What’s going on? Are neocons having a come-to-Jesus moment?

After Bob Kagan writing an article on how the U.S. is facing “total defeat” in Iran (see https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/2053741799047655462?s=20), you now have Max Boot – the very author of “The Case for American Empire” and one of the most vocal advocates for the Iraq war – publishing a Washington Post interview explaining that China has surpassed the U.S. in most military domains.

If anything, Boot’s interview is even more devastating than Kagan’s piece, because it’s not editorial opinion – he’s interviewing John Culver, a former top CIA analyst (he was national intelligence officer for East Asia) and one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Chinese military which he’s been studying since 1985.

This isn’t a pundit opining – this is someone who spent decades inside the intelligence community staring at the actual data.

So what is Culver saying?

1) In case of war with Taiwan, the U.S. will flee the theater

This is undoubtedly the single most stunning revelation in the entire piece. Culver says that – as far as he is aware – the Pentagon’s plan in case of war with Taiwan is… flee!

This is the exact quote: “I think some of the thinking in the Pentagon, and it may have evolved since I retired, is that when we think there’s going to be a war, we need to get our high-value naval assets out of the theater, and then we would have to fight our way back in. From where, it’s not clear. Guam is no bastion either.”

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Najprej ni bilo nič videti. Potem je bilo obdobje Covida. Še vedno nič. Nakar je prišlo post-covidno odpiranje. In nenadoma se je iz nič pojavila kitajska raketa – strma krivulja izvoza kitajskih avtomobilov. 2 milijona leta 2021. 3 milijone leta 2022. 5 milijonov leta 2023. 6 milijonov leta 2024. In Kitajska je iz nič v vsega 4 letih pri izvozu avtomobilov prehitela najprej Južno Korejo leta 2022. Nato Nemčijo leta 2023. In nato še Japonsko leta 2024.

Toda to je bil šele začetek. Konec lanskega leta (2025) je kitajski izvoz avtomobilov presegel 8 milijonov, letos naj bi presegel že 12 milijonov.

Vir: Brad Setser

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Julia Mendel je bila prva tiskovna predstavnica ukrajinskega predsednika Volodimirja Zelenskega, kjer je vodila mednarodne komunikacije ukrajinskega predsedniškega urada med pandemijo covida-19 in na začetku ruske agresije. Po odhodu iz urada je napisala knjigo The Fight of Our Lives, v kateri opisuje svoje izkušnje, ozadje ukrajinske politike in vojno, ter nadaljuje z novinarskim delom in kritičnimi komentarji aktualnih dogodkov v Ukrajini. Velja za prepoznavno figuro ukrajinske javne scene, znano po izkušnjah v mednarodnih odnosih in kriznih komunikacijah.

• 0:00 How Did Mendel Begin Working for Zelensky?
• 11:29 Why Hasn’t US Media Covered Zelensky’s Scandals?
• 25:30 Zelensky’s Relationship With Joe Biden
• 32:45 Is Zelensky Himself Corrupt?
• 36:44 Who Does Zelensky Actually Listen To?
• 42:45 Zelensky’s Use of the Frontlines as Punishment
• 50:17 Why Hasn’t Western Media Spoken up for Ukrainians?
• 1:03:32 Why Do Western Countries Want the War to Continue?
• 1:09:16 Does Zelensky Do Coke?
• 1:13:04 What’s Zelensky’s Wife Like?
• 1:14:56 Mendel’s Experience Living Through the Ukraine War
• 1:18:27 Is There Any Way to Get Rid of Zelensky?
• 1:23:42 Why Are There So Many Americans Always in Ukraine?
• 1:32:35 Mendel’s Message to Putin

There’s no overstating how extraordinary this Atlantic article is, given the author and the outlet.

As a reminder Bob Kagan is:

• The co-founder of Project for the New American Century, probably the single most imperialist Think Tank in Washington (which is quite a feat)
• A man who spent his entire life advocating for American military interventions, especially in the Middle East, and a vocal advocate of the Iraq war. He started advocating for intervention in Iraq before 9/11, which speaks for itself…
• The husband of Victoria Nuland, an extremely hawkish former senior U.S. official (a key architect of U.S. policy in Ukraine, with the consequences we all witness today)
• The brother of Frederick Kagan, one of the key architects of the Iraq surge

In other words, we ain’t exactly looking at some sort of anti-imperialist peacenik. This is quite literally the guy Dick Cheney called when he needed a pep talk.

And the man is writing in The Atlantic, the most reliably pro-war mainstream media outlet in the U.S. (also quite a feat).

So when HE writes that the U.S. “suffered a total defeat” in Iran that has no precedent in U.S. history and can “neither be repaired nor ignored,” it’s the functional equivalent of Ronald McDonald telling you the burgers aren’t great: it means the burgers really, really aren’t great.

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Arnaud Betrand je napisal zelo zanimiv komentar na temo, ali je multipolarni svet res bolj nagnjen k nestabilnosti in konfliktom kot eno- ali dvopolarni svet. Bertrand izhaja iz zelo razširjene teze v teoriji mednarodnih odnosov, da je multipolarni svet po svoji naravi bolj nestabilen in konfliktogen kot bipolarni ali unipolarni sistemi. Ta pogled je globoko zakoreninjen v akademskem okolju in politični analizi, kjer se pogosto poučuje kot skoraj samoumevna resnica. Izjema so le nekateri teoretiki realizma v mednarodnih odnosih, kot sta John Mearsheimer in Stephen Walt. Betrand opozarja, da se ta ideja danes uporablja tudi za razlago sodobnih konfliktov, kot sta vojna v Ukrajini ali napetosti z Iranom, ki naj bi bili zgolj uvod v širši globalni kaos.

Pri tem se sklicuje na klasične teorije, zlasti na delo Kennetha Waltza, ki je v svoji analizi poudarjal večjo stabilnost bipolarnih sistemov. Po tej logiki manjše število velikih sil pomeni večjo preglednost odnosov, jasnejše ravnotežje moči in manj možnosti za napačne odločitve, ki bi lahko vodile v vojno. Multipolarnost pa naj bi ustvarjala kompleksno mrežo odnosov, kjer se tveganje za konflikt eksponentno povečuje.

Betrand pokaže, da ta ideja ni zgolj zahodni konstrukt, temveč univerzalna intuicija, ki jo najdemo tudi v drugih kulturah. Kot primer navaja Romance of the Three Kingdoms, kjer razdrobljenost politične moči vodi v dolgotrajne vojne in izdaje. Ta kulturni okvir potrjuje prepričanje, da razdeljenost sistema nujno pomeni nestabilnost.

Zaponazoritev Betrand uporabi analogijo iz fizike in astronomije, kjer primerja centre moči s planeti ali zvezdami. En sam dominanten center ustvarja stabilen sistem, dva centra omogočata relativno predvidljivo dinamiko, večje število pa vodi v t. i. problem več teles, kjer postanejo interakcije kaotične in nepredvidljive. Ta primerjava dodatno utrjuje intuitivno privlačnost teorije o nevarnosti multipolarnosti.

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Paul Kagan je intelektualni mastermind ameriških intervencionističnih vojn v zadnjih desetletjih. Jastreb vojne, ki daje Izrael na prvo mesto, in eden najvplivnejših ideoloških zagovornikov vojne v Iraku 2002. Desetletja je deloval prek Kagan Institute in Brookings Institution ter ustvarjal jezik, logiko in politične dokumente, ki so pomagali širiti kaos in vojno po svetu. Leta je pozival k vojni z Iranom. Zdaj, ko je to vojno dobil, od nje dviguje roke. V članku za The Atlantic “Checkmate in Iran” pravi, da so bile ZDA v Iranu matirane in da bo ta ameriški poraz v temelju spremenil – zmanjšal ameriško vlogo v svetu. Poraz proti Iranu naj bi sprožil verižno reakcijo po vsem svetu, saj se bodo tako zavezniki kot nasprotniki prilagodili ameriškemu neuspehu.

No, Kagan je mož zloglasne Victorie Niuland, dolgoletne pomočnice v ameriškem State Departmentu, ki je Kaganove ideje izvajala v praksi. Med drugim z iniciranjem vojne v Ukrajini od leta 2014 naprej in njenim dejanskim vodenjem v obdobju 2022-2024 (dokler ni odstopila). Kagan – Nuland je par, ki je – v svojem intervencionističnem ekstremizmu – vrgel ZDA iz trona v strateški prepad.

It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored. The calamitous losses suffered at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, and throughout the Western Pacific in the first months of World War II were eventually reversed. The defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly but did not do lasting damage to America’s overall position in the world, because they were far from the main theaters of global competition. The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy that ultimately left Iraq relatively stable and unthreatening to its neighbors and kept the United States dominant in the region.

Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored. There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done. The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world. The roles of China and Russia, as Iran’s allies, are strengthened; the role of the United States, substantially diminished. Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure.

Vir: The Atlantic

Tole sem prvič bral v knjigi “Outliers” Malcolma Gladwella in se mi je globoko vtisnilo v spomin: v življenju ne uspejo najbolj inteligentni, pač pa najbolj vztrajni. Legendarna dolgoletna študija ameriškega psihologa Lewisa Termana, ki je nekaj desetletij spremljal 1.520 skrbno izbranih zelo inteligentnih otrok (“termitov”), je pokazala, da visok IQ sicer dobro napoveduje konvencionalni uspeh (izobrazbo, dohodek, poklicni status), vendar ne napoveduje vrhunskega ustvarjalnega genija ali izjemnih dosežkov, kot so Nobelove nagrade. Med 1.528 nadarjenimi otroki, ki jih je spremljal več desetletij, ni bilo nobenega takšnega preboja, medtem ko sta dva zavrnjena kandidata kasneje postala Nobelova nagrajenca. Ključna ugotovitev je, da razlike v dosežkih znotraj visoko inteligentne skupine niso izhajale iz IQ, temveč iz lastnosti, kot so vztrajnost, radovednost, zdravje in stabilno okolje. Študija tako razkriva omejitve merjenja inteligence in opozarja, da pogosto merimo napačne lastnosti, če želimo napovedovati izjemne življenjske dosežke.

Moj prijatelj Črnogorec Mišo je to že zdavnaj pogruntal in strnil v življenjsko modrost: ne jebu najlepši, nego najuporniji.

A Stanford psychologist spent 35 years trying to prove that high IQ produced genius. He selected 1,528 of the smartest children in California and tracked them for the rest of their lives.

Not one of them won a Nobel Prize. Two of the boys he had rejected from the study won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

The trait he had built his entire career on did not predict the thing he thought it predicted.

His name was Lewis Terman. The study is one of the most honest accidents in modern psychology.

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Spodnja slika je ena najbolj strašljivih, kar se mene tiče, glede prihodnosti Slovenije. Slovenski naravni prirastek je negativen. Od leta 2020 v povprečju letno umre 4,700 prebivalcev več, kot se jih rodi. In od leta 2018 se letno v Slovenijo neto priseli 12,800 tujcev.

Bine Kordež je naredil projekcije števila prebivalcev Slovenije do leta 2100. In projekcije kažejo, da bi ob sedanjem trendu naaravnega prirastka do leta 2100 v Sloveniji živelo le še 1.3 milijona prebivalcev na osnovi sedanje strukture prebivalcev (v kateri je že okrog 10 % delež tujcev). Število priseljencev pa bi znašalo okrog 700 tisoč. Po teh projekcijah bi torej do leta 2100 v Sloveniji živelo več kot 31 % tujcev. Če pa upoštevamo, da imajo priseljenci (sedanji in prihodnji) višjo stopnjo rodnosti, pa to pomeni, da bo leta 2100 v Sloveniji okrog polovica prebivalcev tujcev.

Kaj to pomeni za demografsko in kulturno krajino Slovenije, si lahko predstavljamo. 

Slovenija nujno potrebuje demografsko politiko, ki bo naslovila ta problem. 

Slovenija potrebuje davčni sistem, ki ne bo kaznoval znanja in pripravljenosti delati več. Če želi povečati produktivnost in dolgoročno gospodarsko rast, mora razbremenitev dela postati del širše razvojne strategije. Reforma obdavčitve plač je zato lahko eden izmed gradnikov za prehod v gospodarstvo z višjo dodano vrednostjo.

Slovenija se danes nahaja v specifičnem davčnem položaju znotraj Evropske unije: obdavčitev dela, zlasti za visoko kvalificirane kadre, je med višjimi, medtem ko je obdavčitev kapitala in premoženja relativno nizka v primerjavi z večino držav članic. Takšna struktura davčnega sistema ima pomembne razvojne posledice. Visoka obremenitev dela zmanjšuje donosnost znanja, inovacij in podjetnosti, hkrati pa relativno nizka obdavčitev kapitala omejuje možnosti za bolj uravnoteženo davčno strukturo. Posledično to vpliva na nižjo produktivnost, slabšo konkurenčnost in dolgoročno omejuje potencial gospodarske rasti.

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Apple published a paper in June 2025 that called out the entire AI industry.

And the industry has not recovered from it since.

The paper is called “The Illusion of Thinking.” Six Apple researchers. Months of controlled experiments. One conclusion that landed like a grenade.

Frontier reasoning models face a complete accuracy collapse beyond certain complexities.

Complete. Not partial. Not gradual. Complete.

Here is what that actually means.

For two years, every major AI lab has been racing to build reasoning models. OpenAI’s o1, o3. Anthropic’s Claude 3.7 Sonnet Thinking. DeepSeek R1. Google’s Gemini Thinking. These models do not just answer questions, they visibly think first. They show their work. They reason step by step through a problem before arriving at an answer. The entire industry marketed this as the next evolution of intelligence.

Apple tested whether it was real.

They did not use math benchmarks or coding tests, the standard evaluations every AI company optimizes against during training. They built clean, controllable puzzle environments. Tower of Hanoi. River Crossing. Checker Jumping. Blocks World. Problems with precise, verifiable correct answers and zero possibility of data contamination.

Then they systematically turned up the complexity. And watched what happened.

For simpler, low-complexity problems, standard LLMs demonstrated greater efficiency and accuracy, the reasoning models were beaten by regular models that do not think at all. As complexity moderately increased, reasoning models gained an advantage. But when problems reached high complexity, both model types experienced complete performance collapse.

The thinking models, the ones that cost more, take longer, and are marketed as more intelligent, lost to basic models on easy tasks. Then both collapsed completely on hard ones.

But the finding that truly alarmed researchers was not the collapse itself.

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