> Then we had about 20 years of politicians who thought the soft power stuff was all you needed
Actually, about 9 years. Then Afghanistan happened, followed by Iraq. Hard power was back baby!
> The security concerns haven't changed, but the way of dealing with them has.
The security concerns were never there to begin with, unless you mean the security concerns of Israel. With the US as the hegemon, it is in the US's interests to maintain the security of key trade corridors, the most volatile and important of which is the Hormuz strait (arguably even more than the Suez). Post Iranian Revolution, every action of the US has only served against its interests, to further destabilize the corridor - whether it was funneling weapons to Saddam, invading Saddam 20 years later, not to mention the constant sabre-rattling against Iran throughout.
> I'm confused as to why Filipinos are protesting against taking out the Iranian regime; it's a direct blow to Chinese expansionism, as well as the jihadist groups in the south
Lol no. Getting involved with Iran means fighting a country that has every intention to bog down the US in a long war, at no cost consideration for its citizens. China loves the war - it's a repeat of Vietnam. China is literally dishing out intelligence to Iran and helping them skirt sanctions. Also Iran, which is Shia, isn't involved with the terror groups in Mindanao (which are hardline Sunni and funded by the US GCC allies).
> But America's taking out the weakest links in the Russian-Chinese-Iranian-Venezuelan axis
The weakest link in the axis was literally Venezuela - proximity to the US, a hated president, and competing factions vying for power. Well, at least before the US decided it was a dandy idea to kidnap Maduro.
> A short-term rotation away from East Asia doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad strategic move.
The Iran war is going to be anything but short-term, as the Iranians have stated. Even if the US wants to exit the campaign, the Iranians will not let them, and if the US decides to unilaterally stop bombing Iran, it leaves Israel open to the Iranians, which is something Israel and AIPAC won't let the US do.
The Asian allies know this, which is why everyone from South Korea to Japan to Philippines to Australia has been worried - because they know that this leaves fewer American resources for them. The US has already begun diverting THAADs and Patriots from SK to the Middle East because they've been depleted. The UAE was begging around for interceptors from Italy (at a 125% premium) and then Russia, because the US failed to provide for its "capable allies". The Gulf states internally already see the US, including US defence products, as unreliable in supply and are already moving to lock in deals with EU providers such as Rheinmetall.
Maybe the Asian countries can finally get together and hash out a way to deal with Israel. It seems like an insurmountable problem. The elites in the US either fall in line or when they try to push back they are eventually forced to relent(ex. Musk in the early Twitter days).
This entire saga has been a wake up call to the middle eastern states. They thought all the money they paid to the US over the years got them a first class ticket when in reality they are sitting way back in economy.
There aren't many options on the table. Cozy up to China? Maybe the middle eastern and OECD countries can do it but not the Asian countries. The right strategy would be to join forces to try and help the US get back on track because what other superpower is there? And that means somehow dealing with Israel as they are going to continue causing trouble for everyone.
I think this is a bizarre comparison. The people of Vietnam hated the French colonial occupation, and most of them despised the American-backed regime as well. They were fighting a 20-year-long anti-colonial war for independence (something that China, by the way, does not want any of the people they've colonized to emulate).
On the contrary, there's every indication that the people of Iran, as well as Venezuela, legitimately hate their repressive regimes and want nothing more than a chance to overthrow them. This isn't imposing regime change on some country that had never thought of it. It's clearing the path for the people of that country to execute regime change for themselves.
In that sense, our role here is quite a lot more like the Soviets in Vietnam, than America in Vietnam, or of either country in Afghanistan. We're not in the position of needing to prop up a puppet regime or find ethnic groups or exogenous actors. All we really need to do is target the existing oppressors.
>> if the US decides to unilaterally stop bombing Iran, it leaves Israel open to the Iranians, which is something Israel and AIPAC won't let the US do.
Stop with the AIPAC > blaming Israel for getting America into this. Israel did great work taking out Iran's defenses and gaining air superiority in the previous 12-day war, and it was only held back from continuing by the US - temporarily losing the total control it held. Furthermore, in no way is Israel going to be open to attack after this, whether or not the US remains involved.
Consider what happens if this war does succeed in weakening the Iranian regime to the point where the people can come back into the street and overthrow it: Russia loses its drone and missile manufacturer, the West has a bargaining chip in oil against China's control of rare earths, and conceivably there is a broad peaceful order in the Middle East between Sunnis, Shia and Jews, all relatively Western-facing, potentially progressive and aligned with the US and Europe. Would that be a terrible outcome?
> It's clearing the path for the people of that country to execute regime change for themselves.
That is fundamentally untrue. In Venezuela, regime ended up completely intact, except the change on the top. There is no "clearing the path" and there is no "regime change".
In Iran, protests stopped. The lead was replaced by more hardline lead. Nationalists now wont go against the regime, even if they dislike it.
If they loose control over country, there will be civil war and unrest, but all chances of some moderates consolidating power went down. Or, even more likely, regime wont fail and will have stronger grip over the country.
> Russia loses its drone and missile manufacturer,
This war is massive gift to Russia. The sanctions are removed, the oil prices go up. Russia wants this war to go on as long as possible, it is like a lifeline for them.
>> That is fundamentally untrue. In Venezuela, regime ended up completely intact, except the change on the top. There is no "clearing the path" and there is no "regime change".
I think there was massive disappointment in Venezuela that we didn't go further, and that the regime is still in place. I'm extremely disappointed that we let it off there. I'm sick of America making promises to people, since Budapest, since Prague, since the Syrian rebels...
>> In Iran, protests stopped. The lead was replaced by more hardline lead. Nationalists now wont go against the regime, even if they dislike it.
In this case, I hope we don't let the people down. And I think it's far too soon to say that the protests stopped. The Basij are out in force, they're more heavily armed, and bombs are falling. Next week or next month, the entire situation may be different. The people are certainly waiting until the bombs stop. No one goes to protest in the middle of a war. The idea is to create the conditions so that when the bombing stops, the regime is too weak to kill 30,000 more people in the next protest.
It's incredibly naïve to think regime change supported by the people is actually the objective. It's a good thought but which is absolutely out of control of the military actions by Israel or the USA.
The main objective is to neuter the Iranian regime to diminish how threatening it could be to Israel, behead the government, destroy military targets, destroy its lifeline from the oil industry. If regime change happens because conditions worsen it's a good bonus but without forcefully removing the regime with boots on the ground it's just wishful thinking that it's the main objective.
Iraq was also under a brutal dictatorship with Saddam, it took more than a decade of ground operations to actually change it. Iran is more populous, has a much more loyal regime security force, is more ideologically driven, and has a much worse geography for any ground invasion.
When the bombing stops there will be so much destruction that the regime can point towards the USA and Israel that it will keep having loyalists behind to defend them, the IRGC will absorb the more loyal ones and grow to keep stamping out revolutionaries.
The US leadership knows they can't destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program or cause regime change. The objective seems to be mainly destroying lots of missile launchers, boats, and drone factories (which Iran demonstrated could do enough damage and use up enough interceptors to make Israel stop attacking them and sue for peace during the 12 day war). When the bombing stops and Iran restarts production, the US will go bomb them again. The US also didn't seem to expect that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz, and currently has no plan as to how to get it safely back open.
In essence the war is about making Iran less of a threat to Israel no matter the cost to the US or to the rest of the West.
The point of nukes for NK is not about being able to use them to attack its neighbours. The point of nukes for NK is to ensure that they don't get invaded themselves. That's why NK makes a big deal about nukes that can reach the US - currently the only viable threat the NK regime has had is the US.
Which is also the reason why Pakistan pursued a nuclear programme (vs India). Which is why India pursued a nuclear programme (vs China). Which is why China pursued a nuclear programme (vs the USSR). People apparently discount the important of nukes and MAD doctrine in helping preserve the peace in today's world.
The US doesn't want to invade North Korea. North Korea is a Chinese ally. China doesn't want the US on its border. North Korea doesn't need its own nukes to keep the US out.
At least, that was true. Here in 2026, nobody can say what the US will do with its military. Its goals are opaque and its actions often self-defeating.
Even so, if the US invades North Korea, NK's nukes won't be the most important thing. It would instantly become a US/China conflict with much, much, much larger stakes.
> because in no earthly circumstance will I ever be able to pay it back.
Well at that point, all hell breaks loose - that's the Weimar story all over again.
The minute the US isn't able to project power globally, and the minute the Gulf states shift even a single transaction away from the petrodollar, the USD is finished. At that point, it might not make sense for them to accept the USD or dollar-denominated debt, either because of constant devaluation or the pointlessness of holding onto US Treasuries (because the US won't pay its debt). No one would buy US debt as a safe haven any more, which means the US won't be able to fund its budget.
You’ve been able to buy gulf oil in non-us currency all along. You can buy it in yuan, pounds, euros etc.
Dollar hegemony isn’t because of the petrodollar. It’s the other way around. The oil states throw off huge amounts of profit and oil is such a big market you need the dollars reach to service it.
You can't buy them off the bat from a petrostate. Heck, even China had to enter multi-year special negotiations with Saudi Arabia to even get a batch of oil sold in yuan terms. Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein were the two proponents of selling oil in euros, and look where that led them.
The spot market is different but that's not where most of the world's oil is sold.
> The oil states throw off huge amounts of profit and oil is such a big market you need the dollars reach to service it.
The oil states prefer dollars (and have pegged their currency to the dollar) solely because of a number of historical decisions that enabled dollar hegemony, which made the oil states peg their currency to the dollar and prefer the USD. That's changing now, but only very recently and at a snail's pace.
You can’t trade oil in any currency off the bat. It’s a complex market involving globe spanning logistics and geopolitics.
But I’ve personally traded oil in euros and know people that trade it in pounds daily. The yuan negotiations were complex because China wanted to get the currency controls set right so that it didn’t destabilize their peg while the saudis didn’t want get stuck with the worlds most illiberal currency.
This week India went back to trading for oil in rupees with an American global adversary at the behest of the US president.
The gulf states bargain on security was a boon for them and the states, but again the correlation was reversed. The Americans provided security, a willing and ravenous market for the goods and a stable liberal currency when few others could.
> I think it's more likely that the US was going off of outdated intelligence.
While Israel has enough intelligence to track where the Ayatollah is hidden away after the initial strikes on Iran. Does that sound believable to you? Either Israel and USA are pisspoor at coordinating intelligence, or Israel wilfully let the US attack the place and take the flak for it.
It's not so much what's better as whether it's different enough to attract a significant tourist group from areas with similar attractions nearby.
Like, if you want to see a rain forest or a thousand year old Buddhist temple or a pyramid, there's not really a substitute in the continental US.
But if you've two options, where you can go to the pretty good option domestically or drive past it and continue on to the much better option in another country ... most people will be happy with the closer option, even if there's some small number of people who want the best or have seen all the closer options before and want something different or just whimsically like the idea of going to the further-away one none of their friends have been to.
I'm not Canadian, and I usually visit the US for business. While being a Muslim often means enduring the humiliation of being singled out because of my name by CBP, I'm comfortable enough that I could travel private for my US trips, which means the entire CBP experience is completely different (friendly chitchat and conversation as the CBP officers check our passports inside the aircraft itself). But with ICE roaming the streets, I'm not taking any chances of being deported to Libya or El Salvador or something. Which in turn means that we have severely halted all of our US investments, simply because I am unable to visit the country (!).
> Given the significant increase in returns on a large treasury, we think it's worth the small amount of effort.
Isn't that the point he was making though? It's a large treasury in aggregate, which is why it makes sense for a new entrant to come in, but it's only a 1-2% problem for founders, which is why they don't bother with it much (why fix what's not broken, etc.).
By the time founders raise significant sums of money (which is usually Series B onwards), they might be better suited to deal with a fractional CFO service which provides the full spectrum of services instead.
Even for a Series A company, putting $5M into Palus yields them an extra $50k-75k per year, just for letting their money sit in a smarter place. It's a five-minute optimization which essentially gets you half a junior engineer's annual salary for free.
This is mathematically possible, but not for certain (market performance et all). Moreover: practically -- onboarding and taking on the risk of a new system and having to manage that is definitely not worth the 1-2 weeks of the founder, or an ops person's time. That 50-75k is more like $5k/month out of what is typically a ~200-400k monthly burn, within which there are almost definitely other ways to save more than 5k if you pay a similar amount of attention (e.g. cloud costs, wrong go to market strategy wasting time, etc). But optimizing deck chair placement on a burning ship is ultimately a distraction anyways -- everything should be focused on growing revenue. Startup founders need to think in 6-month increments to get to the next rung.
I'd totally agree, if it took 1-2 weeks to onboard and manage! But it really does just take a few minutes.
And it'll get even easier once we add our auto-sweep features in the next few weeks, and you'll be able to just set it up once and truly never have to touch it again.
We certainly don't claim that Palus will transform your startup. But it's a worthwhile piece of very low-hanging fruit.
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