Much as I like Pompeo, and I do love that fucking guy, I kinda hope that when Trump wins the reelection he’ll make Bolton Secretary of Defence. Like Nixon did with Kissinger.
In a way, being advisor gives him a lot more freedom and manoeuvrability to get specific things done, but a brain like that behind the Defence department would be a real fucking thing.
Lot could get done.
Hold on, am i thinking Secretary of State?
Gringos have real weird names for the ministries.
Yeah, Secretary of State is what I mean. Though maybe Secretary of Defense would be Even better, and leave old Pompeo there where he is. One gets the feeling he has a natural chemistry with the Arabs.
Of course, the real sticking point in Venezuela is not the executive. That’s almost a simple enough thing to deal with. Chinese can be reasoned with, also Russia.
The real problem is that the economy itself and all sorts of weird poles of power are controlled by military dudes like fiefdoms.
That’s why both Maduro and Guaido still stand. The international community, China and nobody really knows what to do about these guys. The do not fuck around. And they don’t strictly answer to Maduro.
They also run one of the most profitable drug smuggling operations on the planet.
One thing that might tilt it all against China in the geopolitics of it is how much Hezbollah and other crazy bastards, but mostly Hezbollah is involved in that drug business and also has all sorts of operating bases there. Even the Chinese know it might be taking it too far to protect those guys, specially as things heat up with Iran. Only the goddamn Europeans right now are standing with Iran, and Russia sorta kinda, but Russia will always always be reasonable at the end of the day.
The Putin strategy is always to push and push really hard and relentless, so when the pull inevitably comes he can reasonably step back some and still have a net profit on his hands.
China is similar, but without the stepping back. That’s why Trump had to do something about it and just directly confront them. Going well so far, everybody’s reasonable when the Mafia knocks at your door. Still, it ain’t being easy. China is the definition itself of driving a hard bargain. Geez. a decade more and the US would no longer have been in a position to do what Trump is doing.
Also, China tends to aim for places with less controversy. That’s why when nobody was looking they bought up Venezuela and half of Africa.
another good reason to love Putin. He goes specially where he’s not supposed to go.
He went like hey everybody, look at Ukraine. And then he invaded Ukraine. Beautiful bastard.
Same with Turkey and Iran. always backs them right when they’re in the spotlight. It sends a message, go ahead and fuck with me. But that’s part of the thing of carving out a position where walking back a little afterwards still results in gain.
And in a more global way it also puts a premium on expanding anywhere. You never know when Russia will annoyingly pop up and make everything difficult. So that then they are guaranteed some constant low frequency breathing room.
For a couple of years now I have thought that Venezuela could be a beautiful place where China and the US, and lesser extent Russia, can both invest and have influence and work out what the future will look like.
Like what North Korea could have been were the leftists democrats not traitors.
The problem there is that the ruling opposition party right now, the one Guaido is a part of, Voluntad Popular, Popular Will, are both the ones with most balls and the ones most xenophobically unwilling to work with China. they keep swying they will reneg on all debt to China.
Not reasonable. But we’ll see, nobody has enough of a foothold to be able to plan that far ahead into the future.