At Reuters it is being reported that the oil tanker boarded and seized by U. S. forces was operating under a false flag:

GEORGETOWN, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Guyana’s maritime authority said on Wednesday that supertanker Skipper carrying Venezuelan oil, which was seized by the United States, was falsely flying Guyana’s flag.

“The Maritime Administration Department has observed the proliferation and unacceptable trend of the unauthorised use of the Guyana flag by vessels that are not registered in Guyana,” it said in a statement.

The authority, which was informed by the U.S. government of the tanker’s seizure, plans to take action against the unauthorized use of the country’s flag, it added.

Under UNCLOS Article 92, ships on the high seas are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of their flag state. That protection applies only if the vessel is validly registered and genuinely entitled to fly that flag. UNCLOS Article 110(1)(d) explicitly allows warships (and government vessels clearly marked and authorized) to board a vessel on the high seas when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the ship is without nationality.

That changes my opinion somewhat. The Trump Administration was acting legally in boarding and seizing the oil tanker. Either the U.S. had prior intelligence indicating the vessel’s lack of nationality, or it established that fact during the boarding itself—both of which satisfy the UNCLOS standard.

That suggests that the coverage of this story has been a predictable deficiency of event-driven reporting. The information above should have been front page news. At least it should have received the same level of coverage that the boarding and seizure itself did. AFAICT that has not been the case. While Reuters reported the false flag detail, its legal significance—namely that the vessel was stateless and therefore subject to boarding by any state—was largely unexplored. That omission materially affected how the event was understood.

Remember Jonathan Swift’s witticism: “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect.”

Updata

Maybe I wasn’t hearing right but the “talking heads” news programs this morning didn’t mention the “false flag” or legality issues in any discussions of the oil tanker. IMO that was a serious omission.

You often see laments about a supposed “decline in American leadership,” especially from European commentators who want Washington to be more assertive, more engaged, or more willing to underwrite their preferred outcomes. But I think that misstates the real problem. What we are witnessing is not a leadership deficit on Washington’s part so much as a followership deficit among our NATO allies.

European governments have interests of their own, and those interests diverge increasingly from ours. That shouldn’t be surprising: Europe faces different threats, different demographics, different economic pressures, and different political constraints. Yet the commentary class continues to speak as though American leadership is a constant and allied alignment is the variable—when the opposite is equally, if not more, true.

The uncomfortable truth is that many allies won’t follow where we lead, often because they don’t want to go where we are going. Washington’s preferred strategy toward Russia, toward China, toward energy, and even toward industrial policy is not universally shared in Europe. In some cases, allies are hedging; in others, they are free-riding; in still others, they genuinely believe our approach is mistaken or misaligned with their domestic politics.

Complaints about “U.S. abdication” are therefore a way of shifting blame. They imply that if only America were more decisive, the alliance would function smoothly. But NATO is a coalition of sovereign states, not a chain of command. Leadership is only meaningful when others are willing to be led.

Seen that way, the so-called leadership crisis looks much more like a crisis of followership—one rooted in structural divergence, political fragmentation, and a reluctance to bear costs. The United States can set priorities, propose strategies, and shoulder burdens. But it cannot make others want to come along.

I want to give two examples of how the United States is doing diplomacy wrong, one from several years ago and one just recently. In 2023 Secretary of State Antony Blinken received a phlegmatic greeting when he landed in China. Khaleda Rahman reported at Newsweek:

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken received a muted greeting as he arrived in China on Sunday to kick off high-stakes diplomatic talks.

He was welcomed by Yang Tao, Director General of the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs of the Foreign Ministry, and U.S. Ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, as he landed in Beijing.

Blinken is the first top U.S. diplomat to visit China in five years, continuing frosty U.S.-China relations. A February trip was postponed following the diplomatic tumult sparked by what the U.S. said was a Chinese spy balloon flying over American airspace.

I think the Biden Administration bungled its response to what was rather obviously a deliberate slight by the Chinese leadership. They would have interpreted that as our acceptance of a lower status. My kneejerk reaction was that the next time that President Xi went to the White House he should have been admitted through the tradesman’s entrance. Or placed off-center in all photo opportunities. At the very least his visit should not have been with a military band and red carpet treatment but by a low level protocol officer. There are even more provocative alternatives but you get the idea.

The private signal would have been “Don’t do that again. We respond.”

Here’s the more recent instance. We’ve just learned that the Venezuelan oil tanker was not the first time the Trump Administration had used the military to interdict a shipment. Benoit Faucon and Lara Seligman report at the Wall Street Journal:

A U.S. special operations team boarded a ship in the Indian Ocean last month and seized military-related articles headed to Iran from China, U.S. officials said, a rare interdiction operation at sea aimed at blocking Tehran from rebuilding its military arsenal.

The ship was several hundred miles off the coast of Sri Lanka when the operatives boarded it and confiscated the cargo before letting the vessel proceed, the officials said. The U.S. had been tracking the shipment, according to the officials and another person familiar with the operation.

The previously undisclosed raid was part of a Pentagon effort to disrupt the Islamic Republic’s clandestine military procurement after Israel and the U.S. inflicted heavy damage on its nuclear and missile facilities during a 12-day conflict in June.

It was the first time in recent years that the U.S. military is known to have intercepted cargo with Chinese origins on its way to Iran. The name of the ship and its owner couldn’t be determined.

I think that was another bungled opportunity, guided by a lack of understanding. My inclination would have been to return the crew of the ship to the Chinese authorities with a statement to the effect that since we know that China would never condone such activities we are confident that these are criminals that should be returned to you. A useful comparison is the 1993 Yinhe incident. I think that was similarly bungled and now that it has been made public the Chinese are likely to respond now as they did then—with large, public demonstrations for greater Chinese nationalism.

My interpretation of those incidents is that at best our public diplomacy is tone-deaf. At worst we are communicating the wrong messages due to cultural ignorance. How the U.S. handles maritime interdictions with China matters far more for future relations than the actual cargo.

I find the Trump Administration’s seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker deeply troubling. Even if one accepts the administration’s stated justifications at face value, the action is strategically unsound, legally questionable, and likely to further poison our already strained relations with other countries in the hemisphere.

The United States helped establish the international process for resolving disputes of this sort, and we have treaty obligations under the UN Charter and the Inter-American system to bring grievances that cannot be resolved through diplomacy or economic sanctions before the United Nations Security Council. We should abide by the rules we expect others to follow.

Actions like this also set a dangerous precedent. If the United States asserts a right to seize foreign vessels unilaterally, do we want China—or Russia—to behave in the same way?

Most importantly, we should never undertake military action against Venezuela without a formal declaration of war by Congress. Anything less would violate both our constitutional structure and the norms we claim to champion.

The argument over the budget between the mayor and the City Council continues. In the latest salvo Mayor Johnson has proposed raising the number of employees and the tax: only companies with 500 or more would be subject to the tax which would be $33 per month per employee.

Frankly, I’m skeptical of City Hall’s numbers. The mayor has said that 175 companies would pay the new proposed tax which would raise $82 million.

Chicago used to have a head tax. The last year in which it was levied was 2014. It applied to companies with 50 or more employees and it raised only $35 million. It doesn’t feel to me like the numbers will add up.

Furthermore, it sounds to me as though the tax is likely to fall primarily on companies that would find it easy to adjust their numbers (or move) to avoid the tax. In other words JPMorgan, Accenture, and some other big consulting and financial companies. Maybe some hospital chains. The only retailer I can identify that would pay the tax would be Target—the other just don’t have enough stores or enough employees to make the cut.

At this point my bet would be that Brandon Johnson becomes the only mayor in Chicago’s history to preside over a shutdown of the city.

Democratic party operatives are rejoicing at Eileen Higgins election as mayor of Miami. Laura Kelley, chair of the Miami-Dade Democratic party, said Higgins’s victory fully reflected the shifting moods of voters. Caroline Vakil reports at The Hill:

Democrat Eileen Higgins has flipped the Miami mayor’s office, defeating Republican Emilio Gonzalez and marking the latest sign of her party’s momentum heading into next year’s midterms, according to Decision Desk HQ.

Higgins is the first Democrat to become mayor of Miami since 1997. She bested Gonzalez, a former Miami city manager who served on President Trump’s Homeland Security Department transition team, to succeed incumbent Mayor Francis Suarez (R). The race is technically nonpartisan.

The win is the latest boost for Democrats, who are coming out of better-than-expected elections in November and a strong showing in this month’s special House election in Tennessee. The party hopes an energized base and a focus on issues such as affordability will help flip the House and possibly even the Senate in next year’s midterms.

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin lauded the win in a statement, describing it as “testament to what Democrats can accomplish when we organize and compete everywhere, including in Miami.”

“Tonight’s result is yet another warning sign to Republicans that voters are fed up with their out-of-touch agenda that is raising costs for working families across the country,” he added.

Not so fast says Democratic strategist Simon Bazelon. In an interview by Anne Kim in Washington Monthly:

The share of voters who say that Democrats are “out of touch” has gone from about 50 percent in 2013 to 70 percent in 2025. It’s going to be pretty hard to win any election when 70 percent of voters think that your party is out of touch.

and concludes with the following observation about off-year elections:

Broadly speaking, all the election results are roughly in line with a lot of the things we’re saying. Also, I think it’s really important not to overlearn lessons from off-year special elections.

Democrats’ problem is not figuring out how to win federal races in New Jersey and Virginia or New York City. It’s figuring out how to win presidential elections in Wisconsin and Michigan. It’s figuring out how to win Senate races in states like Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, Texas—places that voted for Donald Trump by double digits in 2024.

But with that said, I do think that the Democrats who won mostly ran quite disciplined campaigns focused on affordability, which is voters’ top issue.

I found this graphic particularly interesting:

The chart highlights a persistent strategic bind: the Democrats’ most broadly appealing figures are often the least viable with the party’s own primary electorate.. I feel confident in predicting that neither Andy Beshear nor Josh Shapiro will be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2028 and hope I don’t have to explain why that is.

The first proposed candidate who has a chance of becoming the nominee is the third most favorable, Amy Klobuchar, and the present apparent frontrunner, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is dead last in general favorability. It is not at all clear that Amy Klobuchar could defeat J.D. Vance in 202 and Gavin Newsom’s favorability numbers suggest even longer odds.

Miami-Dade is a very Democratic metropolitan area. Clinton carried it in 2016, Biden carried it in 2020, and Miami proper was carried by Harris in 2024. The question Ms. Higgins’s victory raised is less the national one of whether Republicans have collapsed nationwide as the local one of why has Miami’s mayor been a Republican for the last 28 years? As I see it the Democrats have a different challenge than the “branding, messaging, and tactics” triad presented by Mr. Bazelon. I think their problem is substantive. Furthermore, to become the nominee a Democrat must prevail among primary voters who differ markedly in their views from most of the people in the country. In other words any candidate likely to win in the primaries will have an extremely difficult time in the general election. Democrats don’t have a messaging problem. They have a coalition problem—and the primary process worsens it.

The Federal Reserve will cut interest rates slightly.

That is not what it should do. It should hold them steady or even raise them but they’re gun-shy. Their action will have the perverse effect of increasing inflation slightly.

Update

Myles Udland and Grace O’Donnell report at Yahoo Finance:

The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 25 basis points at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday, marking the central bank’s third cut of the year.

Fed officials were split on the decision to lower rates to a range of 3.50%-3.75%, with policymakers dissenting on both sides. Chicago Fed president Austan Goolsbee and Kansas City Fed president Jeff Schmid favored holding rates steady, while Fed governor Stephen Miran favored a 50 basis point rate cut.

Called it right. I mean, they were either going to cut, raise, or leave it the same, weren’t they? Interesting to see that Austan Goolsbee and Jeff Schmid saw it the same way I did.

It has been some time since I last wrote on this subject. The publication of the 2025 National Security Strategy and the agonistic response from European commentators prompts a fresh look.

The United States military evaluates the “readiness” of units based on what is referred to as the “C scale” taking personnel, equipment on hand, equipment condition (serviceability), and training into account.

C-1 is the highest level of readiness. A unit rated C-1 is ready for anything including sustained military operations. A unit rated C-2 can undertake most missions. A unit rated C-3 can undertake many but not all missions. A unit rated C-4 needs additional equipment, personnel, or training to undertake wartime missions. It can only undertake portions. A unit rated C-5 is not ready.

It should be noted that the U. S. rating system emphasizes independence in logistics. These are informed estimates based on publicly available data from NATO, national audits, think-tanks such as IISS, RUSI, RAND, and German Bundestag oversight reports.

If we were to apply this rating system to the militaries of our NATO allies, how would they rate? Other than the United States there is only one C-1 rated military in NATO: France. Here is how the militaries of some of our NATO allies would rate:

The UK’s military is not what it was. The UK sits somewhere between France and Italy: small active forces but high readiness at scale when funded and tasked.

These evaluations are necessarily somewhat speculative since NATO does not provide such measurements of readiness publicly. Not to mention that statements are frequently political rather than substantive. They are optimistic. I could support these assessments with information available publicly down to the unit level but this is a blog post not a dissertation or book.

The Bundeswehr reportedly had just 2 days of artillery ammunition on hand in 2023. Even with continued dependence on the U. S. it needs two weeks. Germany could, within roughly three years, bring its active components up to something like U.S. C-2 standards if and only if it puts ammunition, spare parts, depot-level maintenance, and field training ahead of prestige programs. Doing that while sustaining Ukraine likely requires defense spending closer to 3% of GDP. The real question is not technical feasibility but political will: whether Berlin is prepared to prioritize actual combat power over symbolism. Until that changes, the Bundeswehr will remain a C-3 force in a C-1 neighborhood. Do the Germans have the political will?

My vision and my hearing are both lousy these days. I’ve always read much faster than people talk which is why podcasts don’t attract me. That’s why I read the transcripts of Yasha Mounk’s podcast but it is very unlikely I’ll ever listen to the podcast.

His most recent is a conversation with Jill Lepore which is well worth reading if not listening to. The link to the transcript is here. The focus of the conversation is why we should amend the Constitution. We are unlikely to for reasons they touch on but there’s one remark of Dr. Lepore’s of which I’d like to take note:

We have a very hyper-polarized political discourse in this country, and academic accounts of American history, which have generally been aligned with the left, take the position that American history can best be understood as a litany of atrocities that have never been fully reckoned with. Popular history, which is more closely aligned with the right, takes the position that American history is the story of a march of progress and prosperity and freedom, and that the United States is a beacon of liberty around the world.

There are elements of truth in both of those views and neither is true. They are both myths but there is (at least) one basic difference between them. The “popular history” has maintained some degree of continuity over the last 250 years which is in stark contrast with the “academic account”. If you doubt that I recommend you read both de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and G. K. Chesterton’s What I Saw in America. They are separated by nearly a century in time, one written in the 19th century and the other in the 20th century. The former was written by a Frenchman and the latter by an Englishman. There are many other differences but despite those there is a remarkable continuity between them and the “popular history” of the United States.

BTW “that the United States is a beacon of liberty around the world” is a fantasy. The U. S. is not universally seen as a beacon of hope and liberty. I have lived and worked in a half dozen countries other than the U. S. and the people have not held that view in any of them. Quite to the contrary the view of the United States I’ve encountered is a weird combination of disdain, fear, and envy. And that has been the case for over a century. Again, you don’t need to take my word for it. Our American Cousin was written in 1858 by an Englishman (it’s the play Lincoln went to see when he was assassinated) and the view of America and Americans expressed in it is very much along those lines.

The other significant difference between those accounts is that, although I can see how a “nation founded on a creed” can survive based on the “popular history”, I see no way it can survive based on the “academic account” which is being adopted by some and being taught in the schools. Indeed, if you believe that account eradicating the U. S. is a moral necessity.

And, most dangerously, I see no way of reconciling those two contrasting views amicably. Is there any productive reconciliation between those two views or must one view prevail while the other is stamped out?