Somehow
Kuwait shot down three of the USSA's top war birds down before they were told to stop. I can only guess that the top AI companies in the world had NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT. AI will AI.
Iran war wreaking havoc on shipping and air cargo, could create global delays
The war against Iran is causing an air and shipping jam, but it will likely have little effect on the global technology market unless the conflict widens significantly, according to analysts. “UAE is a major distribution hub for many products, including tech, in the region and since both airspace and likely port traffic are …
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Tuesday 3rd March 2026 11:47 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: "four to five weeks"
Is the orange turnip actually proposing boots on the ground or is he just repeating the mistaken assumption that the Iranian reigeme will just roll over?
Well, he hasn't really defined victory conditions, which makes defining a win a bit easier. If the objective really is regime change and regaining Iran's oil, he might not have any choice. Which then raises the question of 'How?'. If you go back in time and look at the build-up to Gulf War 1.0 and the liberation of Kuwait, there was a massive logistics challenge to supply thousands of tonnes of supplies to support that campaign. Saddam made a bit of a mistake in avoiding upsetting the Saudis, and not pushing out of Kuwait and capturing the deep water port used to support that campaign. Which would be the Iran problem, ie having a secure port to land kit and then try to push into Iran.
Why does "The West" repeat the same mistakes over and over again in the Middle East?
Maybe they pine for the good old days. Treasury running a bit low? Crusade! Or our 'leaders' lack appropriate adult supervision to stop them doing stupid things. So Europe decided windmills were a great idea. Except wind isn't reliable, so that created a huge dependency on gas. Something like 14% of that gas comes from the Gulf states, who've had to turn off the taps because a lot of VLCCs and LNG tankers are stuck, empty tankers can't get in to load and storage farms are full. Or some are on fire.
So LNG prices are up 50%, which I guess is good news for US LNG exporters, but rather bad news for the EU's economy. If only there was some pipeline where they could get cheap LNG.. Which of course they can't do without losing a lot of face. And Russia isn't as likely to be generous with prices any more. So if this disruption continues, the EU economy is going to get hammered hard. So much for energy sucking 'AI' data centres..
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Wednesday 4th March 2026 11:05 GMT Jellied Eel
If only there was some kind of 'institute for peace'...
The US doesn't really have those. It hosts the UN, but the UN has shown itself to be pretty much powerless and toothless. Lots of expensive diplomats living rent free in NYC, but produces not much.
But there are outfits like this-
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf
And the US seems to be following parts II & III pretty much to the letter. Interesting times. There are also some other big tech risks. So Intel has $10bn+ fab plants in Haifa that are expensive, vulnerable and would be slow to replace. Plus companies like Google have R&D centres on the same industrial campus, along with defence companies like Elbit that make components for a lot of miltary and civilian products. If those get hit hard, then there would be pretty significant disruption to tech supply chains, plus the economic impact on Israel and the US companies with facilities there.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
