During his visit to Greenland, Vance added, “We can’t just ignore the president’s desires.”
yes. yes we fucking well can.
I still want to know about how a member of leadership from a foreign country could visit a host country, insult the host, attempt to make a propaganda film to support the forced annexation of that country, and repeatedly state their intentions to take the country by force if necessary and not have it be considered a declaration of war.
Seriously, if this were literally any other time in human history or any other country involved, bombs would have been dropping by now.
Declarations of war are formal documents delivered by a foreign minister to an ambassador and are legally binding.
Some prat running their mouth, even if they’re a senior governmental official, has never been a legal declaration of war.
You seriously think that any other world leader in history wouldn’t consider what Vance did a declaration of war because he didn’t file the right paperwork?
At the very, very least, he would have been militarily escorted out of the country and had his base seized.
You have a very melodramatic impression of diplomacy. War is very expensive.
What in the fuck even is this Greenland thing? There is obviously no way that any one would have ever taken it seriously so why even put it out there?
Is this reaction fog of war they are injecting into the media narrative to obscure the fact they are running disappearance/ concentration camps?
It’s between a potential trade route for the US and Russia as well as an increasingly important route for military vessels and eventually high amounts of trade as populations move further north due to global warming, which they obviously believe in when they plan their own future actions.
Hmm. You think this might be an extension of Russian foreign policy?
So instead of “What does Trump gain from this?” we should be asking “What does Putin gain from this?”.
That is one of those things I’ve never really been able to fully wire in. Why is Trump seemingly so perpetually willing to enact (and somehow aware of) Putin’s will? Its totally out of character for him. Trump is incredibly predictable. Maybe one of the most predictable people there is. Whatever serves Trump, most directly and completely, whatever elevates him above all others; this is the thing he will do.
And yet he always defers to Putin. I’ve never fully understood this. I know we can all speculate, blah blah, peepee tapes, blah blah we all hate Trump sure.
But it still doesn’t match. He’s a guy who doesn’t keep promises. He doesn’t pay his debts. He’ll lie, cheat, steal, anything, to set the situation up to serve himself. Why is he keeping this one? Why is his loyalty/ sycophantry to Putin beyond reproach?
Maybe they’ve got something really, really big on him. Something he values beyond all else – even money, even fame, even attention, even power, since those seem to be all he loves.
Maybe Putin convinced him years ago he will bump off Ivanka if he doesn’t obey, or something.
Something he values beyond all else – even money, even fame, even attention, even power, since those seem to be all he loves.
This is exactly why I struggle with the assertion. I literally can-not come up with anything he loves any more than himself. He’s not a loyal person; he has no loyalty in him: its a purely one way street, loyalty is only a thing shown to him, not something he ever shows to someone else. He would sell Ivanka, or anyone in his family, and has, for a mere peppercorn.
Which is why I come to the conclusion that the explanation is insufficient. There is something being missed here, even if we don’t know what it is. And until we can identify that something, we wont be able to build a strategy that splits Trump off from the real source of his power: Putin.
Perhaps his admiration of despots like Putin, and his seemingly desperate desire to become like them, to be considered an equal by them, is the thing that drives him. It could be that he just truly, truly wants to be like Putin, so does anything he can to impress or aid him.
If that’s true, then there’s really nothing anyone can do. (Well, nothing I can mention, that we all know full well, without being on some lists).
I had a kindergarten teacher who grew up in Romania suggested a similar interpretation to me. I should have her over for wine and pick her brain on the matter.
I do think it matters to understand the mind, however horrendous, of someone like Trump. There is plenty to do. Lots of work ahead of us.
Sometimes I think they’re trying to scare up NATO spending, but they’re doing it in an entirely pyrrhic way.
Mostly I think they have a 1970 RISK level understanding of the world and do not understand how alliances work.
They talk about geopolitics like they’re 14 and think everything is zero sum, lacking even the most basic elements is game theory and economics.
They talk about geopolitics like they’re 14 and think everything is zero sum, lacking even the most basic elements is game theory and economics.
Yeah. I know some of those types. The almost always misunderstand the moment and deploy some of the worst strategies.
‘There is obviously no way that any one would have ever taken it setiously’ is exactly how we came into the shitstorm that is the trump administration. Twice. The public needs to hold politicians to their word, no matter how absurd. If they can’t be serious when addressing their base, how serious can we expect them to be when dealing with allies and adversaries?
‘Bro, your wife is so hot I dream of sleeping with her all the time’
‘Hitler wasn’t so bad, he was acting in the interest of the country’
When does it end? Both those statements deserve a swift punch in the face.
No one is rejecting the seriousness of whats going on. If you dont get that, then spend more time developing context for the comments you are responding to.
Leave our European siblings alone already
