Trump has a very transactional relationship with Taiwan. Even with the Iran conflict not factored in, he probably doesn’t care much what happens to the island.
War with...Iran?
- Thread starter Technarch
- Start date
Another point to the US's amazing 5D chess capabilities in planning this war: I saw it reported the other day that the US didn't top up the strategic oil reserve before striking. They're at a bit under 60% capacity. So they didn't even stock up in preparation.
Depends on whether they think China would stop selling them chips if they take over, wouldn't you think?
yeah about 19g/cc. But for enriched U you can't just pack it into solid blocks. You need something to absorb the neutrons.
Well the "we will break this cycle" sounds a little unrealistically optimistic if you ask me.
Yep. Also they get to learn about US capabilities and strategy. Cheap at the price, I think.
That offers the government the opportunity to buy oil for the reserve at a higher price, thus making a bigger gift to the oil industry.
That is one approach and a completely reasonable analysis but I think they do have some benefit to intervening in a limited way, in that they can burnish their reputation as honest geopolitical brokers, and less prone to "tantrums" of this type than the US.
Why? They’ll still buy chips from TSMC regardless of which flag is running up the pole out front.
Unless Taiwan’s plan is to scuttle TSMC or China’s plan is to destroy the most valuable part of their new territorial asset?
It’s not great for the U.S. government to have such a strategic Defense risk over in Taiwan, but it’s also not great for the U.S. government to be starting military adventures on multiple fronts, fully alienating its longtime allies, nor to be burning through its stocks of very expensive, very low replacement rate munitions… so I don’t think strategic Defense risk is much of the calculus for the U.S. anymore.
For the private sector? What do they care if they’re buying chips from Taiwan or China? They don’t.
Australia deploying an E-7A Wedgetail to the region at the request of the UAE to monitor airspace and guide anti drone/cruise missile defence.
TWZ headline:
Massive Leap In Ability To Spot Iranian Drones Headed To Persian Gulf
The E-7A Wedgetail is arguably the best aircraft anywhere in the world for spotting low-flying Iranian drones and cruise missiles.
https://www.twz.com/air/massive-leap-in-ability-to-spot-iranian-drones-headed-to-persian-gulf
Yeah, the same E-7A that Hesgeth moved to cancel the USAF acquisition of a few months ago despite the aging E-3 AWACS fleet (this part is getting into the Perpetual Defense thread territory though).
Kicking the hornets nest dragging in other nations into the mess.
TWZ headline:
Massive Leap In Ability To Spot Iranian Drones Headed To Persian Gulf
The E-7A Wedgetail is arguably the best aircraft anywhere in the world for spotting low-flying Iranian drones and cruise missiles.
https://www.twz.com/air/massive-leap-in-ability-to-spot-iranian-drones-headed-to-persian-gulf
Yeah, the same E-7A that Hesgeth moved to cancel the USAF acquisition of a few months ago despite the aging E-3 AWACS fleet (this part is getting into the Perpetual Defense thread territory though).
Kicking the hornets nest dragging in other nations into the mess.
Why even bother? Just let USA bankrupt itself. The current path may lead USA down the same path as Russia. Full of arrogance, ignorance, fear and mistrust, it will destroy itself from within (sorry, have just watched the TV show Chernobyl).
E-3 has more space for liquor cabinet than E-7, does it not?
That may answer the reasoning here.
A bit of controversy at the moment over here (Australia) in relation to Iran. The AFC Asian Women's Cup football tournament is on. Iran got knocked out at the group stage, but it is now revealed that seven will stay in the country rather than going home, having been granted asylum here. Apparently it was offered directly to all players by the Minister for Home Affairs (also coincidentally my local MP), but the others rejected it.
I've no idea of the details - but I wonder whether family commitments were the major factor for the ones that decided to return. It must be a difficult decision to make at short notice - but as a woman, being offered the opportunity to not have to return to a misogynistic war zone must have been an enticing prospect for many.
I've no idea of the details - but I wonder whether family commitments were the major factor for the ones that decided to return. It must be a difficult decision to make at short notice - but as a woman, being offered the opportunity to not have to return to a misogynistic war zone must have been an enticing prospect for many.
Eh the way things were going up until last week was US producers sucking wind due to low prices. It would have been a bigger gift to the industry to slowly but steadily buy oil to store in the reserve to prop up prices by inducing demand.
He doesn't have AI buddies. They just pull some strings, and sometimes he's amazed that "it's all computer" not understanding that chips are computer, and the entire American economy is computer, and Taiwan makes all the computer.
This is the guy that doesn't know how a shovel works, yelling "drill baby drill" as if drill today isn't computer too.
The only clear buddy he's ever had was a child molester who claimed Trump was too nasty even for him.
It's been 10 years, we shouldn't expect anything rational or intelligent from this guy.
Optimistic version: Netanyahu has overplayed his hand, and US voters are wising up.
Pessimistic version: The US has disgraced itself enough that China and the EU will increasingly ignore it.
Sen. Chris Murphy has a short thread on his Iran War briefing (for the unfamiliar, he's a pretty sober, plain speaking Democrat from Connecticut):
Link
Link
(I stand by stance that RFK Jr and Kid Rock should take the lead here and do this personally; they're clearly not busy, and RFK loves swimming in tainted bodies of water, so he may actually be more qualified for this than as Secretary of HHS )
Also, just going to drop this here:
Link
None of this is particularly surprising and plain as day to see, but there you go.
Link
Link
(I stand by stance that RFK Jr and Kid Rock should take the lead here and do this personally; they're clearly not busy, and RFK loves swimming in tainted bodies of water, so he may actually be more qualified for this than as Secretary of HHS )
Also, just going to drop this here:
Link
None of this is particularly surprising and plain as day to see, but there you go.
I'm pretty sure this is the dumbest American war in my lifetime, and I've lived through quite a few extremely dumb wars.
I can't think of a plausible offramp. Like, at all. Even if he threw Israel under the bus, Trump will still have pissed off a country of 93 million people with a tradition of asymmetrical warfare. That regime has now internalized the lesson that the U.S. cannot be reliably negotiated with, so there can't really be a negotiated peace, even if Trump hadn't straight murdered the new guy's dad. It's gonna be another ruinously expensive forever war in Asia, when Medicare got cut and the economy is practically in recession.
I can't think of a plausible offramp. Like, at all. Even if he threw Israel under the bus, Trump will still have pissed off a country of 93 million people with a tradition of asymmetrical warfare. That regime has now internalized the lesson that the U.S. cannot be reliably negotiated with, so there can't really be a negotiated peace, even if Trump hadn't straight murdered the new guy's dad. It's gonna be another ruinously expensive forever war in Asia, when Medicare got cut and the economy is practically in recession.
Elect a clown, expect a circus.
Just like you can tell a toddler over and over not to touch a hot stove, sometimes you just have to accept that they are going to do it anyway, because they need to learn for themselves why they shouldn't put their hands on a hot stove.
Similarly, the electorate needs to feel the significant pain brought on by a bad election to understand why its not really a choice between bad and worse, and why sitting it out also has consequences.
Because people don't learn from history. They don't learn from their elders.
They learn from personal experience.
I'm not saying Trump is the one who needs to learn.
Except there's just one tiny little problem with this lecture from on high: we wouldn't be here without the Dems and their unwavering support for arming Israel to the teeth no matter how hard they work to undermine peace initiatives in the region. What was that Schumer said? "My job is to keep the left pro-Israel.". And of course Biden never let petty concerns like US law get in the way of keeping the arms shipments going. Yeah, Trump lit a powderkeg, but he's not the exclusive reason it was there in the first place.
But you're all about learning from history right? Or at least that's the conceit of your little manifesto. So learn: Unconditional military aid to an aggressor is going to get you in trouble, sooner or later, and not every architect to this calamity had an "R" next to their name.
they have made their own centrifuges in the past. They have been attacked remember?
You are not wrong, but the Trump regime has fucked over people well beyond the borders of the US, and we had no input in getting him there.
Yes, it is.
Even if they didn't, the EUV factory would be largely useless without ASML support and parts supply and ASML absolutely would stop providing it. MAYBE they'd be able to get the machines up and running if they got all of them in their hands undamaged, but I doubt it.
I for one could disable the scanner part of an operational EUV machine pretty permanently if I had physical access in about 10 minutes with nothing more than a wrench to remove a safety cover and the push of 2 buttons and I'm sure I'm not the only one who know about that particular weak point. The source would probably not take anything more than a few well aimed whacks with a mallet.
Why, what could go wrong?
There’s probably a whole separate thread here about the US’ disastrous policy towards Israel (which gets treated better policy wise than most actual US states, let alone territories) and its MIC. I don’t disagree, but take a little issue insofar as this entire stupid war with Iran would not have happened under a Democratic administration, at least one spearheaded by our most recent officials. Voting Republicans in is what gets you this specific outcome, especially given the party’s trajectory over the last quarter century.
Meanwhile, the WSJ reports that Iran is exporting more oil than before the war, mostly via Russian shadow fleet tankers to China, thus helping Russia finance the Ukranian war and helping China gain a competitive advantage in terms of fuel costs. I also saw reports Russia was employing Wagner and GRU forces on tankers to deter them from being seized.
Seeing some chatter about Hegseth complaining about US THAADs being taken out and he’s basically moving them from other theaters to compensate, namely South Korea, and that seems to be confirmed by some initial digging. So that should please China and North Korea a bit.
How easily could you make it unable to be reverse engineered from what's left?
"Reverse engineering" these machines really isn't a thing. There really isn't anything in these machines that china doesn't already know on a tech level how it works. Actually making it and making it work together, with the required cleanliness and precision? THAT is where the challenge is at.
This whole "I consider being called white extremely offensive" (complete with scare quotes ffs), is laughable performative pantomime outrage.
No-one gives the slightest of fucks about you being offended over self-manufactured BS. I can well imagine how fucking stupid intelligent readers would think me to be if I were to say "I take great offense at being called brown". They'd be right, and there's no difference.
Did you notice how many of the intelligent commenters here who don't tolerate much at all in the way of actual anti-semitism (small s -specifically towards the Jewish sub-group of Semitic peoples), jumped in to support you with votes or other comments?
This schtick is tired, and no-one falls for it anymore. But you do you.
You've done this several times with me now; try to fabricate some "aNtIsEmItIsM" outrage to deflect attention from criticism of the terrorist state of Israel's genuinely anti-Semitic campaign against Palestine, and now fiendish war-crime spree against Iran. The US, and to a lesser degree Australia (still to my great shame), are complicit in this horrific and barbaric chapter of human history.
You don't like that I used the term brown? Boo fucking hoo, put your big boy pants on. Brown is not a race, it's a skin tone. It's laughable that you want to try and claim 'brotherhood of brownness vs nasty white folk' with checks notes the very Semitic peoples that Israel (your country I assume?) has been and still is conducting genocide against.
I don't think you've properly considered just how stupid that looks to anyone who is paying attention.
HInt, look at the overwhelming vote support your attempt to drum up some anti-semitism fud garnered.
Thanks also for confirming that Israel is the global centre for violent anti-Semitic terrorist acts in the world;
I'm sure the people on the end of Israels bombs are just chuffed that you're fighting the good fight here, so that they can die at the hands of their brown brothers, instead of white ones?
The images of large sections of the Israeli community dancing and chanting and celebrating the genocide seem to indicate that many/a majority of Israeli's are indeed quite happy for those (not quite the right) brown folk on the other side of the war to be murdered en masse.
I don't like your consistent duplicitous water carrying for the state of Israel while trying to pretend otherwise.
You're not fooling anyone - ok maybe yourself, I'll give you that. Is that really disgusting to me? Hell yeah, but rather than posture and feign outrage/offense I'm just gonna slap your nonsense down with ideas.
Every time you try this nonsense on.
Israel is the problem, and those who constantly want to divert and deflect from that focus on the crimes it's committing every fucking day for the last how many years....
When people talk about men who commit violence against women, I don't feel attacked, and I support the discussion because I know that while I'm not that guy, those guys exist. You come across as the "not all men, gamergate was about ethics in journalism!!" type with this consistent wolf-crying. Why do you feel the need to defend Israel on the sly the way you do? It's very much the least of what you bring to the forums.
Note - This is actually very much on-topic, insofar as the war in Iran was manufactured by Israel to achieve nefarious ends 'because anti-semitism!' Uncanny the parallels, a micro-study, of the macro-Geopolitics.
Also, this exchange gave rise to a new observed forum specie name; The Sea Zion; sea lions for Zion! Deflect, distract, but most of all cry anti-semitism at every chance...
And lastly, to be perfectly frank, with what you've shown me of your desire to simp for Israel despite the egregious horrors it is inflicting on all the non Jewish lesser brown folk around it (lets face it you don't genocide brown folk you see as your equals do you?) - I'm kinda glad I offend you.
I'd be having a long hard think about who I was and what went wrong with my ethical compass if the likes of you that simps so hard for Israels actions here wasn't annoyed by me, champ.
They haven't bribed him enough to get his attention.
Something which China will keep repeating to Taiwan ad infinitum, no doubt.
You're right, but I think the value of just sitting there slurping up all the war data is much more valuable to their medium term goals, the CCP being the CCP. They only needed soft power while the US was playing that game. Now that the pedophile President has completely torched any semblance of a rules based order in the world, they don't really need that soft power as much, especially since they can literally watch Trump destroy the only thing that stand between them and invading Taiwan.
If I was the (evil) leader of the CCP, I'd be way more interested in watching up close how the US does it's war thing, especially as it burns down the stocks of things it would need to resist China invading Taiwan.
Xi can't believe his luck, Putin's Russia a humbled shadow of itself barely more than a vassal state to China, and Trump doing from within to the USA what they could never have hoped for until they saw it start happening.
When I saw that on TWZ my first thought was how important a target the plane will be for Iran's missiles.
My country doesn't have a president, but if we did, we'd prefer presidents who aren't idiots.
I won't spoil the Hegseth part. Here's a gift link. FUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuu....
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/....YySO.spBcK53E-0gf&smid=nytcore-android-share
Like seriously, a toddler has greater command of cause and effect than these people. Obviously what we need is more macho, less woke oil tanker captains. But wait, there's more!
Are they being fooled by their own fake news? "Boss, I sent you that for approval for tomorrow's Twitter bot fake news campaign..."
I won't spoil the Hegseth part. Here's a gift link. FUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuu....
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/....YySO.spBcK53E-0gf&smid=nytcore-android-share
Mine was more just shame that we have become complicit in Trumps war-mongering and Israels genocides. But yeah as a result of the complete lack of spine on the part of Albo, Aus service people are in harms way, and only to make war crimes easier for Israel and the USA.
ETA - corrected genocide to the plural for Israel.
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Three cargo ships are now on fire in the Gulf after having been struck by "unknown" projectiles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd70wzw9vqlt?post=asset:9084e0db-f059-434b-8964-156ec0321d30#post
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cd70wzw9vqlt?post=asset:9084e0db-f059-434b-8964-156ec0321d30#post
My country doesn't have a president, but if we did, we'd prefer presidents who aren't idiots.
Like seriously, a toddler has greater command of cause and effect than these people. Obviously what we need is more macho, less woke oil tanker captains. But wait, there's more!
Are they being fooled by their own fake news? "Boss, I sent you that for approval for tomorrow's Twitter bot fake news campaign..."
I won't spoil the Hegseth part. Here's a gift link. FUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuu....
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/10/....YySO.spBcK53E-0gf&smid=nytcore-android-share
Maybe I'm being overly cynical but sticking a nice big bet on the oil price and then tweeting that would be an easy way to cream off more than a few bucks.
Yeah there's been some insanely obvious insider trading during Trumps second soiling of the White House. But since the Judicial branches are substantially compromised, well, carry on then..
Worse, using Presidential power to manipulate markets and insider trading on those markets aren't even illegal for the President.
I guess Iran is learning the ways of the meme now. One of the state run News agencies released an animated Lego video depicting the events of the war. I know it's laughably easy to makes these types of videos now but I'm still oddly impressed.
So of course, Mark Kelly (a Democrat, mind you) proposes a gas tax holiday until the midterms (Reuters).