Month: April 2018

The leader was comfortable talking about, and actually using, military force abroad.  At home, he was a revolutionary.  He initiated a war on corruption, even at the highest levels, which was popular with the public and put his adversaries on the back foot.  He announced an ambitious plan to reshape the country’s economy.  He even changed the rules of succession.

Is it Xi or MBS?  You decide.

You wouldn’t think that a communist state and a divine right monarchy would have much in common, but the facts don’t lie.

My wife thinks I worry too much about John Bolton.  She views Trump as being similar to people who get married and divorced multiple times; the churn gets faster as the partners get disillusioned more rapidly.  In her opinion, Bolton will leave quickly as soon as he figures out that he doesn’t have the magic ability to manage his boss, because he is beyond management.  That means we shouldn’t attach too much importance to any Trump appointment, even one as odious and potentially dangerous as Bolton.

It’s an interesting analogy, and it deserves to be taken seriously, particularly since Trump has had multiple wives.  However, I don’t think it holds up, in that the first crop of “adult” advisers was largely imposed on him;  it is natural that he would feel more comfortable with the second wave, who, in turn, have a better sense of what it is he wants–not real advisers, but mouthpieces who can anticipate his changing moods and shine on TV.  They will have considerable difficulty dealing with his mercurial moods, and many of them won’t last, but I don’t think the churn will be ever faster.  What you will see instead is an administration staffed by unqualified adventurers with no reputation and little to lose, because no one else will be willing to work there.

 

You will recall that Mitt Romney identified Russia as a significant threat to the US during the 2012 debates, and was brushed off by Obama, who clearly viewed the Russians solely as a regional power with strategically useless nuclear weapons. Romney wasn’t completely right, but he wasn’t completely wrong, either, as events since 2012 have established.

How long ago that seems!  Today, a GOP president and his reactionary followers appear to view Russia more as an ally against liberalism and Islamic extremism than an adversary in spite of its aggressive actions in Ukraine and Syria.  On the other hand, the GOP foreign policy establishment still sees Russia as a major threat.  As a result, with the departure of Bannon, Trump is essentially isolated within his own administration on this point.  The hiring of Bolton will make this situation worse, not better.

Where is this ultimately going?  In the short run, it is hard to tell if Trump can prevail over the rest of his own government.  In the long run, the GOP will almost certainly default to its previous position as soon as Trump is out of office.  That, of course, assumes that there is a long run.

Putin, it would seem, is flying high.  He just won re-election again, easily.  Russian military might and cyberwarfare expertise are feared again.  He’s pulled Russia out of the Yeltsin vortex and made it great again.

But has he, really?  He has taken Crimea, but Ukraine, which was this close to being under his control, is violently hostile.  The likelihood of incorporating Ukraine into his political and economic sphere is very low at this point.  Syria has been a victory so far, but now he has to find a political solution that works for him and everyone else.  Russia has no real friends in the world, and is still suffering from economic sanctions.  The economy is growing at a snail’s pace, particularly relative to China, and the country’s only real asset (oil) is becoming less valuable over time.  He can’t get rid of corruption because it is the guiding principle of the political system. Finally, he has no clear heir, so no one knows what happens after he leaves.

Does that sound like winning to you?  If your definition of winning revolves around the use of military power, maybe.  Otherwise, no.

I didn’t watch “Roseanne” the first time around, and I see no reason to change my ways now.  That said, from all published accounts, Roseanne Barr (and her character) is a social liberal who supports Trump’s economic nationalist program.

In terms of the GOP factions, that makes her a CL on social issues and a Reactionary on economic questions.  In other words, she’s a unicorn.  Or the opposite of Ted Cruz.

Chamberlain advocated moving away from free trade largely because he didn’t see the point of having an empire if it didn’t produce some kind of economic and political benefits.  A modern American analogy would be to vastly strengthen NAFTA in order to improve our political and economic ties within the hemisphere and to combat increased Chinese influence.

Is that what Trump is doing?  Umm, not exactly.

Here’s my analysis of where we are relative to the threat posed by the USSR:

1.  Nuclear weapons:  Both today’s Russia and the USSR had the ability to annihilate the United States.  Putin talks more openly about using nuclear weapons, but the likelihood of a nuclear exchange has not changed much.

2.  Conventional forces:  The decaying Russian military of the 1990’s is a distant memory.  Nevertheless, the loss of Ukraine and the Warsaw Pact countries completely changes the calculus in favor of the West.  The real threat here is that NATO lacks the will to defend itself.

3.  Economic power:  The USSR didn’t build anything that anyone wanted other than tanks.  Russia is a slow-growing, resource-based feudal state with a GDP about the size of Australia’s.  Neither was much of a threat from an economic perspective.

4.  Ideology:  Decayed left-wing idealism versus cynical right-wing authoritarianism–take your pick!  Communism had more of a universal appeal.

5.  Unconventional warfare:  The Soviets did it, too, but they weren’t as good at it, and they didn’t have such a receptive audience.

In short, Putin’s Russia is less of a threat than the USSR, except for its gift for cyberwarfare and political assassination.

Some folks’ lives never roll at all—Paul Simon

We have spent the week at our new second home in the North Carolina mountains.  My wife has admitted to feeling twinges of guilt about it.  I don’t.  Who is right?

On the one hand, I have worked hard for what I have. I have overcome some challenges along the way.  No one served me my life on a silver platter.  As far as I know, my good fortune never cost anyone anything along the way.  On the other hand, I know I didn’t create myself; I had the invaluable assistance of countless people, most notably my family, along the way.  My life, and yours, is an infinite chain of events mostly outside my control that could have turned out differently in a universe of ways.  Finally, I was lucky enough to grow up in the US, not South Sudan.  For all these reasons, you will never hear me say “I built this.”

I think the best response to good fortune is humility and gratitude, not guilt.  Our objective should be to see that as many people as possible can realize their dreams, not to feel bad about achieving our own.

Happy Easter!