psi's recent activity
-
Comment on Why the US Navy won't open Hormuz in ~society
-
Comment on Why the US Navy won't open Hormuz in ~society
psi (edited )Link ParentI would not say the Navy can absolutely secure the Strait; I would say they can maybe secure it, and even then I would remain somewhat skeptical. I think it's hard to have a properly calibrated...I would not say the Navy can absolutely secure the Strait; I would say they can maybe secure it, and even then I would remain somewhat skeptical. I think it's hard to have a properly calibrated notion of the capabilities of the US military. It's very large and very well-funded, especially compared to other militaries, but its resources are not infinite. There are, therefore, necessarily things the US cannot do, even if we presume it better equipped than any other country. Our failure in Afghanistan serves as an an obvious, recent example.
Assuming you haven't read it yet, I would recommend this piece I submitted a few days ago. I'll quote the relevant passage:
For the United States, a purely military solution is notionally possible: you could invade. But as noted, Iran is very, very big and has a large population, so a full-scale invasion would be an enormous undertaking, larger than any US military operation since the Second World War. Needless to say, the political will for this does not exist. But a ‘targeted’ ground operation against Iran’s ability to interdict the strait is also hard to concieve. Since Iran could launch underwater drones or one-way aerial attack drones from anywhere along the northern shore the United States would have to occupy many thousands of square miles to prevent this and of course then the ground troops doing that occupying would simply become the target for drones, mortars, artillery, IEDs and so on instead.
One can never know how well prepared an enemy is for something, but assuming the Iranians are even a little bit prepared for ground operations, any American force deployed on Iranian soil would end up eating Shahed and FPV drones – the sort we’ve seen in Ukraine – all day, every day.
Meanwhile escort operations in the strait itself are also deeply unpromising. For one, it would require many more ships, because the normal traffic through the strait is so large and because escorts would be required throughout the entire Gulf (unlike the Red Sea crisis, where the ‘zone’ of Houthi attacks was contained to only the southern part of the Red Sea). But the other problem is that Iran possesses modern anti-ship missiles (AShMs) in significant quantity and American escort ships (almost certainly Arleigh Burke-class destroyers) would be vulnerable escorting slow tankers in the constrained waters of the strait.
It isn’t even hard to imagine what the attack would look like: essentially a larger, more complex version of the attack that sunk the Moskva, to account for the Arleigh Burke’s better air defense. Iran would pick their moment (probably not the first transit) and try to distract the Burke, perhaps with a volley of cheap Shahed-type drones against a natural gas tanker, before attempting to ambush the Burke with a volley of AShMs, probably from the opposite direction. The aim would be to create just enough confusion that one AShM slipped through, which is all it might take to leave a $2.2bn destroyer with three hundred American service members on board disabled and vulnerable in the strait. Throw in speed-boats, underwater drones, naval mines, fishing boats pretending to be threats and so on to maximize confusion and the odds that one of perhaps half a dozen AShMs slips through.
And if I can reason this out, Iran – which has been planning for this exact thing for forty years certainly can. Which is why the navy is not eager to run escort.
-
Comment on Why the US Navy won't open Hormuz in ~society
psi LinkIt's worth bearing these facts in mind when Trump complains about how our allies won't "help" in opening the Strait of Hormuz. Beyond the lack of incentives (the war is deeply unpopular and Trump...Back in the Persian Gulf today, the Navy grasps the reality of the circumstances, recognizing that it simply can’t sail into the strait without risk getting blown to smithereens by Iran’s missiles. Today, its carriers are stationed well outside the Gulf and the ranges of Iranian missiles.
[...]
This is why the U.S. Navy hasn’t attempted to force its way through the strait. Simply put, Iran is threatening extremely expensive and manpower-intensive U.S. ships with weapons that are a fraction of the cost in exchange. Moreover, the United States can’t easily replace destroyed or damaged vessels due to the well-documented decline of the shipbuilding industrial base.
It's worth bearing these facts in mind when Trump complains about how our allies won't "help" in opening the Strait of Hormuz. Beyond the lack of incentives (the war is deeply unpopular and Trump is wont to downplay allies' contributions regardless), Trump demands other countries do what the US Navy cannot. It's an impossible ask for nothing in return.
-
Comment on I think Tildes moderators and admins may need to make a decision regarding how to handle Harry Potter related posts in ~tildes
psi LinkWe're risking splitting this community over something as banal as Harry Potter. Tildes has always been that weird corner of the internet with overly-winded, thoughtful comments (a phrase that's...We're risking splitting this community over something as banal as Harry Potter. Tildes has always been that weird corner of the internet with overly-winded, thoughtful comments (a phrase that's been thrown around to the point of cliche) interspersed with a progressive political bent and a pro-LGBT+ through line. Sure, there are plenty of places with wordy discussions and plenty of other places that are aggressively progressive, but this is the only community I know of that manages to thread both of these ideals successfully.
And I get it. Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson and the gang are all about my age, so I literally grew up with them. But the more I learned about J.K. Rowling's bigoted beliefs, and the more she continued to double down, the less I could enjoy the franchise. Eventually I decided the best thing I could do was to simply disengage with the wizarding world altogether. But I understand that Harry Potter was much more important for some people than for me, and that for these people it might not be so easy to leave that series behind. And you know, I get that, too. I've been vegetarian for long enough to know that sometimes the best thing you can do is lead by example. I'm not going to lecture my mom on why she shouldn't buy a Harry Potter backpack when it's one of the few things of whimsy she enjoys. We live in a world where it's impossible to be the best versions of ourselves, and sometimes it's worth compromising just a little bit to get along with the ones we love.
But what I wouldn't do is invite my mildly homophobic relatives to a gay bar. That lack of an invitation would not be for my relatives's sake, but rather for the patrons of that bar who deserve their safe space.
So for those insisting on the right to discuss Harry Potter here anyway, despite there being much more suitable forums elsewhere, I implore you to consider what you might lose: You threaten to drive out a core constituent of our community, changing the fabric of this website, all so that we can have maybe a few dozen on-topic comments about a media franchise.
Is that really more important than supporting our trans friends?
-
Comment on Miscellanea: The war in Iran in ~society
psi LinkIt's a long article, but I found it an engaging read.It's a long article, but I found it an engaging read.
I am going to spend the next however many words working through what I think are the strategic implications of where we are, but that is my broad thesis: for the United States this war was an unwise gamble on extremely long odds; the gamble (that the regime would collapse swiftly) has already failed and as a result locked in essentially nothing but negative outcomes. Even with the regime were to collapse in the coming weeks or suddenly sue for peace, every likely outcome leaves the United States in a meaningfully worse strategic position than when it started.
[...]
The gamble was this: that the Iranian regime was weak enough that a solid blow, delivered primarily from the air, picking off key leaders, could cause it to collapse. For the United States, the hope seems to have been that a transition could then be managed to leaders perhaps associated with the regime but who would be significantly more pliant, along the lines of the regime change operation performed in Venezuela that put Delcy Rodriguez in power. By contrast, Israel seems to have been content to simply collapse the Iranian regime and replace it with nothing. That outcome would be – as we’ll see – robustly bad for a huge range of regional and global actors, including the United States, and it is not at all clear to me that the current administration understood how deeply their interests and Israel’s diverged here.
[...]
It should go without saying that creating the conditions where the sometimes unpredictable junior partner in a security relationship can unilaterally bring the senior partner into a major conflict is an enormous strategic error, precisely because it means you end up in a war when it is in the junior partner’s interests to do so even if it is not in the senior partner’s interests to do so.
-
Miscellanea: The war in Iran
12 votes -
Comment on Everyone but US President Donald Trump understands what he’s done - allied leaders know that any positive gesture they make will count for nothing in ~society
psi Link ParentI think populism is just one of the fundamental failure modes of democracy. Ultimately, we do not elect representatives based on their capability (i.e., their ability to implement good policy) but...I think populism is just one of the fundamental failure modes of democracy. Ultimately, we do not elect representatives based on their capability (i.e., their ability to implement good policy) but rather their intelligibility (i.e., their ability to persuasively argue policy). Obviously capable politicians will have an advantage, but someone can also be technically capable but unable to effectively disseminate knowledge. Sometime it's from a lack of charisma, sure, but other times issues are simply complicated and cannot be distilled to a soundbite.
So what happens when you have a complex policy problem that cannot easily be addressed or explained (say, the shit economy at the end of 2024)? You get someone like Trump, a person who has a simple answer for everything (possibly because he cannot actually fathom complications). When Trump said that he'd fix the economy through tariffs, virtually every economist disagreed; but when Biden argued that his administration already had implemented policies to right the course, but that it'd just take time for their effects to be felt because of blah blah blah... Well, who did people believe? Some invisible experts with a forgettable message, or the TV personality who continuously boasted (falsely, for the record) about having presided over the strongest economy of all time?
Immigrants are particularly vulnerable to this type of scapegoating. It's much easier to blame "undesirables" for decaying infrastructure and "abusing" welfare than it is to build infrastructure or an effective welfare system.
-
Comment on Gamblers trying to win a bet on Polymarket are vowing to kill me if I don't rewrite an Iran missile story in ~society
psi Link ParentRather than asking whether "insider trading" is an intended feature, one should ask whether that is a good feature. Leaking classified military intelligence is a crime, and while there can be...Rather than asking whether "insider trading" is an intended feature, one should ask whether that is a good feature. Leaking classified military intelligence is a crime, and while there can be moral reasons for doing so, profiteering does not count among them.
-
Comment on Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news in ~news
psi Link"He Came to New York for Fun. He Left Seeking $20 Million in Damages." The New York Times."He Came to New York for Fun. He Left Seeking $20 Million in Damages." The New York Times.
When Mr. Manz arrived in New York in 2024, he was excited to try something new. He walked into the Times Square outpost of Los Tacos No. 1 on 43rd Street and ordered three tacos.
“Because this taco experience was too special for me, I made several pictures and videos of the received food,” he would later write.
He poured salsa onto the tacos, and began to eat. This did not go well.
“My tongue and mouth were burning immediately,” Mr. Manz wrote, and “my Apple Watch registered at this time a higher pulse.”
His symptoms worsened to include gastrointestinal and emotional distress, he said. In a lawsuit he later filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York, Mr. Manz described the restaurant’s liability as a “failure to warn” customers of its hot salsa. He sought relief in the form of $100,000.
-
Comment on Documents reveal a web of financial ties between Donald Trump officials and the US industries they help regulate in ~society
psi Link ParentWell, this isn't quite true. The House has impeached 21 federal officers throughout its history, of which 8 were convicted and removed (all federal judges), the most recent being Thomas Porteous...After 250 years it still has yet to do the thing it's intended to do, even once.
Well, this isn't quite true. The House has impeached 21 federal officers throughout its history, of which 8 were convicted and removed (all federal judges), the most recent being Thomas Porteous in 2010 for corruption.
Not that I disagree with your larger point. Obviously the impeachment process is broken.
-
Comment on Some of my family members aren't convinced that ICE isn't overstepping and that they are just deporting people that broke the law, can you help me share unbiased links that proves they are? in ~society
psi LinkI would highly recommend this piece. It thoroughly dispels the notion that they're only targeting "immigrants that are criminals or that didn't immigrate legally", and in fact makes the opposite...I would highly recommend this piece. It thoroughly dispels the notion that they're only targeting "immigrants that are criminals or that didn't immigrate legally", and in fact makes the opposite point: ICE is illegally detaining and deporting immigrants that are here legally.
At one point, when [a lawyer at the Office of Policy and Strategy] told McDermott [a senior adviser at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services] that one of his demands contradicted an existing statute and might be at odds with the agency’s stance in pending litigation, he responded, “We don’t care what the statute says. We don’t care about court orders, and we don’t care about litigation risk.”
-
Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of February 9 in ~society
psi Link ParentThe Trump admin blamed Cartel drones, but per the New York Times, it appears that CBP fired off anti-drone lasers without coordinating with the FAA. "What We Know About the El Paso Airspace...The Trump admin blamed Cartel drones, but per the New York Times, it appears that CBP fired off anti-drone lasers without coordinating with the FAA.
Multiple people briefed on the situation said the abrupt airspace closure was prompted by Customs and Border Protection officials deploying an anti-drone laser in the area without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial planes.
Further, according to multiple people familiar with the situation, the F.A.A.’s move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared with them by the Defense Department without coordination with the aviation agency. The C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it was a party balloon.
The Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The F.A.A. declined to comment.
According to the people briefed on the matter, at the time the F.A.A. closed the airspace, it had not yet completed an assessment of possible risks posed by the new anti-drone technology to other aircraft. Two of the people added that F.A.A. officials had warned the Pentagon that if they were not given enough time and information for their review, they would have no choice but to shut down the airspace near the anti-drone system.
-
Comment on Why computers won’t make themselves smarter - Ted Chiang in ~tech
psi (edited )Link ParentMore compute doesn't necessarily translate into better results, however. Anyone who's ever trained a neutral network knows that the loss tends to level off eventually, and that if you want to...Whoops! Compute-scaling.
More compute doesn't necessarily translate into better results, however. Anyone who's ever trained a neutral network knows that the loss tends to level off eventually, and that if you want to improve performance, you either have to retune your hyperparameters or obtain better data. But tuning hyperparameters can only take you so far, and there is only so much quality data that exists. That implies an upper limit somewhere.
Perhaps LLMs, having been trained on human text, will plateau under optimized circumstances to the theoretical upper limit for human intelligence. That would be incredibly useful, to be sure, but definitionally not superintelligence.
Or to be even more speculative, perhaps human-level intelligence is near the theoretical upper limit of biological or even "computational" intelligence. (One can always wonder why humans didn't evolve to be cleverer.) Under this regime, superintelligence would be impossible to achieve regardless of technique or technology.
For now we're squarely in the non-superintelligence era. LLMs can augment human work, turning the output of a non-expert to something more advanced, but it doesn't produce results that are unachievable by human cognition. The LLM responses might come faster, but for the same reason that you can't "run" a rat faster and have it produce quantum mechanics, the near-instantaneous responses of an LLM don't prove that LLMs are more capable. We won't be able to conclude that superintelligence exists until LLMs (or something else) can produce objectively correct results whose derivations are inscrutable to domain experts.
-
Comment on Humble Choice - February 2026 in ~games
psi Link ParentIn general, I'm okay with different prices in different regions from an equity standpoint, but it doesn't really make sense in this case. If anything, a key from Europe might cost more than a key...In general, I'm okay with different prices in different regions from an equity standpoint, but it doesn't really make sense in this case. If anything, a key from Europe might cost more than a key from the US, as the prices tend to be exactly the same numerical value except with the $-symbol replaced with a €-symbol.
-
Comment on Humble Choice - February 2026 in ~games
psi (edited )Link ParentHey, sorry for your bad luck. I also had a similar experience with region lock screwing me over. I purchased a Humble Choice bundle a couple years back specifically for an advertised 20% discount...Hey, sorry for your bad luck. I also had a similar experience with region lock screwing me over.
I purchased a Humble Choice bundle a couple years back specifically for an advertised 20% discount on Metaphor: ReFantazio, but I didn't check the expiration dates for any of the items since I had planned to redeem the keys/coupon later that day. So you can imagine how annoyed I was when I tried to use the Metaphor: ReFantazio coupon a few hours later -- you know, the thing I had specifically bought the bundle for -- and realized that the coupon had just expired. Like, it wasn't even the end of the month yet! How could you have a Humble Choice item that expires before the bundle does?
But I still wanted this game, and at this point I was already 12 euros in the hole, so I made my way to Fanatical for some sort of discount. I made the purchase. I went to Steam. I clicked redeem. And Steam told me: Thanks, but no thanks. The item was region locked to Germany.
I was no longer annoyed but outright pissed. I had been living in Germany for a couple years and had bought quite a few things on Fanatical, but this is the first time I had encountered a product that was region locked. It had never even occurred to me to check. (Lesson learned!)
Luckily, there was a fix: I just needed to change my region from the US to Germany. Unfortunately that means I have to deal with slightly higher prices forever more and am unable to access the occasional region-blocked game. But at least I can use my German bank account.
Anyway, this was really just a long way of saying: I feel you. But also, if you still have that Resident Evil Village key, I will totally take it.
-
Comment on The film students who can no longer sit through films in ~movies
psi Link ParentTo be clear, I also don't think it's as simple as "Tiktok and pretty colours in my phone", either. I think it would be very difficult to disentangle the impacts of the pandemic, social media, and...To be clear, I also don't think it's as simple as "Tiktok and pretty colours in my phone", either. I think it would be very difficult to disentangle the impacts of the pandemic, social media, and LLMs on the current generation of college students. I also remember teaching during the pandemic (a physics lab no less!) and can personally attest to how awkward it was for me and my students.
But I think what made virtual learning even worse was that it was so easy to distract yourself. It's much more acceptable to check your instagram reels in the privacy of your own home than in the middle of a physics lab.
-
Comment on The film students who can no longer sit through films in ~movies
psi Link ParentRight. I will remind people that one of the subplots from Requiem for a Dream -- a movie famous for its depiction of drug abuse -- involved a mother who was "addicted" to her television programs....Right. I will remind people that one of the subplots from Requiem for a Dream -- a movie famous for its depiction of drug abuse -- involved a mother who was "addicted" to her television programs. My parents, daycare, etc imposed time limits on television when I was a child, so yes, it was a widely discussed issue then.
But these concerns feel so quaint compared to our relationships with phones. Not only do most people carry today's dopamine dispenser with them everywhere they go, virtually everyone expects you to have one, making it infinitely more difficult to navigate the real world without one. It's just such an obvious recipe for disaster.
-
Comment on Does anyone else find CBS News particularly stressful? in ~tv
psi Link ParentA particularly timely article: "Inside Bari Weiss’s Hostile Takeover of CBS News." The New Yorker. Probably the most egregious example of her tenure so farA particularly timely article:
Probably the most egregious example of her tenure so far
A few days before Christmas, “60 Minutes” was set to air a report on CECOT, the prison in El Salvador where the Trump Administration had sent more than two hundred deportees in March. The men, most of whom were from Venezuela, had been spirited out of the U.S. on a series of late-night flights, in violation of a federal judge’s court order. Sharyn Alfonsi, a “60 Minutes” correspondent, had interviewed two of them. The stories were harrowing. “There was blood everywhere, screams, people crying, people who couldn’t take it and were urinating and vomiting on themselves,” one of the men told her. She had reached out to the Trump Administration for comment but received only a cursory, two-sentence response.
Like all “60 Minutes” stories, the CECOT segment had been fact-checked and vetted by the network’s legal department. Five separate screenings were held for various editorial stakeholders. Weiss was supposed to attend the final screening, on Thursday afternoon, but she had missed it. She didn’t see the segment until late that night, e-mailing suggestions for a few changes that were incorporated into the piece. The network promoted the segment as the lead story for that Sunday’s episode. Alfonsi flew home to Texas.
The CECOT story was being finalized almost exactly as Ellison was pursuing another major expansion of his growing media empire. Earlier that month, he had launched a hostile takeover bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, the film-and-television conglomerate that had already announced a deal to be acquired by Netflix. In many ways, the outcome depended on Trump, since regulatory approval would be required for either sale to go through. “I’ll be involved in that decision,” Trump had told reporters.
For Ellison, this was suddenly a problem. “60 Minutes” had recently aired an interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump ally who had fallen out with the President over his resistance to releasing the F.B.I.’s files on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP,” Trump posted on Truth Social after the interview aired. “Since they bought it, 60 minutes has actually gotten WORSE.”
On Saturday morning, Weiss, who reports directly to Ellison, told “60 Minutes” producers she was concerned that no officials from the Trump Administration had been interviewed on camera for the piece. Specifically, she wanted to include the Administration’s argument for its use of the Alien Enemies Act, an eighteenth-century law that Trump officials claimed allowed them to deport Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador without due process. “We should explain this, with a voice arguing that Trump is exceeding his authority under the relevant statute, and another arguing that he’s operating within the bounds of his authority,” Weiss wrote in a note to the producers. “There’s a genuine debate here.” She had “tracked down” numbers for Tom Homan, the border czar, and Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief immigration adviser, which she sent to the “60 Minutes” team.
On Sunday, three hours before broadcast, the CECOT piece was officially pulled from the lineup. “My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be,” Weiss said in a statement. “Holding stories that aren’t ready for whatever reason—that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices—happens every day in every newsroom.” Alfonsi felt betrayed. “In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one,” she wrote in a note to her colleagues. “Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.”
The next day, the Ellisons announced a significant sweetening of their bid for Warner Bros.: Larry would personally guarantee $40.4 billion of the funding. Weiss didn’t come to the CBS offices that day. She joined the morning’s daily editorial meeting via Zoom, beginning with what seemed like a rebuke of Alfonsi. “The only newsroom that I’m interested in running is one where we are able to have contentious disagreements about the thorniest editorial matters and do so with respect, and, crucially, where we assume the best intent of our colleagues,” Weiss said. “And anything else is absolutely unacceptable to me and should be unacceptable to you.”
That afternoon, during a “60 Minutes” staff meeting, Scott Pelley, a longtime correspondent, expressed frustration that Weiss hadn’t attended any of the screenings of the segment or communicated directly with Alfonsi. “She needs to take her job a little bit more seriously,” he said. A former CBS staffer was soon circulating an open letter to Ellison, expressing alarm at “a breakdown in editorial oversight” that risked “setting a dangerous precedent in a country that has traditionally valued press freedom.” A former CBS executive told me that, even if Weiss’s concerns had been valid, her decision to cut the segment at such a late hour had opened her up to charges of corporate interference: “It makes you wonder, Did someone call once they saw the promo on the air and then she spent more time on it because there was some big complaint?” Sources close to Weiss and Ellison said that Skydance leadership had zero involvement in the story and did not screen the piece.
-
Comment on Scott A. on Scott A. on Scott A. in ~comics
psi (edited )Link ParentI would generally agree that Scott Alexander's post is the one people should read. (Other than the clever title, Scott Aaronson isn't contributing much to the discussion -- it's basically just...I would generally agree that Scott Alexander's post is the one people should read. (Other than the clever title, Scott Aaronson isn't contributing much to the discussion -- it's basically just blog spam.) But this particular excerpt makes me role my eyes. Alexander's complaint that "some percent of washed-up gifted kids compensate by really, really hating nerdiness, rationality, and the intellect" reads more like a whine than an observation, as if the only reason more people don't identify as rationalists is because of their own self-loathing (instead of, for example, being adverse to a movement that reduces the "super woke" to "self-hating nerds").
But otherwise there is some really fascinating stuff in that post, and I think Alexander's reasons for being interested in Scott Adams' life probably overlaps with at least some of our own reasons. Adams considered himself a reasonable person (who doesn't?), but he failed to understand why others saw the world differently from him. Rather than attempt to meet people in the middle, Adams dismissed their perspectives and assumed them intellectually inferior and victims of propaganda.
I think most of us here can relate to Adams' feelings to some extent, particularly in this time of political crisis. It's hard not to think that all Republicans are either propagandists or irrational when Trump calls Renee Good a "domestic terrorist" and Republicans double-down with the rhetoric. But identifying the breakdown is easy; moving forward is hard.
Adams' solution was to fully embrace the propaganda. He trained himself in the ways of hypnosis, writing quasi-religious treaties in which he would subconsciously "attempt to produce a feeling of euphoric enlightenment in the reader". Adams believed that, although reasoned discourse should guide policy, most people were not capable of reason and therefore should only receive the propaganda while their betters made the actual decisions. It is, to be sure, a perverse worldview, one that infantilizes anyone with a difference of opinion.
But if you categorically distrust those who disagree with you, then you probably also lack the self-awareness to realize when you're out of your depth. Adams' tragic irony was that he found himself drawn to conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific beliefs, going so far as to take ivermectin after his cancer diagnosis, despite the lack of medical evidence, which might well have accelerated his death. I consider his downfall, cancellation, and death a reminder to practice epistemic humility, that is, to acknowledge that while nobody ever intentionally believes something false, we are all certainly wrong about some things; and that if we automatically dismiss those we tend to disagree with, we risk locking ourselves out of the march towards truth.
-
Why on earth have I seen the same Broadway show thirteen times? An investigation.
8 votes
You're right to highlight the hypocrisy. However, I would go further and say that European forces almost certainly cannot secure the straight, so Trump is essentially trying to pass the buck to Europe even though Europe has realistically no way of accomplishing the task.
But regardless of the effectiveness of the military operation, there is also the economic angle. Suppose the US/Europe could mostly secure the strait. Well, what would that mean? If transport ships "only" had a 1/20 chance of being sunk, would it even make financial sense to attempt the crossing? Oil tankers cost from ~10 - 100 million dollars and take years to build. Ship owners (not to mention sailors) might well decide it's simply not worth the risk.