4 ms·

Ebb and flow. I'm elsewhere in the world, but I imagine whoever is next in the position will fix what Trump got wrong, and there will be some things which prov

Ebb and flow. I'm elsewhere in the world, but I imagine whoever is next in the position will fix what Trump got wrong, and there will be some things which prove to be better, even if by luck. I think of it as a bit of tree shaking, pen testing, chaos engineering, maybe anti-fragility. Considering the term is only four years I've not understood all the fuss, an awful lot of which seems to have been aimless hysteria, achieving nothing, distracting people from getting on with things.

simonh 8y ago
Ok so the next president fixes up relations, but what about the president after that? The US just demonstrated that they can become a declared hostile power in the scale of a couple of years, and does not have the popular, political or institutional will to stop that happening. Who is going to trust their security infrastructure to US interests in a world where that has already happened?
- rezeroed 8y ago
  Well that was part of what I was referring to with chaos engineering. But I think your "declared hostile power" is part of the hysteria I was referring to.
  - mulletbum 8y ago
    If a country isn't with you, they are against you. So if the U.S. doesn't want to stay on good terms with the EU, the EU should assume they are going to be on good terms with their enemies. Russia is destabilizing democracy, that is a fact that the EU already knows. Now they see that the US isn't willing to stand with them. Thus they are a hostile power.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    "I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now you wouldn't think of the European Union but they're a foe.” Is it hysteria to believe his words?
    - adventured 8y ago
      Since it's Trump we're talking about, yes, it is hysteria. Next week/month/year he'll declare the EU are our best friends, likely timed with a trade deal. See: how he behaved with Macron, or how he snap pivoted with Mexico and was lauding them. He blatantly isn't representative of much of anything, even in his own administration. We're seeing that demonstrated on a daily basis. You have to understand that Trump operates by an obnoxiously simplistic - often antagonistic - method in every single thing he does. It starts with lambasting and overreach, which he uses as a tool to stake a far out position/demand that isn't expected to be realized. In his approach, that is used to get something closer to what he really would like out of a negotiation. Every action and word Trump says on these fronts is part of a negotiation as far as he's concerned. One may plainly find his negotiating tactics poor or disagreeable, of course. So to explain the EU statement by his approach: why call the EU a foe? He wants the EU to recoil and respond that they are in fact not a foe. He's trying out that statement to see if that pushes them to give ground. The idea is likely that they would find that terrifying, to have the US as an actual foe, or to consider that the US may now view the EU as a foe. Give me a great trade deal or we're not going to be friends any longer.... Don't push us any further, or else. There are few proclamations off the table as far as this process goes for Trump. He'll keep it up all the way to burning the house down. In that negotiating strategy, as far as Trump is concerned, the worst thing you can do is give ground. Outrageous statements are preferable in his approach, than to soften and give ground.
      - blarg1 8y ago
        I think you are right, but people think Trump is insane and can't tell if he is bluffing or not.
        simonh 8y ago
        This is off the main page so just for conversation if you pick this up. I really don't think he's insane. I think he's a narcissistic man child and an idiot. I'll expand on that. Just look at his behaviour on The Apprentice. He would routinely favour ineffective sycophants over effective, successful independent minded candidates, and that's what he does in office. Being an idiot doesn't mean you're completely useless. There are some things he's very good at, his father prepared him well for success in the real estate world. However he has a very simplistic view of the world and doesn't have the intellectual skills to change that. This leads him to actions that seem insane to anyone who understands their context and implications, but he doesn't understand those so from his perspective his actions are rational. Combine that with his instinctual preference for the appearance of success over actual success, and you've got a recipe for real trouble.
  - rswail 8y ago
    Trump called the EU a "foe". He may have meant only in a trade sense, but he didn't say that. Trump introduced tariffs against Canada under the rubric of "national security". He may not have meant that Canada was a security threat, but he didn't do that. Diplomacy is a requirement of any nation-state. Trump has hollowed out the State department and has issued proclamations that overturn 70 years of US policy on international norms of relations with allies in NATO, regard for WTO rules, and opposition to autocrats and criminal nation-states. It's not "hysteria", it's a practical reaction by nations to the perceived and actual changes in US foreign policy.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  My guess would be the the next president will take a very hard-line against Russia, which will prevent a repeat of 2016.
  - acdha 8y ago
    The GOP lead that hard line against Russia (remember when that was a common criticism about Obama’s?) until Trump reversed that at the convention and it wasn’t much later before someone was printing those “better Russian than a Democrat” t-shirts. This is going to be a big deal for many years: until now U.S. foreign policy was based on the assumption that we took agreements seriously. The casual attacks on long-time allies are going to take generations to undo.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      It's more complex than that. Many of the wackier conservatives felt that Obama had done a terrible wrong to Russia in the 2010/2011 timeframe after Putin's election. I recall hearing a similar message for a period of time on radio shows. They felt that the US/NATO had benefited from Russia's gracious offer to use Russian controlled railways to supply Afghanistan instead of the expensive and problematic road routes through Pakistan. It sounded really strange at the time; in retrospect it was probably the early phases of the Russian influence campaign that peaked in 2016.

simonh 8y ago

Ok so the next president fixes up relations, but what about the president after that? The US just demonstrated that they can become a declared hostile power in the scale of a couple of years, and does not have the popular, political or institutional will to stop that happening. Who is going to trust their security infrastructure to US interests in a world where that has already happened?

rezeroed 8y ago
Well that was part of what I was referring to with chaos engineering. But I think your "declared hostile power" is part of the hysteria I was referring to.
- mulletbum 8y ago
  If a country isn't with you, they are against you. So if the U.S. doesn't want to stay on good terms with the EU, the EU should assume they are going to be on good terms with their enemies. Russia is destabilizing democracy, that is a fact that the EU already knows. Now they see that the US isn't willing to stand with them. Thus they are a hostile power.
- mikeash 8y ago
  "I think the European Union is a foe, what they do to us in trade. Now you wouldn't think of the European Union but they're a foe.” Is it hysteria to believe his words?
  - adventured 8y ago
    Since it's Trump we're talking about, yes, it is hysteria. Next week/month/year he'll declare the EU are our best friends, likely timed with a trade deal. See: how he behaved with Macron, or how he snap pivoted with Mexico and was lauding them. He blatantly isn't representative of much of anything, even in his own administration. We're seeing that demonstrated on a daily basis. You have to understand that Trump operates by an obnoxiously simplistic - often antagonistic - method in every single thing he does. It starts with lambasting and overreach, which he uses as a tool to stake a far out position/demand that isn't expected to be realized. In his approach, that is used to get something closer to what he really would like out of a negotiation. Every action and word Trump says on these fronts is part of a negotiation as far as he's concerned. One may plainly find his negotiating tactics poor or disagreeable, of course. So to explain the EU statement by his approach: why call the EU a foe? He wants the EU to recoil and respond that they are in fact not a foe. He's trying out that statement to see if that pushes them to give ground. The idea is likely that they would find that terrifying, to have the US as an actual foe, or to consider that the US may now view the EU as a foe. Give me a great trade deal or we're not going to be friends any longer.... Don't push us any further, or else. There are few proclamations off the table as far as this process goes for Trump. He'll keep it up all the way to burning the house down. In that negotiating strategy, as far as Trump is concerned, the worst thing you can do is give ground. Outrageous statements are preferable in his approach, than to soften and give ground.
    - blarg1 8y ago
      I think you are right, but people think Trump is insane and can't tell if he is bluffing or not.
      - simonh 8y ago
        This is off the main page so just for conversation if you pick this up. I really don't think he's insane. I think he's a narcissistic man child and an idiot. I'll expand on that. Just look at his behaviour on The Apprentice. He would routinely favour ineffective sycophants over effective, successful independent minded candidates, and that's what he does in office. Being an idiot doesn't mean you're completely useless. There are some things he's very good at, his father prepared him well for success in the real estate world. However he has a very simplistic view of the world and doesn't have the intellectual skills to change that. This leads him to actions that seem insane to anyone who understands their context and implications, but he doesn't understand those so from his perspective his actions are rational. Combine that with his instinctual preference for the appearance of success over actual success, and you've got a recipe for real trouble.
- rswail 8y ago
  Trump called the EU a "foe". He may have meant only in a trade sense, but he didn't say that. Trump introduced tariffs against Canada under the rubric of "national security". He may not have meant that Canada was a security threat, but he didn't do that. Diplomacy is a requirement of any nation-state. Trump has hollowed out the State department and has issued proclamations that overturn 70 years of US policy on international norms of relations with allies in NATO, regard for WTO rules, and opposition to autocrats and criminal nation-states. It's not "hysteria", it's a practical reaction by nations to the perceived and actual changes in US foreign policy.
Spooky23 8y ago
My guess would be the the next president will take a very hard-line against Russia, which will prevent a repeat of 2016.
- acdha 8y ago
  The GOP lead that hard line against Russia (remember when that was a common criticism about Obama’s?) until Trump reversed that at the convention and it wasn’t much later before someone was printing those “better Russian than a Democrat” t-shirts. This is going to be a big deal for many years: until now U.S. foreign policy was based on the assumption that we took agreements seriously. The casual attacks on long-time allies are going to take generations to undo.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    It's more complex than that. Many of the wackier conservatives felt that Obama had done a terrible wrong to Russia in the 2010/2011 timeframe after Putin's election. I recall hearing a similar message for a period of time on radio shows. They felt that the US/NATO had benefited from Russia's gracious offer to use Russian controlled railways to supply Afghanistan instead of the expensive and problematic road routes through Pakistan. It sounded really strange at the time; in retrospect it was probably the early phases of the Russian influence campaign that peaked in 2016.