Dean's profile - The Motte

Dean Flairless 12hr ago · Edited 12hr ago

Remzen has provided a link to a claimed copy of the agreement. If true, it reads like what people think the neocon fantasies had in mind in terms of Iraq and Oil, mixed with a bit of .

Even setting aside the article's own acknowledgement of potential changes, the undefined Fund Agreement and any other parallel agreements not formally combined in this one, there are some jumping out points that are interesting in how they can be interpreted in a more... 'if you can't see how a government could twist this, you haven't tried hard enough' sense.

Starting from the Article

This first document will be followed by a Fund Agreement, which will further define the terms of the Reconstruction Investment Fund, created by the U.S. and Ukraine. That document will require ratification by Ukraine’s parliament.

'The fund agreement, which will be more specific than this first document, will be statutory law for the Ukrainian government.'

Which is to say, this document is the outlines, to be clarified in language fewer people will actually see.

Note, however, there is no claim that it will need ratification by the American Congress. So not a treaty, but...

Entering into the text itself-

The Fund will be jointly managed by representatives of the Government of Ukraine and the Government of the United States of America. More detailed terms pertaining to the Fund’s governance and operation will be set forth in a subsequent agreement (the Fund Agreement) to be negotiated promptly after the conclusion of this Bilateral Agreement.

'It will be statutory law in Ukraine for the government of the United States of America to have a significant* say in Ukrainian domestic resource projects going forward.' *Understatement to be elaborated later

This is your 'the US government, and not US commercial entities, will maintain major influence in the management of the fund, more to follow.'

The more to follow, in turn, should be strongly expected to involve, if not a controlling American interest, a prospective American government veto on the Fund's management on things that the Americans Strongly Disapprove of.

How that prospective veto will be provided will remain to be seen. It (probably) won't be a formal US government veto, and effort will be taken to present the fund as respecting Ukrainian sovereignty so it can pass the Ukrainian legislature.

Which should probably be put on the geopolitical calendar, along with expecting major propaganda narratives on the approach.

The maximum percentage of ownership of the Fund’s equity and financial interests to be held by the Government of the United States of America and the decision-making authority of the representatives of the Government of the United States of America will be to the extent permissible under applicable United States laws.

This makes more sense if you re-word with the bolded clause first, rather than buried.

This is your 'Ukrainian laws limiting foreign ownership will not apply to the United States as far as this fund and it's equities go' clause. This is, while not itself a demand for direct control, allows for outright American majority control of not just the Fund, but potentially projects from the fund.

Moreover, it moves issues of fund management litigation to the American legal system ('extent permissible under applicable US laws'), not the Ukrainian legal system. In other words, to argue that the American side of the Fund is mismanaging the Fund, this must be argued in... American federal court.

Neither Participant will sell, transfer or otherwise dispose of, directly or indirectly, any portion of its interest in the Fund without the prior written consent of the other Participant.

This is your 'Ukraine cannot force the Americans to give up any controlling interest of the Fund' clause, while enabling an American veto of Ukrainian desires to offload their own shares to anyone the Americans don't want to be able to buy in to the Fund and the monies it manages. How like that is will, in turn, be a matter of how strong the American potential veto power is.

Depending on how 'interest' is used- and I strongly doubt this is financial interest- this is likely to enable an American veto on Ukrainian government selling project elements / control shares to anyone the Americans want to resist, even as a Ukrainian decision to do so would likely water down its own control in favor of the American government's interest.

The Government of Ukraine will contribute to the Fund 50 percent of all revenues earned from the future monetization of all relevant Ukrainian Government-owned natural resource assets (whether owned directly or indirectly by the Ukrainian Government), defined as deposits of minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable materials, and other infrastructure relevant to natural resource assets (such as liquified natural gas terminals and port infrastructure) as agreed by both Participants, as may be further described in the Fund Agreement. For the avoidance of doubt, such future sources of revenues do not include the current sources of revenues which are already part of the general budget revenues of Ukraine.

This is the 'hook' for the American government to have a long-term strategic interest in Ukraine. it is the geopolitical bribe / American interest mechanism to keep the Americans engaged, and with stakes in the survival of the Ukrainian government.

This deal clause requires no specific input of the American funds, but is rather a systemic transformation of how Ukraine's natural resource extraction economy- as least the government owned portion- is run.

In maximalist terms, this language- without mitigation in the Fund Agreement- would be that 50% of revenues of ALL future resource projects would go into the US-overseen fund, even if the USA is not involved in the project. So if, say, Ukraine and Europe make their own mineral deal under Ukrainian sovereign control, 50% of the revenue of that European investment goes to the American-influenced fund. And it's not just natural resources, it can also- with the agreement of both US and UKR- also include other critical infrastructure, such as gas terminals and ports.

While this does not effect 'current' sources of revenues, meaning those could be further invested into and expanded, it does open up negotiating space to claim jurisdiction of future new resource investments that provide money to the Ukrainian government. If China wants to open up a new agreement, and start a new mine on a new find, then 50% of the revenue- not the profits, the revenue- goes into the American-managed Fund, regardless of how Ukraine and China split the remainder.

In more moderate forms, this is likely to be tempered by (undecided) Fund Agreement and the interpretation of 'relevant.' One should probably expect this to apply to projects heavily invested in by the Fund Agreement.

Which- itself- would be a very, very potent influence measure... because that would mean that any government-owned natural resource fund that uses this fund as seed capital- say as part of a joint venture between the Fund, Ukrainian Industry, and Europe- would, as long as the deposit is formally owned by the Ukrainian government, plausible send 50% revenue here.

Since the Ukrainian government will want to use this fund to invest in major infrastructure efforts, especially if it can be used as a matching capital share with other investors (say 25% Fund, 25% Europe, 25% UKR govt, and 25% private), any infrastructure project this fund is invested to should be expected to hit the threshold of 50% revenue to the fund... and while that may be used to cover the other investor interests, it also leaves 50% of the revenue back in the influence of US+UKR management, which is now more able to invest in more things.

-break-

Bringing both varients together- regardless of whether it's a maximalist or 'moderate' form, this clause gives the US influence on Ukrainian natural resource economics that scales with the power of the implicit veto. If the veto is strong, then American interests have to be considered from the start of any buy-in phase.

How will American buy-in be considered? That's up to the American government. It could be the inclusion of American companies into contracts, or terms and conditions that exclude American geopolitical rivals. It could even be geopolitical favor trading... or just plain money. (Unlikely the last, though- the US can print its own dollars.)

But this clause can also be used quote/unquote 'aggressively' against third-party interests. If the Americans and Ukrainians agree that other critical infrastructure should fall under the fund... why, then the revenue has to go the fund. And while there will doubtless be means for the fund to pay the competitive business case / profits back to those prior partners... well, if they want to stay competitive, then they start acting in response to the fund.

Point is- either way, this clause allows the US to exert a greater and greater voting influence on long-term investments in Ukraine, as the more projects that fall under the fund's umbrella, the more raw revenue that does, and thus the great the influence of the US government on the resource-base investments back into the Ukrainian economy. This isn't just influence within Ukraine, but every major corporation that wants to invest in Ukraine, who either wants to capitalize on the funds capital, or has to bring its own instead.

And naturally, the more influence the US government has, the more interest the US government will have to protect that level of influence investment.

The Fund, in its sole discretion, may credit or return to the Government of Ukraine actual expenses incurred by the newly developed projects from which the Fund receives revenues.

This is your door-opening 'any expense the American government controlling share consents / approves of can be covered by the fund, and lawsuits objecting to the contrary don't have standing in court.'

More pejoratively, this is a potential slush-fund clause.

Since the expenses are those incurred by the newly developed projects, not just for the purpose of the newly developed projects, this offers a lot of leeway for interpretation and approval.

On the 'reasonable' end, this is saying the Americans and the Ukrainians may approve the Ukrainians using fund resources to pay for things like, say, mining companies starting new projects that in turn will fall under the fund. Presumably American, and not Chinese, if you to avoid that American veto. Or even just American allies, who get a Fund Approval for an investment in Ukraine in exchange for some help somewhere else.

On the 'that's not what someone whose last name ends with -tin wants it to mean' end, momma needs a new Patriot Battery to protect a Fund site. Which is, in a manner of speaking, an expense incurred by the government of Ukraine to the site owned by the government of Ukraine. And the American government official will doubtless diligently research all the facts before solemnly nodding and approving the fund being used to cover that project site expense.

And if you disagree, that is the Fund's sole discretion. And if you disagree with that, take it to American federal court, who can kick it out on standing, or on grounds of that being the Fund's sole discretion, or in general deference to US government foreign policy, and so on.

Contributions made to the Fund will be reinvested at least annually in Ukraine to promote the safety, security and prosperity of Ukraine, to be further defined in the Fund Agreement. The Fund Agreement will also provide for future distributions.

This is your 'the Fund will be expected to align to the American fiscal planning cycle, and can spend more often if the Ukrainians can persuade the Americans.' Things that directly benefit the Americans are more likely to persuade the Americans.

This is also 'the Americans will get to negotiate/write into into the Fund Agreement the means by which the Ukrainians can use these funds,' which is a way to write in anti-corruption and oversight mechanisms.

Subject to applicable United States law, the Government of the United States of America will maintain a long-term financial commitment to the development of a stable and economically prosperous Ukraine. Further contributions may be comprised of funds, financial instruments, and other tangible and intangible assets critical for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

'And other tangible and intangible assets critical for the reconstruction of Ukraine' is your weasel words for anything, up to and including weapons.

Ukrainian defense capabilities, after all, are tangle assets critical for the reconstruction of Ukraine, since Ukraine won't be able to rebuild as effectively if it can't be expected to defend itself.

The Participants reserve the right to take such action as necessary to protect and maximize the value of their economic interests in the Fund.

Also can be read as 'the United States reserves the right to take such action as to protect and maximize the value of their economic interests in the Fund that would drop precipitously if the Russians were attempt to attack Ukraine in the future and directly seize the American economic interests.'

The Fund Agreement will include appropriate representations and warranties, including those necessary to ensure that any obligations the Government of Ukraine may have to third parties, or such obligations that it may undertake in the future, do not sell, convey, transfer pledge, or otherwise encumber the Government of Ukraine’s contributions to the Fund or the assets from which such contributions are derived, or the Fund’s disposition of funds.

This is your 'the Americans expect to have oversight not only on Fund contracting processes, but also means for this not to be pre-empted by other agreements promising revenue shares to other countries instead of the Fund.'

Enforceability of the later is questionable, but this goes back to implicit American veto power over the fund that 50% of revenues are going into, and what that means in both the extreme and 'moderate' forms.

The Fund Agreement will provide, inter alia, an acknowledgment that both the Fund Agreement and the activities provided for therein are commercial in nature.

This is your 'commerce is whatever we say it is as long as money moves, and if you disagree then see us in American court' clause.

Less flippantly- this is extremely superficial covering language, as anyone remotely familiar with the American regulatory environments should know. And if you aren't familiar- the commerce clause is the primary authority mechanism that the American Congress use to pass almost any law in Congress. The American government understanding of 'commerce' is extremely broad.

Coincidentally, the Commerce clause authority-

[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,

-is also used to regulate foreign military sales.

So this part of the agreement is saying- 'Among other things, we acknowledge the Fund Agreement is commercial in nature. Signed, The People who Consider Arms Sales Commercial In Nature

The Fund Agreement will pay particular attention to the control mechanisms that make it impossible to weaken, violate or circumvent sanctions and other restrictive measures.

This is your 'the Fund, and thus 50% of all Ukrainian resource revenues governed by the Fund, will comply with American sanctions globally, and the Americans will watch the control mechanisms' clause.

Depending how it is implemented into the more nuanced fund agreement, of course.

This Bilateral Agreement and the Fund Agreement will constitute integral elements of the architecture of bilateral and multilateral agreements, as well as concrete steps to establish lasting peace, and to strengthen economic security resilience and reflect the objectives set forth in the preamble to this Bilateral Agreement.

This is the hook for getting it the Ukrainian government's commitment.

This is the 'Ukraine's bilateral relationship with the United States will be dependent upon actually implementing this agreement and all the implications above' clause.

There are a lot of interesting game theory implications for what a Ukrainian refusal to do this deal would have, especially in the context of the expected progression of the war in Ukraine over the next several months. Which, in turn, has a lot of security-politic implications that will be interesting discussion points later this year.

But too in depth for here.

The Government of the United States of America supports Ukraine’s efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace. Participants will seek to identify any necessary steps to protect mutual investments, as defined in the Fund Agreement.

This is your 'the United States government reserves the right in the future to retroactively act as if it had provided Ukraine security guarantees, without technically offering a security guarantee' clause.

is this a security guarantee in and of itself? No. Also, you wouldn't expect the security guarantee in the economic relationship document. If that happened, then a breakdown of security relationships would mean a breakdown in economic document, and clearly this is a Purely Commercial relationship. It said so right up there earlier, remember?

Is it the sort of strength of language that someone in Ukraine's position who wants an explicit security guarantee? Also no. The popular concept of a security guarantee is far more muscular.

But as a basis of comparison, consider what the NATO Article 5 guarantee actually is.

NATO Article 5 is just a promise that other states will-

take "such action as it deems necessary."

And if you remember the earlier clause of interest...

The Participants reserve the right to take such action as necessary to protect and maximize the value of their economic interests in the Fund.

So no, this isn't a security guarantee. The Government of the United States just happens to support Ukraine's efforts to obtain security guarantees, will seek to identify necessary steps to protect its interests that this fund would significantly grow over time, and reserves the right to take actions on the same scope as a NATO Article 5 invocation.

Except, as a matter of choice, not because it's a security guarantee.

Because security guarantees would make this a non-commercial document.

And because it's not a security guarantee, it won't conflict with any Russian demands that there be limits on American security guarantees for Ukraine.

Which this isn't. At all. Because that would be non-commercial. No strategically objectional things here, no siree.

This is worse and better than a security guarantee in some respects. It is a 'reserves the right to act as if we provided Ukraine a security guarantee,' which is not in contradiction with promises to not offer Ukraine a security guarantee. After all, it's not a guarantee- it's just that the United States reserves the rights to protect its / Ukraine's investments in things an expansionist, oligarchic empire might want to seize.

Which is probably why the Russians reportedly offered Trump an analogous but probably less generous rare earth minerals deal for resources in Russian occupied Ukraine.

No word yet if Russia offered an implicit American veto over the commitment of 50% of national resource projects going forward.

Context

Dean Flairless 20hr ago · Edited 16hr ago

American weapons, and implicitly greater Ukrainian involvement in the US-Russia negotiations, and longer-term American strategic interests / investment in Ukraine to 'keep the Americans in' as a counter-balance to Russia.

You remember those outrage articles from the last few weeks of Trump demanding extortionate amounts of critical minerals from Ukraine? And how Trump had paused weapon shipments of stuff already promised-but-not-delivered? And the recent Trump-Putin summit, where both Ukraine and Europe were non-invited to? This is what they were building towards.

Exact terms will be seen when it comes, but the basic premise is that this will be a typically Trumpian 'yuge' project in Ukrainian rare earth minerals, with the timeline to start being an ambiguous period in the future (presumably post-ceasefire). American corporations will get to be involved, and the general number I've seen thrown around is 50% of... something. Whether that's 50% of the profits, or 50% of the rare earth minerals extracted being allocated for US purchase / resale, or something else, it's unclear. Regardless- potentially exceptionally high by norms, where states tend to want to maintain a controlling stake in their natural resource projects, and since 50% is committed to the Americans, that means if Ukraine wants to sell other shares (such as to the Europeans), it may be doing so at its own project shares, rather than being able to dilute American project presence.

However, it's not 'just' extortion, but also transaction.

In the near term, signing is almost certain to unfreeze currently already-promised-but-undelivered weapons. Further, it probably comes in parallel with a new framework of continuing American arms support to Ukraine- probably some sort of 'we're not giving these away, but you can buy, and we can discuss favorable loans,' possibly backed by the Europeans, in a different agreeement. This will let Trump defang a non-trivial amount of the Ukraine-aid-skeptics whose motive is money, since going forward more of the weapons will be formatted as sales rather than donations. Since these weapons might be purchased on Ukraine's behalf by the Europeans (who look about ready to radically expand their borrowing potential), or possibly against the frozen Russian funds in European control (and thus putting a ticking clock pressure against Russia on prospects of getting those funds back), the weapons-transfer terms that may or may not formally accompany this deal are probably the more relevant gain in the near-term.

In the medium term, this concession will probably be the basis of Ukraine being a seat at the table in the negotiations (which, strictly speaking, was required for negotiations to be credible), while also creating an expectation against the 'Trump will end the war and the Americans immediately abandon Ukraine entirely.' Even if the Americans get a lion's share of the [profits], this is a lot of gain for the Ukrainian post-war economic restructuring, a basis for rebuilding the country's economic foundations after having lost the industry in the Russian-occupied east (with new mega-extraction efforts created a new baseline), and an encouragement for further European investments.

In the longer-term, it's these sort of investment-interests that provide an acceptable-to-Trump hook for longer-term American involvement in Ukraine post-war, which is part of the real prize for Ukraine. Precisely because this is liable to be framed / accused of being a Very Good Deal (extortion) for the Americans, it becomes a basis for even the Republican-Trumpian coalition to continue to have an interest in ensuring Ukraine's survival... since if Russia were to re-invade and roll over those investments, that would be a rather significant lost investment / rare earth stream. Here is a map of the relative dispersal of rare earth estimates in Ukraine. While pre-war it would have made far more sense to invest in the more developed east, a post-war investment in the west would help have a more secure future-war economic base not in short range of the Russian eastern front line.

Which is why even though the deal expected this week isn't expected to have any sort of long-term security guarantees, it sets the conditions for a longer-term American Interest in Ukraine which is what leads to such security support. Not just from the Americans, but also the Europeans who will be using this extortion for their own counter-balance investments, to further their own economic and thus military interests in Ukraine. As such, even if Ukraine isn't 'formally' part of NATO, Ukraine is 'purchasing' NATO-member buy-in to its future survival (and thus ability to maintain the concessionary deal).

Which, naturally, is something the Russians do not want, which is reason enough for the Ukrainians to consider it, even if they would prefer more favorable terms than Trump is demanding.

Context

Dean Flairless 1d ago · Edited 1d ago

Do you anticipate large scale (50%+) reductions across most agencies,

Not really, no.

Reduction in force applicable consistent with applicable law runs into the point that applicable law is what authorizes and appropriates for those work forces. Moreover, the OPM memo makes some, hm, substantial carve outs.

VI. Exclusions Nothing in this memorandum shall have any application to:

Positions that are necessary to meet law enforcement, border security, national security, immigration enforcement, or public safety responsibilities;
Military personnel in the armed forces and all Federal uniformed personnel, including the U.S. Coast Guard, the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service, and the Commissioned Officer Corps of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; ...
The U.S. Postal Service. Finally, agencies or components that provide direct services to citizens (such as Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ health care) shall not implement any proposed ARRPs until OMB and OPM certify that the plans will have a positive effect on the delivery of such services.

So if you're not even touching the Department of Defense (which according to google has about 1/3rd of the non-military government labor force, or 30%) and you're not touching the postal service (one fifth, or 20%), in just two carve outs you've already exempted over 50% of the government's non-military employee base. And on top of that, if the analysis of the welfare state cuts is that cutting hurts, don't.

There is an expression that when you look in terms of overall budget, the US is either a welfare state with the world's biggest military, or a military with a welfare state. The welfare state is the dominant part of the budget by far, and most of that spending is automatic based on eligibility and not discretionary spending. Of the discretionary spending, about half is on defense.

and how does this square with the proposed budget that will apparently add trillions in debt? What am I missing?

Trump is not a fiscal conservative.

Trump is in an alliance with fiscal conservatives, who believe that cutting the scale government is key to reducing / reigning in government spending. In turn, these fiscal conservatives don't believe that the military should be cut, but tend to believe the better way to control military spending is to avoid various conflicts (like Ukraine support).

There is a confluence of interests in that Trump wants to cut the government because he views it as a basis of resistance (because the Democrats loudly boasted of the fact last time around), and the fiscal conservatives see it as an opportunity to cut back the regulatory state (which includes advocating for / overseeing constant expansions of entitlemet spending).

I'm most interested in how all this shakes out politically. You can fire all these people, but when these salaries amount to a tiny fraction of the budget and is an easily exploited issue for your enemies (e.g., firing veterans and people close to retirement never looks good),

This is why the framing has been 'efficiency' and 'waste' rather than the people executing them per see. USAID was publicized in the way it was because it was an easy scalp with a number of silly things to point at. Discussing the waste in turn distracts from who was administrating those actions.

This is also why OPM's memo talks in terms of 'redundancies' and 'low performers.' If a veteran is fired because they were a bad worker, the political salience is lost if it turns into some form of 'bad worker says he shouldn't be fired because he's a veteran.'

and there isn't much progress in reducing consumer prices,

None of these parts are about consumer prices, which themselves have a politically priced-in expectation of rising due to the trade barrier disputes.

Setting aside the end of some artificially low prices that were pursued last year for domestic political advantage (such as the Biden administration cutting off LNG exports in 2024, which forced the gas to be sold domestically for cheaper domestic industry and all that matters), Trump's base generally has priced in that trade disputes mean short-term issues for longer-term improvements.

The less politically engaged may not, but that won't matter as much for another two years.

you'd think the House and Senate could easily flip in two years.

Again, priced in.

Which is why Trump and Musk and such are going in quick and hard. They have probably built in the assumption they won't be able to make such cuts later. Trump is a lame duck president regardless, and you should generally expect the governing part to lose their trifecta quickly.

I endorse Monzer's interpretation that a fair bit of the recent discord is basically just a smoke screen / distraction at some proposals to cut more politically popular things which amount to larger fractions of the budget.

6

Context

Dean Flairless 1d ago

I agree that another USAID-sized scalp is unlikely. I also think that the social spending cuts are where the real money are. I'd even agree that DOGE and USAID are basically a smokescreen / firecracker diversion- the loud sparkly distraction to the much more substantitive cut that couldn't be done without it.

I think there are other scalp areas to pull, though I think it's far more likely to be in collaboration with agency heads rather than in antagonistic opposition to them.

The USAID takedown was not-so implicitly staged (physical resistance in a non-working Sunday in DC, for Rubio to be appointed on Monday?) over the access to the data networks, using the executive authority card borrowed from Trump. This was part of the Trump Administration's establishment of control over the information space (literally) of the executive branch, and to demonstrate formal control over the information.

This establishes precedent that allows / enables / 'forces' Department Heads to grant some level of access to DOGE to various networks for program reviews. And these, in turn, 'force' Trump appointees- many viewed with skepticism or hostility- to either go along with unpopular things ('I can't help it, DOGE made me), or- as in the case of the OPM- champion their agency against the DOGE. (See the OPM email- bad from a DOGE-independent-power perspective, good for making alignment with the agency head seem good for continued employment as a protector.)

I'm all on board with the kayfabe, and suspect that going forward access to data won't be so confrontational, and DOGE will often happen to identify areas that Secretaries and such won't be so unhappy to 'have' to cut.

6

Context

Dean Flairless 1d ago

We are in full agreement! I endorse your elaboration.

The premise that DOGE can fire anyone derives from a misreading of the USAID takedown. That created confusion / alarm, but the idea that Musk had firing authority over anyone, even Trump's appointees, is a misreading.

1

Context

Dean Flairless 1d ago · Edited 1d ago

...le sigh, that is not a stupid question, but it is not a simple answer either, but I feel obliged to elaborate.

And so, let us explore the nuances and limitations of dual-hatting institutional positions. And also how USAID was dismantled under a dual-hat institutional takeover, but not by DOGE.

Part 1: Can the Chief Executive of the United States be Middle Management of the Executive Branch?

Yes, but really no. The biggest issue preventing Trump from taking other administrator posts is that he already has too much to do to take another full-time job.

A senior leader holding a middle manager job would make things simpler in the same sense that things would get simpler if your boss was fired so that your boss's boss became yours and every other team leader's direct supervisor. The issue with that is that the middle-manager exists for a reason. A lot of reasons, really, those reasons being to take care of things so that the higher manager doesn't have to. That why the middle manager exists, and is delegated the authorities needed.

If you replace the middle manager with a senior leader you have the senior leader to take all the roles of the middle manager- which in turn distracts them from the already very busy schedules of a senior leader. This isn't a problem that can be delegated away either, since if you delegate roles and responsibilities, you are just re-creating the middle manager job.

It's not that executives can't micro-manage things. A leader can often increase or decrease delegated authorities, refusing to delegate things they want to approve personally. The issue is that doing so takes time that cannot be spent on other things.

At which point, rather than take the middle manager's role, you could just delegate necessary authorities downward to the person already in the job. But if you were willing to do that, you wouldn't need to dual-hat in the first place.

So the thing preventing the President from holding other posts is that he doesn't want to, nor does he have to. If he wanted to empower people, he could delegate the authority to do so- or have someone else hold down two jobs.

Part 2: What is Dual Hatting?

Dual-hatting refers to the practice of having one person hold two institutional leadership roles at the same time. This often in terms of having a primary job and a secondary job, but with the two jobs existing in different institutional leadership roles, each supported by different staffs and institutional support networks.

I.E., if you Dual Hated the Department of Education and Department of Sanitation, the dual-hatted department head would have the institutional expertise of janitors on one hand, and education on the other.

Dual-hatting is, in turn, typically for horizontal integration purposes, rather than vertical. While it exists to allow for some vertical hierarchical 'shared boss,' it is doing so to facilitate cooperation between non-hierarchical institutions, who may not be 'equals' but are not formally subordinate. If they were, you could just issue orders downward to be followed.

But, again, senior leaders in government are often very busy if they are taking their jobs seriously, and often even if they are not (since they are doing funner things instead). Dual hatting a leader means the leader has to sit in the necessary meetings for both organizations, which is easily double the time. Which, in turn, leaves them less time to do the other things of either role.

As a result, dual-hatting is generally reserved for senior leaders and decision makers / approvers where two institutions must coordinate, but need to do so fast enough / avoid potential personality conflicts of two different people. So if Institution A has a policy effort that Institution B must approve and support, Head of Institution A directs A to Do The Thing, and then puts on their other hat and Approves Agency A's proposal in the position of Agency B and then directs Institution B subordinates to support.

A dual-hatted leader of both institutions can force cooperation / approve exceptions on behalf of both, without the issues / tradeoffs of merging the two institutions, which may not be politically possible, or even desirable.

Part 3: Why would you dual hat leaders? (Aside from leader bandwidth)

Other than the ability of someone to lead two institutions, dual hatting is generally done for fundamentally distinct institutions that aren't / can't / shouldn't be merged into a single institution.

These may be very distinct focus organizations that have very different needs and purposes but need to work together (a joint force of police and firefighters working to manage a city response to a major fire approaching; one group handles fires and the other people), subtly distinct organizations in the same supra-organization (Ministry of Military and Ministry of Police; both have guns and work for the same government ), or even organizations from completely different allegiances (City versus State versus National government employees working on Olympic Games security).

An example of this is multi-national military coalitions. If Country A is the leader of the coalition and gets to be the Commander, the Deputy Commander will often be one of the key secondary contributors, Country B. Both the Coalition Commander and Deputy Commanders, in turn, will probably be dual-hatted commanders of their respective component forces, since Country A wants its military reporting to its officer, and Country B wants its military reporting to its officer.

What this mean is that Coalition-Commander is Commander-Country A, and Coalition-Deputy-Commander is Commander-Country B. This, in turn, means Country A's military second-in-command (Deputy Commander of Country A forces) can't boss around the coalition B second-in-command, or vice versa, letting their respective command staffs work both in isolation (Country B running Country B's staff) and in coordination (Country A and Country B staffs working together for the Coalition) as appropriate. Country B is doing work for Country A not because Commander A said so, but because Commander B said to help Country A.

This may sound confusing, but it saves the headache of Country A having to conquer / annex / integrate Country B into Country A every time they want to have a coalition.

Now work that back to government agencies, and now you're not having the Minister of Police and Minister of Spies subsume one or the other each time they work together. Instead, they each designate someone to represent their ministry, and dual hat them in some way so they can are empowered in the joint effort and in their own contribution to the effort.

This could be a Joint Police - Spy counter-terrorism task force, where Dual Hatted police officer can order police elements, and Dual Hatted spy officer can order spy elements, without having to give your Minister of Spies control of the national police, or vice versa, neither of which you want to do in case someone gets ideas for creative combinations of these two parts of government. These arrangements are typically short, tactical, and mission-focused rather than shaping eachother's internal activities.

Part 4: Why Can't DOGE Dual Hat as the Secretary of [Whatever]?

Because Trump has appointed other people instead.

Since Trump can't credibly be the middle management (since it's the middle management), dual hatting would be between DOGE/Musk and whoever the agency in question is. This is where things start to make this a non-solution for Musk and DOGE, since this is where Congress starts to have a say.

In the US, a lot of the major departments of the government have Congressionally-approved heads, with the authorities of the agency explicitly delegated by Congress to the head of the agency or a specific position in the agency. For example- Congress gives authorities to the Department of Justice, and different authorities to the head of the FBI within the Department of Justice. To formally use those powers you need to be the Congressionally-approved person, or the interim actor.

Now, Interim/Acting directors aren't impossible. There are legal ambiguities on how much they can actually do without being confirmed, but it's not unknown for agencies to operate with Acting heads for long periods. This was even somewhat common in the last trump administration.

The issue is that even if you want to work from the position of being the Acting Director, you have to be the butt in the seat. And, as is becoming clear with the OPM emails, DOGE and the other Trump appointees are not one and the same.

For DOGE to dual hat as the secretary of [whatever], DOGE either needs to- (a) have one of its own get appointed as an Acting Director, or (b) recruit a sitting director to join them, giving Dual Hat authority in the reverse. And since part of the purpose of DOGE is to gut agencies, (b) is a hard sell.

Since Trump has appointed other people, and not DOGE, to these senior positions, it's safe to say Trump won't be firing them solely for not going along with DOGE.

What this means is that you won't have a dual-hat where DOGE+Musk are now the Secretary of Whatever. Instead, you have to have a dual hat relationship between DOGE and Department.

Part 5: Why is Dual Hatting a not the best idea anyway for DOGE?

The value of dual hatting really comes from well-defined institutional authorities, where Party A knows what they can/cannot do with regards to Party B, and vice versa. That way, the dual-hat position can be scoped in a way that both Parties agree to work together. After all, if the proposal was 'under this agreement, Party A can run Party B,' you might as well unify the institutions. You are only dual-hatting because you can't / won't.

The issue with DOGE and Musk is that it rests on ill-defined institutional authorities. No one knows what DOGE can or cannot do, because it has no defined powers outside of 'doing it on behalf of the President.'

This is very powerful in some respects. Presidents have a lot of authority to do what they prefer in the executive branch, when it's not otherwise mandated by law how they can / cannot do things. It also provides institutional leverage, because since no one knows what DOGE can't do, you aren't certain how much you must / cannot afford not to do.

But it also means that- absent any formal authority of DOGE to do certain things over a Department's will, it can only do said things with the authorities of the Department it is borrowing the hat of.

And this is where dual hatting does NOT solve the challenge of letting DOGE do whatever DOGE wants to do, because the dual-hatted position in the institution doesn't necessarily have the ability DOGE wants.

Part 6: What are the limits of dual-hatting?

Ultimately, the additional hat from dual hatting does not allow a leader to do things that were already forbidden, including overruling their boss of the new (or old) hat.

The Secretary of State, for example, does not have the legal authority to disband the Department of State and sell all the Embassies for pennies or other things. (This would require Congressional authorization, which has regulated restrictions for how the government can offload certain properties, to avoid corruption abuse.) Which means DOGE taking over the Secretary of State hat wouldn't allow DOGE to sell embassies either.

Which means the authority to do what the State Department couldn't would have to come from... DOGE. But if DOGE it had the authority independent of the State Department to sell the Embassies for pennies, it wouldn't need to dual hat to do so.

Further, the Secretary of State and similar positions are Congressionally confirmed positions. Which is to say, DOGE can't dual-hat as them without Senate approval. And if they dual hat as someone below the Secretary- say dual hat as the deputy Secretary of Defense- then the Deputy could be overruled by the Secretary, who has the authorities to overrule their Deputy as a matter of course.

And if the DOGE could already overrule the Secretary of State, they wouldn't need the dual hat from a subordinate of the Secretary.

Which, again, limits the value of the dual hat to what powers DOGE has independently, since any Department-gutting decision they can make can be overruled by the Secretary of the Department they are trying to gut.

Part 7: How do dual hats form?

Dual Hats are generally either appointed by a higher leader or negotiated between leaders.

If you have appointment power over a position, then dual hatting is as simple as appoint someone already in a position to take over the position. This is sometimes done as an interim / emergency measure, say that the Director of Y gets into a car crash, and so Administrator X appoints Director Z to take over the leadership position until a longer-term replacement is made. In this case, the dual hatting is temporary, and often disruptive, but just a matter of appointment.

If you do not have directive power- and DOGE does not have hiring or firing power over the rest of the government- you negotiate between institutions. And since the negotiations require consent- since if you had the authorities you wouldn't need the new hat- you are also negotiating limits.

This is why Dual Hat relationships are usually a result of negotiations between both institutional parties (governments, agencies, directorates, etc.), with pretty explicit Can Do This caveats where- if it is not agreed upon, it is not assumed to be conceeded. Whether that's governments defining the scope of how much influence the coalition commander has over other coalition members, or the limits of the authorities of the new-hat position. No one is going to sign over their budget to an outsider, give them control over hiring or promotions or so on. The potential for abuse (we chose to give ourselves bonuses with your budget) makes these non-starters.

And in such a negotiation, DOGE has a very weak hand, despite its implicit access to Presidential powers.

Implicit presidential support is not enough to dictate terms of a joint position, since the departments are also exercising implicit and even explicit executive and legislated legal authorities. Further, the dual-hated's authorities cannot exceed the Congressionally-supported Secretary who can veto it. At which point, DOGE / Musk either accepts the veto, or has to appeal to Trump to fire Trump's own appointee implementing Trump's own vision for the department.

Which means that- unless until Trump gives explicit support siding with DOGE over Department- DOGE can only negotiate for a Dual Hat role with what the Department is willing to concede. And here DOGE has little to offer, and seeks to take away much.

Which is why USAID offers a different dual hat model.

Part 8: How Dual Hat Destroyed USAID

In a policy sense, DOGE did not destroy USAID. The State Department is, through the power of the dual hat to wear USAID as a skinsuit.

What DOGE did was use its implicit presidential powers to set conditions for dismissal of existing USAID leaders to open up the appointment space for a State Department takeover, knowing it would have Congressional cover against blowback to pre-empt a judicial freeze.

The start of the USAID's dismantling was the attempt by senior USAID officials to block the DOGE from accessing USAID networks. This is the sort of context where DOGE's ambiguous but implicit presidential powers worked to its advantages, because when challenged Trump backed them.

While there is a legal argument that DOGE should not be allowed onto agency networks, especially classified ones, this is also where the role of Presidential powers allowing the President to pick sides comes into play. Ultimately, with a very narrow exception on Congressionally-mandated classification of things like nuclear secrets, the vast majority of American national security information belongs to the President. He can declassify at will, without prior approval or permission from anyone else. He also has basically unlimited access- and can bestow that access in turn- and no laws allow even independent executive branch agencies to deny the President access to His information, which entails his designated oversight agents. When Executive Agents A say the President requires them to do A (deny information to actor B), and Executive Agent B says the President requires them to do B (access information on behalf of the President), the President gets a say who is right... and who is obstructing his authority.

So when senior USAID leaders on a Sunday tried to physically bar DOGE from accessing USAID facilities and servers, it was they, and not DOGE, that were escorted from the building. And for trying to stop the chief executive oversight- which might or might not hypothetically lose them the trust and confidence of the President of United States required for the access to classified information required for their job- they were put on leave.

But if Senior Leaders are on leave, there is a need for new leaders- even if 'only' acting in the interim.

So when the events of 2 February opened up some gaps in USAID, on 3 February experienced government G-Man Marco Rubio was appointed as the Acting-Director of USAID, at least until a more permanent leader could be designated and approved by Congress. And by 4 February, was delegating USAID internal authorities to new leaders, including substantiative internal reorganizations.

That G-Man Acting Director Marco Rubio started federal service less than two weeks prior and happened to also be the formally approved Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was in the process of making his own appoints in the State Department as he asserted control of his new organization- no, the other one- is an example of dual-hatting.

If you are starting to wonder is maybe the new Acting Director Rubio is approving / appointing people selflessly proposed by Secretary State Rubio to help with USAID functions- people who may themselves be dual-hatting as Secretary of State and USAID roles at the same time- you're starting to see the power, and the threat, of dual-hat without limitations.

In part, these limitations don't exist for USAID because Congress has never legislated an internal structure dynamic to USAID. Unlike requiring the Department of Defense to have a certain number of military services, there is no similar requirement for USAID to be structured in certain ways. So while USAID is an 'independent agency' of sorts that can't be 'formally' absorbed by the State Department, there's nothing preventing the Administrator of USAID from reorganizing USAID to a 1-to-1 map of the state department organization chart to facilitate USAID-State Department cooperation, and incorporating dual-hat relationships that coincidentally make the leader of every USAID element a dual-hatted State Department appointee.

This is also comes with a bonus that it avoids significant legal issues on cross-department money spending. It would be Very Illegal for a State Department Employee to handle the USAID money.

But a USAID employee? Not so much. Just make sure you wear the right hat at the time.

This is why the 'save the USAID' lawsuits have instead focused on the freeze of grants in general, rather than the reorganization or who is making the call. But this is both getting into the nature of the grant-approval process- which, like with Classification, is not above review by the Chief Executive, and the fact that the consequence of a refusal to spend is less about the courts (who have very little ability to force the Executive to do a thing compared to issuing a bar to not do it) and more about Congress.

Whose main leverage is the power of the purse to cut off funds to the government if they are displeased.

But is currently controlled by a party that are is particularly displeased, with a minority party that would be displeased regardless

And who haven't even passed a full budget for the fiscal year, which could in turn happen to remove all those unspent funds anyway.

And who- even if they pass a budget demanding funds be spent on projects approved by USAID approvers, are over the next two years likely to find that the USAID approvers have relocated to State Department offices in desks that have a hat rack.

Is it a bureaucratic skin suit? Sure. Is it illegal? Not the reorganization part, at least.

But- notably- at none of these steps did DOGE dual-hat. DOGE was just checking in on things on behalf of the President.

15

Context

Dean Flairless 1d ago

Speak to your audience, not just your subject matter. Additionally, never blame your audience for not understanding your point.

A lot of (good) advice is spent on the importance of brevity, but not as much on what to abbreviate to.

This leads to people shortening their [huge list of extensive background material and supporting argument] to [things], which in turn often leads to speakers focusing on [summarizing the things] rather than [the implication of things]. Worse, people often abbreviate to [things[that are interesting to them]] as opposed to [things[that are important to the audience]].

It is your job- as the speaker- to communicate what they need. If they already knew it, you wouldn't be wasting everyone's time saying it.

Distilling information is critical, but so is packaging it in ways the audience will understand.

Sometimes you need to distill the same mass of information into points suitable for highly knowledgeable subject matter experts, and then take the same information and distill it for people with no technical expertise but general familiarity. Sometimes you need to do it yet again for people who are so unfamiliar they might as well be high schoolers. Entire lines of argument or categories of information may be worse than useless depending on the audience, but counterproductive by confusing them or giving them wrong impressions.

It is, in turn, your job- as the speaker- to know your audience, and how to communicate to them. If they knew what you meant, and not what you said, you wouldn't be wasting everyone's time by saying it.

7

Context

Dean Flairless 2d ago · Edited 2d ago

This assumes the conclusion that Trump will back Musk over his department heads, regardless of what political costs Trump would pay. When Trump is also backing those department heads. That is, after all, why they are the department heads.

Which, in turn, leads to the natural policy level counter-play: to pit Trump against Musk, by having political allies in Congress- such as the Chairpersons of the committees who stand to lose if Musk has his way- to hold Trump's legislative agenda hostage in the senate. They hold Trump's agenda at risk if Trump fires Musk's target of the hour and clears the programs they cared about. Trump tells Musk to not get in the way of his (Trump's) priority.

At which point, you are transitioning to two separate additional limits on Musks' power: the requirement for active support from Trump, and the power of Congresscritters to trump Musk with Trump.

9

Context

Dean Flairless 2d ago

Posted this further down, but it seems relevant enough to have been a top-post response.

Bottom line- I think this OPM email event has resulted in Musk undercutting himself and DOGE for the foreseeable future, and greatly reigned in its potential to reign in agencies without the backing of those agencies own leaders.

There were two groups of people who got emotionally invested in this OPM exchange and thought it was a serious threat- people who didn't understand from the start that Musk and OPM do not have HR power over the government (and so were afraid he could fire them for non-compliance with his OPM messages and changed their behavior accordingly), and people who wanted Musk and DOGE to benefit from a presumption of HR power over the government (including Musk). As far as DOGE's longer-term ambitions go, this interplay has significantly limited Musks' potential inter-agency influence going forward, by drawing the first of clear lines on the limits of his power.

Higher up in the thread, @ControlFreak mentioned a past poster who made a general point that good leadership entails never giving an order that will not be obeyed. The original poster was making a point on individual leadership and how if you have to appeal to formal authority as a basis of leadership you're probably not the 'real' leader. Between de jure and de facto power, de jure authority only matters if it can be translated into de facto impacts. A person with a formal title but who no one listens to isn't an actual leader.

In leadership in general, this means that there are some pretty hard limits to leadership that relies on coercion. The coercive powers may be considered legitimate / followed by others, but even within the organization in which that applies, it creates cultures of compliance where people (might) adhere to the point on the pain of punishment, but little more. Despite the economic theory that an avoided cost is worth as much [value] as a benefit, people who will work harder for the prospect of carrots tend to work as little as possible to avoid punishments. Even within organizations, where you can carry out threats of negative administrative actions, effective use of threats against compliance comes from being clear, limited, and not the primary means of influence.

Outside of an organization, where you cannot carry out threats, making demands / threats you cannot enforce is worse than bad practice- it actively makes your influence worse, by highlighting your impotence.

A significant part of the fear-factor surrounding Musk and DOGE are that there are (were) no clear limits to its power. As an agent of the Chief Executive, there are significant powers that come with the President's sanction, but not unlimited ones. Just to start, the power of the DOGE under the President cannot exceed the President's on authorities. Further, even the Presidency has limitations of what it can do internally- some of these deriving from a Constitutional level (such as the ability of Congress to regulate the military), and some from established law and case law (the executive branch having to go through certain processes when making / removing regulations). And in so much that the President does support someone, that person may have a lot of power in the Executive Branch... but the moment the President does not support someone, they have no authority. Live by the sword (of Chief Executive empowerment), die by the sword (of lack of Chief Executive empowerment).

So from the start, people knew- or should have known- that DOGE's power wasn't unlimited. However, it wasn't clear where the limits were. The takedown of USAID greatly heightened this fear, as if DOGE could take down an agency like USAID, what couldn't it do? Therefore, the fear of DOGE went along with the uncertainty of what it could do.

This incident has drawn a great big bold underline of at least one limit- the DOGE does not have HR power bypassing the Department Heads.

There are long and often historical reasons why this would be a Bad Idea regardless. The term 'chain of command' exists because the 'chain' is a visual metaphor of how one link may be higher, but does not directly touch the links below, i.e. does not bypass the intermediary links. This is so that superiors do not buy their subordinate intermediaries to micro-manage subordinate echelons (where the higher level leader is often disconnected from facts on the ground), and also so that subordinates do not bypass their direct superiors to appeal to the next-higher level leader unnecessarily (both undermining the leader and distracting the higher leader). Exceptions to bypassing the chain exist, but the chain exists for a reason, and so does the metaphor.

By making the power play and being refuted, Musk and DOGE has started to expose the limits of its power.

DOGE will not have direct interaction powers with employees, and thus not be able to leverage its institutional power for maximum advantage vis-a-vis individual workers. DOGE HR efforts will have to work through existing HR channels- which in turn means through, and with the support of, the Department heads who oversee such channels.

This, in turn, makes Musk / DOGE dependent on the cooperation of Department Heads whose departments he wants to cut down- which creates a direct contradiction in interests, since institutional power = authority x manpower x money, and DOGE shutting down sub-departments would decrease.

That doesn't mean such things won't happen- the Trump administration has appointed a lot of department heads with skepticism towards their own departments for a reason, so there probably will be grounds for cooperation if DOGE finds and raises an issue [Department Head] is sympathetic with. DOGE may also be able to pull another USAID scalp, by breaking down a quasi-independent organization (and, like USAID, nominally putting it into another department- which increases the department's potential institutional power).

But it also means that if DOGE/Musk come head to head with [Department]/[Department Head], Musk will either be blocked or have to appeal to Trump to override...

...and if/when Trump sides against Musk, that will be yet another nail tying down the limits of Musk/DOGE's influence.

For such an easily predictable- and I'm fairly sure predicted- sequence of events for an overreach, Musk started to dispel the ambiguous premise of power that DOGE depended on, and has starting revealing the outlines of his institutional influence. Not a good plan, given it was both unnecessary and will limit the credibility of his future threats, and something that anyone who opposes Musk should be thankful for Musk's decision to pick a fight with his nominal political allies, the department heads who just pushed his demand back in.

17

Context

Dean Flairless 2d ago · Edited 2d ago

As far as I can tell, the opponents here are all civil servants, so consider the opponents identified. It's not obvious to me how demanding snippets from them is outmaneuvering and I don't feel that it's been made clearer by this thread.

If anything, Musk was the one outmaneuvered by those who intend to resist him.