As a historian it amazes me that for so many people the lessons about appeasement appear to have either been forgotten or never been learned.
Appeasement gets a bad reputation but was entirely understandable. The politicians of the day had, for the most part, fought in the first war, or at least had close family that did. Even the UK, who got of relatively lightly, had around 850,000 dead as a result. There was no appetite in the UK for fighting another war.
And many of Germanies demands were not unreasonable. I think history judges Versailles to have been overly harsh on the German nation - the war guilt stuff etc. (Not to say that the Germans would not have been equally bad winners - Brest Litovsk shows that. Drang nach osten didn't start in 1933 after all). Remilitarising your own territory? Fine. Actually having an air force and expanded military? Ok. Re-integrating ethnice Germans into the Reich - well self determination ought to apply to all really.
And then in reality appeasement bought time. Time to build spitfire factories and design the Lancaster. And also by failing, it gave the causus belli - Hitler said 1938 was the end and he lied. So now we must fight.
The actual spec for Versailles was that, if it broke down, it would take Germany a decade to be ready for war.
Germany would have been ready for war in 1942. Hitler actually jumped the gun and started the war with things like the Panzer 1 in the front like.
U.K. rearmament actually started in 1932. Before Hitler came to power. The trigger was the laying down of the pocket battleships.
The was a steady ramp up from there. A big issue was that weapons are not potatoes. You can’t just announce “we are doubling military spending”. You need to spend money on the it’s for factories to make the machines for factories that build weapons.
A lot of Germany’s rearmament money was wasted on “build stuff for parades now!”.
The UK took the approach of rearming in depth - (re-)building the infrastructure to fight a world war.
So in 1939, we were just getting to the stage of finalising the actual weapon designs for the war that was coming in 1942 (German nav plans made the date obvious).
The Spitfire and Hurricane were stopgaps - the “real” fighters were going to be 400mph+, 2000hp engines, uniform cannon armament. Think Hawker Tempest.
There was an article in the WSJ or WaPo in late 2023 which said how he hated Biden more than Reagan all because of Biden’s visit to Kyiv in 2023.
Putin had expected to walk around Kyiv being adulated but Biden got there before him but the humiliation that he never recovered from was just before the visit Lloyd Austin ringing up his counterpart in Russia and telling them to pause attacks for the visit of Biden or it would be seen as an attack of war.
That also explains the vitriol directed at our own Boris Johnson by Russia. Truly the West was lucky to have him in power at that time instead of someone like Cameron who previously offered Putin a way to legitimate his conquests with a 'referendum'.
???
WTAF are you on about?
In his memoirs, Cameron says that he told Putin that holding a referendum in Crimea on joining Russia would be a way of "respecting Russia's interests in Ukraine". If you want to talk about appeasement, Cameron is one of the guilty men.
In which case, Cameron was wrong. although as ever, context would be useful.
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
American foreign policy is focused on containing China and under Trump taking them on in a trade war with tariffs.
They no longer care about Russia and will leave Europe and Canada to contain Putin
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
So it looks like Trump's promise of peace in Gaza and Ukraine lasted less than a month. Hamas already now refusing to release more hostages and Netanyahu threatening more Israeli bombing and special forces raids.
Now the US Defence Secretary giving Zelensky terms he clearly can't and won't accept so that conflict continues too. European defence spending still needed to be increased regardless anyway given the US is more focused on containing China and its own borders militarily than protecting NATO Europe
Trump is giving Netanyahu the All Clear to finish Gaza off for good. I suspect that will now happen. Israel will return to the fray - either next weekend or next year - and entirely level Gaza so that not even an ascetic hamster could reoccupy it
All the facts are a-changing. Pity the Gazans
Which will just create even more Hamas terrorists whether they stay in Gaza or are forced out to Jordan or Egypt
Israel won’t care. Better the Jew-haters are in Jordan or Egypt - beyond the world’s biggest walls - than “inside” Israel
Provided they can secure their borders to then keep Hamas out
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
Your wet dream: thousands, or millions, dead; based on a series of conditionals.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
Your wet dream: thousands, or millions, dead; based on a series of conditionals.
It’s not a dream, this shit is happening right here right now
My personal wet dream is a return to Pax Brittanica. Unlikely, however
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
Most Brits and most Canadians do not want to give up their King and be ruled by Trump, even 48% of Americans don't want to be ruled by Trump
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
Your wet dream: thousands, or millions, dead; based on a series of conditionals.
It’s not a dream, this shit is happening right here right now
My personal wet dream is a return to Pax Brittanica. Unlikely, however
It isn't, which is why you used conditionals.
And 'Pax Britannica' wasn't exactly without its problems...
So it looks like Trump's promise of peace in Gaza and Ukraine lasted less than a month. Hamas already now refusing to release more hostages and Netanyahu threatening more Israeli bombing and special forces raids.
Now the US Defence Secretary giving Zelensky terms he clearly can't and won't accept so that conflict continues too. European defence spending still needed to be increased regardless anyway given the US is more focused on containing China and its own borders militarily than protecting NATO Europe
Trump is giving Netanyahu the All Clear to finish Gaza off for good. I suspect that will now happen. Israel will return to the fray - either next weekend or next year - and entirely level Gaza so that not even an ascetic hamster could reoccupy it
All the facts are a-changing. Pity the Gazans
Which will just create even more Hamas terrorists whether they stay in Gaza or are forced out to Jordan or Egypt
Israel won’t care. Better the Jew-haters are in Jordan or Egypt - beyond the world’s biggest walls - than “inside” Israel
Provided they can secure their borders to then keep Hamas out
Israel has excellent security. Have you ever flown El Al?
However even the best security cannot defend against an angry and open prison occupying a large chunk of the nation in the southwest corner
So, logically, it will be ended
I am not cheerleading this. I say again if I was a young Palestinian lad I would be CONSUMED with hatred for everything Israeli and Jewish, and for very very good reasons. But that just makes Israel’s logic more inexorable
There was a brief chance of peace under Clinton. It has gone forever
As expected, the UK right's Trump supporters who justified their backing on the basis of free trade, freedom of speech and support for Ukraine have all ended up looking rather foolish. Their pivot to opposing free trade and freedom of speech, while giving Putin what he wants will be fascinating to watch.
We need an even dirtier word than "appeasement" for the pro-Israeli policies of major powers.
I wonder how long NATO will hang around in Jordan if Israel attends to the West Bank and Jerusalem in the same way as it's been suggested they are about to attend to Gaza.
As a historian it amazes me that for so many people the lessons about appeasement appear to have either been forgotten or never been learned.
Appeasement gets a bad reputation but was entirely understandable. The politicians of the day had, for the most part, fought in the first war, or at least had close family that did. Even the UK, who got of relatively lightly, had around 850,000 dead as a result. There was no appetite in the UK for fighting another war.
And many of Germanies demands were not unreasonable. I think history judges Versailles to have been overly harsh on the German nation - the war guilt stuff etc. (Not to say that the Germans would not have been equally bad winners - Brest Litovsk shows that. Drang nach osten didn't start in 1933 after all). Remilitarising your own territory? Fine. Actually having an air force and expanded military? Ok. Re-integrating ethnice Germans into the Reich - well self determination ought to apply to all really.
And then in reality appeasement bought time. Time to build spitfire factories and design the Lancaster. And also by failing, it gave the causus belli - Hitler said 1938 was the end and he lied. So now we must fight.
The actual spec for Versailles was that, if it broke down, it would take Germany a decade to be ready for war.
Germany would have been ready for war in 1942. Hitler actually jumped the gun and started the war with things like the Panzer 1 in the front like.
U.K. rearmament actually started in 1932. Before Hitler came to power. The trigger was the laying down of the pocket battleships.
The was a steady ramp up from there. A big issue was that weapons are not potatoes. You can’t just announce “we are doubling military spending”. You need to spend money on the it’s for factories to make the machines for factories that build weapons.
A lot of Germany’s rearmament money was wasted on “build stuff for parades now!”.
The UK took the approach of rearming in depth - (re-)building the infrastructure to fight a world war.
So in 1939, we were just getting to the stage of finalising the actual weapon designs for the war that was coming in 1942 (German nav plans made the date obvious).
The Spitfire and Hurricane were stopgaps - the “real” fighters were going to be 400mph+, 2000hp engines, uniform cannon armament. Think Hawker Tempest.
I agree with much of that, but would argue engine development was as, if not more, important than airframe development. Prop engines were really at the bleeding edge of technological development, and entire airframe designs failed because their proposed engines did not come to fruition. This was true for every major power.
The cutoff of the war starting binned a lot of development work, in the U.K.
Beverbrook killed quite a bit, in favour of “produce what we have - now”. Which killed, delayed or shortened development for lots of things.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
So you want us under the power of a dominant, unstable power?
"UNITE WITH FASCISM!" screeches WilliamGlenn...
The proto-fascists are really making themselves visible.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
Basic failure to understand the concept of empire.
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
We need an even dirtier word than "appeasement" for the pro-Israeli policies of major powers.
I wonder how long NATO will hang around in Jordan if Israel attends to the West Bank and Jerusalem in the same way as it's been suggested they are about to attend to Gaza.
NATO has never had anything to do with the Middle East. It’s “out of area”
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
So it looks like Trump's promise of peace in Gaza and Ukraine lasted less than a month. Hamas already now refusing to release more hostages and Netanyahu threatening more Israeli bombing and special forces raids.
Now the US Defence Secretary giving Zelensky terms he clearly can't and won't accept so that conflict continues too. European defence spending still needed to be increased regardless anyway given the US is more focused on containing China and its own borders militarily than protecting NATO Europe
Trump is giving Netanyahu the All Clear to finish Gaza off for good. I suspect that will now happen. Israel will return to the fray - either next weekend or next year - and entirely level Gaza so that not even an ascetic hamster could reoccupy it
All the facts are a-changing. Pity the Gazans
Which will just create even more Hamas terrorists whether they stay in Gaza or are forced out to Jordan or Egypt
Israel won’t care. Better the Jew-haters are in Jordan or Egypt - beyond the world’s biggest walls - than “inside” Israel
Provided they can secure their borders to then keep Hamas out
Israel has excellent security. Have you ever flown El Al?
However even the best security cannot defend against an angry and open prison occupying a large chunk of the nation in the southwest corner
So, logically, it will be ended
I am not cheerleading this. I say again if I was a young Palestinian lad I would be CONSUMED with hatred for everything Israeli and Jewish, and for very very good reasons. But that just makes Israel’s logic more inexorable
There was a brief chance of peace under Clinton. It has gone forever
I am appalled at what's likely to happen but I also observe that the Palestinians had a real chance of peace in the 90s, and turned it down. I have also failed to see any popular uprising against Hamas, even after October 7. They have consistently demanded all or nothing - it doesn't make Israel's actions right, but what else could the Gazans have expected than the absolute nothing they are about to get?
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
China is now more open to free trade than Trump and less interested in wasting resources invading its neighbours than Putin (beyond Taiwan). Though it is still much poorer per capita than neighbours like democratic Japan, S Korea and Singapore
As a historian it amazes me that for so many people the lessons about appeasement appear to have either been forgotten or never been learned.
Appeasement gets a bad reputation but was entirely understandable. The politicians of the day had, for the most part, fought in the first war, or at least had close family that did. Even the UK, who got of relatively lightly, had around 850,000 dead as a result. There was no appetite in the UK for fighting another war.
And many of Germanies demands were not unreasonable. I think history judges Versailles to have been overly harsh on the German nation - the war guilt stuff etc. (Not to say that the Germans would not have been equally bad winners - Brest Litovsk shows that. Drang nach osten didn't start in 1933 after all). Remilitarising your own territory? Fine. Actually having an air force and expanded military? Ok. Re-integrating ethnice Germans into the Reich - well self determination ought to apply to all really.
And then in reality appeasement bought time. Time to build spitfire factories and design the Lancaster. And also by failing, it gave the causus belli - Hitler said 1938 was the end and he lied. So now we must fight.
The actual spec for Versailles was that, if it broke down, it would take Germany a decade to be ready for war.
Germany would have been ready for war in 1942. Hitler actually jumped the gun and started the war with things like the Panzer 1 in the front like.
U.K. rearmament actually started in 1932. Before Hitler came to power. The trigger was the laying down of the pocket battleships.
The was a steady ramp up from there. A big issue was that weapons are not potatoes. You can’t just announce “we are doubling military spending”. You need to spend money on the it’s for factories to make the machines for factories that build weapons.
A lot of Germany’s rearmament money was wasted on “build stuff for parades now!”.
The UK took the approach of rearming in depth - (re-)building the infrastructure to fight a world war.
So in 1939, we were just getting to the stage of finalising the actual weapon designs for the war that was coming in 1942 (German nav plans made the date obvious).
The Spitfire and Hurricane were stopgaps - the “real” fighters were going to be 400mph+, 2000hp engines, uniform cannon armament. Think Hawker Tempest.
I'm thinking Martin Baker MB. 5....
Without the war stopping redesign, the Typhoon would have had a sensible wing and tail that stayed on.
So the equivalent of the Tempest in 1941, probably.
So no capability gap in the follow ons to the Spitfire and Hurricane.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
That's the danger. An autocracy whose economy is faltering might too easily reach for the nationalist card and invade Taiwan.
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
American foreign policy is focused on containing China and under Trump taking them on in a trade war with tariffs.
They no longer care about Russia and will leave Europe and Canada to contain Putin
I'm in my early fifties so I'm not going to get called up to the colours. But why are we afraid of Putin's army? They've been unable to defeat Ukraine for over two years and there is no sign that they are going to anytime soon. Combined militaries of Europe (Nato or not) is surely a match for anything Putin can throw at the task? What am I missing?
So it looks like Trump's promise of peace in Gaza and Ukraine lasted less than a month. Hamas already now refusing to release more hostages and Netanyahu threatening more Israeli bombing and special forces raids.
Now the US Defence Secretary giving Zelensky terms he clearly can't and won't accept so that conflict continues too. European defence spending still needed to be increased regardless anyway given the US is more focused on containing China and its own borders militarily than protecting NATO Europe
Trump is giving Netanyahu the All Clear to finish Gaza off for good. I suspect that will now happen. Israel will return to the fray - either next weekend or next year - and entirely level Gaza so that not even an ascetic hamster could reoccupy it
All the facts are a-changing. Pity the Gazans
Which will just create even more Hamas terrorists whether they stay in Gaza or are forced out to Jordan or Egypt
Israel won’t care. Better the Jew-haters are in Jordan or Egypt - beyond the world’s biggest walls - than “inside” Israel
Provided they can secure their borders to then keep Hamas out
Israel has excellent security. Have you ever flown El Al?
However even the best security cannot defend against an angry and open prison occupying a large chunk of the nation in the southwest corner
So, logically, it will be ended
I am not cheerleading this. I say again if I was a young Palestinian lad I would be CONSUMED with hatred for everything Israeli and Jewish, and for very very good reasons. But that just makes Israel’s logic more inexorable
There was a brief chance of peace under Clinton. It has gone forever
I am appalled at what's likely to happen but I also observe that the Palestinians had a real chance of peace in the 90s, and turned it down. I have also failed to see any popular uprising against Hamas, even after October 7. They have consistently demanded all or nothing - it doesn't make Israel's actions right, but what else could the Gazans have expected than the absolute nothing they are about to get?
indeed. Palestinians constantly say “we will fight the Jews to the death” - that now looks likely to happen, probably but not inevitably in a disastrous way for them
it will be bad for Jews worldwide, Israel will be even more of a pariah state. But, they seem beyond caring
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
We're much more influenced by the US culturally though. People talk about 'checks and balances' and think in American terms even if they are not applicable to our constitution.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
According to most recent Anglospheric election results, and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system):
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024) 312 Radical Right, 226 Radical Left
UK (4 states, ie. the Home Nations) 110 electors (2024) 110 Radical Left (oh well!)
Canadia (12 states excluding Quebec) 45 electors (2021) 36 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra) 42 electors (2022) 34 Radical Left, 8 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Singapore (1 city-state on its own) 9 electors (2020) 9 Radical Right probably won't change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2023) 8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2024) 8 Radical Right
TOTAL electoral votes for the whole Anglospheric Federation:
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
We're much more influenced by the US culturally though. People talk about 'checks and balances' and think in American terms even if they are not applicable to our constitution.
Not any more they won't! All obliterated to appease the orange one.
We need an even dirtier word than "appeasement" for the pro-Israeli policies of major powers.
I wonder how long NATO will hang around in Jordan if Israel attends to the West Bank and Jerusalem in the same way as it's been suggested they are about to attend to Gaza.
NATO has never had anything to do with the Middle East. It’s “out of area”
"Emphasizing the evolving regional and global security landscape, Allies at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington D.C. adopted an action plan for a stronger, more strategic and result-oriented approach towards its southern neighbourhood. The plan clearly demonstrates NATO’s commitment to reinforcing engagement and cooperation with its partners in the Middle East and North Africa, including through the establishment of its first-ever liaison office in the region, in Amman, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
This decision, following the intent expressed in the Communiqué of the NATO Summit in Vilnius in July 2023, clearly marks a significant milestone in the deep strategic partnership between Jordan and the Alliance. It acknowledges Jordan's significant role as a beacon of stability in both regional and global contexts, and as a long-time champion in fighting transnational threats, including terrorism and violent extremism.
The Office, acting as a representative office, will bring NATO and Jordan closer, by enhancing political dialogue and practical cooperation in areas of common interest between the Alliance and Jordan. It will enable regular engagement between NATO and the Jordanian authorities, thus contributing to a better shared understanding of the national and regional context, and to the development and implementation of partnership programmes and activities, including, among others, conferences, courses, and training programmes in areas like strategic analysis, civil emergency planning and preparedness, crisis management, public diplomacy, cyber security, and climate change.
Building on nearly three decades of deep-rooted bilateral relations, particularly through the Mediterranean Dialogue, the opening of a NATO Liaison Office in Amman is a natural progression of the longstanding relationship between NATO and Jordan, which will only continue to grow."
There was an article in the WSJ or WaPo in late 2023 which said how he hated Biden more than Reagan all because of Biden’s visit to Kyiv in 2023.
Putin had expected to walk around Kyiv being adulated but Biden got there before him but the humiliation that he never recovered from was just before the visit Lloyd Austin ringing up his counterpart in Russia and telling them to pause attacks for the visit of Biden or it would be seen as an attack of war.
That also explains the vitriol directed at our own Boris Johnson by Russia. Truly the West was lucky to have him in power at that time instead of someone like Cameron who previously offered Putin a way to legitimate his conquests with a 'referendum'.
???
WTAF are you on about?
In his memoirs, Cameron says that he told Putin that holding a referendum in Crimea on joining Russia would be a way of "respecting Russia's interests in Ukraine". If you want to talk about appeasement, Cameron is one of the guilty men.
As a historian it amazes me that for so many people the lessons about appeasement appear to have either been forgotten or never been learned.
Appeasement gets a bad reputation but was entirely understandable. The politicians of the day had, for the most part, fought in the first war, or at least had close family that did. Even the UK, who got of relatively lightly, had around 850,000 dead as a result. There was no appetite in the UK for fighting another war.
And many of Germanies demands were not unreasonable. I think history judges Versailles to have been overly harsh on the German nation - the war guilt stuff etc. (Not to say that the Germans would not have been equally bad winners - Brest Litovsk shows that. Drang nach osten didn't start in 1933 after all). Remilitarising your own territory? Fine. Actually having an air force and expanded military? Ok. Re-integrating ethnice Germans into the Reich - well self determination ought to apply to all really.
And then in reality appeasement bought time. Time to build spitfire factories and design the Lancaster. And also by failing, it gave the causus belli - Hitler said 1938 was the end and he lied. So now we must fight.
The actual spec for Versailles was that, if it broke down, it would take Germany a decade to be ready for war.
Germany would have been ready for war in 1942. Hitler actually jumped the gun and started the war with things like the Panzer 1 in the front like.
U.K. rearmament actually started in 1932. Before Hitler came to power. The trigger was the laying down of the pocket battleships.
The was a steady ramp up from there. A big issue was that weapons are not potatoes. You can’t just announce “we are doubling military spending”. You need to spend money on the it’s for factories to make the machines for factories that build weapons.
A lot of Germany’s rearmament money was wasted on “build stuff for parades now!”.
The UK took the approach of rearming in depth - (re-)building the infrastructure to fight a world war.
So in 1939, we were just getting to the stage of finalising the actual weapon designs for the war that was coming in 1942 (German nav plans made the date obvious).
The Spitfire and Hurricane were stopgaps - the “real” fighters were going to be 400mph+, 2000hp engines, uniform cannon armament. Think Hawker Tempest.
I'm thinking Martin Baker MB. 5....
Without the war stopping redesign, the Typhoon would have had a sensible wing and tail that stayed on.
So the equivalent of the Tempest in 1941, probably.
So no capability gap in the follow ons to the Spitfire and Hurricane.
MB. 5 was better looking than the Typhoon/Tempest family - discuss!
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
According to most recent Anglospheric election results, and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system):
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024) 312 Radical Right, 226 Radical Left
UK (4 states, ie. the Home Nations) 110 electors (2024) 110 Radical Left (oh well!)
Canadia (12 states excluding Quebec) 45 electors (2021) 36 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra) 42 electors (2022) 34 Radical Left, 8 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Singapore (1 city-state on its own) 9 electors (2020) 9 Radical Right probably won't change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2023) 8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2024) 8 Radical Right
TOTAL electoral votes for the whole Anglospheric Federation:
"Anybody who thought Trump over Biden/Harris would be better for Ukraine should permanently wear a dunce cap."
Trump has lifted the ban on using western weapons to strike long-range targets inside Russia. He’s making the right moves to increase the pressure on Putin.
Perhaps you'd be able to explain how the statements above from Hegseth increases the pressure on Putin?
Putin uses the supposed threat of Ukraine joining NATO to justify his war. If that justification is taken away, it increases the pressure on him to end.
No it doesn't. Putin doesn't *need* an excuse. The article wot I wrote in 2022 about the Ukraine invasion pointed out that it was part of a pattern of behaviour caused by Putin's desire to secure Russia's borders and influence before he dies.
If he doesn't need excuses, why does he use so many of them? He's not straightforward about it like Trump.
To give his neonazi supporters like you some bollocks to write on the internet.
Nobody is buying your 'if we disband NATO it will force Putin to become a pacifist' horseshit.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
According to most recent Anglospheric election results, and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system):
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024) 312 Radical Right, 226 Radical Left
UK (4 states, ie. the Home Nations) 110 electors (2024) 110 Radical Left (oh well!)
Canadia (12 states excluding Quebec) 45 electors (2021) 36 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra) 42 electors (2022) 34 Radical Left, 8 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Singapore (1 city-state on its own) 9 electors (2020) 9 Radical Right probably won't change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2023) 8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2024) 8 Radical Right
TOTAL electoral votes for the whole Anglospheric Federation:
406 Radical Left (53%) 354 Radical Right (47%)
Source: www.760.com
Err, what about us radical centrists please?
Are you a Democrat Radical Centrist? Or a Republican Radical Centrist?
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
China is now more open to free trade than Trump and less interested in wasting resources invading its neighbours than Putin (beyond Taiwan). Though it is still much poorer per capita than neighbours like democratic Japan, S Korea and Singapore
China doesn’t invade neighbours, it economically absorbs them or subjugates them
Laos and Cambodia are completely subservient to China, in every way. Half of Myanmar is now Chinese
More distant countries - Sri Lanka is a good example - become vassals via debt
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
They're big territories, that's all. What if China wins the AI race? :-)
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
American foreign policy is focused on containing China and under Trump taking them on in a trade war with tariffs.
They no longer care about Russia and will leave Europe and Canada to contain Putin
I'm in my early fifties so I'm not going to get called up to the colours. But why are we afraid of Putin's army? They've been unable to defeat Ukraine for over two years and there is no sign that they are going to anytime soon. Combined militaries of Europe (Nato or not) is surely a match for anything Putin can throw at the task? What am I missing?
Every single Western government has been turfed out or seen a big drop in their majority since Putins invasion. Our countries have become deeply divided, are starting trade wars against each other and military alliances and rule of law are disappearing fast.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
According to most recent Anglospheric election results, and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system):
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024) 312 Radical Right, 226 Radical Left
UK (4 states, ie. the Home Nations) 110 electors (2024) 110 Radical Left (oh well!)
Canadia (12 states excluding Quebec) 45 electors (2021) 36 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra) 42 electors (2022) 34 Radical Left, 8 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Singapore (1 city-state on its own) 9 electors (2020) 9 Radical Right probably won't change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2023) 8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2024) 8 Radical Right
TOTAL electoral votes for the whole Anglospheric Federation:
406 Radical Left (53%) 354 Radical Right (47%)
Source: www.760.com
Err, what about us radical centrists please?
Are you a Democrat Radical Centrist? Or a Republican Radical Centrist?
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
They're big territories, that's all. What if China wins the AI race? :-)
That is indeed the big if, indeed the biggest one of all - and I have much to say on the subject, but I am not allowed. Talk to the management
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
China is now more open to free trade than Trump and less interested in wasting resources invading its neighbours than Putin (beyond Taiwan). Though it is still much poorer per capita than neighbours like democratic Japan, S Korea and Singapore
China doesn’t invade neighbours, it economically absorbs them or subjugates them
Laos and Cambodia are completely subservient to China, in every way. Half of Myanmar is now Chinese
More distant countries - Sri Lanka is a good example - become vassals via debt
China invaded Tibet in 1950, India in 1962, and Vietnam in 1979. It also intervened directly in Korea in 1950.
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
American foreign policy is focused on containing China and under Trump taking them on in a trade war with tariffs.
They no longer care about Russia and will leave Europe and Canada to contain Putin
I'm in my early fifties so I'm not going to get called up to the colours. But why are we afraid of Putin's army? They've been unable to defeat Ukraine for over two years and there is no sign that they are going to anytime soon. Combined militaries of Europe (Nato or not) is surely a match for anything Putin can throw at the task? What am I missing?
Every single Western government has been turfed out or seen a big drop in their majority since Putins invasion.
(Snip)
Is that an effect of Putin's invasion, Covid, or both?
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
According to most recent Anglospheric election results, and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system):
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024) 312 Radical Right, 226 Radical Left
UK (4 states, ie. the Home Nations) 110 electors (2024) 110 Radical Left (oh well!)
Canadia (12 states excluding Quebec) 45 electors (2021) 36 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra) 42 electors (2022) 34 Radical Left, 8 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Singapore (1 city-state on its own) 9 electors (2020) 9 Radical Right probably won't change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2023) 8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2024) 8 Radical Right
TOTAL electoral votes for the whole Anglospheric Federation:
406 Radical Left (53%) 354 Radical Right (47%)
Source: www.760.com
Err, what about us radical centrists please?
Are you a Democrat Radical Centrist? Or a Republican Radical Centrist?
I agree with Nick.
Point being, that at the moment (at the MOMENT), the Anglosphere as a whole has a decent Lefty majority, though whether this will survive the fast approaching elections in Canadia and Australia is a moot question!
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
You'll probably want to read Zeihan first. The TL:DR on Zeihan on China is that it is on the verge of demographic collapse and that it is past the point of no return, with the result that it will dramatically collapse as a world power and even as an ethnicity. In the short-term this will impel them to military adventures whilst they still can.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
We're much more influenced by the US culturally though. People talk about 'checks and balances' and think in American terms even if they are not applicable to our constitution.
That analysis goes back to Polybius. Look him up, you might learn something.
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
China is now more open to free trade than Trump and less interested in wasting resources invading its neighbours than Putin (beyond Taiwan). Though it is still much poorer per capita than neighbours like democratic Japan, S Korea and Singapore
China doesn’t invade neighbours, it economically absorbs them or subjugates them
Laos and Cambodia are completely subservient to China, in every way. Half of Myanmar is now Chinese
More distant countries - Sri Lanka is a good example - become vassals via debt
If you were a non-aligned country, neutral or were an Asian-pacific country who had been edging towards throwing your lot in with the US against future expansionism by China your whole strategy has basically been tossed in the air in the last few weeks.
Every country in the world will be looking at the Us now as an unreliable partner/ally, grasping to make money, quasi-colonial, vindictive, undiplomatic.
China must be laughing so hard at the moment as they seem like the sane and stable super power.
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
China is now more open to free trade than Trump and less interested in wasting resources invading its neighbours than Putin (beyond Taiwan). Though it is still much poorer per capita than neighbours like democratic Japan, S Korea and Singapore
China doesn’t invade neighbours, it economically absorbs them or subjugates them
Laos and Cambodia are completely subservient to China, in every way. Half of Myanmar is now Chinese
More distant countries - Sri Lanka is a good example - become vassals via debt
China invaded Tibet in 1950, India in 1962, and Vietnam in 1979. It also intervened directly in Korea in 1950.
it also absorbed Hong Kong without a fight in the last decade, and - I suspect - has a reasonable prospect of doing the same to Taiwan in the coming few years
Once the west has halfway reproduced Taiwan’s chip making capacity elsewhere then China will calculate that Taiwan is not worth defending, for America and the West. Probably correctly
At that point - quite soon - China will put a squeeze on Taiwan as it did HK, and hope that Taiwan submits at HK did
After all, has HK done so badly? Yes they’ve lost precious freedoms, but no one has died in a terrible war and Hong Kong is still very wealthy and a seductive place to live (as long as you don’t care about politics)
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
American foreign policy is focused on containing China and under Trump taking them on in a trade war with tariffs.
They no longer care about Russia and will leave Europe and Canada to contain Putin
I'm in my early fifties so I'm not going to get called up to the colours. But why are we afraid of Putin's army? They've been unable to defeat Ukraine for over two years and there is no sign that they are going to anytime soon. Combined militaries of Europe (Nato or not) is surely a match for anything Putin can throw at the task? What am I missing?
Every single Western government has been turfed out or seen a big drop in their majority since Putins invasion.
(Snip)
Is that an effect of Putin's invasion, Covid, or both?
Trudeau got 5 extra seats in Sept 2021. Find me some who have done that since Feb 2022.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
According to most recent Anglospheric election results, and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system):
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024) 312 Radical Right, 226 Radical Left
UK (4 states, ie. the Home Nations) 110 electors (2024) 110 Radical Left (oh well!)
Canadia (12 states excluding Quebec) 45 electors (2021) 36 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra) 42 electors (2022) 34 Radical Left, 8 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Singapore (1 city-state on its own) 9 electors (2020) 9 Radical Right probably won't change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2023) 8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2024) 8 Radical Right
TOTAL electoral votes for the whole Anglospheric Federation:
406 Radical Left (53%) 354 Radical Right (47%)
Source: www.760.com
What makes you think the Territories get any votes at all ?
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
The Chinese system is very different to the American one. The Big Seven need to keep shareholders happy in a way that even publicly-listed Chinese companies ones do not - and many of the very biggest in China are either privately held or state controlled. Keeping shareholders happy means growing.
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
As Peter Zeihan has been saying for over a decade, and I've been bigging him up here, America's energy self-sufficiency post-fracking will result in a retreat of America from the world and global hegemony, and that has implications. It certainly seems to be happening. Here is his "After America" series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bP8E5xvDfMeypevT6WxXgv
The issue the US faces in its retreat is that while it is undoubtedly self-sufficient and has a huge economy, it also needs to grow and much of its future prosperity is predicated on access to markets outside the US. Just look at the sales of the Big Seven, for example. A pull back is undoubtedly possible but it will also mean significant reductions in living standards for a lot of the population. Though not the very richest, of course
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
China is now more open to free trade than Trump and less interested in wasting resources invading its neighbours than Putin (beyond Taiwan). Though it is still much poorer per capita than neighbours like democratic Japan, S Korea and Singapore
China doesn’t invade neighbours, it economically absorbs them or subjugates them
Laos and Cambodia are completely subservient to China, in every way. Half of Myanmar is now Chinese
More distant countries - Sri Lanka is a good example - become vassals via debt
China invaded Tibet in 1950, India in 1962, and Vietnam in 1979. It also intervened directly in Korea in 1950.
it also absorbed Hong Kong without a fight in the last decade, and - I suspect - has a reasonable prospect of doing the same to Taiwan in the coming few years
Once the west has halfway reproduced Taiwan’s chip making capacity elsewhere then China will calculate that Taiwan is not worth defending, for America and the West. Probably correctly
At that point - quite soon - China will put a squeeze on Taiwan as it did HK, and hope that Taiwan submits at HK did
After all, has HK done so badly? Yes they’ve lost precious freedoms, but no one has died in a terrible war and Hong Kong is still very wealthy and a seductive place to live (as long as you don’t care about politics)
If you don't care about politics, then a site about Politicalbetting isn't really the place for you!
The key test for Kemi is next years Scottish snd Welsh elections
Not really, given the Tories were not in power in either even when they won nationally in 2021 and have 0 Welsh MPs and just 5 Scottish Tory MPs who have much interest in the results. The local elections in England would have been more significant but half of them have been postponed until 2027 or even 2028
We need an even dirtier word than "appeasement" for the pro-Israeli policies of major powers.
I wonder how long NATO will hang around in Jordan if Israel attends to the West Bank and Jerusalem in the same way as it's been suggested they are about to attend to Gaza.
NATO has never had anything to do with the Middle East. It’s “out of area”
"Emphasizing the evolving regional and global security landscape, Allies at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington D.C. adopted an action plan for a stronger, more strategic and result-oriented approach towards its southern neighbourhood. The plan clearly demonstrates NATO’s commitment to reinforcing engagement and cooperation with its partners in the Middle East and North Africa, including through the establishment of its first-ever liaison office in the region, in Amman, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
This decision, following the intent expressed in the Communiqué of the NATO Summit in Vilnius in July 2023, clearly marks a significant milestone in the deep strategic partnership between Jordan and the Alliance. It acknowledges Jordan's significant role as a beacon of stability in both regional and global contexts, and as a long-time champion in fighting transnational threats, including terrorism and violent extremism.
The Office, acting as a representative office, will bring NATO and Jordan closer, by enhancing political dialogue and practical cooperation in areas of common interest between the Alliance and Jordan. It will enable regular engagement between NATO and the Jordanian authorities, thus contributing to a better shared understanding of the national and regional context, and to the development and implementation of partnership programmes and activities, including, among others, conferences, courses, and training programmes in areas like strategic analysis, civil emergency planning and preparedness, crisis management, public diplomacy, cyber security, and climate change.
Building on nearly three decades of deep-rooted bilateral relations, particularly through the Mediterranean Dialogue, the opening of a NATO Liaison Office in Amman is a natural progression of the longstanding relationship between NATO and Jordan, which will only continue to grow."
That’s a bunch of blurb. NATO has offices all over the place. There is no actual commitment there.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
We're much more influenced by the US culturally though. People talk about 'checks and balances' and think in American terms even if they are not applicable to our constitution.
So is most of the west but that doesn't mean we want to become Trump's US in any sense, indeed even France has a closer constitution to the USA than we do
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
American foreign policy is focused on containing China and under Trump taking them on in a trade war with tariffs.
They no longer care about Russia and will leave Europe and Canada to contain Putin
I'm in my early fifties so I'm not going to get called up to the colours. But why are we afraid of Putin's army? They've been unable to defeat Ukraine for over two years and there is no sign that they are going to anytime soon. Combined militaries of Europe (Nato or not) is surely a match for anything Putin can throw at the task? What am I missing?
Putin has the biggest nuclear missile arsenal in the world, bigger than ours, bigger than France's, slightly bigger even than that of the US and China combined.
If it was just Putin's conventional army that was the concern NATO would probably already have captured Moscow and removed him from power well before Trump returned to office
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
According to most recent Anglospheric election results, and with a total electoral college distributed proportionally by population (unlike the present US system):
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024) 312 Radical Right, 226 Radical Left
UK (4 states, ie. the Home Nations) 110 electors (2024) 110 Radical Left (oh well!)
Canadia (12 states excluding Quebec) 45 electors (2021) 36 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra) 42 electors (2022) 34 Radical Left, 8 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Singapore (1 city-state on its own) 9 electors (2020) 9 Radical Right probably won't change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2023) 8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2024) 8 Radical Right
TOTAL electoral votes for the whole Anglospheric Federation:
406 Radical Left (53%) 354 Radical Right (47%)
Source: www.760.com
What makes you think the Territories get any votes at all ?
Critical mass - you need about 300,000 people for 0.5 quotas. Of course, that would mean "At Large" Electors for most of the smaller UK Territories (for example). OTOH for the three smallest Canadian Territories (Yukon, NWT and Nunavut), I've got them voting in Federal elections alongside BC, Alberta and Manitoba respectively.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
We're much more influenced by the US culturally though. People talk about 'checks and balances' and think in American terms even if they are not applicable to our constitution.
That analysis goes back to Polybius. Look him up, you might learn something.
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
The Chinese people tolerate the autocracy because it has brought them prosperity. If your parents and grandparents toiled in rice fields for 16 hours a day any system that brings you a nice apartment in the city, a car to drive and a job in a gizmo factory looks like a good deal.
Living standards in the US are, for most, going down. Unless Trump's rule by oligarchy significantly boosts the whole US economy, which it can't and won't because it's designed explicitly to benefit the super-rich, Mr Joe Public from Hickville, Iowa, is going to get more and more angry.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
Except, under your proposal, it would be Four Eyes.
You're slightly losing the plot, mate: Canada is a Commonwealth realm, a firm ally of ours with a pro British outlook and we share common consitutional and political heritage.
Our support for it should be staunch and unwavering.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
We're much more influenced by the US culturally though. People talk about 'checks and balances' and think in American terms even if they are not applicable to our constitution.
You need to learn some history.
Checks & balances and impeachment are things that America borrowed from our parliament.
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
The Chinese people tolerate the autocracy because it has brought them prosperity. If your parents and grandparents toiled in rice fields for 16 hours a day any system that brings you a nice apartment in the city, a car to drive and a job in a gizmo factory looks like a good deal.
Living standards in the US are, for most, going down. Unless Trump's rule by oligarchy significantly boosts the whole US economy, which it can't and won't because it's designed explicitly to benefit the super-rich, Mr Joe Public from Hickville, Iowa, is going to get more and more angry.
And it is the super-rich who stand to benefit from ‘winning the AI war’ and not the American people.
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
The Chinese people tolerate the autocracy because it has brought them prosperity. If your parents and grandparents toiled in rice fields for 16 hours a day any system that brings you a nice apartment in the city, a car to drive and a job in a gizmo factory looks like a good deal.
Living standards in the US are, for most, going down. Unless Trump's rule by oligarchy significantly boosts the whole US economy, which it can't and won't because it's designed explicitly to benefit the super-rich, Mr Joe Public from Hickville, Iowa, is going to get more and more angry.
Can you imagine how BORING a hypothetical Chinese version of PB.com would be?
"Oh, in the latest opinion poll, the Communist Party have a 100% approval, zero-change from last week"
The UK is never going to increase defence spending or fund it properly.
It'd require too many painful choices, and the electorate would rather spend more on pensions, the NHS and social welfare and will punish politicians who do anything else.
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
The Chinese people tolerate the autocracy because it has brought them prosperity. If your parents and grandparents toiled in rice fields for 16 hours a day any system that brings you a nice apartment in the city, a car to drive and a job in a gizmo factory looks like a good deal.
Living standards in the US are, for most, going down. Unless Trump's rule by oligarchy significantly boosts the whole US economy, which it can't and won't because it's designed explicitly to benefit the super-rich, Mr Joe Public from Hickville, Iowa, is going to get more and more angry.
They tolerate it because the alternative is prison.
Putin knew that all he had to do was to hold on for Trump to be re-elected and that he would then win. So it has proved. Europe - including the UK - had years to prepare for this and failed totally and utterly to do anything. What a total and shameful abrogation of responsibility.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
The Anglosphere, if we are smart enough to bring it into being, will be UK , India and Nigeria.
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
The Chinese people tolerate the autocracy because it has brought them prosperity. If your parents and grandparents toiled in rice fields for 16 hours a day any system that brings you a nice apartment in the city, a car to drive and a job in a gizmo factory looks like a good deal.
Living standards in the US are, for most, going down. Unless Trump's rule by oligarchy significantly boosts the whole US economy, which it can't and won't because it's designed explicitly to benefit the super-rich, Mr Joe Public from Hickville, Iowa, is going to get more and more angry.
Trump's tariffs, especially on Chinese imports, and his removal of immigrants, especially from Mexico are more welcomed by his voters from the rustbelt than big corporations, even if his tax cuts mainly favour the rich
“As we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’ We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations.”
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
The Anglosphere, if we are smart enough to bring it into being, will be UK , India and Nigeria.
No it won't, they don't want the King back and we don't want free movement of immigrants from India and Nigeria to us.
The inner core Anglosphere is only really ourselves, NZ, Australia and Canada as I said
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
The Anglosphere, if we are smart enough to bring it into being, will be UK , India and Nigeria.
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
The Anglosphere, if we are smart enough to bring it into being, will be UK , India and Nigeria.
No it won't, they don't want the King back and we don't want free movement of immigrants from India and Nigeria to us.
The inner core Anglosphere is only really ourselves, NZ, Australia and Canada as I said
As a matter of interest now Trump has abandoned Europe and effectively NATO in favour of doing a deal with Putin over Ukraine how can anyone prevent the surrender of Crimea to Russia ?
Europe has effectively been sidelined despite lots of hot air about big increases in defence spending that simply are not affordable with our present commitments to the NHS, the stupid triple lock, and unaffordable state pensions
This is, first and most importantly, a disaster for Ukraine, but it's also catastrophically bad for European and US security. The US and some in Europe will tell themselves that this is about the US sensibly reprioritising on security. But Putin will see it as capitulation to him.
"Between the tariffs, the idiotic threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty, the destruction of USAID, and the undermining of NATO, it's hard to see what the Trump administration would have done differently in their first 2 weeks if their aim were to destroy US power and global influence."
More accurately I would suggest it is not destroying US power it is mostly shifting it from the US state to US oligarchs alongside some destruction. Many tens of billions will be made with US foreign policy up for sale without scruples. In the end the broligarchs will rule as emperors.
That’s actually a brilliant analogy which I might steal. America is moving from Roman Republic to Roman Empire
It's more accurate to say it's moving to late colonial era Britain, when the Empire was at it's most bulbous territorially, but we were past our best as pre-eminent power.
No, there is a crucial difference
America dominates its continent. Canada is its bitch, Mexico is a supplicant
American can retreat into isolation like no other nation on earth, and it will do just fine
Britain is a small damp archipelago off NW Europe, we had no mighty homeland to retreat to
America won’t be a global policeman any more, but they don’t care any more. Maybe China wants the job? Also, America is ahead in crucial technology - only marginally, but still ahead
American foreign policy is focused on containing China and under Trump taking them on in a trade war with tariffs.
They no longer care about Russia and will leave Europe and Canada to contain Putin
I'm in my early fifties so I'm not going to get called up to the colours. But why are we afraid of Putin's army? They've been unable to defeat Ukraine for over two years and there is no sign that they are going to anytime soon. Combined militaries of Europe (Nato or not) is surely a match for anything Putin can throw at the task? What am I missing?
Every single Western government has been turfed out or seen a big drop in their majority since Putins invasion.
(Snip)
Is that an effect of Putin's invasion, Covid, or both?
Trudeau got 5 extra seats in Sept 2021. Find me some who have done that since Feb 2022.
That's an interesting point. Was it just an outlier? What other major elections were there between March 2020 and September 2021?
I've argued before that Trump is the closest operator to Bismarck we have in the contemporary world, but if he can pull off a rapprochement with Russia and bring them out of an alliance with China, it will be one of the great feats of international diplomacy.
China seems to do just fine under a fairly strict and sometimes ruthless autocracy, with barely disguised imperial pretensions
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
The Chinese people tolerate the autocracy because it has brought them prosperity. If your parents and grandparents toiled in rice fields for 16 hours a day any system that brings you a nice apartment in the city, a car to drive and a job in a gizmo factory looks like a good deal.
Living standards in the US are, for most, going down. Unless Trump's rule by oligarchy significantly boosts the whole US economy, which it can't and won't because it's designed explicitly to benefit the super-rich, Mr Joe Public from Hickville, Iowa, is going to get more and more angry.
They tolerate it because the alternative is prison.
Chinese youth are becoming increasingly pissed off with their living conditions. They are rejecting what they call "996" and they are going for "tang ping", "bai lan", and "we are the last generation" (a very powerful statement in Chinese culture). There are parallel developments in Japan - see the hikikomori and what is ironically called the satori generation - and in Korea with the sampo thing, which hopefully will turn itself in the opposite direction from going the full N=10 with "wanpo sedae".
(I haven't got time to post more about these, but they are all worth finding out about.)
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
The Anglosphere, if we are smart enough to bring it into being, will be UK , India and Nigeria.
No it won't, they don't want the King back and we don't want free movement of immigrants from India and Nigeria to us.
The inner core Anglosphere is only really ourselves, NZ, Australia and Canada as I said
Which is an enormous country in size, and with a population of 140m? We should do it
How fun to be a mighty power again. Under the Crown
Trump is to start negotiations with Putin to end the Ukraine war with Trump and Putin visiting each other and are to tell Zelensky accordingly
That feels like more Trumpist overreach, based on somebody's delusion. Is it another beyond-his-ken starting position?
If he's not getting involved militarily, how does he propose to tell anyone what to do in the end?
Ukraine won't stop fighting, whatever he does, because they know what happens.
If Trump & his manipulators try to make that happen, there will be a lot of behind the scenes threats being made to soon-not-to-be-allies. I'm not sure it will work.
“As we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’ We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations.”
Amazing how the flattery wins every time.
He announced what was said on Truth Social before talking to Zelensky.
I wonder whether @Sandpit 's dual waveforms of supporting both Ukraine and Trump have finally collapsed into reality yet?
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
The Anglosphere, if we are smart enough to bring it into being, will be UK , India and Nigeria.
USA 78% English-speaking at home 2020 (exc. Puerto Rico) Canadia 80% English-speaking at home 2021 (exc. Quebec, 68% including) UK 91% English-speaking (main language) 2021/2022 Ireland 83% English-speaking at home 2022 (I think!) Australia 72% English-speaking at home 2021 New Zealand 95% English-speaking at home 2023
and I also propose Singapore as a rising star: 48% English-speaking at home in 2020 (cf. 32% in 2010)
As for India and Nigeria? Why?? Nigeria is only 9.7% English-speaking as first language India is only 0.02% English-speaking as first language
Trump is to start negotiations with Putin to end the Ukraine war with Trump and Putin visiting each other and are to tell Zelensky accordingly
That feels like more Trumpist overreach, based on somebody's delusion. Is it another beyond-his-ken starting position?
If he's not getting involved militarily, how does he propose to tell anyone what to do in the end?
Ukraine won't stop fighting, whatever he does, because they know what happens.
If Trump & his manipulators try to make that happen, there will be a lot of behind the scenes threats being made to soon-not-to-be-allies. I'm not sure it will work.
I expect Trump to withdraw all military and financial support to Ukraine if they do not accept 'the deal' when it happens
If we accept America is Rome moving from Republic to Empire than Greenland and Canada etc make total sense
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
For all that the British Trump-haters protest about how awful he is, they do it from the same perspective as the Democrats. The Anglosphere is becoming more and more like a single polity thanks to the internet so actually uniting would make a lot of sense.
Canada and Australia and the UK and NZ culturally have more in common with each other than Trump's US or the EU, as well as sharing a head of state
The Anglosphere, if we are smart enough to bring it into being, will be UK , India and Nigeria.
USA 78% English-speaking at home 2020 (exc. Puerto Rico) Canadia 80% English-speaking at home 2021 (exc. Quebec, 68% including) UK 91% English-speaking (main language) 2021/2022 Ireland 83% English-speaking at home 2022 (I think!) Australia 72% English-speaking at home 2021 New Zealand 95% English-speaking at home 2023
and I also propose Singapore as a rising star: 48% English-speaking at home in 2020 (cf. 32% in 2010)
As for India and Nigeria? Why?? Nigeria is only 9.7% English-speaking as first language India is only 0.02% English-speaking as first language
Comments
They no longer care about Russia and will leave Europe and Canada to contain Putin
if the USA can somehow seize Greenland and persuade Canada into the fold then it has a totally impregnable position, it is North America, and ownership of the mineral wealth of Canada and Greenland means it cannot be menaced by China in any form
We should probably join. It is time for an Anglosphere. The Five Eyes as a nation would boss the world, which would be fun, especially after I’ve done 39 minutes on the elliptical
Here are his books: https://zeihan.com/books/
My personal wet dream is a return to Pax Brittanica. Unlikely, however
https://conservativehome.com/2025/02/12/our-survey-members-think-badenoch-should-lead-the-party-into-the-next-election-but-only-a-third-are-sure/
And 'Pax Britannica' wasn't exactly without its problems...
However even the best security cannot defend against an angry and open prison occupying a large chunk of the nation in the southwest corner
So, logically, it will be ended
I am not cheerleading this. I say again if I was a young Palestinian lad I would be CONSUMED with hatred for everything Israeli and Jewish, and for very very good reasons. But that just makes Israel’s logic more inexorable
There was a brief chance of peace under Clinton. It has gone forever
I wonder how long NATO will hang around in Jordan if Israel attends to the West Bank and Jerusalem in the same way as it's been suggested they are about to attend to Gaza.
Beverbrook killed quite a bit, in favour of “produce what we have - now”. Which killed, delayed or shortened development for lots of things.
"UNITE WITH FASCISM!" screeches WilliamGlenn...
The proto-fascists are really making themselves visible.
De facto when around 50% of the PCP call for her to go.
I am about to write an article on exactly this theme
So the equivalent of the Tempest in 1941, probably.
So no capability gap in the follow ons to the Spitfire and Hurricane.
What am I missing?
it will be bad for Jews worldwide, Israel will be even more of a pariah state. But, they seem beyond caring
The 2020s eh, what larks
USA (50 states plus DC) 538 electors (2024)
312 Radical Right, 226 Radical Left
UK (4 states, ie. the Home Nations) 110 electors (2024)
110 Radical Left (oh well!)
Canadia (12 states excluding Quebec) 45 electors (2021)
36 Radical Left, 9 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Australia (6 states plus Canberra) 42 electors (2022)
34 Radical Left, 8 Radical Right of course, will change later in the year!
Singapore (1 city-state on its own) 9 electors (2020)
9 Radical Right probably won't change later in the year!
New Zealand (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2023)
8 Radical Right
Ireland (1 state on its own, not federal) 8 electors (2024)
8 Radical Right
TOTAL electoral votes for the whole Anglospheric Federation:
406 Radical Left (53%)
354 Radical Right (47%)
Source: www.760.com
They've decided to set up shop in Jordan.
"Emphasizing the evolving regional and global security landscape, Allies at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington D.C. adopted an action plan for a stronger, more strategic and result-oriented approach towards its southern neighbourhood. The plan clearly demonstrates NATO’s commitment to reinforcing engagement and cooperation with its partners in the Middle East and North Africa, including through the establishment of its first-ever liaison office in the region, in Amman, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
This decision, following the intent expressed in the Communiqué of the NATO Summit in Vilnius in July 2023, clearly marks a significant milestone in the deep strategic partnership between Jordan and the Alliance. It acknowledges Jordan's significant role as a beacon of stability in both regional and global contexts, and as a long-time champion in fighting transnational threats, including terrorism and violent extremism.
The Office, acting as a representative office, will bring NATO and Jordan closer, by enhancing political dialogue and practical cooperation in areas of common interest between the Alliance and Jordan. It will enable regular engagement between NATO and the Jordanian authorities, thus contributing to a better shared understanding of the national and regional context, and to the development and implementation of partnership programmes and activities, including, among others, conferences, courses, and training programmes in areas like strategic analysis, civil emergency planning and preparedness, crisis management, public diplomacy, cyber security, and climate change.
Building on nearly three decades of deep-rooted bilateral relations, particularly through the Mediterranean Dialogue, the opening of a NATO Liaison Office in Amman is a natural progression of the longstanding relationship between NATO and Jordan, which will only continue to grow."
Nobody is buying your 'if we disband NATO it will force Putin to become a pacifist' horseshit.
Or a Republican Radical Centrist?
Laos and Cambodia are completely subservient to China, in every way. Half of Myanmar is now Chinese
More distant countries - Sri Lanka is a good example - become vassals via debt
It is not just about soldiers, not at all.
Here is Zeihan on Vhina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVMlEiewyT4&list=PL6zWQZTGKO4bsLwepXQSer8WJA5fWkTVo
With regards to how the Chinese Communist Party preserved their power after the Soviet Union, see here: https://thediplomat.com/2021/12/what-china-learned-from-the-collapse-of-the-ussr/
Look him up, you might learn something.
Every country in the world will be looking at the Us now as an unreliable partner/ally, grasping to make money, quasi-colonial, vindictive, undiplomatic.
China must be laughing so hard at the moment as they seem like the sane and stable super power.
Once the west has halfway reproduced Taiwan’s chip making capacity elsewhere then China will calculate that Taiwan is not worth defending, for America and the West. Probably correctly
At that point - quite soon - China will put a squeeze on Taiwan as it did HK, and hope that Taiwan submits at HK did
After all, has HK done so badly? Yes they’ve lost precious freedoms, but no one has died in a terrible war and Hong Kong is still very wealthy and a seductive place to live (as long as you don’t care about politics)
If it was just Putin's conventional army that was the concern NATO would probably already have captured Moscow and removed him from power well before Trump returned to office
Trump is to start negotiations with Putin to end the Ukraine war with Trump and Putin visiting each other and are to tell Zelensky accordingly
Tibet will be pleased to hear that, as will Vietnam. And India.
Living standards in the US are, for most, going down. Unless Trump's rule by oligarchy significantly boosts the whole US economy, which it can't and won't because it's designed explicitly to benefit the super-rich, Mr Joe Public from Hickville, Iowa, is going to get more and more angry.
You're slightly losing the plot, mate: Canada is a Commonwealth realm, a firm ally of ours with a pro British outlook and we share common consitutional and political heritage.
Our support for it should be staunch and unwavering.
Checks & balances and impeachment are things that America borrowed from our parliament.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_Kingdom
Or China.
"Oh, in the latest opinion poll, the Communist Party have a 100% approval, zero-change from last week"
Please, no!
"The great Globe itself and all which it inherit", is too small to satisfy such insatiable appetites.
I think the Speccie, Telegraph and similar outlets are being the useful idiots for Trump that they were for Mussolini in the 1920s.
If Putin visits the US who will arrest him ?
https://news.sky.com/story/trump-invites-putin-to-us-after-90-minute-call-about-ending-ukraine-war-12541713
“As we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial. “President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’ We both believe very strongly in it. We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations.”
Amazing how the flattery wins every time.
The inner core Anglosphere is only really ourselves, NZ, Australia and Canada as I said
Europe has effectively been sidelined despite lots of hot air about big increases in defence spending that simply are not affordable with our present commitments to the NHS, the stupid triple lock, and unaffordable state pensions
(I haven't got time to post more about these, but they are all worth finding out about.)
How fun to be a mighty power again. Under the Crown
Might have to kick out Quebec tho
If he's not getting involved militarily, how does he propose to tell anyone what to do in the end?
Ukraine won't stop fighting, whatever he does, because they know what happens.
If Trump & his manipulators try to make that happen, there will be a lot of behind the scenes threats being made to soon-not-to-be-allies. I'm not sure it will work.
I wonder whether @Sandpit 's dual waveforms of supporting both Ukraine and Trump have finally collapsed into reality yet?
Canadia 80% English-speaking at home 2021 (exc. Quebec, 68% including)
UK 91% English-speaking (main language) 2021/2022
Ireland 83% English-speaking at home 2022 (I think!)
Australia 72% English-speaking at home 2021
New Zealand 95% English-speaking at home 2023
and I also propose Singapore as a rising star: 48% English-speaking at home in 2020 (cf. 32% in 2010)
As for India and Nigeria? Why??
Nigeria is only 9.7% English-speaking as first language
India is only 0.02% English-speaking as first language
The Old Dominions, please