Compromises and Concessions

Trump is the Deal Maker, not the War Taker

In war two things are certain.

Casualties and Cost.

As Sun Tzu proclaims, war is often not worth the expense.

“6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.

7. It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on.”

— Sun Tzu, the Art of War

So, as with all things, victory comes at a cost. You must be clever and wise in equal measure. You must be clever in avoiding the plots of your enemies but wise in having seen them form before your enemy does.

That last part is very important.

Being able to anticipate the thought process of your adversary and then work such that the opportunities to challenge you never form in the first place is the most critical aspect of waging a successful campaign. Truly, no war is necessary if you’d only have the foresight to prevent your neighbor from resorting to violence in the first place.

You have to give them a path other than war.

That often means making deals, which entails compromises and concessions.

Summarily, there are no “good guys” in war. As soon as the first sword is drawn from its scabbard, pistol un-holstered, and rifle chambered the “good guys” have already lost the war. All that is left is bad guys versus bad guys worshipping at the altar of “The Ends Justify The Means.” At that point either side is willing to expend every resource, pay any cost, just to say they’ve “won.” Foolishness. Winning is nothing but a brag when you consider our progeny. All that anger and fury directed towards your adversaries will be eventually be lost to time — your children completely oblivious to the reasons as to why many men met on a field to stain it red.

Every skirmish, battle, flank and rout are but somber motifs playing on a categorically tragic opera whose notes are written in blood, dirt, sweat, and tears. There is no victory in children knowing their fathers only by a picture, a flag, a medal, and an empty uniform.

History is not written by the victor.

History is written by our children.

Winning a Losing Game

So, how do you win at war, when blood is certain to flow?

Again, you make sure you avoid battles whenever possible.

How?

Simple.

You employ the forces of Entropy.

Everything decays. Everything rots. Everything expires.

The longer you forestall your opponent, the more provisions they must replace as the date on the package comes and goes. Soldiers grow old and weary at their posts, waiting for a war that never comes. Economies buckle under the pressure of the “quick and clean” deception. Wars are waged on morale just as an army marches on its stomach. The longer a platoon has gone without a well seasoned steak, the shorter their patience and will to “vanquish the enemy at any cost” will be.

A “Successful War” entails your foe expending more ammunition than you, long before any men meet on the field of battle.

In any war, the one who fires last is the de-facto victor.

So, if no one fires at all, does it mean everyone wins?

Therefore, attrition is the most proper way to wage any war. Not just in waiting out an already initiated war, but in waiting out their angst well before the gauntlet is thrown down. Such a strategy results in the least amount of casualties. When an enemy challenges you, you need only stand on your laurels. Ideologies result in particular economic conditions. When one ideology faces off with another, all that really matters is which is the more robust and economically viable.

For example, the Cold War taught us that Capitalism, the cycle of boom and bust, is a far more superior ideology as compared to Communism. Of course, that is discounting the proxy wars, clandestine operations, and horror wrought on our own populations out of paranoia.

Again, I must clarify — ALL WAR IS BAD!

Wars of attrition are just the least so.

Better than that, even, is waiting until your adversary is done with their temper tantrum. Cooler minds prevail.

War is what happens when you fail at negotiations. War is what happens when you reciprocate your neighbor’s insults and barbs. You must ignore a bully, because they feed off any other response. Cry or yell, and you give them reason to escalate.

War is what happens when two capable forces are goaded into fighting one another over resources. Usually it is land.

Ultimately, war costs stuff. Lives, resources, time…

Time you can’t get back. History you can’t reverse.

No battle you win can reclaim such things. Therefore, robbing your opponent of them well before the first battle commences is a permanent assault and a wound that cannot heal. For, it is self-inflicted. The longer a stand-off goes on, the more one side will have to sacrifice resources to keep up their “war-time readiness.” If it costs you less to maintain your readiness than your opponent, then it’s simply just a matter of time.

People may starve, but a skinny father is preferable to no father at all.

It’s the fool who would rather kill and die rather than face suffering for a time.

Those who are most anxious to provoke the enemy just to “get it over with” are those who often lose the most in the end. Patience, wisdom, and tact are what wins a war, not rash action backed by rage.

So, if war is going to cost you something anyway you cut it, might as well just reduce cost and keep as many of your citizens alive as possible. When the price of war is halving your work force so that defense contractors can get a cushy payday, then you’re already at a guaranteed net negative in that the next two decades will have lost a sizeable amount of GDP through the inevitable worker shortage.

Not to mention the cost of caring for veterans…

Trump Card

Trump knows all this.

He wrote a book called “The Art of the Deal” in homage to “The Art of War”

You see what I mean?

He’s the first president in our lifetime that hasn’t gotten us into an open war.

You know why? You know how?

Because he’s a Deal-Maker.

He wrote the “Art of the Deal” not “The Art of Scorched Earth.”

He’s a Maker, not a Taker.

The only thing better than winning a war through attrition is winning a war before it starts. The only way to do that is to make a deal. That’s Trump’s underlying philosophy — that the only way we can avoid the losses certain in war is to TRADE. To make a DEAL. To COMPROMISE.

You get something, I get something, and no one has their throat ripped out.

Sound good?

Nations go to war because they see the other as a threat. What’s threatening is not the color of their flag nor the size of their guns. What’s threatening is when one nation has a monopoly over a critical resource and the other nation can no longer pay to acquire it. Resource discrepancy is what leads to war. Resources are found in Land.

So, if you want to avoid war, your nation has to offer the other nation something in trade, to cool tensions that result from inequality. If the resource-rich nation refuses every offer, war is inevitable. The lesser will put all remaining resources towards war, that they might take by force what they lack and their neighbor has in abundance. That’s when all sorts of excuses arise, such as religious differences, that enflame one nation’s people to want to go to war with the other. Propaganda uses fear, confusion, and cultural differences to dupe a population into craving war — all so that those in power, who desire only the Land and the Resources therein, can get what they want.

War is when Fools die so that Tyrants can maintain their power.

This is why Deal-Making is so important. This is why Deal-Makers are so important.

Mediators are what prevents war. Mediators are the only “good guys.”

⁹ Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. — Matthew 5:9

When one side says “I’m not talking with them anymore” that’s when you know war is inevitable.

No one likes to have to make concessions. No one likes to have to give up something in exchange for another. Most people want to have their cake and eat it too. They don’t want to have to trade when they could just TAKE BY FORCE.

However, the learned scholar knows all too well that TAKING BY FORCE always ends in a net loss for everyone involved.

That’s my ultimate point.

If you raid a village for its grain, then the villagers starve. If they starve, they die. If they die, then no one will be left to grow the grain.

See how that works?

So, why TAKE when you can help others MAKE?

When your neighbor prospers, so do you.

When your competition advances, so do you.

The only way you can lose when another succeeds is if you intentionally fall out of the race. When you give up because “I’ll never be as successful as them” that’s when you really lose the only War that matters. You should use the success of others as inspiration. Sure, some are blessed with more “resources” at birth, but so are you, you’re just too conceited and envious to acknowledge it. You have something special that others don’t, just as they have something special you don’t.

COOPERATION is when we supplement one another’s weaknesses with the other’s strengths.

That, my friends, is the real Trump Card in life; to move with your neighbor rather than against them. Think of it as a dance. Friendly Rivals are what fuels progress. Petty Conflict is what ends us all.

What Is Trump Up To?

So, when you see Trump picking his administration’s staff, knowing just how crappily he chose last time, consider that every now and then he throws in a Cabal asset as a necessary concession — to forestall outright war until the enemy is exhausted of its resources.

Remember, he can always just replace them later when they refuse to do what he hired them to do.

Think about it this way: you can always trust your enemy to stab you, but it stings so much harder when the attack comes from your supposed friend. There are plenty of people who claim to be on Trump’s side whose record shows they are nothing more than petty turncoats and fair-weather patriots. In staffing them in this way, he puts some of his greatest adversaries, the fake friends, in the spotlight. If they refuse his offer, it just exposes their cover and reveals them to be Never-Trumper RINOs. They are obligated to accept the post, especially when the Cabal urges them to do so in order to have one more piece on the board to work against Trump, as additional vectors for attack. Both sides know what is going on here, but as the Cabal you can’t turn down even a meagre concession even though the piece is currently body-blocked on the board. You need all the help you can get, even if it’s just one feckless jackass with no real agency. If Trump puts in a trusted guy before they can act, it’ll just make them an easy target. It’s best to keep certain pieces in reserve until the board is clear enough for them to make their big plays.

That said, it can also work if they do have the ability to act already. When you know that your primary foe, in this case the Swamp, will fight tooth and nail to prevent you from putting your trusted ally in a position that could undermine their efforts completely, then the next best thing is to station that post with someone who you know will turn on you. It takes the surprise out of a backstabbing when you know they’re a snake in the grass in the first place.

A devil you know is preferable to the devil you don’t.

That’s Trump’s ultimate philosophy. Certain positions he fills now are “his guys” — the ones he needs to pad out now that are essential to accomplishing his most pertinent mission objectives. Everything else that requires certain preliminary steps to be taken first can be staffed by obvious frauds and traitors, to be replaced at a later time. Why put in your best players at the start of the game, knowing they’ll be tired by the last quarter?

Give it Time

This is tactical. These “bad picks” Trump is making are necessary concessions. It drags out the fight before it starts and thins out the Cabal’s resources. The Cabal would otherwise use their full force to depose Trump in the most violent of ways if he got his dream team up there at the start. Then, his most loyal and proven teammates would be exhausted by the end, with nothing to show for it. You wouldn’t call in the brick layers before the frame is up, would you?

Furthermore, you can’t risk spooking Cabal too early. If you call in the full squad at the start, it means you’re about to go full ham. They can interpret it no other way. Escalation isn’t preferred, especially when everyone is already so trigger happy. There’s nothing more provoking than putting all your forces on the front line on day one.

Ultimately, this is a part of the Deal Making process — to let them have a few picks so you can cut down on the spies and traitors. The more “friends” you have at the start, the more likely it is one of them will stab you in the back. Again, you can always trust a known enemy to attack you. It’s your friends with which you must be far more cautious.

Besides, if you are trying to make some deals, it’s best not to come with a fully stocked army hovering over the discussion table. It might make them a bit anxious, don’t you think?

Give him some time. It’s the Cabal whose clock is ticking. They’re the ones trying to keep everything they swept under the rug from spewing out. Trump and White Hats just have to wait until they’re too tired to keep shoveling the crap.