Miscellaneous News

zbb said:

The Iran war coming shortly after Venezuela also supports your thesis. One can also just take a look at the countless number of US thinktank analysts obsessed about China being the destination for the overwhelming majority of Venezuelan and Iranian oil exports.

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Just to give some context for where my last post and the longer write‑up are coming from: Over the last few days I’ve been trying to make sense of the Iran war not just as an Iran/Israel issue, but as part of the broader US–China contest. I started with a pretty basic observation that we’ve all been circling around in this thread: Asia—not the US/EU—is now the main growth engine and the main sink for Gulf oil, and China + ASEAN sit right in the middle of that.

From there, I went down a rabbit hole on three things:How dependent China and ASEAN actually are on Gulf crude via Hormuz and Malacca, vs. Japan/Korea and the US. How much of China’s export and FDI model has shifted toward ASEAN + West Asia as a hedge against US/EU pressure. How much leverage the US and its allies still have over those sea‑lanes and the dollar system that clears oil trade. The more I looked at those numbers and maps, the harder it was for me to see the Iran war as a stand‑alone “nukes and mullahs” story. Structurally, any serious disruption around Iran/Hormuz hits China + ASEAN + Japan/Korea much harder than it hits the US, and it directly undermines Beijing’s energy security, its ASEAN‑centric export pivot, and its recent diplomatic inroads in the Gulf (e.g., brokering the Iran–Saudi rapprochement). That’s what pushed me toward the thesis I sketched: that the Iran conflict is being used as an accelerant and lever in the US–China game, whether or not that was the original public rationale. The short reply I posted here (“this is really a China story underneath”) is the compressed, forum‑friendly version of that argument. Because I wanted to stress‑test the idea and avoid disappearing into my own echo chamber, I pulled in a couple of AI assistants (Kimi, Perplexity, MiniMax, Stepfun, Manus, DeepSeek, Qwen, Gemini) as thinking/sparring partners. It helped me: sanity‑check the trade and energy data,separate hard facts (who buys what, from where) from my own inferences about strategy,and structure the longer essay into something that doesn’t just shout “it’s all about China” but actually lays out what would need to be true for that to hold. The long piece (“Madman and the Trap”) is the result of that: my argument, but with the claims explicitly split into: what’s empirically grounded, what’s a reasonable strategic inference, and what’s still just a hypothesis that needs evidence. I’m sharing it here not as “this is definitely how it is,” but as one coherent way to connect the micro‑discussion we’re having (ASEAN reserves, who gets screwed first) to the macro question of who the Iran war really traps when you zoom out to the US–China level. If folks are interested, I’m happy to post the full essay and we can pick apart where you think the structural logic works and where it breaks.

Cr4ckSh0t said:

I like the guy's videos but I think he was a CIA agent

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It could be. Either he is working for some westoid intelligence agency directly, or he is truly mildly, pathologically delusional. Let me explain.

Basically, the core of his "predictions" is that a very small population of 7 million neo-colonial Jews would end up ruling not only the Middle East, but the entire world soon.

Moreover, he always seems to avoid talking about China and minimizing its significance.

For example, in an interview I listened to earlier today, he said that China is completely dependent on exports to the West still in 2026, which is categorically false information.

Either way, he has some great points, but in the end, I can't believe that 7 million Jews are more significant player than 1.4B Chinese.

Reminds me of Brian Berletic, who actually could also be delusional himself or a CIA impostor, along the same lines of thinking.

Somehow, the current decomposing, decaying America always has some 4D chess, is all mighty despite being months from collapse, etc.

Yet both of them disregard China's true power, compared to the US, or its achievements. Jiang props up Jews, Brian props up amerimutts.

Despite both of them claiming that they actually oppose their policies and embed themselves in the opposition spaces, yet I wonder why...

Bellum_Romanum said:

Just to give some context for where my last post and the longer write‑up are coming from: Over the last few days I’ve been trying to make sense of the Iran war not just as an Iran/Israel issue, but as part of the broader US–China contest. I started with a pretty basic observation that we’ve all been circling around in this thread: Asia—not the US/EU—is now the main growth engine and the main sink for Gulf oil, and China + ASEAN sit right in the middle of that.

From there, I went down a rabbit hole on three things:How dependent China and ASEAN actually are on Gulf crude via Hormuz and Malacca, vs. Japan/Korea and the US. How much of China’s export and FDI model has shifted toward ASEAN + West Asia as a hedge against US/EU pressure. How much leverage the US and its allies still have over those sea‑lanes and the dollar system that clears oil trade. The more I looked at those numbers and maps, the harder it was for me to see the Iran war as a stand‑alone “nukes and mullahs” story. Structurally, any serious disruption around Iran/Hormuz hits China + ASEAN + Japan/Korea much harder than it hits the US, and it directly undermines Beijing’s energy security, its ASEAN‑centric export pivot, and its recent diplomatic inroads in the Gulf (e.g., brokering the Iran–Saudi rapprochement). That’s what pushed me toward the thesis I sketched: that the Iran conflict is being used as an accelerant and lever in the US–China game, whether or not that was the original public rationale. The short reply I posted here (“this is really a China story underneath”) is the compressed, forum‑friendly version of that argument. Because I wanted to stress‑test the idea and avoid disappearing into my own echo chamber, I pulled in a couple of AI assistants (Kimi, Perplexity, MiniMax, Stepfun, Manus, DeepSeek, Qwen, Gemini) as thinking/sparring partners. It helped me: sanity‑check the trade and energy data,separate hard facts (who buys what, from where) from my own inferences about strategy,and structure the longer essay into something that doesn’t just shout “it’s all about China” but actually lays out what would need to be true for that to hold. The long piece (“Madman and the Trap”) is the result of that: my argument, but with the claims explicitly split into: what’s empirically grounded, what’s a reasonable strategic inference, and what’s still just a hypothesis that needs evidence. I’m sharing it here not as “this is definitely how it is,” but as one coherent way to connect the micro‑discussion we’re having (ASEAN reserves, who gets screwed first) to the macro question of who the Iran war really traps when you zoom out to the US–China level. If folks are interested, I’m happy to post the full essay and we can pick apart where you think the structural logic works and where it breaks.

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Damn did you use AI to write this? no human admits to 'going down the rabbit hole', that is LLM speech...

As America is on the verge of drafting zoomers for a war in Iran, the first daughter Kai Trump scoffs “let them eat cake”

tamsen_ikard said:

I would push back on this notion that US can do global violence but China cannot. Yes, its easier for US because of their network of bases and allies. Yes they have a bigger fleet of military transport planes. But this is not what defines military power.

Lets say hypothetically speaking China decided to Bomb a country in Africa, can they do it? Can they invade a country in Africa?

They can.

They can utilize their civillian air transport to move troops and weapons. They have a huge air transport industry. Yes, dedicated military air lift is nice to have, but not existential. If needed China can utilize civillian transport. Same thing for ship transport.

Can China transport its troops and planes in a far away region? Yes

Can China pursue a war lasting several months and supply those troops and planes? Yes

What China lacks is not capability, but strategic and political intent. People just cannot imagine China doing this because they have been so laser focused on economics. But its not like China lacks the ability to fight a distant war.

China's political system and strategic presence is just designed for fighting a war like this. Their rhetoric is not there.

But they absolutely have the ability to do a falkland island like long distance war if they wanted to.

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I think this somewhat overestimates China's current ability to sustain operations at a distance, but it is certainly meaningful to highlight the distinction between capability and intent, or strategy -- the circumstances and manner in which that capability may be exercised.

I would argue that it is the combination of the two that constitutes power -- reaching beyond the self to influence affairs at a distance. Consider the hypothetical example of a very large nation that is entirely self-sufficient and overwhelmingly secure its own borders, but one that remains willfully blind to the world that exists beyond its trade ports and border crossings. That nation may have formidable capabilities -- it may be very strong -- but does it truly exercise power in the world? I would argue that it does so only in the negative sense in that, within its own borders, it negates the power exercised by other nations elsewhere. Beyond that, this hypothetical nation is strategically inert and wields no power in the international system.

In the real world, both China and the United States engage with the rest of the world along several different dimensions simultaneously, including diplomacy and institutions, underpinned by economic exchange. But certainly there is a clear difference in that the United States routinely wields military power, and the threat of military power, all around the world to advance its interests. China today does not do this, except in relation to specific disputed matters such as Taiwan and other territorial claims. Even these matters remain more latent than actualised. That China is far less willing to intervene directly in the affairs of other nations undoubtedly reflects a combination of cultural, ideological and material characteristics and may be quite admirable. Yet at the end of the day, it leaves one entity without such reservations -- the United States -- with a free hand to coerce the majority of humanity in service of its interests, while China is left to attempt to protect and advance its interests with more subtle tools.

There is an empirical question as to the long-term efficacy of different approaches. Both the successes and failures of coercion and military intervention are apparent, as are the value and limitations of dialogue and economic exchange alone. The current American campaign to "roll back" Chinese influence in the western hemisphere and to more firmly bring that region back under Washington's effective control is perhaps the most illustrative of these dynamics.

Chevalier said:

As America is on the verge of drafting zoomers for a war in Iran, the first daughter Kai Trump scoffs “let them eat cake”

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they wont draft good looking women that's for sure, maybe they can sacrifice the Jia Hinds males that are "fully support sarrr"

Chevalier said:

As America is on the verge of drafting zoomers for a war in Iran, the first daughter Kai Trump scoffs “let them eat cake”

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If you need a reference point for this rich people grocery store.

Cooked White Rice = $11 per pound
Roasted Sweet Potato = $15 per pound
Glass Noodles = $19.50 per pound


———

And $21 per pound Mac and Cheese.

9dashline said:

Damn did you use AI to write this? no human admits to 'going down the rabbit hole', that is LLM speech...

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To synthesize my notes and help me organize my thought process. I did go down the rabbit hole, so to speak, on this topic—the Iran War. Most people are glued to Israel as the puppet master controlling U.S. foreign policy regardless of which party or president is in charge; the music stays the same.
Now, what confuses and scratches so many people’s heads is the urgency with which the U.S. is essentially subsidizing Israel’s hegemonic intentions and goal of controlling the Middle East by ridding itself of the last strongest roadblock, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I always go back to the U.S. national strategy pronouncements and the strategic pivot since 2012 in the Obama years. The pivot to Asia was not an accident; it was America’s way of seeking another bogeyman to justify its gargantuan military budgets and increased presence around the world through its countless (approximately 800) military bases, the strongest of which are prepositioned on the Asian continent: West Asia (Gulf countries) and East Asia/ASEAN to cordon China.
As Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated during his term under the Biden administration, China is the “only country” with both the intent and the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to reshape the international order. That statement of fact did not change, nor did it start under his boss’s presidency; it was a continuation of America’s obsession and growing insecurity over the rise of China. Democrats whined about Trump’s first trade war against China, but when their party returned to power, their approach to China was not an improvement but an increase in anti-China policy that was even more pointed compared to the first Trump presidency.

The current AI competition appears to be going down the same route as the EV competition. After reading this recent report from CGTN () showing that for the first time (and it will not be the last time) Chinese AI models have overtaken U.S. rivals in global token usage (four out of five are Chinese), it is clear that this is one of the major technological moats the U.S. is banking on to control and win at all costs. But like anything U.S.-made, everything is priced at a premium regardless of whether the material and economic conditions are apt within the framework of a given country and society. China appears to be winning in the most important and lucrative market: the Global South countries.

The U.S. is losing in every area of competition where it never wanted to compete fairly and squarely—it never did. With all the massive capital expenditures going into AI companies, how are these investors ever going to see any returns on their investments if China captures the market they assumed they would perpetually dominate, as they have done through Windows, Google Search, and other parasitic U.S. dominance in high-value-chain products? Bio-pharma? China is there and gaining ground. Space? Satellites? China is there…

The U.S. must make a move while it still retains some level of advantage over China, which lies in military and expeditionary fighting capability where China’s experience and expertise are non-existent. There was just a study published by the Mitchell Institute arguing that by the years 2028–2029 China’s PLAF/PLAN will become the largest air force in the world. Is the U.S. really going to wait that long for China to become so big and so powerful—which means it will become virtually unchallengeable in every metric—that it will essentially allow China to win without fighting? U.S. and Western history says no!

These are some of the things that animated me to write what I wrote and that led me to task some of the AI tools I mentioned with helping me hone, fact-check, and use as a sounding board for my ideas on my “Mad Man Theory trap.”

Japan's honeymoon period after electing Sanae has already ended early.

9dashline said:

they wont draft good looking women that's for sure, maybe they can sacrifice the Jia Hinds males that are "fully support sarrr"

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"Atten-HUT! Jodies, it's your time to prove your mettle! Get out there and show those lonely ladies what you're made of! Now LOCK AND LOAD SOLDIER! I want to see those condom magazines EMPTY by the end of this offensive! OORAH! GO GO GO!"