IT’S NOT 4D CHESS, IT’S JUST USING HUMAN NATURE (INCENTIVES). —“The South Kore

IT’S NOT 4D CHESS, IT’S JUST USING HUMAN NATURE (INCENTIVES).

—“The South Korean middle class was more afraid of Trump than they were of Kim, and this fear of the US, gave an unusually dovish South Korean government the political cover it needed to approach DPRK without being called ‘traitors’. If Trump actually understands what he did, then sure: he’s cosmic-brain-4th-dimensional-chess-deal-artist-God-Emporer.”— James Brittingham

You don’t have to be that thoughtful, as much as just understand human nature. Trump is sensitive to status signals himself, and so he knows how to use them to influence others. In this case I suspect that his intuition was right and he simply collected enough information (or had it forced upon him by the general staff) and used people’s fear of his ‘uncertainty’.

He is player. He plays people. It’s not complicated.

I mean, “Listen, China, we don’t want our troops there any longer. I want to shrink the US presence abroad. If we come here and have to fix this problem, we’re gonna stay, and we’re gonna blame you for making us come here. So either fix this problem or have us on your fucking doorstep with everything we’ve got.”

The chinese increase sanctions, trump doesn’t ‘disrespect’ kim by accepting a meeting with him (which is what kim wants, status), and the south koreans have to seize the opportunity because they’re afraid if they don’t Trump will simply be ‘unpredictable’ (which in east asian parlance is a very evil word).

The south koreans and kim as actors, they get the ‘face’, (credit), the koreans show they are in control of their destiny, trump gets his win, and gets to be fawningly appreciative of all sides, and say it was always possible if his predecessors were f–ckheads.

I mean, that’s the game.

(I think very similarly, because I have read a great deal of military history and grand strategy, and applied it in business the same way he has – albeit at a much smaller scale. )