Grey Champions and the Election of 2016

[Kinser79]

(12-13-2016, 08:44 AM)tg63 Wrote:

(12-12-2016, 03:35 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: [quote pid='15145' dateline='1481573366']
How about this as a thought experiment:

Let us suppose that Bannon who will be Trump's chief advisor (that is a White House staff position and he could hire a whore from 2nd Avenue if he wanted for White House positions) does subscribe to S&H theory.  Let us also suppose that he feels that a crisis climax not only is coming but inevitable (like S&H theory does) and thus he can stear the direction of that climax.

Now assuming that we only have two choices:  Some sort of trade war with China and maybe the EU (but unlikely to be them mostly China) OR a thermonuclear war with Russia.  Which do you think he'd pick.  Remember we are talking about a man with a great deal of influence over the President.

I'm going to put my shekels down on a trade war.  I have this strange inkling that Trump and Bannon both prefer to not be vaporized along with the rest of humanity.

This assumes that the outcomes of a trade war are clearly predictable and manageable.  There's no certainty with respect to where the escalation of a trade war or embargo or sanctions might lead to, esp in a 4T where escalation & the sense of urgency is ramped up exponentially. 

My biggest concern is that other countries have been playing the long game (think star trek style 3D chess) while this administration has appeared to be fairly short-term thinkers.

I would say that the Obama Administration has certainly been playing on the short term. That being said I think Trump can and will play a long game strategy, or at least as long game as is foreseeable. People underestimate him and he's used that to his advantage repeatedly.

As to trade wars, with China in particular the US is a stronger position than they are since the only strategic resource the monopolize currently is Rare Earth metals. This is not a problem as there are other sources that can and should be developed. Furthermore, embargoes on large powerful countries don't work all that well. I'll use Russia as an example. The US led the EU and most of NATO into embargoing Russia. What was the result? Russia instituted import substitution.

Furthermore, by implementing import substitution, this plays into a long term strategy. Offshoring and the like usually only has short term profits--great if your goal is to get your bonus and move on, not so great if you're playing long term. At current the Trump Team is only releasing as far as trade goes a desire to create new trade deals of a bilateral nature (IE the US and Country X make Y deal but it does not involve countries A, B, C, or D--unlike say NAFTA or TPP) and a reduction of corporate taxes to 5% lower than international average.

If we stop to consider for a moment that the USD is the reserve currency (mostly because everything boils down to oil) we are strongly favored in a trade war with China, and they are unlikely to launch nukes against us in a trade matter. However, physically attacking Russia could in all likelihood result in nukes being launched. (Who launches first is irrelevant the point is attacking nuclear powers has the tendency for nuclear weapons to be being used--one of the key reasons the DPRK even developed them.)