Enemies and Competitors

We see a long-held view by business leaders coming out in a statement by the US President Donald Trump that Russia is a competitor rather than an enemy.  Many are skeptical of that claim, and the closer a country is to Russia, the harder that is to swallow.  That is certainly a business approach to how countries make money, but that is also a much broader word than it has been taken to mean.

It is one of the reasons governments and businesses are want to call hostilities between countries by its real name:  war.  Businesses find it much harder to do business with a declared enemy.  Exposure of those deals can lead to embarrassment like that of companies that traded with Germany and Japan leading up to the second World War.  Denial is harder after that exposure.  So building guns and ammunition for Russian forces in Ukraine is OK if Russia is not at war with Ukraine.  Try selling that idea to the Ukrainians who need US weapons to stay even with the forces Russia has put in there - and they are getting them.  

But, I do know his context for calling Russia a competitor.  In business you deal with a lot of companies that are all called “competitors”, but some of them are more than that implies.  Some will take your cooperation as a “temporary evil” and stab you in the back, taking your contracts in the mix, stealing some of your best talent, and undercutting your labor rates at every turn.  They force their teaming partners to accept rates they can’t meet themselves.  They will cooperate long enough to get the contract, but cut your company out of actual performance, even though the contracts has requirements for such things.  And, everyone knows where these companies are.  They avoid doing business with them, unless there is some big contracts involved.  Even the worst of them still can manage to get teaming partners when they bid.   Everyone smiles at team meetings and pretends to cooperate when the client is around.  Most of the real actions take place above people doing the work.

The President is smiling and cooperating with a country that is trying to undermine the democratic institutions our country is founded upon.  He knows what they have been doing, and he knows what effects that has had.  He has a large number of people who gather intelligence for him and they do am OK job most of the time.  He is not naively approaching Russia and pretending that Russia is our friend.  He is like all those business leaders who deal with the pariah companies that steal your contracts.  “It’s just business”, they say.  I’m sure that is what Putin would say to Trump in a private meeting.  They both know it is a lie, but they smile and try to get past the formalities so they can do business where it can be done, even knowing that will not always go well.  A business ends up working with some real bad companies to stay in business, and President Trump knows that better than Putin who has been in government his whole life.