{"id":2391,"date":"2009-11-13T16:35:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-13T23:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/?p=2391"},"modified":"2012-07-08T17:49:27","modified_gmt":"2012-07-09T00:49:27","slug":"simplicity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/simplicity\/","title":{"rendered":"American Simplicity – The Japanese View"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/b> long time ago a Japanese document fell into U.S. hands inadvertently after the war. The document was entitled ‘Negotiating With The Americans’. We recall it now as Obama is in Japan. For the first time a U.S. President meets a psychologically independent Tokyo government well aware of American strategic and systemic failures.<\/a><\/p>\n

The original Japanese assessments while blunt would only be ten times more on point today. Examples? U.S. negotiators are difficult to understand because Americans are ethnically and regionally diverse. Negotiations with Americans are especially difficult because Americans are unpredictable and erratic. The Japanese back then speculated, however, it was possible that American ignorance of basic facts might be a clever ploy – ‘their lack of humility in such cases may mean that they really know what they’re doing.’ Now they know.
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T<\/b>he memo (which is not classified) continues: <\/p>\n

Americans have had a world leadership role since the end of [World War II]. They understand and are proud of their status, but seem not to know how they got there . . . Americans also take as given the tremendous wealth of their country, including rich deposits of minerals and petroleum as well as agricultural land. They waste these resources as if there were no end to them, spreading out over the land inefficiently and not seeming to notice. [ The memo goes on to offer fairly perceptive takes on American personalities, bureaucratic practices and preference for confrontational conversations. The author speculates that the U.S. domestic court system with its adversarial system designed to reveal the higher truth motivates negotiator mind sets].<\/p>\n

When talks are concluded the U.S. side always feels some kind of euphoria. They like to think they have won, which is part of the adversary style common to them. They may engage in some public gloating to justify themselves to their countrymen. This is annoying when they do, but I suppose we should try to understand such behavior and recognize that they really cannot help themselves and do not mean any harm.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

W<\/b>hat would today’s version read like? Our friend over at Global Paradigms offers one clue with a terrific tour d’horizon<\/i> of where the center of gravity in Asia is heading.<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A long time ago a Japanese document fell into U.S. hands inadvertently after the war. The document was entitled ‘Negotiating With The Americans’. We recall it now as Obama is in Japan. For the first time a U.S. President meets a psychologically independent Tokyo government well aware of American strategic and systemic failures. The original […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[259],"class_list":{"0":"post-2391","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-the-asia-pacific-dawn","7":"tag-foreign-policy","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}