Streetwise Professor

Yesterday’s post presented the evidence for and the implications of Elon Musk’s throttling of Ukraine’s Starlink/Starshield access. Since then, additional evidence makes this an established fact. Most notably, reporting in the WSJ that Trump (on bended knee?) asked Musk to release his grip (and WSJ reporting today that uneven Starshield restrictions are still persisting even after Trump’s call). When asked about it, the normally no-filter Trump declined to answer. Mark that down as confirmation.

But it gets better! Today’s brief, co-authored with @LibertyLynx (who originated, architected, and built the entire SGP4 orbital, FCC regulatory, and corporate forensic investigation from the ground up), demonstrates the near certainty that in addition to undermining Ukraine’s defensive capabilities (where the 130 to 160 km/h speed cap cut Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces validated target output by 23.0%), Musk/SpaceX compromised, or at least threatened to compromise, Ukraine’s offensive capability. Specifically, its capability to attack refineries and other targets within Russia.

The brief is extremely detailed and extensive, so here’s the TLDR version (though I do encourage reading it). Ukraine relies on Starlink/Starshield to control drones for operations at the front (and the logistical zone) and counter Russian aerial attacks. It does not use Starlink for reconnaissance and targeting of strikes deep inside Russia. For that it relies on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery from the ICEYE-X36 (NORAD 59103) satellite, operated by ICEYE US (the U.S. subsidiary of a Finnish company, operating under FCC license S3165).

Beginning on 15 October, within 48 hours of the Starshield throttle, a Russian inspector satellite, COSMOS 2612 (NORAD 68762), maneuvered to within less than a kilometer of X36 (closing to 0.76 km in the public catalog, and within a few hundred meters per optical trackers). And here’s the thing. Russia relies on ground-based radars that can only observe an orbiting satellite like X36 for narrow time windows (leaving 6 to 11 hour tracking gaps), and which do not allow it to track X36 continuously and with sufficient precision to arrange an intercept in which COSMOS 2612 compressed 364.3 hours of natural orbital drift into a 25.5-hour sprint (a 14.29x closure compression from 425 km away, cutting separation by 382.7 km relative to its pre-sprint orbit), braked, and then remained within a kilometer for more than 12 hours before moving away. (And across every Russian maneuver transition, the public Space-Track catalog lagged behind by 19.4 to 22.7 hours.)

Who can provide that real-time information? SpaceX. At the exact time COSMOS 2612 began its sprint (15 October at 04:15 UTC), X36 sat inside a 401-meter public collision alert with SpaceX’s STARLINK-35856 (NORAD 67013, where SpaceX’s private operator ephemeris diverged from public data by 15.37 to 30.13 km while carrying a 2.862 km 3D position uncertainty). Because X36 only has one trajectory, this overlapping Starlink alert pinned X36 in place—preventing it from executing a 0.5 km evasive altitude drop as it had in June (which generates 71 km/day of drift and exits a 3 km Russian braking box in 61 minutes), while requiring X36 under FCC Condition 16 to coordinate its trajectory with SpaceX. Under SpaceX’s Space Safety Terms of Service (Appendix A and Section 4(b)), committed maneuver trajectories uploaded to SpaceX are exposed to third-party sharing with a $500 liability cap (Section 10). Moreover, SpaceX tracks the 540 to 550 km orbital shell at 10 to 15 minute intervals using its 31,000 Stargaze cameras—and conveniently onboarded Chinese operators to its Space Safety platform on 6 and 16 October. Again, with its ground resources alone, Russia would have been flying COSMOS 2612 blind.

No other entity has all five of these capabilities. The intercept would not have been possible without these capabilities.

Nice little satellite you got here. A shame if anything happened to it. A threat that could only have been delivered with the help of SpaceX/Starlink/Musk. I further note that Russia has not delivered a similar threat to any Starlink asset while Tesla’s Q3 10-Q (filed 30 September) discloses $5.966 billion in rolling Chinese working-capital debt maturing between October 2026 and September 2027 and explicitly admits “presumed significant influence” over SpaceX through their shared CEO.

Goldfinger famously said: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.” The simultaneous throttling of Ukraine’s defensive capability and compromising/threatening of its offensive capability, the first definitively attributed to SpaceX and the second solely within SpaceX’s capability, makes plain that Musk has acted against Ukraine and for Russia. Enemy action, indeed.

SpaceX’s culpability here is indisputable. The only open question is whether Musk acted on his own, or in connivance with the administration/Pentagon. And just as was the case with yesterday’s post, both alternatives are disturbing in their own way.

Trump’s, Rubio’s, and Hegseth’s claims that the administration had nothing to do with throttling Starlink may or may not be true. Trump’s asking Musk pretty please to turn it back on could be genuine, or it could be Kabuki. Again, neither alternative is good. If the President of the United States is reduced to a supplicant, and Musk has the unilateral authority (shielded by commercial Terms of Service) to make decisions with such vital national security implications, and perhaps to do so in cooperation with American enemies, we are in a very bad place. Especially given how embedded SpaceX currently is within the Pentagon as we head toward Round Two with Iran.

AI hysteria has predictably led to calls to regulate! regulate! regulate!, seemingly from all corners except for the Trump administration and NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang. Those baying for “regulation” include frontier model leaders Anthropic and OpenAI.

I put “regulation” in quotes because as is often the case, those calling for regulation are imprecise on just what regulation should entail, and have evidently given little serious consideration to how regulation works in practice. The word is usually more of a magic incantation than a description of something real that has any chance of realizing the goals of those using it.

So what should AI regulation look like? To answer that question, it’s important to start at the basics.

Decades ago Steve Shavell wrote two important articles that speak to the subject: “Liability for Harm Versus Regulation of Safety” (JLE, 1984) and “The Optimal Structure of Law Enforcement” (JLS, 1993). Shavell laid out several criteria for determining the best way to regulate.

Broadly speaking, there are two alternative methods of regulation. Harm-based (“ex post“) sanctions that attempt to deter harmful conduct, and preventative (“ex ante“) regulations. The former includes the common law tort system, and civil and criminal laws. The latter includes things like government approval for the sale of a product, with FDA approval of drugs being an example. Many of the calls to regulate AI fall in the latter category, and some members of the Trump administration basically advocate the former.

So which is best here?

Shavell identifies several factors that determine the optimal legal structure. On balance, these favor ex post/harm-based tort-like approaches.

The first criterion is “is the possibility of a difference in knowledge about risky activities as between private parties and a regulatory authority.” That is, information asymmetry between the regulator and the regulated.

This is quite intuitive. If an actor (an AI firm, in this instance) has better information about the likelihood its actions will cause harm, and the amount of harm it will cause than does a regulator, if it knows it will pay damages commensurate with the harm it causes, it can take the efficient precautions. It will appropriately trade off the cost of mitigating harms (including the cost associated with reduced performance) with the cost of the harms because the prospect of paying damages based on costs and probabilities of harms will induce it to internalize the costs of its actions.

In contrast, an ignorant regulator knows less about the probabilities and magnitudes, and is therefore likely to implement measures that are either overinclusive or underinclusive. That is, regulators are far more prone to Type I and Type II errors.

It is clearly the case with AI that the developers-the labs/frontier firms in particular-will be far better informed about their creations and the risks that they pose than any government regulator would be.

Shavell’s second criterion is “that private parties might be incapable of paying for the full magnitude of harm done.” That is, in the present context, an AI firm might be “judgment proof.” In the event, the actor will not internalize the costs it imposes on third parties, and will tend to take excessive risks and impose excessive harms. Here, external interventions that constrain actions in order to reduce the magnitude and frequency of harms can be superior to deterrence.

The inability to impose monetary damages commensurate with harms is one justification for criminal sanctions, including imprisonment or even execution. These are non-monetary penalties that enhance deterrence.

This is one factor that might-might-favor ex ante regulation. Anthropic or OpenAI (or any other firm) could not pay damages commensurate with harm if that harm is the end of humanity!

But this brings us back to the first issue. In deciding whether judgment proofness is indeed a problem, we need to have some assessment of the distribution of harms, and here the AI firms have a decisive information advantage. And as I discuss below, we absolutely cannot take at face value the pronouncements of Amodei, Altman, Musk, et al, on the potential harms posed by AI, or their likelihood.

And more, even though judgment proofness may preclude AI firms from fully internalizing costs of their products (especially the harms they may create), bureaucrats operating subject to low powered incentives clearly don’t internalize them. Nor do they internalize the benefits of more capable AI. Therefore, although judgment proofness may be a necessary condition for ex ante regulation, it is not a sufficient one.

Shavell’s third factor is “the chance that parties would not face threat of suit for the harms done.”

In the US legal system? As if! Indeed, the likely bigger problem with relying on the tort system to deter would lead to suits for harms not done, i.e., frivolous or baseless litigation.

Shavell’s last factor is the relative administrative costs of the two systems, i.e., the cost of a regulatory bureaucracy vs. the costs of litigation.

Both litigation and bureaucracy are costly. The advantage of ex post, harm-based regulation is that the litigation costs are only incurred when a harm incurs: no harm, no foul, no legal expense (with the caveat related to frivolous litigation mentioned above). In contrast, the bureaucracy must be fed continuously, even in the absence of harms.

And note that regulation would necessarily have to be international in scope. Look at the post-Great Financial Crisis history of banking and financial regulation for a demonstration of the monumental costs and challenges of international regulation. AI regulation would put even that in the shade, especially since it adds China and strategic competition into the mix.

To which, I would add another factor: influence costs, including regulatory capture. It is well known that the regulated exploit their information advantages and financial resources to induce regulators to take actions that benefit some regulated entities, at the expense of other entities and the public at large. This is especially likely to work when the regulated have a big information advantage (check) and a lot of money (check).

Overall, to me the scorecard tilts heavily in favor of ex post, harm-based, liability mechanisms as opposed to ex ante regulation. This is especially true given the radical uncertainty and information asymmetries inherent in such a dramatically new technology. We are learning the harms as we go, and the developers learn more and faster than any bureaucrat can. Indeed, being liable for harms gives the developers a strong incentive to identify those potential harms-their magnitudes and likelihoods. A far stronger incentive than bureaucrats have.

And that provides a segue into a discussion of one of the most fascinating aspects of the ongoing debate/hysteria: the fact that the frontier labs are the loudest and most strident voices calling for regulation. In my opinion, this is overdetermined.

A major reason is that Anthropic et al are deathly afraid of being liable for the harms their products cause. Palantir’s Alex Karp perhaps overstates the case when he says they are effectively calling for nationalization in order to avoid liability, but I think it’s pretty clear that avoiding paying for the harms their products cause is a major driver behind the calls–pleas, really–for regulation.

Which, to be honest, another reason to favor a liability-based system. It suggests they understand that even precluding the end of the world or singularity scenarios, they are aware that their products can do great damage. The only way to get them to act on this knowledge is to force them to pay the costs, and not be able to say “don’t look at me! The regulators approved what I did!”

Another reason-the one that has received most commentary-is that the frontier firms know that they would be able to capture their regulator(s) by exploiting their information advantage and vast wealth. And as George Stigler pointed out long ago, the biggest benefit a regulator can bestow on its industry masters is a reduction in competition, including by the erection of entry barriers. As I’ve written with respect to financial regulation, regulatory costs are largely fixed and therefore benefit large incumbents at the expense of new, smaller, disruptor entrants.

There is another reason that is laid bare by some of the specific rhetoric and actions of Amodei, Altman, et al: a belief that intense competition between the frontier firms, let alone between them and open weight models, small models, etc., will be ruinous to them.

The cabal has been negotiating in public for “pacing,” i.e., a coordinated slowdown of model development. Competition on the capability dimension is hugely expensive, especially with respect to training. I view the various public statements-including the apocalyptic rhetoric justifying a slowdown-to be “cheap talk” intended to coordinate reduced investment. A way of cartelizing the industry.

Which leads to another motive for favoring regulation–protection from antitrust laws.

A coordinated slowdown would also address something else that I think looms over them. The whole AI sector is a bet on future demand, future prices (which depend on demand and competition from non-frontier implementations), the costs of production (e.g., data center investment and operational costs, including notably electricity), and the execution timeline (e.g., will bringing data centers online be delayed by supply chain bottlenecks or local political opposition?) Doubts have been increasing on all these dimensions, and I strongly suspect that the industry insiders fear that their massive investments (at all levels of the value chain) will not pay off if the current pace and growth are maintained. That is, the “pause” is not driven by safety fears, but by fears of a financial bloodbath.

It reminds me of Stalin’s pausing collectivization because he was “dizzy with success.” AI has been so successful that it has led to dizzying excesses that need to be reined in.

So there are many reasons for AI executives to want a pause. I think all are operative, and all push in the same direction–regulation by means other than liability.

But the nature of the industry and the product and the economics of harm reduction mean that a liability mechanism is the best way to address the safety concerns surrounding AI. That mechanism would give AI developers the strongest incentive to control the risks that they lecture us about daily. Anthropic doesn’t need OpenAI to mitigate the risks of its models, and vice versa. Internalize costs via a liability system and they will unilaterally have the incentive to do so.

Elon Musk enterprises are deeply embedded in the US national security establishment, most notably via SpaceX’s space ventures, but now via its xAI subsidiary and its Grok AI. The Department of War’s/Defence’s set-to with Anthropic demonstrates that an AI enterprise’s interests can potentially conflict with the Department, which could pose a security issue if the enterprise attempted to hold it up by restricting use in some way. The same risk could arise with Grok.

The embedded documents, prepared by @LibertyLynx and I, analyzes in detail the holdup potential for Grok. The basic conclusion is that the DoW has access to multiple AI providers, and can switch out at short notice–but not immediately. That matters, because in war, mere moments can count (what Patton called “the unforgiving minute”), meaning that even a fleeting withholding or even degradation of Grok (or another AI) could have dire consequences. In an optimistic case, a switch out would take 96 hours–pretty much the time that the ground campaign in Desert Storm lasted. A military eternity, in other words. That is, there are acute “temporal specificities.”

As the US military becomes more reliant on AI, especially for operational functions (e.g., targeting), the model relied on will become a potential single point of failure. As we analyze in the attached documents, failures can arise for purely technological reasons, or because of human interference with employment of the models–the latter being the holdup problem.

The reason that the Pentagon attempted to axe Anthropic was that the company demanded the power to withhold deployment of its models for purposes that it deemed incompatible with company values. That is, a deployed model posed holdup risks that the Pentagon deemed unacceptable.

It is troubling enough to extend someone as mercurial and megalomaniacal as Musk serious holdup power that the Pentagon assumed unacceptable in the case of Anthropic. If Anthropic’s values are problematic, what about Musk’s?

What is even more troubling is that Musk is deeply embedded in China. Specifically, Tesla is very dependent on China, to an extent that is barely appreciated in the United States–in large part because Musk hardly says anything about it, in contrast to his pontifications on pretty much every other subject known to man.

A majority of Tesla production is in China. Tellingly, Tesla’s output per unit of fixed assets is far higher in China than in the US. Moreover, Tesla gets appreciable funding from China. It hardly seems prudent to give an individual with such conflicting interests as Musk control over a vital defense function that requires complete reliability 24/7, and which is characterized by acute temporal specificity.

There is a fundamental economic challenge here. The government does not have a comparative advantage in developing these models, and is inherently reliant on the developers for continuous support of their operation. But given the specificity of these assets, what contracting and governance mechanisms can be put in place to protect the government against opportunistic behavior by the model developers? It’s an inherently daunting challenge, and those challenges are particularly acute when the counterparty is one of the world’s most egregious opportunists who is known for using his leverage to benefit himself. Of all the people to give leverage to . . .

Some problems could be mitigated by requiring Musk to sever his China connections. That would change his incentives, but would not change him.

Our research also raises questions about how disinterested Secretary of War/Defense Hegseth and his Chief Technology Officer, Emil Michael, were in their Anthropic decision, and their subsequent embrace of Grok.

The embedded documents analyze these issues in detail, and highlights issues that have received too little attention amidst the ongoing hype over space, digital data centers, and AI. Not that those are unimportant, and will the the subject of future similar posts.

The interwebs are all ablaze with the news that Chinese oil demand has collapsed, and that this is why the rise oil prices has been moderate as compared to expectations, given the size of the supply shock.

No no no no no no no (repeat ad infinitum).

Chinese quantity demanded has fallen. That’s a movement along a demand curve. “Demand has fallen” is an inward shift in the demand curve. Very, very different.

If this seems pedantic: (a) it isn’t, because it is an important distinction, and (b) whatever–it’s a pet peeve precisely because I see this mistake over and over and it leads people to extremely erroneous conclusions.

The unexpectedly large decline in Chinese oil consumption (not demand) means that Chinese demand has turned out to be far more elastic than anticipated. That is, the demand curve is flatter than had been believed.

Note that a more elastic Chinese demand curve translates into a more elastic world demand curve for oil than previously believed, especially since China represents such a large fraction of world consumption. This, in turn, means that the price effect of the supply shock due to the closure of Hormuz has been far less severe than had been anticipated.

It’s interesting to ponder why Chinese demand is apparently so elastic, and why analysts apparently didn’t realize how elastic it is.

The Slutsky equation breaks down demand elasticity into two parts, a substitution effect and an income effect. The income effect is the product of expenditure share and income elasticity. So goods that account for a large share of consumption expenditure have large elasticities, ceteris paribus. Similarly, more income elastic goods are more price elastic. So high expenditure shares or income elasticity could be part of the story.

Furthermore, the demand for oil is a derived demand–it depends on the demand for final goods produced with oil, and the supply curve for transforming oil into final (or at least further downstream) goods. Meaning that elastic final goods demand and/or more elastic transformation supply curves contribute to elastic oil demand. With respect to China, the overcapacity situation can make supply elastic and contribute to demand elasticity.

With respect to why analysts seemingly underestimated Chinese demand elasticity, I wonder if they really seriously consider it at all. Elasticities are hard to calculate, and that would be especially true in China given the dodginess of its data and the distortions in the pricing system. And the fact that analysts so frequently refer to changes in Chinese consumption as changes in Chinese demand suggests that many of them operate under the all-to-common confusion of the two, and hence don’t even think about elasticity.

There are also the usual econometric difficulties, namely identification problems–which is all about separating the effects of demand shifts from the effects of movement along the demand curve caused by supply shifts.

Sometimes the best way to estimate elasticities is a natural experiment. And that’s exactly what the Iran War has created. A sudden shock to supply with no simultaneous shock to demand allows one to trace movements along the demand curve. And that’s what Hormuz is allowing us to do now.

The elasticity issue might explain the administration’s apparent nonchalance over oil prices. No doubt pre-war within the administration the effects of a supply disruption were modeled. If those doing the modeling had a fairly accurate estimate of Chinese demand elasticity, they would have concluded that the economic fallout would be far less than widely feared. This would have emboldened Trump to proceed, and explain the administration’s what-me-worry attitude and we-can-wait-this-out approach. Relatedly, it means that the impact of the blockade on Iran is a far more pressing issue for it than is the impact of the closure on the US.

The fact that China appears to be the main loser is also a plus from the US perspective.

In order to understand what has transpired, it is necessary to adopt the right analytical framing. Confusing consumption/quantity demanded with demand is the wrong framing, and leads to incorrect conclusions. Elasticity of demand is the right framing. So ignore anyone who writes or says “Chinese oil demand is plunging” or when the supply shock reverses “Chinese oil demand is soaring.” What is really going on is the consumption moves along the demand curve. Meaning that the main analytical challenge is to understand the slope (elasticity) of that demand curve, and why it is the way it is.

It’s been a little over a week, so enough time to get a better idea of how we got here and where it’s going.

• The mullahs have been fucking around for 47 years. They are finding out, with interest. As someone who came of age during the Hostage Crisis, all I can say is it’s about time.
• So is it just revenge? Hardly.
• So why, and why now? There are many layers to this onion. The outermost one is that it has long been US policy that Iran not obtain nuclear weapons. And for good reasons, not the least of which is that there is a non-trivial probability that as Twelver fanatics they want them to unleash an armageddon that will bring back the 12th Imam. But even if you discount that, it is indisputable that Iran is a revisionist state that wants to completely revolutionize the Middle East, and destroy Israel as a part of that. Nuclear weapons would be both a shield and a sword that would advance that agenda.
• The June 12 Day War (ironic number, there) seriously set back Iran’s nuclear program. Trump then entered into negotiations with them, the objective of which (for the US) was a credible, verifiable Iranian commitment not to develop nuclear weapons. Not only did Iran reject this, it is clear that they were doubling down on their program, and also on their ballistic missile program.
• Iran has long said “America can’t do a damn thing against us.” After June 2025, Khamenei said: “Our response to the US nonsense is clear: they cannot do a damn thing in this matter.” Apparently they repeated that mantra during the negotiations.
• That the mullahs would believe this after 47 years of American fecklessness is understandable. Our bipartisan failure to deal with the problem has emboldened them, and led to this. (Those mocking “TACO” Trump probably further emboldened them).
• Trump obviously concluded that negotiations were never going to achieve US objectives, and that delay would make it more difficult for the US to achieve said objectives. Hence, let slip the dogs of war! Bombs away!
• The opening salvo was apparently somewhat opportunistic, with Israeli and US intelligence providing information that Ayatollah Khamenei and many top regime officials would be meeting for breakfast. What was on the menu? A decapitation strike.
• This is a necessary but not sufficient condition for regime change.
• But although it is clear that the US would welcome regime change–to anything less fanatical than the mullahs–it is similarly clear that the US does not have regime change as a primary objective. Instead, the objective is regime (whatever it is) emasculation.
• That is, to deprive whoever ends up in charge of Iran the capacity to project force beyond its borders. This means, certainly, denying them the capacity to make nuclear weapons. But it also means eliminating their existing ballistic missiles and destroying their capacity to make more. This includes, obviously, their existing missile fabrication facilities, but also the economic foundation necessary to fund it. Hence strikes on oil refineries.
• Thus, we are seeing the most intense aerial campaign since WWII, and given the precision and capacity of American and Israeli weaponry, arguably more intense than even that. Curtis Lemay would be beaming.

• The air campaign is obviously proceeding in stages. First the standard SEAD component (or, more accurately DEAD–destruction of enemy air defenses), combined with stealth and missile strikes at very high value targets and fleeting ones (like Khamenei and the leadership of the IRGC). Now that air supremacy has been achieved, less stealthy but extremely devastating platforms–notably B-52 BUFFs (Big Ugly Fat Fuckers) and B-1 BONES–can roam at will and systematically dismantle anything we choose using JDAMs.
• The media commentary on the campaign has been predictably idiotic.
• The campaign demonstrates, yet again, that Chinese/Russian/Chinese-Russian copycat air defense systems are ineffectual. Their main use is to provide targets that must be disposed of before the real work commences.
• Speaking of China, this is another, deeper layer. Following hard on the heels of Venezuela, Trump is systematically destroying the main plinth of Chinese strategy in the Middle East. Although most commentary focuses on Iran as an oil supplier to China, that’s a secondary role. Iran-China (and Iran-Russia) is a conspiracy of revisionist powers aimed at overturning a US-dominated world order. Iran’s location at a vital energy producing region makes it an exceptionally valuable player in that game. Emasculating it is a serious blow to China’s strategic agenda.
• And eliminating Iran as a threat in the Middle East allows the US to concentrate its military and naval focus on China.
• So, like all things Trump (tariffs, Greenland, Venezuela) this is all about China too.
• The main military issue right now is the Straits of Hormuz. More by threat than action, and with the connivance (witting? unwitting?) or Lloyds of London, ship traffic through the straits has been throttled.
• The destruction of Iran’s navy is part of the US plan to deal with that, but it’s not the most important part. The main threat is from anti-ship missiles and drones. There has been little visibility into what the US (and presumably this is a US Navy/carrier air job) has been doing to Iranian SSASMs.
• Trump has mooted escorting ship traffic, but that has not started. This suggests that the missile threat is still present. Drones will be more difficult to suppress, but they are not as dangerous as missiles, especially to large tankers and freighters.
• This is particularly important because Trump’s main political pressure point that could undo his campaign is energy prices.
• Iran has attempted a Samson strategy, launching ballistic missiles at any nation supporting the US campaign, mainly through basing US military assets and personnel. This has not been particularly militarily successful, and politically it has if anything strengthened the resolve of Gulf nations to see the job through.
• The performance of the US’s erstwhile allies, especially in Nato, has been disgraceful. Leading the Parade of Shame is the UK, which deprived the US of the use of bases in Diego Garcia and the UK. And then changed its mind when the Iranians launched its missiles–as if that was a totally unexpected development. The UK then proved itself utterly impotent militarily, unable to dispatch even a single not-very-capable ship to defend places like Cyprus (which hosts UK bases).
• Spain similarly publicly denied the US the use of Rota (although US planes still land and take off there, so it is hard to know whether this is posing, or a split between the defense minister and the PM, or what).
• As an aside, this forcefully demonstrates a point I made with regards to Greenland: access by agreement is far less reliable than access by ownership. One can readily see the Danes pulling some Starmer- or Sanchez-esque stunt.
• One has to marvel at the depths to which the UK is fallen. John Quincy Adams once warned against the US becoming a “cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war.” Now Britain is more like a kayak in the wake of the US, and is paddling pitifully on an opposite course. Starmer is of course the face of this, but it is the Labour Party more generally that bears the responsibility. Supposedly, the execrable Ed Miliband and other hard core leftist cabinet ministers pushed the 21st century’s “Boneless Wonder” (to reprise Churchill’s description of Ramsay MacDonald) to his passive-aggressive approach. How much the dependence of Labour on Muslim votes had to do with this is an interesting subject for speculation.
• The media (and social media) have been disgraceful, as should be expected. The NYT is all but openly rooting for an Iranian victory.
• The sinking by a US Los Angeles class SSN of an Iranian ship probably captures the media and social media idiocy better than anything. It was in international waters! Er, most sinkings of belligerent vessels are. It was sunk without warning! Uhm, that’s what submarines do. The crew was not rescued by the sub! Yeah. So? FFS, (a) warships have never been subject to “prize rules” that require warning and crew evacuation before sinking, and (b) prize rules for merchant shipping went by the boards in about 1915-6. The US in particular ruthlessly employed submarines in WWII and sunk both warships and merchantmen without warning and without pity. The Iranian ship should have known it was at risk, and interned itself–as another Iranian ship did, apparently learning the lesson from the sinking.
• So where to next? We are at that stage of the war where the original shock (and awe) have worn off to a considerable degree, and the military campaign grinds on. It is likely that the main objectives of destroying Iran’s nuclear, ballistic missile, aviation, and naval capabilities, and the ability to replace them, will be achieved in relatively short order. The main sticking point, as noted above, is restoring navigation in the Straits of Hormuz.
• As for what happens politically in Iran–who knows? But the important thing is–who should really care? In the US, anyways. A regime, no matter how malign in intent, poses no threat to American interests if its military capacity has been destroyed.
• This relates directly to the bleating–especially from certain elements of the MAGA right–about another forever war. These people should actually be gratified at Trump’s apparent indifference to political outcomes in Iran. Unlike the administrations that waged war in Iraq or Afghanistan, Trump quite clearly does not believe that eliminating a threat from a particular country requires remaking it in our image. Blowing the shit out of it suffices. (Venezuela provides another example of how Trump is willing to accept a regime that is less than savory, as long as it does our bidding).
• This also relates to the media drumbeat that strategic bombing has never resulted in regime change. Again–so what, if the regime is incapable of putting its malign intentions into action? And I would also note that bombing can bring about the end of wars, Vietnam being the best example. The Linebacker campaign (the Christmas Bombing) is what brought North Vietnam to the table. And it was Congress’s elimination of a threat of a resumption of such bombing that gave North Vietnam the confidence to resume the war two years later. NB: the campaign we are seeing in Iran now is Linebacker on steroids. It is the Dick Butkus (or Lawrence Taylor) of air campaigns.

Canada has become known as a haven for euthanasia since the passage of its Orwellian MAID (“Medical Assistance in Dying”) Act. But it’s not just for killing granny anymore. The country has also been committing economic suicide for going on a decade and a half, and under its arch globalist deep state poster boy premier is now is hell-bent on committing geopolitical hari kari as well.

Canada was once on a par–above actually–the US in per capita GDP. Not any more. Like Europe, Canada has stagnated while the US has chugged along. So now. Canadian per capital GDP is less than 65 percent of the US level.

• 2007: 92.9% World Bank API+1
• 2011 (peak): 104.4% World Bank API+1
• 2014: 92.7% World Bank API+1
• 2016: 73.4% World Bank API+1
• 2020: 68.5% World Bank API+1
• 2022: 73.4% World Bank API+1
• 2024 (latest in this series): 64.3% World Bank API+1

And it’s not as if the US has been a growth juggernaut. Yet it has lapped Canada.

This stagnation–or what would Jimmah have called it? malaise?–is the result of an overdose of statism in Canada, something that was particularly evident in its draconian Covidianism. (Something it shared with the rest of the Anglosphere, ex US (to some degree)–all of which have also been economic laggards. No doubt Canada’s immigration policy–which makes the horrid US policy of the Biden years look enlightened–has also contributed

In sum, Canada has been committing slow motion economic suicide.

And now under the execrable Mark Carney (and execrable is the nicest thing I can think of calling him) it seems hell bent on committing geopolitical suicide. Carney just visited China, and based on the results, traveled with heavy duty kneepads in his luggage.

The trip is being portrayed with good reason as a Canadian pivot from the US to China in response to the big meanie to the south.

On trade, Carney touted a big deal–in which Canada will import 47,000 Chinese EVs. I see. Fighting against US restrictions on Canadian exports by taking Chinese imports that will compete against one of the industries (autos) that are hit by Trump tariffs. And a deal with a country that will take no manufactured goods from Canada. Brilliant!

Carney also said he and Xi see eye-to-eye on geopolitics generally, and Greenland specifically. And Carney has also said that Canada will defend Greenland if the US invades.

Might I ask: With what military, exactly? Canada has hollowed out its armed forces for decades. It is one of the biggest free riders on the US military, spending a whopping 1.3 percent of its GDP on defense. Canadian forces wouldn’t even be a speed bump: they would be roadkill.

In brief, Carney has positioned Canada as an adversary to the US by kowtowing to America’s biggest enemy and attempting to thwart US security initiatives.

It is beyond idiocy, but some idiots think it’s genius!

Carney gets it. ?

Mark Carney recognizes that the post?war rules?based order is fragmenting and being replaced by a harder, interest?driven system shaped above all by the Trump Doctrine. In this new environment, his “we take the world as it is” pragmatism means accepting the…

— James E. Thorne (@DrJStrategy) January 16, 2026

Er, no-he doesn’t get it. In a Westphalian power politics world allying with a malign distant power that is an adversary of the massive power right on your border is the epitome of idiocy. Especially since doing so infuriates the leader of the hegemon on your border.

Canada. So close to the US, so far from China. Do the strategery, “@DjStrategy.” (BTW considering anyone who calls themselves a “strategist” a self-important moron is an excellent heuristic–seldom fails!)

Now of course, Canada has been deeply penetrated by China (as a money laundry and intelligence sieve) for decades. Which makes one of Carney’s other statements particularly disgusting:

Canadian PM Mark Carney says criminals exploit “irresponsible American gun laws” and weak U.S. border enforcement to move illegal firearms into Canada, saying U.S. platforms have become “seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hate.”pic.twitter.com/mSnPVjd7DS

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) January 15, 2026

OK, asshole: want to compare the number of people killed in Canada by US guns to the number of Americans killed by fentanyl that flooded into my country from Canada? Orders of magnitude different.

Again, this is utterly suicidal. Canada and Carney’s globalist buddies may get off biting Trump’s ankles but it will not end well. The imbalance in power is so immense–and as the economic data presented above shows, has only become greater over time–that only a fool would pick a fight with the mercurial man wielding the power.

And if Carney thinks China is going to bail him out, he’s an even bigger idiot than I thought humanly possible. Maybe Carney should place a call to prison and ask Maduro how that works out.

And this is true too:

Every Canadian supporting @MarkJCarney needs to remove that Ukrainian emoji and replace it with a Russian one. There’s been no bigger ally to Russia in their war against Ukraine than China and now you are fully sponsoring the slaughter of Ukrainians. All because you hate Trump. https://t.co/yl8bNAZlYo

— Lynx (@LibertyLynx) January 17, 2026

Not just an enemy–a hypocritical one.

It’s always been something of a joke to note that the US has long had plans to invade Canada. Maybe Hegseth should make sure they are up to date, cuz someone’s cruisin’ for a bruisin’.

In what is becoming a winter ritual, Trump renewed his demands–and that’s what they are–that Denmark cede Greenland to the US. Or else.

This has set off hysteria among the hysterics that rule the EU.

Fresh from his Venezuela adventure, the US president shows no sign of backing down on Arctic island. https://t.co/o21EGufoIC pic.twitter.com/sPcjp5mtVe

— Financial Times (@FT) January 6, 2026

In fact, it’s existential! Especially in light of Maduro’s participation in Delta (Force’s) infrequent flyer program.

Donald Trump’s rationale for decapitating Venezuela’s government is fueling concerns among European officials that they could soon face an existential dilemma over Greenland https://t.co/x1v9EplHFu

— Bloomberg (@business) January 6, 2026

The fact that Trump is back to making demands means that negotiations have gone nowhere. This is insane, given that Trump’s willingness to pay should massively exceed Denmark’s reservation price–if Denmark was acting rationally, rather than emotionally.

This whole panic attack is particularly bizarre when viewed against the broader picture of US-European relations. The Europeans are also freaking out over Trump’s shifting the burden of defending Europe against Russia. But Trump’s purpose in obtaining Greenland is directed expressly against Russia (and China too). That is, a US acquisition of Greenland would strengthen European security vis a vis Russia.

That alone should make Europe grateful–and more than willing to accept Trump’s offer.

It is particularly ironic that Denmark claims that Trump seizing Denmark would destroy Nato. Denmark’s refusal to sell weakens Nato. A sale would strengthen it.

So just who is being the bad ally here?

Furthermore, Greenland is a large financial burden for Denmark, and it is getting worse.

Greenland’s public finances are pressured after a “surprisingly sharp deterioration” last year, Denmark’s central bank said https://t.co/45zyhcji6Q

— Bloomberg (@business) January 6, 2026

A smart government would jump at the chance to offload such a burden.

Even ideology favors a sale. After all, the Euros are all angst-y about the sins of their colonial past. Greenland is actually one of the last remaining relics of that past. A sale would take that off their consciences.

But despite all of these factors that should lead the Danes (and Euros) to shout “SOLD!” like a old-time pit trader during a frenzied close, they wail and gnash their teeth over the existential threat that losing Greenland to an ally would create.

So what explains their self-destructive behavior? The most obvious explanation is a deadly sin–pride. And the pride of of bedraggled, enervated continent that once dominated the earth, but is now (by its own admission) utterly dependent on the Americans for its security. The Americans, of all people!

You know it eats at them. Daily. A particularly egregious example:

No help? Not even from these men? https://t.co/RheIqQKHb0 pic.twitter.com/yhv7jsI4wg

— streetwiseprof (@streetwiseprof) January 4, 2026

Yet these ungrateful bastards expect the US to defend them, while simultaneously refusing to make a simple deal that would enhance their defense.

Foolish pride is the only explanation.

But that does present a business opportunity for an economically moribund continent. They can start a new website–OnlyFools. The audience would be huge.

Unless you are still sleeping off your New Year’s excesses, you’ll know that in the early hours of 3 January 2026 the US military opened a can of industrial strength whup ass on Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. Delta (not the airline), along with a sprinkling of “law enforcement” intended to continue the charade that this is about drugs, swooped in and snatched Maduro and his better half (hey, anyone has to be better, right?), and spirited them off to face criminal charges in the US. Maduro therefore takes the early lead in the FAFO Man of the Year competition.

Venezuelans were shocked.

How Trump’s strikes shocked Venezuela’s capital https://t.co/5wdmTZ1mOf

— Financial Times (@FT) January 3, 2026

China dijo estar “profundamente conmocionada” por los ataques militares de EE.UU. contra Venezuela y por la captura del presidente Nicolás Maduro. https://t.co/Ehtdxxr2Fq

— Bloomberg (@business) January 3, 2026

Pretty much everybody–including everybody we don’t like and who don’t like us–are shocked. Er, that’s exactly the point of all this. Venezuela is not really about Venezuela. It is about Venezuela providing the Chinese, Russians, and Iranians (and their puppets, like Hezbollah) a Western Hemisphere outpost that directly threatens US interests.

I’m sure it’s a total coinky-dink that Delta decided to pay a visit right when Maduro was hosting a high-level Chinese delegation, right?

And the only people having a worse day than Maduro and his lot right now are the Cuban junta.

Next!

Militarily the operation again demonstrated the matchless competence of US forces, special operations forces in particular. The most impressive part to me is the operational security. No leaks. Complete surprise. A bolt from the blue–or the inky black of night, to be more accurate. I guess Hegseth wasn’t on Signal or something. (NB for the slow: that’s not a shot at Hegseth. That’s a shot at those who are always taking shots at Hegseth).

So everyone should be not just shocked, but awed.

Looking back I wonder if Trump’s 3AM Truth Social post telling Iran the US was locked and loaded was not part of a deception operation. It surely distracted attention away from Venezuela right when Maduro was about to go down.

This does raise the question of whether this type of operation is scalable/applicable to Iran. Given the far greater operational challenges posed in Iran, I have my doubts. But–and perhaps this is the most important thing–the mullahs have to be asking the same question. The Maduro operation demonstrates American capability but most crucially it demonstrates American (specifically Trump’s) will (which can exploit a wide variety of kinetic capabilities in addition to those that ruined Maduro’s day). So the mullahs are basically in the situation of the hapless bank robber in Dirty Harry’s sights:

In his press conference this morning, Trump answered the most immediate question: with Maduro gone, who will run Venezuela? Answer: the US. Exactly how this will work remains to be seen, but no doubt the planning has been in place since at least the time the boat strikes began in September 2025.

In the longer term, the likely answer is opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. Again looking back, the operation to spirit her from the country to “attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony” in December now looks like part of the overall operation. Once she was out of the country, she could wait in the wings until, well, today (or at least the near future) and form a new government. The ceremony provided the pretext to get her out. (No doubt the Norwegian pantywaists are wailing that they are complicit in Maduro’s overthrow. Cry more). (It is interesting that this operation had a patina of plausible deniability because it was run by ex-US special operators. It was arguably the most challenging part of this whole endeavor, and direct US involvement would have been a bigger tip).

So the boat strikes, the tanker seizures, Machado’s exfiltration, and all the other events of the past 5 months or so were part of an escalating campaign that culminated this morning. This was not a hasty Trump brain flash. It has been in the works probably since inauguration day.

Which raises the question: has something similar been in the works regarding Iran since 1/20/25?

And of course, there is the issue of the Venezuelan oil industry, which the warm collectivist embrace of Chavez and Maduro destroyed over the last two decades plus. Well, Trump answered that question too:

All your (oil) bases are belong to us. https://t.co/tKyamuuSCD

— streetwiseprof (@streetwiseprof) January 3, 2026

It will be interesting to see what Chevron stock in particular does when the market opens. And also CNPC and Sinopec.

Maduro and his wife have been indicted, again to provide the cover and justification for what is in fact an act of realpolitik. But no doubt the Trump DOJ will leverage the criminal prosecution of Maduro to target some other Trump bêtes noires, specifically Venezuelan gangs like Tren de Aragua that have infiltrated the US.

And finally, my condolences to Bernie Sanders, AOC, Hizzoner Mamdani, most of the rest of the Democratic Party, Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and all of you other idiots who have lionized Maduro and Chavismo. I know you are having a bad day.

But I frolic in your salty tears.

I have long questioned the validity of Chinese economic growth data. The gravamen of my criticism is that measured GDP is disproportionately driven by investment; that investment is really a cost that is intended to produce future benefits (greater output and consumption); and that the incentive system in the Chinese economy causes decision makers to incur investment costs that increase measured GDP, but that the return on these investments is low. As I’ve phrased it, this system has led to an epic, and arguably unprecedented, misallocation of capital. China’s (non-human) capital stock is too large, and misallocated across sectors, which conspire to depress returns to capital to below the level that would be achieved with a market price and profit-driven mechanism for allocating capital.

These heterodox views have been confirmed! By whom, you ask? Well, by Xi Jingping himself!

Chinese President Xi Jinping lashed out at inflated growth numbers and vowed to crack down on the pursuit of “reckless” projects that have no purpose except showing superficial results.

“Inflated growth numbers.” Check. “‘Reckless’ projects that have no purpose except showing superficial results.” Sounds like misallocations of capital caused by a perverse incentive system.

Xi used stark language to call for quality in economic gains and listed examples of wrongdoing such as unnecessarily huge industrial parks, disorderly expansion of local exhibitions and forums, inflated statistics and “fake construction kickoffs.”

Yup. A huge misallocation of capital.

“Xi said officials shouldn’t only be assessed on the basis of the GDP growth rate.” Yup, all driven by a perverse incentive system that leads decision makers rewarded on the basis of GDP-related metrics to invest large sums, the return on those investments be damned.

So Xi has recognized the manifest defects of the vaunted Chinese model, and effectively confessed that much of Chinese growth is junk. The irony of course, is that this is a system that Xi largely created, certainly deepened, and ruled with an iron fist. Meaning that his sudden shock at its consequences reminds me of Stalin’s “dizzy with success” backing off of the Soviet model he created.

But although he has diagnosed the symptoms, and the proximate cause, Xi still doesn’t grasp the underlying cause–the overly centralized nature of the CCP-dominated Chinese economy. No, it does not have Stalinesque five year plans dictating the output of Patriotic Nail Factory #10, but through its manipulation of the incentive system on multiple dimensions the CCP attempts to achieve objectives (most notably, high GDP growth and strategic industries) that it establishes.

Note Xi’s proposed corrective to the system he just admitted is fundamentally flawed:

Speaking at the work conference, Xi called for making “the assessment system more targeted and scientific, so that it works effectively like a conductor’s baton.”

An orchestra following a conductor is centrally directed. A system in which “scientists” set “targets” is not one that responds to profit and price signals, but one that responds to the incentives handed down from the CCP. Indeed, an economy with an “assessment system” other than profit and loss inherently involves massive centralization and control

And Xi’s prescription begs questions. Just what will that “assessment system” involve? What new (centrally directed) incentive metrics will replace the old ones?

Regardless of what Xi (or more likely his minions come up with to meet his command) come up with, it will inevitably result in misallocations, but different ones. Any set of centrally commanded high-powered incentives will be gamed. The games will distort production, investment, and consumption choices. Different incentives, different games, different distortions. But distortions all the same.

Transaction Cost Economics has long recognized the incompatibility of high-powered incentives and manipulable performance measures. This is why low-powered incentives are so pervasive in non-market allocation mechanisms–like inside firms. China is experiencing the effects of failing to understand this, but by advocating the replacement of old manipulable measures with new (though unspecified) manipulable measures Xi betrays a failure to grasp that the fundamental problem is with the centralized system itself, not with its implementation details.

Economic profit and loss in market transactions is a largely unmanipulable high-powered incentive system. But that is an inherently decentralized emergent system, not a centrally managed one. And such a system is completely inimical to one ruled by Party that demands obedience to its leader’s commands.

Meaning that the fact that although Xi has finally recognized the severe faults of one implementation of the CCP’s economic model, he has not–and likely cannot–acknowledge that the problem is inherent in the model itself.

The latest installment of Operation Undermine came over the weekend, with a WaPo story claiming that the US double tapped one of the Venezuelan drug boats, killing two individuals who had survived the first strike. An illegal order! A war crime! Illegal orders! (With the implication to whoever carried them out should be subject to military justice).

Today the White House said yeah, we did it–and it was legal. This was presumably based on an internal legal finding. So a matter of legal contention, and certainly not so clearcut for the trigger pullers on tap two to overcome the presumption that the order was legal.

Not surprisingly, those calling for SecWar Hegseth’s head conveniently ignore the Obama administration’s rather, shall we say, expansive, claims regarding its authority to whack people–including “collateral damage.” “Obama Administration Claims Unchecked Authority to Kill Americans Outside of Combat Zones.” As the ACLU put it: “The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat.”

Kill Americans deemed by the executive branch to be terrorists. So a fortiori that logic would certainly extend to non-American drug runners designated by the USG as members of a terrorist organization.

The ACLU (more properly, the plaintiff Nasser Al-Aulaqi) lost. It lost because the judge accepted the administration’s argument that the case raised “political issues” and was not justiciable. The ACLU did not appeal.

And there the matter has rested for 14 years. Meaning that the precedents set by the Obama administration provide a huge amount of room to cover the boat strikes–including a double tap.

No doubt if the Venezuela strikes are brought to court, some Obama (or Biden) appointed judge will just like that decide that they are indeed reviewable, and matters for the judiciary rather than for the political branches.

There are also historical precedents. In the aftermath of the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in 1943, American and Australian planes and PT boats killed survivors–probably hundreds of them–from the transports and destroyers that skip bombing B-25s had sunk.

During the Battle of the Bismarck Sea in WWII US planes and PT boats machine gunned survivors of transports sunk by skip bombing attacks.https://t.co/IkhltGEFy8 pic.twitter.com/3cUWmJqYzG

— streetwiseprof (@streetwiseprof) November 30, 2025

Medal of Honor winning “Mush” Morton, commander of the submarine USS Wahoo, also order the klling survivors of a ship he had sunk.

The US justified both actions, claiming that the survivors posed a continuing threat. In the Bismarck Sea, the US argued that survivors that made it to Lae, New Guinea (their destination before the B-25s jumped them) would be able to join the troops fighting Americans there. (As had happened with Japanese whose ships had been sunk near Guadalcanal).

In any event, the Venezuelan boat strikes too are “political questions.” Yes, this has led to a typical DC tempest. But I am guessing that it will be largely confined to the Beltway and the media. The victims here are hardly appealing. Certainly less appealing than the 16 year old son of Awlaki, the American Obama droned. I would wager that most Americans are on board (so to speak!) with wasting drug boats and their crews, and are not too fussed about the means.

The issues here are also too legalistic for most Americans to care. You bomb a speedboat because you intend to destroy it, and crucially, to kill its crew. If you have the legal right to do so–to kill–it makes little common sense to argue that you have to do so with the first shot, and no second shots are allowed. So there’s little or no room for incremental outrage. If the strikes outrage you because you think killing is unjustified here, fine–the double tap shouldn’t add to your outrage. If the first bomb/shot doesn’t outrage you, follow ons shouldn’t either.

And what are the alternatives? The most straightforward one is to let them drown or become shark food. That’s better?

Another is to rescue them–which could put US personnel at risk, and which the US is under no obligation to do. And capturing them would result in something akin to the Gitmo legal circus–which is one reason why the Obama administration found a kill them all, let Allah sort them out strategy appealing. (NB: conceivably the SEALs could have captured Osama during the raid on his compound in Pakistan, but they were under orders to kill him–and did).

A remaining option is to hope their compadres would pick them up . . . which would result in a situation similar to the Bismarck Sea. In fact, a totally understandable tactic would be to let them swim, hope that rescuers arrived, and then whack the rescuers. So be careful what you ask for!

The main reason that the political calculus favors the administration here is that Maduro’s Venezuela is a very malign actor that gets no sympathy from Americans. Drugs are just one item in a long list of particulars. Maduro vectoring gang bangers to the United States is another. (It is no coincidence, comrade, that Venezuelans were one of Trump’s first and foremost targets).

But most importantly, if you list all of America’s biggest enemies/adversaries–Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Hezbollah, drug cartels–Venezuela is their friend. And these involve more than mere expressions of undying fraternal love: Venezuela has received arms from Russia and Iran, massive financial support from China, has historically been a financial and energy lifeline to Cuba in exchange for Cuban muscle to oppress Venezuelans and protect Maduro, and facilitates Hezbollah operations in the Americas. (Riddle me this: Why is Hezbollah operating in the Americas?). From time to time Venezuela has hosted Russian nuclear capable bombers and combat ships.

So this is the execrable regime that the execrable Mark Kelly, Elissa Slotkin, et al, are de facto supporting. As if their subversion campaign was not odious enough, to exploit the US’s actions against an enemy to advance that campaign is particularly disgusting.

And seizing on Trump’s anti-Venezuela campaign is particularly dishonest and hypocritical for those who also claim to be ardent supporters of Ukraine because of Russia, and who claim that Trump is Putin’s plaything. Trump is going after Russia’s main ally in the Americas. Maduro is begging Putin for help. If their harsh anti-Russian stance was principled, they would cheer what Trump is doing.

They are doing the opposite. This demonstrates how unprincipled they are.

Since opposing Trump is their one and only objective, we get Orwellian Oceania Has Always Been At War With Eastasia about faces, and Russia’s deep relationship with Venezuela gets ignored by strident anti-Russians.

Indeed, if you look back the first Trump administration, the political and media left that now freaks out about Trump going after Venezuela/Maduro criticized him for not confronting Venezuela. Back then, when Russian bombers landed in Venezuela the establishment was aghast and demanded action. Back then, too, they fretted over Venezuela’s abetting Hezbollah operations. Not to mention their criticism of Maduro’s anti-democratic actions.

In short, all the “ethics” advanced here are purely situational and partisan. Trump is to be excoriated for giving Putin too much in Ukraine because giving anything to such an evil man is wrong. Trump is also to be excoriated for attempting to take down that selfsame evil man’s most important ally in our own hemisphere.

And the means that they are employing to achieve their partisan ends–undermining the military, and the chain of command in particular–are beyond disgusting. The current frenzy over the double tap cannot be separated from the campaign of the Seditious Six to stir fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the military. The frenzy is just a convenient weapon in that campaign. It is instrumental, not principled.

A military cannot function with FUD. Patton frequently invoked Kipling’s “the unforgiving minute.” Every minute-second, really-matters in combat situations. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines who waste that unforgiving minute wrestling with doubts about the legitimacy of their orders are putting themselves, their comrades, and their missions at risk. Yes, there are edge cases, but the subversion of Kelly’s Antiheroes spreads far beyond such cases, as their their cynical exploitation of killing Venezuelan drug runners clearly demonstrates.