I think the impunity over Gaza has created the conditions that make not having a nuclear deterrent almost suicidal. If you’re Iran, the message of Gaza is Israel can flatten Tehran and the world will go, “too bad about the kids, but Israel has the right blah blah blah.”
Perversely, many other countries now forced into this kind of logic, like Canada worried about US threats, are themselves complicit in the system of impunity that let Netanyahu’s mad dog off the chain. Almost all the destruction took place under Biden, but now it’s, “hang on - what about sovereignty, diplomacy, international law?”
Totally with you that Trump has no plan. You only need a plan if there’s a price to pay for not having one, or having a bad one. Absent any such consequences - Trump's special sauce - why even bother with it. And of course he only respects money and power, as you’ve pointed out many times. If Iran had nukes, he’d say it’s stupid to attack them (as presumably would Gabbard, who has been singing the same song about Russia for 3 years now).
Anyway, at this point, both he and Netanyahu can just pick their targets. Nobody’s stopping them.
Fucking brutal being this dark and, at the same time, this trivial.
Even in Canada (where we obviously face nowhere near the same risks as e.g. Iran), I think nuclear weapons have become a lot more appealing, especially relative to the same $ put into conventional arms. When the country you're worried about has overwhelming conventional superiority, idk where else you take that.
I must say though that the nail in the coffin of non-proliferation was the feebleness of the US support of Ukraine under Biden's admin. Even under Obama, although Russians executed the 2014 PR operation so flawlessly, it's now water under the (Crimean) bridge. Trump is just affirming that not only "professional-managerial foreign affairs regime" won't save you, but neither will relationship building with the mercurial kleptocrats of the new era.
Nukes loom so large over the ongoing conflicts. Trump seems generally much friendlier and accommodating to the nuclear powers (Russia, Israel). Everyone else is fair game for annexation. We may have reached a point where diplomacy is dead and nuclearization is sovereignty.
Thanks for the cold water plunge, John. I favor your second hypothetical account for recent events, but I'd say that Trump was played by Bibi just like Biden/Harris was played by Bibi. What the past few years have done is re-ignite the nuclear arms race — but in a world in which every country and every madman has "the bomb" it isn't likely that the MAD strategy will work over the long run.
Maybe somewhere some right-wing lunatic believes that nuclear winter is a solution to global warming.
Completely agree with you about the improvisational nature of the the "non plan strategy." Have we not seen this before? After destroying the Kerry negotiations, Trump decided to annihilate Iran as his solution to the "Middle East problem" in his first term, but wasn't able to thoroughly con the military. He's still already decided, but lied to get elected; he surveys the room, in this case Fox News, and decides it's ok now. This is not transactional behavior but a confidence man's game.
I think the impunity over Gaza has created the conditions that make not having a nuclear deterrent almost suicidal. If you’re Iran, the message of Gaza is Israel can flatten Tehran and the world will go, “too bad about the kids, but Israel has the right blah blah blah.”
Perversely, many other countries now forced into this kind of logic, like Canada worried about US threats, are themselves complicit in the system of impunity that let Netanyahu’s mad dog off the chain. Almost all the destruction took place under Biden, but now it’s, “hang on - what about sovereignty, diplomacy, international law?”
Totally with you that Trump has no plan. You only need a plan if there’s a price to pay for not having one, or having a bad one. Absent any such consequences - Trump's special sauce - why even bother with it. And of course he only respects money and power, as you’ve pointed out many times. If Iran had nukes, he’d say it’s stupid to attack them (as presumably would Gabbard, who has been singing the same song about Russia for 3 years now).
Anyway, at this point, both he and Netanyahu can just pick their targets. Nobody’s stopping them.
Fucking brutal being this dark and, at the same time, this trivial.
John did you see you got an enthusiastic endorsement of this post on Brad DeLong’s Substack today?
Even in Canada (where we obviously face nowhere near the same risks as e.g. Iran), I think nuclear weapons have become a lot more appealing, especially relative to the same $ put into conventional arms. When the country you're worried about has overwhelming conventional superiority, idk where else you take that.
The idea that "woke" was ever even a little bit as bad as what John articulates here is...yeah it is hard to know what's left to say.
I must say though that the nail in the coffin of non-proliferation was the feebleness of the US support of Ukraine under Biden's admin. Even under Obama, although Russians executed the 2014 PR operation so flawlessly, it's now water under the (Crimean) bridge. Trump is just affirming that not only "professional-managerial foreign affairs regime" won't save you, but neither will relationship building with the mercurial kleptocrats of the new era.
Nukes loom so large over the ongoing conflicts. Trump seems generally much friendlier and accommodating to the nuclear powers (Russia, Israel). Everyone else is fair game for annexation. We may have reached a point where diplomacy is dead and nuclearization is sovereignty.
Thanks for the cold water plunge, John. I favor your second hypothetical account for recent events, but I'd say that Trump was played by Bibi just like Biden/Harris was played by Bibi. What the past few years have done is re-ignite the nuclear arms race — but in a world in which every country and every madman has "the bomb" it isn't likely that the MAD strategy will work over the long run.
Maybe somewhere some right-wing lunatic believes that nuclear winter is a solution to global warming.
Completely agree with you about the improvisational nature of the the "non plan strategy." Have we not seen this before? After destroying the Kerry negotiations, Trump decided to annihilate Iran as his solution to the "Middle East problem" in his first term, but wasn't able to thoroughly con the military. He's still already decided, but lied to get elected; he surveys the room, in this case Fox News, and decides it's ok now. This is not transactional behavior but a confidence man's game.