• panda_abyss@lemmy.ca
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    3 days ago

    How to win at war:

    1. Start negotiating with foe
    2. Bomb foe during negotiations
    3. Declare victory, tell friends to fuck off
    4. ?
    5. Beg friends for help, because you have lost both tactical and strategic control of the situation. Threaten partners for not helping.
    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      Threaten partners for not helping.

      Threaten partners with tariffs. The same thing you’ve been slapping them with for absolutely no reason since you came into office. The same things that these partners now just expect to have to deal with when your mood changes. The same thing that courts have decided are illegal and that you can’t actually enforce.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          4 hours ago

          And that was before the Strait of Hormuz situation.

          He can’t convince former allies to help out of goodwill and solidarity because he’s done everything possible to destroy that goodwill since he came into office.

          He also can’t convince them to help out of fear of the consequences either, because he has already imposed those consequences.

          In addition, even if he had a threat or a reward that was meaningful, the one thing that’s clear about Trump is that he never keeps his word. He doesn’t even adhere to treaties that are legally binding. So, if he promised something extremely valuable, he probably wouldn’t deliver. OTOH, if he threatened something extremely dire, he would probably chicken out.

      • ViatorOmnium@piefed.social
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        3 days ago

        Then it was a stupid plan even from an electoral point of view.

        I have an ongoing half joking bet since the 2nd day in the war that Trump will be talking about the parties in the island to distract people from the side effects of the war by June.

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Sending the price of gas to the stratosphere, replacing the petrodollar schema by petroyuan, increasing the military spending by a huge margin, and antagonizing the entire world aren’t enough of a distraction to guarantee people won’t be thinking about it in the elections.

        But doing that with 9 months of time for it to impact all the business and family budgets in your country is.