When a wolf lectures rabbits on foreign policy:
Donald Trump gave an amazing speech about his approach to US foreign policy on Wednesday, at least according to Donald Trump. At an event sponsored by the Center for the National Interest, the Republican presidential frontrunner delivered a 5,000-word speech touching on his criticisms of the Obama administration’s approach to national security, the need to whip US allies into shape, and promised that he alone can restore what he described as the lost standing of the US in world affairs.
A Trump foreign policy would eschew “nation building” but would still somehow promote stability worldwide. It would teach our allies to trust us again, even while making a point of behaving “unpredictably.” It would teach the US military to “fight to win,” as opposed to…whatever it is he thinks the military does now.
To the rabbit, keeping stable countries ruled by effective leaders, being loyal to allies and unpredictable to enemies, looking out for our interests, and removing all the PC crap that hampers our military effectiveness is just madness.
By contrast, overthrowing stable friendly governments to create anarchy, betraying allies and appeasing enemies, sacrificing our interests for everyone else’s, and expending our troop’s lives for foreigners who hate us is just common sense.
Notice how in the r-selected world, avoiding conflict is a prime directive. If you are rich, you give away whatever you have to, to try and quell any animus toward you. That idea is as deeply encoded in the rabbit brain as fighting when attacked is in the K-strategist’s brain.
Indeed, after 9/11 there were rabbits telling us we had to figure out what we did to make the Muslims mad at us, and we needed to change our ways so they wouldn’t be so angry at us in the future. That is a reproductive-strategy-related cognitive instinct. It doesn’t operate on logic or reason – it just is within the rabbit brain.
Here, those same instincts are hearing Trump’s speech, and they can’t even begin to grasp the ideas he presents.
The good thing is Trump is beginning the process of molding all of the populace into K-strategists. I believe most humans are programmed, so that if they see “K-strategery” going on around them, they will begin to adapt to operate as K-strategists themselves.
Trump is probably the one man who could shift the r/K balance absent a full on apocalypse. As such, it is tough to avoid wondering if he is some sort of fated plan for the nation.
[…] Trump Blows Fuses In Rabbit Brains […]
Dear God I hope so.
“As such, it is tough to avoid wondering if he is some sort of fated plan for the nation.”
Indeed, after 9/11 there were rabbits telling us we had to figure out what we did to make the Muslims mad at us, and we needed to change our ways so they wouldn’t be so angry at us in the future. That is a reproductive-strategy-related cognitive instinct. It doesn’t operate on logic or reason – it just is within the rabbit brain.
9/11 was a defensive measure taken by the Arabs. It was simply tit for tat.
Are you claiming that tit-for-tat strategy doesn’t “operate on logic or reason”? Most game theorists would disagree. What is more logical and reasonable than reciprocity?
You’ve really hurt your credibility with the post, in my eyes at least.
I don’t believe Trump is fated, I believe in a creator that gave us all free will. That aside, I see Trump as a white man [yep] who thought: ”there is an opportunity to reach out to k-strategists, in the large numbers they currently comprise, and I have the money and intellect to do so.” So far he has spent very little of, his or anyone’s, in running very successfully against well funded foes. He is a freak, but a most welcomed one. Where he goes from here, winning the nomination, the presidency, is still an unknown. And if, once in the White House, can he really do anything vs the establishment that will still be there, that is a huge question. Fun though to live in this time.
Just a white Free, American
Was the second Iraq invasion / war an r or K thing in your opinion? Invading in the first place seems like it would be K but the naivete about how things would play out, maybe not so much K.
It depends on whose perspective you use. If you look at someone who thought Saddam had WMDs, and he might give them to Al Qaida, I’d say it was K. Being willing to expend our men’s lives to bring democracy to the people there, and make the Mideast into some Utopia, is concern for out-group interests. K would have killed everyone in the way and installed a friendly dictator which is what I get the impression a Trump policy would have looked like. It also would have produced much greater stability and safety for the US, and far fewer wounded warriors.
Trump has been pretty clear he thought, from the beginning, going into Iraq was a mistake. If I understand your view of a K approach of killing everyone and installing a friendly dictator then that is not what Trump claims. Perhaps sometimes r is the better approach, sometimes K. And that is less predictable, also something Trump talks about. What do you think? From Trump’s speech: “Although not in government service, I was totally against the war in Iraq, very proudly, saying for many years that it would destabilize the Middle East. Sadly, I was correct, and the biggest beneficiary has been has been Iran, who is systematically taking over Iraq and gaining access to their very rich oil reserves, something it has wanted to do for decades.”
In truth, I think Trump is more r/K breakdown than K-strategist, ie more libertarian than conservative or more Grizzly Bear than wolf. A real libertarian is more K-strategist than any establishment republican, though. Emotionally, I want to say it would be better in many regards, especially for leading a nation that has very little real threat. But that is my emotional inclination, so I am probably biased, and that might not be completely true.
You would have had to been a damn fool to think Saddam Hussein would ever give weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaeda even if he had them. Al Qaeda couldn’t operate in Iraq while Saddam ran the place.
True. But I could see Saddam, who hated the Bushes, seeing AQ as a useful idiot, and passing them a WMD under the table, to keep his fingerprints off of any attack. There was a story that some thought West Nile was a weak bio-attack by Iraq because of a book an Iraqi defector wrote a year or two before the first cases showed up, saying Saddam intended to use it. Between that, and the fact the US version seemed more potent and caused more Guillian Barr, it could have been.