But way to defend state power. — Mikie

I'm not defending state power. Just stating the obvious. If you think the state and its various agents are incompetent, corrupt nazis, etc. all the more reason not to do what guy did.

Guy was carrying too. Like how suicidal can you get?

Nah. Actions have consequences. Simple as.

The guy resisted arrest, obviously - a pretty fucking dumb thing to do. Getting maced was his queue to lie down and live another day, but alas.

Anyway, I'm not defending anyone nor downplaying anything.

You serious? In what society would you classify their actions as supported by the law? And if you classify their actions as legitimate in breaking the law, then why not just shoot every ICE agent attacking the people since these ICE agents are really the ones who plays stupid games here. Attempt some basic Kantian ethics to your defense of their actions and universalize their behavior, you see a pattern of fascist executions in that? How many more of these killings would it take for you to see clearly how immoral all of this is? — Christoffer

You can unbunch your panties now. I never said it was morally justified. What I said is that the guy played stupid games and won his stupid prize.

A bit of a stretch to call it an execution. Seemed like a classic case of "play stupid games, win stupid prizes" to me.

Trump works for the various lobbies and special interest groups that control Washington.

If you want to keep falling for Trump's 'rage baiting' then by all means, have at it. Take the clowns seriously, become part of the circus.

Look, I'm sure there's some truth in your post, but this is fundamentally not how I view Trump (or any US president, for that matter). To me, Trump is exclusively a tool Washington uses to manipulate foreign and domestic audiences.

Trump pushes people's buttons and puts them in an emotional state of mind, which makes them predictable and easy to control. That practice has a name: reflexive control.

Reflexive Control (2018)

Reflexive Control: Influencing Strategic Behavior (2023)

To be clear, I don't believe Trump is a strategist - the people he works for are.

Every second you're talking about Trump as a person is a second wasted. The only interesting question is what his behavior and words are supposed to elicit from their audiences, and why.

I recall on a forum i was on about 20 years ago there was a user who was highly conservative and was absolutely convinced History would look back on Bush II as one of the best presidents ever. — AmadeusD

He was the best president Israel ever had. :lol:

What did he get? Apart from an embarrassed look on his face and a climb down. — Punshhh

Sovereign American military bases that Greenland will have no say over is what is on the table - obviously the preamble to an inevitable full incorporation.

Calling it a "climb down" (like that has any meaning to Trump anyway) is just coping behavior.

Do you not realize that the entire free world has absolutely no respect for him? — Questioner

Respect has nothing to do with it.

Trump is Washington's clown, and nations who take him seriously make themselves part of his circus; the Europeans first and foremost.

They have about themselves an air of frightened sheep. Trump rattles their cage, and after some loud bleating they pat themselves on the back for a job well done; the bad man could have taken everything, but instead he only got something.

Trump already caved in. — ssu

I think it has nothing to do with Trump 'caving'. He said a couple things (which he does all the time and costs him nothing) and managed to create panic in Europe, leading to them making concessions.

If you think the Europeans 'won', you don't understand the game that is being played.

But the government has more than adjusted for inflation. Much more than your average worker. — Mikie

Funny how that goes.

$850 billion is the highest it’s ever been. It’s only gone up. — Mikie

You're not wrong, but well...

But what about when a creature emerges from the swamp and tries to up end the apple cart. To do away with democracy and the rule of law. To become an authoritarian dictator a stride across the global stage hand in hand with the worst authoritarian leaders on the planet, disregarding the real concerns of true allies and his own people. Does that figure in your analysis, can that change the geopolitical drift? — Punshhh

I hardly factor it into my analysis because it is unlikely to have a significant impact, for three reasons:

The first is that presidents are temporary phenomena, and Trump is too. In all likelihood the next president will be some perfectly inoffensive, milquetoast figure whose job it will be to gather all the frightened sheep back into the fold in what is essentially a geopolitical game of 'good cop, bad cop'; the play practically writes itself, and the clownshow continues.

Second, the US is already a pseudo-democracy where the people have little to no influence on the things that actually matter. Never in the last hundred years or so, have I been able detect any meaningful influence of the American public on US long-term strategy.

Thirdly, even if the US were to turn from a "democracy" to a full-blown authoritarian dictatorship overnight, it is unlikely to meaningfully change US long-term strategy. Such strategies are not selected at leisure, but dictated by the rules and dynamics of power. If the US has any intention of vying for a spot at the top of the pyramid, its strategies, rivals and allies are all but set in stone for the foreseeable future.

Did you have a read of the letter Trump sent to the government of Norway [...] — Questioner

I don't pay particular attention to anything Trump says or does. It's a waste of time - polarizing bullshit meant to elicit an emotional response whether it's negative or positive, to get people (and entire countries) into an irrational, emotional state of mind.

People who continuously exhibit said responses are being played.

Tbe source of all this is Washington, and Trump's display is meant to convince you otherwise.

It looks then that you agree with me that there is a general drift in US geopolitics in the national interest. — Punshhh

I don't believe it's spontaneous, if that's what you mean.

In order to have meaning in this discussion it should be possible to discern the effect a significant change in leadership would make to that drift. — Punshhh

That's the thing: US foreign policy hasn't meaningfully changed for decades, completely irrespective of whichever clown occupied the White House. Even if they say they want to do things different, they will say A, but do B.

Do these sort of development alter your US strategy — Punshhh

I've discussed my thoughts on this at length in the various geopolitical lounge threads. Without going into too much detail, let me simply say that Washington is clearly rolling out a coherent strategy vis-á-vis Russia and Europe, vis-á-vis the Middle-East, and most certainly vis-á-vis China - strategies with discernable goals and observable behavioral patterns that can be traced back decades.

A waste of time, why? They keep being right about things. Put their viewpoints next to the ones you've been spoonfed by the mainstream media over the last years and ask yourself which one has been bullshitting you all this time. :lol:

Nice quip though. Meaningless, but nice. — Mikie

Thanks. :pray: All in good spirits.

Next time I’m confronted with reality, I’ll use that line. — Mikie

If you still believe in US politics, you won't have to worry about that ever happening. :kiss:

US domestic policy is the kool-aid I was referring to. It's pure comedy. I don't take that shit seriously.

The US is ran by a uniparty in all ways that matter.

Unpredictability can be a great boon in geopolitics. There was a brief period during which I thought Trump might go against the establishment, but almost from the start of his second term it has been continuity of agenda with zero deviation. The only remarkable thing is his particular brand of domestic kool-aid is more polarizing than anything we've seen in a while.

Trump is merely a vessel through which the US is able to enact what it deems necessary but controversial policies while maintaining a semblance of plausible deniability.

The whole point is to get you into an emotional, reactive mindstate (which 95% of this forum seems to be in) where you've convinced yourselves that Trump is crazy and the source of all ill in the world, when all he's doing is putting up a display to cover for Washington, which was planning to carry out these policies anyway.

A nice example of this reactivity is Europe: Trump will get Europe to the point where they'll demand a departure of the United States, a direction which the US is planning to go anyway because it seeks to create distance between itself and Europe so it can credibly stay out of a war between Europe and Russia which it is actively seeking to establish.

Washington, via Trump, is playing you and other parts of the world like a fiddle.

Washington is a circus, and the president, the uniparty and the senate are its clowns, and ya'll are making yourselves inadvertently a part of it.

For extra context on what I mean:

The 'relation' (if such a thing even exists) between Trump and Putin has little to do with it.

Russia is a critical link in China's security strategy, basically providing a landbridge across Siberia to reach European (and other) markets over land, from where Chinese goods could be shipped under a neutral flag to the rest of the world even in the case of a maritime blockade.

One could argue that China has economically integrated the Heartland through its military strategic partnership with Russia, and therefore Washington's principal way to weaken China is now to break up that strategic partnership.

I suspect we'll go into a period during which Washington will try to bribe the Russians into changing their stance. The Russians on their part probably understand their position in this, and will drive a hard bargain, but it's conceivable the US will go along with it.

Europe will be what's on the menu.

Canada is integrated into the alliance structure the US cares most deeply about: the Anglosphere, which consists of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. These countries also structurally share intelligence through what is often called the 'Five Eyes Alliance' - something which the US does not do with any other alliance partner. (Intelligence sharing is a very sensitive thing)

All Anglosphere nations being peripheral to Eurasia, they share a common geopolitical strategy which focuses on keeping Eurasia divided, as per Mackinder's Heartland theory, most famously adapted to modern times in 'The Grand Chessboard' (1997) by Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served under multiple US presidents, including as National Security Advisor under Jimmy Carter.

That's a long-winded way of saying, Canada will play along.

The US is anticipating/deliberately causing a US-EU split - something which won't happen with Canada. That's the difference. They don't want Greenland in European hands after such a split occurs.

Well, it's definitely happening.

Even Reuters is already working hard to warm people up to the idea:

Denmark's Greenland Dilemma: Defending a territory already on its way out

Europe, of course, will take it, be expected to like it, and thank Uncle Sam afterwards.

Looks like Iran is about to pop off as well. Several analysts have already predicted that something was about to happen in Iran.

, perhaps it would be good to combine all these threads into a 'Recent geopolitical developments' thread, or something like that. A mod might be able to help with that, if you like the idea.

[...] Trump's moves are totally different from anything else we've seen. It's basically "we've got this awesome military, so we can plunder weaker countries.". — ssu

That doesn't sound different at all. That's US foreign policy in a nutshell. Except they didn't call it plundering before, but "spreading democracy and freedom".

And why isn't anyone asking the question from Americans just how much they want to invade an ally like Denmark? — ssu

That gave me a good laugh.

You tell me, , why isn't anyone asking those poor schmucks for their opinion?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's because Washington doesn't give a flying fuck about what the American people think.

I guess Average Joe needs to find himself in a trench under artillery fire for that penny to finally drop.

A recent podcast with Jeffrey Sachs which I would highly recommend watching in full:




And this one too, with John Mearsheimer:

Will Trump take Greenland? — ssu

After Venezuela it has become a lot more likely, because:
- The US is showing clear commitment to enforcing the Monroe Doctrine (aka domination of the western hemisphere).
- The US views Europe as an unreliable ally in the long run (ironic, I know), and a potential rival.
- Greenland comes with large territorial and economic claims on the Arctic.
- In the case of a US-EU split, Greenland would serve as a forward base against the Russians (mainland Europe could no longer function as a bridgehead).

The words of these think-tanks are worth about as much as the words from the White House itself, and this is how they always operate. In 20 years we'll learn there was some of angle that was conveniently left out of the discussion, like the Israel angle with Iraq, that also 'happens to' establish mens rea.

They are just playing dumb, attributing to incompetence what ought to be attributed to malice, and attributing to the Trump administration what ought to be attributed to the machinations of all of Washington and the foreign policy blob.

That's how this rotten intellectual infrastructure functions: they get to criticize Washington, because they never say anything that's actually damaging. Intellectuals lap it up, because everybody likes to complain about their government and it makes them feel awfully smart while doing it.


It's clear the American goal was to send a signal to all of Latin America: If you get too cozy with other great powers, we have the power and the will to ruin your country overnight. It's the Monroe Doctrine.

It's also a message to the rest of the world; if you reject our system, the gloves are coming off.

A lot of open doors being kicked in and unremarkable conclusions being drawn. None of them particularly offensive, but from a team of 12 experts I would expect more - especially given the annual funding Brookings receives.

There’s plenty of differences. The propaganda under a democratic administration would be much nicer. — Mikie

I'm not gonna argue with that. :lol:

Yeah, the optics of this are bad to put it mildly, and apparently now there's talk of a second attack on Venezuela, and even other Latin American countries.

It seems the US is already beyond the point of caring about global opinion. That's how far down the road we are towards an era of renewed geopolitical struggle where the only currency is power.

Of course the overall gist of what's happening and the reasons is exactly what you say, but it's also a new thing of just helicoptering in and "arresting" (... with the FBI?!?) a sitting President of a sovereign nation on New York conspiracy charges?!?! — boethius

Very weird, I agree.

Possibly Maduro struck a deal in exchange for leniency or something. Time will tell what exactly went down.

I liked the rest of your observations about the oil situation.

I take issue with the constant mentioning of Trump because this isn't about Trump.

It's about the US doing the things the US has always done: carrying out a ruthless foreign policy that is aimed at controlling as much of the world as Uncle Sam can possibly get its greasy hands on. This goes way beyond the charade of US party politics. There has never been a marked deviation from this course under any president in post-WW2 history.

Trump is the smokescreen and the lightning rod, providing the US with the 'madman Trump'-card to play, plausible deniability, strategic ambiguity, strategic flexibility, etc.

What is happening is that we are moving into fundamentally different geopolitical times, so why Trump?

Trump's purpose is to disguise that very fact - to disguise the fact that the US no longer runs the world, and is required to make all sorts of unpopular moves to prepare itself for a renewed era of great power struggle.

It's an easy sell; the US threatens to annex Greenland, shamelessly enacts regime change in Venezuela, etc. - why?

Why, because madman Trump, of course!

And most definitely not because the US is sensing it is starting to lose control, and feels the need to rapidly consolidate what it has considered its part of the globe to rule for hundreds of years as per the Monroe doctrine.

Nothing to see here folks, just madman Trump! When Trump leaves office, it'll be business as usual, because this isn't how the US operates (except, it definitely fucking is).

If it all goes to shit, the US will pretend it was all just an unfortunate anomaly under Trump. The next president will be ready to herd all of its estranged 'allies' back into the fold like nothing ever happened.

They won't try to directly control Venezuela, of course. They'll put a puppet in place. Hasn't this person already been groomed, Nobel prize and all?

Anyone who thinks this is some Trump plan must be high off their rocker. This is clearly the tried-and-true Monroe doctrine in action, which basically states no countries in the western hemisphere get to have a meaningfully independent foreign policy. De facto vassalage - kind of like Europe.

Now, if your hypothesis is that a full scale blockade, and thus state of war, between the US and China may occur essentially by accident or miscalculation and then things would get messy from there and the eventual resolution would not be clear and who would ultimately benefit, we agree.

Where I am in a position of criticism is if your hypothesis is that such an act pursues some rational plan with likely net-benefit outcomes for the United States. — boethius

Keep in mind this is not just my personal hypothesis. Military academic circles have been openly discussing maritime blockades on China for over a decade, and the Chinese on their part have been actively seeking pre-emptive solutions to this strategy for almost as long.

Now, if you don't want to war-game our your own hypothesis, [...] — boethius

I've been asking you for ideas from the Chinese side, because I simply don't see a feasible strategy that wouldn't amount to total disaster for China and at best marginal losses for the US.

Without feasible strategies there's nothing to wargame.

So, is your hypothesis that the US could just flip a switch and not only stop trading with China but potentially the whole of East-Asia? — boethius

I doubt they'd have to stop trading with all of East-Asia, since the US controls most countries there either directly or indirectly, and the sea lanes.

But the short answer is: yes, they can. The damages would be marginal compared to what's at stake (global domination), and compared to the damage it would do to China.

There exists no strategy that is without cost. Yes, a war with China would obviously hurt the US economically, but it would hurt virtually the entire world and the more apt question to ask is who suffers most and who suffers least.


Compare it with the US dollar's reserve currency status and the giant US debt.

We all know that bubble is going to burst at some point, but the US doesn't have to care because the entire world owns dollars and it will hurt everyone when it does. Same for US inflation - everybody suffers under US moneyprinting, because everyone owns dollars.

Thus, while damaging on paper, in relative terms it hardly harms the US.


Global domination is not about absolute power, but about relative power. So make no mistake, the US would happily accept heavy damage to itself if it meant getting a leg up on its geopolitical competitors.

As we have establised earlier, this is where our views differ the most.

US global dominance was established as a result of WW2, and my sense is that the battle to end it will be fought with the same stakes in what in essence will be WW3.

Under such conditions a full, indefinite blockade of China would be child's play. The endgame/end state/victory conditions that would lead to America's success I have already laid out (isolation of China and implosion of its economy) so I won't repeat them again unless you have very specific questions.

You lean more towards the idea that the battle over ending US dominance will remain limited. A perfectly defensible idea also.

As long as we're taking fundamentally different starting points (limited war vs. full-scale war), we will be talking past each other, though.

You're absolutely right, but it's unfortunately what I've come to expect from this forum.