Chile’s Military: The Art of Strategic Sufficiency
Chile has a military that is sufficient to deter its neighbors. It’s not top of the line, but it is good enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR6tNCDHNw0
Tag: South America
Venezuela is run by a corrupt dictatorship.
Venezuela is run by a corrupt dictatorship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be76NQm-c78
Hegseth’s Alleged Order To ‘Kill Everybody’ Complicates Trump’s Defense of His Murderous Anti-Drug Campaign
“Eight days after the September 2 operation that inaugurated President Donald Trump’s lethal military campaign against suspected drug boats, The Intercept reported that people who survived the initial missile strike were “killed shortly after in a follow-up attack.” On Friday, The Washington Post confirmed that account, saying the commander overseeing the operation, based on an oral directive from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “kill everybody,” ordered a second strike on “two survivors” who “were clinging to the smoldering wreck.”
If that report is accurate, Reason’s Christian Britschgi notes, “the second strike on helpless survivors would add a degree of barbarism to the administration’s anti-drug campaign.” It also would further complicate the arguments that Trump has deployed to justify his unprecedented policy of summarily executing suspected drug smugglers, which so far has involved 21 attacks that killed 83 people in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. Even if you accept Trump’s dubious claim that the United States is engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with “narcoterrorists,” which supposedly means U.S. forces can legally attack vessels believed to be carrying illegal drugs, deliberately killing survivors would be contrary to the law of war.
“Both the giving and the execution of these orders” would “constitute war crimes, murder, or both,” the Former JAGs Working Group, which consists of lawyers who previously served in the military, said on Saturday. “If the U.S. military operation to interdict and destroy suspected narcotrafficking vessels is a ‘non-international armed conflict’ as the Trump Administration suggests, orders to ‘kill everybody,’ which can reasonably be regarded as an order to give ‘no quarter,’ and to ‘double-tap’ a target in order to kill survivors, are clearly illegal under international law. In short, they are war crimes.”
The former military lawyers add that the situation is even graver “if the U.S. military operation is not an armed conflict of any kind.” In that case, they say, “these orders to kill helpless civilians clinging to the wreckage of a vessel our military destroyed would subject everyone from [the secretary of defense] down to the individual who pulled the trigger to prosecution under U.S. law for murder.””
https://reason.com/2025/12/01/hegseths-alleged-order-to-kill-everybody-complicates-trumps-defense-of-his-murderous-anti-drug-campaign/
Countering the Criminal Drone Threat in the Americas
Mexican cartels are using drones to drop bombs on rival cartels and police, and to intimidate civilians. Criminal organizations in many countries are using drones and have gotten good at using them in advanced ways.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBjCFd3Vosg
Don’t Send Cubans and Venezuelans Back To Suffer Under Communism
“Despite Trump promising to stand “with the good people of Cuba and Venezuela,” his administration has fast-tracked deportations for victims of communism.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/10/dont-send-cubans-and-venezuelans-back-to-suffer-under-communism/
Trump Has a Good Reason to Bail Out Argentina
“Throughout the Greek debt crisis, the overwhelming majority of Greeks wanted to stay in the Eurozone but bridled at the austerity measures required to do so. Today Greece ranks among the top five economic performers in Europe. Unlike Greece, which required international intervention to implement necessary reforms, Argentina took the task upon itself, the voters rebuking establishment parties and taking a chance on a political outsider. If Greece was worth saving, then Argentina is no less deserving of a lifeline.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/10/24/argentina-deserves-its-bailout-00620337
Milei’s Moment of Truth
“Under Milei, inflation has dropped massively. The poverty rate has gone down. Public spending has plummeted, and budget surpluses have appeared. Housing supply in Buenos Aires has totally turned around following the repeal of rent control laws.
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But “the policy of managing the currency has become a trap,” adds The Economist. “Even after he partially floated the peso in April alongside an IMF [International Monetary Fund] bailout, he has sought to maintain its level artificially high. Defending the exchange rate has cost Argentina billions of dollars in scarce foreign-currency reserves and has pushed interest rates sky-high, creating a drag on growth. Jobs, rather than inflation, are what now worry voters the most.”
Milei had to get a credit swap from the U.S., to the tune of $20 billion (which he must pay back, though the terms of the deal have not been made clear to the public). He secured a similarly massive IMF bailout back in April. He keeps needing emergency credit lines to keep the peso strong, but it’s not clear that this policy is totally working. It makes sense why he would pursue it in the first place: Prices have historically spiraled out of control, and the central bank is not trusted by the people. In order for some of Milei’s less-popular social safety net cuts to be palatable, the people needed to feel like there was some legitimate stability and predictability in their monetary system, lest they revert to favoring Peronism.
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“Under the exchange rate system that Milei implemented earlier this year, the peso floats freely within a band,” writes Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quirós for the Cato Institute. “When a government tries to maintain a fixed but adjustable exchange rate, it creates perverse incentives. If markets perceive that the currency is overvalued, expectations of devaluation are created, prompting speculators and citizens themselves to take their capital out of the country to avoid losses. To defend the exchange rate, the central bank must use its international reserves, but these are finite.” Reserves are limited; speculators can easily take advantage.”
https://reason.com/2025/10/23/mileis-moment-of-truth/
US Marches Towards War With Venezuela
The United States military is making extrajudicial illegal killings of potential drug traffickers, apparently killing a boat of Colombians this time. The U.S. is threatening a regime change war with Venezuela.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HUUKscEspQ
Milei Raises Government Spending While Pledging Zero Deficit
“The biggest challenge is political. Without a congressional majority, Milei has relied on vetoes to block deficit-boosting bills. By conceding targeted increases, he hopes to blunt those challenges while courting centrists who dislike Peronist populism but remain wary of his radical cures. The October 26 legislative elections will decide whether he grows his foothold in Congress or stays boxed in.”
https://reason.com/2025/09/18/milei-raises-government-spending-while-pledging-zero-deficit/
Rand Paul clashes with JD Vance over US strike on boat leaving Venezuela
““JD “I don’t give a shit” Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the “highest and best use of the military.” Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” Paul wrote on X on Saturday night. “Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation??”
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They are looking for answers as to why the administration elected to fire on the cartel, rather than rounding them up, and some are wary the strike could expand the president’s authority to call upon his war powers. There have also been questions about details of the attack and desire for proof that the boat itself was actually what the administration says it was.
“What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial,” Paul said of Vance’s Saturday post.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/07/rand-paul-clashes-with-jd-vance-over-us-strike-on-venezuelan-boat-00549080