The United States has been in a war with Iran since 1979. Since then they have been promising "Death to America" all the while funding and supporting our enemies.
Since then the United States has dismantled their Navy systematically several times.
At the moment they are
- Blockaded.
- Entire leadership dead.
- Major infrastructure bombed to rubble
- Inability to project power beyond a few random pot shots at neighbors that aren't even the US.
- Proxies neutered or entirely destroyed in Syria and Iraq.
- De facto leader still in hiding and afraid for his life even as I type this.
- Unable to field a single ship in their own home port.
Man if this is winning I wanna know what losing is.
If America had launched nukes during the cold war, the USSR would retaliate. Maybe via submarine-launched ICBM, maybe using a dead man's switch; methodology is irrelevant, because the question is this: If both countries end up radioactive desert, which country would be declared the winner? Or is it possible for neither country to be the definitive winner of a war?
The problem is, if you tell everyone that you are a superpower, but then go on to not only not achieve your strategic goals (during a conflict of your choosing), but get to an unconfortable stalemate (that you cannot forcibly break) where you get to the point that you have to throw allies under the bus (not just Ukraine).. that's losing.
The war in Iran has meant that the military resources of many actors are getting used for that conflict and are no longer available. Think patriot missiles to protect against balistic missiles.
It also means that the eyes of the world are distracted.
Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration is now getting anxious about the economical damage that Iran is inflicting, and has been forced to cut a deal with Russia.
But as said, that is just Ukraine.
The US has also been forced to reposition assets in Asia, to make up for the ones lost or expended in the Iran theater. They have shown to their allies in the middle east that having a US base is not a protection, but rather an invitation to be attacked.
Despite extensive military investment, Iran's neighbours are now realizing that the US presence and weapons they bought don't work.
The fact that a "muslim NATO" was recently created is not a coincidence. The world has taken notice.
Iran have been utterly destroyed, but they can still hurt the US. When your're a superpower, not winning when fighting a regional power IS losing.
I mean, they could break it, but the devastation would be immense and then everyone would hate us even more. Getting involved was always a losing strategy.
I was born in 1979. We have always been at odds with Iran and have had a few skirmishes, but this notion that we have been at war with them for 47 years only became a thing several months ago. There was never a time we were "at war" with them until Trump started one. You should stop consuming propaganda and learn more history.
It's not about age. Compare Sanders and Trump; their politics aside, just take being able to hold a conversation and have honest arguments, listen to advisors when they really are right, that sort of thing. Or Mamdami and Thiel. And hey, I'm sure there's some young-ish, bright, yet very capitalistic people who also have a good head on their shoulders, too. I just really like Mamdami, partly because how even the Dems shirked him before he won, and then Trump was like "I like that guy". He probably also likes Thiel. Which shows anybody can do anything, it's totally... random! :D
I am not talking about ageism, I am familiar with that myself. Once you hit 60+ or so, there is cognitive decline and retardation, you are less flexible and too set in your ways.
Calvin Coolidge 1923–1929 51
Herbert Hoover 1929–1933 54
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933–1945 51
Harry S. Truman 1945–1953 60
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953–1961 62
John F. Kennedy 1961–1963 43
Lyndon B. Johnson 1963–1969 55
Richard Nixon 1969–1974 56
Gerald Ford 1974–1977 61
Jimmy Carter 1977–1981 52
Ronald Reagan 1981–1989 69
George H. W. Bush 1989–1993 64
Bill Clinton 1993–2001 46
George W. Bush 2001–2009 54
Barack Obama 2009–2017 47
Donald Trump 2017–2021 70
Joe Biden 2021–2025 78
Donald Trump 2025–present 78
We need younger blood at the wheel. The geezers can golf.
It's the same tech but after Musk took flack for making a decision on Ukraine's military use, they split off a portion for the US government to control.
Anonymous source can say anything and telegraph can fully make it up also. And it also doesn't matter if Musk suggested it.
The fact is Starshield is controlled by US Govt and they decide what happens with it. Not Musk.
Starlink is controlled by SpaceX, Musk decides what happens with it. It is not allowed to use Starlink for most military purposes. Nothing changed now.
Complaints about anonymous sources might be legitimate when there are legitimate protections for whistleblowers, but an autocratic regime like the US' current government does not deserve any benefit of the doubt - they literally keep openly threatening dissenters and whistleblowers!
Until the rule of law has been re-established and participants have been prosecuted, the standard you're holding sources to is unreasonable.
Before the execution livestream was called off, Trump said that people who leak to the press should be shot. It doesn't take a big leap to see where this is going and what the stakes are.
This whole thread started with uncharitable assumption saying Musk did it. The fact is Starshield is govt controlled and spacex/musk is not responsible for any change like this.
I object today's abuses and treatment of snowden assange etc too. That doesn't mean I have to have TDS/EDS and uncharitable assumption for people I don't like and charitable for the ones I like.
Say a truth and mix it with some lies. Good job calling democratic government as autocratic. Remember it when your democratic govt is called communist.
Seems to me that Starlink is de facto an organ of the US government at this point. Should just be nationalized so a demonstrably unstable foreigner doesn't control something of such vital importance.
People still defending Musk in 2026 is something I would have only expected from Y Combinator news and their lackeys. So congrats on marking that square for a day.
The Starshield portion of Starlink is already controlled by the government. It was Starshield that restricted access to Ukraine, and the decision reportedly came from the White House.
OP's article of course is about spectrum allocation in the US and potential trade retaliation, which isn't all that related to Musk's control of Starlink.
Which sounds more plausible - that Musk is able to bypass the US government to do whatever he wants with Starshield in Ukraine or that the US administration did this to comply with Trump's wishes to remind the Ukrainians that they are dependent on the US and cannot ignore the wishes of the US President?
Nothing says Musk bypassed the government. The currently reported story is that Musk (presumably seeing Trump was throwing in his lot with Russia), approached the White House with an idea, and the White House agreed to it.
Current reporting is that Musk approached the White House with the idea. Of course in reality the White House holds all ultimate responsibility, but that doesn't mean Musk is without guilt (especially if he proposed the idea for... some reason...?)
I don't care whether he feels guilty. He is guilty. And as described above (as well as in many ways not described above), he does have influence over it.
If not just to get out of the hands of an unstable corp, then at least to distance it from an unstable man...
Not that the US government is much better. Maybe they should wait 20 years before that, after they go through their looming depression. You always get half decent policy after a depression.
> European companies face “devastating” retaliation from Washington if Brussels presses ahead with plans to restrict American rivals such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX from parts of the European market, the US ambassador to the EU has warned.
> Andrew Puzder’s warning comes after the European Commission this year proposed reserving part of its spectrum band that allows smartphones to connect directly to satellites for European players. That would limit the frequencies for Chinese and US companies such as SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite network.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.
Eh, this seems like a fairly even tit-for-tat, for once.
The USSR would have taken over all of Europe, not just Eastern. What would have happened to the former British and French empires? Presumably they'd have been turned communist, but would their struggles for independence have gone the same way?
The Manhattan project would have been announced before it went anywhere, undermined during development and produced no real result. Japan would not have been nuked, but also would not have been invaded and the Pacific theatre would have in general developed in a completely different way. Without the American nuclear arsenal, the world may have skipped the cold war and nukes, or perhaps other states would have made them and used them in a heavy mutual bombardment without restraint.
Eventually in Europe, glasnost and perestroika would still have happened, and the USSR would still have fallen; but the geopolitical and economic importance of the USA would be little different to that of Brazil.
It may have been limited, but the Axis forces were busy repeating Napoleon's classic blunder of freezing to death because Russia was too big to Blitzkrieg.
This forum in particular, but also our society in general is tremendously influenced by Grace Hopper's "compiler" (we would not call the thing Grace came up with a "compiler" today but we'd recognise her ideas). Grace appears to be the first person who noticed that the machine could be told to do the boring part where you turn your program into machine code to run on that machine. Grace's idea is meta-applicable, it applies not only to many other things but also to itself, things get out of hand very fast and that's how less than a century later we're here.
Grace was in the US Navy in World War II. Even in our real history where Donald Trump was not President, Grace did not meet their strict requirements for women and so she was only able to get in via a special exemption. Can you imagine in the "Make sure our Warriors look good on TV" world of Pete Hegseth that they'd ever accept Grace? No, the Navy is for big strong men.
Honestly, the baller move would be tariffing new sales of Tesla and Starlink as long as Musk controls and letting in a number of Chinese cars in exchange for China quitting it with helping Russia in Ukraine.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”
If I understand this correctly the Europeans hope that by banning the spectrum where Starlink operates, they will spur the development of home grown operators that provide the same service ... is that realistic?
It is, there are lots of European launch companies that will have their first launches in 2027 and all target cheap launch services which is the key to Starlink. Isar Aerospace has already put a payload in orbit, but they are only one of many.
Europe doesn't need the same service. A far higher percentage of homes in Europe have access true high speed internet over fiber or wires than the US does. Europe can get itself the same capability with far fewer satellites.
2) Even if the does, why attack Moscow? Russian civilians have nothing to do with the war and we're not barbarians.
3) Even if we wanted to, Moscow as a target is so big that dead reckoning starting from Portugal is probably enough to hit it. There are also a lot of other means of guidance, including sun/stars, Gee and public FM radio stations.
And yet companies are wondering why the EU is moving to build their own tech sector, separate from the US. Another reason why.
And the big winner of this is China. I heard China is building its own starlink and I would not be surprised they will offer verifiable guarantees to the EU on spying should the EU want to use China;'s version.
China should be sending Trump all kinds of Thank You notes. Trump already gave China the lead in Medical Research, Trump is helping China to take over Chip Development and he just started handing China the lead in AI.
You get what you vote for. At least the US will be the leader in Bible Research.
Awww... more threats from Usania. This will definitely help... the EU move to more independence. More and more governments are dropping US made stuff as much as possible and pushing for local alternatives... way to go!
92 comments
[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 9.0 ms ] threadSince then the United States has dismantled their Navy systematically several times.
At the moment they are
- Blockaded.
- Entire leadership dead.
- Major infrastructure bombed to rubble
- Inability to project power beyond a few random pot shots at neighbors that aren't even the US.
- Proxies neutered or entirely destroyed in Syria and Iraq.
- De facto leader still in hiding and afraid for his life even as I type this.
- Unable to field a single ship in their own home port.
Man if this is winning I wanna know what losing is.
Well the comment literally says "you lost a war with Iran". If the US lost a war with Iran, the Iran won a war with the US.
But maybe that was an old war, from a few months ago, that Iran won. And now there's a new war and Iran ain't winning that one?
The problem is, if you tell everyone that you are a superpower, but then go on to not only not achieve your strategic goals (during a conflict of your choosing), but get to an unconfortable stalemate (that you cannot forcibly break) where you get to the point that you have to throw allies under the bus (not just Ukraine).. that's losing.
The war in Iran has meant that the military resources of many actors are getting used for that conflict and are no longer available. Think patriot missiles to protect against balistic missiles.
It also means that the eyes of the world are distracted.
Unsurprisingly, the Trump administration is now getting anxious about the economical damage that Iran is inflicting, and has been forced to cut a deal with Russia.
But as said, that is just Ukraine.
The US has also been forced to reposition assets in Asia, to make up for the ones lost or expended in the Iran theater. They have shown to their allies in the middle east that having a US base is not a protection, but rather an invitation to be attacked.
Despite extensive military investment, Iran's neighbours are now realizing that the US presence and weapons they bought don't work.
The fact that a "muslim NATO" was recently created is not a coincidence. The world has taken notice.
Iran have been utterly destroyed, but they can still hurt the US. When your're a superpower, not winning when fighting a regional power IS losing.
Calvin Coolidge 1923–1929 51
Herbert Hoover 1929–1933 54
Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933–1945 51
Harry S. Truman 1945–1953 60
Dwight D. Eisenhower 1953–1961 62
John F. Kennedy 1961–1963 43
Lyndon B. Johnson 1963–1969 55
Richard Nixon 1969–1974 56
Gerald Ford 1974–1977 61
Jimmy Carter 1977–1981 52
Ronald Reagan 1981–1989 69
George H. W. Bush 1989–1993 64
Bill Clinton 1993–2001 46
George W. Bush 2001–2009 54
Barack Obama 2009–2017 47
Donald Trump 2017–2021 70
Joe Biden 2021–2025 78
Donald Trump 2025–present 78
We need younger blood at the wheel. The geezers can golf.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...
It's the same tech but after Musk took flack for making a decision on Ukraine's military use, they split off a portion for the US government to control.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...
The fact is Starshield is controlled by US Govt and they decide what happens with it. Not Musk.
Starlink is controlled by SpaceX, Musk decides what happens with it. It is not allowed to use Starlink for most military purposes. Nothing changed now.
Until the rule of law has been re-established and participants have been prosecuted, the standard you're holding sources to is unreasonable.
It's probably best not to feed the troll.
This whole thread started with uncharitable assumption saying Musk did it. The fact is Starshield is govt controlled and spacex/musk is not responsible for any change like this.
I object today's abuses and treatment of snowden assange etc too. That doesn't mean I have to have TDS/EDS and uncharitable assumption for people I don't like and charitable for the ones I like.
You're not asking in good faith, so I won't dignify your whataboutism with a discussion.
That’s crazy. We didn’t charge him with treason?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/order-limit-starshield-...
OP's article of course is about spectrum allocation in the US and potential trade retaliation, which isn't all that related to Musk's control of Starlink.
That looks like outdated information. The request to slow Starshield came directly from Musk.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/10/16/musk-appro...
How do you suggest this is implemented, in a way that Musk has no way to control it?
Yes, clearly a demonstrably unstable chief executive is the right man for the job.
Not that the US government is much better. Maybe they should wait 20 years before that, after they go through their looming depression. You always get half decent policy after a depression.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=T2ZEMRKjTz8
> Andrew Puzder’s warning comes after the European Commission this year proposed reserving part of its spectrum band that allows smartphones to connect directly to satellites for European players. That would limit the frequencies for Chinese and US companies such as SpaceX, which operates the Starlink satellite network.
> Asked whether European companies should fear retaliation, Puzder told the FT that they “should be wary that it could happen and it would be very devastating for those companies”, given the size of the American market.
Eh, this seems like a fairly even tit-for-tat, for once.
The Manhattan project would have been announced before it went anywhere, undermined during development and produced no real result. Japan would not have been nuked, but also would not have been invaded and the Pacific theatre would have in general developed in a completely different way. Without the American nuclear arsenal, the world may have skipped the cold war and nukes, or perhaps other states would have made them and used them in a heavy mutual bombardment without restraint.
Eventually in Europe, glasnost and perestroika would still have happened, and the USSR would still have fallen; but the geopolitical and economic importance of the USA would be little different to that of Brazil.
Grace was in the US Navy in World War II. Even in our real history where Donald Trump was not President, Grace did not meet their strict requirements for women and so she was only able to get in via a special exemption. Can you imagine in the "Make sure our Warriors look good on TV" world of Pete Hegseth that they'd ever accept Grace? No, the Navy is for big strong men.
On the one hand - financial loses, on the other - more social sanity in the EU…
Devastated companies can’t buy US products.
So go on and hit your exports again
https://ioplus.nl/en/posts/these-are-the-six-european-altern...
The US (dependably) proves them right, by threatening their supply lines.
2) Even if the does, why attack Moscow? Russian civilians have nothing to do with the war and we're not barbarians.
3) Even if we wanted to, Moscow as a target is so big that dead reckoning starting from Portugal is probably enough to hit it. There are also a lot of other means of guidance, including sun/stars, Gee and public FM radio stations.
4) And why dones instead of ballistic missiles?
It’s already funded and scheduled to start launching in 2029 [1]. (Bit nerfed given Europe hasn’t yet gotten serious about launch…)
[1] https://www.grosswald.org/european-commission-spacerise-iris...
And the big winner of this is China. I heard China is building its own starlink and I would not be surprised they will offer verifiable guarantees to the EU on spying should the EU want to use China;'s version.
China should be sending Trump all kinds of Thank You notes. Trump already gave China the lead in Medical Research, Trump is helping China to take over Chip Development and he just started handing China the lead in AI.
You get what you vote for. At least the US will be the leader in Bible Research.
Please do.
The more the US shows that it is an enemy to Europe the better.
I hope the leaders on this side of the pond grow cojones and start to treat the US and its companies as a threat to EU and the countries within.
Seriously? When will this shit show finally end?