Malaysia Has a Navy and a Receipt

It is 9:47 AM, an hour at which I have abandoned my morning but not yet earned my afternoon, and I am reading about a missile sale that fell through. I am drinking coffee out of a mug a friend gave me that says something encouraging on it, in a font I associate with hospitals. The rain outside is doing the thing where it cannot decide if it is rain or simply a mood the sky is in. And I am, for reasons I cannot fully explain to myself, deeply invested in a Norwegian arms deal.

Confetti. I keep coming back to confetti.

I have been, in my life, the person scattered. I have been on the receiving end of the sudden, polite phone call in which someone explains, with great calm, that the thing we agreed on is no longer the thing. The ministry said "It is regrettable that this affects Malaysia," which is the diplomatic cousin of "it's not you, it's me," and which Malaysia, like anyone who has ever paid 95% of anything, is not buying. Norway also said it "greatly values its relationship with Malaysia" and looks forward to "continued cooperation and constructive dialogue," which is what you say to a roommate you are about to inform you have changed the locks.

I am not qualified to have an opinion about anti-ship missiles. I am barely qualified to have an opinion about my own bank statements. But I understand, in the part of me that has signed leases and engagement-adjacent things and one regrettable gym membership, the specific humiliation of having paid almost all of the money for a thing you are now not going to receive. It is the humiliation of having been a good-faith person in a world that, mid-transaction, decided to become a different world. Norway has "strengthened oversight" because of "major shifts in the security landscape." Malaysia has strengthened nothing. Malaysia has a navy and a receipt.

Anwar said that if European defense suppliers can renege with impunity, their value as strategic partners "flies out the window." I look out my own window, where nothing strategic is happening, only rain. My coffee has gone the temperature of tap water. Somewhere a missile is sitting in a warehouse, paid for, unloved, and I find that I am, absurdly, a little sad for everyone involved.

Source: The Seattle Times — Business (image and reporting)