I don’t like to write about politics though I did it a lot when Trump was president, he was a special case, to put it mildly. But now politics in the world is back to “normal” I had some hope that I could forget about it again, at least on this blog. But last week I got really disappointed in president Biden, not that I had high hopes on many issues but maybe he would be less of a…I don’t know. He more or less ended one war and immediately starts provoking China out of some idea that China is dangerous and banging on your chest is the only solution to stop them. I know that international politics is complicated with thousands of moving parts but once again a group of privileged, (middle)-aged man decide the direction the world goes. I understand that a captain of a ship can not steer the boat democratically but a nation is not a ship and should not be treated like one.

9/11 was a tragedy but looking back you might say that a few dozen of these old man decided that it was necessary to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dead mothers and children and trillions of dollars wasted…and for what. World politics is that simple, they make it seem so complicated but it is just a few people in a room deciding the fate of nations. And now Biden acts in similar ways. He might tell you how complicated it all is and how hard it was to make these decisions but that is bullshit. If George Bush had not listened to the criminals in his cabinet and instead of invading these countries just hunted down Bin Laden, the world would be different now, maybe not better but probably also not worse. The same choice has Biden, he can just ease back, stop all the rhetoric and give China some space. The same goes off course for Xi Jinping who is not better then Biden or Trump before. But what does the west have to lose, does it matter if China starts to play a bigger role in the world. Who are we to decide what is good for the world, the west has dictated the last 1000 years of world history and not always for the best? China might have a Communist regime that suppresses a lot of people but when is the last time that China invaded two countries, killed a bunch of people and left leaving a mess? The west, and especially America has no ground to stand on when it comes to morals and what is good for the world. China might not be better but Xi Jinping is no Mao Zedong who was an ideological mass murderer. Xi Jinping seems to be the typical leader that things he is the messiah like so many other world leaders but he will not stir the pot too much, afraid as he is to lose it all.

What should be the stance of a good leader or group of nations? If you have heard of the Japanese martial art called Aikido, I don’t have to explain myself. If not, I will try to keep it short: The philosophy of Aikido is self defense where you use the (negative and kinetic) energy of your opponent to neutralize the thread. If someone, for example, tries to hit you with a fist you can use the forwards emotion of the fist to “guide” him or her to the floor. But the idea is off course that you avoid any conflict by smartly deflecting the actions of the opponent. I was hoping that Biden would be more like an old, 7^th dan Aikido master then a MMA fighter who wants to prove his manliness.