There is a long term International Relations concept called the security dilemma, or as I like to think of it, the insecurity spiral. The security dilemma is a Realist concept that arises from the lack of an international sovereign. Basically because there is no overarching international controlling power, the actions of one or more states, usually in regard to military preparations, can/are misinterpreted leading to other states undertaking responses that in turn lead the original actor or actors to respond, leading to more counter responses. All of which causes a crisis of security, an insecurity spiral, which increases the possibility of conflict.
To avoid a security dilemma states, intergovernmental organizations, and a lot of non state actors, try to utilize strategic communication. Joint Publication 5-0 defines strategic communication as:
… efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of … interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products synchronized with the actions of all instruments of national power. Also called SC.
President-elect Trump’s recent, unsecured communications with many foreign heads of state have many concerned that these conversations are creating a type of security dilemma whereby the President-elect unintentionally or intentionally changes decades of American policy and strategic posture. And does so without the benefit of a State Department Protocol Officer, State Department pre-briefing to prepare for these calls, and secured comms to ensure that his conversations cannot be intercepted and used against the US (and our allies and partners) in the future. These communications have heightened tensions between India and Pakistan. And we now have an escalation in regard to the People’s Republic of China, which actually places the ongoing security of Taiwan at risk.
We're truly in uncharted territory. https://t.co/sZP6Wu8xUU
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 4, 2016
Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 4, 2016
If you know anything about Chinese foreign-policy people, this will get your attention. Shen opposite of a hothead https://t.co/zXH2aw08rL pic.twitter.com/OxZeB5oczZ
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) December 3, 2016
While some of this is a unique combination of the age of social media, 24/7 news media, and the Internet and a President-elect who seems addicted to social media and has a unique talent for capturing 24/7 news media, it is not unknown. To a certain extent the events that led up to World War I were the result of a classic security dilemma leading to a catastrophic insecurity spiral and the outbreak of actual war.
More recently, in the early 1980s, the aggressive attempts by President Reagan to pressure the Soviet Union led to a breakdown that almost led to war over the NATO war game known as Able Archer.
But just to remind us all of Cold War history, Reagan did indeed shock the Soviets as part of a coherent plan. And it nearly backfired. /1
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 3, 2016
By 1983, however, Reagan realized he'd been too successful: the Soviets – or some of them – were convinced he intended nuclear war. /3
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 3, 2016
Able Archer was a 1983 NATO war game that was misinterpreted by the Soviet Union. The signals intercepts being made by Soviet Intelligence led them to mistakenly believe that NATO, led by the US and Britain, was preparing a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union. This almost kicked off a classic security dilemma as the Soviets mobilized in response to the war game. This was initially misinterpreted by NATO as the Soviets conducting their own, counter, war game. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. After Able Archer’s conclusion, British Intelligence provided a complete report on the security dilemma that resulted from the strategic miscommunication to Downing Street, which then communicated to the Reagan Administration in order to prevent something like this from ever happening again. The documentary below details Able Archer, the Soviet Response, and just how closely everyone, on every side, escaped a war caused by misinterpretation from unintended miscommunication.
mellowjohn
i wasn’t aware that sovereign foreign countries needed the permission of the Petulant-elect to devalue their own currency or do anything else.
maye
We’re it not for the humanitarianism of Mikail Gorbachev, we would have all gone up in a mushroom cloud.
Davis X. Machina
Trump’s twitter is a century-plus old
Kaiser Wilhelm’s Daily Telegraph interview
His ex-Chancellor later said: “A dark foreboding ran through many Germans that such…stupid, even puerile speech and action on the part of the Supreme Head of State could lead to only one thing – catastrophe.”
PVDMichael
And in more uncharted foreign affairs territory… Looks like center-left constitutional reform is being rejected in Italian elections; Prime Minister has announced resignation.
PhoenixRising
I am more and more concerned that the Electoral College is going to put into office one of the many, many Boomers who was born into a Pax Americana and thinks it’s an equilibrium arrived at by historical processes that stopped in 1945.
I understand that a lot of my fellow citizens, particularly those not old enough to recall WWII, attribute their lifelong experience of peace to a lack of inter-state conflict being the natural state of humans, not the exception to the recorded history of nation-states.
Is there any cheaper school to learn ’em in?
Bobbo
“Cooler heads prevailed” is not a phrase we are going to hear again anytime soon
Mr Stagger Lee
Yeah but to his Angry White Guy fanbase, this is more of “Donald Trump Rulez, while Obummer/Hillary Droolz” meme they are going to eat this up.
Boy this is going to be a hell of a ride next four years.
Adam L Silverman
@PhoenixRising: Actually its a boomer that has, based on statements going back to the 80s, clearly rejects the post WW II global order dominated by and resulting in the Pax Americana. This was always a thread within the GOP before, during, and post WW II, best exemplified by the ideological positions of Senator Taft. Its really not isolationism, per se. Rather its a fortress nationalism.
Gin & Tonic
@maye: During Able Archer, Yuri Andropov was General Secretary and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. He died in 1984, and that’s when Gorbachev started to consolidate power.
But, truly, we were closer to a mushroom cloud then than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and arguably at greater danger than then.
Thanks for writing about this topic, Adam. A lot of people still are unaware.
Brachiator
Trump has some advisers on his team right now with military and foreign policy experience. And the Republican leadership is at least looking on, and presumably able to call Trump and offer advice.
Is it possible that any of this intentional?
A line in a recent Guardian story questions whether we are dealing with a Chauncey Donald or a Forrest Trump.
Forrest Trump: Life is like a bunch of pussies. You never know what you’ve got until you grab one.
Ruckus
@PhoenixRising:
Some people only learn in the school of hard knocks. And then there are conservatives. If they haven’t learned in the last 75 yrs, there is no teaching them.
Baud
I’m pretty sure Jill Stein or the NYT said that Hillary was worse.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: You are quite welcome. This is one of my favorite documentaries and it has great music.
Mr Stagger Lee
@PVDMichael: But the Austrians told their Far Right candidate Norbert Hofer to go F— himself.
PhoenixRising
@Adam L Silverman: I agree that he’s being manipulated by the fortress America whackos. Is there a trail that suggests he’s one of them, vs opportunist using ‘America First’ without even knowing what it is?
That’s terrifying. Thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: And the fact that Adropov was ill (and likely already dying) at the time of Able Archer in 1983 didn’t help.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic: If it’s any comfort, nuclear war is probably anathema to grifting.
Traditional war on the other hand….
Emma
OK, NOW I’ve reached the hide-under-the-bed moment.
schrodinger's cat
The election was a reality show, it was the Real Presidential Candidates of New York and the most entertaining one won.
Waldo
Our soon-to-be prez needs a Twitter sitter to keep him from starting WWIII.
WASF
Villago Delenda Est
There are no adults surrounding the 70 year old three year old. None.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: Jeet Heer thinks its intentional, though still uninformed. Given the President-elect’s long standing position vis a vis the People’s Republic of China, and given that one major state player in LTG Flynn’s imagined unified threat to the US is the PRC, this isn’t too surprising. As I indicated to PhoenixRising, there is a longstanding Conservative/GOP fortress nationalism that has competed and usually lost out to the more powerful Pax Americana/Indispensable Nation/Expeditionary America, as well as a portion of both movement and neo-Conservatism that has never given up the betrayal of the Chinese nationalists myth.
Baud
@PVDMichael: Why is the right winning in Italy uncharted territory? I don’t know what’s going on there.
PhoenixRising
@Baud:
I think the whole point is that we have a system to prevent wars from happening by accident that has been working okay AND we’ve gotten lucky a couple of times (Able Archer and a bad test pattern that I think Carter didn’t fire back at) that we know of. The Grifter In Chief’s intentions are not going to be our biggest concern anymore once he has the keys.
This thread has a 2 drink minimum.
Davis X. Machina
@Adam L Silverman:
You could split the left as well as the right if you played this correctly. I can’t tell sometimes which direction a particular twitter effusion sparked by the mere mention of R2P or Susan Rice or Samantha Power came from.
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: True. I didn’t want to get into all the details in a quick comment.
Have you read much (any) of Richard Rhodes’ work?
Adam L Silverman
@PhoenixRising: Yes, I did a post on it back in the late Spring/early Summer, but during the Reagan Administration Trump took out a very expensive (about a $100K ad buy) full page ad in the NY Times criticizing President Reagan’s foreign policy and American involvement in NATO and other alliances.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/donald-trump-ronald-reagan-213288
Click across there’s much more at the link above.
And you can see the ad here:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/03/01/trump-used-anti-obama-riffs-against-reagan-first.html
PhoenixRising
@Davis X. Machina:
…and cheers! I’m off to join Emma under the bed. Fortress nationalism is a twofer.
Adam L Silverman
@Emma: Remember the swiffer to get the dust bunnies!
debbie
Twitter would do the world a real service by banning Trump.
Brachiator
@Adam L Silverman:
I can understand the Fortress America myth. It is consistent with the fetish of building a wall, and the fantasy that the US will come out on top of any international deal.
But do these fools live in a time warp? China’s emergence as a world power, their handling of the turnover of Hong Kong, their expansion into international waters, all this makes any simplistic idea of betrayal look like idiotic fantasy.
germy
“In Russia, pussy grab you.”
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: Its not that they’re winning per se. There’s the Five Star Movement, which is a neo-nationalist, anti-EU, pro-Putin party and movement. They have their own newspapers and media outlets – so you’ve got the propaganda/fake news issue. They are also capitalizing on the fallout of how badly Burlesconi governed and EU imposed austerity after the 2008 recession. The current PM, Mateo Renzi, put a parliamentary reform (constitutional reform) package up for popular referendum and indicated if it failed he’d step down, which will likely bring about elections for a new government.
Here’s the details:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38204189
Mike in NC
@Brachiator: “Forrest Trump”; I am so stealing that to reply to nitwits claiming the guy is some sort of genius (like Gingrich today).
PhoenixRising
@Adam L Silverman: Jee. Zus. Okay, please stop with the informing us now.
germy
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@Davis X. Machina: This is true. I’m not arguing that some of our treaty and statutory alliances and partnerships don’t need occasional updating, but until someone can articulate how to get to a better, but still stable global order simply decided to do so because you feel the need to do so in your gut. There are a lot of losers in the current system and a lot of that isn’t by design, just no one was thinking about it when setting up the post war order to prevent the different European nationalisms or Asian (Japanese) nationalisms, as well as the Cold War issues, to boil over and engulf us all again. So there is a good argument for saying things need to be fixed in a managed way. Unfortunately that is not what we seem to be getting here.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: No worries, I knew you were aware. Wanted to make it explicit for everyone who might not.
I’ve read some selected excerpts of Rhodes. I really need to read both books on the bomb.
schrodinger's cat
Since it fits with the theme of the post, Nishita Nanda performs Shiv Tandava, or Shiva’s dance of cosmic destruction. Enjoy!
The performance starts at the 0.50s mark.
Adam L Silverman
@PhoenixRising: Remember the swiffer to get the dust bunnies!
PVDMichael
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks for the explanation as well. I wouldn’t have done it justice.
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: I don’t understand why people believe some of this stuff, I just mention it in comments…
Baud
@schrodinger’s cat: Heh.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Isn’t that a little too tempting fate?
Adam L Silverman
@PVDMichael: de nada!
Miss Biance
OK, Adam…I dont think my new obsession with “Dr. Strangelove” since the latest election has been a coincidence. I think Kubrick did a time-travel documentary masquerading as a light comedy about strategic miscomunication. Or would it be “strategic obfuscation”?
Miss Biance
Uh…why is my comment in moderation? Have I mentioned a certain Stanley Kubrick movie one too many times?
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Not sure there’s a direct analogue. Remember, history rarely repeats perfectly. What you had with WW I was a series of alliances and agreements that bound parties to do things that everyone expected to prevent conflict, but that once one thing no one expected to happen happened, instead served as a forcing function that drove conflict. And no one who could stop it seemed to be able to have the strategic vision or thinking to see or think past the alliances and agreements to escape the trap that they had accidentally built for themselves.
Miss Bianca
Oh, ffs…I misspelled my nym and now I’m in moderation. I really must be tired.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: Governor of Iowa?
schrodinger's cat
@Baud: @Adam L Silverman:
Seriously though, I wish I could dance like her. She is seriously good, check it out especially from 5.00 to 6.05 or so. I trained in Bharatnatyam for 3.5 years didn’t get to Tandava, its a difficult dance to master. Makes me feel like finding a guru and taking it up again. I used to love it. She is awesome, she has excellent form, clean lines. I is in awe.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Biance: You’re free. In Soviet Russia moderation comments you!
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: Will do. Does she have a chakram?
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: Wrong god, that’s Vishnu, Shiva’s weapon is the trident.
Gvg
You are scaring me. I had no idea what had almost happened. 1983 I was 2 years out of high school.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: I know, was teasing you from the previous thread’s comment.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think it’s possible that it’s worse. He may be the most adult of them all.
How’s that for a scary Sunday afternoon?
Chip Daniels
@Adam L Silverman:
Fortress Nationalism is the street level imagined history for most laypeople of the Right, and even many of their thinkers.
They imagine that from WWII onward, America just minded its own bidness, being awesome and exceptional, and was only dragged into wars by the Commie invasions.
Trump is the apotheosis of this, the Drunk At The End Of The Bar whose answer to any foreign entanglement is to “Bomb ’em into the Stone Age”
.
Adam L Silverman
@Gvg: Well the good news is that it didn’t. I also don’t think that either Putin or the PRC are suicidal. Nuclear war isn’t in their plans. And in the case of the PRC they do not like chaos. So as Putin’s influence operations sow it in the US, the EU, and other places, the PRC will move in and attempt to both turn the challenge into an opportunity they can exploit in advance of their long term strategic objectives and to try to promote order. What this is likely to do, and I don’t think Putin realizes it, is speed up China’s rise to challenge as the global hegemon.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: I know, I like to play square and tease you right back!
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: touche!
Brachiator
@efgoldman:
True enough. But one theory has been that the GOP leadership believe that Trump would be malleable.
And although I know some dopes want to insist that all Republicans are always the same, Trump really is something different. And the excerpts here of Trump’s 1987 mutterings suggest that he has always been a megalomaniac just waiting for his chance to show the world what a big man he could be.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: you’re making me laugh, dude. I thougt I was too tired to laugh after all day in the saddle!
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
They sure think they do. The hardest part is to tell what they have the dial set to. I usually figure 1950ish but it’s possible that the dial goes all the way back to a very distorted 1350ish time. But no way do they live in the current time and space.
Florida Frog
@schrodinger’s cat: I’ve been following these links and loving the wonderful dance and music, Thank you for introducing me to art forms I knew nothing about.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Well these things happen…
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
This.
The shit gibbon has always been this much of an asshole. I’d bet at least since his first school experience as a young asshole. He really is what you see. People assumed that he had the kind of money he’s claimed he had, even though he’s never been close to the level he’s claimed. He’s lied about himself for so many decades that he has no clue he’s doing it. He’s bullshitted his way through life for so many decades that he has no clue about that either.
Mnemosyne
@Davis X. Machina:
There’s a fairly large slice of the isolationist Left that is pleased to call themselves pacifists, but pacifists generally have no problem with non-violent engagement of other countries via foreign aid, cultural exchanges, etc. Isolationists do.
demz taters
@germy: In the 20+ years I’ve been on the Intertubes, that’s probably my favorite comment ever.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: *Stop* that! Oh, Lord. I think I’m punchy from too much fresh air and sunshine today. Here I’m trying to be all freaked out about tiny orange hands too near the big red button and all I can do is giggle. Heeelllpp meeeee….
BBA
@Miss Biance: We are all Lionel Mandrake now. Trapped in a room with a madman bent on destroying the world, trying ever-so-delicately-and-politely to convince him not to…
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: He probably doesn’t have the hand strength to press it.
weaselone
@Adam L Silverman:
That the net impact of this would be to speed China’s rise seems fairly obvious. How could Putin not see it? Indeed, how does Putin not see this as a threat on par with or even greater than the US? Russia’s weakness in Asia (and weakness in general) coupled with China’s rise and need for raw materials. Throw immigration of numerous Chinese into Russian territory and it’s hard to see how you avoid an eventual conflict between them.
schrodinger's cat
@Florida Frog: You are most welcome. You Tube has been a wonderful resource.
Dog Dawg Damn
This isn’t doing much to help my insomnia and anxiety.
Mnemosyne
@BBA:
At least we have an impeccably American version of the song.
Someone did an edit with that version of the song over the appropriate footage from the film, but I need to get at least some sleep tonight.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Emma and Phoenix Rising have the right idea. I’m crawling under the bed now. I’m not taking a swiffer because I’ll just die with the dust bunnies, which in my house are dust bears.
Adam L Silverman
@weaselone: I think he has a blind spot. I think his strategic objectives are driven by his anger and outrage over what he perceives as the US, EU, and NATO all colluding to keep post Soviet Russia weak and poor in order to box it in and deny it its historic near abroad and sphere of influence. I think this near monomaniacal focus, when coupled with his similar focus on coup (Maidan) proofing himself, has blinded him to other strategic realities: that he has a limited ability to project conventional force, that he overlooks that the real challenger to US hegemony is China, not Russia and that that is not going to change barring something really bizarre happening (China’s shadow banking sector collapsing is a possibility for really bizarre), and that because he seeks to consolidate and protect his wealth, position, and family that his nuclear capacity is not really a threat. No one cares if you’ve got trillions squirreled away in the post Nuclear wasteland.
gene108
Maybe this is all part of Trump’s master plan to bring all those manufacturing jobs back from China.
Piss off the Chinese.
They sever relations.
And we then get a bunch of hastily built factories in the U.S. to try to catch up with the Chinese, who would probably, for example, nationalize Apples iPhine factory and start selling them under a Chinese brand name to the rest of the world.
That has the added benefit of kicking the crap out of CA economy and those stuck up Californians who voted for Crooked Hillary Clinton.
Adam L Silverman
@Dog Dawg Damn: Sorry!
http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/0910/sound-advice-from-dr-strangelove-i-submitted-this-already-bi-demotivational-poster-1256447843.jpg
lollipopguild
One of the things that sparked WW1 was that countries in Europe kept fairly small standing armies. In order to fight or defend themselves they had to mobilize their armies. Each country was deathly afraid that the other one would get their army fully mobilized first and attack before they were ready. Once the armies were fully mobilized there was a “Use the Army now” mentality. The Germans especially felt surrounded and outnumbered. They wanted to attack France first and knock them out of the war and then turn on Russia. Today China may feel that Trump is pushing them too far and that they have no choice but to attack us. The war may start as a conventional war but could quickly turn into a nuclear one. China probably feels that they could absorb a strike by us and survive. Trump is the perfect idiot to start this going.
Adam L Silverman
@gene108: FoxCon has already announced it would move iPhone manufacturing to the US to ensure it didn’t get embargoed or subject to a tariff.
schrodinger's cat
@Adam L Silverman: China’s stock market is opaque, and its economy is not as robust as they like to project. China is not all that. US led world order collapses like nine pins, I don’t think any other country is strong enough to take its place in the immediate future. I think that’s as an even scarier prospect than China replacing the United States as top dog in world affairs. You are the expert, of course, this is just my observation for what its worth.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
So, when do the three letter agencies move against Trump?
Davis X. Machina
My progressive friends assure me this is nothing to worry about.
1, The US, as the focus of evil in the modern world, has no business leading anything.
2. Having a hegemon is bad anyways.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodinger’s cat: I don’t disagree. China wants to, and I suspect will, one day make the challenge. They just want to manage it to avoid chaos and do it on their own terms. But if conditions change, they are more likely to capitalize than Russia is.
schrodinger's cat
@Davis X. Machina: Are your friends, anarchists?
Davis X. Machina
@schrodinger’s cat: No. True progressives, though. This is one of the ways you can tell.
Brachiator
@Davis X. Machina:
That’s funny. I have progressive friends who insist that if the US gave up its nukes, the rest of the world would immediately follow suit.
Other friends also adamantly insist that the US should become totally pacifist, giving up its military as a form of atonement. They simply do not care what happens in the world afterwards.
Miss Bianca
@BBA: And then at the critical moment the string in our legs gives out….
Adam L Silverman
@Brachiator: Unfortunately none of us lives in that version of the multiverse!
Kelly
@Adam L Silverman: Now that I’ve caught up on this thread I’m going to go vacuum under the bed.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
You are one of the few people who can say that without following on with “if you know what I mean and I think you do.”
Davis X. Machina
@Brachiator: They do not have to care, because whatever happens afterward, it has to be better, of necessity.
If you remove the cause of an evil, the evil must abate. It’s simply logical.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kelly: I just looked under mine and found my missing tennis balls. Woohoo!
SgrAstar
@Adam L Silverman: Adam, The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun are two of the best books I’ve ever read. Can’t recommend them highly enough.
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, these days I.m afraid I mean it literally. Not that I would say “no” to figuratively, should the opportunity ever arise again. *If* you know what I mean, etc. etc.
RaflW
@debbie:
Twitter would do the world a real service by
banning Trumpgoing bankrupt and shutting down with no white knight buyer.FTFY
RaflW
@Adam L Silverman: Yeah, this is what I’ve been thinking recently. Trump’s chaos theory of ‘governing’ will drive the Chinese nuts. But in a way that induces serious trade breakdowns between the US and China.
And we will discover that, esp with Trump at the helm, the rest of the world will decided to trade with China and tell us to f-k off home. A curious, and locally very painful end to American economic imperialism.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: TMotAB is masterful. DS was very interesting, but a bit of a let down (to me) compared to TMotAB even though I knew less of the story. Both are well worth reading, especially as an example of the politics that underlaid so much of the work and decision-making.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
Thanks for this post.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Yep. In my response to that comment I almost went with “I’m not touching this comment”.
Bess
@Adam L Silverman:
There are 24 hours of labor in each iPhone. The average hourly wage in the Foxconn plant is ~$2. $48 per iPhone in labor
If the federal minimum wage holds then $180 plus approximately 30% in employer overhead. Over $230 per iPhone for US labor.
iPhone manufacturing would come only to the US if 1) most of the labor could be eliminated or 2) Foxconn could do the “final assembly” here and duck the tariff. Something like snap the two halves of the case together and call that “manufacturing”.
Tesla gets around European barriers by shipping their cars, battery packs and wheels/tires separately and then doing a few minutes of final assembly on each car in the Netherlands.
Adam L Silverman
@SgrAstar: Thanks. They’ll go on the list. I’m still making my way through Dawish’s book on Putin. Then I’ve got Ghessen’s cued up after that.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: get a room!
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: de nada!
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Heh?
Adam L Silverman
@Bess: I’m not saying its going to be cheap or effective or anything. Just saying what they’ve announced. The real problem is, as you’ve identified, is that no one has explained to Trump that Americans are not going to be happy with manufacturing jobs coming back if they only pay $2 an hour.
America has always been addicted to free to cheap labor. Free from slavery and indentured servitude and use of convict labor to race to the bottom, non-unionized labor or using undocumented immigrants and paying them poorly and in cash. And no benefits. The only American capitalist/industrialist that ever thought different, despite his racism and anti-Semitism, was Henry Ford.
Another Scott
@lollipopguild: Eh? China is in no position go to to war with the USA and has no interest in doing so. Their nuclear forces would only be suitable for deterrence. Compare the FAS summaries of China and the USA.
Remember, China doesn’t even have one large operational aircraft carrier (they have one training ship). The US has 10.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Just being a smartass.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Yes, Adam, thanks much.
I found Herman Kahn’s writing in a previous life, and it scared the crap out of me. Then I got into living hard, and kind of forgot MAD strategy, kind of. Since it wasn’t forefront of great power strategy for about 25 years.
Now it’s back, but with a serious streak of crazy added to the Madness. Tempted to start digging a hole to set concrete rooms into, deep underground. With air filters, etc. Just to see what is actually left in the aftermath.
Of course, there wouldn’t really be any way for a rural civilian to find out what was really left, would there…
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: I don’t think it will come to that. The Russians and Chinese are not suicidal. And honestly, neither are the Indians and the Pakistanis. And its in China’s interest to keep the North Korean government in line. And I don’t think the people around the President-elect, as much as I don’t agree with them and as a number of their positions worry me, are suicidal either.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Martin argued that China became a manufacturing powerhouse for several reasons including because it has zillions of small companies that supply FoxConn and the like with parts quickly and rebuilding that supply chain in the US would be prohibitively expensive. E.g. He might be overstating the case, but it’s really hard to believe that Apple would try to duplicate all of the East Asia infrastructure in the US if there were large tariffs. It seems more likely that Apple would move (even more) out of the US to protect its growing presence in China, India and in other growing countries.
But, we’ll (unfortunately) have to wait and see…
Cheers,
Scott.
celticdragonchick
@Adam L Silverman:
So what do we do when the North Koreans try their usual “hey, let’s test the new POTUS with a provocation!” schtick and Trump tweets something like “We need to kick the crap outta them!”….and the Norks take it deadly seriously?
Jesus…I was within fucking mortar range of the North for a year.
How do we respond when they take out part of Seoul with an artillery barrage as retaliation to Trump’s ‘threat’ while counter threatening to nuke Hawaii and Tokyo if we don’t guarantee that we will not strike at their CinC?
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Part of the reason that China, as well as others, are willing to purchase our debt, and subsequently fund the US, is because its cheaper for them to do that and have us secure and police the Ground Lines of Commerce and Communication (GLOCCs) and Sea Lines of Commerce and Communication (SLOCCs) than for them to try to do so. This is a good part of (the other is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purposes of the alliances and treaties and organizations that create the post WW II order) what the President-elect is missing in regard to his view that we need to charge more and knuckle our allies and partners.
frosty
@Bess:
Or just maybe Apple could take a little less profit off each iPhone. For example, Levi’s outsourced all their blue jean manufacturing but I didn’t see the prices come down. I saw the same thing with something I bought from Coach. Same price, different source.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: It would be very difficult and very expensive.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: Martin is BJ’s Tom Friedman.
Adam L Silverman
@celticdragonchick: This is a good question. We will have to wait and see if the system, specifically the clearance system, finally forces the President-elect to stop tweeting once he’s President. If it happens, and there will be a big push from those folks to assert the discipline on the system, then this is less of a potential issue. If it doesn’t, I don’t know. Part of what we are waiting to see, and doing so in a way unlike ever before because of who the President-elect is, is just how much of the national security and diplomatic and Interagency system is able to exert control and discipline the Administration forcing it into the predictable, decades old lanes of travel. I do not know how to handicap this.
Это курам на смех
@gene108: It’s a good thing that Trump voters never shop at Walmart.
celticdragonchick
@Adam L Silverman: I know that the North Koreans love to be unpredictable…as in sinking South Korean frigates, murdering and kidnapping people (including US army personnel) and the occasional artillery barrage into South Korean territory.
I am utterly terrified when we mix another belligerent “unpredictable” blowhard into this scenario.
I was in Camp Mobile on gate guard the night 2nd ID went on war alert at 02:00 in the morning in spring, 1994. The nuclear fuel rods at Yongbyong were being taken out and F111 bombers were on standby to strike the reactor.
I knew that none of us were coming home if shit went real that night. I had my pro-mask and rifle with me and watched the poor bastards who had been drinking in the bar district came staggering on post to get their gear ready.
Utterly surreal.
Adam L Silverman
@Это курам на смех: That’s going to be one of the first places that the hit would occur.
RaflW
@Adam L Silverman: Well, one could imagine a dystopian future in which US for-profit prison inmates make less than Foxconn’s $2/hr to build iPhones.
Ugh.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Yup. Donnie the “brilliant businessman” is looking at everything in terms of what is in it for him and how he can “win” the immediate game, rather than thinking about the infrastructure and rules and agreements that make the game possible. He thinks he can bully NATO countries into paying more for their defense, or he can bully China into being more friendly to his and his minions’ investments in Taiwan and elsewhere, or he can bully OPEC into doing what he wants or “I’ll take the oil!!”, etc., but in the process he’s breaking a whole mess of stuff. And people who are used to negotiating life-and-death, war-and-peace, country-or-noncountry agreements aren’t going to be bedazzled by some insecure bully of a 70-year-old guy who is afraid of “too hard questions” and has to have his daughter or son-in-law around so that he doesn’t make a complete fool of himself…
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@celticdragonchick: I’m tracking. If not for the sequester, I’d not be doing this right now. Rather I’d be about 1/2 way to 2/3 of the way through a civilian tour as Cultural Advisor, USARPAC. So its something I’ve thought about. The current garrison commander at Humphreys is a very good friend of mine.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: Yes. We have noticed.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, but both raise interesting points on occasion. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Yep.
celticdragonchick
@Adam L Silverman: Been to Humphrey’s once or twice. I think 1/2 attack aviation (“half attack”) was there before the 5/17 Cav air assets (I was in Delta Troop…Oh-58 scouts and AH-1 Cobras) left Camp Mobile and half attack moved in.
I can’t say I miss it. I still have one of the Nork Propaganda leaflets we used to find every other morning blowing around from the nightly balloon drops. We were supposed to turn them over to S-2, but nobody did. We used ’em like trading cards.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Scott: If you think they are worth the effort, okay. I tend not to.
Millard Filmore
@Adam L Silverman:
There is no need to be suicidal. They, especially the Chinese, should have been planning for the USA to go bonkers since a few years ago, when Cruz almost had us default on our debt. I cannot believe they are not ready to make hay while Trump takes us on a controlled dive into the ground.
Adam L Silverman
@celticdragonchick: Offline email coming your way.
celticdragonchick
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks for the heads up. I was looking at background on half attack to confirm if they were at Humphrey…but Global Security.org doesn’t get into that level of detail.
Adam L Silverman
@Millard Filmore: They do take the long view.
celticdragonchick
Your reply is coming back to you.
Getting late, so good night all and we will see tomorrow what the hell else Trump has managed to do while we were asleep….
Adam L Silverman
@celticdragonchick: Go here, click on each unit crest. The unit page should tell you where they are home stationed.
http://8tharmy.korea.army.mil/site/about/organization.asp
Shalimar
Trump’s Taiwan call was intentionally planned to piss off the Chinese. We are so fucked.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: What, me and my left hand? We’ve got one, thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@Miss Bianca: Did you get my email?
Bess
Trump, Inc. has properties all around the globe.
ISIS probably has them mapped out.
Wonder which one will go “POP!” first?
cosima
My husband and daughter were at a weekly sports event this week (training), and after training was over were sitting around having a cuppa to warm up, chatting with others, etc. One of the other sports folk is an ex-military guy (no idea what his position was, as I’ve not spoken much with him or his family). He’d just returned from the Ukraine, doing some military training of troops there.
When we woke the day after the election and my daughter turned on the television & saw that T/P had won the first thing that she said was ‘He won?! Great, we’re going to have nuclear war.’ She’s 11 and we live in a storybook peace-bubble Scottish village, and yet that was the first thing that came to mind. We don’t speak a lot about politics in front of her — we did, however, get a LOT of people asking us ‘will he win?’ so she heard those conversations, and the kids talked a LOT about it at school.
On Saturday I was at an xmas fayre, and someone in my conversation circle said ‘he won’t be that bad’ and I said ‘are you for real? of course he will be, he’ll be worse than bad.’
So, basically, every g-d day since the election I’ve been feeling worse about everything, rather than better.
I keep hoping that he’ll spend the next month doing a massive money-grab, cementing some deals with overseas leaders that benefit his company, and then, before inauguration, he comes up with something that leaves him no option but to pass the reins over to Pence (regretfully, of course, because he’d have been the greatest). And it makes me sick to think that that is the hope that I am holding on to.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman: Nobody was suicidal during Able Archer ’83, were they? And yet it could easily have gone down that way. Kaiser Wilhelm wasn’t suicidal. You said it yourself–the situation can have its own logic.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman:
One thing I’m wondering how is how much of that apparatus really consists of General Flynn-like wingnuts who are just champing at the bit to shift the world system into some new, more brutal configuration, and have finally found their opening.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, but the Chines are Asians and will have to save face if Trump gets into a shouting match with them.
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: I am wondering how much military authorities in places like Turkey and Germany are convening to discuss their options to limit our use of airspace from which to launch military attacks.
Barbara
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Then again, maybe they will learn the lesson that our press so obviously did not, which is, ignore the bastard, do what you want and let him figure it out. They will be at least five steps ahead of him while he is still tweeting about whatever it was that triggered his lizard brain reaction the first time. Trump is toxic but he is not complicated. The saddest thing about Taiwan is that, while the situation is hardly ideal, it’s stable. There is no doubt however, that if China feels that it has been adequately provoked it might act. So, for instance, highlighting that the U.S. has sold weapons to Taiwan could give China cover to accuse Taiwan of making incursions.
Dupe
@mellowjohn: It’s funny because China is currently trying to bolster their currency.
https://fronteranews.com/news/asia/china-embrace-nigeria/
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/08/business/china-renminbi-yuan-foreign-reserves.html?_r=0
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: A lot fewer than you might think. Most of the ones that are get weeded out as they head up the career ladder.
Adam L Silverman
@cosima: Do you mind my asking where you live? I did my first grad (post-grad for you) degree at St. Andrews. I was one of the Bobby Jones Scholars.
sigaba
Observations:
* World War I wasn’t caused by the July Crisis or Franz Ferdinand, it was caused by decades of military buildup. Wilhelm would never have ordered a war against Russia on his own, but he was happy to spend years setting the stage, through aggressive showdowns, and arms buildups, and scrambling the European alliance system. When the moment finally came Wilhelm told himself he was “forced” into it, and in fact he tried to countermand his invasion of France at least once and spent July trying to smooth over everything he had screwed up over the past 20 years.
Nobody wants war, though some people want The Final Peace a little too much.
* A lot of the Security Dilemma in WW1 was driven by the credibility of German and Russian threats, made real by the military, and the basic lack of credibility of many leaders to make peace proposals that everyone knew could stick. Heads of state and their administrations were often annunciating incompatible policies simultaneously.
* Wilhelm was nuts, but it’s also true that German, Russian and French civil servants were collectively obsessed with confrontation and all of them believed that a big European war was “inevitable,” they didn’t argue about this as much as they argued about how destructive it would be and how long it would last. And of course these debates were framed in wildly optimistic terms.
cosima
@Adam L Silverman: Lucky you — it is a beautiful place to live. We live in Aboyne, which is not far from Balmoral. It’s very idyllic here, which is why we made the move back — we’ve got one child still in school, and we wanted her to be raised & educated here. We’ve both done well being educated in the US (I was raised there, but not Mr. Cosima), but little Cosima has an absolutely amazing childhood experience here (knock wood, of course).