Yes, so while some people are saying this aggression is caused by US economic interests I would turn that causality on its head and say that existing US economic strength is merely the underlying enabling context which allows this kind of Kraft durch Freude to manifest in a seemingly untethered way.

I don't think they actually even care political economy. The chaos of the tariff impositions was more destructive to the United States than their apparent economic rivals. They just seem to value a libidinal impulse to dominate, and the base seem to like these spectacles of domination.

OTOH colonialism did bring fabulous wealth to few, and when you’re obsessed with the status hierarchy, others getting poorer if you get marginally richer is an excellent deal.

Not to mention that the United States is already in a position of considerable imperial overstretch, so their ability to project strength, force and power is far from infinite. If they move to naked imperial self-interest as Miller advocates here, their horizons are going to shrink considerably.

This made me think of Coriolanus as presented by Shakespeare. It's one of his few failures in that he *wants* to give C reasons of honour & patriotism to act from, but ultimately even the Bard can't twist the story into more than "because I should be able to".

Even in the foundational texts of classical realism from Thucydides Morgenthau the unbridled lust for power is something to be *contained* lest it destroy the agent themselves by alienating everyone else against them. Like this is pretty much immoralism.

Many such cases. Almost without exception, those who loudly proclaim themselves as the defenders of “Western civilization” or “culture” are childishly ignorant of it, and without exception, wantonly destroy and devalue every actually valuable achievement and legacy of the West.

they want the freedom of the slave holder

With Plato in the Republic I think they're wrong about this; they're simply incorrect about their own self-interest. I didn't understand this until I saw in real life the exact kinda guys he was arguing with, and it's just utterly obvious from the outside that theirs is a pathetic and degraded life.

One funny thing is that the person constantly teaching the US military that might makes right and those with power should just take what they want, lives in a military base for protection. Cooperation is the root of greatest power. Fascist morons cannot understand that, and that is their undoing.

This is basically the view of the world that Plato sets out to refute in the Republic. One of the core questions asked therein is: why do powerful people think the mere fact of them exercising dominion makes it good for them to do so? Sure, you *can* get away with stuff if you're powerful - so what?

Look, invading Ukraine was a disaster for russia and it did happen and keeps happening and will keep happening.

speaking as a US voter: we already did the thing where we voted someone into power who was voted into power specifically to keep this guy away from the levers. he didn't do anything of the sort in those four years; and now we have this guy again. so: yes

Would Trump be willing to sacrifice NATO in exchange for Greenland if he understand that it's not as big as it looks on the Mercator map? Size is everything with this loser. Also, what if Trump does nothing except for force everyone to say Greenland is part of the US. Would that break NATO?

What I, and many others, have been saying since 2016. The United States is a deeply sick society. Even if it temporarily had a sane leadership, it may well be unable to help its allies due to internal dysfunction. Or even conflict.

Öljyn ja resurssien perässä maahan ja sitä rataa. Mutta mietin tässä vähän syvällisempää kysymystä: onko se peräti US:lle ja vastaaville maille (Venäjä, Kiina, pienissä määrin edelleen jopa Ranska) valtioille jopa hyödyllistä, jos resurssirikasta maata johtaa epäsuosittu diktaattori?

Eli jos pieni maa haluaa puolustaa rajojaan, itsenäisyyttään ja resurssejaan, kannattaa olla yhtenäinen ja demokraattinen. Vahvat instituutiot ja kansan usko omaan maahan kunnossa. Nämä ovat Suomessa kokeneet kolauksen. Tai sitten ydinase. Harvoin pingaan ketään, mutta nyt @jmkorhonen.fi

Forcibly annexing Greenland would be a strategic catastrophe—for Europe, for Canada, and perhaps most especially for the United States itself. My latest in @foreignpolicy.com on how we're all sleep-walking into a disaster: foreignpolicy.com/2026/01/06/g...

It's really impossible to overstate how much *everyone* is watching the US threats towards Greenland, not just Europe. If you want to break not just NATO but Five Eyes and maybe our Asian defense alliances too, taking Greenland is how you do it.

Honestly makes me wonder whether she'd be much better than the Maduro gang.

It's like reading "The Monkey's Paw" and thinking "Man, I wish I had one of those."

Athenian conduct meant Spartan propaganda actually worked

The fascists have ruined ancient Greeks, Romans, and Spartans. I only wanna hear about the ancient Indus Valley or the pharaohs or Mesoamerica for a while.

They want to Delian league NATO, so yes, of course

The same idiots also put out explicitly Nazi rhetoric without thinking through how things turned out for the Nazis.

Yup. Anyone who quotes this approvingly should be asked "how did the Peloponnesian War turn out for Athens?" Of course, they won't know, because their understanding of history and statecraft is an inch deep.

Makes me nostalgic for a time when my oppressors were statesmen with an education grounded solidly in the classics and a witty aphorism with which to conclude a fact-filled speech to the House of Commons.

Literally ends with them begging to not have done to them what they did to the Melians!

Many such cases🙃

Thucydides clearly believed that the Athenians lost at Syracuse because of their dishonorable treatment of the Melians.

I mean, it should have been hard to make a case for the SPARTANS being champions of political freedom, but the Athenians somehow succeeded. Now insert "Chinese" for "Spartans" and "Americans" for "Athenians".

Yeah this is one of my small and inconsequential pet peeves too. Approximately no one who I’ve seen quoting this knows what happened next. That was a warning, not a boast.

The Melian Dialogue has a similar role to the Clausewitz quote about “politics by other means” - it exists to give a bit of frisson and even sexual pleasure to morons who have never read those quotes in context but who are still desperate to sound smart.

The stare of either pure love or mild judgment. #cats #BlueskyCats #gato #CatsOfBluesky

Danish guy gets it

FYI: In 1916 the U.S. signed an agreement for control of St. Thomas, St. John & St. Croix, known as the “Danish West Indies,” in exchange for $25 million & a declaration that the U.S. would “not object to the Danish Govt extending their political & economic interests to the whole of Greenland.

Call it the Ren Faire Effect lol

Not all of those amateurs were bad, mind you and military history done today can be rigorous, effective and valuable. But the ratio of 'pop-junk' to 'actual history' has always been very far weighted on the pop-junk, in part because of a lack of institutional investment in academia.

This is true. The systematic study of warfare and conflict has never had a 'golden age' in the academy, it has always been peripheral and to a degree disdained, with the result that it was often done very poorly, by under-trained amateurs.

Want to follow up on this by saying it works in reverse as well: certainly a proportion of the military/natsec community that thinks anything not releated to "lethality" or tactical application is extraneous, that context or ethics or etc is the realm of the politician and not the mil officer.

A few years back some prominent Finnish “freedom of speech advocates,” including the former head of PEN, were deeply, deeply concerned about freedom of speech in U.S. universities after some far right activist was booed off stage. Haven’t heard a peep from them during the Trump regime.

It’s still darkly funny that in all likelihood at least half the reason for all this is because these bozos don’t understand Mercator projection.

Ymmärtäkää nyt hyvät ihmiset, että osalla meistä on persoonallisuushäiriöiset vanhemmat ja jälki on tällaista. Kauhistelu ei auta eikä kliseet siitä, kuinka kaikkia rakastetaan jollain tasolla. Ei rakasteta.

binky's picture on her documents is of her trying to eat a drawer knob.

Time and again, people look back on horrors and wish they had taken action and done things differently. Trump and Putin have brought us to that critical turning point. We either remove them or suffer the consequences for generations.

Gaza used to have one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Since October 2023, more than 64,000 children have reportedly been killed or maimed; many who survived are now orphans, trying to stay alive. Education is a distant memory.

A study of 160 European famines between 1500 and 1800 shows that El Niño weather events led to the onset of some famines and extended the duration of others

Orange slices #oilpainting #art

This well preserved Roman bronze cavalry 'sports' mask has some beautiful details. Thought to have been used for parades or tournaments - part of maintaining morale and fighting effectiveness - these masks may also have been used in battle. 🏺 1/ #ancientbluesky 2nd c. CE, #MetMuseum loan.