TRUMPING PUTIN

Let’s make this clear at the outset:  The world’s most powerful man isn’t.

Yesterday (12/14), Forbes Magazine issued its list of “The World’s Most Powerful People 2016.”  74 names are listed, one for every 100 million of the world’s 7.4 billion.  It’s fun to see Zero plummeting to #48, Chuckie Schumer dead last at #74, and Hillary not on the list at all.

But it’s a Forbes Farce to claim Vlad Putin is #1.  It’s like claiming the naked emperor really has some clothes on.  Putin has been pulling off the world’s greatest bluff for years now – 2016 is the fourth year in a row he’s been Forbes’ Numero Uno.

It’s like all those ubiquitous pictures of a bare-chested big-muscled Putin riding horses and killing tigers – when the guy is five-foot-six, and I know from personal experience not that strong.  It’s like all those giant statues of Lenin everywhere in the days Russia was the Soviet Union, when Lenin was actually five-foot-one.

Russia’s GDP has been shrinking for years and is now at $1.26 trillion, barely above Spain’s.  What if Spain claimed superpower status threatening the world?  Russia’s life expectancy is 110th of countries in the world, lower than Bangladesh or North Korea.

Russia is facing demographic disaster, as its population continues to decline at over 700,000 per year.  As Russian women refuse to have babies or abort them, Moslem women in Russia are having them by the vanload.

What city in Europe do you suppose has the largest Moslem population?  It’s Moscow at over 2.5 million.  Russia’s total population of 127 million is already 20% Moslem, 24 million and growing.  Russia has a conscript army.  Over half the soldiers in the Russian Army today are Moslem – the conscript quotas couldn’t be met otherwise.

The officers brutalize the conscripts terribly, the Moslems most of all.  Particularly when they are drunk, which is often because so many of the Russian Officer Corps are alcoholics.

Putin’s military is a Potemkin force.  It couldn’t conquer Romania now.  It can’t even take Ukraine’s port of Mariopol, necessary for land access to Crimea.  Ukraine’s army is sadly pathetic, but even it can hold the Russkies to a standstill.

Putin’s economy has no future.  It’s a one-trick pony, selling a basic commodity – oil and gas – and cannot possibly compete with American fracking.

Trump’s getting the EPA out of the way of Drill Baby Drill means America is soon to be the world’s energy superpower – which dooms any attempt of Russia to push its weight around with oil/gas threats.

The notion that Trump will be Putin’s puppet is ludicrous.  It’s the other way around.  The only way for Pootie to not be is to be China’s puppet instead.

The Chicoms can hardly wait for this – since it means they can accelerate their plans for Chinese Siberia.

The bottom line to all of this is that Putin is a bully who’s bluffing.  And that guarantees he’s going to lose if he tries going up against Trump.

That’s because Russians play chess, while Americans play poker.

Chess demands great skill and intelligence, particularly at developing complex long-range strategies and anticipating your opponent’s moves.  But it bears little resemblance to life in the real world.

Chess is completely static and open.  Nothing is hidden.  Poker is very different.  You have to guess what your opponent has and the extent to which he is bluffing.  In business, in politics, in life in general, the folks who know how to play poker will almost always fare better than those who know how to play chess.

And Trump the consummate deal-maker knows how to smoke out a bluff better than anyone.

It’s especially easy to call a bluff when you know the guy across the table trying his best not to signal a “tell” has a lousy hand, and you’re holding aces.

Now – what I’ve just done is laid out a hypothesis with a prediction.  There’s no doubt that Putin will not instantly fold with Trump, but will continue bluffing until Trump calls his hand.

So here are two immediate tests for my prediction.

First, Trump has to tell Putin to get his missiles the hell out of Kaliningrad.  Putin’s audacity in placing nuclear-ready Iskander missiles in the Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania is completely unacceptable.  He is threatening nuclear war because Eastern Europe dares defend itself with missile defense.

Trump cannot tolerate nuclear blackmail and saber-rattling.  He has to call Putin’s bluff.

Second, Trump has to tell Putin to stop his support for the terror-masters of Tehran.  There can be no Russia-US “alliance to fight Radical Islam,” that is being called for as long as Russia is an ally of the world’s major supporter of Islamic terrorism and imperialism.

A real US-Russia team up would mean a joint effort to destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria.  As Caroline Glick explains in today’s TTP (12/15), Hezbollah receives $400 million a year from Iran, has a thousand fighters in Syria and Iraq, and has colonized Lebanon for Iran.

A real US-Russia alliance would target Iran’s mullah regime and destabilize it out of power.  Any proclaimed Trump-Putin partnership that doesn’t do this is a fraud.

Trump trumping Putin should be like the Patriots playing Yale.  It shouldn’t be a contest – but one that will be fascinating to watch.