Day: June 26, 2026

Pronounced day taunt, and literally, they taunt us and we taunt them. Almost every morning in the online news aggregator I check in on with my first cup of coffee of the day is at least one article about new aggression between simmering adversaries and some new weapon, weapon advance, new battlefield strategy or planned war related construction. The biggest industry on the planet is war. That’s where the money is. AI, the most rapidly expanding technology, is being used for a lot of purposes already and war is one of it’s biggest customers in design, planning and development.

What you don’t hear much of is when some war somewhere ends. Usually they don’t, they just keep going but at a much lower volume level and peace talk is not what their media wants us to hear.

Weapons and weapon systems, as well as strategies, have to be tested in real situations, so it’s necessary to have real wars to test them with. Ukraine and Lebanon have proven to be wonderful test beds for new weapons and improvement of older ones, while enriching the weapons factories. The arms industry of Israel has become world famous for the high quality of their weaponry, both offensive and defensive. Other nations not directly involved in these wars are also reaping benefits, like Turkey with their drones which they sell to 34 countries across the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Ukraine is a big customer of Turkish drones, using money donated by NATO nations and the USA, so of course the technology involved is rapidly expanding along with their increasing sales. There’s lots of nations that want to take over their neighbors and drones are proving the cheapest way to bring a lesser competitor to their knees. Even Russia is finding this out, too late, as Ukraine is doing much better, much faster than them at developing and fielding faster and more autonomous drones capable of carrying larger and more devastating explosives, with the result that Russia’s most vital economic infrastructure is being destroyed far faster than they can repair or replace it.

The profits end when the wars do unless you own the construction companies that will rebuild after the war and be paid with loans from a non-adversary, like the USA, that are secured by large tracts of land as collateral. In either nation, the winner or the loser or both, it doesn’t matter.

Where Detente comes in, is making sure too many actors don’t get involved in any given war or that it escalates too rapidly. Early on, in the war between Ukraine and Russia for instance, Zelensky wanted to launch rockets deep into Russia and hit Moscow, but was prevented because Putin was threatening a nuclear response if they did. Now things have changed, the Russians are now facing a bigger threat than Ukraine if they used The Bomb on them and Ukraine just isn’t worth the retaliation. Russia won’t lose in the sense of being defeated, and neither will Ukraine. Soon, the war will end with no victor but a lot of dead people, used-up inventories of outdated weapons and munitions, and the redistribution of wealth. Then the people can be taxed for the rebuilding. This is Detente.

The total crushing and annihilation of Hitler’s Nazi regime was not detente. That was true war as was the war with Japan. Detente isn’t crushing your enemy and having peace. Detente is maintaining a state of war just large enough to generate sales, profits and technological development without killing the population faster than they can be replaced.

Now, war is being used for profit instead of conquest. This is Detente. As the war industry grows worldwide, with nations that formerly were just watching the show now actively engaged in promoting war and selling the warring nations their weaponry, like Turkey with their drones and Israel with their advanced anti-missile defense systems, the need for more small wars grows to support the growing military-industrial complex of corporations which themselves have become deeply intertwined and more inter-dependent.

Detente today is controlled by the corporations, which now also control the world. You want to wage a war and you need fighter jets, trained pilots and lots of bombs? You have to convince the corporations to sell them to you and how many. They will control your war, if they allow it to happen, by controlling how much damage you can do to your enemy, and when.

This is Detente.

They remind me of the Clever Bangladeshis. Venezuela, like many large land masses, has a few major faults running through it where tectonic plates meet. Like Los Angeles, which sits smack on top of the San Andreas Fault. You can see the Fault easily, where roads cross it and more easily from the air, where creeks take sudden sharp jogs and hills are cut in half.

In Venezuela they just had some more nasty earthquakes, this time they don’t know, maybe 1000 dead, maybe 100,000. Venezuela has a lot of earthquakes so of course not one high rise, many-storied building is built to withstand them and the biggest cities are the closest to the worst fault lines. But it was over a century ago that over 30,000 died in one, so what’s to worry, right?

Everyone knows a massive earthquake is going to rip that San Andreas Fault a good one, and most of the length of California and mostly in Los Angeles but hey, maybe not today and besides, many of the new buildings are on massive springs to absorb an earthquake. What fun. This is going to be like being inside a fruit jar glued to a rubber stick while someone shakes the stick, when that fault finally pops. Clever like Venezuelans.

The Bangladeshis have a different claim to fame and genius as they breed so rapidly that living space is at a premium. But Nature takes care of that every so often, as they have regular typhoons there. This matters because every time there’s a typhoon, the coastal lowlands are washed clean of people and all that living space opens up. They swarm all over it, staking claims where they start building homes and farming. In another 7 or 8 years, on average, a typhoon will wash them away but in the meantime they get to have some space to live. It’s a lot like living in Florida and waiting for the next hurricane.

People in Indonesia are always building villages on mud slopes that come sliding down during a really wet winter and the entire village always ends up somewhere under a massive heap of sticks and mud, that rapidly hardens in the hot sun. I’m not sure if this is worse or better than living on one of the volcanic islands and it erupts and kills everyone who doesn’t escape, ala Pompeii. I’ve been to Pompeii, it’s a trip, really is. Went down inside Vesuvius, not when it was erupting of course. Just venting gas.

I live in a high fire danger area, as do the thousands that also live up in these hills. In fact I shook hands with an insurance agent who came by to take a photo of the house, for insurance purposes, that was last Monday and today is Thursday night and I’ve never heard back from him. This is not a positive result that promotes an optimistic mindset within me. Yup, looks bad. At least there’s no major faults here. I think.

The point to this rant is that the best and safest places to live are fully occupied by the wealthiest among us and this is because there’s so many of us compared to what’s available, and there’s always going to be mass catastrophes from earthquakes and floods, fires and stampeding feral pigs, bubonic plague, toe fungus and the Morning After Pill.

I’ll tell you the one I’m really looking forward to is when Yellowstone blows up again. That’s gonna be a world shaker. Like the one that sank Atlantis. It’s going to leave a serious hole in the countryside, and if you haven’t heard about it you should look it up. It’s gonna be a gasser.