@dhnexon.bsky.social
Professor in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Power Politics | Empires | International Order dhnexon.net | https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com | duckofminerva.com
This war in Iran is a perfect illustration of the dangers of autocratic rule — and right now we indisputably have the foreign policy of a personalistic autocracy.
Trump got high on his Venezuelan supply, and immediately got the entire world into a completely unnecessary crisis.
Kindleberger trap
I can’t walk out
I’m not the hegemon, baby
Why can’t you see
What you’re doing to me
My security umbrella’s tearing
We can’t go on together
Strait of Hormuz is mined
Can’t keep the sea lanes open
With suspicious mines
bsky.app/profile/davi...
Read the whole thing, etc.
"So that contract hurriedly committed in September might actually be for goods and services for the next year. It might even be for multiple years. Costing can happen over the entire period of the contract."
"You can’t commit funds you don’t have, but that funding isn’t necessarily costed immediately. A contract might cover work in multiple stages or a service that is provided for the entire year, or a regular delivery (like a subscription) over the duration of the contract."
"Padding estimates can get out of hand, but anyone who plans any kind of budget will tell you that if you try to plan everything to the exact penny, you will come up short somewhere."
"If not, someone keeps sitting in a broken chair; maybe next year there will be some extra to replace it, but in the meantime, that person does have a chair."
As you get close to the end of the year, you can see whether the contingency funds were needed or if there is some left over that can be used for things like furniture and computers."
"Instead, organizations will wait until late in the fiscal year to see if there is “left over” funding after the critical things have been purchased.... If the extra isn’t needed to complete the work, then there is a bit left over."
"[L]et’s talk about the end of year IT push, which is related to the furniture push. In many cases, buying new computer equipment or furniture is not deemed essential."
"The garbage collection cost likely falls into this category: year-long contracts for garbage collection placed for the next fiscal year, because that’s something you don’t want to have a lapse in because of a CR."
"The U.S. gov budget cycle is completely fucked up and has been for 20 years.... Last year it was VERY clear that there was going to be a CR and possibly a shutdown, so that also affects the timing of spending decisions."
"Contracting officers HATE August and September, because everyone is trying to get something in under the wire for the fiscal year. So why does that happen?"
"Consider also footstools and Dora the Explorer stickers. The U.S. military operates 160 schools in the U.S. and abroad with about 67,000 children. And garbage collection? Do we really think that there shouldn't be garbage collection at U.S. military facilities?"
"Did they spend $1M on salmon for one event? Or is that $1M spread across 400 mess halls, which is $2,500 per mess hall, and anyone who has run food service will tell you that is not outrageous. An effective military needs to eat well and nutritiously."
Some excerpts: "There are about 1.3 million uniformed service members in the U.S. military. The U.S. military operates over 400 mess halls. About 26,000 people work at the Pentagon... When you look at big numbers from government spending, you need to look at how the spending is actually allocated."
The Bush administration made a series of catastrophic mistakes in its war planning, many of which involved overriding experts.
The Trump administration just skipped the whole "planning" part, it seems.
So about that "Pentagon spends millions for luxury crab and Dora stickers!!^!@" piece...
The Budapest Megaphone blares populism to the world.
or how Viktor Orban has built an illiberal intellectual patronage system of think-tanks, media, conferences and institutes to sway politics beyond just Hungary.
My Charlemagne this week (free if you register)
www.economist.com/europe/2026/...
I think it's very important to understand that from a purely tactical level, the u.s. military has almost completely undressed iran in conventional terms
the bigger picture is a little cloudier, because iran still has long-range strike and will most likely continue to have it indefinitely. also...
I’m sorry, you are right. I should have included the possibility of Iran mining the Strait of Hormuz in the war plan. It is a critical shipping channel that Iran can block and cripple the world economy. I failed to take that into account. That’s on me.
1: The ribeye and seafood contracts look like Defense Logistics Agency contracts spread around the world. DLA buys the food served at military dining facilities. Which are more frequented by troops than brass.
2: There's some subsidy, but troops generally pay for their DFAC meals.
Or, you know, add some actual experts to the "Bomb Iran?" Signal chat.
Obvs they forgot to include “make no mistakes” in their query
we have known about this threat for 20 years. amazing
Turns out Grok didn't include a lot of stuff in the war plans that it drafted for Hegseth and Rubio.
the reason why they're exhausting our strategic capacity is because they think production capacity is woke and gay while mistaking their own habit of throwing money at corrupt miltech startups as actually having a solution to future problems.
It is interesting to me* how this total military, geopolitical, & economic omnishambles is not being covered in the press with remotely the same fierce EPIC DISASTROUS FAILURE urgency that Joe Biden’s not 100% surgically clean withdrawal from 🇦🇫 was covered 🤔
[*It is not remotely interesting to me]
I’m betting there was a plan, but they likely fired all the people that knew it, hollowed out the departments that have knowledge of the region, and their computer systems were probably wrecked by DOGE so