I think if you think it's in the interest of the people of the USA for the country to be a cynical, overt, quixotic, childish bully on a global basis, including acting as goons on behalf of tech companies, that's an opinion you are certainly entitled to.
France has global geopolitical projects, as does China in South America, Central Asia and Africa. Both export arms into conflicts and conduct global intelligence operations.
Sure, some also still dream secretly of a french global empire and french as the rightful lingua franca reinstalled. But de facto they ain't a global hegemon - the US is. And people were mostly fine with it, while they were not obviously abusing their position of power for themself.
America acts like a global hegemon. My point is simply that France and China act similarly, too—they both project power across oceans and continents. (To what end is, as with America’s power projection, a good question.)
I agree with what you’re inferring. But that said, there’s a valid argument to be had that—for some things—your own government is a unique threat that other people’s governments are not, or less so.
I’m Australian, and if I was worried about the practical legal risk of being tracked online by a government, it’s mostly concern about my own. A foreign friendly government is mid tier: it’s unlikely that five eyes is an intel firehouse, so it’s unlikely for your petty domestic matter to be communicated. A foreign hostile government is probably safer if you’re committing domestic crimes.
Why do you say NATO is fraying? Because of Russia, NATO has increased its membership, increased military budgets, and increased European military cooperation. It probably has never been stronger.
I hope this finally motivates the Europeans to step up their game long-term. They should be able to defend themselves without the US and also develop and produce their weapons within Europe. NATO will be better if it's an alliance of equal partners.
Trumps short term actions will have long term consequences on the alliance. Specifically on how the alliance views reliance on the US. Trump has shown how unreliable an ally the US can be. Putting that cat bag in the bag doesn’t reverse the realisation that there’s a cat in that bag.
This will likely strengthen NATO in the long term. But only if it doesn’t get tested by Russia in the short term.
It's probably for the better over the long term, I Agree. We might be getting into complicated times, with AI and robotics, so it's much better if Europe would be more self-sufficient, militarily, technologicaly and economicaly.
There are approximately 874 days left in Donald Trump's presidential term as of August 29, 2026.
That's if the bugger leaves office and doesn't start an insurrection like last time, and that the insurrection doesn't work like last time. Depends a lot on how much Americans actually want him gone, but alas you Americans seem to keep voting for him no matter how many corruption scandals he's in.
I think the majority of “you Americans” that you’re talking about aren’t on HN. The Americans actually on this platform probably have the same concerns you do.
Most of greatest works of modern art are European. The term “modern art” is in reference to an era that we are no longer in.
You have a strong opinion. I would highly implore you to learn more about art history and why art is the way it is today. You’ll learn why banana and duct tape is why it is.
What makes an art work museum worthy? It’s very rewarding to have that insight.
I feel like a good number of people have gotten fatigue from the share of mindspace given to art that is deemed valuable due to some art history, that you maybe even can only get if you have knowledge of art history or read the plague attributing the "clever" meaning.
Not everyone gives about the class signaling that brings or the like or the insight that makes one say 'oooh i get it now' or how avant garde in a slightly new way the next pollock is.
I think it's fitting how someone else compared it to the declinging returns of bitcoin mining.
After Duchamp's Fountain, Cattelan's Comedian, Warhol's campbell cans,...what share still give a shit about definitional art or other similarly iterated on styles? Maybe you can make a piece about it.
I think it's made obvious that "thick" can mean many different things. Personally, I've never heard "thick" to mean "dimwitted" or it ever used as such.
Based on Google Translate it looks very much like what the article reports: Greenland Energy is moving exploratory drilling equipment without permits and without permission. Then it provides context on what Greenland Energy is and what they're up to.
> These deaths are most likely due to "housecleaning", as I said.
No, it’s not. It’s very obvious you have no idea of how US military personnel work and live, and the stresses that can be imposed on a person by the function of being in a military. Among those functions such as deployments which can come as a surprise and up root anything you having going on in your life. Or, having to live for several years in highly undesirable locations like Cannon AFB in the middle of no where. These can have a substantial effect on a service member’s mental health. Add in work conditions like working 12 hour shifts in a windowless room. Compounded even further by crappy leadership that you’re stuck with and continuously denies your leave.
No, housecleaning is not more likely. You’re just ignorant of the military life.
From what I see there are only 10 kilometers to a town which has a zoo, mall, church etc. It's not a walk in the park, but with given the zoning laws and car-centric culture of the US, it's not very much.
You might want to actually read the article, then you would see how your descriptions don't actually apply.
Part of the shitty work conditions (that remarkably persist despite incredible amounts of money vanishing in the DoD/W) is your employer being out to kill you should they get the idea of you being insufficiently free of morals or independent thought.
I would argue, that part should worry you far more than your other points.
Not really. The official name is still Dept of Defense. The executive order applies a “also known as” because the POTUS cannot change the name. There’s nothing for congress to do because the name has not officially changed. The next POTUS can simply remove this order and it’s back to DoD.
The son of the elderly Iranian ruler, aligned politically with his father, took over. The war prompted Iran to operate one of the world's largest economic pressure levers, to great effect. The U.S.'s unilateralism, leadership rhetoric, and war crimes (like bombing a school) have lost it a significant amount of global goodwill.
None of that seems like it jibes with your description.
It does. The initial strike, while effective, has proven to achieve absolutely nothing, or less than nothing. Neither Iran's military nor logistic nor even administrative capability was impacted to any serious extent. The population, of which a large proportion was against the regime and potentially on the brink of a revolt, quickly fell in line and became supporters, faced with the external opposition. And Iran has proven its ability to unilaterally close the straight of Hormuz, a crippling blow to the entire world's economy that the USA is simply unable to stop.
So again - the execution shows significant tactical competence. But the strategic direction is absolutely disastrous.
Success or failure isn’t judged by how many explosions or dead bodies each side racks up. Def Sec McNamara admits he made that mistake during the Vietnam war when he repeatedly asserted the US was winning with all sorts of statistics and charts with steep lines pointing up.
The real question is whether political objectives are achieved. In Iran, those were vaguely defined to begin with, but depending on the moment and mood of the President they were:
1. Prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon now or in the foreseeable future (Not Achieved)
3. Maintain international access to key shipping routes (Negative Achieved, much worse than pre-war status quo)
So after spending billions of dollars, depleting stockpiles of our most modern precision weapons against a vastly inferior military technologically, losing 18 American lives and resulting in both global economic disruption and to our Gulf allies, the war has failed to accomplish any objectives and left everyone in a worse position than before the war except the IRGC.
Minimal cost? We’re at about a billion dollars per primary target and rising. Not to mention north of 250 US casualties. I’d hardly call that minimal cost.
Our ability to defend our allies in the region is non existent, and we lost almost all of our radar capabilities which will take a decade minimum to rebuild. That’s assuming hostilities end tomorrow.
Congrats, now even more hardline leadership got power. And it was conclusively proven that US trears accomodating or measured responses as weakness, so the new leadership wont makr the same mistake.
Iran gained straight of hormuz. It gained chuckpaz and confidence too. It is now itching to play major regional power
Yes, but the military exists for the nation, not the other way around, so a military success that turns into a national disaster is not a military success at all.
That's why even in the nuclear Navy, as crazy as they are about reactor safety, they would train and preach continuously that "safety of ship" is more important than reactor safety, because the reactor is not safe if the ship is not safe.
From a military standpoint, yes. You have to have your head buried in the sand to think we didn’t have significant loss of military assets in the region.
A very cursory investigation suggests the Iran war has cost the US approximately 100 billion dollars.
About half in hardware and half in increased costs for citizens.
These costs are continuing since there is no end in sight and it seems the US is running out of some of the equipment it has used.
What were the stated goals and did the US achieve them? The same family still runs Iran in the same way, nothing has changed in a material way as of now.
For the most part those are people who were not previously able to create because of skill atrophy or lack of programming aptitude. From their point of view being able to command (for now) a more capable entity to do what they (think) they want is an improvement.
You mean the US government working towards the interests of its people and economy? Which government wouldn't? It's kinda what we want it to do.
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