State of the Union: The President, “The Big Four,” and The Fox and the Lion

“A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten wolves.”

– Machiavelli. 1532.

The Fox and the Lion: Historians point to “the most famous recent political leader with both of these animalistic traits was President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945).” By all appearances, President Trump has protected himself from traps and defended himself from wolves. Will he persevere?  We shall see. For Roosevelt, “New Deal policies are often said to have saved the capitalistic system; who led the nation through the Great Depression of the 1930s and to victory in World War II.” Again, for Trump, we shall see.

Global Threats and “The Big Four”

At the recent Global Threats & National Security Senate Intelligence Committee, Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence stated that “The Big Four” – No, not talking about the U.S. automobile industry or what some call the technology companies, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google – For Coats, “The Big Four” are  “China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.” Yet, I don’t see these countries going bankrupt or regulated.

I think my papers say it best:

• China’s power is trade and U.S. weakness is debt: China and Squaring the Circle: Have China Critics and Economists Missed the Mark of a Moving Target? Seems ironic that the U.S. sees China as a rising power and not superpower, “a country with over five thousand years of civilization…” that built the Great Wall of China. Yet, the U.S., a little over 200 years since the birth of its nation, has not managed to build its own.

• Russia’s Rules of engagement: Machiavelli and Tzu’s Protégé: Russian Prince Маскировка Supersedes U.S. CC&D. According to Hedrick Smith, The New Russians, Russians would choose stability over chaos, order over freedom.” The world has changed and with it Russia. The new order of things in the geopolitical spectrum powered by technology has given rise to sleeping giants who are now learning that Russia has managed to change the rules of the game.

• North Korea’s “Rocket Man” may teach SpaceX a thing or two: Focal Point II →40.3399° N,127.5101°E: Reassessing DPRK’s Leadership Decision Calculus for Effective Foreign Policy. It has been reported that “U.S. has four broad strategic options for dealing with North Korea and its burgeoning nuclear program…prevention, turning the screws, decapitation, and acceptance.” It appears the U.S. has come to terms with the last.

• Iran’s Puzzle Solved?: Persian Puzzle: Is U.S. Policy Towards Iran Promoting A Delphic Image? Washington Questions Nuclear Deal Obfuscating Iran’s Stable Financial Market. It is important for the West not to forget or learn anew that the strategic game of chess originated from Persia and that “Checkmate” stands for “The King is Frozen.”

Uncertainty is predominant in our world. From the 11^th Century Persian mathematician Omar Khayyám to the current Australian economist Robert Dixon, we may gain perspective. According to Peter L. Bernstein, Dixon remarked, “Uncertainty is present in the decision-making process, not so much because there is a future as that there is, and will be, a past…”

Through his poetry, Khayyám conveys a similar thought, “The Moving Finger Writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line…”

The Stage and the Chessboard

The State of the Union address is “modeled from the King’s speech on the throne” but it can be argued that it is like a play on a theatre of the world stage, and as Shakespeare notes “all the men and women merely players…” One could argue that like the pieces on a chessboard, some of the members of Congress added as their sidekicks or guests useful pawns to what they may see as the endgame.  

For a King, the threat is being in a position of no escape, capture.  Will he know when to act from strength and to position the Queen. Or when to make the move to “win a rook” and when to ally the rook with the King?  Will he strategically position the Bishop so as to “influence both wings.” And to the opposing King showcase the stealth of your line of defense, the Knight. Lastly, will he keep in check the importance of the King while reminding himself of its weakness until the endgame?

The Fox and the Lion

Franklin Roosevelt, according to David Halberstam’s, The Powers That Be,  part of his “touch,” allowed him to be on a first-name basis with reporters to the extent that “he even made up nicknames for them.”  For those reporters who got on his bad side, he “used peer pressure…” on them for asking “too difficult a question, making him look ridiculous.”  But the reporters that “laughed at every joke and pun” or ‘Roosevelt’s men’, the other reporters called them ‘The Giggle Club.’”

Keep your eye out at President Trump’s State of the Union address to see who applauds, giggles, or is made to look ridiculous in what some argue may be a tragedy and a comedy. Will the President perform for the cameras as in reality TV or “cut tape and go live”? Recall that in business and politics “You don’t sell a product, you sell the image of a product.”

In either case, I think the world has opened their eyes to “The Big Four” and seen “China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran” as Machiavelli’s idea of a prince that can “be a fox to recognize traps and a lion to frighten wolves.”