Simplicius devotes a Substack post to the decline of once dominant US Naval power and its humiliating defeat at the hands of Iran in recent months. Ostensibly, in my own words, rendering US attempts to control the world oceans to one of piracy and theft, because that is the only role US naval vessels are fit for in a world that has moved on from where the US Navy – in fact that nation’s entire military force – stood, vacantly congratulating itself as a top tier global policeman, to one in which it no longer really matters. Having been rendered obsolete by other competing nations which developed the will, and the means, to no longer recognise or suffer US domination.
Iran’s Strategy Vindicated as US’s Logistics Chain Hobbled and Stretched by Early Strikes – Simplicius – Aug 17, 2026
There are any number of online stories now about the poor state of US Navy ships being turned into dangerous rust buckets as a result of overly long deployments, mostly fruitless in a missile heavy world where navies – unless equipped with modern missile weaponry (which no western navy possesses or even has prospects of possessing). Western warships role now being mostly as sitting duck targets which must sit off unfriendly shores at distances outside the range of most missiles.
The much vaunted US Aircraft Carrier vessels, once the source of US air superiority – they nominally have eleven of those but only three of those are seaworthy and able to be crewed effectively at any one time. All three are now ineffectively in the distant waters sitting off from Iran with a fourth apparently being sent home with an exhausted and mentally troubled crew which has reported in-fighting among crew members and numbers of attempted suicides.
The poor state of US Navy ships being seen in many available photographs, some of which are seen in the following article from 2023. This is not a new problem but it obviously takes considerable time out from active service to fix, and with an overactive trouble-making schedule imposed by US leaders, such fixes are not considered essential…
NAVSEA Comments on Rusty U.S. Navy Ships and New Paint Coatings
This is a sure sign of the ongoing defeat of the US empire occurring this century. The long-suffering global majority nations have called their bluff and are no longer afraid of waning western power now. But the delusional leadership of the west still needs some convincing of the true plight they are now in. I don’t think that can be achieved without first the inflicting of great pain on western nations economies and observable and overwhelming military defeat. Russia’s so far slow grind in Ukraine, while killing several million Ukrainian and NATO soldiers, has not yet demonstrably inflicted such a blow and may not do so until a complete collapse of the state (still being backed by western nations) is achieved. The more visible events of a complete withdrawal of US forces from West Asia accompanied, if Trump’s deranged mind so ordains it, by a military defeat at scale inflicted by Iran, may occur first. Or perhaps simultaneously with a Russian defeat of Ukraine. The now obvious western military weakness and backwardness being on display for all the world to see.
The Dream
The tables have turned or, to be more precise, are being over-turned, by the rise of new sheriffs (not a particularly accurate metaphor). Sheriffs will no longer be needed or tolerated in the world now re-forming from the old ‘Wild West’ days. It just needs the revitalising and upholding of the already existent, but previously ignored by the west, mechanism of International Law as laid down in the UN Charter. With no partisan extension or revision through some devised ‘Rule of Law’, policed by and in the interests solely of minor world population sectors – as has been the case over at least the past century. We can consign that past to a place where we no longer accept such dogging of our future global endeavours as lawfully upheld sovereign nations.
At least that is the matter of principal on which that world is now being formed. Being humans though, as we are, and judging by the events of our past history, it may require some form of transformative miracle to achieve such a world. That should not, however, prevent us from trying to form or perfect such a framework.
Not Something Else 
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