[ExI] Please explain

Sun Mar 9 19:46:39 UTC 2025

My understanding of the administration's foreign policy in Ukraine, given
this framework, is that the US is doing a hard, immediate pivot to full
neutrality. Ukraine is right between Europe's sphere of influence and
Russia's, and is not the legitimate subject of any US intervention of any
kind. Sovereign spheres of influence, in the 19th century political
philosophy, are not a thing a principled diplomatic stance makes exceptions
for. You do /not/ interfere in someone else's backyard, even [and
especially] for monetary gain..That is the price any power pays to not have
other powers interfering in its backyard (c.f. China in Canada).

I don't have the foggiest idea if Russia is near collapse. Neither, I
suspect, do you. The internet is flooded with propaganda - a significant
amount of it of it generated by US sources - making claims everywhere on
the spectrum from "Russia is days from total surrender" to "Russia is
invincible". Within the US, the CIA and State Department probably have a
good picture of Russian status and capability. But it's not even clear if
they would share that whole picture with the Executive branch - USGov is
deeply divided and the foreign policy apparatus has its own motivations and
interests. What /is/ clear is that the Executive branch is /acting/ like it
/believes/ that Russia can hold their current position indefinitely, and
possibly even win [by whatever definition]. At the end of the day, deriving
apparent beliefs from public actions is all we have. [All anybody has,
really.]

Similarly, the Executive branch is acting like it believes that the US
government /needs/ massive austerity measures /immediately/ - that
waitring another four years, or even six months, will dramatically damage
the long term prospects of recovery from the position of nigh-collapse we
are currently in. There is no time to wait, it appears they believe,
especially since these austerity measures can only be achieved by fighting
literally a million federal employees who can reasonably be expected to
fight tooth and nail for their jobs and the current way of doing things, as
if it were infinitely sustainable, which, frankly, anyone with two brain
cells to rub together can see that it is not.

You appear to be conflating money for US companies via contracts -
particularly military contracts - with foreign powers, with money for the
US government. They aren't the same. The US federal government is the
entity in danger of imminent collapse, per hypotheses, and even large
contracts for American firms (who don't pay any federal corporate tax
anyways, let's be real) won't move the needle there. And even if they
would, the diplomatic goal of pivoting from an internationalist to
isolationist framework - which serves the austerity goal - is also a
national security goal in and of itself: the senior policymakers genuinely
believe that the great powers restricting themselves to their own
spheres of influence would dramatically reduce global tensions and increase
security and human flourishing. With that in mind, the continued ability of
American megacorporations to operate outside the US sphere of influence is
not a priority. [A universe in which Europe has its own Apple and the
American Apple doesn't need to twist its security policies into Swiss
cheese to appease Brussels is arguably a better world.]

As to global health - the entire point of a retreat to regional spheres of
influence is just that - global health is not the US's job. The US has run
its economy into the ground attempting to administer "global health" as its
own private empire. Even if we grant the desirability of the US President
(or more realistically the Secretary of State) being the emperor of the
world, and even if we grant that it was ever possible and sustainable, it
certainly isn't any more.

========================================================================================

You can't beat an opponent if you can't model tham, and "Orange Man Bad and
Crazy" isn't a model.

This analysis implies actionable strategies against the Trump
administration's foreign and domestic policies.

Start first and foremost by actioning Keith's analysis above: Americans are
pessimistic. The administration is pessimistic. Make people feel
optimistic, persuade people and more importantly demonstrate to people that
the post WWII order is functional and sustainable, and that a million
federal bureaucrats can, do, and will self-regulate, and most of this chaos
fades away.

On Sun, Mar 9, 2025 at 7:56 AM Henrik Ohrstrom <henrik.ohrstrom at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Right, so you are worried about a US collapse? And trump et al's doge
> shenanigans are the only way forth?
>
>
> Right, if you insist.
>
>
> Say, why would a stop of sponsoring the defence from the Russian invasion
> of Ukraine also include stopping paid services,  ie starlink which is fully
> paid for by the users? Poland alone pays for 80.000 terminals. Or for that
> matter hindering commercial companies ordinary business,  Maxar can't sell
> satellite info to Ukraine anymore since your esteemed leader said so.
> That's not a cost for the USA, or rather now it is a cost, previously it
> was good business and income.
>
> It is also quite bad timing to start withdrawal now when Russia is on
> their way to a total system collapse.  Starting to support russia instead
> of Ukraine is not good publicity, unless of course it is PR in Russia you
> care about.
>
> Also, in what way does a sabotage of the transatlantic information
> agreement, I can remember the name of it, increase income?
> Oracle are on their way out from a billion contract for electronic health
> records (millennium) here in Sweden,  because they can't follow the laws
> about information security following doge, trump et al's brilliant work.
> (Also millennium suxs but that's a different problem)
>
> Dumping contracts without warning or due process is not a way to make more
> money.
>
> No-one have been putting "made in EU" stickers on stuff before, now it is
> increasing exponentially.
>
> Not good for global health :(
>
> Den sön 9 mars 2025 09:52Darin Sunley via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> skrev:
>
>> It is very difficult, for historical reasons, for most Americans to model
>> Trump as anything more sophisticated than a random-policy generator tuned
>> towards elemental evil, and they tend to get angry when you try, but here's
>> my best attempt to steelman the current admin's foreign policy.
>>
>> The US is in big trouble. Seriously big trouble. We've put ourselves in a
>> position of being a worldwide security guarantor, and we have run our
>> economy into the ground doing so. 40 trillion dollars of debt on a  7
>> trillion dollar budget that we overrun by 2 trillion or more on a typical
>> year. We can't afford our empire. We really can't afford much of anything.
>> Domestically, what we are seeing is the beginning of austerity measures
>> like what Greece went through a few years back, only probably moreso. A
>> balanced budget, at this point, is the US's only hope.
>>
>> On the foreign front, US hegemony is in its last few years. One of two
>> things will happen - it can be wound down, in a controlled manner,
>> resulting in the US having reasonably stable control over a regional sphere
>> of influence that includes Canada, Mexico, and probably Central America
>> down to Panama, but definitely not Western Europe or the Far East. Or we
>> can keep on going until the dollar hyperinflates and collapses, taking the
>> federal government with it, leaving a massive chaotic ugly void. The Trump
>> administration is trying to transition from the US-centric post WWII order
>> to the latter. This involves getting out of any and all foreign wars
>> including Ukraine, and pivoting from support to neutrality in Ukraine,
>> which certainly feels like surrender to anyone heavily invested.At the very
>> least this involves handing the whole situation over to NATO, or rather
>> what's left of NATO after we withdraw from it, because we can't afford that
>> either. In a world based on spheres of influence, Ukraine is Europe's and
>> Russia's problem, not ours.
>>
>> The end goal is a world where the US, Russia, and China own their
>> respective backyards, and stay out of everyone else's. Basically politics
>> as normal for the thousand years ending in the mid 1800s. Europe cann have
>> precisely as much independence from Russia as they can afford, but the US
>> is effectively withdrawing from that fight. If it feels like 80+ years of
>> American interventionism and world hegemony is crashing to a halt, it's
>> because it is. The administration is taking advantage of Trump's
>> historically unusual ability to not worry about reelection to bite a lot of
>> bullets to try to build a sustainable international order that doesn't
>> depend on the US bankrupting itself to maintain, which isn't going to work
>> for anyone. It's a huge project, and it may not work - there's obviously
>> going to be massive and apparently hysterical pushback from anyone
>> currently profiting off the current model, which is basically everyone in
>> Washington DC and the defense industry. They may not be able to pull it off
>> - it may be impossible for anyoen to accomplish, especially in onyl one
>> presidential term, but you can't say they aren't ambitious.
>>
>> The tariff kerfuffle with Canada is an interesting case. Canada has spent
>> the last year positioning itself as almost a Chinese client state. The
>> Chinese government actually operates police stations in British Columbia
>> and Toronto specifically for the purpose of retaining jurisdiction of
>> Chinese nationals living and working in Canada. The excuse of fentanyl is
>> just that - an excuse. Washington is trying to secure North America as a
>> secure sphere of influence for the US, and China has a very prominent
>> official and unofficial presence and influence in Canada that is
>> unacceptable under this vision. The tariffs are a warning about what Canada
>> continuing to position itself as a Chinese client state looks like. due to
>> legal reasons, the executive branch has more freedom of action to set
>> tariffs if the stated reason related to the drug war than if it relates to
>> geopolitical maneuvering, but the trade disputes and the responses on both
>> sides are irrationally overheated for trade and border security conflicts,
>> but make perfect sense when evaluated as China setting up camp in the main
>> courtyard of what is supposed to be Fortress America for the next 50 years.
>> Frankly, I'd fully expect CIA involvement in Canada's next election.
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2025 at 2:11 PM Keith Henson via extropy-chat <
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 5, 2025 at 8:37 AM Henrik Ohrstrom via extropy-chat
>>> <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Hi all, this is the highest concentration of members of the USA that I
>>> have contact with.
>>> > Your esteemed leader are doing strange stuff.
>>> > Can you please explain what's up
>>>
>>> Not in detail, but try here
>>> https://arelzedblog.wordpress.com/2024/12/01/berserk/
>>>
>>> People who think they are facing bleak times react in ways that (in
>>> the Stone Age) led up to war because genes survived in larger numbers
>>> in wars than they did in starvation.
>>>
>>> Support for the current US leader is irrational, that's just what
>>> happens.
>>>
>>> For what it is worth, although it may cause a lot of harm, it may not
>>> make much difference in the long run.  I think AI development is more
>>> important.
>>>
>>> I could say lots more, but my experience with a cult makes me
>>> reluctant to speak out.
>>>
>>> Keith
>>>
>>>  with this sudden support of the former soviets?
>>> > Considering Spikes suspicious attitude towards the baltic states just
>>> due to the unfortunate fact that they where occupied by the Moscow state
>>> during the cold war, how come that the republican party now are happy to
>>> support that same socialist state?
>>> >
>>> > Also all this talk about invading countries that have been actively
>>> supporting the USA is, strange.
>>> > Why is that something you seem to support?
>>> >
>>> > And last but not least, if trump et al are busy abolishing the first
>>> amendment,  what is stopping them from doing the same with your beloved
>>> second?
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
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>>>
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