When We Were King*

If only we had sane, country first politicians in office who could run a functioning Congress that could take strategic advantage of the economic woes and geo-political fallout from the heavy-handed bullying and uncivil friendships that China has brought upon itself.

Yeah… if only.

Twenty years from now, if not sooner, when the dollar is no longer king* and the sole international currency of choice and, leveraging all the secrets it has stolen during the past decades from all our previously leading sectors, China has become the world’s leading economy and has manned a military base on the moon strong enough to thwart our dreams of space dominance, we’re going to be kicking ourselves in our bloated and ignorant political butts for missing this window of opportunity.

Or something like that…


Mr. Xi has been trying to stabilize relations with Washington, apparently pressed by China’s economic troubles and a desire to reduce Beijing’s diplomatic isolation. “We have a thousand reasons to grow the relationship between China and the United States, and none at all to ruin it,” Mr. Xi told American lawmakers in Beijing recently.

But with mutual distrust running deep, any easing of antagonism between the two sides could be tenuous.

Behind Public Assurances, Xi Jinping Spread Grim Views on U.S., New York Times, November 13, 2023

*non-gender specific

An Expression of Love

Don’t worry, my relentless efforts to completely overpower you politically is nothing more than a love-like expression… 😘


The actual exercise of physical violence substitutes for the psychological relations between two minds, which is of the essence of political power, the physical relation between two bodies.” He wrote that “all foreign policy is the struggle for the minds of men.” Genuine political power couldn’t be forced on people. It was complex, organic, unquantifiable. Elsewhere, Morgenthau compared it to love.

The Book That Shaped Foreign Policy for a Generation Has More to Say, NewYork Times, May 9, 2020
Virtually as soon as it was published, Hans Morgenthau’s “Politics Among Nations” became one of the most influential books of the 20th century. Credit…Associated Press [Via the New York Times]

#alonetogetherexpressingourlovepolitically

The Disposition Matrix

From the Washington Post National Security lead story Plan for hunting terrorists signals U.S. intends to keep adding names to kill lists.

If something such as a Kill List wasn’t creepy sounding enough for you, how about a Disposition Matrix?
I expect we will be hearing this term repeatedly for a long time to come.