Author: hamilton1788

Steve Bannon is wrong about just about everything, but not this:  America and China are heading for a showdown in the foreseeable future.  It doesn’t necessarily have to involve military force, and it may not be imminent, but it’s going to happen in my lifetime.

In a sense, China is the successor to the USSR as our greatest geopolitical rival, so how do the two stack up?  Here’s my analysis:

1.  Military:  Fortunately, China is not a militaristic society.   The USSR was a greater threat here.  However, China’s superior economy will permit substantial improvements in the country’s military capabilities, if the government, as seems likely, chooses to pursue them.  The gap will probably close fairly quickly.
2.  Ideology:  Soviet communism was a universal ideology with considerable appeal to anyone who was willing to close his eyes to how the system actually worked in practice.  Chinese “communism” is actually a form of Chinese exceptionalism, which doesn’t have any obvious attractions to the rest of the world.  Heavy-handed government actions towards dissidents don’t help, either.  The USSR had the edge here.
3.  Economy:  This one isn’t even close;  the Soviets didn’t make anything anyone wanted to buy except weapons, while China is clearly destined to become the largest economy in the world.

The bottom line is that China represents a very different challenge than the USSR. Its economic model has serious flaws in the long run, but it is doubtful that the system will just implode, as the USSR did.

There are actually three separate conflicts with China, involving industries of the past, present, and future.  Here is where they stand:

1.  The steel and aluminum tariff made no sense whatsoever.  It was an attempt to protect an industry that is, to put it mildly, already mature on specious national security grounds.  It will undoubtedly cost more jobs than it saves.  Finally, very few of our steel and aluminum imports come from China.  What’s not to like?
2.  Protecting intellectual property is a legitimate ongoing issue.  It is doubtful that tariffs, which only invite retaliation, are the best way to accomplish the objective. Working with our allies within the WTO framework is a more logical approach.
3.  Responding to “Made in China 2025” with regard to cutting edge industries of the future is perfectly sensible, given the national security implications of these technologies.  Again, however, imposing tariffs unilaterally is hardly the solution to the problem;  mobilizing the rest of the world to change Chinese behavior is.

Donald Trump demands three qualities of his lawyers:  (a) absolute loyalty; (b) a hyperaggressive approach to litigation; and (c) the ability to spin failures into successes in the media.  Notably absent from this list is the ability to provide dispassionate, sensible legal advice, because he won’t listen to it.  That’s why many prominent lawyers have refused to take him on as a client.

Roy Cohn famously was Trump’s idea of the perfect attorney:  a man who would give no quarter, and would stop at nothing to get what his client wanted.  As it turns out, however, Trump already has his own Cohn, and they are separated only by a “e.”

If Cohen’s story is to be believed, he paid $130,000 of his own money to Stormy Daniels without even consulting Trump, much less with any hope of repayment. What a guy!  If you want absolute loyalty, what better evidence could you have of it?

Of course, no one actually believes this, which is undoubtedly why the search warrant was issued, and why Stormy may ultimately prove to be more dangerous to Trump than Mueller.

                  Caravan

And the caravan is on the way.

I can hear the Fox News people say

Donald Donald stop them short of the border.

Use the Guard if you must to keep order.

La, la, la, la, la.

 

And the caravan hates Fox and Friends.

Their diatribes, it seems, will never end.

We’re just terrorists, in their view.

Think we should just wait in an endless queue.

La, la, la, la, la.

 

Turn off your TV

And let us tell our tale.

Switch off the mindless right.

Then we can get down to what is really wrong.

Crime and corruption and the gangs that kill.

To them, we’re only grist in an evil mill.

 

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Fox and Friends.

 

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Turn it off.

Fox and Friends.

 

Parody of “Caravan” by Van Morrison.

It is an article of faith among CLs that a dollar taken from the private sector and given to the government is a dollar, not merely wasted, but used to curtail your freedom.  And so, in many red states, you have seen a concerted effort to cut taxes and substantially reduce spending on vital public services.  PBPs have tolerated this because, after all, they have been the primary beneficiaries of the tax cuts.

But tax cuts and deregulation can only take business so far.  The Third World plantation model of economic growth doesn’t create educated workers or wealthy consumers; as I’ve noted before, there is no “Mississippi Miracle.”  In addition, at some point, the voters tend to rise up in defense of teachers, decent roads, and providers of public safety.  As a result, we are starting to see some backlash, and the PBPs are starting to split from the CLs in some red states.

On the NSC hawk known as John.

He’ll call to be using the bomb.

So who will be first?

Is Korea the worst?

Or Iran’s Supreme Leader is gone?

As far as I can tell, there are three separate Trump policies on Syria:

1.  Just get out and let the Russians pay to clean it up.
2.  Assad is an animal who gasses his own people.  We are prepared to use all of the weapons at our disposal to get rid of him.
3.  Create enclaves of allies who can be used as bargaining chips in the negotiations over the nature of the future of the Syrian government.

As to which of these will prevail, who the hell knows?  It changes from day to day–sometimes from hour to hour.

That Vladimir Putin is capable of great brutality is beyond question.  Just ask the Chechens.  And the Syrians.

You would think that American Christians would be appalled by this.  And yet, Putin has some fans among the religious right, because he associates himself with the Orthodox Church and “traditional values” (i.e., he claims to hate the idea of gay marriage).

This tells you all you need to know about what Christianity really means to the religious right.

One of the ongoing themes of Russian history is the ongoing cultural and political struggle between Westerners and Easterners.  Westerners think that Russia is a backward country that needs a huge dose of the Enlightenment–by force, if necessary.  Peter the Great, Gorbachev, and Lenin were Westerners.  Easterners, on the other hand, view western Europe as being corrupt and secular and put their faith in the unique, unstained Russian soul.  Stalin was an Easterner, as was Nicholas II.

Putin, as an ex-KGB agent, started his political career as a Westerner.  For cynical political reasons, he has adopted the views of an Easterner.  That is why he works so closely with the Russian Orthodox Church.

The similarities between the Easterner/Westerner theme and the red/blue divide in this country are obvious.  It is consequently unsurprising that some members of the American religious right are advocates for Putin.  I will post on that tomorrow.

 

The EPA man known as Pruitt

Had ambitions, but then he just blew it.

He’s embarrassing Don.

Now it’s time he moved on.

Come on man!  Let him go! Up and do it!

Putin essentially had the following objectives in Syria:

1.  To protect Russia’s military and economic interests in the country;
2.  To prevent another fellow strong man from falling in the face of American    pressure; and
3.  Just to make trouble for America, generally.

He succeeded in all of these things, partly because he and Assad were prepared to be completely ruthless, partly because he had lots of help on the ground from Hezbollah, and partly because he didn’t have to engage in any nation-building–there was already a reasonably competent tyrant in place, so his intervention was completely legal.

The down sides to the intervention are just starting to be felt.  There is no permanent political solution in sight.  The dangers of conflict with American-backed forces, and even with Americans themselves, are very real. And the war hasn’t done anything to improve his brutal image abroad.

Does he care about the last?  My guess is he does.  Is America prepared to turn the tables on him, and make him pay a continuing price for his actions? Unfortunately, that’s ultimately up to Trump.

It is fair to say that Obama viewed terrorism as his greatest international short-term problem, the rise of China as our greatest long-term issue, and Russia as a nuisance.  For the most part, he treated the Russians as just a declining regional power, to be resisted at times and accommodated at others.  Putin’s ambitions are greater than that, so relations between the two countries suffered.

The Democrats clearly (and correctly) see political advantages in publicizing the weird ties between Trump and his base on the one hand and Putin on the other. The danger is that they may start to believe their own rhetoric when they return to power.  Russia is a genuine danger, yes.  But, for the reasons I described a few days ago, it is not the same kind of existential threat as the USSR, and should not be treated as one.

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.