Post #1944372

So, to get to world leaders, companies, etc. the "weak counter" is to interact in a way that he goes away. Just capitulate. That just shows him he needs to do it more because he's winning these encounters. The "hard counter" is to stroke his ego and waste his time. The ego stroking "gives" him something without actually giving him anything, and the time wasting means he gets bored and leaves. The important thing is that he knows you're not going to slip up because you don't want him to leave. You show you're just good at this game of interaction. There's an anecdote from Jason Alexander about how he would deal with the mob and it's instructive. So Albo's been doing the thing (there's a bit of "don't be noticed" weak counter as well), more or less. Says nice things, pays lip service, gives up a bit of stuff to not lose even more, but more or less he's able to negotiate fairly well for Australia. BUUUTTT that brings us to the US using Australia's US bases to launch attacks on Iran, and Australia's policy being more or less "it's fine". This is still playing the game, sure, but the US isn't the only player. At some point the thing Trump costs us from the interactions is actually our relations with other nations. This feels like a mistake.