Not long after Trump took office, I observed that the status of the US as the “indispensable nation” could not be sustained. A year later, the US, considered strictly as a state actor, is already dispensable and has, in fact, been largely dispensed with, by Europe in particular. The standing ovation given to Rubio in Munich recently (made almost unavoidable when his retinue jumped to their feet in Stalinesque fashion) should not obscure the fact that almost no one interpreted it as anything more than a politer restatement of Vance’s tirade a year ago. At that time, Europe needed to keep Trump on-side to prevent a sudden collapse in support for Ukraine and to avoid an all-out trade war.
None of that is particularly relevant now. Europe (include Ukraine) has held Russia to a standstill for a year despite the complete cessation of US military aid. The US is still relevant as an arms exporter and as a patchy supporter of sanctions against Russia, but that’s about it. Trump has turned his attention to his desire to rule the Americas from Nunavut to Tierra del Fuego, as well as returning to the forever wars of the Middle East.
US discussions of European military dependence commonly assume that independence requires the attributes of a superpower: global reach, expeditionary capacity, and a highly centralised state authority. But Europe does not need to replicate a superpower model. It needs only sufficient political cohesion and integrated military capability to deny territorial aggression on its own continent. In that sense, the relevant model is a Greater Switzerland: coordinated and capable enough for credible defence, without aspiring to global hegemony and without transforming itself into a unitary — or even fully federal — state.
Measured against this objective, Europe has already surpassed the US. Ukraine alone has more troops, hardened by years of war, than the US, and Europe as a whole many more. Europe’s armaments industry, much derided in the early years of the war, is now churning out munitions (particularly artillery shells and drones) at a capacity far greater than that of the US. There are gaps, notably in missile defence, but these are being closed quite rapidly.
Against this, arguments for continued dependence on the US commonly focus on logistics, command-and-control, and ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance). These arguments sound impressive, but collapse on closer investigation.
Logistics is the clearest example. Before Trump, analysis of a possible war with Russia assumed a massive lift of US forces to Europe for which only the US had any capacity. But it’s clear that this won’t happen. Europe will have to fend (almost) entirely for itself. The resulting logistics problems are immense, but they all involve land transport within Europe – bridges that can’t support the weight of tanks for example.
In fact, the dependence now goes the other way. The global force projection capacity of the US depend critically on bases in Europe like Rammstein, not to mention the UK-leased Diego Garcia. Until recently, a loss of US access to these bases was unthinkable. But it would be a low-cost path to retaliation in the event of an occupation of Greenland.
The same points apply to command-and-control. The US military is central to NATO and would be crucial in the (now improbable) event of a war between NATO and Russia. But in the actual war between Ukraine/Europe and Russia, it’s irrelevant. At the operational level, Ukraine is in charge of its own military. At the logistical level, it’s increasingly integrated with Europe.
Finally, there is ISR. Most of the work these days is being done by drones, which have made concealment nearly impossible anywhere near the front lines. US military satellites play a role, but it’s less important than it was. The most important US player is not the state but Elon Musk’s Starlink, which is gradually being challenged by European alternatives.
Then there is “intelligence” in the sense of analysis, where the US is arguably worse than useless. The US intelligence system scored a win at the beginning of the war by correctly predicting the Russian invasion, but it was right for the wrong reasons, expecting an easy Russian win. Because of the dominance of superpower thinking, the US has routinely overestimated Russia.
This can be seen in the remorselessly pessimistic reporting of the New York Times, which (not surprisingly) reflects the advice it is getting from US intelligence officials. The NYT first announced the imminent fall of Pokrovsk (a relatively unimportant city in Eastern Ukraine) as a likely consequence of Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk in 2024. The latest announcement, accompanied by a concession that Russian progress had been slower than expected, was a week ago. Perhaps they will be right this time. But anyone who had read consistent NYT reports of Russian advances for the past three years, without checking the map, would have been anticipating T-72s on the Champs-Elysees by now. These reports are clearly guiding the thinking (to describe it kindly) of the Trump Administration, and reflected in the advice given to Ukraine.
That’s the military side of things. As far as dispensing with the US role in global society is concerned, Trump is doing the work himself. USAid has been gutted, with catastrophic consequences . The US just withdrew from dozens of international organisations , and is sowing chaos in others
The big steps here, with respect to the UN, World Bank and IMF, have not yet been taken But even if Trump does not make the first move, the continued location of these institutions in the US can’t be sustained. With the US out of most UN organisations, UN presence in New York is likely to shrink to the provision of a meeting place for the Security Council and General Assembly, and even that role is threatened by travel restrictions. Their buildings can presumably be taken over by Trump’s Board of Peace. A similar process will play out as Trump attempts to direct the lending policies of the World Bank and IMF
The big force for inertia is the idea that Trump will be gone in 2029. That seems increasingly unlikely, but unless Trumpism is completely defeated, the process will continue with the next Republican administration. A complete defeat of Trumpism would require a massive constitutional upheaval in the US, which would entail a need to focus almost entirely on domestic problems.
The US state may already be dispensable, but the same is not true of the US role in technology and finance. Conflict in these areas is only just starting, but will be intense. More soon I hope.
{ 29 comments }
Alex SL 02.21.26 at 6:03 am
Yes to all of this. The hegemon is always replaceable; the problems are status quo bias, laziness, cowardice, and stupidity. But there I think we still haven’t seen the last of it. As you imply at the end, many governments around the world, like may liberals in the USA, still delude themselves into thinking that MAGA will be gone if Trump has a heart attack next year or loses the 2028 election, and then we have the Republicans of Romney and Bush back.
But that is an extremely silly idea. What is now called MAGA is a movement of millions of voters, influencers, activists, journalists, judges, politicians, think tank hacks, and billionaires who have all together decided that democracy, the rule of law, international law, and respect for treaties with other nations have to go away and be replaced by a world of bullies and victims. The movement started in the 1990s when Republicans first treated any government by Democrats as fundamentally illegitimate and adopted a scorched earth strategy, had its first taste of what could be done by protesting and involving judges against ballot counting in 2000, and went into overdrive at the perceived insult of having to accept a black president from 2008.
MAGA will, be it under that name or another, still constitute half of the USA in four years and in twelve years and in twenty years and so on until some future time when the movement is completely discredited by a 1945 or 1865 level collapse of their approach to governance, which would require at a minimum a self-inflicted economic crisis severe enough to cause starvation riots but more likely a lost civil war or external war. And frankly, the latter might mean large parts of the world population dying, so perhaps let’s not, which means MAGA would even under the most optimistic scenario rule the USA for half of the next several decades, if more or less competitive elections can still be maintained, and for the next several decades straight if they can make elections unfair enough through voter roll purges, gerrymandering, closure of poll stations in poor neighbourhoods, ID requirements, and armed goons “guarding” the poll stations.
I also find it difficult to believe that Europe would seriously defend Greenland. Not be a push-over, make it more difficult to invade, yes. But if the USA seriously invaded with twenty thousand soldiers, would the rest of NATO or the EU start World War III against the greatest nuclear power on the planet over a few ten thousand mostly indigenous people? Whether that is ethical or not, I think if Trump invaded, we would be looking at something like the Sudentenland: Protests, yes. Attempts to liberate the island, no. But a mental switch from “how can we contain Russia without the USA” to “how can we contain the USA”, which may result in everybody massively increasing their military capability.
John Q 02.21.26 at 6:40 am
While 1945 is an obvious analog (Trump will have been a dominant forcee for 12 years by 2029, matching you-know-who), I’m still hopeful that a smaller disaster will be enough to drive MAGA into a decline from which a return to power becomes impossible. I mentioned the possibility of a stock market crash a while ago, but there’s also the chance that a failed war could have the same effect. It’s quite likely that Trump’s planned war with Iran will entail some serious naval losses, and not inconceivable that the Iranians could land a serious hit on an aircraft carrier. That would shake MAGA pretty badly.
Alex SL 02.21.26 at 7:06 am
I am not a military expert, but I find it difficult to believe that any country on the planet could stand militarily up to the USA in a way that the USA would consider humiliating in any sense that the ultimate outcomes of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were not, and those did not discredit entire generational political projects either.
Sure, the USA loses a few hundred soldiers, maybe even a ship, who knows. But the other country is economically devastated, has lost at least tens of thousands of civilians, and maybe its dictatorship has even been replaced with a new, worse one. If things went really badly all around, the USA will have lost thousands of soldiers, but the other country will had its government collapse and then lost millions of civilians in a ten-year-long civil war between four sides that were funded variously by the USA, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, and Pakistan. Either of the two is probably a fine outcome for a US citizen with the mentality of a bully, especially if they are safely on a couch or behind a desk back home, and especially if they get their information on how it all went down from Fox News, Facebook, or “Grok is that true?”
The only outcome that could really shock these people out of their cultishness is if European or Chinese tanks occupy their home town, and that is not going to happen in the next few decades regardless of how many bombs US presidents drop onto countries like Iran, Somalia, Venezuela, or even Greenland or Mexico. The discrepancy in military strength is just too large, and who in Europe or China wants to be the one to start WW3 anyway?
We are either stuck with MAGA for decades, or it is an economic collapse that does it.
Chetan R Murthy 02.21.26 at 8:03 am
There’s a commenter at LG&M named Murc (he of Murc’s Law) who wrote, early in Biden’s term, that given the structural advantages enjoyed by the GOP, and Duverger’s Law, it was a lead-pipe cinch that the GOP would retake the trifecta sometime in the following 10-15yr. He was only too optimistic by …. 7-8yr! And here we are! I would suggest that none of his analysis will change, merely because the Dems retake the trifecta in 2028 (let’s assume they do), so his prediction would remain operative.
That is to say, at best 10-15yr after 2028, one might expect a third MAGA administration. And of course, each turn of the crank, they’ll be angrier, more racist, more reactionary, than the time before.
Europe — and all America’s former partners and allies — need to be prepared for this, they need to start preparing now, and the return of Democratic governance in 2028 should not change those preparations.
It is what it is, as a famous philosopher once said.
Chetan R Murthy 02.21.26 at 8:05 am
JohnQ@2: For the Iranians’ sake, I suppose we should hope they do not land a serious hit (or sink) an American supercarrier. I can only imagine that Trump would order Tehran nuked, if that were to happen.
He’s that sort of depraved monster.
MisterMr 02.21.26 at 8:54 am
Apparently the EU is planning to muse a “buy european” clause on its re-armament program, and the USA administration is very pissed about it and threatens to retaliate if the EU closes the access to USA weapons manufacturers.
However obviously if the EU is re-arming because it can’t trust the USA anymore it is obvious that it can’t be dependent on the USA for weapons, so I doubt the EU will change its route.
I really don’t understand if the Trump administration is just feigning surprise and shock of if they really didn’t see this coming.
John Q 02.21.26 at 11:42 am
Chetan @5 That is a real risk, and could be catastrophic. But apart from nukes (still beyond the pale, I think), Trump’s options for escalation are limited. Clearly no appetite for land war and indiscriminate bombing likely to create lots of backlash, especially given most Iranians oppose regime.
Past experience suggests that, unless Iran regime can be induced to buckle quickly, Trump will TACO and declare victory as soon as serious damage becomes likely. That’s what he did with much weaker Houthis.
Chris Henderson 02.21.26 at 5:23 pm
John @6 I hear conflicting reports, some say the public mostly supports the regime and some say it’s the opposite. I think the reality is it’s a urban rural divide, the more liberal woke Iranians in the city are supportive of the monarchy (which butchered and killed their own people which lead to the revolution being inevitable) while the rural ones are more religious and thus support the theocracy.
You cannot get true information from western sources, it’s like asking a Chinese newspaper to give accurate info about the US, it doesn’t work that way.
J, not that one 02.21.26 at 6:37 pm
It’s easier for me to imagine a MAGA continuation of some sort than any alternative, which would have to be one of the following:
An unapologetically left-progressive “liberal” in the American sense, and unafraid to use both the word “liberal” and the words “progressive” and “left
An old-style “respectable” Democrat
An old-style “respectable” business-conservative Republican
A new-style populist or quasi-populist, a proud opponent of empathy and high culture, in the name of the right of the “true people” to govern overall
On top of that, the electorate (along with the media) has shown no taste whatsoever for candidates who don’t fit a 20th-century norm of respectable white maleness. Reagan, Clinton, and Obama were exceptions or at least variations on this; Biden is a return to type and even Trump is closer to that old norm than many other plausible (and younger) candidates. No one I can think of except the Bushes and Romney have escaped attacks on the basis of something like style. MAGA is harder to overtly criticize on that score (not impossible, but it’s easier to say a Harris isn’t white and male and even decorous enough, given the double standard, than to say the same about a Vance or a Rubio). Even if you think that’s the virtuous path, there’s a limited supply of male politicians born before 1955.
All in all, it doesn’t look good. Much as I hate to say it, too much of the center-left in this country has spent decades tying themselves up in knots to please people who will never accept them, and too much of the center-right will put up with what they perceive as differences of “style” to get their preferred light-religious authoritarianism and their preferred version of “the people.” And the fringes, post-Marxism, haven’t built anything that can replace the center, and as far as I can see, too many of them see their job as adopting one or another right-wing critique and flinging it reflexively at “Establishment Democrats”. And that’s before you even get into the really mad hallucinatory visions.
Alex SL 02.21.26 at 10:41 pm
What has taken place in Gaza has shattered any illusion I had about lines in the sand and about things that are allegedly beyond the pale. We have to understand that there are people who count as real people in the eyes of our media, politicians, and fellow citizens, and other people who don’t.
I see no reason whatsoever why the same would not apply in the case of Iran. Imagine Trump attacks Iran… wait, didn’t he do that in June 2025, resulting in no repercussions whatsoever? Okay, next attempt: Imagine Trump attacks Iran again and more so than last time, and in retaliation, the Iranian military lands a lucky hit on a US aircraft carrier (not that I think that likely, but let’s imagine), and then the MAGA regime feels humiliated enough that they decide to even the score by nuking Tehran, killing millions.
Do we really for one second think that ‘Western’ governments will react in any other way than to send a diplomatic complaint to Washington saying that this is a concerning escalation, and that both sides should cease hostilities and return to the negotiating table, but they understand that the USA needed to defend itself from that vile terror attack on its aircraft carrier? Because the USA are people like us and count as real people, and Iranians are weird brown guys with a weird religion and have been terrorist-coded for decades by all our media and politicians. And maybe privately, ‘Western’ politicians will think to themselves, PLEASE don’t nuke us too because of Greenland, and be even more careful about how they talk to and about Trump. Because, really, what can they do?
It really doesn’t pay to have any illusions about the power dynamics here. If the USA ever nuke somebody, the rest of the world will have the choice to let them get away with it or to end all of civilisation on the planet by beginning WW3. What would any of us do in that situation?
It also doesn’t pay to have illusions about the racism and double standards, for that matter. The USA have been allowed to bomb brown-coded countries at will for decades, or change their governments, or starve their people with sanctions. Nobody has ever cared, and many other ‘Western’ governments have helped them do it. That is reality.
Chris Henderson,
Yes. No dictatorship would survive if it wasn’t supported by a plurality of its citizens. When there are mass protests against the regime, there are also angry, fundamentalist men snatching up and brutalising the protesters. What do they get out of it? Same as ICE in the USA, impunity to beat up other people who they consider to be impure and inferior, a privilege they would lose in a democracy and under the rule of law.
wkw 02.22.26 at 12:06 am
I was hoping you’d write another post! Let’s try to get everyone aligned, there’s a lot of work to do.
I think the “dispensability” case is a little less strong now than a year ago, actually, even tho the US is in the process of being “dispensed with” (at least hopefully). What I mean by that is, contra Farrell/Newman’s “weaponized interdependence” arg, the expected blowback to US extortion has been almost non-existent. The US has had to directly threaten sovereignty, in brazenly imperialist ways, while demonstrating proof of concept in Venezuela, to produce even mild forms of self-protection.
Instead what is happening is the US is severing its own ties, while the rest of the world is begging on its knees for them to stop. The last time a system of capitalism disintegrated like this was 1929, the subject of Kindleberger’s famous hegemonic stability theory. In that case the UK was willing but unable, while the US was able but unwilling. In this case it is the same.
The question then becomes: does the rest of the world create new ties at least as fast as the US severs the old ones? Can we create a new net to catch us from falling when the old one has a hole cut in it? I.e., can we create some new infrastructure to prevent the total collapse of the old system into a state of anarchy? I note that global conflict is at its highest point since the end of the Cold War, this is an urgent priority.
On Feb 10, 2025, in comments to your first “How to Dispense” post, I wrote:
“So countering them will require counter-mobilization, the intentional creation of non-US clubs and institutions that replicate the US’s hegemonic activities — management of payments infrastructure, credit recycling, absorption of surplus demand, coordination of global security (inc naval security), etc — rather than states simply going their own way while claiming each other’s territory (as is currently happening in E/SE Asia, Europe, SS Africa, the Arctic, and MENA… so far).”
We’ve seen some progress along all of these lines, but need much more. On Feb 23, 2025, in comments to the next “How to Dispense post”, I wrote:
“One very important step for sidelining the US (without accommodating the Xi-Putin-Khamenei axis) will be passing EU-Mercosur and then inviting Canada, Mexico, and other Pacific Rim economies to join. Quickly.”
No one I spoke with early last year expected EU-Mercosur to get done in 2025, but I really thought it was worth pushing hard on, and whatever other deals could get done needed to get done too. Now we’re seeing it — there’s an institutionalized global trade network in which the US is peripheral — but only because we found that focal point that we needed to coordinate network re-wiring. It was a necessary condition.
And what was that focal point? Also on Feb 23, 2025 I wrote:
“Mark Carney for PM! He is ideally situated for this historical moment, maybe more than anyone else on the planet. He has the requisite policy experience from both the core (BoE during Brexit) and semi-periphery (BoC) of the global financial system, and because a Canada/UK defection from the Fed-centric IMS — even if it’s partial/hedged — would be a major re-ordering move. He seems very motivated to find willing partners, and he has legitimacy in the City and on Wall Street, but also (I suspect) in Geneva and Hong Kong and Singapore and Montevideo and Tokyo and Frankfurt, possibly even such far-flung locales as Brisbane. MMT progressives like him (like the Positive Money folks I linked above), so do digital-currency types. If anyone can step into a Keynes-esque policymaking role in this moment, my money is on Carney being the guy.”
So I am very pleased to see happening a lot of what I thought was necessary to happen for the US to be dispensed with as a hegemonic power. My friends will tell you that I haven’t shut up about Carney since he announced his candidacy. I didn’t exactly see him quoting Havel but I was not at all surprised. He’s on the wavelength we need, and now many more leaders are aligned with it. So many new possibilities are opening up, we need to be ready.
Quite a lot of this effort was borne by the citizens of Minneapolis, too, who showed that if some people said “no” others would join them. Renee Good was shot on Jan 7, Carney’s speech on the 20, Alex Pretti was shot on Feb 24 and by the outcome might have been determined. There is much left to do, but we now have the key: it goes back to the Keohane and Ostrom stuff I was talking about in those conversations last year. But now we can add to it: citizens around the world are mobilizing. The push for greater democratization need not be only within the US… republicans of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but enshittification.
Hardly anything has been done on finance, despite the declining value of the dollar prompted by 47’s policies. And even despite the very obvious cracks opening up in the US financial system, which will very likely experience significant capital events this year. I had hoped that integration of Brazil’s Pix payments system could be part of EU-Mercosur, but I’m sure EU finance wouldn’t let that happen. Well then they must get an alternative going, NOW, or the costs of adjustment will rise enormously. In the meantime, hopefully more EU-Mercosur trade will be denominated in euros and/or real. Routinization of these practices is a big part of the battle, we need to create more infrastructure, more agreements, more test programs, try everything. But do it while getting buy-in from the citizens.
Software tech is going to be much, much easier. There are viable alternatives already for most software, and software as a whole is now a commodity. AI has yet to generate any useful purpose other than to chop off the IP legs of the tech companies themselves, and almost certainly 90% of current investment is going to go bust… better to let the early money kill itself, then swoop in later. The most valuable tech companies today were (with one exception) not valuable in 1998, and the world produces tons of engineers that would love to live in the EU, UK, CAN, or AUS. AI models become commodities within 3 months of release, so there is no significant lag to worry about. The main issue now is that EU governments are signing contracts with Palantir because they’re stupid.
Hardware tech is much harder than I thought it would be. How the hell are German factories not making Ukrainian drones yet? This should be easy. This should’ve been done a year ago, or even 3 years ago. I don’t understand what’s happening. The Ukrainians are holding back the Russian army — armed by China and staffed by N Korea — with fucking snowballs and Germany can’t manufacture garage-tech drones at scale?
Anyway, the money is always the problem — I wrote a paper not long ago titled “The Money Shapes The Order” — but in this case we just need EU-UK-CAN-AUS-IND-BRA-URU-SGP-MEX to agree on a payments network that doesn’t require Visa and Mastercard. SWIFT is already in Brussels, it’s not US infrastructure!
Schedule the Brisbane Woods Conference! It’s time!
Moz of Yarramulla 02.22.26 at 10:28 am
At least in Australia many of us have Irani friends who periodically talk politics. From what I gather the theocrats are broadly unpopular (much as in the USA), but invasion by the USA is seen as a much worse thing. Everyone saw what happened when the USA “liberated” Iraq and they don’t want that.
They don’t trust the theocrats not to be completely insane if the USA does attack. Much as with Trump, you can’t say “no reasonable person would” because that’s not been a useful guide in the past.
My suspicion is that the USA will try to murder or kidnap a bunch of Irani leaders. Civilian casualties matter even less to Trump than they did to his predecessors. But that strategy more or less worked on Osama Bin Laden, it didn’t work with Hussein and Iraq, it seems to be kind of working in Venezuela. But all of those are better than what the US did to Afghanistan so perhaps we should hope for that outcome as the worst case?
ozajh 02.22.26 at 11:17 am
MisterMr @6,
I think the EU would be very short-sighted to have a “buy european” requirement on their military procurement, but what they should seriously consider is a “local management” requirement at both the country and the EU/NATO levels.
My layman’s understanding is that a number of militaries were really spooked when John Deere “turned off” some agricultural equipment after the Russians stole it during their invasion and tried to use it back in Russia. How can they be SURE that the US Government can’t do the same thing with weapons and weapons platforms.
There are Youtube (I know!) videos indicating that SAAB salespeople are pushing this point HARD when trying to get countries (E.g. Canada) to buy the Gripen instead of the F35, and that the South Koreans are using the same pitch with respect to their very good tanks and self-propelled artillery.
nonrenormalizable 02.22.26 at 4:50 pm
I suppose this falls partially into the category of “technology”, but news like this isn’t particularly heartening for the cause of weaning European dependence on the US: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/germany-seeking-more-f-35-jets-european-fighter-program-falters-sources-say-2026-02-19/
And there is the larger point that much of this depends on the inclinations of those in power in European states. It’s possible that in a few years, as well as Orban, one could have Farage, Le Pen/Bardella, and Weidel in charge of their respective states (perhaps in part due to US and Russian interference). Their views on decoupling are far from clear — though in this scenario, perhaps the struggle for European independence is already lost.
steven t johnson 02.22.26 at 8:23 pm
Two issues stand out in the original post, at least for me.
First, there’s the seemingly unexamined notion that the US was once indispensable, particularly in the European form of NATO. There was never any threat of Soviet invasion of so-called western Europe in my opinion. That’s why I think the French could devote so much of their resources and efforts in Vietnam and Algeria, the English in Kenya and Malaya and both in Egypt (Suez.)
The ease with which the US ended the last venture suggests the US—meaning NATO—supported their other military adventures. Given the role of NATO itself or its key members in such aggressions as Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan and their support most recently in the war on Iran, one has to wonder whether NATO has never been a defensive alliance. Perhaps the NATO powers have had to go far afield in search of the elusive enemy? Skipping over the forbidden topic (to me) of Ukraine, now that Trump has commandeered the budgets of NATO members, ordering expanded military spending, even specifying the percentage of GDP, the question of the dispensability of NATO, meaning in military terms the US, lies precisely in the global exercise of western power of the rest of the world. If Europe never needed the US for self-defense, but for more far flung tasks, is this really different now?
Second, the notion that Trumpery will end with Trump strikes me as a plausible charge to make against many foreign leaders. The indictment specifically is, folly. On the one hand, it can be prudent to avoid dealing with a crazy man. On the other, we have the precedent of Biden, aka Buchanan Redux. Biden was a terrible president because Biden copied so much Trumpery. Where he didn’t copy Trump, as in putting forth a more serious re-industrialization program (sincerely?) Biden was President Band-Aid. One of the goals of Trumpery, smashing the political order, installing a new system of unbridled minority rule (whether one dictator or merely an tight oligarchy TBD.) They want it so things can never go back to how they were. As I recall, Nixon, one of Trump’s many predecessors, once said that was what he wanted. (Maybe apocryphal?)
steven t johnson 02.22.26 at 8:26 pm
Typo of “ever” in place of the intended “ever” in the third paragraph.
Sadly although I know the difference between “its” and “it’s” and “your” and “you’re” what gets written is still a coin toss. Same incompetence applies to keeping negatives consistent.
Austin Loomis 02.22.26 at 10:01 pm
Moz skrev:
And they may have at least heard stories about the US “liberating” Iran from that known Communist radical* Mohammed Mossadegh.
Knowable as a Communist radical because he supposed himself to answer to the Iranian people, not to British Petroleum.
John Q 02.24.26 at 6:44 am
In the context of a US bombing campaign, it’s less important what Iranians actually think and more important that they have been portrayed as democrats eager to overthrow the regime. That makes an indiscriminate bombing campaign hard to justify, though this may not bother Trump or MAGA.
steven t johnson 02.24.26 at 3:28 pm
John Q@18 Discriminate bombing campaigns are more PR than reality. Aside from that, it is not at all clear that any bombing campaign ever helped democracy or the condition of women or other worthy goal. Bombs are rain, falling on the just and unjust alike. It’s likely the people who claimed their bombs were bursts of mercy were merely the ones who needed a good excuse, for the mirror maybe? In fascist thinking strength is its own justification. The European governments who have been supporting Trump, as with the declaration the Revolutionary Guard Corps is a terrorist organization (sic!) have their excuses. The Twelve-Day War suggests to me that international pressure against Trump’s war is nonexistent.
So far as I can tell, those members of the Iranian diaspora calling for bombing of Iran (and the restoration of the Shah has been raised too, not least officially) are performatively displaying both their loyalty to the new order in the US and their detestation of the country they left behind. I suppose they feel betrayed. They have no problem with mass death in the Islamic Republic because they resent the masses. Deep down their feeling seems to be, the masses always have the government they want and these people wanted the Islamic Republic, to hell with them. The diaspora will be front and center in the government’s PR campaign aimed against the public, I expect.
J, not that one 02.24.26 at 6:19 pm
I assume the reasoning behind bombing a population in support of local resistance is somewhere between “We have to do something; this is something,” and “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius.” Like the signs in support of (I think) Sudan: “Not on our watch.” What we need is a strong leader to force everyone to do the right thing; a strong leader has a strong army; we need to go in and make war on the warlords and force them to disarm. We had good intentions and the details won’t be our fault. /s
strange visitor (from another planet) 02.24.26 at 7:10 pm
so collectively, ypu guys don’t know a whole hell of a lot about military stuff. ukraine is one of the world LEADERS in sophisticated drone production and operation-they’re not throwing “snowballs”.
there’s WAY more i could mention from the (yeesh) comments or the OP, but let’s just just do an EASY one:
tanks GET to a battle-theatre by RAIL. any bridge in europe that can handle a train pulled by a 200 ton locomotive can handle a 68 ton leopard 2a7.
Mitchell Porter 02.24.26 at 8:54 pm
The flip side is that the US doesn’t need the world either, except perhaps for rare earth metals.
Anyway, it’s all just a race between American and Chinese AI industry now, to see who makes humanity itself dispensable first.
Omega Centauri 02.25.26 at 10:38 pm
I think you are way to pessimistic about the evolution of politics in the US. Recent elections, there are always a few seats vacated that require elections. These have all show vote swings of 10 to in some cases greater than 30% against the Republicans. MAGA is fracturing. It’s likely that the coming midterms will produce Democratic majorities in both the house and Senate. Republicans are in full on panic mode. Many Republican Senators loath Trump, but are waiting for a clear eneough shift to change sides.
Sure there will be huge problems remaining. Substantial MAGA remnants will be a problem for at least a decade. But revulsion against the regime has been growing. It’s hard to imagine Trump changing his stripes, I fully expect him to keep making things worse, until complete failure is inevitable. Then many of his past supporters will try to claim that they never were supporters.
Of course desperate measures by the regime are probable. Any change is going to be very wrenching. But from my point of refrerence (in California) failure of the current coalition looks more likely than not.
I’m fully in favor of the rest of the world making themselves as immune to what happens over here as is reasonably possible. Loss of respect and economic prospects will take at least a generation to overcome, so even if our internal politics follows the most optimistic trajectory, the damage will be severe and long lasting.
navarro 02.28.26 at 3:56 pm
i’m so sorry the rest of the world has to worry over
the “geo-political” musings of our deranged ruler.
internally he has created ruin for its own sake,
destroying capacity along with services. meanwhile,
masked thugs abduct, beat, or kill american
citizens in the name of “border security” and the
leader of the military demands scouts of america
to out and misgender any and all trans- scouts in
the name of “military readiness”.
zero stars, would not recommend.
Tm 03.03.26 at 8:29 am
“The global force projection capacity of the US depend critically on bases in Europe like Rammstein, not to mention the UK-leased Diego Garcia.”
Always annoying to read the credulous reports of Trump “threatening” to abandon the American bases in europe. That is not, and never was, a credible threat because the US needs those bases, Europe doesn’t need them. But big parts of the European political elites are incapable of thinking straifght about the transatlantic relationship. They, those elites (and a large fraction of them are Trump aligned fascists or fascist enablers) are the biggest threat to Europe and European independence and cohesion. Not Trump, not Putin. European political and economic elites unwilling to defend European interests against our enemies.
Tm 03.03.26 at 10:54 am
“if the USA seriously invaded with twenty thousand soldiers, would the rest of NATO or the EU start World War III against the greatest nuclear power on the planet over a few ten thousand mostly indigenous people?”
I agree that Europe wouldn’t start WWIII nor should they (there are however ways to respond to such an aggression that could severely hurt the perpetrator). But in these Greenland discussions I would like to see some explanation as to what it would actually mean for the US to “invade with 20000 soldiers”? What does this mean on an Island mostly (still) covered with an ice shield that doesn’t even have ground transport, only two small airports, and that doesn’t produce any food or really anything, excpt for some fish? There isn’t even room for a large army on the island unless they pitch up tents on the ice shield. How is this really supposed to work?
Tm 03.03.26 at 11:19 am
So the Iran attack has started. Chamenei is dead (he was foolish enough to trust the US not to attack while “negotiations” are ongoing, despite the fact that the US did exactly that already last year). A precedent has been set that the publicly celebrated murder of an internationally recognized head of state is considered normal conduct. Such precedents are dangerous. I was just reading about the East Roman Emperor’s plot to have Attila the Hun murdered in 449 CE and it seems that this was widely seen as unacceptable even in times of war, even against this enemy. (If it had succeeded, the judgment might have been different though).
The first US soldiers have died, three US warplanes have gone down by “friendly fire” in Kuwait (almost delicious).
As usual, Trump doesn’t have any plan. I suspect the timing has to do with Trump feeling humiliated by his own Supreme Court. He senses that it makes him look even more like a loser to the whole world and the only way he knows how to deal with that is extreme, lawless violence.
An encouraging sign is that the US public overwhelmingly opposes this revival of the Middle East Forever War, and it’s relevant that Trump very specifically promised to NOT do exactly this. (https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/03/iran-attack-is-extraordinarily-unpopular-among-americans)
Oil prices are up (good for Russia and Saudi Arabia); the financial markets yesterday were unsure how to react but today looks like deep red. What I find remarkable, and encouraging, is that Bitcoin has now completely given up the whole Trump bumb (it went up 100% after October 2024). The crypto grift is now strongly associated with Trump and the pyramid collapsing means bad news for Trump and his cult. What can’t go on forever has to stop at some point.
The damage Trump does to the whole world is horrible but absent from the whole discussion to date has been what Trump does to the US itself. It’s absolutely clear that his incompetent brand of fascism is damaging the US in many ways and hastens the decline of the former super power. Almost a mirror image of what Putin has achieved for Russia. I hope that leaders will emerge in Europe that understand the situation and are capable of acting accordingly. My biggest concern right now is that our current crop of leadership are probably the most incompetent in the last 80 years. Partly incompetent, partly on board with Trump because for inconceivable reasons, they like what he does. Seriously, many do, and are eager to copy his lunacy.
Tm 03.03.26 at 11:57 am
I have to add one more in case anybody missed this:
“At more than 30 installations, U.S. commanders told troops the war on Iran is a Christian war. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been “inundated” with more than 110 complaints. One NCO said they were told the U.S. war is to bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus… ”
https://bsky.app/profile/jonathanlarsen.bsky.social/post/3mg4nxe64d22x
Tm 03.04.26 at 4:44 pm
Only slightly OT:
As expected, China’s electricity generation has reached and hopefully overcome the fossil peak. For the first time, slightly less electricity year on year was generated from fossil sources, while the total still increased by 5% (a bit less than in previous years).
Solar and wind generation (not installed capacity!) combined have increased a record 465 TWh, to a new total of 2300 TWh. For comparison, the whole EU generated 450 TWh wind and 275 TWh solar (https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=EU&interval=year&year=-1); for the US it was 464 TWh wind and 389 TWh solar (https://wolfstreet.com/2026/02/24/whoosh-goes-demand-for-electricity-us-power-generation-by-source-in-2025-natural-gas-coal-nuclear-wind-hydro-solar-geothermal-biomass-petroleum/).
I’d love to know whether China’s oil consumption also passed the peak. China imported more oil in 2025 but significantly increased its storage (https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Chinas-Oil-Imports-Hit-an-All-Time-High-in-2025.html).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China
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