As I watch the avalanche of glee that delights in President Trump getting the reluctant dindu's of our alliance to offer to consider a meeting to discuss putting together a planning group to propose ways to possibly pony up a few things, I cannot help but note that the historical form of their support took on qualities you might best describe as ghostly or nebulous or transparent or missing altogether and it makes me laugh just as it always has. Sure, the countries that are offering ships to 'help with Hormuz' are finally awake to the danger of US just walking away from the faux alliance but I doubt they will offer anything even remotely like assistance with the problems presented in the Gulf. This is their nature.
Not just by their nature but also by their relentless parsimony and idiotic rules of engagement and meaningless integration, they are each and every one marked by an inability to wage war or anything at all like war. Their warships are as useless in the air threat environment as are our LCS platforms and their minesweeping assets will comport themselves in great comfort in Fujairah or possibly Muscat as they await the opportunity to 'safely' enter the Gulf and commence some serious permanent R&R in Dubai.
Some people imagine that this time will be different, this time they'll do it right. Those people are idiots. Pigs will fly before any working warships from either the West or Japan show up to make a difference. What they will meet to discuss in about 3 months is the possibility of establishing something like their Observer operations in Lebanon or in the Sinai or in xYugoslavia where they sit around and do little or nothing to stop the bad guys from doing things. Their 'mission' in the SOH will probably have a nice set of offices in Dubai and their ships will range the area from Abu Dhabi to Dubai with perhaps a rare sortie to Fujairah or Muscat.
Nobody takes OTAN seriously anymore and this is why.
11 comments:
Let the those who NEED Hormuz open undertake the work of keeping the it open. Or not....their choice.
As long as American has any interesting in being the world reserve currency they are obliged to be the navy that keeps the trade going. England failed and now can barely keep a frigate running.
The petrodollar was losing ground to the Ruble and Yuan as major OPEC nations stopped only accepting US Dollars for oil from the Petrodollar agreement of the Kissinger era.
SNIP 16%
The US imports approximately 16% of its total fertilizer consumption, with the majority coming from Canada and the Middle East. The top imported fertilizers include nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, accounting for over 70% of total imports
Why do we import fertilizer? Well, our domestic factories are running at full capacity, and it was cheaper to buy it from overseas. Maybe in a few Years we can build enough factories to use our oil and make it ourselves.
I could list a lot more examples of basic manufacturing we did the SAME THING too in order to use Cheaper Labor and so on.
I'll not bother to point out what % of Non-USA fertilizer has been eliminated by this Hugely Successful Beautiful war.
In a few months we will see how many nations cozy up to China as they've started selling fertilizer to "friendly nations". How long before Taiwan's FOOD Supply is crippled up by this war and they look to China for their daily rice.
I really am amused at how long it has taken people to figure out that we don't care if the SOH is open or not. This is not the time of OPEC, this is our time. Right now there is a handful of politicians learning for the very first time that their whole entire military and navy is a joke unfit for any warlike purpose. It is all just a charade exactly like it was in Yugoslavia, and before that in the Pacific War and before that in the Phony War. At least this time there is no ABDA fleet to be torn to pieces.
Target fixation ring a bell?
The farmers who experience the lack of fertilizer may well eschew planting which will impact the American consumer not at all. World food deliveries may be slowed or curtailed which again, affects the American consumer not at all.
Bretton-Woods is dead. Honestly, the people have finally noticed the hyper inflation of the $ and no longer see it as all that viable and the BRICS have sort of collapsed with a thump and that was just the sound of the ruble and yuan dropping through the basement.
"The farmers who experience the lack of fertilizer may well eschew planting which will impact the American consumer not at all."
Wrong.
SNIP 15% to 20%
Approximately 15% to 20% of the food consumed in the United States is imported from outside the country. This percentage can vary depending on the type of food, with certain categories such as fruits, vegetables, and seafood having higher import rates. For example, fresh produce often comes from warmer climates, leading to increased imports during the winter months
% of Beef eaten in America is higher as over the past 8 years US Cattle herds have been decimated by ignorant congress and economics. Since I doubt you've ever raised beef it takes a calf 2 years to be ready for market. Keeping the better ones for breeding stock means feeding and protecting them for 2 years THEN after bred it takes 9 months to birth a calve.
No fast way to grow a replacement herd to REPLACE that Beef unless you simply say, "It SUCKS to be you, pay up of do without".
World food deliveries may be slowed or curtailed which again, affects the American consumer not at all.
Wrong again.
Putting the rest of the world as collateral damage to keeping the holy US Dollar as king of the hill will not create prosperity for America. Hungry people will remember who destroyed their fertilizer.
SNIP Fact Check: 90 Percent Of Pharmaceutical Products Are Manufactured In China.
BUT HEY! WOW! Just strangle the daily Medicines of a nation of Millions of seniors and medically DEFECTIVE Inferior people as some folks say... WOW.. FOOD shortage FIXED as dead folks don't EAT.
Save the Dollar, Save the empire, DIE off you Useless Eaters.
So where in your grand plan, sir, do you put the Rioting that hungry folks do?
Do you think hungry Americans will just shrug and say, "it's for the Good of the Empire" and eat their watery soup?
We had serious but media smothered troubles from just a few days in a few states EBT Card failures a few years ago. I suspect it was a test run to see what the GIMME DATS would do if EBT failed or was curtailed.
"Bretton-Woods is dead. Honestly, the people have finally noticed the hyper inflation of the $ and no longer see it as all that viable and the BRICS have sort of collapsed with a thump and that was just the sound of the ruble and yuan dropping through the basement."
Ah now the meat. What wonderful beautiful e-dollar where every purchase and implied PERMISSION to Buy things comes into play?
Your social score is dropping Comrade, no gasoline for you, purchase denied.
Maybe it's time for that tree to get bloody.
Just on a whim I looked up the suppliers of US military boots. Several suppliers Proud to say made in America.
Until I went through several and found as an example this:
https://www.importgenius.com/importers/belleville-boot-company
Made in AMERICA from Vietnamese and Chinese parts. Leather from South America and so on.
As Alanis Morrissette sings "Isn't it Ironic"
The God Emperor of Dune might want to ensure his Sadaukar have replacements for their boots before he cuts off the SPICE.
I ponder if the incidents of F35's getting a more "exciting ride" is because those rare earth extended range strike missiles might be running low.
We don't need the world; we got plenty of food and oil and and.
I suggest pissing off the rest of the world isn't clever.
https://ctindale.substack.com/p/systemic-risk-a-12-order-cascading?triedRedirect=true
Probably too long didn't read so a shorter version just about microchips. IN EVERYTHING from replacement parts for high maintenance F35 fighters to my Walmart microwave (BTW no microwaves made in America).
https://thegeekinsights.com/how-chips-are-made-in-the-u-s/
SNIP 90% of all chips used in America come from Taiwan. Despite the Biden admin:
https://www.cfr.org/articles/chips-act-how-us-microchip-factories-could-reshape-economy
So in 2022 Biden's crew started worrying about microchips and our critical inability to build them. We threw pallets of cash at it and even so our real world ability to make them for domestic needs is less than 15% of the need.
Yep, Taiwan is critical BUT guess what since American production of Helium
and such gasses REQUIRED for Chip production is Maxed out AND SNIP
Yes
Yes, the United States imports helium. In 2023, the estimated sales of Grade-A helium in the U.S. were valued at approximately $1.1 billion, with significant imports from countries like Qatar, Canada, and Algeria. Additionally, the U.S. is increasingly dependent on foreign helium supplies due to declining domestic production and rising global demand.
SO even IF we BUILD the factories, source the ultrapure silicon from the two mines in America WE don't have enough Helium and such to run the factories.
I could go on forever but like it or not America EVEN with all the assets of the western hemisphere AND Decades of building Refineries and Factories to make those RAW Materials from south of the boarder NEEDS the Middle East OPEN and running.
Now pity is HOW MUCH DAMAGE to the system was REQUIRED for a Proper WAR as you keep telling me about.
Oh yes, China is the only source for the high tech refinery equipment to replace all that Quatar-Saudi and so on stuff.
That's because SOME Freaking Genus thought destroying the Russian cheap gas lines was a good idea (tm). Now Germany WHO WAS the other choice isn't online anymore. And I hear THEIR Middle East Oil, Fertilizer and Natty Gas orders were ah... Force Majure canceled...
I suggest we've found out like those clever Greeks said Hubris and Pride creates Nemesis.
Michael, I'll say it again, target fixation.
One of us (me) accepts that the world changes every single day and other people think it must be kept in stasis because change is somehow always bad (you). One of us accepts that we can either keep the world completely static or that we cannot change a thing because our name is not Trump or Putin. I can accept that the world changes every single day and do.
You appear here to speak for the world that was and you simply refuse the world that is. I'm like that in the sense that I hate the islamification of Europe and will miss Europe when it is gone but I also realize that my children did not know a Europe where France was 99% French people and England was 97% British and where Germany was 100% nazis. I accept it even if I don't embrace it and I realize that there is literally nothing that I can do about it.
I think we are coming to a time like the Directorate, The Treaty of Westphalia, the Revolutions of 1848. Buy more ammo.
I know a thing or two about cows but I really greatly do not care and when it comes to food supply let me tell you that when your options dwindle down to the contents of the degaussed food locker because the KOTC tugs Hunter and Striker were not allowed to resupply our ships while we engaged in Praying Mantis or when the boat you sailed from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas contains one can of edible food and two eggs and that's basically it for 10 days, then that's what you eat. I drew the line at the canned brussels sprouts out of the degaussed food locker and in both events I lost about 20 pounds. People will adapt or whatchmacallit.... Die. That's the way it works.
You seem to act as if the whole world ends because leather or cows or drugs or something and I'm here to tell you, we survived just fine the whole mad cow thing and the covid idiocy and we'll survive a shock to the system that throws some things into stark relief. Those are the world changers, not what you're worried about.
The world has, on the whole, been behaving very very stupidly for the last 40 years and it is time to change that and if you recall it was less than a month ago that I wondered, "where are the Cromwells" because it is going to take that kind of focus to effect change. Inadvertent secondary side effects are nothing. I think that globalism has had its run and it is on its way out.You now why I think that? It's because drones matter and with drones the people can once again hold their leaders accountable. You may have noticed in this regard that a number of high level administration officials have moved onto military installations because the hate filled lunatics of the Left are really keen on killing them and their families. Get used to that because it is now a thing.
Welcome Shiva.
Welcome Shiva the Destroyer.
The dice was cast. I accept the world changes, but I don't think surrounding yourself with YES MEN and starting a little War because your best ally "would have gone in without us" (or version 2.0 some mumbling about it) is shit poor Planning and all military know that leads to shit poor results.
"Inadvertent secondary side effects are nothing."
When the fixed target aka China (or did I get that WRONG, sir) decides that trade with in insane nuclear armed America isn't worth it...
Medicine will be on the 90 day run off until existing scripts not resupplied is done.
Medicine dependent civilians start suffering that (for example) congestive heart failure and die off. Blood thinner folks' strokes start spiking. Diabetics pee sugar water and die.
China's goals of:
The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.
Sun Tzu
One need not destroy one's enemy. One need only destroy his willingness to engage.
Sun Tzu
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Sun Tzu
My intended thread in this discussion was the YES MEN surrounded the King who listened to Grima Wormtongue his Israeli adviser and best buddy went to WAR without proper PLANNING.
Pretty soon the unfortunate facts of lack of rare earth munitions and as any reasonable open source observer would notice the TRANSFER of THAAD and such from OTHER theaters AND that the ONLY Non-YES Man General Cain's "Sire we have weapons for at best 6-10 days of combat" that our cupboards of the fancy stand off rare earth missiles is pretty bare.
And China still isn't selling rare earths to us.
If we had any sort of No SIR FEEDBACK to Trump that didn't result in insults and "Your Fired" responses AMERICA my beloved Country MIGHT have actually DUG those F*ing Rare Earth MINES, Built actual refineries for them, TRAINED Workers for all of this chain, Built Factories to actually USE the refined products and Hells Bells MAYBE actually had a REALISTIC Microchip Domestic production ESTABLISHED.
All those pallets of cash thrown at the "Problem" wasn't preparing. Simply stupid grifting.
THEN JUST LIKE Imperial Japan that attacked a Nation COMPLETELY ABLE to REPLACE Every Weapon you destroy with an Ever Dwindling supply of our Own rare earth weapons we MIGH have had a reasonable chance to fight this war.
"People will adapt or whatchmacallit.... Die. That's the way it works."
Marie Antonette would like a word with you Sire.
So the French Revolution we should WELCOME?
Preparing, even my homestead doesn't guarantee survival, just gives you better options and odd than the unprepared. But the unprepared the SHIVA's of MOBS and flaming bottles of "mostly peaceful" CNN crapola can destroy even the most prepared.
Welcome Shiva. All empires have an expiration date.
You remember your comments "when Ukraine's wheat failed to make it to market and nobody cared"?
Please correct me if I misunderstood your comment.
Stuff DID happen, nations got hungry and food prices rose as food that Ukraine didn't sell was replaced with global reserves. Sort of like the gasoline-diesel prices here rising even though We don't get much oil from the Middle East.
Nobody cared? No American's didn't care because it didn't affect US very much.
This situation with Iran will affect us:
https://coyoteprimeblog2.blogspot.com/2026/03/running-on-empty.html
After watching "Americans fight over cheap TV's" what will the Gimme Dats do when my EBT Card don't feed me...
That my friend is when Shiva the Destroyer comes to town.
I'm pretty sure you're not familiar with an old old truism, "necessity is the mother of invention." Oddly enough, it happens every day. Dog in the manger management generally terminates those trying to innovate but when necessity drives like with a whip or a mighty wind then innovation happens. People are now looking at American ship yards and mumbling about mo' better and capital investment and skilled trades and I hear pickpockets wanting to steal my money. Our shipyards are what they are because the KILLED INNOVATION WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE and kept it exactly as it was in 1950. They have no one to blame except themselves, their management and their investors.
And so it is with everything you mentioned. You sound like you believe it is the end of the world and I think you're being chicken little. Who designs the microchips? We do. Who still designs the microchips? We do. There are probably 900 different ways to make microchips but the only one you know is used in China and requires some exotic shit. Who cares? There are 899 other ways we know of, 20,000 ways we haven't invented yet and an infinite amount of other resources.
Post a Comment