A Bigger Problem Than Iran

 

It would appear Trump's bold new strategy to grapple with Iran having closed the Strait of Hormuz ... is to have the US Navy also close the Strait of Hormuz.

Which, if he calls the Iranian approach "WORLD EXTORTION [sic]", rather invites one to ponder whether that would be why he'd earlier been proffering a "joint venture" with Iran in this ("beautiful") department. An 'Extortion' he wants in on, one way or another, clearly.

In any case, this 'TWO can play at THAT GAME!' gambit of his isn't likely aimed at Iran (who'd of their own accord moved to close the Strait on the 9th of April, due to a perceived violation of the terms underpinning the ceasefire with the US by Israel), not least as the Iranians would almost certainly have anticipated significant curtailment of their exports via Hormuz from the outset (while also presumably being able to employ overland shipment via rail - most particularly of oil - to reach at least some of their trading partners through Central Asia).

Rather, I suspect it's more oriented toward everyone else - and most especially, those US allies / 'partners', who've not only refused to come to Trump's aid with naval vessels etc. as he'd previously demanded (see, inter alia, his enjoinments of the 16th of March, which also included China) ... but who've instead either already had their flagged/owned shipping beginning to be allowed through the strait by the Iranians (e.g. Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, as well as at least one French owned vessel), or who've signaled they're engaging with Tehran in order to enable such to happen (most notably, prominent US ally, South Korea - who're also presently in a diplomatic fisticuffs with Israel on somewhat adjacent matters).

It's these countries, and those whom their shipping supplies, whom Trump now seeks to cut off from any economic amelioration arrived at through non-enmity toward Iran. And with any already-underway 'winning' sans his express approval characterized as an affront needing punitive action.

That he would order his country's navy to "seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters [sic] that has paid a toll to Iran", vitiating their "safe passage on the high seas" - is not simply a declaration of disincentive moving forward.

Instead, this edict to hunt down and seize any ship which had already transited Hormuz feels retributive : for the crime of lending tangibility to Iran's vision and thereby undermining Trump's, these vessels are being 'Made An Example Of' (providing not only public portrayal of what happens should you try 'winning' without Trump - but countering implications of US impotence inside the Strait via performative allusions toward alleged naval plenipotence upon those "International Waters [sic]" found just about everywhere else).

Meanwhile, even if you're not an ostensible US 'partner' - by making it an actual total closure of the Strait, rather than a partial one (that was seemingly already heading for a de-facto 'normalization'), Trump evidently intends to make it 'Everybody's Problem'.

The subtext all up?

Effectively - you either back Trump, or you get nothing. No disregarding Trump via going to Iran direct to pursue a 'separate peace'. Choosing to move independent of the US line here cannot be allowed to result in benefit for anybody ostensibly part of its 'network', lest the US itself find itself functionally sidelined to some degree on this should it seriously catch on. Hence 'winning' without Trump means you get your ships involved treated like those of an enemy (specifically, Venezuela under Operation Southern Spear). And until Trump 'wins' - nobody does.

The problems with such a strategy are obvious.

Just over three weeks ago, Trump's team were sufficiently desperate to ease swelling oil-prices that they proclaimed a thirty-day suspension of sanctions upon exported Iranian oil. Because circumstances had become precarious enough on this front that the facilitation of Iranian oil into the market was deemed vital (it can hardly have been anything less than 'seriously undesirable' and much above the bottom of the barrel, given the optics on gift worth a reported ~US$ 14 billion dollars to one's adversary).

One therefore gets a sense for how eye-watering a prospect, then, attempting the exact opposite would feel for both the markets and their erstwhile manipulator. Except this is rather more stringent than that - and, contingent upon how long it is enforced for, almost surely more severe.

Trump's apparent plan to block "any and all Ships [sic] trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz" doesn't just stop a significant swathe of Iranian oil exports from reaching the global market - it also halts any exports from any of the other states going via the same vector.

Such as the three supertankers allowed through by the Iranians on Saturday, the cargos of which were two million barrels apiece of Saudi Arabian, UAEian, or Iraqi sourced crude oil.

The obvious and immediate consequence of such a complete choking of the flow of oil through Hormuz is an oil market situation characterized by dynamics (and broader effects) that America has already demonstrated itself much less resilient toward than Iran.

It is therefore dubious how long this blockade of Trump's can be maintained.

There is also an additional risk to Trump's apparent concept of 'Intentionally Becoming A Bigger Problem Than Iran So As To Beat Iran' -

Namely, that it does nothing whatsoever to dispel the notion that Trump et co. have indeed Become A Bigger Problem Than Iran. 

Compulsive Villain-Coded Behavior

I am continually amazed at the apparent ability of Thiel and his flunkies to somehow simultaneously make a big thing of how highly they regard Tolkien's work, how vital an inspiration Lord of the Rings is (in terms of values, even, not just as a convenient reservoir of cool-sounding names to have on your business-card) ...

... and yet then manage to, almost like they've got an unerring instinct for it, do something under such banner that's the Opposite Of What The Text(s) Said Was Right.

The previous major exemplar was Thiel & Luckey choosing to name their crypto bank "Erebor" (you know, after the mountain that becomes such a concentration of wealth as to end up lorded over by a dragon ... and with a disease affixed in its custodians to wish to hoard treasure, seemingly manifesting in a paranoid psychosis as it progresses).

And afore that, there was Thiel's rather conspicuous clanger of calling his surveillance company 'Palantir' - after that notoriously co-opted mechanism through which the Great Eye would domineer an incautious user (through 'selective information' or otherwise) and thereby even influence otherwise powerful figures erstwhile upon the side of good, toward contribution to evil. 

But it was only a matter of time 'til we got another one.

In this instance - Luckey, in a video extolling what he thinks might be good ideas for the future of warfare ... has somehow managed to gush his way to his very own Fighting Uruk-Hai. These being the "engineered biologics" he's on about - anthropomorphic or otherwise.

Now, to be fair and sure - I would not be the sci fi (and more particularly, tabletop wargaming) fan that I am, were I to fail to acknowledge the potential conceptual utility for 'muscles in machines' ('myomer', in Battletech terms - albeit that's an artificial equivalent); and, indeed, this post was initially going to be just a "There Are No Wolves On Fenris" reference (as far as the 'engineered biologics' bit goes viz. wolves, dire or otherwise).

But those are very, very different settings - with very, very different paradigmatic ethoi animating them. Even if both do draw from Tolkien (occasionally fairly explicitly).

When Thiel and Luckey invoke elements from Tolkien's legendarium, they do so both because they're - ostensible - Tolkien fans drawing upon that which they claim to love ... but they're also looking to position themselves, their ventures, in syzygy with the heroes of that world.

Anduril is especially resonant in that regard - after all, it's the sword of Aragorn; the one that enables the re-empowerment, the resurrection of 'the West', through its (open) wielding.

Yet in the very real sense, these actions and values thusly expressed under its name ... they are not those of one of Tolkien's heroes. Rather - they are those of one of Tolkien's villains.

There are many quotes from the man, his letters and his works, with which one might seek to illustrate such a principle - but in terms of where things are not just 'at' but 'headed' in the ambit of this so-called 'Anduril' ... my mind goes toward the conclusionary lines of a letter he'd sent to his son on the 30th of January 1945:

"Well the first War of the Machines seems to be drawing to its final inconclusive chapter – leaving, alas, everyone the poorer, many bereaved or maimed and millions dead, and only one thing triumphant: the Machines. As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful. What's their next move?" 

GET THIS MAN A BREATH-MINT - On Shane Jones' Proffered Fissile Probing

Earlier this week, I had read in the NZ Herald of Shane Jones reportedly trumpeting the prospect of a nuclear energy policy being considered for adoption by NZ First at its Convention this weekend.

For several reasons, I found this somewhat surprising.

First and most obviously, because that would seem to contrast with the "Founding Principle", still up on the Party's website currently, declaring: "New Zealander's [sic] desire for a non-nuclear future will be respected."

But second, because if we look overseas - moves in favour of nuclear power often seem to be tacitly (or even expressly) opposed by fossil fuel interests; who then either marshal or manufacture mouthpieces and media-grabs to propel their favoured outcome, accordingly.

Which, if you've noticed, is usually (at least, for other matters) what Shane Jones seems to be found doing for said industry here - an effort that's less 'subtly seeded astro-turf' and more 'one-man mangrove swamp with a megaphone' and accompanying dinner reservations.

So why would Jones all-of-a-sudden come out with a statement that New Zealand First is seemingly looking to put nuclear power here on the agenda?

It's true that Jones has previously sought to push for what we might charitably describe as 'novel' remedification for our nation's electricity difficulty - with the present "supercritical" geothermal drilling initiative (which an industry expert had characterized as "a technology that's unproven internationally, let alone nationally") being exhibit A.

Yet nuclear power is something fairly 'sui generis' when it comes to New Zealand politics and the public perspective. It has a 'magic' to it ('black', rather than 'green') which renders it customarily well outside the bounds of comfort for many ... and with a particular emphasis against it from amidst our environmental movements.

For Jones to proffer a seemingly pro-nuclear generation policy smacks of (at least) one of two things.

Option A - he's engaging in his apparent favourite sport, of Green-baiting; not simply in terms of the instant-uproar from such a quarter which adopting such a policy would induce  (should NZ First choose to do so) - but also through seeking to force the pro-environmental voices of our politics into openly and overtly disavowing a technology being presented as of significant utility in countering climate change.

That is - a gambit aimed at snaring his frog-defending opponents into coming across as empty 'virtue signallers' upon a major issue from within their own home turf.

Considering his ongoing grandstanding antagonism about Jacinda - you can just imagine the twist he'd put on 'climate change as our generation's nuclear free moment' for this. (I'm not saying any of the aforementioned as elements which I'd personally agree with - only that it would be the sort of rhetorical invective which would play 'well' for some of his intended audience)

And/Or

Option B - he's preparing the ground (no pun initially intended) for something which could be potentially of more interest for his surreptitious taste in dinner partners. Something along the lines of opening up an opportunity for commercial mining of the uranium (and thorium) deposits to be found on the South Island's West Coast.

Which, curiously, are featured in an NZ Petroleum & Minerals 'Prospectivity Report' for the region, apparently created on the 25th of June this year - the brochure in question advising prospective exploration and/or mining permit applicants as to the existence of "radiometric data show[ing] a dominance of Th[orium] and U[ranium] in some sand deposits along the coast".



That there exist radioactive mineral deposits in the area is not exactly new information; it's been acknowledged in GNS reports in the past, certainly.

However, there's an obvious difference between their being mentioned within scientific survey cataloguing (and featuring, in the case of the 2019 GNS 'Mineral Commodity Report', stern disclaimer that for uranium, "there will be no production in the near future due to New Zealand's [relevant regulation] which specifically does not allow prospecting, exploration and mining of the primary uranium and thorium minerals") ... and their being put forward amidst the (to quote the material) "significant exploration and mining opportunities" which NZPAM wishes to advertise as open to pursue.

That said, per current iteration for the 'Minerals Programme (Minerals Programme for Minerals (Excluding Petroleum)' ( 1.6 (3) ) : "Applications for permits for prospecting for, exploring for, and mining uranium and thorium minerals will ordinarily be declined".

While this would still allow the Minister (guess who) to be able to make extra-ordinary approvals within this area (or, at least, try to) - rather than uranium mining, the main thing it would open up in practice would be an immediate fusillade of Judicial Review applications instead.

Hence, if he were serious about making such a thing happen, the Minister would need to push some small alteration for the relevant regulations (in this case, the aforementioned non-petroleum Minerals Programme - which, per s5(c) of the Crown Minerals Act 1991, he's responsible for preparing, and per s16(1) can propose changes to) so as to properly secure permissibility.

Presumably, whilst loudly insisting upon a public purpose for which he did so.

Something along the lines of making possible a certain party's 'bold' new proposal for provisioning our power market, perhaps. 

Auditing The Government's Police Numbers Strategy

An audit of 1022 police recruits that went through training between January 2024 and April 2025 reveals 128 did so despite being unable to pass a "basic literacy assessment", in addition to dozens of other irregularities (the one that got the headline was the 36 that failed psychometric testing but were waived through anyway).

Now, I am a simple man. And it seems to me that this haste on the part of the Government to try and fill 500 pairs of police boots by November is going to cost our state money in the long run - because quite a lot of modern policing is, in fact, comprised of activities for which one needs to be ... in a word - "literate".

Submitting evidence to court? Filing charges? These are things which hinge upon the police officers in question being able to read and write to a decent official standard. It is not hard to find record of cases dismissed significantly because somebody on the Police end of things didn't get things right in these essential areas.

What does that work out as in practical terms? The very real potential for Justice not just 'delayed' but outright 'denied'. And no doubt a heap of 'compensatory' work being carried out 'behind the scenes' by Non-Sworn staff working for Police to try and tidy things up that shouldn't have become 'loose ends' in the first place.

It all costs time, money, and most importantly - people's faith in the institution and our system.

I would additionally proffer another trenchant insight upon matters Blue and Unwieldy (that's National, not necessarily Policing).

Namely, that we're in this mess in no small part because our Government refuses to pay our Police a fair amount - leading to a long-running saga of police unable to afford to continue in the job ... or, more aptly, often unable to continue in the job on this side of the Tasman.

Hence this piece from a little over a year ago featuring "more than three hundred" NZ police officers applying to patch over to Queensland. Which, for those whose 'basic numeracy' may be on par with some of these recruits by the sound of it ... is a little over half the target for 'New Cops' that our Government is aiming towards by November. 

To phrase it bluntly - we are paying the price, quite literally, in terms of needing to massively upscale our recruitment and training of potential new cops (who may or may not actually be of a decent quality - no matter what the government tries to claim contra-wise), because we keep haemorrhaging more experienced police over to Australia in pursuit of livable wages, or simply seeing them exit the vocation entirely.

And - needless to say - those more experienced officers who've already been in the job a number of years are worth considerably more than fresh recruits who're yet to have much in the way of actual, practical experience outside a training environment. 

It would seem to me that the way to retain quality officers - who've already been painstakingly selected, screened, and then both trained and in receipt of several years' on-the-job experience - would be to LISTEN TO OUR POLICE ASSOCIATION and sort out the pay for the police officers we've already got, rather than attempting to supplement / replace them with cheaper (on paper, and in the very short term) new recruits instead.

I would be very surprised if it turned out that that approach would not be a better use of money than the $226 million which National (and NZ First) have wanted to put toward their apparent preferred approach of recruiting and training more 'fresh' officers to try and bolster numbers. 

On Trump's 'Victory Day' Revisions

 

This is ... a bold set of claims.

And not least because I would have assumed VJ Day in August would have made for a more logical 'Victory Day for World War II' than VE Day in May (although I suppose it's the immediately impending occasion with the Russians' famous annual Victory Parade in Moscow which has caught the American President's imagination here). 

Nobody should doubt that the Americans made very significant contribution to the successful outcome of the Second World War; and they have every right to justifiable pride when it comes to both that and their efforts in the latter part of the First.

But I do not think it wise to attempt to set a sort of 'quantum of contribution' with a bid to try and out-compete - or, indeed, view it as a competition - other countries for 'credit' in the manner Trump's statement seems to oblige.

"Strength", "Bravery", and "Military Brilliance" are not uniform values across all years and all men, formations, and fronts. There is no mention made for "material" - in the sense of contribution made to others, whether Commonwealth or Soviet Union, through Lend-Lease.

And as applies "did far more" - one rubric might be manpower contribution and lives given, where the Soviet Union would be orders of magnitude larger in its scope than the Americans. In terms of a 'per capita' approach, there may be smaller groupings of man whose contribution was nevertheless higher in proportion than that of larger powers, whilst remaining lower in absolute terms. There are many ways to 'stack' it, and many elements to include if one seeks to come to some form of overarching 'credit quotient' for the war's ultimate result.

But, again, that is not a sensible way to seek to examine the conflicts in question. They are not 'scoreboards' for future generations to squabble upon like video-game match outcomes.

And it is absolutely unnecessary to proffer that America "did more than any other Country [sic], by far" in order to justify - as I say - a deserved pride in that which America did contribute, or to underpin appropriate commemorations oriented thusly towards.

What I would suggest is that the appropriate paradigm for it is a different meaning to Trump's "We won both Wars".

Yes. We - as in, the Allies (and this term has somewhat different scopes of inclusion for each War ... ) - won both Wars.

It was a team effort.

And, I might add, a team effort by previous generations to either myself or Trump (born a year after the latter conflict's conclusion); which has tended to mean I've felt rather uneasy about utilizing that first person plural pronoun with reference to the victors and sacrificers of those downright apocalyptic conflagrations.

It would feel entirely incorrect of me to seek to claim credit for the actions and the honorifics of those far greater men and women who have now largely (if not yet quite completely) left this earth for us to inherit and to give thanks for.

Although going via his tone in various communications over the years, I'm not entirely sure how much Trump might have assented towards that ethos.

I also do wonder if "Celebrating" is the apt verb for something like a commemoration to the end of World War One.

"Commemoration" has always seemed, to me, to be the more useful (and emotionally apt) approach.

As His Fans Scream Victory, Trump Backs Down

There's something ... odd going on.

I've seen a bunch of comments around the place from pro-Trump Americans (and apparently wishing-to-pretend-they're-Americans) this afternoon which have basically been, to summarize: "Trump threatened Canada with Tariffs, CANADA FOLDED!"

And therefore, Trump holding off on imposing his much-vaunted tariffs as the fruit of a victory won by wielding them as a negotiation tactic (well, "submission-demanding tactic" would be more how those fans are countenancing it, but anyway).

Except here's the thing. The Canadian policy which they're pointing to as what Trump "won" with this week's tariff threats ... was already announced a month and a half ago.

It's true that Trudeau had re-mentioned some of the headline details of it (like the $1.3 billion dollar funding boost for Canada's border security) in the course of his speech in reply to Trump's tariff stick-waving, so I suppose I can see why it might have looked like it was in reaction to Trump's threat.

Although during the course of said speech, Trudeau also mentioned a rather extensive suite of retaliatory tariff etc. measures which Canada would be implementing if America went through with Trump's announced approach.

In other words - the only thing which actually changed as a result of Trump's recent announcement he was going to impose tariffs on Canada, is Trudeau declaring that Canada would respond in kind.

But because, apparently, 'object permanence' is a bit of a difficult thing out there ... a policy-set which was already announced in mid-December, is grasped by these pro-Trump commenters as having been swiftly congealed in early February in specific response to Trump's tariff declaration late last week.

And therefore, Trump saying actually he's going to not go through with his imposition of tariffs (for at least the next month - conveniently aligned with the time-scale announced by Trudeau for Canada's rollout of 'retaliatory' tariffs ... Trudeau had said that his government were going to give Canadian business several weeks to adapt and find alternate suppliers etc., hence why not simply emplacing their own tariffs immediately in response to Trump's) ... gets purported as proof of victory.

To say that again: Trump backs off on imposing tariffs on Canada following Canada saying it would respond in kind, and because Canada's PM also re-mentions in his speech a policy his government had already come out with last year, this is presented as the direct consequence to Trump's tariff imposition, so 'Trump Victory'.

Rather than, say, Trump swiftly backing away from doing something, immediately following Canada showing an intent to retaliate significantly if he actually went ahead and implemented it.

Now, I'm not saying that there was no causal relationship between Trump making remarks last year toward Canada and Canada's December announcement of a funding increase for its border security etc. (although considering the sheer size of Canada's borders both on land and sea, I do rather wonder how much of an increase that $1.3 billion actually works out as).

However, considering Trump's declared tariff imposition toward Canada last week happened over a month after that Canadian announcement ... Trump rescinding (or, at least, "Pausing" for "at least thirty days" the actual implementation for) his tariffs on Canada cannot have been in response to what was already put forward within same.

Phrased more succinctly - Canada didn't 'back down' to Trump this week.

It did the opposite.

It declared it was prepared to 'push back' directly - and Trump abandoned his attack (whilst phrasing it as a 'pause' for ... long enough to be conveniently forgotten about, and for some other big flashpoint to have come to the fore for him to claim a victory on instead).

But because people really do rather like to 'feel like [they're] winning', his enthusiastic online support-base (and, no doubt, their epochal predecessors in more traditional media) are jubilantly presenting things as if Trump's tariff imposition a few days ago actually succeeded.

And yes, yes I suppose it did.

It succeeded in getting Trudeau to make a speech (he's good at speeches - it was a pretty decent one, The Rev. Rolinson was watching it last night).

Some "win".

Yeah? Well What're You Doing About It! - National's Bemusing Attempted Distraction On CGT Claim

I read in my newspaper yesterday afternoon that Luxon had had a rather ... odd comment in reply to ANZ's CEO saying that a capital gains tax on investment properties was, in principle, fair.

What did he say?

"She’s more than welcome to enter the political domain, [...] But the point I'd make is that the big Australian banks make a lot of money off the New Zealand public, and maybe taking more money isn’t the right way forward."

The way Luxon probably intended this to come across was something like "taking money from New Zealanders Bad" .. in the sense that his government collecting tax from its citizenry is apparently somehow comparable to profits levied by private sector enterprise, and that higher profits are ... ok, so maybe it doesn't actually work very well as an analogy.

But here's the thing.

Luxon using this as his response to Watson (the ANZ CEO aforementioned) upon the comment with relation to CGT 'fairness' is revealing.

Effectively, when somebody brings up a point with some logic for it (in this case - somebody who literally wrote their dissertation on tax  remarking that while they're not hugely enthused about it, it's "fair" to tax investment property as investment in property) , National doesn't really have an answer.

What they've got instead is whataboutery and insults.

Nicola Willis' contribution was similarly glib:

"If she's really worried about the wellbeing of New Zealanders, then there's a lot the bank could be doing".

Ok, but you guys - Luxon, Wills et co. - you're the Government.

If you're genuinely of the opinion that our banking sector is not acting in concordance with the "wellbeing of New Zealanders", and is (as is generally agreed) taking rather eye-watering profits at our literal, direct expense ...

... then why not actually do something about it?

New Zealanders gave these guys (rightly or wrongly) the power to govern.

That means much more than being 'theoretically aware' of a problem but only deigning to decree via press-encounter that a bank (or, indeed, the entire banking sector) 'should' do something better ... when one of their CEOs happens to mildly embarrass you in a media cycle.