[ExI] Please explain

[Kelly Anderson]

This is my best shot at trying to make sense of it from a US centric
perspective. Trump is NOTHING if not USA First.

Trump is a deal maker. It is what he knows, and he plays dirty. He
knows that to get a great deal, he has to negotiate really hard with
both sides. One of the key points of negotiation is that unless you
are ready to say "no!" and be seen to mean it, you can't get the best
deal. I think he's REALLY interested in the mining deal with Ukraine,
to pay for the expenses not only now, but into the future, and he's
willing to let people die in Ukraine for a minute to get that. I'll
take him at his word that he's tired of supporting combatants that are
killing each other in a war of attrition and that he thinks Europe
should shoulder more of the responsibilities, especially financially.
If you look at Europe's response over the last week, Trump has
accomplished his goal of getting Europe to step up and defend their
own backyard. They are shitting their pants in a race to rearm Europe.
Ukraine is, unfortunately, a pawn here. His most recent move of
stopping all satellite intelligence, including private US satellite
companies, from getting to Ukraine is a big deal and almost seems
unnecessary, unless viewed from the deal standpoint. If Starlink shuts
down in Ukraine, that will be another big blow, and I haven't heard
anything about that yet one way or the other, but seeing the Elon and
Trump are in a buddy movie, it could happen. Now note that Trump has
not removed (to my knowledge) a single sanction from Russia, and going
after the shadow fleet of oil tankers is likely to hurt Russia badly.
They are, after all, pretty much a gas station with a president.
Trump's drill baby drill approach to oil helps keep the lack of
Russian oil from economically tanking the rest of the world, so thank
him for that.

I want Ukraine to win. I think they can win. But I'm not sure the
Europeans have the iron dome thing figured out to the degree the US
has, so even with Europe's help, Russia might be better off. The
Russians just bombed a hotel that had Americans in it... so that's
potentially a tangle.

I personally believe that China is on its way to demographic collapse
within the next decade. Russia isn't far behind and the war has made
their inevitable demographic collapse closer for them. Russia also has
the problem that their economy is really based upon the war now, and
if the war ends, the Russian economy is left holding its entrails in
its hands like a disgraced Samurai. That's not going to be pretty no
matter how the war ends unless America is willing to hold Russia up in
exchange for Putin stepping down or something drastic.

Trump's "gold card" approach to immigration won't solve the USA's
demographic issues by itself, but it could bring some talent in from
around the world, which is probably a good thing for the US, even if
it might be a bad thing for everyone else. Eventually, I think the US
is in the best demographic position of any of the three great military
powers.

The biggest mistake Ukraine could make at this point would be to think
they can win without the US. If they get that delusion firmly in their
heads, this is going to get far worse before it gets better.

In conclusion, Trump is a mad man, but he's a mad man on a particular
mission to strengthen the US position vs the rest of the world. Now,
let's suppose that Europe and Russia get into a full blown shooting
war. The USA emerged economically VERY powerfully after the last world
war, because everyone else was bombed into the stone age. Now, this
assumes that nobody breaks out the nukes. Then his gambit fails
entirely. I don't think WWIII is Trump's FIRST desired outcome, but in
the end, it won't hurt the US all that much if he also withdraws from
Nato, or at least rule 5 for a while. I don't think America sits out
forever if it starts to look like Russia might actually get the band
back together with Poland, Latvia, Estonia, etc. Even Trump wouldn't
stand for that for too long. Congress would start to get extremely
antsy, and the US is still officially a representative republic.

The LOOOONG shot here, is that Trump made a deal with Russia not to
interfere in Ukraine so he can invade Greenland with impunity. We get
our rare earth fix either way... but this seems a little too
un-American for Trump, so I don't really think that's what's going on,
but it could be a backup position.

It has been inevitable that the US has to withdraw from being the
policeman of the world for some time. We can't be expected to pay for
the whole world's security when we have a hegemony of military power.
Neither Russia nor China can beat the US militarily without resorting
to nukes, and I'm not sure Russia's nukes would even work anymore. Let
alone against the US.

Now, the mystery for me is how the trade war with Mexico and Canada
helps Trump. I'm still noodling on that one.

-Kelly

On Wed, Mar 5, 2025 at 9:37 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 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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