Oddbean

There are people who talk seriously about the US military backing the dollar, when they can’t even keep the Red Sea open against Houthis and their drones for the better part of a year now. Literally half of their mandate is to keep global shipping lanes open, and they don’t know what to do about this. Sure, they could nuke half the world, but they can’t actually perform pinpoint military control at distance anymore. Paper tiger. Not only is their technology increasingly offsides from what exists out there, but morally they’ve lost the plot as well, and so nobody gives a shit at home either. We find ourselves meming the situation in social media as they lack answers.

An interesting thought there, which brought stuff up in my head that I’m just going to get out. I think they did once, but have relied on past endeavours to build an image in the world that instills fear of what is possible. I see it like an athlete that peaks and then declines, during that decline they perform on their own past performances and are often revered for what they have done instead of what they are currently doing. Ultimately, when the performance is not living up to expectation, they begin to resort to underhand tactics as it means to maintain that image. In this case, the fact that they are the only nation to use nuclear weapons has been utilised as the Spectre of what they are capable of, which has instilled fear around the world of what they could do. But in reality since that event, where the USA has really excelled is the underhand tactics to attempt to maintain hegemony, the veil on this is becoming very thin now with many around the world seeing through it. This more than likely accounts for the boldness and growing instability / power struggles and push back, that are beginning to manifest. Of course this doesn’t only apply to the USA, but it’s also echoed with other great powers. The UK also is reliant on past endeavours to serve as reputational deterrent, but in reality I’m doubtful that any great power that relies on this can fulfil on the perception. Please excuse me, riffing those thoughts out, and blurting out my two sats worth, I just felt the need to get that out of my head. 👊🏻

Not a problem at all, you basically summed up what I was thinking perfectly. No one is really afraid of the US anymore. The world saw that the US military couldn’t defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, struggled against insurgents in Iraq and don’t really do anything when international law is violated such as when Russia took over Crimea in 2014, last but not least the world sees that the US is some how beholden to Israel despite its action harming US foreign policy and global relations around the world. Like you said the US is living off past glories to maintain its position in the world but how long can this tenuous grip on being the global “hegemon” last? Russia and China obviously don’t like it and are agitating for a new world order. Interesting times ahead for that entire world.

And I can add as well that this isn't just well known by the Chinese leadership, it has also been seen from afar for a very long while. It's for that reason why China never needs to lift a finger militarily on the subject of Taiwan. Saber rattling aside, the Chinese simply need to maintain their time preference differential vis a vis the US. As I tell everyone, when it comes to the "Great Game 2.0", the Chinese are mopping the floor with everyone else deemed a supposed geopolitical peer.

here in Ukraine we know the story when our soldiers were trained in the US and then turned out that this training's were sort of outdated, inconsistent with the actual war. but still calling US military paper tiger for me fills as populist statement. regarding Houthis and their drones I wouldn't blame without getting details because fight drones quite difficult task especially if territory is huge. drones are relatively new war means, there is no ready-made solution against them

The dollars history, in its current form, goes back about 80 years but your counter argument is an occurrence from this year. These things don't behave linear and are definitely not constant. Actors loose trust and confidence in the empires ability to project power hence the narratives of the empires pull back and dedollariasation.

I don’t know if you’re seriously holding these views anymore or if you’re just feeding the Nostr crowd. Any idiot can buy some missiles and fire them off. The primary objective of the US military is to keep US civilians, including US bitcoiners who of course pay their share of tax in exchange for this service, safe. Before criticising the military of your country too hard, ask yourself how many times a foreign power has invaded. Some charts: https://m.primal.net/Jihj.jpg https://m.primal.net/JiiM.jpg https://m.primal.net/JiiN.jpg https://m.primal.net/JiiO.jpg https://m.primal.net/JiiP.jpg https://m.primal.net/JiiQ.jpg

Printed fiat going into Military and DARPA and “Deep State” projects seems largely to be money-laundering. Not that nothing gets developed, just that what does is mostly about controlling “popular uprisings” abroad and at home. Not defending the US. The apex asset of the military, the aircraft carrier, is now widely expected to be taken down quickly by a swarm of drones or a hyper-sonic missile. We’ll probably see that in the next 3 or so years. America’s “defense policy”, imo, should return to what it naturally was: the most defensible major nation in the world, based on geography. Key word being “defense”.

I never heard the story about the US Navy being responsible for policing shipping lanes for global trade until Ziehan started talking about it about a year ago. Maybe its common knowledge in some circles, but its certainly not taught in schools. It seems to me that it has been a thing until people learned it was a thing.

Recently, I invested $1,000 in crypto trading and received a return of $6k. I want to clarify that this is not a Ponzi scheme, as I have already made five withdrawal within just two weeks. @coachalex0