The analysis of Trump as a Realpolitik strategist falters on one core assumption: the mistaking of pathology for strategy. The more we see Trump's moves as part of a vision for a new world order, the more we will waste time following his messes around.
Occam's razor says that Trump does not care and may not have the capacity to care for planning, tactics, or outcomes. He is almost certainly pure desire without form. So when you attempt to frame it as refiguring the world order, you wildly overshoot the mark.
Trump does not understand that the world is separate from his own ego. Every one of his actions is either grandiosity - "My name on everything" or retribution. Consider the ICE/national guard raids: DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland. Sure, they are not hotbeds of support, but why those specific cities?
Each defied him during the BLM riots. They did not accede to his will. They embarrassed him, and they must pay in fire and blood.
What about his antagonism to wind energy? A wind farm off the Scottish coast that disturbed his view.
Invade Canada? Viral video of Trudeau mocking him.
Venezuela? During Trump's first term, he recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president, and Maduro defied him.
Greenland? During Trump's first term, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called his idea to buy Greenland "absurd," leading him to call her "nasty" (Trump does not like to be mocked). Add to that the Nobel prize "snubbing" and his confusion between Norway and Denmark.
There is no strategy, no realignment, no think tankiness. There is raw ego and vengeance. That is it. Pure will.
My take is that he wants to leave a legacy, and a territorial acquisition à la the Louisiana Purchase would be an irrefutable way to make his mark. He will literally have redrawn the map.
But who cares that Andrew Jackson's motives were less than pure? As revulsed as I was at all this initially (I mean I do have friends in Scandinavia) .. now that I'm forced to look at it, and then thinking 40 years ahead .. hmm.
Except Trump never really wanted that trade deal. Again, has NO ONE read Art of the Deal. It is a very simplistic formula he lays out, but he follows it to a T. (For one thing, a BIG reason the Press has discredited itself for moments like these when we perhaps need it .. is that it has fed off stories generated by turning a Trump refusal to rule out anything he is presented with .. I do mean down to would you rule out shooting your own mother in the head .. into panic headlines over "Trump is threatening to do This!". Art of the Deal LITERALLY states to NEVER rule anything out when asked, no matter how absurd. It is the crudest and most transparent of negotiating tactics, yet it APPARENTLY works on the brightest minds on this planet.
I disagree with you on the trade deal. It was objectively excellent for the USA.
However, I agree completely about people not reading Art of the Deal. Everything I've seen in the last year regarding Trump's rhetoric is in that book. He told everyone how he negotiates 30 years ago. And yet people are still surprised. I find his negotiating tactics slimy. However... they have served him well. And at almost 80 years old, he's not going to change them now.
Well, yes. I'm not conflating Trump with the USA. (I do like that he broke some things that needed breaking .. but imo his job is done. What we make of the rubble - to include what Two new Parties we create from it - is up to us.).
You sound insane trying to make any of this make sense. It’s okay to acknowledge you made a mistake supporting him. At the very least you can stop talking in circles trying to defend the indefensible.
Define "support" I have never voted for him nor even bought a piece of his merchandise. It is TDS symptom to put people into pro or anti Trump camps. Even "MAGA" is only as useful as "WOKE", in that no one when pressed will cop to fitting anyone's particular shorthand definition of it.
And w/o going into my own personal politics (because who cares), I voted once each for both Reagan and Obama .. and my decision to not support them the second time were for the same reason. Trump is not a politician, nor does he have a politic .. so I don't even try to make sense of him as being one. But others seem to do so - and my guess is that political operatives want to use him to tar or support a brand that he only opportunistically assumes. He is 79 years old, not 59.
Hold my beer, Oren utters an unkind word for the founder and leader of his "new" right? I guess I'll take it, since the points he makes are obvious. Then again, some of us noticed a problem before now:)
If you can stomach it, watch Don's speech at Davos, and listen to the Q & A afterward. It's gut wrenching listening to our president-his incoherent ramblings, lies, ignorance, arrogance, abject stupidity, narcissism, childishness. Listen to all of it, every word. Then ruminate on the fact that this imbecile has his finger on the button. He'll still have his finger on the button when his angry, aging, cruel mind turns 82.
Glad it's begun to dawn on you Oren. Good luck America.
"Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a passive-aggressive address"
As opposed to the aggressive-aggressive addresses given by Trump administration officials?
Carney was calling a spade a spade, without needlessly provoking the world most thin-skinned man. What else was Carney supposed to do? Roll over? Then Trump would just have *more* contempt for him.
(Otherwise, a good piece with some excellent points.)
His erratic and childish negotiations will also discredit any good ideas he pursues in other areas domestically. Anyone who has doubts whether his other policies make sense but were willing to wait and see, will no longer give him the benefit of the doubt. This is similar to how democrats' insane culture war positions caused them to lose all credibility and respect. Anyone who still thought "well a Harvard law professor/economist looked in depth at this, guess it is ok" , lost all that faith when Harvard started firing professors for ignoring biological facts the voters could readily observe in their own households and sports fields. No one voted for the crazy Biden era and policies; Trump should take note, no one voted for this useless crazy behavior.
Disagree with your conclusions. The EU has morphed from hitching a free ride on American coat tails for over 70 years to being run by a bunch of WEF Globalist stooges with no interest in core western values like free speech and medical autonomy. They are responsible for the debacle in Ukraine and could help end that tragedy by pulling the plug on Zelensky but they don't .
The EU and NATO are not powers to be trusted and I have no problem with Trump playing the "art of the deal". He was never going to invade Greenland, just secure a more favorable partnership in securing the military aspects of Greenland's strategic importance. The EU, NATO, and the Danes were never going to spend the money or make the effort
They're to busy importing immigrants from low trust 3rd world locations to relace their own populations and cultures.
Come on man, you guys don’t actually value free speech. We know you don’t value free speech with respect to criticizing Israel or if someone has the audacity to be against genocide. Clearly don’t value free speech when it comes to any criticism of Charlie Kirk or Trump on late night talk shows.
My wager will be that Trump's actions do nothing but lead to a diminishment of the United States on the world stage, and that it will take a very long time to recover from it. Human beings, much less nations don't like being bullied or poked. Memories are long and turn about is always fair play.
What was not indicated in the piece was Trump's actual state as he delivered the address. He was exhausted to say the least and given other recent public presentations, likely deranged or demented. Trump has never been great at making deals. His approach is to take what he wants, do what he wants, ignore the law until someone sues him and or regulators stop him and then he moves on and file for bankruptcy. He is transaction oriented. He can only focus on a given transaction. No long term view, no strategy, just "how can I get what I want now?" I heard a great description of trump - "if he was a movie producer, all he would make would be trailers." He just wants to be in the news, be talked about, be popular, be feared, be as he puts it "be the daddy." His transactional approach fails in government where policy is needed and where we need to work to develop long term strategies, form long term allies and provide stability. He simply can't do this. He does not have the temperament as a start and he does not have the ability to be a statesman. He wants his name on things and this is all he can handle mentally. And he has a pile of henchman, much as Hitler did who sit around all day thinking up ideas to pitch him that will stroke his ego so they can be the favored one that day. And in this case one of his henchmen is Miller who is in his own right deranged - he was clearly bullied when young and now he has a rich daddy and wants to use him to show everyone how tough he is and get back at them. He is a white supremacist and has no ability to govern and create policy, he just wants to think up ways to push others around and stay in power. This administration is highly motivated and there is a lot of energy but it is all about what can I do today. How do I please daddy and what else can trump get his name on. Sad and dangerous.
My intuition tells me there is something going on here we are not privy to. Trump says Greenland’s geographic positioning is critical to our national defense but to date we have been offered relatively weak tea illustrations of exactly what he means — true, Arctic sea lanes will be more important to world commerce once the ice melts and, yes, there may be significant quantities of minerals vital to global industry and ongoing technological progress available in Greenland (also under the ice). Both maybe true to a certain extent but the US has been defending “freedom of the seas” for two centuries or more, and China’s near monopoly on rare earths is due more to their dominance in processing capacity than its control over ore bodies. Gaining access to Greenlands rare earth deposits won’t change that.
Only in the last few days has the media begun to mention Golden Dome and show maps of the routes ICBMs from Russia or China would take in a nuclear war — Greenland seems well situated for missile defense installations. But my sense is that there is a lot we’re not being told (for good reasons). For example, there may be the technical constraints of anti-ballistic missile defense systems (things we may have gleaned from the recent Israeli experience) that make Greenland essential to optimal system deployment and performance. There may also be concerns that are not being shared with the public about how the vulnerability of the US to attack in various other forms might fundamentally change should a one-day independent Greenland fall under the influence Russia or China.
(eg, loss of anti-submarine detection capabilities that might now be heavily dependent on access to areas now under Danish control).
We should bear in mind that the much touted 1951 Treaty with Denmark granting the US almost free access to Greenland territory for bases and other military activities depends on Greenland remaining Danish. If Greenland were to gain its independence the treaty is moot and US rights of use of Greenland are then subject to renegotiation. No one is talking about that either.
My sense is that there is something going on with Trump’s obsession with Greenland that has more to do with military necessity than his often unpleasant quirks of personality. Maybe this is why the NATO General Secretary told the Davis crowd that “Trump is right.”
You denounce "the imperial ambitions that our country pursued after the end of the Cold War." Yes, we stayed much too long in Afghanistan, but what were our "imperial ambitions..." -- was it to seize, in huge bundles, the opium poppies.... And, yes, Iraq was disastrous on a number of counts, but again we weren't there out of "imperial ambition." Please don't say, as the Left did, that we were there for the oil. We were not Britain taking over India. Are you the new Howard Zinn....Please provide the specifics of our "imperial ambitions."
Agree with every word in Oren’s screed. Now what keeps him from posting the simple truth: Trump is a physically and mentally deteriorating madman, unfit for his office? I don’t recall him being so reticent when the Dems were inexcusably in total denial about Biden.
Your use of basic game theory to critique Trump’s foreign policy is useful as applied to our allies, but when I apply the same framework, I reach the opposite conclusions — both on Venezuela and in your recent debate with Michael Doran over U.S. military aid to Israel.
In that debate, you underestimated Israel’s role in advancing American strategic interests and overlooked the leverage our $3.8 billion contribution buys. The United States invests a small fraction of what Israel itself spends, yet our support keeps an ally in the game shouldering a much larger burden that would otherwise fall on us. That is efficient burden-sharing, not charity. Israel already devotes a higher share of its GNP to defense than any other country — hardly outsourcing its security to the United States.
You also cite South Korea as the norm, yet that model requires stationing 28,500 U.S. troops at a cost of roughly $4 billion per year. The comparison shows what a bargain Israel really is.
On Venezuela, the takeaway is clear: traffic in narcotics, align with our enemies, steal elections — and do it in our hemisphere. Not a bad message to send.
The analysis of Trump as a Realpolitik strategist falters on one core assumption: the mistaking of pathology for strategy. The more we see Trump's moves as part of a vision for a new world order, the more we will waste time following his messes around.
Occam's razor says that Trump does not care and may not have the capacity to care for planning, tactics, or outcomes. He is almost certainly pure desire without form. So when you attempt to frame it as refiguring the world order, you wildly overshoot the mark.
Trump does not understand that the world is separate from his own ego. Every one of his actions is either grandiosity - "My name on everything" or retribution. Consider the ICE/national guard raids: DC, Chicago, Minneapolis, Portland. Sure, they are not hotbeds of support, but why those specific cities?
Each defied him during the BLM riots. They did not accede to his will. They embarrassed him, and they must pay in fire and blood.
What about his antagonism to wind energy? A wind farm off the Scottish coast that disturbed his view.
Invade Canada? Viral video of Trudeau mocking him.
Venezuela? During Trump's first term, he recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president, and Maduro defied him.
Greenland? During Trump's first term, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called his idea to buy Greenland "absurd," leading him to call her "nasty" (Trump does not like to be mocked). Add to that the Nobel prize "snubbing" and his confusion between Norway and Denmark.
There is no strategy, no realignment, no think tankiness. There is raw ego and vengeance. That is it. Pure will.
My take is that he wants to leave a legacy, and a territorial acquisition à la the Louisiana Purchase would be an irrefutable way to make his mark. He will literally have redrawn the map.
Absolutely. Just grandiosity.
Insane
But who cares that Andrew Jackson's motives were less than pure? As revulsed as I was at all this initially (I mean I do have friends in Scandinavia) .. now that I'm forced to look at it, and then thinking 40 years ahead .. hmm.
This week, the EU Parliament was due to approve the (very favorable for America) trade deal Trump had negotiated last summer.
In the face of his Greenland nonsense, they've put that on hold.
Trump's mouth shoots his own foot. Again.
Except Trump never really wanted that trade deal. Again, has NO ONE read Art of the Deal. It is a very simplistic formula he lays out, but he follows it to a T. (For one thing, a BIG reason the Press has discredited itself for moments like these when we perhaps need it .. is that it has fed off stories generated by turning a Trump refusal to rule out anything he is presented with .. I do mean down to would you rule out shooting your own mother in the head .. into panic headlines over "Trump is threatening to do This!". Art of the Deal LITERALLY states to NEVER rule anything out when asked, no matter how absurd. It is the crudest and most transparent of negotiating tactics, yet it APPARENTLY works on the brightest minds on this planet.
I disagree with you on the trade deal. It was objectively excellent for the USA.
However, I agree completely about people not reading Art of the Deal. Everything I've seen in the last year regarding Trump's rhetoric is in that book. He told everyone how he negotiates 30 years ago. And yet people are still surprised. I find his negotiating tactics slimy. However... they have served him well. And at almost 80 years old, he's not going to change them now.
Well, yes. I'm not conflating Trump with the USA. (I do like that he broke some things that needed breaking .. but imo his job is done. What we make of the rubble - to include what Two new Parties we create from it - is up to us.).
You sound insane trying to make any of this make sense. It’s okay to acknowledge you made a mistake supporting him. At the very least you can stop talking in circles trying to defend the indefensible.
Define "support" I have never voted for him nor even bought a piece of his merchandise. It is TDS symptom to put people into pro or anti Trump camps. Even "MAGA" is only as useful as "WOKE", in that no one when pressed will cop to fitting anyone's particular shorthand definition of it.
And w/o going into my own personal politics (because who cares), I voted once each for both Reagan and Obama .. and my decision to not support them the second time were for the same reason. Trump is not a politician, nor does he have a politic .. so I don't even try to make sense of him as being one. But others seem to do so - and my guess is that political operatives want to use him to tar or support a brand that he only opportunistically assumes. He is 79 years old, not 59.
Hold my beer, Oren utters an unkind word for the founder and leader of his "new" right? I guess I'll take it, since the points he makes are obvious. Then again, some of us noticed a problem before now:)
If you can stomach it, watch Don's speech at Davos, and listen to the Q & A afterward. It's gut wrenching listening to our president-his incoherent ramblings, lies, ignorance, arrogance, abject stupidity, narcissism, childishness. Listen to all of it, every word. Then ruminate on the fact that this imbecile has his finger on the button. He'll still have his finger on the button when his angry, aging, cruel mind turns 82.
Glad it's begun to dawn on you Oren. Good luck America.
Yes.
Good analysis and good job separating American Compass and its policy prescriptions from some terrible actions/policies of Trump Administration.
"Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a passive-aggressive address"
As opposed to the aggressive-aggressive addresses given by Trump administration officials?
Carney was calling a spade a spade, without needlessly provoking the world most thin-skinned man. What else was Carney supposed to do? Roll over? Then Trump would just have *more* contempt for him.
(Otherwise, a good piece with some excellent points.)
Well said. In few words you framed well the context in which truly strong alliances are shaped and maintained. Thank you.
His erratic and childish negotiations will also discredit any good ideas he pursues in other areas domestically. Anyone who has doubts whether his other policies make sense but were willing to wait and see, will no longer give him the benefit of the doubt. This is similar to how democrats' insane culture war positions caused them to lose all credibility and respect. Anyone who still thought "well a Harvard law professor/economist looked in depth at this, guess it is ok" , lost all that faith when Harvard started firing professors for ignoring biological facts the voters could readily observe in their own households and sports fields. No one voted for the crazy Biden era and policies; Trump should take note, no one voted for this useless crazy behavior.
Disagree with your conclusions. The EU has morphed from hitching a free ride on American coat tails for over 70 years to being run by a bunch of WEF Globalist stooges with no interest in core western values like free speech and medical autonomy. They are responsible for the debacle in Ukraine and could help end that tragedy by pulling the plug on Zelensky but they don't .
The EU and NATO are not powers to be trusted and I have no problem with Trump playing the "art of the deal". He was never going to invade Greenland, just secure a more favorable partnership in securing the military aspects of Greenland's strategic importance. The EU, NATO, and the Danes were never going to spend the money or make the effort
They're to busy importing immigrants from low trust 3rd world locations to relace their own populations and cultures.
Dick Minnis removingthecataract.substack.com
Come on man, you guys don’t actually value free speech. We know you don’t value free speech with respect to criticizing Israel or if someone has the audacity to be against genocide. Clearly don’t value free speech when it comes to any criticism of Charlie Kirk or Trump on late night talk shows.
My wager will be that Trump's actions do nothing but lead to a diminishment of the United States on the world stage, and that it will take a very long time to recover from it. Human beings, much less nations don't like being bullied or poked. Memories are long and turn about is always fair play.
Worse things have happened. I’d like to give Trump credit for that outcome, but I sort of doubt it’s intentional.
You are mistaken in your belief that America can oopsie these threats and actions back.
The die is now largely cast on the end of its traditional alliances.
What was not indicated in the piece was Trump's actual state as he delivered the address. He was exhausted to say the least and given other recent public presentations, likely deranged or demented. Trump has never been great at making deals. His approach is to take what he wants, do what he wants, ignore the law until someone sues him and or regulators stop him and then he moves on and file for bankruptcy. He is transaction oriented. He can only focus on a given transaction. No long term view, no strategy, just "how can I get what I want now?" I heard a great description of trump - "if he was a movie producer, all he would make would be trailers." He just wants to be in the news, be talked about, be popular, be feared, be as he puts it "be the daddy." His transactional approach fails in government where policy is needed and where we need to work to develop long term strategies, form long term allies and provide stability. He simply can't do this. He does not have the temperament as a start and he does not have the ability to be a statesman. He wants his name on things and this is all he can handle mentally. And he has a pile of henchman, much as Hitler did who sit around all day thinking up ideas to pitch him that will stroke his ego so they can be the favored one that day. And in this case one of his henchmen is Miller who is in his own right deranged - he was clearly bullied when young and now he has a rich daddy and wants to use him to show everyone how tough he is and get back at them. He is a white supremacist and has no ability to govern and create policy, he just wants to think up ways to push others around and stay in power. This administration is highly motivated and there is a lot of energy but it is all about what can I do today. How do I please daddy and what else can trump get his name on. Sad and dangerous.
My intuition tells me there is something going on here we are not privy to. Trump says Greenland’s geographic positioning is critical to our national defense but to date we have been offered relatively weak tea illustrations of exactly what he means — true, Arctic sea lanes will be more important to world commerce once the ice melts and, yes, there may be significant quantities of minerals vital to global industry and ongoing technological progress available in Greenland (also under the ice). Both maybe true to a certain extent but the US has been defending “freedom of the seas” for two centuries or more, and China’s near monopoly on rare earths is due more to their dominance in processing capacity than its control over ore bodies. Gaining access to Greenlands rare earth deposits won’t change that.
Only in the last few days has the media begun to mention Golden Dome and show maps of the routes ICBMs from Russia or China would take in a nuclear war — Greenland seems well situated for missile defense installations. But my sense is that there is a lot we’re not being told (for good reasons). For example, there may be the technical constraints of anti-ballistic missile defense systems (things we may have gleaned from the recent Israeli experience) that make Greenland essential to optimal system deployment and performance. There may also be concerns that are not being shared with the public about how the vulnerability of the US to attack in various other forms might fundamentally change should a one-day independent Greenland fall under the influence Russia or China.
(eg, loss of anti-submarine detection capabilities that might now be heavily dependent on access to areas now under Danish control).
We should bear in mind that the much touted 1951 Treaty with Denmark granting the US almost free access to Greenland territory for bases and other military activities depends on Greenland remaining Danish. If Greenland were to gain its independence the treaty is moot and US rights of use of Greenland are then subject to renegotiation. No one is talking about that either.
My sense is that there is something going on with Trump’s obsession with Greenland that has more to do with military necessity than his often unpleasant quirks of personality. Maybe this is why the NATO General Secretary told the Davis crowd that “Trump is right.”
If not him, than who? If not now, than when? Do you, too, forget how he got here?
You denounce "the imperial ambitions that our country pursued after the end of the Cold War." Yes, we stayed much too long in Afghanistan, but what were our "imperial ambitions..." -- was it to seize, in huge bundles, the opium poppies.... And, yes, Iraq was disastrous on a number of counts, but again we weren't there out of "imperial ambition." Please don't say, as the Left did, that we were there for the oil. We were not Britain taking over India. Are you the new Howard Zinn....Please provide the specifics of our "imperial ambitions."
Agree with every word in Oren’s screed. Now what keeps him from posting the simple truth: Trump is a physically and mentally deteriorating madman, unfit for his office? I don’t recall him being so reticent when the Dems were inexcusably in total denial about Biden.
Your use of basic game theory to critique Trump’s foreign policy is useful as applied to our allies, but when I apply the same framework, I reach the opposite conclusions — both on Venezuela and in your recent debate with Michael Doran over U.S. military aid to Israel.
In that debate, you underestimated Israel’s role in advancing American strategic interests and overlooked the leverage our $3.8 billion contribution buys. The United States invests a small fraction of what Israel itself spends, yet our support keeps an ally in the game shouldering a much larger burden that would otherwise fall on us. That is efficient burden-sharing, not charity. Israel already devotes a higher share of its GNP to defense than any other country — hardly outsourcing its security to the United States.
You also cite South Korea as the norm, yet that model requires stationing 28,500 U.S. troops at a cost of roughly $4 billion per year. The comparison shows what a bargain Israel really is.
On Venezuela, the takeaway is clear: traffic in narcotics, align with our enemies, steal elections — and do it in our hemisphere. Not a bad message to send.
On Greenland, you are spot on.