Ian Welsh

The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

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Ceasefire Talks In Pakistan Fail

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On April 12, 2026

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Not precisely a surprise, given they sent Kushner, Witkoff and Vance to negotiate. Apparently Vance talked to Trump six times and Iran says that the negotiations were going OK until Netanyahu called Vance, then suddenly it seemed like the American delegation was negotiating for Israel.

More to the point, the US wanted the Strait open and for Iran to give away its enriched uranium, and Iran said “if you can’t win it in war, why should we give it to you in negotiations?” After all the damage inflicted on Iran, they need a lot of revenue to rebuild.

I remain convinced that Israel has child rape blackmail on Trump.

Meanwhile Pakistan has been moving planes to Saudi Arabia, which sure looks like a stab in the back to me, and Israel continues to bomb the shit out of southern Lebanon, wiping entire villages off the map, though it seems like Hezbollah is doing a fair bit of damage to them in return. Israel learned nothing from Ukraine and doesn’t even have cope cages on their Merkava tanks.

I’m not sure if Iran should have accepted the ceasefire or not. On the pro-side, they’re not getting bombed and the Strait is still closed and they have time to dig out damage around their underground mountain bases. On the negative side, Israel gets to pound Lebanon and Hezbollah, and the US is able to bring in interceptors and weapons stripped from the rest of the world, getting ready for the next round. And, of course, Pakistan used this time to reposition military to Saudi Arabia, and Iran doesn’t want a war with Pakistan.

That said, Pakistan’s taking a real risk here, domestically, ninety percent of Pakistanis support Iran, and the country is one spark from a revolution anyway. The army, of course, will gun down any number of civilians to retain control, but even so…

Israel’s losing pieces of the world, however. South Korea’s Prime Minister criticized Israel, and as Trump says all trade will be cut off with Spain because it won’t let the US uses bases in its territory to attack Iran, well…

What, exactly does Spain need from the US which it can’t get from China?

And as for South Korea, well, Iran lets friendly nations tankers thru the Strait? US hegemony was based, in part, on its control of oil. If it can no longer guarantee its allies the oil they need, why should they remain allies? South Korea is one of the first to make this calculation, but it won’t be the last.

This is probably why Trump is considering blockading access to the Strait himself, but countries will start sending military escorts, especially China if he does, because many countries are going to have serious problem: no cars on the road, no fertilizer for farms, no diesel for tractors, no bunker fuel for ships crises if this goes on much longer. Plus, of course, Ansar Allah will then shut the other Strait.

However much they may be scared of the US, however much they may be trained to be vassals, East Asian countries NEED Gulf Oil.

And if the US fires on escorts, well, that’s how World War III starts.

A complete clusterfuck. The only available courses appear to be a US military coup or a revolution, neither of which seems likely. If Congress wasn’t completely compromised, they’d have already impeached Trump, so there is no legal solution.

Or the US or Israel may nuke Iran. This is already being normalized, with Mark Levin suggesting the situation is similar to Japan: drop a couple nuclear bombs to convince them to surrender.

The difference is that Japan had already lost the war conventionally, and Douglas MacArthur, among others, thought that they would have surrendered with the nuclear bombing. Iran has not lost conventionally, and they have retaliation ability against Israel. They can:

  1. Destroy the desalination plants that provide 80% of Israel’s drinking water;
  2. Hit the Dimona Nuclear reactor causing a containment breach which would make Israel uninhabitable; or,
  3. Make dirty bombs with their 60% enriched uranium. One gets thru, and Israel is, again, uninhabitable.

Iran doesn’t need nukes to destroy Israel. I hope someone has forced this knowledge on both Trump and Netanyahu. So far the Iranians have fought a very moral war, as such things go, but if they get nuked, one of those thirty-two mosaic commanders is going to retaliate hard.

Really tiresome watching the world’s stupidest people screw everything up because many of them felt the need to rape girls in houses rigged for video by the Mossad.

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Twenty-One Simple Facts About the Iranian War

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On April 7, 2026

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Update 3: Attacks continue on Lebanon and Iran, from Israel. Iran let two ships thru, then closed the Strait again. The original announcement from Pakistan said that Lebanon was part of the ceasefire, but then Israel said it didn’t, and now Trump says the same.

As ceasefires go, this isn’t one. I’ll probably write a new article when the situation becomes more clear, but so far the “Israel has Trump on a leash” hypothesis looks strong and the “Iran will not agree to a ceasefire” point looks like only needs to be modified to “no ceasefire is possible until Israel is beaten into the ground.”

Update: I’ll leave this up, but there’s a ceasefire, which I didn’t expect. Three possibilities:

1) Iran is getting the deal it wanted, and won the war.

2) They’re making a mistake.

3) Quite possible that Israel blows the ceasefire up.

Update 2:

This is Iran’s statement, if Trump did agree to all of this Iran just won:

In this plan, America is fundamentally committed to guaranteeing non-aggression, the continuation of Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz, the acceptance of enrichment, the lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions, the termination of all resolutions of the Security Council and the Board of Governors, the payment of Iran’s damages, the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from the region, and the cessation of war on all fronts, including against the heroic Islamic Resistance of Lebanon.

However Israel has said they will not cease attacks unless Iran opens the Hormuz, and they will continue attacks in Lebanon. In principle the agreement is between the US and Iran, and doesn’t include Israel, so Iran could just re-target all the drones and missiles which would have been used to America and Gulf States to Israel. Given Israel appears to be withing a few days of running out of interceptors, I think it’s clear who’d win that. I hope they do, and don’t abandon Lebanon. If they do, we’ll see how much control Israel has over Trump.

 

First, the war was started by America and Israel, not by Iran. There was no threat from Iran. This makes starting the war a war crime, the same crime for which many Nazis were hung at Nuremberg.

Second, there is no evidence that the Iranians had or were trying to get nuclear weapons. This is the consensus of the American intelligence community, who were under ferocious pressure to find otherwise.

Third, every person who condemns Iran without noting that that America started the war discredits themselves.

Fourth, every person who condemns Iran’s attacks on Gulf States without noting that the reason those states are being attacked is that they allow the US to launch attacks from their territory, discredits themselves.

Fifth, Iran has clearly stated that all the Gulf States have to do to stop being attacked is to stop allowing attacks from their territory and stop allowing Americans to have bases there.

Sixth, by both international law and by common sense, if you allow attacks on a third country from your country, you are a co-belligerent, whether or not your own military is involved. This matters specifically because the closer air power is to where they’re bombing, the more often they can bomb. The bases also matter because they hold (or did, till the Iranians destroyed most of them) communication and radar systems which aid America.

Seventh: If the Bushehr nuclear plant has had missiles land as close as the auxiliary building. The Russians have taken the threat so seriously that they have withdrawn their technicians. It is on the coast and if there is a containment breach, given the prevailing winds, fallout will contaminate the Persian Gulf. This will end desalination, which is how the Gulf nations get almost all their drinking water. It is also likely that the radiation will make the UAE and parts of Oman uninhabitable. All the oil from those regions will never be usable again.

Notice that such a containment breach will damage America’s allies far more than Iran. The map above is only partly accurate, the winds change and often blow south or west and not just southwest. Iran does have blocking mountains which should protect it quite a bit, but radiation is nasty stuff.

Eighth: Iran is capable of entirely destroying Israel. If nuked and possibly in the case of a containment breach, the majority of their arsenal will continue to exist. It is almost all hidden in deep underground mountain missile bases. In such a case Iran can retaliate by:

  • Destroying Israel’s desalination plants, which provide 80% of the drinking water;
  • Hitting the Dimona nuclear reactor and causing a breach would render Israel (a very small country) uninhabitable; or,
  • Iran has enough 60% enriched uranium to make dirty nuke bombs and send them by missile. Once again, this would make Israel uninhabitable.

Iran does not need nukes to destroy Israel. It can do so any time it chooses and this is a fact which American and Israeli planners seem to discount. Iran is a fairly ethical nation as nations go, and they also don’t want to kill Palestinians and Lebanese. But there are 32 Mosaic commanders. If Tehran is nuked, well, all it takes is for one of them to decide to get revenge.

Ninth: At this point Iranian missiles are getting thru a lot, because interceptor stockpiles are depleted. Claims of high interception rates are as believable as similar Ukrainian claims.

Tenth: it is not possible, absent perhaps dropping many nukes, and perhaps even then, to take out Iran’s ability to launch missiles. And even then if any are left, well, it won’t take many to wipe Israel off the map.

Eleven: Iran is not going to sign a ceasefire deal, because they know that Israel and the US will keep assassinating their leaders and eventually launch another war. Well, I was WRONG. I suspect Iran’s making a mistake, but we’ll see. Iran is saying Trump accepted their 10 point proposal, if so Iran won the war and this ceasefire makes sense.

Twelve: There can be no peace deal which leaves the US any bases in the region, because the US is, to use the delightful Russian phrase “agreement incapable.” The US has never kept any agreement it didn’t feel like keeping and it certainly won’t do so with Iran. Any promises to never attack again and stop assassinations cannot and will not be trusted by Iran’s leadership. This means Iran must win the war decisively, in a way that makes it as difficult as possible for the US to attack again (no bases in region) and Israel too scared to do so because they know any attack or assassination will mean immediate and savage retaliation.

Thirteen: The Iranians have included Lebanon and Hezbollah in their demands: Israel will have to withdraw from Lebanon and stay out and not bomb it ever again. Again, this is a maximal goal and requires a complete victory.

Fourteen: Iran is never giving up control over the Strait of Hormuz. This is especially true now that their industry and civil networks have been hit hard. They will need a lot of money to rebuild. They have also said they want reparations. I don’t think that will happen, but I could be wrong. The more damage the US and Israel do, the more Iran is incentivized to use Hormuz as a lever to get money.

Fifteen:  A side effect of this war is that weapons stockpiles have been drawn down from the entire world. There was  never any possibility of the US winning a war with China, there is no longer any possibility of even fighting such a war.

Sixteen: None of the weapons being used up can be replaced in any significant numbers without Chinese materials, and even if China cooperates it will take at least a decade to rebuild credible stockpiles.

Seventeen: Iran has pushed the Americans back significantly. Their sortie rate has dropped, and they are running out of stand-off munitions. That means they have to fly closer and risk their planes, and if they insist on using Gulf bases they risk planes being destroyed on the ground, as has already happened.

Eighteen: Carrier groups have been forced back to maximum range. They are no longer the Queens of the Sea, and it is not credible that they could be used against China or Russia, both of whom have longer range missiles and in the case of China, enough to simply deplete the entire carrier group’s interception missiles.

Nineteen: Barring the use of nukes, Iran will win this war. The longer it takes and the more damage that is done to them, the more they will use their control of Hormuz and their ability to hit any Gulf State, to obtain the needed reconstruction funds and assistance.

Twenty: Internationally this war is the end of the American global Empire. Everyone knows how to defeat them now. They will retreat to the Americas and try and push around local states. China and Russia are big winners, Europe’s deindustrialization will accelerate and Europe will continue its descent into a meaningless backwards and poor region.

Twenty-One: The economic impact of this war, even if it stopped today, would be bad enough to cause a major worldwide recession. If it continues, we will see economic devastation which will last for years. There will be famines. There will be brown outs and blackouts. Jet travel will only be for the wealthy. International trade will crater due to lack of bunker fuel and most goods will rise in price and/or become rare, how much so depending on where you live. Price increases will be much higher than necessary in the Anglosphere, in particular, as oligarchs use the excuse to jack up prices even more than they need to and governments do nothing to stop them. The AI bubble is most likely toast. Oh, and prices of all devices with chips in them are about to soar throught the roof.

***

This was and is a stupid war which neither Israel nor America should have ever fought. It is an endless series war crime, with deliberate and extensive attacks on civilians and repeated genocidal threats. It has demolished what little credibility remained in the West, as leader after leader condemns Iran and somehow leaves out that America started the war and that Iran’s attacks on infrastructure were retaliations after their infrastructure was hit. It is going to cause economic catastrophe, kill millions from hunger and power disruptions, and if Trump goes completely insane it could lead to the end of Israel and Iran both.

I’ve always said the stupidest war in history was World War I, the “Great War.” But this one may wind up taking the crown.

Finally, if the US had a functioning government, Trump would be impeached or removed under the 25th amendment. It does not, and this war has made that clear. There is no possibility of making deals with America and the only sane policy for every nation in the world is to disengage economically and militarily as quickly as they can while trying to avoid an American attack.

(A small laugh after a grim post)

 

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It’s Time For Iraq To Free Itself And Get Revenge For the Gulf and Iraq Wars

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On March 30, 2026

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You may remember when Iraq said “Americans must remove all troops from Iraq” and the US said “who cares what you think?”

Well, right now the Iraq resistance is removing all American troops from Iraq. They can’t defend their bases and even had to beg for a truce to remove troops.

But the real problem isn’t American troops in Iraq, it’s financial:

The U.S. control over Iraq’s oil revenues primarily stems from the management of Iraq’s oil income through the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. After the 2003 invasion, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), led by the U.S., established the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which was held at the New York Fed. The DFI was designed to collect Iraq’s oil revenues and use them for the country’s reconstruction and development. It was also set up to protect the Iraqi oil revenues from lawsuits and claims relating to Saddam Hussein’s rule. Then-president George W. Bush signed an executive order, which has been renewed by every president since, that set up the arrangement. The DFI eventually became an account of the Central Bank of Iraq at the New York Federal Reserve, which remains the case today.
What leverage does this give the U.S. over Iraq?
Oil is Iraq’s most important revenue source, accounting for some 90% of the state budget. This gives Washington significant sway over the country’s economic and political stability. When the Iraqi government asked U.S. troops to leave the country in 2020, Washington reportedly threatened to cut Iraq’s access to the New York Federal Reserve funds, with Baghdad ultimately backing down. While the Iraqi government has gained more control over its financial affairs since the early years of the U.S. occupation, the ongoing relationship highlights the enduring influence of the U.S. on Iraq’s economic landscape, even as the country seeks to assert its sovereignty and independence.

This is the time to end the arrangement. Go to China. Ask them for an account and for a credit equal to the amount now held in American hands. It’s hard to get an accurate figure, but it’s not that large, perhaps a hundred billion or so (that may seem like real money, it isn’t.)

Switch to selling oil in Yuan, the Chinese have a banking system which completely routes around SWIFT. Then just sell their oil to China and other countries who use the system: there’s more than enough demand, especially right now. Iran will let Iraqi oil out, especially under these circumstances. And who needs dollars any more? Anything Iraq needs it can buy from China in Yuan.

Now, Saddam’s revenge.

If you’re old enough you remember the first Gulf War. Iraq invaded Kuwait. Saddam had asked for permission from the US and the response was one Saddam believed was positive. And, after all, Saddam had fought an entire very destructive war against Iran for the US: he was an American proxy. Kuwait was created explicitly over a huge oil reserve as a way of keeping it from Iraq, which it really should be part of: it’s a colonial era legacy state.

Well, the US didn’t approve and the Iraqis got slaughtered, their power, sewage and water infrastructure was systematically destroyed, then Clinton subjected them to savage sanctions which killed million. Estimates of child casualties were over 500,000, based on population studies. Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeline Albright, when asked about this, infamously replied that the deaths were “worth it.”

Anyway, Kuwait’s military is a joke, it’s right next to Iraq and conquering it would be trivial, since there’s no easy way for the US to get troops there. So, switch to China and the Yuan, finish kicking the Americans out, and conquer Kuwait. (No one will cry, Kuwait’s rulers are absolute scum.)

This is a historic opportunity for Iraq, and they should take it.

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Getting Real About The Second Iranian War

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On March 27, 2026

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I saw an article today by the American Conservatives, who tend to be more sensible than most conservatives. It posits that peace can’t be made with Iran till Trump gets tough with Israel, because it’s Israel who keeps escalating.

This is true, but it avoids the pedo-elephant in the room.

It is almost certain that Israel has blackmail on Trump. Videos and pictures of him raping kids or young teenagers. (I print this because I know there is zero chance Trump can risk discovery at a trial.)

Trump is completely compromised. He’s on a leash.

Is this 100%? Of course not. But well over 90%. Trump was Epstein’s best friend for years, and Epstein’s properties were all saturated with video cameras. Epstein clearly worked for Israel.

Trump needs to be impeached or removed with the 25th Amendment, but the problem is that a proportion of Congress are certainly compromised as well, another proportion are bought and paid for, and another proportion are scared of Zionist money being used against them.

So the war seems likely to go on until Israel wants it to stop, and what Trump wants is irrelevant. As for ordinary Americans, their interests are not represented: no one in power gives a damn what they think. The correct action is revolution, but Americans talk big about the 2nd amendment, they don’t use it to resist tyranny.

Iran has some simple needs to be willing to declare peace, the most important of which is “this is the last war”, the second of which is “no more assassinations and no more attacks” and the third of which is “since we can’t trust you to keep any agreement we have to make you incapable of attacking us again or too terrified to do it.”

Manjier has a lot of contacts in the Resistance, here’s the list he published:

Notice that it includes stopping the war/genocide on Libya/Hezbollah and Gaza. There’s no way the Israelis will agree to that unless they have no choice.

I don’t see any way this war ends before Israel is a smoking ruin, and the Gulf States are so terrified of Iran they declare they’ll never allow US bases in their countries again.

Can Iran enforce this? I think so. The US and Israel seem to be running out of interceptors a lot faster than Iran’s running out of missiles and drones. China’s in their corner, quietly supplying them with all the “non military” equipment they need. And Iran’s pain tolerance is extremely high: the decision makers know that if they don’t win decisively again Israel will just assassinate them later and probably kill their families at the same. The new Ayatollah lost his father, wife and kids.

Here’s one analysis of the munitions numbers:

 

The problem, as has been stated many times, is that no “deal” is possible. America will not keep them. Israel will not keep them. So they must be defeated for Iran and its leaders to be safe. The victory must be crushing. If I were in Iran, I would be making the exact same calculation.

We’ll end this with another Iranian propaganda video, sort of a palate cleanser.

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Pro Iran War Propaganda Videos

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On March 25, 2026

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Of all the wars I’ve covered in my writing career, this one has been the hardest in the sense that figuring out what’s true and what isn’t is difficult. The baseline assumption is that nothing the US says about the war can be trusted. Most of what Iran says in concrete terms about what they fired and hit can be trusted. AI images and video have proliferated, so the old “show me picture” routine doesn’t work unless y0u’re a good image analyst and willing to spend hours. Trump, of course, lies about everything. Iranian official media exists, but it’s often censored by the West so reading their official statements is often difficult.

All that said, I think it’s time for something different: a collection of propaganda videos that are Pro-Iranian. Because of all the above, it’s unclear to me if these are official, but they’re interesting nonetheless.

The first appears to be official, was published by Russian “news” outfit RT, and makes the ethical case:


Iranian underwater drones:


This one made me laugh:

And the Korroamshahr-4 missile:

More serious posts next, though the third video is actually a pretty accurate summary of Iranian war efforts so far.

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Shockwaves From The Second Iranian American War

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On March 24, 2026

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Some of the issues from the Iranian war are obvious: everyone’s talking about oil and natural gas, for example. Many have mentioned fertilizer. But I think it’s worth going into in a bit more depth.

First is that in addition to gasoline, oil is used to make bunker fuel (98% of freighters and tankers), jet fuel, and diesel (heavy machinery, large trucks.) The prices for all three are rising faster than gasoline prices and there will be a worldwide shortage. Production of semiconductors, phones and so on will shut down some time after that, depending on how the small reserves available are shared out. Taiwan is particularly vulnerable and production can be expected shut down in a couple weeks.

The chart below is from six days ago:

Don’t take the above chart too seriously, I’ve heard different numbers from different sources, and the type of oil in reserve matters a LOT.

This will, of course, hit the AI Bros hard. They have significant stockpiles of some of what they need, but not everything. Worried about that data center coming to where you live? If you’re lucky, Iran has just saved you from an AI driven spike in your energy prices, but not an oil shortage spike!

Airlines are already reducing flights. Expect prices for travel to spike significantly. If you don’t already have tickets for a trip get them now. Even so, it wouldn’t surprise me if many already booked flights are cancelled without recourse, citing forece majeur. Diesel and bunker oil shortages will mean supply line disruptions, and primary processing disruptions. Fertilizer shortages are already changing planting decisions, farmers in Australia are planning on planting much less wheat, for example.

Oil goes into a lot of things. Here are a couple of graphics showing some of them:

And,

To oversimplify, pretty much everything has some oil in it. For example I’m stocking up on NSAIDs and Tylenol 2s (legal in Canada.) I saw one person saying they went out and bought about a year’s supply of pretty much everything which can be stored. One side benefit may be that insane levels of plastic packaging might, at least, be reduced.

China’s bunkering up. No refined oil products are being allowed for export. Fortunately for China, they, unlike apparently almost every other nation in the world, are not run by retards, so they have massive petroleum reserves and they bought about 50% of the world’s grain production for the last four years and stored much of it. But this goes far beyond petrochem: they produce, for example, almost all of the world’s tungsten, and no more exports of that.

Stockpiles in the the West are essentially at zero, right now, and yes, most advanced weapons cannot be made without Tungsten.

There’s been a crash in silver prices recently. You may have read about it. But here’s the thing, there’s an actual physical shortage of it because it’s used in essentially all electronics, including semiconductors and even more importantly, solar panels. Everyone’s going to want solar panels now.

China, not being fools, are no longer allowing export of silver because they know it’s the physical shortage that matters, not the paper price on paper exchanges where delivery isn’t expected to happen.

I spent years railing that just-in-time logistics was sheer fucking insanity and should be outlawed. In addition every country who isn’t a net producer should have at least year’s stockpile of fuel and even net producers should have three years of food stored (because things like droughts and fertilizer shortages happen.) Medication and key medical goods should also be stockpiled. A lot of people are going to suffer and die when key drugs hit shortage and many cancer drugs, for example, are produced in India and on top of the factories not being able to operate without energy, many drugs use petrochemical derivatives directly.

This war should never have happened. Even if it ended now there would be serious shortages for about four to five months, and it would be three to four years before full production could be resumed, if it can be. (Shutting down oil and gas well production often damages the underlying fields.)

Oh, and which major nations will suffer the least? Russia and China. It is to laugh.

I know this is the second article on this subject in a few days, but the impacts of the war are important for you to understand.

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This Is The End Of The American Empire. Period.

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On March 20, 2026

31 Comments

My friends, this is it. America isn’t going to win this war, unless they use nukes, but even if I’m wrong and they squeeze out their .01% chance of success, it is over. The army is exhausted and can’t be re-armed in less than a decade, with Chinese help. The Middle East will be in ruins. The AI bubble will crash out without money and resources from the Gulf. Everyone’s going to turn hard from hydrocarbons to renewables, especially solar, and that means China is going to make absolute bank.

This is the second stupidest war decision I’ve seen in my entire life. (The first was Ukraine refusing a very generous peace deal and, as a result, losing the majority of its fighting and breeding age male population.)

The war is lost. It was lost the moment Iran proved it could keep fighting and wouldn’t accept a peace without achieving its aims. The Americans, with, it appears, help from NATO nations, are going to try and open the Strait militarily. They will fail and it will be a military clusterfuck of epic proportions. There is approximately zero chance of opening the Strait, and if they are stupid enough to try and land marines, those marines are DEAD.

I have never seen such military insanity in my life. If I were a colonel in the US army I’d be organizing a coup and I am not kidding. There are suicide missions and then there’s trying to land troops in the Strait while Iran has missile and drone dominance, thousands of speed boats and has mined the Strait. The US does not have air superiority, even, we just saw the Iranians hit an f-35, they’ve shot down at least eight aerial refueling planes, forced the US to keep its aircraft carriers far away, made it impossible to use most of the local bases and taken out almost all US radars in the area.

This is a loss. The smart thing for the US to do would be to just declare the war is over and evacuate the region. If Israel wants to fight on its own, let it.

But the Israelis almost certainly have video of Trump raping kids, and Americans can’t admit they’re losing, so the war will go on.

The oil field damage is severe enough already that it will take years to repair. Iran will probably retain control over the Strait permanently, deciding who gets to transit. Nations they like go thru free. Nations they hate have no access. Everyone else pays: after all Iran’s going to have a lot of rebuilding to do.

Meanwhile France, still under the delusion that it’s a great power, seized another Russian oil tanker. The Russians have said they’re considering military escorts in the future. This could go south in very bad ways, and France’s missile defense systems and interceptor stockpiles are not in any shape to fight a war with Russia. The EU has decided not to ease Russian oil sanctions and Putin, in any case, has said he doesn’t want to sell to Europeans any more because they’re unreliable.

Europe’s industrial base is evaporating. They’re so far behind in tech that they don’t even show up on lists of the top five tech leaders, even when you lump all of the EU together. (Top 4 are China/US/Japan/South Korea.) Trump just massively cut science and tech spending and scientists and academics are fleeing the US, often for China. Russia, by itself, produces more missiles, drones and artillery shells than all of NATO, which should tell you meaningless GDP is as a measure of state capacity.

The US is about to become a regional power. And I don’t think it will sustain even that. Iran has just taught everyone how to make tangling with even a medium sized nation unbelievably painful. The process of turning into porcupines should take five to ten years, at which point the US navy loses 90% of its power projection ability.

Further the loss of dollar hegemony will lead to a good 30% drop in the American standard of living. But America’s cost structure (if you need an MRI fly to China, stay in a five star hotel for a week and pay cash for your MRI. It’ll cost less than getting it in America) means that high nominal wages mean very little. Americans are going to strangle slowly to death. Meanwhile one-third of the world’s fertilizer supplies are about to evaporate, helium (used to make chips among other things) is about to become rare and expensive and China has put export controls on key elements like silver and all petroleum products. As the supply chain shocks multiply (who thought just in time was smart? Oh, all the usual morons) multiple countries will stop exporting key goods up to and including food.

US bases have been proven not to protect your country but to make it a target. Every American ally is noticing this and the Phillipines and South Korea in particular are taking note. Japan is still talking tough, but they’re being morons. They either get nukes and destroy their economy when China sanctions them, or they cut a deal.

The scale of this clusterfuck is mind boggling. America is destroying its ability to coerce other nations, destroying its economy and making having an alliance with it not just worthless but actively a detriment, while devastating all of its allies’ economies: Europe, Japan and South Korea are all going to take HUGE hits from this.

Meanwhile China’s oil stockpiles are at record highs, they spent the last 4 years buying 50% of the world’s grain supply and piling it up, and their hard move into renewables has proved to be 100% correct. As for Russia, another big winner, since their oil and gas, minus some minor damage from the Ukraine war is just fine, thanks.

While Ukraine’s decision to fight the Russians as a cat’s paw for the US was arguably worse it lacks the awe-inspring scale of this bout of epic stupidity.

As Mencken wrote,

“the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

And here we are. Americans elected the stupidest President in history, a known rapist, a pedophile being blackmailed by a foreign power, a con man, who is also suffering from dementia and all of this was known before he was elected to anyone paying attention.

America’s empire was doomed by Reagan and Clinton. Trump’s just bringing it to a messy end. But the decline could have taken another twenty years and been much, much less painful. Trump has decided to end it in the most spectacular and stupid manner unimaginable to anyone with the intelligence of a door-mouse. Meanwhile, Europe’s pygmy leaders are feeding Europe’s economy into a woodchipper, foot first and greasing the gears, “why is this machine so slow!? What can we do to speed it up?”

Welcome to the end of Western hegemony. It’s stupider, more venal and more darkly funny than I could ever have imagined.

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Personal Consequences Of The Iran War

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On March 18, 2026

19 Comments

I’ll keep this one short. Israel just hit a major Iranian oilfield. Iran has said it will now hit Gulf oilfields in retaliation. Ali Larijani, probably the last person in the Iranian administration who could have negotiated an off-ramp, has been assassinated.

This war is about to enter the economic devastation phase.

Unless you live in China (bought half the world’s grain production for the last 4 years and massively increased its fuel stockpiles) you’d better start preparing. Stock up on food. Check your local power grid to see how reliant it is on natural gas and oil turbines (Europeans, this is you.) Buy medicine. Acetaminophen, for example, is basically 100% a petroleum product. Figure out how to stay warm or cool and how to cook — can you still get some solar power and batteries. India mostly relies on gas for cooking, and it’s going to run out soon.

Australia’s got maybe 3 weeks of petroleum left. The Gulf States aren’t going to be able to run air conditioning soon. Everyone’s going to start putting export bans on key supply chain items soon. The Chinese have already banned export of natural gas and oil, but this will spread to food, key medicines, etc, etc… if the war goes on much longer.

Don’t assume this is all going to work out, even in most countries which can keep the power on and enough food, there will be price increases. A lot of the world economy is based around oil, gas and… fertilizers. About a third of the world’s fertilizers come from the Gulf, thru the Strait. Even if the war ends in a couple weeks, there will be aftershocks, and, of course, companies like supermarkets will jack up prices then keep them up even after the shock, just like they did during Covid.

But over the next few months expect shortages and increased prices and in some parts of the world straight up energy brown outs.

Unless you’re Chinese or Russian, don’t expect your government to do anything competent to protect you. Even if it can, it won’t, unless you’re part of the 1% at least.

Prepare. Perhaps we’ll be lucky, but don’t be count on it.

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