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How was it not already so designated? The US spent a good part of 2024 doing operation amazon prime launching shit into yemen

damn it must be cool to be capable of building things

“Over the course of the last decade,” writes Admiral Holsey, “the United States has focused predominantly on the Indo-Pacific, while China has taken a global approach.” By going global, China has emplaced Latin America and the Caribbean “on the front lines of a decisive and urgent contest to define the future of our world.” The SOUTHCOM chief sees Beijing’s gambits in the Western Hemisphere as part of a globe-spanning strategic offensive: “China is assailing U.S. interests from all directions, in all domains, and increasingly in the Caribbean archipelago—a potential offensive island chain.”

We're dealing with levels of projection that have never been seen before on this planet. And the worst part is that I know they don't actually believe that China is fucking funnelling guns and fortifications into the Caribbean or whatever, they're just writing this drivel to prod Trump into devoting more resources to the region + Latin America.

[...] By securing commercial and diplomatic access to seaports spanning the globe, then, China has been laying the groundwork for a network of Mahanian-style bases for many years. What would Holsey’s offensive island chain look like? For one thing, it would not be an island chain occupied entirely by authoritarian societies friendly to China and hostile to the United States. That’s a marked difference from Asia’s first island chain, inhabited solely by U.S. allies, partners, or friends closely spaced from one another on the map and wary of the mainland.

Nor would an offensive Caribbean island chain completely sever U.S. access to the Atlantic and Pacific, the way the first island chain—which encloses 100 percent of China’s continental crest—obstructs access to the Western Pacific and points beyond.

All of that being the case, it is doubtful in the extreme that China will negotiate military access throughout the Greater and Lesser Antilles, the loose line of islands that forms the northerly and easterly rim of the Caribbean Sea. The PLA Navy will be unable to make the Antilles into an impassable barrier, the way the United States and its Asian allies and partners can by stationing military implements along the first island chain.

But the Chinese navy could cause serious trouble anyway. Think about plausible candidates for PLA Navy bases in the Caribbean. Two stand out: Cuba and Venezuela. Cuba is a fraternal communist country, and perpetually impoverished. Thus, both out of ideological solidarity and in order to boost its economy, it might well prove receptive to CCP entreaties to host Chinese warships. Venezuela is ruled by a leftist regime and might likewise prove a convivial host for China’s navy.

...

That Havana or Caracas would go so far as to host such a system is doubtful: the United States does remain the regional hegemon by far, and the last attempt by an external great power to station its missiles on Cuba nearly led to thermonuclear war. But either of these countries might take the lesser step of admitting PLA Navy flotillas on a rotating or permanent basis without that shore fire support. Even smaller-scale arrangements would let Beijing threaten to stage what Mahan’s contemporary Julian S. Corbett called a “war by contingent.” Corbett recalls that a modest contingent of British Army forces supported by the Royal Navy landed in Iberia during the Napoleonic Wars. The army fought alongside Portuguese and Spanish partisans, bogging down French forces sorely needed for the main fighting front to France’s east.

In short, Britain extracted disproportionate gain from the amphibious expedition. The Iberian theater was so distracting, and devoured so many martial resources, that the little emperor wryly called it his “Spanish Ulcer.”

Think about what responses a Chinese naval presence—a Caribbean Ulcer—would likely elicit from Washington. It would beckon U.S. leaders’ strategic gaze to home waters, long regarded as a safe sanctuary. Tending to that zone of neglect would reduce the policy energy available for theaters like East Asia. It would stretch U.S. naval and military forces that are already under strain trying to manage security commitments all around the Eurasian perimeter. It would probably compel the U.S. Navy to station a squadron of combatant ships at one or more Gulf Coast seaports for the first time since the Navy vacated them after the Cold War. That would impose a new, old theater on the U.S. Navy—amplifying the demands on a too-lean fighting force. And on and on.

First, the US Navy doesn't need any help to fall apart given the war they waged to unblock the Red Sea - and lost. Second, this is all under the assumption that China will indeed want to militarily challenge the US for hegemony, when there's no indication of that at all. They don't even want to economically challenge the US for hegemony right now, much to our disappointment. I think it's infinitely more likely that China will eventually gain Taiwan back by some method or another (probably after a couple US aircraft carriers crash into each other and their satrapies in South Asia collapse due to lack of funding and/or internal unrest), then just basically chill. There's no reason for China to get involved in a second Cold War when they know perfectly well how the first one ended for the USSR. They see how well the whole "world empire into which all goods flow and which produces nothing of productive value" thing is going for the US (increasingly badly) and rightfully see no reason to aspire to that position, when peaceful co-operation does genuinely seem more effective, efficient, and less likely to lead to catastrophic (and potentially nuclear) wars.

Seeing people glaze Starmer over literally being the carrot to Trump's stick is maddening, Britain is a fetid Lovecraftian hell island and beige Hitler announcing HMS Queen Elizabeth being cut in two like a fortune cookie by hypersonic missiles in a year or two will be ASMR to me.

I know said glazing is purely vibes based and temporary but still, got people in my group chats talking about Ukraine winning and shit, driving me nuts.

As much as I hate to say it, the rise of Reform/Farage has been coming, and Reform got screwed by the first past the post system in the last election. Reform had a large share of votes, but got minimal seats in government by comparison. Labour only won by such a large margin last time round because they were able to play the first past the post system to their advantage, Starmer got less votes than Corbyn in actuality. But eventually once a movement or party gets popular enough (such as Reform in this case), no amount of electoral obscurity can stop them from taking the largest share of seats in government.

Ukraine continues to be a litmus test for leftists even after three years

Yeah I think the problem with this is there's no alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency at the moment. China is unwilling to let RMB be that, the euro is hopeless, bitcoin is not nearly large enough or practical at all for something like that. So we're stuck with the dollar, everything just becomes bumpier.

Love the EU optimism here. Good to have those high expectations to set up the hilariously large fall to reality

The question is what are they moving their assets into? Bitcoin and gold? lmao.

Why do you think that the US government is trying to exert more control over those two exact things?

If the EU could seize this moment, it would tap in to a deep well of willing buyers keen to trim US exposure.

This would make sense except for the fact if the US economy tanks so too will the EU.

My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.

Not a proxy by the way.

Those phantasmagorical cartoons and AI slop about Chad Zelensky did not age well

Dahlan is an actual Mossad asset, and Abbas has previously accused Dahlan of assassinating Arafat with polonium. He was reportedly involved in negotiating the Abraham Accords. Like Abbas, he's basically what all the Zionist accuse Hamas leaders of being: a corrupt politician more interested with enriching himself through stolen funds than the well-being of the Palestinian people. Legitimately is probably more corrupt than Abbas.

Consolidating the comprador position?

Jolani and his gang of mercenaries are virgin cucks and have been since they were fighting the AoR in ISIS a decade ago. Their takeover happened simultaneously with further israeli incursions and bombings, yet today they crow about how much help they need fighting the Zionists. Maximum cuck, their only jihad is against the internal resistance

My mobile experience is back to being fucked, but it’s a small price to pay