Discussion

America Is Now a Rogue Superpower

adventured: The single most interesting thing that will come out of the Iran war, is it's giving the go-ahead signal for China. I don't mean morally specifically, I mean practically: China is plainly seeing the US can't sustain a long campaign what-so-ever. The US has burned through ~850 Tomahawks in weeks, 20-25% of its stock. Again an opponent that wasn't that hard to knock down in terms of air to ground / ground to air, and strategic targets.While the US can demolish high value targets all day long (assuming it can find them), it won't be able to sustain volume. And this is against a dramatically outmatched opponent (in terms of air + navy + intel, not boots on the ground).China will build a hundred cruise missiles per day and truck them in from factories far away from the coast. The US can build 10-20. China's cruise missiles won't be as good, and they won't need to be. And that's the absolute least of what China will hyper produce in a mobilization to a war manufacturing stance. The US should just wave the flag before the first shots are fired re Taiwan given what we're seeing in Iran, it's over before it ever begins.The US can't control the Straight of Hormuz properly, without taking losses (which it clearly doesn't want to do). That's a trivial task compared to trying to keep China from controlling the waters near Taiwan. The US won't be able to even get close to Taiwan is what this is demonstrating. China can stand-off the US easily.The US is showing China and the world that it has zero chance at stopping a takeover of Taiwan.China should be looking at this Iran mess and moving as fast as it can to launch their invasion. The US isn't ready, and won't be.The US could put up a big fight at a full war mobilization, given some time to spin up. That scenario will not occur with regard to Taiwan. China has the green light.

oblio: The upside is that taking down Taiwan will be really hard. Fairly sure a lot of it is mountainous and forested and I think the strait is quite perilous.So China might cripple Taiwan but invading it risks being their Vietnam.That doesn't mean a war won't happen, people make stupid decisions all the time.

amarant: It's quite obvious the Iran war is terrible for America, and terrible for Europe.But that is good for Russia is an angle at least I hadn't considered before. It adds up though.There was a lot of speculation on trump's ties to Russia back in the day, is that what the Iran war is really about? Well played mister Putin if so. Well played.

casey2: Since they are currently at war with Ukraine if they make a profit from selling oil Ukraine will just drone strike their ports.These weird conspiracy theories that the US moves at the behest of Israel and Russia don't hold any water.

micromacrofoot: They're common because they're probably less weird than reality, which is seemingly "there's no consistent or clear official reason for doing these things"

WarmWash: China's biggest hurdle that they cannot manufacture is experience. They have virtually zero. How much of China's military command is a crony boys club full of people who never had to militarily prove anything?

adventured: Iran has been a target since long before 9/11.Look up General Wesley Clark's seven countries in five years YouTube video. This was the plan all along, Trump has nothing fundamental to do with it, he was just willing to pull the trigger.Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and lastly IranThey saw the opportunity with Iran weakened, their proxies were knocked down, and Israel was fully mobilized.

pohl: At the very least, it’s uncanny how every “stupid” thing he does suddenly makes sense through that lens.

abhiyerra: The real problem I see is the one child policy. If China decides to go to war and say they have 1000 deaths. How many bloodline die? I feel like there would be a hesitation to fight on the Chinese side if they were to take any losses.It is one of the reasons I don’t believe China would take on Taiwan.

jmyeet: How times have changed when a neoliberal institution (not quite as bad as The Economist) openly says this:> Even the threat of terrorism from the region was a consequence of American involvement, not the reason for it. Had the United States not been deeply and consistently involved in the Muslim world since the 1940s, Islamic militants would have little interest in attacking an indifferent nation 5,000 miles and two oceans away. Contrary to much mythology, they have hated us not so much because of “who we are” but because of where we are. In Iran’s case, the United States was deeply involved in its politics from the 1950s until the 1979 revolution, including as the main supporter of the brutal regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The surest way of avoiding Islamist terrorist attacks would have been to get out.This is absolutely correct and it's wild we now live in a time when mainstream media just comes out and says it.I agree with two general themes of this article:1. This administration has done more to destroy American's global power than any other in history and it's not even closer. We live in a time when Europe is questioning its position of being America's dog. The Gulf states are questioning what they get out of America's security guarantee if America can't or won't protected them; and2. Russia and China are huge winners here. China simply has to do nothing and not interrupt the US while they're making a historic and unprecedented mistake. And Europe and the US will likely make peace with Russia over Ukraine because of spiralling energy costs thanks to America's reckless misadventure in the Gulf.This is going to end very badly for the US and it will (IMHO) go down as the biggest own-goal in American history.

bamboozled: China has played much much better chess so it's not surprise they're benefiting. However, I don't really see how China will benefit from Iran being in ruins. Can you elaborate on how China benefits ?From what I can tell, The USA is either going for force a regime change or it's going to ruin Iran. Where will China get oil from then? You might say Russia but that's a precarious situation for them to be in.

dnautics: on the other hand the us interventions have betrayed that chinese radars e.g. don't "work as advertised", to the point that there have been purges at chinese military industrial manufacturers. on top of the recent purges in the military hierarchy, it seems like action against Taiwan is delayed for a few years.conversely the US brass now has a fire lit under its ass due to low ammo stockpiles and and excuse to replenish them faster, develop anti drone tech faster etc.imagine not having the current embarrassment in iran -- the generals would be complacent, and should a conflict arise over taiwan, they would not be ready.

bestouff: They become a serious partner for many countries disillusioned by the US.

reamaer: If conspiracy exists, it's not US, just single person so ewhere at the top. If leverage exists, it might not dictate every move, just enough to help out the strategic direction.

12971h: Robert Kagan is not wrong about many points, but it is worth noting that he is one of the leading neocons, husband of Nuland, and architect of PNAC:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...The think tank (Brookings Institute) which he is part of laid out the Iran strategy "Path to Persia" something like 15 years ago.I think he does recognize that the US needs Europe for projecting power, so that part is genuine. The US could not prosper against a hypothetical Eurasian union.Not sure what to make of this. Maybe it is supposed to appease the EU (you still have allies in Washington), maybe it is a wakeup call for the deep state to pull the brakes.

xg15: Yeah, given that there are some theories floating around that Trump is actually executing the "Path to Persia" paper, it's interesting that those people are (ostensibly) distancing themselves from it.

bestouff: Well no. This will be the same as in the other countries : when you're poor and sufficiently brainwashed you go to war to "defend" your country, no question asked.

anakaine: Who even is the deep state any more? MAGA was sure it was backroom democrats. Project 2025 has provided much if the playbook for this administrations run, and thats deep red conservative territory. Meanwhile we have an overwhelming body of evidence for market manipulation and extreme profit taking on the ear and oil fronts, pointing to politically aligned financiers.I don't think the deep state is any discernible single group, but rather whoever we want to point the finger at on a particular topic.

exceptione: Good points, except this one: > And Europe and the US will likely make peace with Russia over Ukraine because of spiralling energy costs thanks to America's reckless misadventure in the Gulf. MAGA is investing hard in trying to kill the EU from within by exporting conservative dipshit organisations, blue-printed from the USA. I see al kinds of recruitment going on here. If they succeed there is a small chance Europe will betray Ukraine, but right now the momentum is going into the other direction. What events have shown is that criminal games are incompatible with civil society, and European leaders are finally learning to understand that you can't play with autocrats as Trump, Putin and Orban, because for the latter, there only modus is to exploit, to loiter, to steal, to create conflict, to escalate, to play the victim, to up their game. End game: everything ends in ruin. Crime now only one game: zero sum. People are starting to understand it.

llm_nerd: China is not going to militarily take over Taiwan. The most likely outcome now is a "three state" China where it joins the fold voluntarily and becomes a puppet state of China. Given the way the world has gone, it's the only rational choice.

adolph: > The USA is either going for force a regime change or it's going to ruin Iran. Where will China get oil from then?A positive story for China might be: a.) building port complexes and other industrial facilities is something China export as construction, engineering and financial services; b.) oil is a global commodity and a rising price everywhere doesn't create a relative disadvantage.

exceptione: > China has played much much better chess so it's not surprise they're benefiting. They didn't play chess at all, but unlike the USA, they didn't poop on the board and didn't smudge the other players with their drool. We are forgetting now that the belt and road initiative, as well as the wolf warrior diplomacy, had put China on the lowest rankings in global perception. China had to do literally nothing to "play better", and they were smart enough to do so. The USA committing suicide--yeah, what can you do about it?

adventured: The deep state is any agent of meaningful power/influence that works for the government or is very closely entangled with the government, and that retains some or all of their power/influence from one admin to the next.That includes for example powerful figures in the Pentagon or intelligence agencies that remain from one admin to the next. These people all have agendas of their own, and they network as people do. Dick Cheney was a deep state figure across a couple of decades, often working in the shadows. So was Rumsfeld. So was Kissinger across a few decades during his prime power/influence years. They all had long-term agendas, their ideas about the world, and extremely deep connections throughout the Federal Government.It's not a mysterious conspiracy. It's just people with power/influence pursuing outcomes that they'd like to see happen, and working with other like-minded people to get there.

anakaine: The Belt and Road initiative gets a shot in the arm. No tarrifs, free trade, lower cost finance with fewer encumbrances. Efforts to establish the Renminbi as a second reserve currency have been quiet, but these trade alliances and alternate banking arrangements are already making it a possible reality. US perception is that belt and road was unpopular and a failure, but its little different from US economic imperialism. The amount of money flowing through BRICS and the rise of China as the world's largest creditor is testament to this.Cheaper weapons have shown to be effe tive in holding off a technologically superior force, and China is both great at producing them and happy to sell them to spec.The US not being able to produce weapons at a fast enough cadence to refill the stockpile is an indicator that US weapons manufacturing is currently unsustainable, and prohibitively expensive. Both are weakness.The US has shown that it cannot maintain moderate effort on two fronts. Not only is it financially almost unable to do so, only by the good graces of being the reserve currency, it would significantly struggle to maintain distributed engagements - this is military intelligence if an adversary wanted to engineer multiple conflicts requiring US attention globally to spread the US thin.

jmyeet: The US cannot ruin Iran short of the widespread use of nuclear weapons.Air power has never resulted in regime change. Never. It takes boots on the ground and one just needs to look at a map. Iran is surrounded on 3 sides by mountains and the Gulf on the fourth.Iran's drones and ballistic missiles are incredibly cheap, well-defended and impossible to meaningfully disrupt. The interceptors used to stop them are running out and increasingly ineffective. I think I read that the ballistic missile strike rate on Israel is now over 50%. What does it take to launch drones or even a ballistic missile? A cheap modification to any truck, basically.The US cannot forcibly open the Strait of Hormuz because that would put them in close range to Iranian drone and missile strikes that the US doesn't have the weapon systems, interceptors and munitions to defeat. It's suicide.Any escalation will end up much worse for Iran's neighbors than Iran because Iran is already built for economic isolation and self-reliance, thanks to years of criminal economic sanctions. You want to hit Iranian desalination plants? Well, that'll invite a hit on desalination plants in other Gulf states and that's going to end up much worse for them. Why? Remember those mountains I mentioned? They're covered in snow. Iran has ski resorts. Many people don't realize that. What does that mean? Just like California, they get significant freshwater from snow melt.A ground invasion of the Iranian mainland has no staging ground. For Kuwait, we used Saudi Arabia. You can't stage across the mountains so you need an amphibious landing, much like D-Day. And it would need to be probably as complex and large. We simply don't have the ships, the soldiers or the logistics for that.Basically, we have no options. This was unwinnable before we even started. This is why every president since Reagan refused Israel's attempts to start a war with Iran. Until Trump.I honestly think he'd been fooled into thinking he could do a decapitation strike on Iran like Venezuela and get a friendly regime. That was never going to work. Iran has almost 50 years of hardening and maintaining a regime to resist US interference.The one thing this administration seeems to care about is gas prices. This is why Iranian exports haven't been blocked. China is still getting oil from Iran. In fact last week the US lifted sanctions on Iranian oil, which was previously being sold below market. In January, Iran was selling oil for $48/barrel. Now they're selling it for >$100.China has a massive reserve (~1.4 billion barrels) and has suspended exports of refined oil products. Countries friendly to us in the region are in for a world of hurt, most notably the Phillipines and Vietnam (Japan seems to have significant reserves like China, at least for now).This war of choice on Israel's behalf has alienated and weakened Europe, the Gulf states and Asia. Iran is being smart about all this and allowing non-US oil to traverse the Strait, further putting a wedge between those countries and the US.The US started it, has no path to victory and doesn't even know what victory is. It's up to Iran when this ends now and they're going to exact a price that will put them significantly ahead of where they were before this started. Ending of sanctions, tolls on ships traversing the Strait and/or reparations.IMHO it's the biggest geopolitical mistake in US history and it's not even close.

anakaine: I quite enjoyed the depth of that comment. Good write up.Regarding countries friendly to the US - watching just how many foreign leaders have been diplomatically blunt or even hostile with the US has been interesting. Even the Australian prime minister, a famously boot-heeled position, has been publicly critical of the US.Right now in Australia we are paying $3.30 AUD for a litre of diesel. That's over $8.50 USD per gallon.

adventured: If they move on correcting that properly of course. We'll see what they do.The US requires an exceptional surge in manufacturing output for ammo.

dnautics: of course, but point being: status quo was it wasn't happening, and the trajectory wasn't good.Another example: Someone will have egg on face for leaving AWACs out on a tarmac (exactly dumb thing that we made fun of russia for doing) and so that seems unlikely to happen, if for no other reason than doctrinally, for the next minimum half decade or so.

jbm: Somewhat hilariously, the US adopted the same Wolf Warrior diplomacy.Maybe public diplomacy is simply adjacent to local politics to the US. I still think this will backfire spectacularly over the medium term.

jbm: It's not just the EU, you can see these organizations in Canada and in Japan. For example, I watch youtube channels ostensibly created to discuss Japanese Real Estate (I'm thinking about Rakumachi) which suddenly pivot to posting American right wing talking points in Japanese on their shorts channel. (Their long form RE content is usually interesting)

gspetr: > Who even is the deep state any more?The same thing it's always been: The military-industrial complex.> MAGA was sure it was backroom democrats.It's not that hard to distinguish "them", just look at how fast the mainstream media threw Biden under the bus over Afghanistan withdrawal.1)POTUS orders the withdrawal.2)Generals botch the withdrawal on purpose.3)Mainstream media (left and right) eviscerates the POTUS. This sends a strong message to this POTUS, as well as any subsequent Presidents: "Don't mess with the profits of the complex or else."This was the tipping point for me when I realized that the deep state is not a just a bogeyman conjured up by the right wingers. Should you cross the complex, it will just as easily come for you even if you're a Democrat that's been in politics for 50 years.Finally, the Atlantic is as establishment as it gets. No matter which party is in power, their editorial board serves the ruling class, of which almost nobody on HN is a part of.Whether their interests align with yours or not you can ascertain just by looking at approval ratings of the US Congress.

Hfuffzehn: I'll give you a small scale example for that.A year ago, when discussing AI adoption in an European business, the idea of looking at Chinese providers or Mistral was not seriously considered. The obvious answer was Microsoft/Azure and OpenAI.That has changed nowadays. As a direct consequence of the behavior of the American government towards its "allies".You can extrapolate from that. This isn't about short term oil supply problems when the whole world (lead by China) is moving to renewables anyways. It is about long term strategic consequences.