John Carl Baker

From Schelling's retrospective on Arms and Influence: "I had to coin a term. ‘‘Deterrence’’ was well understood. To ‘‘deter’’ was, as one dictionary said, to ‘‘prevent or discourage from acting by means of fear, doubt, or the like,’’ and in the words of another, ‘‘to turn aside or discourage through fear; hence, to prevent from action by fear of consequences,’’ from the Latin to ‘‘frighten from.’’ Deterrence was in popular usage not just in military strategy but also in criminal law. It was, complementary to ‘‘containment,’’ the basis of our American policy toward the Soviet bloc. But deterrence is passive; it posits a response to something unacceptable but is quiescent in the absence of provocation. It is something like ‘‘defense’’ in contrast to ‘‘offense.’’ We have a Department of Defense, no longer a War Department, ‘‘defense’’ being the peaceable side of military action."

Schelling in 2008 :(

A SNAPSHOT OF TRUMP'S ECONOMY—judged by his own goals: manufacturing jobs are down 100,000 since Trump took office, private-sector job growth is the weakest we’ve seen outside a recession in more than 20 years, and the unemployment rate for U.S.-born workers has increased.

So there is a story about the "top 10 cities at risk during nuclear war" circulating in various tabloids/etc. with my name attached to it, and I will say that a) I never have (nor would) make such a list at all, and b) I never said any of the quotes attributed to me in the article.

Look, Trump is trying his best bsky.app/profile/john...

February 2025 bsky.app/profile/john...

Again, the 2024/2025 divide is stark - Trump is wrecking the economy www.nytimes.com/live/2026/03...

shark mouth view 2, marineland, whitney park, route a1a, marineland, florida, 1990

shark mouth view 2, marineland, whitney park, route a1a, marineland, florida, 1990

Virginia moves to forbid schools from teaching that Jan. 6 was peaceful In what appears to be a first in the country, legislation headed to the desk of Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D) would prohibit public schools from teaching that the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capit...

Good:

“The first step toward authoritarianism is to rewrite the history we teach our children. We [won’t] allow a new mythology to grow up around Donald Trump.” www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

marineland billboard, florida, 1979

marineland billboard, florida, 1979

I knew we would have deer in our neighborhood but I was not expecting them to just walk down the road like people.

Russia says France's plan to expand its nuclear arsenal is destabilising Russia said on Wednesday that France's plan to expand its nuclear arsenal was a highly ​destabilising move that posed a potential threat to ‌Moscow.

Probably should have thought of that before you invaded another country and threatened NATO's flank www.reuters.com/world/russia...

Opinion | Of Course Trump Bombed Iran

Very good piece from Rob Malley and @stephenwertheim.bsky.social:

"No meaningful constraint exists in a system that judges wars on how they end up rather than whether they are warranted and wise." www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/o...

Noem out at DHS is a big deal. They've worked hard to not have the constant personnel shifts of the first Trump term, in part because they (not wrongly) see it as benefiting the opposition.

Trump claims there would have been a nuclear war if U.S. didn't strike Iran first President Trump offered a new reason Tuesday for the U.S. strikes on Iran, saying it was his opinion that the country was going to strike first.

Even by Trump standards, this is a whopper.

Trump cares about nuclear war only to the extent he can cite it as a reason to do things he wants to do (attack Iran, defund Ukraine's defense) www.npr.org/2026/03/04/n...

‘Nazi heaven’: Inside Miami campus Republicans’ racist group chat The chat is the subject of a Florida International University police investigation.

Today in “they’re all Nazis” www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...

A special military operation, if you will.

Excited to be the “I’m a local homeowner and I support the rapid urbanization of Northern VA” person

*sleater-kinney voice* link me out/link me in

Every single big tech company wants a piece of the pentagon because there's a lot of money in the pentagon. That's it. Even if it's just Microsoft selling windows subscriptions to the country's largest employer (and they obviously do much more than that, and there's many more than them).

This is like when people say the wealthy have outsized power in North Korea

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)

Can anyone find that article about conservative Americans who went to fight ISIS and realized after arriving that Kurdish forces were left-wing? I remember there was a funny quote from some guy who was like "I didn't know they were commies"

We finally got a Virginia Supreme Court ruling!

Confirmation redistricting referendum is happening

Early voting starts this Friday

Essentially a shadow docket ruling and not on final merits

But highest court in Virginia will let voters go to the polls

Multi-hemispheric isolationism

US launches military operations in Ecuador The joint military operation with Ecuador targeted what the U.S. called "designated terrorist organizations" in the country.

Today in "isolationism" www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Agreed

This is easily a top five movie for me - and not to be That Guy but it is as much a movie about capitalism as it is a movie about the media

"Jeffries and other top Democrats, including Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Intelligence Committee ranking member Jim Himes (D-Conn.), made "emphatic" cases for the resolution in a closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday"

Also, Rep. Clark is whipping the vote.

The Trump Administration’s Reckless War in Iran Has Already Cost More Than $5 Billion The Trump administration has launched a reckless war of choice in the Middle East, which has already imposed an estimated cost of more than $5 billion on the American taxpayer.

"At the current scale of operations, a three-week war could easily exceed tens of billions of dollars in expenses." www.americanprogress.org/article/the-...

Nuclear arms hawks give bureaucratic mauling to Biden vow to curb arsenal Defence budget and nuclear posture review are battlegrounds as Republicans seek to block limits on US use of weapons

Actually, it's not accurate to say he did nothing about launch authority. He ultimately opposed reform. Biden fired the person *he put in charge* of the Nuclear Posture Review, in part because of concerns that she was open to policy change. www.theguardian.com/world/2021/n...