5 ms·
This makes me chuckle. The Bad Orange Man played the "insane king" role really, really well. Everyone was on their best behaviour until he left office. Peace ta
by all2 5y ago
This makes me chuckle. The Bad Orange Man played the "insane king" role really, really well. Everyone was on their best behaviour until he left office. Peace talks in the Middle East progressed. Russia stayed in their borders. North Korea huffed and puffed and ultimately did nothing. Trade with China became more favorable to the US. It's almost like his foreign policy was effective.
To your point: Putin isn't nuts. He's just a really good politician. He's pragmatic and knows the value of being seen as "crazy" and "he might actually launch a nuke".
- xwdv 5y agoYou will get a lot farther if you are an insane man with a gun, than if you’re just a regular man with a gun.
- fassssst 5y agoSyria
- cwaffles 5y agoTrump also pushed the EU and the rest of Asia towards China https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trump-withdraws-america-world-xis-china-takes-advantage/ https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trump-withdraws-ame...
- zabzonk 5y agoThe same was said about Nixon during the Vietnam war (which he inherited, but would never have started) but it is a really risky stratergy once you start ramping up the mania levels and passing them on to your nuclear forces, which Nixon (a good president, all in all) nor the Big Orange ever did.
- guelo 5y agoTrump wanted to destroy NATO and European unity, he was doing Putin's job for him.
- hunterb123 5y agoDestroy it by pressuring its members to pay 2% GDP? Or what are you referencing? And how does sending Javelins to Ukraine or blocking Nordstream 2 help Putin?
- chrisweekly 5y agoTrump tried to prevent military aid to Ukraine; dunno how you give him credit for "sending Javelins..."
- hunterb123 5y agoFirst off, I assume you're talking about the phone call that the Democrats impeached him for (leading to acquittal) to cover for the Burisma scandal. Accuse your enemy of what you're doing I suppose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXA--dj2-CY Second, that aid was never held up and is separate from the Javelins that were sent anyway. What other President sent Ukraine weapons (not blankets) before this fiasco?
- JohnGB 5y agoWhat did the USA have to do with blocking Nordstream 2? Germany stopped certification, no the USA.
- hunterb123 5y agoGermany just stopped it after Russia attacked Ukraine. Trump held it off with sanctions during his Presidency. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/us-sanctions-block-putins-pipeline/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/us-sancti...
- mc32 5y agoHe wanted them to pay their fair share. They wanted the US to foot their security bill which he balked at. Now we see Germany at least say they will up their contribution and rebuild their military in order to be better prepared. That’s pretty much in line with what he asked from them.
- thechao 5y agoAlternate take: all those participants played nice in the hopes that it'd lead to an autocratic take-over of the US, neatly getting rid of their major enemy. In that vein, Trump was just the "best moron" they'd seen in a long while.
- lukifer 5y agoThe problem is when you consider the game-theoretic incentives of "Greater Madman" posturing, through the len of Trivers' "Folly of Fools" [0]: that the most effective way to fool others is often to first fool yourself. It is entirely plausible that Darwinian selection pressures rewarded not just those who cynically postured as madmen, but those who actually were madmen (within some bound of Minimum Viable Rationality). Such madness only has to beat the average; unlike the MAD dynamics of nuclear weapons, during most of evolutionary history, a catastrophic error of genuine madness didn't result in destruction of the entire species. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Folly_of_Fools https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Folly_of_Fools