The weakness of the old NATO doctrine versus drones have been further exposed. Anybody following the Ukraine war carefully will have realized we are in a military revolution and material, training, doctrine of militaries have to be completely overhauled from the ground up to compete with the Age of Drones. This was easier to dismiss when it was just a proxy power fighting Russia, but now the weakness of the US Navy is becoming much clearer.
Trump’s popularity with his base has been such a constant, despite a series of scandals that would have destroyed a lesser politican. The Iran War [and the Epstein files] have been the only dirt that has actually stuck with his base. Considering the strong likelihood that Trump and his ilk will try to again executea coup in 2028 this seems to be a good thing.
Nuclear proliferation is bad actually. Iran is bad actually. Preventing backward states from having nukes is good. Nukes still exist. MAD works as long all participants are rational, but this becomes increasingly less likely as more and more (deranged) actors gain access to nuclear weapons.
On #3, the net effect of the Iran War (at least in conjunction with other recent events) is likely to increase rather than decrease proliferation in general and maybe even with respect to Iran specifically.
From the perspective of an American adversary:
Iran/Venezuela vs. DPRK shows just how vulnerable you are to an American attack if you don’t have nuclear weapons.
Yet, Iran has fought to (as of now) at least a draw and arguably a long-run strategic win against an extremely punishing American air assault while also demonstrating (as everyone has suspected since Iraq/Afghanistan) an American unwillingness to put boots on the ground.
No one has seriously alleged that Iran was engaged in any nuclear work since last summer, and no one has alleged (even unseriously) that Venezuela had nuclear ambitions. So, you’re not safe even if you don’t build nuclear weapons.
So, for most adversaries, you look at that and see a pretty clear upside to going nuclear (you’re safe) vs. a limited downside (an American air attack that might happen even if you’re not building nuclear weapons). Why not build?
From the perspective of a country that’s somewhere between neutral and allied with the US, you look out at the world and see:
The Iran War reflects (along with Ukraine) a new local maximum of predatory great power behavior.
Iran seems to have split the fault line in the US relationship with NATO into a full blow schism, so the situation looks much more tenuous for anyone relying on American protection.
And the US complete aversion to doing anything that actually endangers the lives of non-trivial numbers of US troops make the US look like a complete paper tiger even if you think they might want to protect you.
The US positioning on the Strait of Hormuz has suggested a complete indifference to the fate of Asian allies.
Many international actors are more concerned with what the US has done than what Iran was doing.
Once again, all signs point towards building nuclear weapons. I think we’re rapidly approaching the point where a technologically sophisticated American ally that could build nuclear weapons very fast (Taiwan, Japan) would be a fool not to.
Not OP, but potentially interested in betting on this with you. Before haggling over precise details, do you agree that the events following the 2020 election count as trying to execute a coup?
No, which is why I think coming to terms is going to be difficult.
I’m not sure exactly how I’d define a coup but I’d say it has to be clear cut enough that, “Was it really an attempt at a coup?” is not really in contention in the aftermath.
Fair enough. Probably no way to come to terms then.
I’m not sure exactly how I’d define a coup but I’d say it has to be clear cut enough that, “Was it really an attempt at a coup?” is not really in contention in the aftermath.
Just out of curiosity, why is that? And what counts as “clear cut”?
After any failed coup (or, for that matter, any failed crime) you’ll always be able to find some apologists who say that the actions/intentions of the accused plotters are being misunderstood and it wasn’t really an attempted coup (or, as they case may be, an attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, whatever) and/or had some kind of valid legal justification.
Yeah I don’t have a good objectively measurable definition right now, this is the kind of thing you’d usually hold a whole trial for.
Generally speaking what I’d look for is:
A clear communication from the people accused of plotting the coup, showing they knew about it and intended for it to be a violent overthrow of power. Not “this could be interpreted that way” but something unambiguous.
The attempt needs to be organized, not a disorganized mob of people.
A lack of disconfirmatory evidence like, for example, how Trump was pushing for additional National Guard/police presence at Jan 6th which was denied, him tweeting out in the middle of everything “please remain peaceful” and “respect law enforcement”, and then later telling the mob to “go home”.
There’s a lot of reasons why I’m skeptical about Jan 6th but the main one was that if I imagine an attempt at a coup by a sitting president of the United States, it looks a lot more serious and organized than this.
There were plenty of people in the Capitol, and afaik they mostly just walked around an empty building and took photos. If this is an organized coup why aren’t they moving towards some goal, to actually achieve something? Say they did get into the room where Congress was supposed to be meeting, then what? Everybody had already been evacuated so what exactly was the plan to overturn the election? Am I supposed to believe that the people who organized the coup just failed to anticipate this, when it’s the most obvious reaction on-site security could have made?
To me this looks far more like a disorganized mob of people just doing dumb stuff with no clear goal or plan. If I was going to bet money, I’d want a “coup” to at least look like a clear and organized attempt.
I’m not sure exactly how I’d define a coup but I’d say it has to be clear cut enough that, “Was it really an attempt at a coup?” is not really in contention in the aftermath.
I think this is a tricky standard, because many maybe-coups will only be widely regarded as coups depending on who won? (I think the January 6 maybe-coup would be contentious regardless, but for others.)
If we were to step away from the word ‘coup’ for a second and be a bit more specific.
I would bet against there being any direct evidence in the aftermath of the 2028 election that Donald Trump or JD Vance (or whoever the GOP nominee is really) were aware of and actively assisting efforts to use organized violence to overturn election results. There’s probably some sort of evidentiary standard here for proving intent to participate in a conspiracy, which we could take from the courts, and assuming it analogized well that’s what I’d defer to.
I do agree with you this is a tough standard because to be fair if I were doing that my top priority would be ensuring I had plausible deniability.
My guess is that most people who think a coup is likely believe the same thing re: plausible deniability. So we’re stuck and I don’t see a way past that.
Three reasons the Iran War is good acksually.
The weakness of the old NATO doctrine versus drones have been further exposed. Anybody following the Ukraine war carefully will have realized we are in a military revolution and material, training, doctrine of militaries have to be completely overhauled from the ground up to compete with the Age of Drones. This was easier to dismiss when it was just a proxy power fighting Russia, but now the weakness of the US Navy is becoming much clearer.
Trump’s popularity with his base has been such a constant, despite a series of scandals that would have destroyed a lesser politican. The Iran War [and the Epstein files] have been the only dirt that has actually stuck with his base. Considering the strong likelihood that Trump and his ilk will try to again execute a coup in 2028 this seems to be a good thing.
Nuclear proliferation is bad actually. Iran is bad actually. Preventing backward states from having nukes is good. Nukes still exist. MAD works as long all participants are rational, but this becomes increasingly less likely as more and more (deranged) actors gain access to nuclear weapons.
On #3, the net effect of the Iran War (at least in conjunction with other recent events) is likely to increase rather than decrease proliferation in general and maybe even with respect to Iran specifically.
From the perspective of an American adversary:
Iran/Venezuela vs. DPRK shows just how vulnerable you are to an American attack if you don’t have nuclear weapons.
Yet, Iran has fought to (as of now) at least a draw and arguably a long-run strategic win against an extremely punishing American air assault while also demonstrating (as everyone has suspected since Iraq/Afghanistan) an American unwillingness to put boots on the ground.
No one has seriously alleged that Iran was engaged in any nuclear work since last summer, and no one has alleged (even unseriously) that Venezuela had nuclear ambitions. So, you’re not safe even if you don’t build nuclear weapons.
So, for most adversaries, you look at that and see a pretty clear upside to going nuclear (you’re safe) vs. a limited downside (an American air attack that might happen even if you’re not building nuclear weapons). Why not build?
From the perspective of a country that’s somewhere between neutral and allied with the US, you look out at the world and see:
The Iran War reflects (along with Ukraine) a new local maximum of predatory great power behavior.
Iran seems to have split the fault line in the US relationship with NATO into a full blow schism, so the situation looks much more tenuous for anyone relying on American protection.
And the US complete aversion to doing anything that actually endangers the lives of non-trivial numbers of US troops make the US look like a complete paper tiger even if you think they might want to protect you.
The US positioning on the Strait of Hormuz has suggested a complete indifference to the fate of Asian allies.
Many international actors are more concerned with what the US has done than what Iran was doing.
Once again, all signs point towards building nuclear weapons. I think we’re rapidly approaching the point where a technologically sophisticated American ally that could build nuclear weapons very fast (Taiwan, Japan) would be a fool not to.
If we can come to objectively measurable terms on “will try to again execute a coup in 2028” I’ll bet on this with you.
Not OP, but potentially interested in betting on this with you. Before haggling over precise details, do you agree that the events following the 2020 election count as trying to execute a coup?
No, which is why I think coming to terms is going to be difficult.
I’m not sure exactly how I’d define a coup but I’d say it has to be clear cut enough that, “Was it really an attempt at a coup?” is not really in contention in the aftermath.
Fair enough. Probably no way to come to terms then.
Just out of curiosity, why is that? And what counts as “clear cut”?
After any failed coup (or, for that matter, any failed crime) you’ll always be able to find some apologists who say that the actions/intentions of the accused plotters are being misunderstood and it wasn’t really an attempted coup (or, as they case may be, an attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, whatever) and/or had some kind of valid legal justification.
Yeah I don’t have a good objectively measurable definition right now, this is the kind of thing you’d usually hold a whole trial for.
Generally speaking what I’d look for is:
A clear communication from the people accused of plotting the coup, showing they knew about it and intended for it to be a violent overthrow of power. Not “this could be interpreted that way” but something unambiguous.
The attempt needs to be organized, not a disorganized mob of people.
A lack of disconfirmatory evidence like, for example, how Trump was pushing for additional National Guard/police presence at Jan 6th which was denied, him tweeting out in the middle of everything “please remain peaceful” and “respect law enforcement”, and then later telling the mob to “go home”.
There’s a lot of reasons why I’m skeptical about Jan 6th but the main one was that if I imagine an attempt at a coup by a sitting president of the United States, it looks a lot more serious and organized than this.
There were plenty of people in the Capitol, and afaik they mostly just walked around an empty building and took photos. If this is an organized coup why aren’t they moving towards some goal, to actually achieve something? Say they did get into the room where Congress was supposed to be meeting, then what? Everybody had already been evacuated so what exactly was the plan to overturn the election? Am I supposed to believe that the people who organized the coup just failed to anticipate this, when it’s the most obvious reaction on-site security could have made?
To me this looks far more like a disorganized mob of people just doing dumb stuff with no clear goal or plan. If I was going to bet money, I’d want a “coup” to at least look like a clear and organized attempt.
I think this is a tricky standard, because many maybe-coups will only be widely regarded as coups depending on who won? (I think the January 6 maybe-coup would be contentious regardless, but for others.)
If we were to step away from the word ‘coup’ for a second and be a bit more specific.
I would bet against there being any direct evidence in the aftermath of the 2028 election that Donald Trump or JD Vance (or whoever the GOP nominee is really) were aware of and actively assisting efforts to use organized violence to overturn election results. There’s probably some sort of evidentiary standard here for proving intent to participate in a conspiracy, which we could take from the courts, and assuming it analogized well that’s what I’d defer to.
I do agree with you this is a tough standard because to be fair if I were doing that my top priority would be ensuring I had plausible deniability.
My guess is that most people who think a coup is likely believe the same thing re: plausible deniability. So we’re stuck and I don’t see a way past that.