Iran War

[HVC]

Have we thought this through?

As always the answer is no.

[The Minsky Moment]

Have we thought

Huh?

[Jacob]

So apparently the US has turned back a Chinese vessel and China has said "don't! We will continue to operate in the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Gulf and expect other countries to not interfere in our affairs."

My expectation is that Trump will not back down without some sort of concession from China (though I wouldn't be totally surprised if they did).

How will China respond if their shipping is blockaded on a continuing basis?

[Valmy]

Ok so we are going to fuck with Chinese ships. And China seems surprised and upset by this.

Brilliant.

[The Minsky Moment]

This was impossible to foresee.

It's like Iran closing the strait.  How could one predict that?  You'd have to know what Iran did in the past to guess that and no one can predict the past.

In order to foresee problems with China, you have to be some incredible genius that knows fiendishly complicated things. Like that China exists and it may have some interest in shipping.

[Caliga]

I'm looking forward to all of our electronics suddenly bluescreening out mysteriously, if Trump doesn't let the Chinese vessels pass.

[crazy canuck]

If Trump doesn't back down, China likely imposes another ban on rare earth exports to the United States, amongst other actions.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, China will likely do exactly that. My suspicion is they will show restraint but do some sort of trade restriction that shows they are serious, and if that doesn't work, impose more restrictions etc.

[Syt]

How about they start with all Trump related brands that are being manufactured in China?

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, China will likely do exactly that. My suspicion is they will show restraint but do some sort of trade restriction that shows they are serious, and if that doesn't work, impose more restrictions etc.

Yeah I agree this makes sense.

Relatedly on this in the context of blockades I thought this interview with Nicholas Mulder (author of The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War) was interesting:
https://heatmap.news/energy/iran-blockade

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Slight aside but interesting example of what the end of American regional hegemony/a multi-polar world actually means.

There's been a huge amount of UAE sponsored bots attacking Pakistan. This is largely because Pakistan didn't invite the Emiratis to the Islamabad talks while the Saudis and Egyptians were invited to send observers. But also in part because Pakistan has sent a huge deployment of more than 10,000 troops and 15 planes to Saudi as part of the Saudi-Pakistan mutual defence agreement.

In addition to the sponsored social media attacks, reports now coming out of the Gulf that UAE is on the cusp of signing a mutual defence agreement with India.

One side is just the centrifugal effect without US hegemony imposing a structure or logic on their dependent allies - which I suspect we'll see more of (and is also a risk in Europe). I think we're likely to see more of this "minilateralism" of smaller groups or bilateral defence arrangements and I think there's a positive case for them, particularly in Europe. But this something that feels quite 1890s/1900s. You can easily see how these pacts start to overlap and the structure of these relationship means something in the Gulf escalates in Kashmir or vice-versa.

the people yearning for multipolarism are usually the same people that forgot how multipolarism in Europe led to alliance structures that made WW1 into the Great War it was.

[crazy canuck]

I don't think it is that people are earning for a multipolar world as much as it is the United States voluntarily abandoning the advantageous position it had internationally, and now everyone else is doing their best to adapt to the new reality.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

I don't think it is that people are earning for a multipolar world as much as it is the United States voluntarily abandoning the advantageous position it had internationally, and now everyone else is doing their best to adapt to the new reality.

over the years I've heard lots of people pining for multipolarity tbh. They couldn't wait for US hegemony to be over. Well, here it is and it'll be a wild ride

[Jacob]

over the years I've heard lots of people pining for multipolarity tbh. They couldn't wait for US hegemony to be over. Well, here it is and it'll be a wild ride

Hasn't that been the purview of Russia, China, and their fellow travellers?

[Valmy]

I don't think it is that people are earning for a multipolar world as much as it is the United States voluntarily abandoning the advantageous position it had internationally, and now everyone else is doing their best to adapt to the new reality.

over the years I've heard lots of people pining for multipolarity tbh. They couldn't wait for US hegemony to be over. Well, here it is and it'll be a wild ride

Well if they are Euros, I just want to point out they have structured themselves as something similar to the Holy Roman Empire or Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and we have seen how those stood up to a cutthroat world of ruthless power politics in the past.