Top Ten Worst Things in the Trump National Security Strategy

 Is this really a bottom ten?  You make the call.  I was offline this weekend so I don't know if anyone has a great analysis of the NSS.  Since I had to read it to answer some questions on the radio, I have some thoughts, and the easiest way to approach this on a Sunday night is to come up with  a top ten list. From least to oh my these guys are the absolute worst.

Bottom line up front: the writers of this doc (not Elbridge Colby, the Undersecretary for Defense Policy, since he is most focused on war with China) are ignorant, arrogant, racist panderers.

Honorable mention: Didn't make the top/bottom ten, but:

References to Trump ending a bunch of wars.  Nope, didn't happen; Peace through strength yet gutting many of the things that provided the US with strength--its educational system, USAID, its competent civil servants who being driven out, the nonpartisan military, etc.  The US is much weaker now that it was on January 19th; the notion of being pro-worker while gutting regulations and undermining unions; its definition of fairness which is anything but fair.  The idea that competence and merit matter as Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, and others have the highest positions despite being both dis and unqualified.  Indeed, there are a lot of projection and bad faith in this document, but that should not surprise anyone.

10.  The complete blindness to the reality that most international institutions and international law were designed by Americans to perpetuate the American interest.   

9.  The assertion of sovereignty while seeking to deny the sovereignty of others--that countries in the Western Hemisphere can't trade with whom they want, that European countries must give their far right more access to power, etc. 

8.  The whole first paragraph of principles is enough to make any IR scholar puke:  "

President Trump’s foreign policy is pragmatic without being “pragmatist,” realistic without being “realist,” principled without being “idealistic,” muscular without being “hawkish,” and restrained without being “dovish.” 

It is meaningless without having any meaning.  And, no, the only principles driving Trump's foreign policy are racism, greed, resentment, and racism.  

7.  The whole concept of reindustrialization.  Who is going to work in deregulated dangerous factories if not new immigrants?   

6.  The focus on oil and gas and coal energy and not wind and solar--not a surprise, but still appalling.   

5.  The repeated references to Soft Power completely misunderstand the concept and shows a tremendous lack of self-awareness.  Soft power refers to the ability to influence others to do things they might otherwise not do (the classic definition of power) because of the popularity and power of one's example, of one's system, culture, values.  During the Cold War, the US had a huge soft power advantage as many people around the world wanted to wear jeans, listen to rock music, watch movies made in Hollywood, shop in markets like those in the US, and the like.  

4.  The civilizational bullshit aimed at West Europe. I talked about this in yesterday's Guns and Butter.  Just out and out white supremacy and fascism as the Trump Regime wants its kin in Europe to gain power. 

3. The document is super contradictory as I have already enumerated, but also includes the whole crap on Europe, ask Europe to do US's bidding.  I talked about this in today's Guns and Butter. You can't expect allies to respond well to your demands if you are seeking to have them overthrown by their far right.

2. Sure, wanting a stable Western Hemisphere makes sense and is no "Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine."  The Trump fixation on the Western Hemisphere is actually the greatest threat to destabilize the hemisphere from Greenland to Venezuela.

 1.  Fucked up priority #1. Not only is migration not the most important issue facing the US, but it also helps to amplify this administration's racism, xenophobia, and Great Replacement Bullshit.™.

 

I am just thankful it came out after my US foreign policy class was over.  Yuck. 

Yet More Guns, More Butter

 Heaps of baking today as I spent yesterday at the Diefenbunker, learning more about the Cold War and Canada's role in it.  So, two more episodes of Guns and Butter:

Cream cheese as a central ingredient was a focus today for these recipes, while I talked about the spat between the Democratic officeholders who had served in the military or CIA and Trump over illegal orders. 

• 

  Cinnamon roll 
  blondies

  Cookies and cream cookies 
• Cinnamon roll blondies 
  
• Sparkle sugar cookies.  I just dropped the almond extract since I don't want to trigger any allergies. 
• Maple cinnamon star cookies.  These are not quite done since Sally says they should be frozen before the last step of dipping into melted white chocolate.  So, that will have to wait until just before the delivery date. 

I did a second Guns and Butter reel to talk about the aforementioned dipping challenge, the difficulty of rollout cookies requiring a consistent thickness of dough, and, yes, stupid ways to think about burden-sharing. 

When Episode Themes Get Stretched

 I posted this yesterday--the latest Guns and Butter. The inspiration was that two of the recipes/batches had hidden ingredient--caramel in one, marshmallows in the other.  But the peppermint brownie ones.... didn't really apply.

 

So, I guess I have throw a flag at myself:

 

 And, yes, my blog is one place for me to store the Guns and Butter Reels in case instagram gets funky (which has been lately).  

More Guns and More Butter But Less Threat Inflation

 Today's Guns and Butter Reel features Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies and my discussing threat inflation.  First, yes, I did invest in a phone mount that I can put on my wall so I can have a better angle on my baking.  Second, no, I am not hiring an editor or using any CDSN/CSIDS/NPSIA/SSHRC/MINDS/whatever resources for this.  This is too silly for any government-funded help, even if this does count as "knowledge mobilization" even if the knowledge is often a bit thin.  I am trying to make these shorter since instagram videos and baking videos and their ilk are not long.  So, I realized today that when I am recording a video, there is a small timer on the screen.  And the key is to focus on one topic, one quote, one thing, rather than trying to attack or address something from multiple angles (such as in yesterday's discussion of Jessica Green's book where I invoked both Machiavelli and the classic concentrated pain, diffuse benefits tale).  

I am trying to tie the IR discussion to the thing I am baking.  So, as I stuffed mostly chocolate dough with frozen mini-marshmallows and not overstuffing them while talking about threat inflation.  Why threat inflation?  Because I guest lectured about Arctic security this week.  I am not an Arctic Security expert, but I do call myself an Arctic Security Skeptic™.  So, I discussed how the government of Canada pretty deliberately raised concerns about the Chinese and Russian threats to the Arctic to get the public to support defence spending.  

My take:

•  Russia's Arctic investments are almost entirely due to their feelings of insecurity over their vast Arctic--that there will be far more traffic on their side, that this used to be the one direction that a frequently invaded country didn't have to worry about.  And, as Napoleon said, don't interrupt your adversary when they are making a mistake.  Putting a lot of weapons/bases/etc in the north is mostly a waste of money.
• China's Arctic threat is not military but economic and political--offering to provide internet for Inuit peoples, buying up mining firms, etc.  Not a random balloon or surveillance ship. What the hell is up there to surveil?  
• The US?  Actually, the US is on the right side of the Law of the Sea and Canada is on the wrong side.  The big thing with the US right now is NORAD modernization so I talked a bit about that.
• That threat inflation scares the folks up there, which ain't good.
• What is needed is more infrastructure/support for the peoples of the north so that our sovereignty claims are, ironically, maintained through them, not despite them or around them. 
• Climate change, disinformation, and cyber stuff are the key threats to Canadians in the north and everywhere else, and that stuff is mostly not military (and the military really wants not to do.emergency ops).   

I do think Canada needs to spend more $ on defence because of the threats elsewhere and because of the use of the military as an instrument of, yes, policy.  But not because of little green men invading the high north.

 

Anyhow, more cookie making and more of these reels over the next month as I prepare for the big cookie delivery of winterfest.  As always, baking is joy, cookies are joy, giving cookies is joy, and making videos about IR and baking is also joy, at least for me. 

Still Reeling: Guns And Butter

 Last weekend, I was conferencing, so I am catching up this weekend on the baking.  So, I posted two reels of my baking and IR experiment.  This first focuses on humility and King Arthur apple cider snickerdoodles.  The second one focuses on Venezuela and gingerbread crinkle cookies.

 

Let me know what you think in the comments below or on the reels themselves.