Why bother occupying a country when you can force them to accept international arbitration that has a chilling effect on implementing socialist policy? Read my latest in NACLA.

Just thinking about how Trump bought debt in two companies that stand to materially benefit from the Strait of Hormuz being closed, after promising one of them to ease regulatory oversight on the campaign trail, and offering the other a $1 billion loan from the Department of Energy.

For the last 46 years, the math of U.S. debt relied on a geopolitical bargain with the world: The U.S. could run perpetual deficits because its military secured global trade. But American consumers, already living under Covid-era inflation, are rapidly approaching their limit. trib.al/JaeJHXL

“The prevailing AA+ and Aa1 ratings rest on the assumptions of the unipolar, neoliberal era, backed by the now-dead Carter Doctrine.” My latest in @newrepublic.com

Re-routing the geography of the Persian Gulf with nukes to create new flows for capital, as Newt suggested, would virtually guarantee the end of the unipolar, neoliberal era, and accelerate the trend towards more overt forms of imperialism, which are already emerging under the Donroe Doctrine.

Trumpworld has discovered Schrödinger’s Boots. They are simultaneously on the ground and levitating, and can be used to fight a war that is both over and just getting started. Be sure to congratulate them on this theoretical breakthrough.

The scale and scope of US political interference in Latin America under Trump is basically unprecedented since the Nixon administration.

Few people in contemporary international politics have been more vindicated than leftist NATO skeptics in South Korea and Japan.

Mainstream economists when you build industrial capacity using your own labor force and money: no fair! you’re doing it wrong! Mainstream economists when you build your industrial capacity through subordinate integration and recolonization of the periphery: thank you for following the rules!

Killing fishermen in the Caribbean and artisanal miners in the Andes serves the same function for transnational capital, it clears the space for accumulation, creates a pretext for the establishment of “secure” resource corridors, and the legal architecture for dispossession.

The past few days have proven that spatial fixes cannot resolve the underlying contradictions of emerging industrial powers consuming more oil than they can extract locally.

*When you learn about empire in college Empire is subtle. Empire doesn’t need to announce itself to work. Some people may not even know that they’re living in an empire. *Empire when you’re an adult

Carter Doctrine: in tatters Post Fordist class relations: exposed Oh yeah, it’s over for American empire

Oops!… I did it again (started a war in the Middle East to recapitalize America’s oil sector and got in way over my head)

The “build it here” president just killed the US’ domestic ship building industry to solve a manufactured oil supply crisis. These companies should be filling orders for the next generation of dual fuel cargo ships. Once consumers get used to the reduced prices, it will be hard to unwind this.

Decades of politically engrained Russophobia is really preventing us from recognizing the obvious cultural basis for transnational solidarity between the American and Russian working classes at the worst possible historic moment.

The neoliberal American empire that accumulated wealth through neo-extractivist deals with developing nations and subordinate integration with emerging industrial powers really managed to convince 30% of its population that it was getting the short end of the stick and deserved more.

It seems like the average centrist liberal voter now feels more affinity towards Iran than the US, so I would say that the psyop is not going well.

We’ve gone from neo-imperialism to the naked imperialism of the late 15th - early 20th centuries. Decades from now, researchers will wonder why our generation bothered to refer to this era as “neo-imperialist” at all.

Trump showed up to the Great Powers competition without maritime industrial capacity.

The Copa de la Diversion logos dropped today. Some highlights:

Dang, it almost feels like the War in Iran was a manufactured supply crisis to refinance the Venezuelan oil sector now that the US is in charge.

The US is about to turn into the world’s first 21st century mineral cartel

So it turns out that leadership shakeups are not the same thing as reform or abolition. Who knew?

Automated ports Dual fuel cargo ships Gantry cranes You need these three things to create the 21st century mercantilist empire that Trump is dragging us into. It’s not a world I want to live in but I’m simultaneously terrified by how ill-prepared Trump is to maintain it.

I hate empire and I also hate how terrible Trump is at managing his empire This is the burden of being a socialist who was raised on the Civ games

The “build it here” president just killed the US’ domestic ship building industry to solve a manufactured oil supply crisis. These companies should be filling orders for the next generation of dual fuel cargo ships. Once consumers get used to the reduced prices, it will be hard to unwind this.

We really did it again. The US manufactured another supply crisis in the Middle East to finance our capital intensive oil sector in the Western Hemisphere. And this time with Venezuela in our pocket.

Carter Doctrine (1980-2026) It kept shipping lanes open but could not resolve the underlying contradiction of industrializing powers consuming more oil than they could extract locally. In lieu of flowers, please send aid to Cuba.

The US simultaneously beat itself and lost the American Baseball Classic. The contradictions of America’s mercantilist empire keep piling up.

We really did it again. The US manufactured another supply crisis in the Middle East to finance our capital intensive oil sector in the Western Hemisphere. And this time with Venezuela in our pocket.

What’s it called when multiple great powers are fighting wars of choice with transparent economic motives, regional wars have broken, or are close to breaking out in Africa, South America, and South Asia, trade is disrupted in the Indian Ocean, and the world is fragmented into economic blocs?

SAW, but the protagonists are in a live podcast studio and all the equipment is booby trapped.

That’s because, in this metaphor, we’re fighting the war from Berlin.

Do you hear that sound? It’s the sound of every critical geographer being offered jobs simultaneously to all of the risk analysis firms.

Who will be the first politician to suggest this was an Iranian drone?

Minnesota work culture: The water cooler talk after a weekend snowstorm inevitably centers around shoveling the walk. Whoever did it in the least amount of “passes” wins. People on corner lots get a +1.5 spot on passes. Those who didn’t shovel go in a social “penalty box” until lunch.

If you have a hover boots concept, now is the time to cash in with the American military industrial complex.

Mainstream economists when a centrist president is overseeing an economy growing at a modest annual rate: “Why isn’t Joe Biden doing more to steal Latin America’s resources?” *When a far right president is deficit spending to fight an imperial war: “Short term pain, long term gain (for us)”

Centrist lawmakers gave up way too much ground by allowing the arbitrary line between aerial bombing and “boots on the ground” to become widely accepted in our war discourse. Hawks will always move the goalposts to justify their actions. We get bogged down by semantics, and Iranians pay the price.

- fighting a pointless war in the Middle East, near our sub-imperial proxies, where we have a ton of fixed capital - prediction markets undermining our politics - culture that is deeply nostalgic for its “renaissance” The US is not the UK circa 1956, it’s the Venetian Republic circa 1797

Mexico and Brazil need to break this oil blockade.

*When you learn about empire in college Empire is subtle. Empire doesn’t need to announce itself to work. Some people may not even know that they’re living in an empire. *Empire when you’re an adult

I fear that when this US-initiated War in Iran ends, the American empire will control most of the hemisphere, and many people will never even notice. Most of those who do will say something in passing confusion like, “Oh, since when are Peru and the US so close?”

Not to shamelessly plug my own writing, but you should consider reading this essay where I argue that Trump wants to turn Cuba into the next Panama or the Bahamas, basically a node for capital flight from the US and Latin America.

Civilisation has been in a moral and artistic nosedive ever since they made it possible to play as Bowser in Mariokart, and win races for evil

The fix is coming for Cuba. The moment the new comprador elite takes over, Venezuelan oil will rush back into the market (except this time with the US taking its cut).

The most important lesson from the history of empire, going all the way back to the Venetian Republic: Don’t start a war where you have a bunch of fixed capital locked up.

As the world teeters on the edge of an epochal energy transition, the US has launched a two-front war to preserve capital: violently asserting dominance over the fossil fuels that power the present while simultaneously enclosing the critical minerals required to build the future. My latest in FPIF.