Does Trump recognize the limits of US power?
Trump’s new world order comes straight from The Godfather. There are three global powers: the US, Russia, and China. None of these powers can militarily defeat either of the other two, and even an alliance among two of them would have trouble defeating the third.
Like Don Corleone, Trump is dividing up the larger territory into smaller, great-power controlled sub-territories. He is tacitly recognizing Russia and China’s dominance in their own spheres of influence, and holding them to account in their territories. The implicit agreement among the three is apparently that each power will, in their, “sphere of influence…enforce peace.”
“Trump’s New World Order,” SLL 3/20/18
In one week President Trump confirmed that his first concern is the United States, that he has what may be a workable vision for its place in the world, and he loathes globalism and the globalists. A good measure of his efficacy is the outrage he generates. By that measure, that week was his finest hour…so far.
Europe won’t have a seat at Trump’s great-power table. Its welfare states are addicted to their handouts, deeply in debt, rely on uneven trade arrangements with the US, and have below-replacement birth rates. They are cowed by Soros-sponsored propaganda—Immigration is the answer!—and haven’t shut off the immigrant invasion. Refusing to spend on their own militaries, they’ve used what they save on defense to subsidize welfare spending and state bureaucracies.
They’re ignoring a lesson from history: nations that rely on other nations for their defense generally come to regret it. Instead, they’re wedded to the globalist acronyms: NATO, EU and UN. They have frittered away their power and their glory—Europe’s heritage and civilization—opting for overrun masquerading as assimilation by dogmatic and implacable foes.
Trump is all about power and despises weakness. There isn’t always strength in numbers. A confederation of weaklings doesn’t equal strength, especially when the weaklings’ premises and principles are fundamentally wrong. Strongest of the weaklings is Germany, a trade powerhouse but a US military vassal. It’s hard to say if Trump’s dislike of Angela Merkel is business—she’s one of the world’s most visible and vociferous proponent of globalism, or personal—it’s always her way or the highway. Probably both, and it looks like Germany may finally be rejecting her way on immigration.
Trump clearly relished snubbing her and her G-6 buddies, particularly boy toys Trudeau and Macron, who may actually believe his bone-crushing handshakes intimidated Trump. When you’re paying for a continent’s defense and you’re giving them a better deal on trade than they’re giving you, that’s leverage, and Trump knows it. He’s not intimidated.
US Atlanticists have used that leverage to cement Europe into the US’s confederated empire. That Trump is willing to blow off Europe suggests that he may be blowing off empire. America’s imperialists equate backing away from empire with “decline,” but such a sea change would be the exact opposite. Empires require more energy and resources to maintain than can be extracted from them. They are inevitably a road to ruin.
Nothing is as geopolitically telling as Trump leaving Europe’s most “important” heads of state early to meet with the leader of one of Asia’s most impoverished backwaters. Europe’s time has passed, the future belongs to Asia. Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia may look like the same recognition, but it was not. That pivot was designed to encircle China diplomatically, economically, and militarily. That thinking persists among much of the US military, but Trump may have something different in mind.
China has its problems. Much of its economy, especially its financial sector, is state-directed, despite the capitalistic gloss. There will be a reckoning from its debt binge. The repressive social credit system typifies the government’s immoral objective: keeping China’s people compliant but productive drones. However, enforced docility and innovation—the foundation of progress—mix as readily as oil and water, and theft of others’ innovations can’t fill the void.
Notwithstanding its issues, China is a major power and is not going to be encircled or regime changed by the US. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) it cosponsors and finances with Russia is the centerpiece of a basket of initiatives designed to further those countries’ influence and leadership within Eurasia and among emerging market countries. BRI is an apt symbol of the movement towards multipolarity, with competition shifting from the military to the economic and commercial sphere.
Trump tacitly accepts Russian and Chinese dominance in Eurasia. However, Trump doesn’t give without receiving; he’s going to extract concessions. Number one on the list is North Korea and its nuclear weapons. We’ll probably never know what has gone on behind the scenes between Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, and perhaps Vladimir Putin, but Kim may have received an offer he couldn’t refuse. Both China and Russia would be well-served by a Korean peninsula free of nuclear weapons and US troops. Whatever transpired, Kim came around. Trump ameliorated any potential humiliation, journeying to Kim’s neck of the woods, laying on an inspirational movie video, and flattering the North Korean leader and his country. Kim the farsighted leader may be able to reach a deal; Kim the browbeaten puppet couldn’t. If he tried, he’d probably be deposed, always a danger for dictators.
As global competition moves from military to economic, Trump is also going to make sure he tilts, as much as possible, the rules of that competition back towards the US. There are the existing trade arrangements with Europe, Canada, and Mexico that he’s willing to blow up, presumably to obtain better arrangements.
China is in a league of its own when it comes to gaming trade, and it’s getting the Trump treatment as well. Much of the Chinese “advantage” stems from Chinese overcapacity, fueled by below market interest rates in China and around the globe. Trump can’t do much about that “advantage.” The low-interest regime will eventually crash and burn, but it’s going to take a depression to clear overcapacity in China and elsewhere.
Innovation and intellectual property are America’s one indisputable comparative economic advantage. It will be a tough nut, but Trump is bent on curbing China’s acquisitions, by fair means and foul, of US know how. If he succeeds it will slow, but not stop, the Chinese economic juggernaut. It has millions of smart, well-educated, industrious people who will continue to fuel indigenous innovation (notwithstanding state-enforced docility).
Three realities confronted Trump when he assumed office. The US empire is unsustainable, so too is the trajectory of its spending and debt, and the government is fundamentally corrupt. It would be foolish to bet Trump doesn’t understand these issues and the linkages between them.
If Trump has recognized that first reality and is implementing Don Corleone’s spheres of influence concept, he may get some breathing room to address the intractable second and third realities: the trajectory of US spending and debt, and the fundamentally corrupt government. On the debt, all the breathing room in the world isn’t going to save him. The US keeps adding to principal, which is compounding at rising rates. Cutting imperial expenditures would help some, although transfer payments are the biggest enchilada. To make even the first step on the thousand mile journey to solvency, however, the US government will have to run a bona fide surplus for many years. That prospect is not on the horizon.
As for corruption, thousands of articles by bloggers and commentators, including SLL, may have less instructional value for the populace at large than one simple demonstration: most of America’s rulers and its captive media are speaking out against a peace initiative, not on the merits of the initiative itself, but because Donald Trump was one of its initiators. That tells those Americans who are paying attention all they need to know about their rulers and their captive media. Whether they do anything about it is another question.
You Should Be Laughing At Them!
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 
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Reblogged this on Starvin Larry.
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:most of America’s rulers and its captive media are speaking out against a peace initiative, not on the merits of the initiative itself, but because Donald Trump was one of its initiators.”
We do seem to be at a strange place. Peace would be great and we all should seek it among st each other, and yet we are warned of a strong man who brings a false peace.
It should be clear to those who are awake and informed that america and many nations their leaders, their people etc. are broken. How can we expect to fix each other and the world before we ourselves are healed?
Most can not even talk on a blog without lashing out at one another.
You Should Be Laughing At Them!
It’s not that funny when you come down to it.
Have a blessed day Robert, your essays carry much insight and Truth.
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Thank you.
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I have this unrealistic dream of the POTUS blowing off Eurabia and bringing home all of our military assets for border defense, north and south. If he did do that, I fear the MIC would whack him. Like I said, an unrealistic dream.
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Neocons, Puppet Masters..
Neocons are America’s biggest threat. Neolibs are partners in crime with Neocons but are inferior in power and influence. Neocons have been in control of Washington, D.C., since the administration of G.H.W. Bush—and they are still in control today, a Trump presidency notwithstanding. People need to awaken to the reality that the globalist puppet masters running D.C. do not care about most of the things that the American people care about. Here are the priorities that the puppet masters care about—and these are the things that both the Neocons in the Republican Party and the Neolibs in the Democrat Party will make sure to deliver for them:
*Promoting, protecting and expanding the Warfare State
*Promoting, protecting and expanding the Police State
*Promoting, protecting and expanding the Federal Reserve
https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3757/Neocons-Puppet-Masters-Ron-Paul-And-Freedom-Documents.aspx
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Trump Names President of Council on Foreign Relations as Top National Security Adviser
During Thursday night’s debate, when Donald Trump was asked by Megyn Kelly who he is listening to as top national security advisers, the first name Trump mentioned was Richard Haass.
Haass has been the president of the Council on Foreign Relations since July 2003, prior to which he was Director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State and a close advisor to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
He believes that maintaining a consistent interventionist or conversely non-interventionist foreign policy would be a mistake and that each situation requires a custom-fit approach.
In May 2013, I reported on a World Affairs Council private reception for Haass, in San Francisco:
Yesterday, in San Francisco, I attended a World Affairs Council private reception for Richard Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations.
Haass is out with a new book, Foreign Policy Begins at Home: The Case for Putting America’s House in Order. Don’t get too excited about the title of the book. It’s not as though he thinks the US should mind its own business and stay out of the affairs of other countries. At the reception, Haass discussed his views and, although he wants to see a strong domestic economy, his idea of a “foreign policy that begins at home” doesn’t mean he is against United States interventions globally. Though he does want to see a shift in regional focus.
During the reception he said that the United States should stop its fixation with the “Greater Middle East.” He said there are no great powers in the Middle East, thus less focus needs to be given to the region. He said the focus needs to be “dialed down.” On the other hand, he said the US should “dial up” involvement in Asia, with more of a military presence in the area and more diplomatic dialogue.
He said that the US can influence the area in a way favorable to its interests. He said, get this, “I don’t want to leave Asia to the Asians.” He compared Asia to early 20th century Europe, when Europe was the epicenter of world wars. He suggested the same could now occur in Asia. He implied that China was unstable and stated that more than 100,000 major protests are occurring in China each year.
He said Pakistan deeply troubled him, that the country has enormous problems. He contrasted the concern over Iran, which is just trying to build a nuclear bomb, and North Korea, which has 11 nuclear bombs, as minor compared to Pakistan, which has hundreds of nuclear weapons, some completed and others that soon will be completed…
Haass said there is nothing obvious that the US can do about the Syrian situation. He said that if Assad is taken out, the problem becomes one of a replacement and that given the various factions, a long civil war would be likely. He said he is against sending troops to Syria, but seemingly in contradiction to the complex problems he saw if Assad is overthrown, he said he was in favor of arming opposition to Assad.
BTW, Even Trump’s answer on Afhgansitan and its importance because of its border with Pakistan suggests Haass influence.
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Either you have a superior intellect, or most everyone else I know is a deranged ostrich with their head in the sand. Actually, both are true. Thanks for putting this subject so well before us. My fear is still that because of our profligate spending, an economic collapse will wind up costing our Republic, and bring in the Dictator. I remember that in times of great fear and anxiety, the sheeple will plead for order, any order. As uninvolved as citizens are in the US, and clueless as well as uneducated, they may wake up some morning to a very different reality.
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Sean,
Thanks. I don’t know about the superior intellect. I just try to go where straight line logic takes me.
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Economic collapse yes, dictator no, too many Anzio 20mm, 50cal, 338lap floating around. Construction explosives are everywhere.
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But, do the people who have access to these exotics have the WILL to use them? Just askin’.
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If Russia, China, and the US are the current/soon-to-be core triad with respective spheres of influence, what might be the time table for Islam(to include Europe), Africa, and India to be considered at the triad’s level? Or even as replacement(s)?
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Here’s a thought for consideration: maybe Islam, Africa, and India never rise to that level. A culture is only as good as its defining philosophy.
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I want peace, my problem is that we did not sign a peace treaty with NK, yet we are celebrating like we have. I applaud the effort and hope to someday have that peace, but we are VERY far away from that reality. Further, if peace and de-nuclearization is the goal, why break the Iran deal ? That was real, was signed, was working and made peace. These 2 instances came within weeks of one another. So i find it hard to celebrate a 1st step towards peace as a final outcome and I still cant understand how no deal with Iran is better than a working deal. Telling me it was a “bad deal” does not answer the question..why was it bad, how are we safer, what has been gained ? Crickets…But lets pop the champagne because a lying dictator said he is willing to maybe do something someday
My opinion has nothing doing with MSM and I really wish everyone would stop making that an excuse to justify themselves. Contrary to blogger opinion, people are quite capable of detecting bullshit and the fact that you are obscure and small doesn’t equate to honesty in the same way being large doesn’t equate to dis-honesty. Further Fox news is the #1 news station in the County…that is the definition of mainstream. They are Trumps biggest and unwavering supporters…which narrative is Bullshit ?
Also if the world moved all tariffs to zero across the board, nations would still have trade deficits. As well, trade deficits are what create US Dollar reserves for foreign states that are needed since the USD is the worlds reserve (for now). If you like it or not the world is interconnected and globalism is a fact that cant be unwound, not in 2018 with technology where it is. Isolationism is a losing bet because the world will stay connected with or without the US. Our domestic economy will NEVER survive on its own without foreign imports and exports and being alone makes us weaker overall especially since POTUS has divided our country and pitted everyone internally against one another….Divide and conquer works best against your enemy not domestically to win elections and “ratings”
China has cheap labor, massive infrastructure, trade agreements and investment around the world, what need beyond our protection will any nation have with the USA. The USA is not self sufficient in any way shape or form. We are fat rich and lazy.
My guess is that in similar fashion as ALL his businesses, Trump will bankrupt our nation whilst leaving us without a friend in the world.
#MAGA
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Excellent Mr Gore.
I have added it to an article I wrote, also on 21 June.
===
It is about Trump & it pieces together why Dems & Dem Progressives must be stopped.
Our country is being destroyed.
Trump is the last hope.
The catalyst was a foamy article by Nomi Prins pub’d by Lefty “TomDispatch.” (link at end)
My response to Nomi Prins article in Tom Dispatch (link at the end)
——————————————————————————————
subject .. “The one dimensional, Nomi Prins article was negative to Trump”
“Blah, blah, blah.
“because of the possible Smoot-Hawley boogieman lurking in our future.”
“I’m scared and you should be also.”
“Hitler.”
“Blah, blah, blah.”
The great benefit of The Don’s antics is that he is putting pressure on the suffocating, revolting and growing monster that resides in Brussels along with pressure on NWO puppets like Frau Merkel, and soy boys Macron & Trudeau.
Trump is not isolated in his revulsion.
Wit recent and unfolding events in Italy, Austria, Hungary.
(article just pub’d on ZH .. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-22/12-european-states-revolt-against-merkel-macron-plan-reform-europe )
Last fall Trump cut off the free money gravy train going to Pakistan, a hostile, corrupt country that has bled the USA for decades.
Pak is now undergoing a currency crises .. http://spearheadresearch.org/index.php/researchopinions/beware-of-devaluation
Mexico is, now, a failed state which, along with the Progressive wing of the Dem party, openly advocates and assists in the ongoing invasion of the USA.
Trump will destroy them.
As a small but tasty side dish concurrently being served, the Socialist paradises of Venz & Nicaragua, allied with China, are being destroyed now.
What the one-dimensional politicos, pundits & chattering class fail to understand is The Don survived handsomely in NYC real estate while dealing with corrupt politicians, corrupt unions, Mafia & gangsters (all one and the same).
Trump is no empty suit Obama, or IQ challenged Bush the younger.
As to the “China, China, China” drivel by Prins, check this 5 min vid (enjoy with headphones) .. http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/21602/if-you-still-dont-think-chinas-navy-is-a-serious-threat-watch-this-video?xid=thedrive-amp-fbshare
As a former Navy pilot I love this vid & the discipline displayed, but…
How much longer you want to economically aid and abet that?
China is still a financial paper tiger. These so-called trade wars will wreck them.
Standby for interesting times.
streber out
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176439/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_what%27s_the_end_game
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Thanks, and thanks for the comments and links.
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Steve,
“Trump is the last hope.”
Just as Obama was (is) the lefts?
Thinking (speaking) like this should raise concerns.
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