The whole time I listened to this all I could think was how badly we have strung Ukraine along, truly screwing them over while giving them just enough to drag it out and not enough to win. This will go down in history as a national embarrassment, especially when Russia's grand territorial aims are restarted again and again. Eventually they will be attacking our spineless confederation, and we deserve it.
Damir's argument about not caring about shooting at already sinking Japanese warships is wrong. In fact, Japanese POWs were rescued from the seas during WWII relatively regularly, including after Midway. Indeed, there is a whole protocol at sea for formally giving up when you have clearly lost and your ship is sinking (striking the flag) - though Japanese ideology tried to forbid doing so, but that is its own can of worms. Regardless, I do not think that it was in fact common to shoot at enemy combatant survivors at sea really in any conflict, and that is Trump/Hegseth innovation.
About Hegseth (as well as Vance and others), I am surprised how little discussion there is that Trump has hired lower-ranking army vets to run parts of the country - men who have a strong sense of betrayal for the Iraq and Afghan Wars that they had to participate in and how this colors their views of Ukraine, etc. Maybe Hegseth's alcoholism, philandering, raping, etc has something to do with his previous career. The man is more than a caricature of incompetence (which to be fair I am not sure that he is) - he is someone who killed for a living for Uncle Sam and probably thinks he has seen more or the world than say journalists who "parachute in" somewhere. This clearly makes him more demented in some ways, but hey even Damir got the rush. More importantly, this would explain some of the disdain of these men for Reagan(or Bush)-style Republicans, the army brass, interventionism, and the fig leaf of international law. In fact more than disdain, they seem to want revenge.
I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with Damir's assertion that if the US were at war, double-tapping wouldn't be a problem. I am pretty certain that double-tapping is against international laws of war, or is at least widely considered to be so. It is not only an illegal practice, but it is also a deeply immoral one, which is usually aimed at targeting medics and those seeking to rescue injured soldiers as opposed to combatants themselves. I don't think the laws of war are nonsense, but are necessary to try to stop the degeneration of war into something even worse than it already is. What is nonsense, perhaps, is the futile attempt to enforce the laws of war but to me that is something quite different.
I do think there is definitely something to the idea that Trump is one of a kind and cannot be replaced. The rhetoric around the DOD, which increasingly resembles some weird formulation of hyper-masculine Christian nationalism, is certainly not catching on. This gives me hope that America's descent into authoritarianism under Trump is not long for this world but will fall apart as soon as he can no longer run. Perhaps this is part of the broader 'vibe shift'. Although I must admit to loathing the term vibes! (Sorry Christine!)
I also really agree with both of your scepticism of the abundance agenda. Like anything that sounds too good to be true, I tend to think it's a form of political con.
Oh, I wouldn't say 'double-tapping' is unique to Trump, no. Clearly, there have been instances, some would even say a policy of double-tapping, that predate Trump substantially. I would say the same as under Obama, that such a policy is illegal, immoral, and undercuts America's credibility in the world.
I would say Trump is a pretty unique President in American foreign policy in the last hundred years, for not even pretending to care about values. I do also think when those around him try to mimic his 'toughness', such as Hegseth, it clearly does not wash in the same way. This, to my mind, makes him somewhat 'one of a kind' and the intellectual project which has been scaffolded around him will hopefully fall apart as soon as he leaves office for the final time.
Let's just note that apart from some IHL specialists, no one was clamoring to put Obama in the dock.
What I was getting at is that a proper war justifies all sorts of things. I'd suggest that enough people had bought into the idea of a "war on terror" that whatever it was we were doing didn't discomfit anyone too much. Obama also had an AUMF. Trump's supposed "war on drugs" is just incoherent, so what's really objectionable here is not whether there was a single or a double-tap, but that this is going on at all. What's happening is that our president is just executing foreigners at will.
Coda, my favorite Curtis LeMay quote: "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals."
Yes, your first point is definitely true. I think there is definitely a wider essay and/or discussion to be had about the ability of liberal democracies to camouflage their own brutality and how that impacts people's ability to make informed decisions.
I think this is where I simply diverge from you. I don't think a proper war, even if it is a genuine and coherent war, does justify war crimes. I think you're right to note that when a war is either a battle for survival or sold as a coherent and necessary thing, then it will convince more people, but I don't think that's the same thing.
I studiously am avoiding arid discussions of what is abstractly right on this narrow issue to point out that more broadly what is going on is illegal. I think that's far more relevant — and actionable. And that was the point I was trying to make on the pod.
So, I listened back to this part of the pod. In one part, I could have listened to it closer (and it has taught me not to do work while listening) on the question of trump and his grotesqueness (your word) which I misinterpreted on your end. I do apologise about that.
But you do also say about legal limits on law being somewhat nonsense and focus on the storytelling and justification of war and conflict i.e., what then attempts to justify rogue action. So, to me at least, that does somewhat move beyond the mere question of legality into a broader question of what is okay in war vs what is okay during a non threatening armed conflict currently occuring under trump which is sold poorly. For me, at least, that is where I probably disagree.
The whole time I listened to this all I could think was how badly we have strung Ukraine along, truly screwing them over while giving them just enough to drag it out and not enough to win. This will go down in history as a national embarrassment, especially when Russia's grand territorial aims are restarted again and again. Eventually they will be attacking our spineless confederation, and we deserve it.
Damir's argument about not caring about shooting at already sinking Japanese warships is wrong. In fact, Japanese POWs were rescued from the seas during WWII relatively regularly, including after Midway. Indeed, there is a whole protocol at sea for formally giving up when you have clearly lost and your ship is sinking (striking the flag) - though Japanese ideology tried to forbid doing so, but that is its own can of worms. Regardless, I do not think that it was in fact common to shoot at enemy combatant survivors at sea really in any conflict, and that is Trump/Hegseth innovation.
About Hegseth (as well as Vance and others), I am surprised how little discussion there is that Trump has hired lower-ranking army vets to run parts of the country - men who have a strong sense of betrayal for the Iraq and Afghan Wars that they had to participate in and how this colors their views of Ukraine, etc. Maybe Hegseth's alcoholism, philandering, raping, etc has something to do with his previous career. The man is more than a caricature of incompetence (which to be fair I am not sure that he is) - he is someone who killed for a living for Uncle Sam and probably thinks he has seen more or the world than say journalists who "parachute in" somewhere. This clearly makes him more demented in some ways, but hey even Damir got the rush. More importantly, this would explain some of the disdain of these men for Reagan(or Bush)-style Republicans, the army brass, interventionism, and the fig leaf of international law. In fact more than disdain, they seem to want revenge.
I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with Damir's assertion that if the US were at war, double-tapping wouldn't be a problem. I am pretty certain that double-tapping is against international laws of war, or is at least widely considered to be so. It is not only an illegal practice, but it is also a deeply immoral one, which is usually aimed at targeting medics and those seeking to rescue injured soldiers as opposed to combatants themselves. I don't think the laws of war are nonsense, but are necessary to try to stop the degeneration of war into something even worse than it already is. What is nonsense, perhaps, is the futile attempt to enforce the laws of war but to me that is something quite different.
I do think there is definitely something to the idea that Trump is one of a kind and cannot be replaced. The rhetoric around the DOD, which increasingly resembles some weird formulation of hyper-masculine Christian nationalism, is certainly not catching on. This gives me hope that America's descent into authoritarianism under Trump is not long for this world but will fall apart as soon as he can no longer run. Perhaps this is part of the broader 'vibe shift'. Although I must admit to loathing the term vibes! (Sorry Christine!)
I also really agree with both of your scepticism of the abundance agenda. Like anything that sounds too good to be true, I tend to think it's a form of political con.
International whats of what? And you’re talking about Trump being unique?
https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2116&context=student_scholarship
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/12/04/trump-hegseths-drug-boat-strike-obama/
Oh, I wouldn't say 'double-tapping' is unique to Trump, no. Clearly, there have been instances, some would even say a policy of double-tapping, that predate Trump substantially. I would say the same as under Obama, that such a policy is illegal, immoral, and undercuts America's credibility in the world.
I would say Trump is a pretty unique President in American foreign policy in the last hundred years, for not even pretending to care about values. I do also think when those around him try to mimic his 'toughness', such as Hegseth, it clearly does not wash in the same way. This, to my mind, makes him somewhat 'one of a kind' and the intellectual project which has been scaffolded around him will hopefully fall apart as soon as he leaves office for the final time.
Let's just note that apart from some IHL specialists, no one was clamoring to put Obama in the dock.
What I was getting at is that a proper war justifies all sorts of things. I'd suggest that enough people had bought into the idea of a "war on terror" that whatever it was we were doing didn't discomfit anyone too much. Obama also had an AUMF. Trump's supposed "war on drugs" is just incoherent, so what's really objectionable here is not whether there was a single or a double-tap, but that this is going on at all. What's happening is that our president is just executing foreigners at will.
Coda, my favorite Curtis LeMay quote: "If we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals."
Yes, your first point is definitely true. I think there is definitely a wider essay and/or discussion to be had about the ability of liberal democracies to camouflage their own brutality and how that impacts people's ability to make informed decisions.
I think this is where I simply diverge from you. I don't think a proper war, even if it is a genuine and coherent war, does justify war crimes. I think you're right to note that when a war is either a battle for survival or sold as a coherent and necessary thing, then it will convince more people, but I don't think that's the same thing.
I studiously am avoiding arid discussions of what is abstractly right on this narrow issue to point out that more broadly what is going on is illegal. I think that's far more relevant — and actionable. And that was the point I was trying to make on the pod.
So, I listened back to this part of the pod. In one part, I could have listened to it closer (and it has taught me not to do work while listening) on the question of trump and his grotesqueness (your word) which I misinterpreted on your end. I do apologise about that.
But you do also say about legal limits on law being somewhat nonsense and focus on the storytelling and justification of war and conflict i.e., what then attempts to justify rogue action. So, to me at least, that does somewhat move beyond the mere question of legality into a broader question of what is okay in war vs what is okay during a non threatening armed conflict currently occuring under trump which is sold poorly. For me, at least, that is where I probably disagree.