Bouvard on Nuclear Diplomacy's Hidden Strategic Purpose

It's impossible not to know that one can't make a deal in which one party agrees to never have nuclear weapons, so something else is going on here. It's really quite a spectacle.

@Imperius__13 If you have something to say about this particular deal you can do so, because that's what I'm following. Strategic shaping has to have a shape.

@Imperius__13 Many people are pointing to the China angle, and that s certainly there. The idea, presumably, is that by removing China's ally and stabilizing the region internally, the US can shift its focus. But those things have to happen, and that is the focus now.

@TheSloppyFatBoy @Imperius__13 "Shaping" as opposed to what, then?

@TheSloppyFatBoy @Imperius__13 This still seems to me very much an open question.

@TheSloppyFatBoy @Imperius__13 Maybe, but I don't really know what Trump's game is here, and doubt whether anyone does. Everyone tries to match it to some pattern, but it doesn't seem to me to fit any pattern I'm familiar with. All I know is that it's not finished yet.

@TheSloppyFatBoy @Imperius__13 I see so many interesting and compelling analysis caliming that he operating impulsively and cluelessly and others at least as interesting and compelling that he's following a very definite plan. I lean toward the latter but can't know for sure.