Whatever Will Be, Will Be
"I owe him a strike!" Markog roared at my saviour.
"This is a matter of honour!"

"You think we conquered the galaxy world with honour?
You children are all the same."
Galad GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP snorted, and attacked.

- excerpt from The Lion: Son of the Forest, subverting the Arthurian trope of the Green Knight


The omission of "honour" from this blog's ongoing promotion of "Strength, Respect and Strategy" was always intentional, as it happens. There is little honour to be derived in decapitating (quite literally) a foe during ongoing negotiations, as the Iranian foreign minister (for now) has bitterly complained; but it is also entirely true, as the leading quote states, that this world was never quite won using Honour, but Strength (re: Miller's very-relevant assertion). This is one of those Truths that is perhaps extremely inappropriate to refer to in polite company - but nearly impossible to dispute nonetheless.



Sometimes it do feel like that
[Translated: Well, you will not accept it no matter how I try to explain it; perhaps only through (painful) self-experience will you understand.]
(Source: manhuagui.com)


This point will soon be returned to, but I suppose I may owe some clarification on why I have not been very forthcoming on having in-person conversations of late. About this, there is a famous koan on a man hanging from a tree by his teeth over a cliff, only to be asked by a person below as to the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West. If he does not answer, he fails his duty, and if he answers, he loses his life.

While the application to my personal prediacment is not quite as dramatic, it remains in practice difficult - if not impossible - to maintain both honesty and social acceptability. A person may desire many things: to speak the truth (as far as he can make it out to be), to be popular, to be inoffensive and so on, and it frankly is hard to attain more than one of these objectives simultaneously, at least when discussing matters of any import. It is actually not that tough to "read the room" and figure out "the right thing" to say (i.e. social savvy, street-smartness, etc.), you know. It is simply that these utterances would often be quite simply untrue - and there will be a price to pay in allowing such to corrupt one's mental models.

This is all the more critical moving forward, with the recent proliferation of A.I. conversational agents that are entirely happy to obsequiously agree with - or at least contort their discourse around - one's conversation leads. It can be understood how alluring this can get, especially when augmented with a cute avatar, given how great current LLMs are at maintaining a friendly and upbeat (if somewhat generic) tone. The problem is, of course, that the original input may not actually be correct, and that the chatbot would be in an unparalleled position to influence its user's perspectives (i.e. unmatched propaganda value) - which could be relevant given the government's latest push for mass A.I. access.

This policy comes alongside a supposed push for the humanities (combined with A.I., it goes without saying), which may be timely given dwindling admissions, basically because of insufficient income potential. As oft demonstrated here, historical evidence is quite useful in modelling and projecting the future, which has to be particularly critical in a changing world (as recognized by the local authorities, to their credit) in which the old "rules" may not hold. Truly, how many today remember the lessons of previous conflicts? Next to no veterans of the Great War are left; those who came of age during the Second World War are well into their nineties; heck, I daresay most don't even know of - or want to learn about - the primal twilight struggle behind the Cold War, and how close it got to mutual annihilation.

And when the (maybe not so) surprise pop quiz comes - how will all these people do?


王道、霸道


Note rare military garb, instead of the usual Western or Mao suit
(Sources: twitter.com, 4plebs.org)

Coincidentally, President Xi has just made almost exactly the same points on China's relative popularity as explained here in January, in particular on their provision of constructive development, as opposed to America's more... muscular approach. Still, it has to be emphasized that this difference in focus is to a large extent structural: America simply can't play - and win - the same game, because they have (unwisely) abandoned far too much of their construction and manufacturing capacity. The exception would be for the military (to the tune of about a trillion dollars annually), which would however be mostly dead weight if unused. Given this, why should it be so unexpected that they seek out opportunities to apply it?

Thus the Venezuela raid, from which GEOTUS has since extracted a ton of gold as his war booty as predicted, and then now Iran while channeling Ivan Drago*. Plans for a puppet leader Selected Presidency (or Shah) have however yet to manifest with Iran pledging to fight as long as needed while flailing indiscriminately and (expectedly) closing the Strait of Hormuz (other than for China, it seems) to ramp up oil prices and invite diplomatic pressure on the U.S. and Israel.

However, while commentators including new "prescriptive history" hotness Professor Jiang** have forecast America's eventual "defeat" with reference to their past quagmires in Iraq and then Afghanistan - both with arguably inferior military power and territorial advantages - they may well have neglected the innate genius of the GOD-EMPEROR. To wit: America's previous losses (stretching back to Vietnam) were in trying to "nation-build" after the initial invasions, and domestic war weariness due to a steady stream of returning casualties. One then figures that they can keep up a bombing campaign nigh-indefinitely (i.e. the decapitate-until-we-get-somebody-happy-to-work-with-us plan)... unless another player with comparable productive capabilities (i.e. China) joins in.


Emperor or Hegemon?
(Source: hani.co.kr)

There has thus far been little indication of China getting directly involved, though, first and foremost because of an inability to project credible force at that distance; while they have three (not-so-advanced and untested) aircraft carriers, this is probablly insufficient to contest American control, much less the incoming French armada as well. Moreover, China has just raised their non-reliance on military force (away from their own [claimed] borders, at a minimum) as part of their moral superiority over the U.S., who honestly would probably be quite willing to embarrass China in a direct confrontation.

Further on this, China has recently promoted a (Confucian-based) narrative contrasting the Way of Kings (王道, promoting benevolence) against the Way of the Hegemon (霸道, relying on force) in their contest against America, following on from their Foreign Minister's description of such from their tariffs reaction last year, and as also implied by Xi to our Prime Minister during his state visit that June. Definitely, opinions may differ on this (as with our declaration that the GOD-EMPEROR understands the essence of Kings), and it might be noted that both Ways presuppose a monarch at the top.

Continuing, it should also be noted that the original philosophy actually recognizes both Ways as complementary - yin and yang, as it were; while China's refusal thus far to resort to force and hard power (i.e. "law of the jungle", as being imposed by the Lion King of America) might play well to the Reddit peanut gallery, I daresay attitudes to military strength (and willingness to apply it) are much hazier amongst actual governments. Economic potential is one thing, but what use is it to an ally or partner, if they just get couped and put under new management (as promised for Cuba by GEOTUS, and as projected in the previous post) by the thus-invincible God of War? The real Game should begin only after Cuba, in any case...



果然是金毛红衫的霸道！***
[N.B. It is further hinted that Ryu (Asian "Dragon") and Ken (your average blond American) are actually unbeatable when linking up... the implication which is left as an exercise to the reader until the next post on the subject.]
(Source: manhuagui.com)

[To be continued...]


[*Which brings us to, why did he name his U.N. competitor, the Board of Peace? Because you may never get bored of winning, but they sure are getting bored of peace. No refunds, btw.]

[**Interestingly, his approach has been observed to be inspired by Asimov's psychohistory, and about time too. Can't really fault his calling Singapore out for money laundering either, and we may soon see how much "face" the big boys want to give, going forward, as The Greatest Game gets more serious.]

[***This is from the non-canon but pretty well-known Street Fighter III Hong Kong comic from the nineties, that delves unexpectedly deeply into various philosophical themes, on a re-read. After awhile, it is possible to imagine how the artists and writers of the genres might have influenced each other - which could be an entire thesis in itself. More on this next time.]