#brinksmanship

[trikerpoet]

BRINKSMANSHIP for what?

To be honest though the ridicolusly dangerous and misguided brinksmanship that Biden, the Tories and sadly Von Starmerführer have been playing for the last few years is only to make weapons profitable again. Having a cold war stance means more national budgets can go into munitions and arms. They can increase their own security and tie the hands of their own citizens with tales of fear.Sadly…

[maridiayachtclub]

i just ran the most dogshit session of pathfinder ever and need the reassurance provided by the comforting embrace of uhhhhhh (performs incredibly detailed mental calculations to determine optimum levels of bisexuality, horniness, and balance between exotic and mainstream appeal) an androgynous 40 year old minotaur with a well-paying blue collar job

[cleo-fox]

Technically, you don’t need to be in Congress to be the Speaker of the House, so if they can’t agree on someone in 72 hours, I think they should let me try it as a treat.

[recursive360]

ICBM

ICBM, in full Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, Land-based, nuclear-armed ballistic missile with a range of more than 3,500 miles (5,600 km). Only the United States, Russia, and China field land-based missiles of this range. The first ICBMs were deployed by the Soviet Union in 1958; the United States followed the next year and China some 20 years later. The principal U.S. ICBM is the silo-launched Minuteman missile. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with ranges comparable to ICBMs include the Trident missile, deployed by the United States and Britain, and several systems deployed by Russia, China, and France.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/technology/ICBM

Revelations 8:10–11

[centrally-unplanned]

Guess I should throw out some Gaza Ceasefire Thoughts - from a political history perspective it certainly is interesting:

-- As for the deal itself, it is pretty much "the best one could realistically hope for", though funnily enough the details aren't that surprising. Israel for some time has had very little strategy in Gaza (beyond "release the hostages or we keep blowing up random blocks"), and so them agreeing to these terms is the expected outcome. Hamas also lacked any real strategic options, but in the summer you could at least argue "the status quo of radicalizing the population and shredding Israeli reputation is beneficial", so you can see why both sides really weren't committing to anything before in the summer. Things have changed since then, though.

-- The straight-up-humiliating defeat of Hezbollah in the fall was a complete game-changer for the strategic situation. As much as Hamas had a strategy it was "wait for Hezbollah/Iran to carry the weight of the fight", and that was going not-awfully through the summer. Then Israel absolutely shattered Hezbollah to the point where their ability to control Lebanese politics is up-for-grabs, and any real threat to Israel is temporarily gone. Meanwhile Iran stacked that defeat with the revolution in Syria and their own military capacity losses, and while there is real tension in Iran between realist & radicalist factions, the current winds are blowing towards retreat. Combine that with the death of Sinwar, and the new Hamas leadership had no cards left to play. By the same token, Israel has few fights left to win.

-- This is why negotiations resumed in earnest in October/November, and right now you are seeing some pretty heavy exaggeration of the role of the Trump administration in this deal. It has been being hashed out for months, you can easily point to articles about progress throughout both of those months (example) and the Biden administration was heavily involved in the Doha talks. These things just take time, and both sides had a dramatic incentive shift recently. That is carrying the most weight here - talks were "90% complete" before any Trump reps arrived on the scene.

-- But the election certainly did play a role here, primarily because it was inducing uncertainty and changing incentives in the US. While it was going on you can see how both sides could "hope" that new administrations might let them gain an advantage, and understood that commitments from the Biden administration in August just weren't very meaningful. Additionally, while not very important the war was "an issue" in the election, and so the "action space" of politicians was shaped by that. Why not just...wait, and see how things go, right? Now there is no more reason to wait, you know what you got.

--I don't want to take all credit away from Trump on this, though. A theme I will continue to harp on, the "Imperial Presidency" has advantages. Biden was a perpetual faction appeaser, and you could credibly call his bluff on any decision around the war by going "you won't take the heat from your own party on this" from the left or the right. Trump can much more credibly claim "I don't give a fuck what I 'said on the campaign trail', I say what goes, make a deal or I will absolutely spite you". This is not a great strategy in a lot of contexts, but in foreign policy you need this sometimes. Dems really do need to take notes here, more unity in either direction and more strong brinksmanship from Biden would have been better.

--Now let's walk that back a bit - it is way easier for the Trump administration to play hardball. Elections make hard decisions much more difficult to pull off, as political factions can punish you more easily. The Dems have an asymmetric disadvantage here - they are inherently the "dove" party facing a topic where the median American voter is generally hawkish, and they are the party that contains a notable split within itself on the issue. Meanwhile Republicans all agree. No longer facing electoral pressure, it is much easier for Republicans to play a "Nixon goes to China" card and credibly browbeat Israel. No one will really think the Republicans are anti-Israel even if they do that, and Dems can't accuse them effectively of foul play because the party itself is split on the topic. This is "unfair" in a certain sense, for sure, but such is politics.

--I would be assigning way less credulity to the complaints amoung the Israeli far-right about Trump or Netanyahu "betraying" them. The far-right in Israeli is a powerful force, for sure, but by no means do they command the majority. They want to annex the West Bank and all that, but most Israelis disagree, the military isn't on board, it would jeopardize US/Arab ties, etc. Never say never but that was not really in the cards - if it was they would have done it already. Slow-roll settlement expansion is the plan, that will continue, but meanwhile there is nothing left to do in Gaza. Netanyahu is of course going to say publicly "oh boo hoo my hands were tied by the Americans I'm so sorry" while he gets almost all of his realistic goals. This is politics 101 stuff - though if the approval vote on Thursday goes sour then I am wrong on this, part of why I am posting it today. (Also another reason to not assign too much credit to the Trump admin - easy to "bully" someone who wants to be bullied)

Okay done - hopefully the ceasefire sticks, obviously this has been a disastrous war for almost all involved, never look the imperfect status quo horse in the mouth. It isn't the world one would want but it is better than the one we have right now.

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

I know it's all reactionary empire politics "scratch a liberal a fascist bleeds" and all of that but it's so mind-meltingly insane to keep seeing liberal/"leftist" intelligentsia and media ghouls increasingly frame not just anti-imperialism but anti-aggressive militarization, anti-Cold War posturing, and anti-nuclear brinksmanship as being "right-wing"/"authoritarian"/"tankie" ideas. Like straight up saying shit like "acshully sweaty the real anti-imperialism is having nukes in Guam so we can fight the Chinese." We live in insane and dangerous times.

[retroactivebakeries]

choose your imperator

Opandamis: Angel of Petrichor, Gestures, Silence, Self-Sacrifice, and Honey

Ithnai: Fallen Angel of Charismatic Megafauna, Will-o’-the-Wisps, Time Blindness, Amanitas, and Destiny

Rhadamanthus: Lord of Rule, Incarnate of Fluoridated Water, Architecture, Hospitality, Polyphonic Music, and Workplace Safety

Mardukhai: Lord of the Game, Player of Chrysopoeia, Life Insurance, Self-Medication, Brinksmanship, and Decision Fatigue

Guithelin: Lord of the Wild, Magister of Deafening Noises, Embodiment, Redundancy, Syllabaries, Quiet Quitting, and Redundancy

Songiban: Serpent of Optical Illusions, Netsuke, MMORPGs, Vertigo, and Moths

Anther: True God of Formal Logic, Brood Parasites, Magnetism, Chivalry, and Kidnapping

Tomina: MimicAngel of Tax Evasion, Cherry Pie, Airports, Marketing Stunts, and the Gig Economy

[artbyblastweave]

In order for me to take your assessment of the politics of The Dark Knight Returns seriously, your assessment needs to take into account both the right-wing powertrip fantasy of infinite no-holds-barred violence against street gangs and petty criminals and the fact that Bruce ends the book in a state of guerilla warfare against a third-term Reagan administration whose cold war brinksmanship and imperialism has recently incited a potentially famine-inducing nuclear exchange

[smytherines]

[This was supposed to be a joke post, but it turned into an essay on the Cold War and nuclear brinksmanship in Spies Are Forever. Sorry]

Once again thinking about Tatiana Slozhno-- who for all intents and purposes would be considered a rogue KGB agent working with the Americans-- unilaterally detonating a hydrogen bomb on an island in the Pacific ocean. The geopolitical implications would be off the fucking charts

Hydrogen bombs are hundreds of times more powerful than the standard atomic bomb. For comparison, an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people died when the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (and hundreds of thousands died from radiation-related illnesses in the years following WWII). It killed everyone within a 1 mile radius of the blast

For a hydrogen bomb, the blast radius is more like 5 to 10 miles, depending on the yield. A 15 megaton yield (they range from 10 to 50) hydrogen bomb test performed by the US (code name Bravo) vaporized two entire islands, part of a third island, and left a 6,000 ft wide, 240ft deep crater in the fucking ocean. It was 1,000 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Now clearly, in the show, this is not considered a big deal. Tatiana doesn't seem to be on the run, Cynthia says that relations with Russia are the best they've been in ages. But in the real world it would be absolute global pandemonium with the potential to escalate the Cold War into a full scale nuclear war

Just to give some context here-- one year after the 1961 portion of Spies, the Cuban Missile Crisis happens. Here's a very very condensed version: Cuba has a communist revolution, the USSR finally has a staging area for nukes that could easily hit the US and tries to bring nukes to Cuba on ships, there's a tense 13 day standoff between the US and USSR that very nearly results in WWIII and complete nuclear annihilation. Most historians consider this the height of the Cold War. This is the incident that led to the phrase "Mutually Assured Destruction"

So imagine that a hydrogen bomb explodes in the Pacific ocean. There is no way to hide that after the fact, so both nuclear superpowers would know about it fairly quickly. In October of 1961 the Soviets detonated Tsar Bomba, a 50MT yield hydrogen bomb and the most powerful nuclear weapon ever tested, and US intelligence knew about it well in advance. They had spy planes close enough to the detonation that the protective plating on the plane was damaged.

Assuming they are able to connect it to Tatiana (lots of questions about how she was able to send a rocket shoe from far enough away to not get incinerated but oh well), the US would see it as a hostile act from a Russian agent. The Russians would consider her a traitor working with the Americans. Relations between the two countries would most likely deteriorate, not improve.

And this is more of a tangent, but I also think this era of nuclear brinksmanship (both countries having their hand hovering over the button, so to speak) is potentially a big motivation for Owen. I think he is clearly making irrational, emotional choices post-fall, BUT I also think he is the sort of man who needs to believe his decisions are based in logic and pragmatism.

So what logical justification can Owen find? Well, there's the idea that mass surveillance is already happening, already escalating, that this is the way the world is headed and if Chimera wants to succeed they need to get out ahead of it.

But I think the initial buy-in, how Chimera gets Owen ideologically committed to their organization and plan, is by using this constant looming threat of nuclear annihilation. By saying "these two countries and their little spy games are going to turn the world to ash if we let them. We need one neutral, central power to hold all the cards if we want to survive as a species." I think that would be a very powerful argument to a man who was just left for dead by his own agency and his American partner, who is presumably severely injured in a Soviet prison. A man who has a keen interest in foreign policy.

Because one of many things I find fascinating about Owen Carvour is that his/Chimera's plan is actually pretty rational, especially in comparison to a Bond villain. The Bond universe version of Chimera is called Spectre, and their plans are absolutely batshit stuff like "blow up the moon," and 10 variations of "giant space laser to kill everybody." Shit that doesn't even seem like it would benefit the villains because it's so over the top.

Chimera's plan is vile, but not outlandish. It is essentially just taking an idea that is already in development for the global superpowers, and finishing it first so they have all the power. It's a plan grounded in real world events. A big news story in 2013-2014 was the National Security Agency's PRISM program, which revealed how absolutely massive the US surveillance state had become, how the US was essentially turning everybody into spies (they just weren't aware of it).

I do sometimes wonder if someone in TCB read Glenn Greenwald's book (the reporter who broke the story), because Chimera's plan feels very specific to that late Obama era of the surveillance state

Holy shit this got so long.

Anyways Spies Are Forever 2 should follow Tatiana as she goes on the run to avoid trial at The Hague (I'm joking please don't kill me)

[mutfruit-salad]

i find the way fans are already shipping cooper with lucy over her black love interest very telling of the clueless white supremacy and media illiteracy in the fandom. coop and lucy are obviously being setup as a father-daughter duo who need to learn caution/kindness from each other to survive, but these weirdos can’t have their white-man fave without a self-insert stand-in for 1 season. and the way people are glorifying cooper’s character is a load of bs - a morally greg white guy who realises he endorsed and was sympathetic to a massive war crime/political injustice… so he goes on to indiscriminately kill/hurt more people who have no idea of, nor say in the bigger picture that he was complicit in… is sooo boring and nothing new. also, giving him a biracial daughter as an accessory to show he’s Not Racist isn’t something we’ve seen half of a million fuckin times before 🤪 the way the show back-tracked on fallout’s message of blind american nationalism and militarism being a problem to It’s All Capitalism’s Fault, seemingly in reaction to the US currently endorsing and aiding in foreign war crimes, and past ones becoming common-knowledge, is horseshit on a platter.

I find the complete lack of a character for his daughter really horrifying- how she only exists to die dramatically for the sake of his sadness. It's odd because his wife is a well-established important character, yet their daughter is not allowed to be a person.

Fallout, in general, has had a habit of completely ignoring racism- presenting the prewar world as some fully integrated post racism utopia. Which is weird when the games regularly display overt anti Chinese (and broader anti Asian) sentiments in prewar logs and ads. This is a problem both the classic games AND the bethesda games have- racism has always been a touchy subject to the devs of the series and it seems like every game they've been content to ignore it, occasionally invoking it for horror or stumbling headlong into depicting it without realizing.

The way Ghoulgins regrets his past and just takes it out on everyone around him is absurd and plays into a lot of very hostile ideas the character peddles.

People shipping Ghoulgins with Lucy is baffling to me also considering he spends the entire series physically abusing her. People just don't want to acknowledge Max's existence, I have noticed. I know her and Ghoulgins get closer by the end, but it's after he's done just unspeakably cruel things to her- and you're right that it is absolutely framed as a father/daughter relationship.

I would also like to point out that the series has always criticized capitalism as well- but would generally frame it as sort of tangled up in American imperial ambition- with one feeding into the other. They were two halves of the same coin.

Vault Tec's entire existence in the classic games was selling smoke- profiting off of the extreme tension and stress of US military buildup- a process which would always inevitably end in disaster: either with Vault Tec going under or brinksmanship coming to its inevitable end.

Vault Tec (and the entire idea of luxury bunkers as a whole) WAS a critique of capitalism, and how it goes hand-in-hand with the American military industrial complex. It was selling the fear of annihilation to the populace. They didn't need to be some secretive controlling force to achieve any of this.

Making Vault Tec the sole antagonist, and the driving force of the apocalypse, is both deeply conspiratorial AND undermines the Cold War roots the series has always had- replacing the fear of American military buildup with a sort of hateful simplicity.

[gorillaxyz]

if i have to write abt macarthur i will kms

[tomorrowusa]

Trump hasn't been sworn in and the 119th Congress won't be seated until January. But Republicans are already proving that they can't govern competently.

An almost routine continuing resolution (CR) has been botched with an assist by Elon Putz. Now there could be a government shutdown by Christmas.

With a government shutdown deadline looming tomorrow, Trump blew up the bipartisan deal for a continuing resolution to fund the government through mid-March via an unhinged social media post late Wednesday afternoon. The details of the CR itself barely matter because this isn’t about legislation or compromise or striking a deal. It’s about creating a public spectacle, and nothing made that more clear than Trump’s last-minute demand that Congress raise the debt ceiling before he even takes office. Those are the facts of what happened, but after years of GOP brinksmanship, chronic self-ownage, disarray, and dysfunction, it is hard to credibly muster the same kind of alarm or dismay in the face of these facts. Republicans created this debacle on purpose. They own it. They are the only ones who can stop it. Elected Democrats can’t save Republicans from themselves, aren’t to blame for this folly, and are merely bystanders like the rest of us to performative hijinks that are divorced from the reality of governance. Real people will be hurt or will have to endure another round of living under the threat of harm. It’s a colossal waste of public resources and private emotional energy. It’s another spectacle for the sake of spectacle, and we are not even the audience.

Elon Musk is somehow a citizen of three countries: the US, Canada, and South Africa. Yet this semi-foreigner is allowed to meddle with the US government.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a typical obsequious MAGA weenie. But that didn't stop Trump from siding with Elon against him. Now Johnson's speakership may be in danger.

Donald Trump Sides With Elon Musk Against Mike Johnson Over Spending Bill

Be sure to put popcorn on your list for last minute shopping.

[theaudientvoid]

So, as has been discussed, Ettiene is clearly meant to be a stand in for Professor X (morally ambiguous telepath), but also, Heavy is clearly meant to be analogous to Magneto (controller of magnetism gravity who sees himself as being the protector of mutants atomics, engaged in nigh apocalyptic level brinksmanship).

[flyingpurplepeopleprogrammer]

Look, I'm probably a bad person for enjoying this but every now and again a particular kind of vaguely bratty, eager subbyject will ask me to explain an aspect of their behaviour or their kink with an "I just don't know why I do that!"

So I'll look. And I'll tell them that - well, really, I wouldn't know the inside of their head and it's probably better to talk about things than to play guessing games do they really want to solicit my opinion and it's always that little bit if brinksmanship like it's a challenge to see if I've actually been listening to them during our talks.

And then I'll tell them what I see and they'll just break.

Like full on "I - uhhh - I need a moment" stunned silence interspersed with occasional strings of profanity and "Really?!"

See, I probably shouldn't enjoy that. But it's awfully fun.

[centrally-unplanned]

Though, to be clear, I am also pissed at the Biden Admin over this ERA stunt. How do I say this...why aren't you printing a platinum coin to cancel the debt ceiling? Why isn't Peurto Rico or DC a state - passed sans-filibuster as part of a rider on a reconciliation bill? Because if you are willing to consider legal hail marys for dramatic partisan plays, then why aren't you doing it for things that will actually do anything? Even if the ERA passed - which it won't - it would change virtually nothing. We already have federal legislation on sex discrimination, and Republicans control the courts so they will just bypass this shit. It won't stop abortion legislation, or educational policies, or anything.

You keep saying "we can't do play x y z because legal brinksmanship isn't decorous" and then do exactly that level of legal brinksmanship for useless, failed errata! Unserious flailings from an unserious admin, catering to The Groups, a few of which got obsessed with this because they have broken models of how power & policy function.

Idk man, it is just a dumb stunt, but it gets to me. It feels symbolic somehow; the very last act of the Biden years being an ineffectual handout to insiders, the defining failure of the entire administration coalesced into a single moment. It demonstrates a spiteful cluelessness around what went wrong. You don't have to do that to yourself.

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

So I've talked about this, I think at live shows. I don't know if I've ever talked about it on the podcast, but, you know, Ben's humor is so based on audio and like, and quality of words and the sounds and and sound effects and like, sort of how people say things. And, and he would get locked into in jokes. He would always have in jokes with literally every single person, every crew member, every cast. He would have one word that he would say that the way he said it would make you lose it. And it was always just one of the funniest things. And Ben and I, over the years, built up a pantheon of these references and repertoire. Oh my God. And this was one of the most legendary. So, and now I see why it's so great, because this what we real, so what he's doing here, and he doesn't actually do it, but what he had been doing all week, he barely does it. But what he had been doing all week was he, Ben used to take the tonal interpretation of lines in movies that we knew and insert the reading into a different line that we actually had to say on the script. So let me explain what I mean. So in the movie, Teen Wolf we talk, and the reason we were doing Teen Wolf was because Jerry. So we had been obviously talking Teen Wolf nonstop. And so there's a character in Teen Wolf is a coach, or the, the drama teacher. And the drama teacher has this amazing line where Michael J. Fox walks on. He's refusing to be the werewolf near the end of the movie when he is decided to embrace his humanity. And the, the, the, the drama teacher is gonna kick him outta the show. And he goes, how do I put this? No, no, no wolf. No wolf. No wolf, no part. And we always just thought it was so brilliant because the guy, he swallows it. And the way he sort of like, you know, 'cause the way it's written is like no wolf, no part kid. And he decides to like, make it this like very, and Ben and I would quote it and thought it was hysterical. So then Ben started saying, whatever this line is, I, God, I should have written it down. -Rider

In this recurring dream. What happens next? Shawn recalls, I'm left alone with this beautiful sorority girl who just got dumped, who just got dumped by her boyfriend. She's not too fond of men at the moment. So she wreaks havoc on me emotionally and physically. -Danielle

And then what does Ben's, what does Cory say then? -Rider

Cory, tell Shawn there's something that's not quite meshing with. -Danielle

That's, it was mesh. It was mesh. Mesh. Mesh. So he all week long would say, Shawn, Shawn, there's something that's not quite um mesh. Meshing. Meshing. And he would, so he inserted and it was something he would do at run throughs. He would do it in front. And nobody knew what he was doing. But he's signaling to me. Except for me. So I would be losing. So you can see in anticipation of this moment coming, and I'm sitting here basically daring him. You're not gonna do it while the cameras are rolling. I know. He already had, which is why I was already losing it. 'cause this is probably take two. So yes, this is the brinksmanship of me and Ben trying to make each other laugh. And they left it, they left. 'Cause there probably wasn't a take where we are not losing it. So yes, this is Ben Savage doing his Teen Wolf tone line insertion on our dialogue to just mesh. make each other laugh. And they left it, they left. 'cause there probably wasn't a take where we are not losing it. So yes, this is Ben Savage doing his teen wolf tone line insertion on our diet dialogue to just mesh. Mesh. Meh. Oh, there's so many instances of this throughout our history. But this was like the, I mean, yeah, I'll never forget it. And when I saw me start to laugh, that's all I remembered about this episode. That's all I remembered. Man, that makes me miss it so much. -Rider