The Nation; Trump Administration Incoherence Could Lead to War

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-iran-foreign-policy/


Iranians burn a mask of President Donald Trump during a protest. (Tasnim News Agency / Reuters)

Among members of the nation security elite, it’s become de rigueur to bemoan Donald Trump’s “neo-isolationism” and its alleged threat to the liberal international order. That line finds its popular counterpoint among Resistance liberals, who echo Hillary Clinton’s famous complaint that Trump is Putin’s “puppet.” It’s hard to reconcile either accusation with the fact that Trump’s national security team is overwhelmingly staffed with hawks like National Security Advisor John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, eager militarists who cannot in any way be called isolationists. Under their direction, America has become the bully-boy of the world stage, trying to badger and humiliate all potential rivals, including Russia. The isolationist label doesn’t describe any actual policy, although it does have some relevance to political theatre: Trump keeps saying he opposes the “endless wars” he inherited and seems very eager to chummy-up foreign leaders, even going so far as to effuse about how he and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un “fell in love.”

In truth, the real key to Trump’s foreign policy is neither neo-isolationism nor subservience to Vladimir Putin but rather belligerent incoherence. As befits the man who styles himself the master of The Art of the Deal, Trump has an excessive faith in his own ability to glad-hand his way through thorny disputes with other power players. But Pompeo and Bolton have their own agenda, which boils down to shoring up American global hegemony by maximum aggression. The combination of Trump’s desire to be a wheeler dealer on the world stage and the Pompeo/Bolton penchant for throwing America’s weight around has produced a foreign policy that is singularly confused, with a constant sending of mixed signals which could easily provoke conflict.

If Trump headed a normal administration, one could imagine a good-cop/bad-cop dynamic. Certainly, that is the game Dwight Eisenhower played, letting his Secretary of State John Foster Dulles scare the world with talk of massive retaliation while Ike pursued arms control. Eisenhower’s vice-president took the hint: Richard Nixon developed his own good-cop/bad-cop routine, spreading rumors that he was a bomb-happy madman so that foreign adversaries were eager to talk to the seemingly more reasonable Henry Kissinger.

But if Trump hoped to use Bolton and Pompeo as pit bulls to scare other nations to the negotiation table, he quickly discovered that he doesn’t seem to have any way of controlling these wild animals. With his own tendency towards reckless rhetoric and painfully evident lack of policy knowledge, Trump lacks the skill to convincingly present himself as the reasonable alternative to anything.

Does it even make sense to look for a devious design underwriting Trump’s foreign policy? Isn’t it more likely that the chaos we see on the surface is all there is? That in fact Trump is no mastermind, but a man of inchoate and barely articulate impulses?

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I'm starting to wonder how much Trump-effigy-burning affects climate change?

[democratisphere]

1. THIS better not be allowed to happen.

I am beginning to think there are no adults in the rethuglicon party. War is real man. WTF.

[empedocles]

3. Perhaps . . . The Generals, Intelligence services, et al, are thinking, perhaps even

withholding some things [nyt] from the trumpsters.

Since the intelligence sources, [apparently around the world], listen in on traitortrump's cell phones, and know how extensively crazy and/or nefarious trump is - they may facilitate some . . . hold back.

Not textbook 'checks and balances', but I see some precarious opportunities for the greater good - here and there.

This may not be sll ad hoc. [The various war colleges, perhaps smarting from the, 'war is too important to be left to the generals' in past periods, have explored issues relating to Presidential/Congressional/interest groups, 'civilians', voters - and the handling of war powers]

[I seem to have a certain prevailing, precarious optimism. . 'Through vicissitudes . . . we make our way' ]

[TreasonousBastard]

2. One might review the goings-on during the Cuban missile crisis...

when we were as close to a nuclear war as we ever have been. Or, hopefully, will ever be.

Khrushchev and Kennedy were both surrounded by people who knew both sides had to save face while getting out of the mess they made.

Public finger pointing and secret deals ended up with both sides getting out of it with as little embarrassment as possible. And we did not go to war, accidentally or otherwise.

The people in Washington now don't seem to want to avoid war-- they are more likely looking for an excuse to start one.

[empedocles]

4. I've done a fair amount of reading about the handling of the financial crisis of 2008

Some things precarious there also.

[kentuck]

5. Very, very possible.

And scary.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. Trump's false bravado and incessant bluffing is going to start a war.

Fuck.