{"id":40938,"date":"2024-09-06T08:32:25","date_gmt":"2024-09-06T13:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=40938"},"modified":"2024-09-06T08:32:25","modified_gmt":"2024-09-06T13:32:25","slug":"international-maneuvering-subtleties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2024\/09\/06\/international-maneuvering-subtleties\/","title":{"rendered":"International Maneuvering Subtleties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s apparent that Erick Erickson doesn&#8217;t really understand high level international maneuvering, <a href=\"https:\/\/ewerickson.substack.com\/p\/death-and-a-sun-tan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">as he tries to justify backing Mr Trump<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The truth is that Russia was not advancing in Ukraine when Trump was President \u2014 pausing their Obama-era gains in that country until Trump left. And Hamas was not killing Americans under the streets of Gaza when Trump was President.<\/p>\n<p>It is precisely why I can support the man even as I am clear-eyed about him. The press and Democrats lack clear eyes to see that our dementia patient-in-chief cannot do his job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is a shallow analysis of the situation, akin to the logical fallacy of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Affirming_the_consequent\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>affirming the consequent<\/em><\/a>, although I might prefer to call it <em>overly-simplistic analysis<\/em>. As I see a proper analysis, we need to take into account the fact that we&#8217;re a republic\/democracy that suffers the usual range of defects inherent in such a governmental form, along with being a capitalist country with a moral foundation that has been crumbling for a good fifty years, at least. The Republicans are a bunch of fourth-rater mixture of hacks, religious zealots, and grifters who can often be bought, mislead, or otherwise manipulated, while the Democrats are second- and third-raters who have a tendency to forget about the basics of the country&#8217;s governance, but they are more aware of the international adversaries we face than are the Republicans, and less isolationist &#8211; the same isolationism that got us into World War II late.<\/p>\n<p>So, <strong>if you&#8217;re an adversary<\/strong>, what to do? Evaluation: Put the weakest Party in charge of your adversary. Not an easy thing to do, but when a Party leader as weak and malleable as Mr Trump appears, it&#8217;s a Godsend. The game plan:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Engage in violence when the Democrats are in charge in order to stamp them with the appearance of weakness.<\/li>\n<li>Get Mr Trump and his Party into power (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/election-us-2016-37928171\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">note how Russian government officials applauded his election<\/a>), even engaging in electoral interference, which, despite Mr Trump&#8217;s denials, seems to have occurred according to <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mueller_special_counsel_investigation\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mr. Mueller&#8217;s report<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Make Mr Trump look better by desisting from aggression while he&#8217;s in office. This isn&#8217;t wasting time, since President Putin had invaded and taken control of Crimea, and that consumed resources that needed to be replaced. Such replacement, especially in a weak economy like Russia&#8217;s, takes time, and, with President Obama&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/05\/12\/russian-ambitions-ctd-9\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">undeclared war<\/a> on Russia&#8217;s oil exports, even more time.<\/li>\n<li>Make kissy-face with Mr Trump while he&#8217;s the President, as if the guy has any influence over President Putin. Note that the independent analyses I read indicated Mr Trump showed all the flags of a very weak negotiator, keeping all information, that should have been shared, private, and making ridiculous statements as a distraction.<\/li>\n<li>Once Mr Trump is out of power, engage in some easy aggression again in order to make the Democrats look weak.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-40940 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?resize=308%2C411&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"308\" height=\"411\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?w=1920&amp;ssl=1 1920w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?resize=225%2C300&amp;ssl=1 225w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?resize=1152%2C1536&amp;ssl=1 1152w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C2048&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?resize=113%2C150&amp;ssl=1 113w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/PXL_20240822_150055872-scaled.jpg?w=1600&amp;ssl=1 1600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 308px) 100vw, 308px\" \/><\/a>Of course, Americans do tend to be short-sighted &#8211; <em>it&#8217;s the economy, stupid!<\/em> being the best example, and that makes Russia&#8217;s plans actually harder to implement. Mr Trump&#8217;s glaring inadequacies can be difficult to overlook when they&#8217;re on blatant display, and I suspect Mr Trump, a man-child, takes poorly to direction from President Putin. That, however, is only speculation.<\/p>\n<p>President Biden also didn&#8217;t put troops in Ukraine. Instead, he sent arms, many of which were scheduled for replacement, to Ukraine, and, much to Putin&#8217;s horror, the Ukrainians have used them to devastating effect. The &#8220;easy victory&#8221; may, instead, be President Putin&#8217;s epitaph. President Biden has taken a great deal of criticism from all sides, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/04\/21\/politics\/marjorie-taylor-greene-calls-on-johnson-to-resign-after-house-approves-ukraine-aid\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">from <em>faux<\/em>-peaceniks<\/a> like Rep Greene (R-GA) to more war-like members of the Democrats, who generally seem to forget that the Russians are nuclear-armed and must be handled with care. I think that President Biden isn&#8217;t some dementia-riddled body, but a tired, but still effective, political strategist and tactician.<\/p>\n<p>So, in effect, I&#8217;m rather horrified that Erickson will use that sort of shallow reasoning to justify backing his own demented candidate for Christmas, just because, as a political convenience, Mr Trump is against abortion. Sort of. Maybe. If it suits his political position.<\/p>\n<p>And Democrats back abortion as a principled right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s apparent that Erick Erickson doesn&#8217;t really understand high level international maneuvering, as he tries to justify backing Mr Trump: The truth is that Russia was not advancing in Ukraine when Trump was President \u2014 pausing their Obama-era gains in that country until Trump left. And Hamas was not killing \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2024\/09\/06\/international-maneuvering-subtleties\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40938"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40945,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40938\/revisions\/40945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}