@policytensor Why is US ability to deny China Taiwan gone? What has changed?
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charles halaby
263 posts
charles halaby
@CharlesHalaby
Not that guy, a different guy. The one who can dish it out, but can't take it.
Katılım Nisan 2024
229 Takip Edilen61 Takipçiler
It will take approx four hours for the Chinese to suppress all Taiwanese fire. This is not serious.
I used to think that the US could deny Taiwan to China. But that’s gone now. No US forces will survive in the theater after the first day to carry on any kind of denial campaign.
Suffiyan Malik@suffiyanmalikk
Dmitri Alperovitch (@DAlperovitch) says Taiwan is the most complex military operation and has historically been hard to conquer including a past US failure when tried and China is not ready. He explains this in detail: @DAlperovitch: "This has been the biggest military modernization in human history that's happened in this rapid period of time by China. So they've come a very long way... But if they go for this invasion, it will be the most complicated military operation in history." @CrowdStrike @SilveradoPolicy
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@teleron471879 @MaMoMVPY So your position is let Israel fend for itself, even if it means another holocaust at the hands of the enemies of the West.
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@CharlesHalaby @MaMoMVPY you've just been 100% duped by relentless pro-Israel propaganda. they relentlessly spy on you and steal from you. they did not fight alongside you Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else.
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Perhaps if the Trump administration had not spent the better part of a year threatening its European allies, and perhaps if the US had seen fit to consult its European partners before launching a war, and perhaps if the US had gone in with any clear objectives whatsoever, then maybe we in Europe would have seen some reason to help.
But frankly, the last time we sent soldiers to die in one of your wars, we were told we had contributed nothing of any consequence.
So here is a thought, America: next time, try treating your allies as allies rather than doing Putin's bidding.
Jean Riachi@riachi_jean
What is striking today is Europe’s blindness. While the United States confronts a regime that is not driven by ordinary strategic calculations, Europe hesitates, equivocates, and hides behind a façade of prudence. This is not a Cold War–style ideological rivalry. We are dealing with a regime whose worldview is deeply shaped by a theological and eschatological dimension, where political decisions are intertwined with a belief in a quasi-divine mission. Treating such an actor as if it were a purely rational state is a fundamental mistake. History shows that inaction in the face of regimes driven by absolute conviction does not prevent conflict, it only postpones it and makes it worse. Refusing to support the United States today is choosing short-term comfort over long-term security.
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@teleron471879 @MaMoMVPY What is the proper policy to have toward Israel? Israel is like the US’s 51st state, its most reliable and powerful MidEast ally. In the face of enemies who would be happy to see all Israeli Jews dead, what should Western countries do?
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@CharlesHalaby @MaMoMVPY this has nothing to do with Europe's security. or the US's. it is happening purely because the US has been duped by Israel
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@vtchakarova @maxbergmann Hey, you’re getting better and better each day.
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@maxbergmann We are not allowed to panic in Europe. We are not allowed to spread a sense of urgency in Europe. We are not allowed to talk about common sense in the field of security and defence. Everyone has to stick to platitudes, beautiful narrations about strategic autonomy & EU army, etc.
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I think the appropriate European strategy is to panic.
There is an urgent need to trigger a revolution in European military affairs. This is not just about every Potemkin military spending a bit more. This is about coming together as Europe to defend Europe.
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@phl43 What’s your point? Israel was a better investment than most other countries US aided. You are too obsessed with US /Israel ties. What is your problem? Just say it.
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Once again, the idea that Israel didn't receive any aid from the US during that period is a myth, it was the fourth recipient of US assistance per capita in the world during that period. It was just economic aid at the time, but it was significant and helped Israel a lot in the 1950s. It also received massive diplomatic support from the US since even before the creation of the state.
All that is well-documented in multiple books, such as The Making of an Alliance by David Tal or Advocating for Israel by Natan Aridan (on the lobbying it took to get that support), but people keep repeating this canard. The same is true for the notion that Eisenhower was hostile to Israel and didn't support it, on which in addition to Tal's book I recommend "Dwight D. Eisenhower and Israel: A New Look" by Ian Bickerton.
Ron Kampeas@kampeas
Welp it was certainly tough from 1948-58, when all -ALL these conditions held but Israel thrived.
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@yarotrof Trump didn’t go into this aiming to open the SOH, it wasn’t an issue. Iran has closed it as act of war against the US to hurt its allies. The allies are the ones who must open SOH, it’s their beef with Iran.
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Trump ending the war with Iran still firmly in control of the Strait of Hormuz would be viewed, correctly, by Iran and much of the world as a strategic defeat of the United States.
The White House@WhiteHouse
“All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you…” - President Donald J. Trump
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Every 2 to 3 weeks?
The Kobeissi Letter@KobeissiLetter
BREAKING: President Trump says the US will leave Iran in “2 to 3 weeks.”
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@StatisticUrban That’s what I say when I’m in London. Even when living in New York, I am fond of London.
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@phl43 That’s a lot of people you are calling stupid, some of whom are reputed to be very smart.
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I'd like to remind everyone, because many European rightoids called the attack on Iran by the US and Israel a brilliant move when it happened and explained that the rest of us were just pussies who didn't understand Trump's genius, that if Israel and the US had not attacked Iran absolutely nothing would have happened to us. It's almost physically painful to think about the stupidity of those people.
POLITICOEurope@POLITICOEurope
🚨 BREAKING: The European Commission has urged people to work from home, drive and fly less, and for EU countries to urgently roll out renewables, as it warned of a prolonged energy crisis as a result of the conflict in the Gulf. Full story: politico.eu/article/europe…
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@RasmusJarlov @MaMoMVPY Funny how Europeans resort to theoretical principles of treaties when it comes to actually helping an ally. Europeans have not met their obligations for decades and have been happy to feed off US for defense. That’s changing in a good direction., but only because of Trump.
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If the USA does not intend to honour the obligation to defend NATO because European countries dont join an offensive war of choice against Iran that we have absolutely no obligation to join, the USA membership of NATO is already worthless.
The NATO oath to defend each other is unconditional. If you dont intend to honour it because you are offended about disagreements that have nothing to do with the treaty obligation that you have sworn to uphold, your are not a realiable ally. Tresties with you are worthless and your word means nothing.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the case for the USA.
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@Please_NoLabels @pati_marins64 Iran enriches uranium beyond the level required for civilian use and closer to the level demanded by weapons.
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@CharlesHalaby @pati_marins64 Who said that Iran wants nuclear weapons? Their supreme leader’s direction had been to not build anything or do anything that might lead to large civilian casualties.
Terrorist attacks on American civilians has been done by Arab and Pakistani Sunni jihadists, not Shia Iran.
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When the former commander Zaluzhnyi spoke about the mistakes in the war in Iran and how the US and Israel would lose this war, he knows what he is talking about. This is a modern model of asymmetric warfare that he knows very well.
The space for superpowers to attack and occupy smaller nations will gradually shrink over the coming decades due to technology that has given much more power to asymmetric tactics.
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@Osint613 Trump’s SOH policy, which amounts to fend for yourself, is right for the US. Iran is responsible for closing the SOH, not the US. The US did not choose to wage war using oil supply. Why do int’l players give Iran a pass?
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President Trump: “We will be leaving very soon, and if France or some other country wants to get oil or gas, they will go up through the hormuz strait and will be able to fend for themselves. But we have nothing to do with that. What happens in the strait, we aren't going to have anything to do with it. There is no reason for us to do it.”
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@lymanstoneky I’m totally ok with Israel destroying Lebanese villages along the border. What else are they to do? Lebanese want villages? Stop supporting Hezbollah.
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Yeah so it seems the plan here is destroy all the Shia villages and hope they never move back right?
ALERT X@ALERTX360
🇮🇱🇱🇧⚡ — Yesterday vs Today: The Shia village of Deir Seryan in southern Lebanon. Israeli forces have flattened the whole village.
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@MarvinTBaumann Yes, emphatically yes, Donald Trump, long term thinker.
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Trump is completely fucking us Europeans over with his Iran disaster
That being said he has been the best accelerant for European integration in decades and that's a good thing long term
🪖MilitaryNewsUA🇺🇦@front_ukrainian
❗️Iceland and Norway are considering joining the EU — Politico
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@Kingkiko61 @upholdreality The irony is that Iran is proving it doesn’t need nukes.
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@upholdreality If you think Iran holding the world hostage with the Strait of Hormuz as leverage, wait until they have nukes. It’s amazing to see an entire continent (Europe) capitulate to terrorism and lack the backbone to fight back.
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Germany's AfD co-chair: Spain closed its bases to the Iran war -- now its ships sail through Hormuz undisturbed. Germany should do the same and send US troops home.
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@phl43 @StevenGlinert Don’t reasonable people like yourself think that Trump can lie is way out of this mess he’s stumbled into?
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For what it's worth, I agree that it's possible the US will manage to make the Iranians beg for mercy first, and I think I even say so in the piece, but I just don't think it's likely to happen anytime soon.
Also I think that, regardless of how it ends, the level of economic damage you will have inflicted to Iran by the time it does will be much greater than what you inflicted so far.
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Philippe brilliant as always here:
1. Trump cannot back down. And this war will escalate.
2. Iran gets a vote. And wants to make this globally economically painful.
3. We have dealt incredible economic damage to Iran.
I think where I disagree with Phil a bit is that I can see a situation where the US can make Iran say mercy first. As of now, my position on this is epistemic uncertainty, not belief.
Philippe Lemoine@phl43
I wrote some thoughts on the Iran War, where I explain why I don't think will end soon, why it's a stupid war that will blowback spectacularly and why I nevertheless don't think Americans will learn anything from it. philippelemoine.com/p/a-few-though…
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@david_perell What does this new coffee shop have to do with the war? You have a lot of explaining to do.
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Blank Street is the coffee shop you'd make if you asked ChatGPT to create a brand for you.
The Helvetica font, matte green color, and even the word 'Blank' are designed to appeal to everybody, everywhere and as hollow as the brand may be, you have to admire how well-packaged it is as an investment vehicle.
Every time I take a sip of Blank Street latte, I think about how its success says more about our modern world than just about any other up-and-coming brand. Every critique you make of Blank Street is a critique you can pass onto our society writ-large.
You can't help but appreciate the brand once you think of it as modern art.
Little Kevin 5, cpa@pootsobotka
There is a massive line at BLANK STREET in the west village. You literally cannot make this stuff up
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@_rotimia @Tyler_A_Harper @nytopinion The bulk of the change occurred in two shifts, 1991-93 and 2021-25. Any ideas?
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@nytopinion In 1981 the median first-time buyer was 29. Today they are 40. That is not just a housing market problem. That is a country telling an entire generation to wait a decade longer for the life their parents had at their age. We cannot allow this to continue. rirealtors.org/clientuploads/…
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Democrats have a chance to make a unique promise to Americans going into the midterms and 2028: if you vote for Democrats, work hard, and pay taxes, the government will help you buy your first home by the time you are 30, my first essay with @nytopinion nytimes.com/2026/03/30/opi…
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