product as BitCoin.

It's also not clear whether the aforementioned rapid changes of perception are inherent to cryptocurrency, or simply inherent to a new and experimental market as it slowly gravitates towards the 'true' value of the good.

Long story short, this has nothing to do with scarcity.

They are willing to buy to the degree it is scarce. As I said scarcity is a necessary but insufficient condition for value. — hypericin

I think cryptocurrency derives its value from the fact that it is an independent means of exchange. It's much less stable in value than gold, but it is much easier to make transactions with.

The means of exchange probably needs to have some kind of inherent value, such as gold has. — Leontiskos

I'm not sure whether I agree gold has inherent value. Its main guarantor of value is its track record of several thousand years. Gold has the property of being an incredibly stable compound, but this is probably not as important in the modern age as it was historically.

There's no scarcity of let's say the US dollar. Only that the Central Bank won't do this. But with a few pushes on a computer, they could make tomorrow 100 trillion dollars. — ssu

That's a possibility, albeit an unrealistic one. I think that's why the US dollar can still be said to be scarce. For it to be considered 'not scarce' there would have to be more dollar bills than people know what to do with. That may happen during a hyper inflation.

The common problem money printing creates isn't necessarily a lack of scarcity, but a lack of value stability.

A lot of the experts I think we both follow are discussing this pretty intensely right now of whether US is controlling Israel policy for US imperial interests, or Israel is controlling US policy for Israeli imperial interests, or even that it may appear Israel is driving policy at the moment but US imperialists wisely set things up this way decades ago to happen (to act as that cross-roads spoiler you've described, come-what-may style).

It's quite fascinating, but I feel there's just too much long term degradation of US prestige for what we see Israel doing to be some sort of cryptic US policy. General idea, sure, but no one concerned with US imperial interests would want to see a genocide in Gaza; They'd want to see what the US does: insane amounts of damage and suffering ... but aha! not quite genocide motherfuckers! Purposefully starving a population, for example, US imperialists simply view as beneath them (if people are eating while the US drops bombs on them, that doesn't bother them much, it's a sort of "why not?" attitude within the US war machine to people having basic food stuffs supplied by various humanitarian organizations; what we see Israel doing is I think too profoundly different to be driven by US imperialists; certainly enabled by zionists within the US administration, but this I think should be viewed as Israel effectively in control of US policy and not US imperialists, as such apart from being also zionists, view the extremes of zionism as somehow serving US foreign policy). — boethius

Personally, I am reserving judgement on this issue, though I am leaning towards the US being in the driver's seat.

The basic question is, could Israel be used to plunge the Middle-East into chaos once controlling it becomes unfeasible?

(That's ultimately why the US is interested in the Middle-East. Oil, yes, but more importantly it is a vital land corridor that connects several geopolitical rivals - plunging it into chaos would be enough to deny that connection)

And I think the answer is yes, especially considering Israel will be a nuclear-armed power that's conceivably fighting for its survival.


Conversely, if Israel is in the driver's seat it's entirely unclear to me what power base they would be deriving that position from.

AIPAC? Ok, then where does AIPAC get its power from? If the Israel lobby is capable of coercing the former hegemon, it must have some practical levers of power that can be discerned, and personally I have never seen a convincing argument to that end.


US prestige taking a hit is certainly a factor worth considering, but once global domination becomes an unfeasible goal, perhaps prestige starts to matter less. We also have to consider the US may be gearing up to play hardball with the rest of the world (thus throwing its reputation out of the window) to protect its hegemonic position.

We are in general agreement, but the West will be pushing the envelope because it knows Russia will get more risk averse the closer it gets to victory. Thus, the West could theoretically get away with more blatant belligerence. Russia on its part is signaling it will meet escalation with escalation.

Whether or not NATO is directly involved in the hostilities is not really an interesting practical question (obviously they are deeply involved), but it is an important legal question, and it's important for international perception which is something Russia does care about.

There's a world of difference between Russia being seen as reacting to the West, as oppossed to aggressing the West. This will be vitally important if it ever comes (God forbid) to nuclear escalation.

That's why I think these nuances are worth pointing out.

Ukraine cannot strike targets deep inside Russia without NATO ISR capabilities.

That's the problem here - NATO becoming a direct participant in the war by giving Ukraine the targeting data for its long-range strikes.

This would put two nuclear-armed powers in direct conflict with each other.

That's what the recent signaling is about.

The Kremlin keeps playing the nuclear card, because they know they have a much higher stake in this game than the West does.

People's perception of the longevity and value of the currency, I suppose.

Certain cryptos have turned out to be scams, or became completely valueless. This is of course the investor's nightmare.

BitCoin has survived some serious drops, and recently experienced some big rises. These trends seem to suggest it is able to hold its value over time.

And of course, the longer it continues to exist, the stronger its reputation as being reliable will become.

The biggest problem with crypto is their trustworthiness, so cryptos which are perceived as more trustworthy, like BitCoin, are a distinctly different product from ShitCoin XYZ.

The process of building up a trustworthy reputation takes time, thus it is not easy to recreate the product, thus it remains scarce.

What do you think?

Can one be a "culturist", meaning can one morally be "against" certain cultures, or should people be tolerant of all cultural aspects, whether you agree with them or not? — schopenhauer1

One can be morally against something, while still being tolerant of it. (In fact, tolerance of something seems to already imply some moral distaste for it?)

I'm not one to tell other people how to live their lives, but I'll pass moral judgements if prompted or given good reason to, in the sense that I won't shy away from calling a spade a spade just to appear 'tolerant'.

In that context, it seems obvious to me that dysfunctional or degenerate cultures can undermine a society's capacity for prosperity.

Culture very strongly correlates to the moral values people are brought up with, whether they're taught implicitly or explicitly.

It will translate firstly into how children are raised, subsequently how they unfold as adult individuals, and lastly what they pass on to the following generations.

One reason why these cultural moral teachings are so important, is because they become so deeply ingrained into people and the society they live in, that many will not be able to question these teachings at any point in their life. They become so normalized that the majority of people will be unaware they even exist and affect their lives on a daily basis.

To make a long story short: some moral values are simply worse than others, and by their fruits you will know them.

Europe, including Britain, is heading for a new dark age, mainly because its political elites are too corrupt and incapable to adjust to a world that is rapidly changing (and not in their favor).

Eventually, the situation will become so dire that change will be imposed from the bottom up in a political (or perhaps an actual) 'revolution'.

At that point, the old structures inherited from the period of US hegemony will be done away with, and something new will take its place that is probably more capable of adapting to the new global state of affairs.

Palpable hand wringing as the clowns refuse to face the music. :lol:

The Middle East is in a perpetual war zone that benefits a big ass weapon industry. — javi2541997

It is instrumental to the US empire, and that's the primary reason for the way things are.

The military industrial complex, BlackRock, etc. - these are the vultures who flock to the smell of fresh carrion, but they are not the main driver behind these conflicts. The main driver for US involvement is US geopolitical strategy, and that's what we ought to analyse and understand in order to make sense of events.

The US establishment on their part of course has no problem with corporate interests taking the blame. Much better for people to believe the US government is not to blame, but "evil corporations" are, or so the reasoning in Washington goes.



If you look at a map you'll note that the Middle-East is located on a critical junction that connects several regions of the world via land. Why is that important?

The US possesses the world's most powerful navy. It controls sea-based trade. Any nation that gets into a large-scale war with the US can say its sea-based trade goodbye.

China is heavily dependent on sea-based trade, and is deeply aware of its vulnerable position should its sea lanes of communication be cut off.

That's why China is seeking to create land-based alternatives.

The US is trying to deny such alternatives by trying to control critical trade junctions, or cause chaos if controlling them turns out to be unfeasible.

Note that Iran ("public enemy #1") is a critical bottleneck that connects China and India to the Middle-East, Africa and Europe via Central Asia.

The other critical bottleneck is Eastern Europe, which connects Russia (and by extension China) to Europe.

It is of course no coincidence that we see intense US involvement in these regions.



If you want another example, you can look at India. India has a much more neutral disposition towards the US, yet we see the same pattern.

Bangladesh and Pakistan are the land-based trade corridors that connect India to the rest of the world. What do we see there? Long-standing and intense US involvement.

What exactly is the difference between Israel as a rogue genocidal, raping and terrorist state and Israel as all those things in addition to dropping nukes? — boethius

The difference is that the former does not threaten the security of the great powers, whereas the latter undermines it in the most dangerous way possible.

Nuclear proliferation is one of the only topics the great powers have generally been in agreement over. They realise the consequences to global security, including their own, if the nuclear genie is let out of the bottle.

What would ensue after an unprovoked nuclear attack is a mad scramble where virtually every nation on the planet will be trying to get their hands on nuclear deterrents and anti-ballistic missile defenses of their own.

At that point, the great powers would likely do everything in their power to crack down on the culprit in an attempt to cool global fear.

I don't think you're understanding the full gravity of what you're describing, which is essentially Israel becoming an aggressive, nuclear-armed rogue state.

The taboo on nuclear weapons use is enormous. If Israel were to launch an unprovoked nuclear strike on another country, the entire world would be seeking nuclear armament and anti-ballistic missile defense, and with good justification.

Unlike the genocide in Gaza, this would directly undermine the nuclear deterrence and security interests of every nuclear-armed power in the world, including the US. This would be everybody's problem.

If any nation were to do something like that, there'd be an international coalition on their doorstep the next day to dismantle the regime.

That's pure realism, by the way. It has nothing to do with humanism.

Take the example given by the report - 25 strikes on military targets. It would inflict a lot of damage, but Iran would remain largely intact. So it doesn't even solve that problem, and it would create a million more.

Israel would turn itself into a global threat overnight, putting itself in the crosshairs of literally every nation on earth. Israel would be crushed diplomatically, economically, politically, etc.

Nuclear proliferation (and missile defense) in the Middle-East would skyrocket as every nation in and outside of the Middle-East will scramble for security. Similar strikes on Israel would be expected - strikes which Israel is a lot less capable of absorbing due to its small size.

Etc.

I think you're overestimating the damage and deterring effect, and underestimating the geopolitical consequences of a nuclear first strike.

Again, nuclear deterrence works mainly because of mutually assured destruction - threatening the literal end of the world after which there will be no consequences to consider. Israel can do no such thing.

Now, if by "victory plan" you mean a rational course of action, then definitely there is no victory plan.

However, nuclear weapons would not be for "victory" but to create long term deterrence that they are willing to nuke anyone, precisely because they are not rational actors. I.e. mad dog strategy ... but you are in fact completely a mad dog, no guessing games or theatre about it. — boethius

Personally, I don't find that a very realistic strategy.

It's thinkable that Israel would launch a nuclear strike if its survival is directly threatened, and after a long series of warnings. The Iranians are probably smart enough to back down before such a strike would occur and then use the nuclear threats to legitimize their own pursuit of nuclear armament (as may various other actors in the Middle-East).

Actual unprovoked nuclear weapons use would have global political consequences so dire that they would dwarf any military advantage gained.

Keep in mind that a large part of nuclear deterrence lies in the fact that it threatens to destroy the world, and thus not having to deal with the political fallout (pun intended). Israel does not threaten that, so it must have a plan for what happens next.

Good points.

'Irreversible changes' is I think exactly the right term to use. It has set back normalization another 50 years, while Israel may not even have 5 years before US influence wanes and the situation in the Middle-East is going to fundamentally change.

It will have a hell of a time convincing the US to commit to a war in the Middle-East, because Washington knows that's exactly what Russia and China would love to see.

And I agree, there is no victory plan. Even nuclear weapons cannot realistically deal with the type of conflicts Israel will be faced with, not to mention the global consequences a nuclear first strike would have.

Bibi refers to Israel's Arab partners in the speech, which is a bit confusing. Having a peace agreement doesn't mean that you are partners. — ssu

It's quite understandable.

Israel being able to normalize relations with its neighbors and garner allies in the region would be a fundamental step towards making its geopolitical position sustainable in the long-term.

As the window of US intervention in the Middle-East is closing and the situation there becomes more volatile by the day, Israel is hoping to signal to the US that these attempts at diplomacy haven't completely failed.

However, I think these attempts have failed, and that there isn't a single actor in the Middle-East that isn't counting down the days for the US intervention window to completely shut, after which they will fundamentally change their disposition towards Israel.

Yet, there is still a chance that Israel manages to drag the US into a war with Iran in an attempt to once again reset the balance of power in the Middle-East.

In order to do so, Israel would probably have to convince the US that it wouldn't turn into "US vs. the Middle-East," but that there would be regional partners that would support them. I don't think that's the case, though.

The reason I point out the flaws of government is because you seem to be arguing in favor of cracking down on social media, which would have to be done by governments.

Modern governments unfortunately have become part of the problem, and therefore cannot be trusted to solve it.

They could help solve this issue by creating platforms where constructive discussions can take place (as they have done in the past), but modern governments show no interest in doing so.

Why?

Because modern governments have gone all-in on propaganda (now euphemistically called 'narrative'), and they don't want their propaganda to be questioned on authoritative platforms.

In fact, governments don't want their propaganda questioned on any platform if they had their way, and that's of course exactly what they would strive for - an iron hold on public opinion à la China - a monopoly on "truth".

Note that I acknowledge the problems of social media. I am pointing to a deeper problem which has to do with the way modern governments function.

[...] the current form of public debates is a result of catering to how people interact on a large scale today, i.e how people act on social media. — Christoffer

Nothing that happens on social media is what I would consider public debate, and certainly not healthy public debate.

And that's my point: healthy public debate is lacking.

One of the reasons it is lacking is because governments have forsaken their task of impartial news providers in favor of trying to create propaganda echo chambers.

Imagine if there was an algorithm that pushed just the most conflict ridden topics to the top and only the ones who pay for algorithm priority raises to the top, flooding the entire front page with their topics, most of them being rage baits in order to earn money through influencing people to buy a certain product. — Christoffer

That's almost exactly how government agenda-setting functions, hence my point about governments being fundamentally unable to solve this problem. In fact, giving them more power in this regard is more likely to make things worse.

Only transforming social media from market driven algorithms into fostering an algorithm that is neutral for the sake of normal interactions, without any ads or market driven influencers consisting of the majority of views and interactions, as well as a clear line drawn on behaviors reflecting what a normal public space would allow behaviors to be would generate a true social media for the people and not corporations. — Christoffer

For that you would need impartial decisionmakers, which we have just established the government is not.

Frankly, people flinging shit at each other on the market square doesn't concern me one bit. Orwellian, government-controlled echo chambers on the other hand concern me greatly.

People sharing bullshit wouldn't be much of an issue if democracies such as ours would foster healthy public debate. Governments are trying to crackdown on social media precisely because it disrupts the echo chambers they're so keen on maintaining.

The reason governments can't foster healthy public debate is because they are peddling their own bullshit which then would not pass the test either.

So social media is a symptom of a deeper problem, and banning platforms, rather than solving anything, would just put the power in the hands of one bullshit-peddler over the other.

Zaluzhny has now come forward and openly stated he was against the Kursk incursion plan, but that Zelensky chose to go ahead with the plan anyway.

By now it is obvious the Kursk incursion has turned into a costly disaster, and predictably so. Committing scarce offensive reserves to an irrelevant part of the battlefront, to capture territory that one is unable to hold, while crucial parts of the battlefront are on the verge of collapse can't even be called amateurish - it's worse than that.

Here's what I said about it two months ago, on the first day of the incursion:

The previous Ukrainian offensive was a costly failure, and that's probably what this offensive will turn out as well since it makes zero military sense. — Tzeentch

Lucid, or just stating the obvious?

Remember also all the faux pundits who praised the Kursk 'masterstroke', or delivered supposedly 'balanced analysis' on what was clearly an astronomical blunder from a military perspective. Some of you desperately need better sources...


The question that remains to be answered is why Zelensky insisted on pushing the Kursk incursion. The answer is that this decision was almost certainly made for political reasons. Reasons which probably cannot be spoken out loud, which is why the Ukrainian president has so far failed to produce a credible explanation for his decision. Therefore we have to speculate.


My lingering sense is that the Kursk incursion was a scheme concocted in Washington, with as its purpose to make negotiations before November impossible.

Remember that at any point during the incursion, the Ukrainians could have said "This isn't working, let's cut our losses, pack up and leave", but that isn't happening. This means someone is getting what they want out of this debacle. I think that someone is Uncle Sam.

The term 'misinformation' should be replaced simply by 'propaganda'.

All sides use propaganda. All sides want people to believe their bullshit, while not believing the other sides' bullshit. The actors then have to engage in linguistic gymnastics to conceal the fact that they're two sides of the same shit coin.

Propaganda brokers (such as governments) do not want you to arm yourself against propaganda in general.


My advice: be worried about propaganda, it is extremely powerful and almost universally misunderstood.


It is often assumed that better education will decrease receptiveness to propaganda, but this does not seem to be true and there are actually indicators that people with higher educations are more vulnerable to propaganda. Noam Chomsky famously argued this.

My take on this is that people misunderstand the main vector of propaganda, which isn't reason or rationality, but emotion and psychology. People who are more cerebral and less in touch with their emotions and/or 'gut-feeling' may therefore be more susceptible to propaganda.


If one wants to arm themselves against propaganda, one should study (their own) psychology.

What kind of a clown are you? Mearsheimer states verbatim he believes Trump is running against the deep state.

The level of dishonesty with you is off the charts.