@AustinEGray The men who built the Göta Canal in the 19th century to bypass the Danish Straits must feel a bit offended by that ‘no alternative sea route’ label 🙂
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Lars Törnblad
304 posts
How important are various straits and maritime chokepoints?
This metric tells us:
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@GripenNews @auonsson Samtidigt är det fel att sprida desinformation åt andra hållet (Donald Trump är inte dömd för sexualbrott).
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Det är mycket tråkigt att se höga politiska och militära individer från officiella konton nu delta i att dela propaganda från Trump-regimen.
En regim som är starkt anti-europeisk, grovt rasistisk och med en ledare som dömts för sexualbrott.
Ett aktivt val. Respekt är förlorad.
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@MemIngenjoeren Kan vara värt att påminna om att den jag tror du tänker på inte blev utesluten, utan hoppade av på eget initiativ
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Kontroversiell åsikt men det känns på nåt sätt väldigt kvinnligt att göra bort sig grovt, bli utesluten, och istället för att ödmjukt be om ursäkt hämnas på sina gamla kollegor och i det här fallet hela svenska folket.
Tror dylikt är extremt sällsynt bland män.
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*TRUMP: HAVE AUTHORIZED RETURNING ASTRONAUTS TO MOON SURFACE
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@TheEuropeansHQ Can’t we just solve this by letting the new body veto only bad legislation, not good?
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🇩🇪🇪🇺 In the past days, you might have heard a lot of criticism of German Chancellor Merz and his party, the CDU.
But what's actually going on and why should every European care?
A thread. 🧵
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Lars Törnblad retweetledi
We're in Stockholm. You know how there are some places where you think "Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there"? Stockholm is the kind of place that makes you want to live there.
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@admcollingwood It’s ironic that Trump is doing this primarily to punish Spain, when Spain actually benefits from it (as you pointed out, via the Gibraltar parallel)
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Now that the Pentagon has circulated a brief about reassessing the status of the Falklands (as if it's theirs to reassess), this thread from 18 months ago is starting to look rather prophetic.
Collingwood 🇬🇧@admcollingwood
This is a thread on why Britain is likely to lose the Falkland Islands, probably within the next 25 years, but by 2065 at the latest. We could theoretically avoid this, but will probably not take the necessary steps, so lose them we will. 🧵 1/n
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@HQNewsNow @MalcolmNance He probably just meant Lolita Express
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Trump: Spirit Airlines was going to merge with People Express
(People Express ceased operations in 1987, 5 years before Spirit even existed)
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@magnushambleton CH = land of “hidden famous”: people you think are German/French, or who built the world without being celebs. Louis Chevrolet, Le Corbusier (father of modern architecture), Bruno Ganz (Downfall meme), Auguste Piccard (the orig. 'Professor Calculus'), Albert Hofmann (LSD creator)
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It wasn’t until I lived in Switzerland, a country with very similar population to Sweden but which has produced basically zero internationally famous people in any domain, that I realised how special Sweden is
puppi@skinnipupp
Why is everyone swedish
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@FredrikHjelm4 @AKamyshin @hommels The biggest producer of Ukrainian weaponry and the biggest operator of Russia’s main ‘combat vehicle’ - all in one picture
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Ukraine produces 50x more drones than the rest of Europe combined. I heard that directly tonight from the man responsible for it.
Let that sink in.
@AKamyshin runs Ukraine’s war economy for Zelensky. @hommels is Europe’s largest private defense investor. Swedish generals, founders like @jschildt at one table in Stockholm.
Inner and outer security is the foundation for everything. Entrepreneurship, innovation, freedom; none of it works without it.
Oleksandr put it simply: “We fight for ourselves, our families, our country. And it helps you too. We’re eternally grateful for your support and will pay it back when we’ve won.”
Men like him and Klaus spend their lives on this. The least we can do is pay attention.
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@JacobShap @Geo_papic Love you - one of your best and funniest episodes! America’s version of Dutch disease is that it’s exceptionally good at producing and exporting the one thing no one else can: small green pieces of paper.
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Behild verily thy cousins have delivered again, enjoyeth the vibes, thank you for your attention to our podcast.
@Geo_papic
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/geo…
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@MarkGaleotti I love how you’re downplaying the hybrid warfare threat in a podcast sponsored by hybrid-warfare simulation software =)
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In Moscow's Shadows 244: The War Word And The Clickbait Trap
Are we at "war" with Russia? What does that even mean? I dig into some recent British claims, and an insane Russian essay fantasising about a tactical nuclear strike to end the Ukraine war.
buzzsprout.com/1026985/episod…
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@Geo_papic @JacobShap …and the explanation was: ‘She’s the leader of Estonia’. Pretty clear no one remembered she’d moved on — i.e. zero trade value. 🙂
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@LarsTornblad @JacobShap That was explained in the pod. And yes, that was @JacobShap pick so he can defend that one! :)
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@JacobShap Do you still think Trump or the West could have achieved anything meaningful had they intervened to ‘help’ the protesters in January?
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Excellent.
There is third option though. The US becomes a monster in that option. But it’s there.
Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش@citrinowicz
At a broad level, it’s important to acknowledge a hard truth: this war is a textbook case of the old saying - "Strategy must precede action" The underlying assumption in the US and Israel was that weakening Iran kineticly would eventually lead to the collapse of the regime and that a sustained U.S.-Israeli campaign, targeting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, could trigger systemic change thay will change the Middle East. But this war overlooked a critical variable: the Islamic Republic of Iran is a different kind of actor. Traditional cost-benefit calculations don’t apply in the conventional sense. Moreover, the war has generated second-order effects that have made the strategic landscape more complex — not less. From Iran’s growing assertiveness around the Strait of Hormuz, to the hardening of its internal decision-making processes, to the rising influence of Mojtaba Khamenei and the expanding dominance of the IRGC, the Iranian system has, in many ways, become more rigid and more ideological. These dynamics are pushing the administration into a narrowing set of options, none of them good. The choice increasingly looks like this: accept a deal that is, in essence, a strengthened version of the previous nuclear agreement, or return to military escalation that carries significant regional risks without guaranteeing meaningful change in Iran’s behavior. In effect, this war has helped shape what could be called “Islamic Republic 3.0” — a system forged not only through pressure, but also through strategic miscalculation. While the regime may have been weakened militarily and economically, it has, paradoxically, been strengthened internally, particularly among its core base. This may well be the campaign’s most significant strategic miscalculation. The protests inside Iran had left the regime increasingly exposed, struggling to respond to public demands, led by an aging and ailing supreme leader. There was a moment of internal vulnerability. Yet the campaign, despite its tactical achievements, has given the regime a renewed sense of purpose at a time when it was fighting for its political future. Instead of weakening it from within, it has helped consolidate its base and rally its supporters. It remains unclear how this will end. But at this stage, one conclusion is difficult to avoid: alongside tactical gains, the war has produced a more challenging strategic environment for Iran’s neighbors, for Israel, and for the United States. And most importantly, Iran’s leadership has no intention of capitulating. Neither pressure nor escalation is likely to force a deeply ideological regime to abandon its foundational principles. There is no decisive blow. No silver bullet. Only two realistic paths remain: a deal that looks remarkably similar to what Iran was willing to consider before the war — or an expanded conflict with no clear endgame. This is the reality. #IranWar
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@DessieSPolitics You might have a 41-year-old US president very soon — let’s see if that improves things =)
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@LarsTornblad Not my list, for fuck sake. The point still stands, European leaders are much younger than the idiots holding the entire world as hostages.
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@YB_Sodermalm Stockholms hundägare har uppenbarligen en unik möjlighet att fullborda konstverket
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Varför står det plötsligt ett stort lejon på Mynttorget? Upplys mig!
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@Rhobar64172 @George_Friedman It’s both a free-rider and a signaling problem. EU coordination helps share the burden — bilateral aid varies widely — and large packages signal long-term commitment, reducing any incentive for Russia to just wait Ukraine out.
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@LarsTornblad @George_Friedman every country could aid Ukraine bilaterally EU budget is like 1% of GDP whilst some state budget is around 50% of GDP, why would involve the EU in the first place if not to stall these things?
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Orban's defeat in Hungary puts Europe in a terrible place. Europeans have blamed Orban for all the things they didn't do, claiming that he stopped them. Now they don't have that excuse anymore. They have to face the fact that they didn't do those things because they didn't want to.
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