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/452/ Stormtroopers Can't Shoot Straight ft. Malcom Kyeyune (Patreon)

Published:
2024-11-15 14:13:43
Edited:
2024-11-17 22:06:04
Imported:
2024-11
Tags:

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Content

On the military decline of the American empire.

[Patreon Exclusive]

The Swedish writer Malcom Kyeyune talks to Phil about what happens to the evil empire when the stormtroopers can’t shoot straight and the empire isn’t producing enough star destroyers. They discuss:

What happens to international politics in a world of new geopolitical rivalries? 

How does American industrial decline affect US military capacity and strength? 

Why is America unable to produce enough ships? 

Why is the US unable to do conscription anymore? 

Who would win in a showdown between China and America? 

Links:

America will have to dodge the draft, Malcom Kyeyune, UnHerd

The Houthis now rule the Red Sea, Malcom Kyeyune, UnHerd

The West can no longer make war, Malcom Kyeyune, New Statesman

The American Empire’s Burning Peripheries, Malcom Kyeyune, Compact

/240/ Populist Interventions: Örebro Party ft. Malcolm Kyeyune | Bungacast

Facing war in the Middle East and Ukraine, the US looks feeble. But is it just an act?, Adam Tooze, The Guardian

Files

Comments

Mouldy L

Very juicy episode. More of this guy, please.

Jacob Bucci

Sweden’s battery fiasco sounds a lots like the American CHIPS act. I used to contract for the fab that makes all of the high end military radios and such, it’s owned by Emiratis and was gutted by McKinsey consultants and all the military could do was complain. I’ve also done a few defense contracts and they were always a grift, you make more money by failing and blaming the lack of funding than you do by achieving whatever asinine research objective they set out for you.

JN

Brilliant episode. Malcom's perspective is refreshing.

FDC

Some perceptive points about Western decline, but I think Malcom failed to address Phil's important critiques. The West is clearly in decline, but it also has no obvious competitors beyond China, which is only a regional military force. Iran, Russia and North Korea are not technological powerhouses or 20th century style total war machines. Surely this is a decline in global modernity, rather than just the West.

Pier Paolo Tamburelli

Sorry, it really sounds like conspiracy theory and l couldn't avoid thinking of this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMFig07pOo4 (Unfortunately only in Italian) Also, I think all this misses the main point: that USA always rented the land army fighting for them and it is difficult to see who will fight for them this time. The point is made very clearly by Kotkin in this interview: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/trump-and-future-american-power-stephen-kotkin

Lauri Franzon

Always happy to hear more from Malcom!

Conrad Cartmell

I don't want to do a disservice to Malcolm's arguments in this episode, but it seems like they can be summed up as such: not only the usa, but also all other western countries (excluding russia) are in a state of terminal decline, they are also in a state of total ideological delusion about the reality of this decline. If there's something going on in these societies that is creating this delusion, then I don't understand how it's possible for Malcolm to cut through it as easily as he seems to in this episode. Shouldn't he be subject to the same forces that have produced the difference he observes between the west's real state and the state that westerners think themselves to be in? Why can't they look up the history of the selective service or the number of combat-ready american aircraft and quickly come to the same conclusions that he does?

Josef Landström

I might have misheard, but if Malcolm is saying that Sweden bought the Iron Dome, then that is incorrect. Last week, Sweden announced the purchase of the Patriot system.

Joe Garrett

While I can't disagree with Malcolm's point that countries across the West are in decline, Scandinavia has not experienced nearly the same social collapse as the US. My colleagues (from Norway) often tell me about their shock at the homelessness and general social decay of the west coast cities when they visit. I suspect some combination of the welfare state and an economy centered on resource extraction (akin to Australia) are responsible. Even his discussion of Northvolt's failures sounds like success relative to some of the recent attempts at reindustrialization in the US.

Fredrik Ekelund

Malcolm’s big problem is his tendency to make grand claims and back them up only with hand-wavy examples. Phil pushes him a few times to be more specific, but I think listeners deserve even more on this point. I found the episode more interesting than I thought would (US/China predictions mainly), but I can’t help but get annoyed by stuff like ”Northvolt’s failure is premised on the notion of Western countries being the chosen ones because of Christianity”. Very tiresome.

L Dorman

Something Malcolm said about France suddenly having to pay 200 dollars instead of 80 cents per kilo for its uranium because of Wagner’s actions in Africa ticked with me (I’m French) so I went digging and it’s just plain untrue, Twitter rumour level stuff. I dislike the smug fact check teams as much as the next guy but here’s the link https://factuel.afp.com/doc.afp.com.33YJ7Y9

Lee Jones

Like others I was a bit leery of some of the more strident claims Malcolm makes here. More broadly, I think his discussion of conscription and legacy technology misunderstands how the US seeks to maintain primacy through the technological offset. The US has long realised that it cannot necessarily outmatch adversaries like-for-like - this goes back to the so-called "missile gap" with the Soviets, and today it's well understood that China has more troops and ships. The US seeks to maintain military advantage by investing in hi-tech weaponry that can either outclass adversaries and/or forces them to engage in extremely costly countermeasures that (relative to the US) they are ill-equipped to afford and/or divert expenditure from other areas, retarding their development. This is why restricting advanced semiconductors and AI is such a concern for the US today vis-a-vis China. So, as for conscription, it is simply less important for the US to mobilise a mass citizen army than it was in the 1970s (and the political difficulties in relying on doing so is exactly why the US establishment pivoted away from that model towards hi-tech). The actual military strength of the US is obviously a critical issue for our assessment of global geopolitics, and I appreciated hearing a critical take on this. But I would also like to hear some of Malcolm's points put to someone with deep expertise on the topic.