- Know who to put in any given room. Know, that the audience might not be able to present an argument fully, play off of that… I learned a bunch today.
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Some of us are looking at the situation - fully, granularly. Without the conceptual arguments of “what would be needed to still respect and fear an interest group after something unprecedented happened in their sphere of influence” (“lets teach them a lesson”), because, values…, of course, values - values, human rights, and the rest of the uniquely western concepts (?) you werent prepared to compromise on in 2014, or earlier. But what a mistake that was, right? Speaking of realpolitics…
Here, have the multilingual guy at Davos summarize all the values for you. At once!
Values and realpolitics, they go together like butter and honey. This has nothing to do with punishing an entity that attacked them in your immediate sphere of influence. Nothing with making an example out of a situation, so that no one ever dares to again… Sorry, I was talking values a second ago, I think. Like in 2014, but that was a mistake. No - no, values of course, I’m certain of it now. It must have been values that geopolitics is based on. Just listen to the guy in the “The print” video. “He probably didnt defend democratic values as strongly as he should have in the past but, …”
See, its all about who you put in a given room at a time.
edit: Summery for those who dont watch: The US enters wars late, because its still sleepy. It then acts like a Poker player (advantages in uneven game theory configurations) because it is sleepy. It doesnt want a Hegemon in southeast asia, because thats natural. It left afghanistan and iraq without contingency plans of who would take over the power vacuum (it didnt by the way but…) because the new president did’t like it. Informal international relationships without contracts are the new “great”, because india isnt as complicated as europe where everyone wants to build a Nato or structures like that. (Gorbatschow loves informal contracts…) In india - geopolitics would be much more personal, this is more modern, this is more flexible, this is the wave of the future. The Washington Post correspondent teaching a class of young geopolitical strategists then goes into a comparison on why sometimes arranged marriages are better than love marriages, because you then only find out later that the person is really someone else entirely.
Know your audience, know the room you are in. Know their level of education. Then pronounce common values.
A teacher at the side that always just nods with his head helps. End with -- the american indian geopolitical relationship will deepen over time, not because we actively want it to, but we have so many mutual interests, where it simply is beneficial. Then remind everyone of your long lasting history, and the common enemy in the british with whom you are in the five eyes alliance, because no one in the world wants them back in a hegemonial role anymore.
Tell them that Kissinger and Chomsky often hold the same opinion (they don’t click), when they ask a difficult question, then sideline both of those.
Then tell them that it is very important for mutual understanding to have student exchange programs, and that they should dock on at american indian friendship institutes to catch a few free semesters abroad.
And when they ask about non democratic tendencies, tell them, that foreign politics isnt like a formula, its much more free flow, where everyone is bound to make mistakes sometimes, but you have to find your own conviction on who is right, and then try to do it better the next time around.
Thats - youth education.
