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This is the sort of shit where Ziehan is kinda fun to watch, where he is reacting to real time events that could throw off his normal predictions. And frankly, Russia can replace bodies; it cannot replace refineries or a lot of high end industrial plant.

Let's be fair here, Turkey has been trying to play both sides of the conflict and the only reason they are in NATO is because of their control over Black Sea access. Erdogan wants a neo-Ottoman Empire, and Turkey's NATO membership is more for a nuclear umbrella it doesn't have to pay for while...

An independent Kurd state would have to be part of any deal, unless we are going to allow Erdogan to wipe them out. I guess maybe we mix Kurdistan into Lebanon and clean out Hezbollah in the process? Gives the Kurds sea access, and helps unfuck Lebanon for a while at least while giving the new...

You forget how much of the US and global economy relies on tourism to one degree or another. If tourism economies in too many places collapse or decline majorly, whole regions and sectors of the economy could effectively evaporate outside of mega-corp owned locations/groups.

The French, and the Polish, and Greek's, and well...only really Germany wants the EU for military power without nukes, while France just wants to keep a leash on German's instinctual need to try to force 'order' on their neighbors, but not have Paris answer to NATO. I also think a Polish...

And why are those Protestants there in the first place? What the Brit's did to create Northern Ireland (importing Protestant Scot's to undermine the Catholics in the north) undermined Irish nationhood. Along with shipping Irish off to be slaves/indentured servants across the British Empire...

Why is Northern Ireland still a thing, instead of being part of Ireland? There are plenty of reasons for people in the US to look down on the Brits, and give them shit anytime they think they're big shit again, or ever will be. It's just that the EU are worse masters than the US, because at...

That's what we told the British in 1776, and since then the UK has only lost territory. Heck, let's find a list of places that have independence days from the UK. The British Empire is dead, most of the world is happy that it is, and the US is the bigger power now, the one that the UK is...

The UK has no option but US vassal, EU vassal, or irrelevance. Your country cannot feed itself, cannot make it's own nukes, and barely have much of an economic engine to run on without overseas trade or banking institutions. The British Empire is dead, it killed itself in the aftermath of WW2...

That's hilarious coming from a nation that wants to force people to have a license just for regular cooking knives if they have a point on them, that needed US Lend-Lease aid for so long rationing didn't stop till the 70's for Brits, that has cops going after people for 'mean' or 'hateful'...

...that is a question with a lot of layers, and a lot of separate issues. First, a new refinery coming on line, from the word go, is a 10 year process if things go WELL. Even the Corp of Engineers would be hard pressed to make a civie scale refinery boom that makes a noticable impact on gas...

Yes, we do, at least in terms of reserves; Alaska is only producing about 1/4 the oil it normally does right now. The bottleneck is refining capacity and set ups; oil from one source is not always refinable (economically) with the refining set up at more than a few refineries. For instance...

So you never heard about how Clinton denied AC-130 support to the operation, despite the commanders request, or how we had a platoon of Abram's in Somalia that the locals hated, but that Clinton pulled out for 'hearts and minds' reasons before the event went down? Abu Gahrib, the Blackwater...

Mogadishu/Black Hawk Down called about Bill Clinton not micromanaging the military, or using political RoE's. Plus, Bush's letting Cheney and co. run the military for him also made thing massively worse for US PR and burned a lot of international good will the US had since the end of the Cold...

Ok, some of that makes sense to be upset about. However, I would point out that loose ROE's are how we end up with things like Blackwater Massacres and Tillman getting friendly fired. We have an all volunteer force, they know what they are signing up for, or at least they should, and that...

What the military's 'job' is in any given situation is dictated by politics, is what you don't seem to get. You joined to be a tool of the political will of the US, as did every other service member, and you/they know it, but don't like when the political reality side of the equation hits...

Sometimes nation building works (looks at S. Korea, Germany, Japan), but the people in charge have to know how to do it right, instead of doing it to line their own pockets. But no one in the US wants to put enough thought together to make a modern Marshal Plan these days. War is...

The military serves the civie governments goals, not their own desires for combat, and it is civilians who determine the policy goals of a nation (in trustworthy elections), not the military leadership or the NCO corp.

Tim Scott was legit, but dropped out of the race. If Trump is knocked off the ballot, or just knocked off (they did it to JFK, they'll try to do it to Trump), it's anyone guess which is actually capable of winning in 2024. Maybe Ken Buck, since he is not running for his seat again.

You know I get it, I really do, because of where he lives. There is a reason it was the CO Supreme Court which was willing to start the push, and why Master Piece Cake Shop happened here. If it wasn't for being a member of SB and now here, I probably would feel a lot like Zeihan does about...