I’m confused regarding your earlier support for these strikes given that you’re now acknowledging that thousands of deaths and billions of dollars will result in no “decisive results” other than pushing the world a step closer to a mass global conflict.
Thank God social media wasn't around during WWII, people like you would have had a grand old time; "Pearl Harbor showed the Japanese have a superior force and are better prepared, we've lost enough young American men already, we need to begin peace talks NOW!"
I don’t think Noah ever “supported” the strikes. But in any case, decisive is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Destroying Iran’s ballistic missile supplies and its navy, as well as killing a bunch of IRGC is a great outcome.
Khamenei said, "'Death to America' isn't just our chant, it's our policy." It would be disrespectful of us not to take him at his word and crush that evil regime.
This is just nitpicking, but the intelligence on the Iranian targets was probably mostly by Mossad and I have little confidence in the CIA having that kind of goods on the Chinese. Beyond that, it's just frightening for Amodei and others, on arguably the most important point as argued in this post, to have to deal with a guy who threatened invading Greenland by calling it "Iceland" five times in a row and his second in command in war, who looks and acts like Göring 2.0.
Outside euro-centric circles, the start of the (2nd) Sino-Japanese war in 1937 has long been considered the start of WWII.
Russia losing Iran as a supplier of Shaheeds is a minor hassle, and likely a temporary one. Iran's production of Shaheeds has been outstripped by Russia since the end of 2023.
As for the war proving Trump isn't pro-Putin, let's put that to rest. Trump has spent more time consulting Putin about this war than Congress. And that has resulted in Trump lifting sanctions on Russian oil sales.
That's the most pro-Putin move you can make. Because it also means that hunting down the shadow fleet might be coming to an end too (we'll see what the Europeans think about that).
Too soon to tell. China is very good at using proxies to draw American arms and attention away from the Pacific. Russia is basically a wholly owned subsidiary of the CCP. Who is going to rebuild Iran when Trump decides this war isn’t so good for markets or his approval rating? China. And China knows that Trump’s attention span and tolerance for pain is actually very low (TACO). What does this all mean? <checks notes> I have no idea. Autocrats are notoriously hard to predict, they are surrounded by sycophants and closed off from dissenting views. And that describes both Trump and Xi.
What we are witnessing is not a precursor to a new great conflagration, but rather the same, tedious American habit: manufactured crisis for the sake of maintaining global hegemony and ensuring the continued enrichment of the the good 'ole US of A. Another war that will result in manu, many dead Iranians and not much more. What a waste.
"[I]f America could assassinate Xi Jinping and the entire CCP Central Committee in the early days of a war over Taiwan, that could be an effective form of deterrence."
This is easily understood as way too risky with a nuclear power, so it has very little deterrent effect.
It matters whether the Iranians who want a democratic republic are killing the psychotically murderous theocratic Iranians ...or vice-versa. Not that we or the Israelis have conducted this action in a way that could possibly ensure the better of the two outcomes.
When the 12 day war concluded, I was surprised that Israel called it quits after accomplishing just partial destruction of Iran's nuclear program (with a bit of help from our Massive Ordnance Penetrators). Maybe they wanted to wrap things up in Gaza first.
Now we have further destruction of Iran's capabilities, but our involvement is unpopular and Trump is looking for an exit. But I think at some point Israel is going to need to put boots on the ground to really dismantle the nuclear program. I don't think this thing is going to be over soon, but maybe gets another hiatus.
What will you conclude if this doesn’t yield a global war? That the long peace is more stable than you thought? (Say, because of nukes or the increased benefits of peace.) over what time frame should the prediction be judged?
"If America could assassinate Xi Jinping and the entire CCP Central Committee in the early days of a war over Taiwan, that could be an effective form of deterrence."
Err, would this not have a meaningful risk of triggering nuclear retaliation? Decapitating the government of a nuclear power?
At the very least, I'm pretty sure nukes would be on the table, and that's not a risk I'm (and hopefully the American government) willing to take.
I find it unlikely Trump rides to Taiwan's defense in the event of a Chinese invasion, which makes me skeptical that we're really in the Foothills of World War III. Trump may be unable to untangle the US from Europe: but a President Vance can sever the ties.
There is a lesson from WW2 that wasn't in the recap in the piece.
Nothing Japan did on land in 1941 vs. the Western allies was novel.
They had been fighting in China for 4.5 years at that point. Japan's tanks in Malaya. The moves in the Philippines. All of that was very similar to battles they had fought before in China. Both the US and the UK had military observers with the Chinese. The foreign concessions in China were not attacked until Pearl Harbor. The Chinese themselves were constantly telling the Us and the UK, "this is how Japan fights". Japanese troops travel light which makes them not road bound and able to move quickly over bad terrain.
Chinese troops were generally poorly trained, poorly armed, and poorly fed, China's challenge was how to fight with such a huge qualitative inferiority. The Chinese even won occasionally. They did it by figuring out where the Japanese were going. Japanese troops generally sustained themselves by capturing supplies, so leave nothing in front of them. Japanese attacks are strongest at the start so don't offer battle st their jumping off points. Instead, figure out the objective, pre position as many Chinese troops as possible around the objective, wait for the Japanese to walk there, and only then counterattack. The Japanese will be at the end of their supplies and vulnerable.
Now however bad British and American colonial forces were in Malaya and the Philippines, they were miles ahead of Chinese troops in terms of equipment and training. The problem was that the British and the Americans ignored everything they had seen with their own eyes in China. Japanese success in China was blamed on Chinese incompetence rather than Japanese skill.
When Japan attacked the West, the allies tried to meet them head on, right at the border. They were repeatedly surprised when Japan went off road.
It was a master class in refusing to Integrate anything from military observers.
It is notable that William Slim is the only Western general who bothered to ask the Chinese how they'd won some of their few victories.
Enjoyed this read, Noah. Don't forget about Pakistan here. They're probably the most exposed in a real Hormuz closure... more than Japan or China. Running a structural gas deficit, nearly all LNG sourced from Qatar and UAE, zero bypass options, no storage buffer. If this drags past 30 days, you're looking at blackouts and industrial shutdowns. And that kind of instability gets scary fast in a nuclear-armed country with a fragile government.
At the outset of Trump's first administration I wrote a brief essay I called, "Donald Trump’s historical doppelgänger," < https://www.blog.williamdoneil.com/?p=77 > comparing him with Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and German Emperor (1859-1941, r. 1888-1918). Reading it now nine years later I see little needing alteration. Wilhelm of course is infamous for the "blank cheque" he issued supporting Austria-Hungary's reckless attack on Serbia, which many historians see as central to initiating the First World War of 1914-1918. Yet beyond that one feckless act, Wilhelm had done a great deal over the preceding 25 years to destabilize the European political system and erode the fragile barriers to conflict. Exactly as I feared in 2017, Trump is treading very much the same path. The one cause for hope that I see is that Trump will not have a quarter century to do a thorough job of it. But what of those who come after?
My two cents worth is that China, the Gulf States and maybe even India have had it with Iran and look forward to the day when Iran is pacified and the Persian Gulf well into the Arabian Sea flows freely.
I’m confused regarding your earlier support for these strikes given that you’re now acknowledging that thousands of deaths and billions of dollars will result in no “decisive results” other than pushing the world a step closer to a mass global conflict.
Hey, the blue sky leftists were against it as well so Noah had no choice but to cheer it on.
Thank God social media wasn't around during WWII, people like you would have had a grand old time; "Pearl Harbor showed the Japanese have a superior force and are better prepared, we've lost enough young American men already, we need to begin peace talks NOW!"
Because ... Iran attacked and sank our Pacific Fleet? How did the news media miss that ...
What?
How are those two positions contradictory?
I don’t think Noah ever “supported” the strikes. But in any case, decisive is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Destroying Iran’s ballistic missile supplies and its navy, as well as killing a bunch of IRGC is a great outcome.
For whom?
We killed hundreds of thousands of Taliban fighters. (Let's pretend there was no collateral damage)
What good did that do for the us or for Afghans?
Khamenei said, "'Death to America' isn't just our chant, it's our policy." It would be disrespectful of us not to take him at his word and crush that evil regime.
This is just nitpicking, but the intelligence on the Iranian targets was probably mostly by Mossad and I have little confidence in the CIA having that kind of goods on the Chinese. Beyond that, it's just frightening for Amodei and others, on arguably the most important point as argued in this post, to have to deal with a guy who threatened invading Greenland by calling it "Iceland" five times in a row and his second in command in war, who looks and acts like Göring 2.0.
Outside euro-centric circles, the start of the (2nd) Sino-Japanese war in 1937 has long been considered the start of WWII.
Russia losing Iran as a supplier of Shaheeds is a minor hassle, and likely a temporary one. Iran's production of Shaheeds has been outstripped by Russia since the end of 2023.
As for the war proving Trump isn't pro-Putin, let's put that to rest. Trump has spent more time consulting Putin about this war than Congress. And that has resulted in Trump lifting sanctions on Russian oil sales.
That's the most pro-Putin move you can make. Because it also means that hunting down the shadow fleet might be coming to an end too (we'll see what the Europeans think about that).
100%. I don't understand Noah's take on Trump / Putin at all.
It's called wishful thinking.
Too soon to tell. China is very good at using proxies to draw American arms and attention away from the Pacific. Russia is basically a wholly owned subsidiary of the CCP. Who is going to rebuild Iran when Trump decides this war isn’t so good for markets or his approval rating? China. And China knows that Trump’s attention span and tolerance for pain is actually very low (TACO). What does this all mean? <checks notes> I have no idea. Autocrats are notoriously hard to predict, they are surrounded by sycophants and closed off from dissenting views. And that describes both Trump and Xi.
Russia is allied with China in recent conflicts, but it is far from a wholly owned proxy, and they are far from friends.
What we are witnessing is not a precursor to a new great conflagration, but rather the same, tedious American habit: manufactured crisis for the sake of maintaining global hegemony and ensuring the continued enrichment of the the good 'ole US of A. Another war that will result in manu, many dead Iranians and not much more. What a waste.
"[I]f America could assassinate Xi Jinping and the entire CCP Central Committee in the early days of a war over Taiwan, that could be an effective form of deterrence."
This is easily understood as way too risky with a nuclear power, so it has very little deterrent effect.
This will be the sequence of recent Iranian history.
Iranians kill Iranians. Americans and Israelis kill Iranians. Iranians kill Iranians.
I do not know why we needed to insert ourselves in the middle there.
It matters whether the Iranians who want a democratic republic are killing the psychotically murderous theocratic Iranians ...or vice-versa. Not that we or the Israelis have conducted this action in a way that could possibly ensure the better of the two outcomes.
When the 12 day war concluded, I was surprised that Israel called it quits after accomplishing just partial destruction of Iran's nuclear program (with a bit of help from our Massive Ordnance Penetrators). Maybe they wanted to wrap things up in Gaza first.
Now we have further destruction of Iran's capabilities, but our involvement is unpopular and Trump is looking for an exit. But I think at some point Israel is going to need to put boots on the ground to really dismantle the nuclear program. I don't think this thing is going to be over soon, but maybe gets another hiatus.
What will you conclude if this doesn’t yield a global war? That the long peace is more stable than you thought? (Say, because of nukes or the increased benefits of peace.) over what time frame should the prediction be judged?
"If America could assassinate Xi Jinping and the entire CCP Central Committee in the early days of a war over Taiwan, that could be an effective form of deterrence."
Err, would this not have a meaningful risk of triggering nuclear retaliation? Decapitating the government of a nuclear power?
At the very least, I'm pretty sure nukes would be on the table, and that's not a risk I'm (and hopefully the American government) willing to take.
Noah that’s way too far fetched 🤔
I find it unlikely Trump rides to Taiwan's defense in the event of a Chinese invasion, which makes me skeptical that we're really in the Foothills of World War III. Trump may be unable to untangle the US from Europe: but a President Vance can sever the ties.
Really disappointed to read Noahpinion supporting Iran War and looking forward to the day where he writes about how he got it so wrong.
There is a lesson from WW2 that wasn't in the recap in the piece.
Nothing Japan did on land in 1941 vs. the Western allies was novel.
They had been fighting in China for 4.5 years at that point. Japan's tanks in Malaya. The moves in the Philippines. All of that was very similar to battles they had fought before in China. Both the US and the UK had military observers with the Chinese. The foreign concessions in China were not attacked until Pearl Harbor. The Chinese themselves were constantly telling the Us and the UK, "this is how Japan fights". Japanese troops travel light which makes them not road bound and able to move quickly over bad terrain.
Chinese troops were generally poorly trained, poorly armed, and poorly fed, China's challenge was how to fight with such a huge qualitative inferiority. The Chinese even won occasionally. They did it by figuring out where the Japanese were going. Japanese troops generally sustained themselves by capturing supplies, so leave nothing in front of them. Japanese attacks are strongest at the start so don't offer battle st their jumping off points. Instead, figure out the objective, pre position as many Chinese troops as possible around the objective, wait for the Japanese to walk there, and only then counterattack. The Japanese will be at the end of their supplies and vulnerable.
Now however bad British and American colonial forces were in Malaya and the Philippines, they were miles ahead of Chinese troops in terms of equipment and training. The problem was that the British and the Americans ignored everything they had seen with their own eyes in China. Japanese success in China was blamed on Chinese incompetence rather than Japanese skill.
When Japan attacked the West, the allies tried to meet them head on, right at the border. They were repeatedly surprised when Japan went off road.
It was a master class in refusing to Integrate anything from military observers.
It is notable that William Slim is the only Western general who bothered to ask the Chinese how they'd won some of their few victories.
Enjoyed this read, Noah. Don't forget about Pakistan here. They're probably the most exposed in a real Hormuz closure... more than Japan or China. Running a structural gas deficit, nearly all LNG sourced from Qatar and UAE, zero bypass options, no storage buffer. If this drags past 30 days, you're looking at blackouts and industrial shutdowns. And that kind of instability gets scary fast in a nuclear-armed country with a fragile government.
At the outset of Trump's first administration I wrote a brief essay I called, "Donald Trump’s historical doppelgänger," < https://www.blog.williamdoneil.com/?p=77 > comparing him with Wilhelm II, King of Prussia and German Emperor (1859-1941, r. 1888-1918). Reading it now nine years later I see little needing alteration. Wilhelm of course is infamous for the "blank cheque" he issued supporting Austria-Hungary's reckless attack on Serbia, which many historians see as central to initiating the First World War of 1914-1918. Yet beyond that one feckless act, Wilhelm had done a great deal over the preceding 25 years to destabilize the European political system and erode the fragile barriers to conflict. Exactly as I feared in 2017, Trump is treading very much the same path. The one cause for hope that I see is that Trump will not have a quarter century to do a thorough job of it. But what of those who come after?
My two cents worth is that China, the Gulf States and maybe even India have had it with Iran and look forward to the day when Iran is pacified and the Persian Gulf well into the Arabian Sea flows freely.