Despite the bluster, Trump is articulating a bold vision of America’s role in the world. And it demands a serious response — not the snickering of D.C. elites.
By Rosa Brooks, FOREIGN POLICY
Oh, Donald, bless your heart! You keep on saying those wild and crazy things, the media keeps on snickering, and you just keep on blustering. A grateful nation thanks you. If you weren’t around, we’d probably have to talk about Ted Cruz instead, and that would be no fun at all.
But my editors here at Foreign Policy have asked me to get serious and write about what U.S. foreign policy would look like if the White House should ever sprout an enormous gold sign reading, “TRUMP.” This has not been a simple assignment, because there is a Trump for every possible policy position.
Where to start?
Well, if Donald Trump becomes president, we might have a nuclear war — or, then again, we might not. On the one hand, Trump tells us, “It’s a very scary nuclear world. Biggest problem, to me, in the world, is nuclear, and proliferation.” On the other hand, if Japan and South Korea decide to develop their own nuclear weapons, that’s probably fine, and we “may very well be better off.” On the third hand, “nuclear should be off the table,” when it comes to a potential U.S. first use of nuclear weapons. On the fourth hand, you never know: We might need to use nukes inside Europe, which would not be so sad because “Europe is a big place” and can easily afford to lose a few small nations to radioactive fallout.
Anyhoo. Let’s discuss NATO, which, admittedly, is not a very interesting subject. Trump “would support NATO,” but because he too feels that it is not interesting, he “would not care that much” whether or not Ukraine joins the alliance. “I don’t mind NATO per se,” he explains; it’s just “obsolete” and full of free-riders “ripping off the United State.” But que sera, sera! If getting rid of freeloaders “breaks up NATO, it breaks up NATO.” Still, perhaps the treaty organization can be “reconstituted” and “modernized.” He adds, “We need to either transition into terror, or we need something else, because we have to get countries together.” I don’t think Trump meant that NATO should transition into a terrorist organization — on the “fight fire with fire” principle — but who can say?
Moving right along: Under President Trump, the United States would show the terrorists who’s boss by bringing back waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse.” He would also “bomb the hell out of ISIS,” and if that doesn’t do the trick, he would go after the wives and children of Islamic State fighters, because “with the terrorists, you have to take out their families.” Ordering the U.S. military to use torture or deliberately target civilians would, of course, be illegal, but the military would gladly obey any order coming from President Trump: “I’m a leader. I’ve always been a leader.… If I say do it, they’re going to do it.” On the fifth or sixth hand, maybe not: Trump swears that he’ll be “bound by laws, just like all Americans.”
Regardless, under President Trump, the U.S. military would be very strong, but it would never be used, unless we do use it. Right now, Trump confides, the U.S. military is “a disaster,” decimated and weak. When the White House is rebranded as the smallest of the world’s many Trump Towers, this will no longer be true; after a few waves of the Trumpian magic wand, which can cut budgets and expand programs at the same time, the military will be “so big, so powerful, so strong” that no one will dare mess with it. But the military will have to be satisfied with being big, powerful, and strong right here in the United States, because unless host states such as Japan and South Korea cough up a lot more cash, President Trump will be withdrawing U.S. troops from their overseas bases.
Besides, who cares? According to Trump, more or less every U.S. military intervention from Vietnam on has been a flop. Vietnam? A “disaster,” says his campaign. Iraq War? “Big, fat mistake.” Libya? “Total mess.” As for the Islamic State, Trump says “the generals” tell him it might take “20,000 to 30,000 troops” to “knock the hell out of ISIS,” but they ain’t gonna be American troops: instead, “People from that part of the world” will have to “put up the troops.… I wouldn’t ever put up 20,000 or 30,000.”
All right, enough. I could go on: Trump offers nearly endless fodder for media mockery. But I don’t want to keep poking fun at the Republican front-runner.
For one thing, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s like making fun of George W. Bush’s weird malapropisms: “They have miscalculated me as a leader.” It’s just too damn easy.
For another thing, there’s hardly a global shortage of anti-Trump tiradescoming from the Fourth Estate. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell declares Trump is “completely uneducated about any part of the world.” The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson calls Trump’s “ignorance of government policy … breathtaking.” Tara Setmayer of CNN says Trump is “wholly unqualified” to be president, while the New York Times editorial board finds Trump “disturbing” and “shockingly ignorant.”
None of this does Trump any harm. On the contrary: Every time someone in the Media Elite pokes fun at Donald Trump, it inspires six bad-tempered middle Americans to vote for him.
None of this does Trump any harm. On the contrary: Every time someone in the Media Elite pokes fun at Donald Trump, it inspires six bad-tempered middle Americans to vote for him. And every time someone in the Media Elite utters a pompous condemnation of Trump’s ignorance and folly, 17 more angry Trump voters are created. If Trump becomes president, guys, it’s gonna be your fault.
And finally: Though it pains me to say it, Donald Trump is crazy like a fox. Despite the braggadocio, the bullying, and the bluster — despite the contradictions, misstatements, and near-total absence of actual facts — Trump is, to a great extent, nonetheless articulating a coherent vision of international relations and America’s role in the world.
David Sanger and Maggie Haberman capture it well in a summary of their lengthy New York Times interview with Trump: “In Mr. Trump’s worldview, the United States has become a diluted power, and the main mechanism by which he would re-establish its central role in the world is economic bargaining. He approached almost every current international conflict through the prism of a negotiation, even when he was imprecise about the strategic goals he sought.” The United States, Trump believes, has been “disrespected, mocked, and ripped off for many, many years by people that were smarter, shrewder, tougher. We were the big bully, but we were not smartly led. And we were … the big stupid bully, and we were systematically ripped off by everybody.”
Trump hasn’t the slightest objection to being perceived as a bully, but he doesn’t want to be ripped off. Thus, he says, he’d be willing to stop buying oil from the Saudis if they don’t get serious about fighting the Islamic State; limit China’s access to U.S. markets if Beijing continues its expansionist policies in the South China Sea; and discard America’s traditional alliance — from NATO to the Pacific — partners if they won’t pull their own weight.
To those who criticize his apparent contradictions, his vagueness about his ultimate strategic objectives, or his willingness to make public threats, he offers a simple and Machiavellian response: “We need unpredictability.” To Trump, an effective negotiator plays his cards close to his chest: He doesn’t let anyone know his true bottom line, and he always preserves his ability to make a credible bluff. (Here it is, from thetranscript of his conversation with the New York Times: “You know, if I win, I don’t want to be in a position where I’ve said I would or I wouldn’t [use force to resolve a particular dispute].… I wouldn’t want to say. I wouldn’t want them to know what my real thinking is.”)
Trump has little time for either neoconservatives or liberal interventionists; he thinks they allow their belief in American virtue to blind them to both America’s core interests and the limits of American power. He has even less time for multilateralist diplomats: They’re too willing to compromise, trading away American interests in exchange for platitudes about friendship and cooperation. And he has no time at all for those who consider long-standing U.S. alliances sacrosanct. To Trump, U.S. alliances, like potential business partners in a real-estate transaction, should always be asked: “What have you done for me lately?”
In his inimitable way, Trump is offering a powerful challenge to many of the core assumptions of Washington’s bipartisan foreign-policy elite. And if mainstream Democrats and Republicans want to counter Trump’s appeal, they need to get serious about explaining why his vision of the world isn’t appropriate — and they need to do so without merely falling back on tired clichés.
The clichés roll easily off the tongue: U.S. alliances and partnerships are vital. NATO is a critical component of U.S. security. Forward-deployed troops in Japan and South Korea are vital to assurance and deterrence. We need to maintain good relations with Saudi Arabia. And so on. How do we know these things? Because in Washington, everyone who’s anyone knows these things.
But this is pure intellectual and ideological laziness. Without more specificity, these truisms of the Washington foreign-policy elite are just pablum. Why, exactly, does the United States need to keep troops in Japan, or Germany, or Kuwait? Would the sky really fall if the United States had fewer forward-deployed troops? What contingencies are we preparing for? Who and what are we deterring, and how do we know if it’s working? Who are we trying to reassure? What are the financial and opportunity costs? Do the defense treaties and overseas bases that emerged after World War II still serve U.S. interests? Which interests? How? Does a U.S. alliance with the Saudis truly offer more benefits than costs? What bad things would happen if we shifted course, taking a less compromising stance toward “allies” who don’t offer much in return?
Questions like these are legitimate and important, and it’s reasonable for ordinary Americans to be dissatisfied by politicians and pundits who make no real effort to offer answers.
Trump’s vision of the world — and his conception of statecraft — isn’t one I much like, but it reflects a fairly coherent theory of international relations. It’s realist, transactional, and Machiavellian — and it demands a serious, thoughtful, and non-defensive response.
If those of us in the foreign-policy community can’t be bothered to offer one, a “TRUMP” sign on the White House may, in the end, be no better than we deserve.
Rosa Brooks is a law professor at Georgetown University and a Schwartz senior fellow at the New America Foundation. She served as a counselor to the U.S. defense undersecretary for policy from 2009 to 2011 and previously served as a senior advisor at the U.S. State Department.
And more from Swastika Queen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAticaizX1U
More ignorant malice from Pigboy, the Slob supported by slobs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE1wRL-BRo0
@ babushka:
This poor woman Oberg is your ” go too”?? This is what passes for intellectual for you.???
honeybee Said:
NOT bernie sanders or sarah silverman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAqfI3IN_OA
Keli-A Said:
I doubt that the Beck “Anointed One” would have approved…Trump was under the chuppah with Kippah. All the fake talk of nuetrality, heil hitler salute, misogeny is because they cannot fault his stated agenda so they look for anything else… teshuvah even printed a silly article about his son and daughter being late for registration so donald was not a real gop. How pathetic what makes such voters decide things… like the voters who elected a guy named hussein as their president after 911… no accounting for ignorance and idiocy.
I saw that whole video of him and his family with anderson Cooper. He hardly spoke when his family spoke and the family dynamics are very revealing. Its obvious that it was not the family of a woman hater or misogenyst as the whining yentas would have everyone believe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/17/us/politics/ivanka-trump-donald-trump.html
this is no daughter of a woman hater
once I see the pathetic lies and tactics of the cruz bots and gop establishment wrt Trump they keep going down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuVjUToaxKo
@ Keli-A:
Who are the Jews from which Salvation comes?
@ bernard ross:
Trump ‘very supportive’ of daughter’s conversion to Judaism
Speaking at CNN town hall, Ivanka Trump speaks about her conversion to Judaism and her father’s reaction.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/210843#.VxQ7Knrw-lA
This must drive Teshuvah crazy LOL
@ bernard ross:
oy !!!!!!!!!!!!
honeybee Said:
not exactly whining.. but
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybEXLUWXekk
bernard ross Said:
Great name for a rock band.
babushka Said:
As one who knows, this does NOT APPLY to Yamit82. However I cannot honesty vouch for Keli-a.
Thanks Babs for the photo of the batter, love a man in a uniform.
Keli-A Said:
She was used because she is a cute, petite, young female with a very aggressive attitude. ” The big man is being mean”.
@ babushka:
you appear to be upset that gop registered primary voters have chosen Trump the outsider over every other party establishment candidate. Its very unlikely that the GOP establishment can win an election by dumping their frontrunner… what a dillema for you.
I feel your pain 😛
@ Teshuvah:
I don’t buy the basic premise of the article from Red State: Trump will have spent close to $100 mil of his own money till the convention. He gave up 58 mil a year when he quit the NBC apprentice show and at least $70 million in lost revenues from other enterprises he was involved with that cancelled him like ZMiss Universe and other pojects like with Carlos slim in Mexico over his stances on Mexican illegal immigration…… so far his run for president could cost him over a 5 year period almost a billion dollars either out of pocket or lost revenue. Trump is very cheap hates to spend his own money and does not like to lose….I believe he is in it to win and to change the Republican party if not American politics win or lose.
Teshuvah Said:
now you have reduced yourself to posting the wet dreams of punch drunk fantasists. All those trounced by Trump to date have made that wet dream their fondest hope. Imagine that your article has stated that donalds “joke” made complete fools out of the GOP party establishment candidates. If a joke got him that far with those fools then why would he stop now?
babushka Said:
thats the best you groupies can do because you never discuss the facts of the important issues. Like others here you appear clueless about the business and financial world if you refer to tax credits and tax abatements as gov largesse. As for bribing the rubios and cruz’s I have never seen you post one shred of evidence for your fantasies.
Teshuvah Said:
LOL, I read it, its pathetic what straws the establishment and Cruz groupies grasp:
donalds 2 kids being late to register for the gop primary says it all for the groupies. but here are the things they dont mention, which Trump does, which are of more interest than the michelle fields and donalds kids yenta interests. Next they will involve kim kardashian in their Trump chronicles. They dont mention:
the muslim immigration like donald does,
the TPP and shipping jobs to china like donald does,
the HB1 visa firing of american workers and forcing them to train subsequent foreign imports like donald does,
etc etc etc…. actual real issues rather than yenta issues of the kim kardashian followers.
Once more facts “trump” whining yentas. I doubt that choice is indicative of “nuetrality”
“Trump’s personal voting history has convinced many Republicans that Trump is a Trojan horse candidate who got in the race to hand it to Hillary. They are rallying to the candidacy of Senator Cruz.”
Cruz Thwarts Hostile Takeover Of The GOP
http://www.trevorloudon.com/2016/04/cruz-thwarts-hostile-takeover-of-the-gop/
Trump is the Establishment.
He brags about being a multi-decades recipient of government largesse acquired by bribing the current corrupt bipartisan political leadership.
Trump supporters are ignorant rubes being taken for a ride by a transparently obvious swindler. The more he lies, the more you swoon. It is like watching Colonel Sanders sweet-talking chickens into the slaughterhouse.
To use a baseball analogy, yamit, in your case it is three strikes and no balls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x5XZi-JiNw
@ Avigail:
We don’t need no stinkin bible thumper as the Republican nominee nor do we need a phony conservative who voted with and empowered Obama on most of his initiatives. Truth be told I believe Trump is more suited to unite all or most factions of the Republican party including evangelicals and many first time voters, cross over democrats and independents than any of the other candidates. I also believe he will get the Labor union endorsements and Trumpka wants to support him waiting for him to get the nomination and of course whatever the mafia wants the Unions will comply. Then Trump will go after Hitlery as none other would or could he knows too much about them and will use his inside information against them. He probably has the real dope on most of the Republican establishment but needs their support if he is to run successfully so there will be a coming of the minds once he is nominated and he will be… I am confident.
Bear in mind Trump has the leverage to pull out and take most of his supporters with him. May not effect the establishment who are content with Obama and Hitlery but it will most of the Republican voting constituency…. Choice will be either Trump or the end of 2 party system.
@ babushka:
Questionable taste in political choices, and most definately in music… just to name only two examples of many.
Is Donald Trump Looking For An Exit Strategy To His Long Con Of America?
http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016/04/16/donald-trump-looking-exit-strategy-long-troll-gop/
@ Laura:
He should get the nomination because he’s the only one who can get to the 1,237 threshold.
I don’t make this argument because there’s a long way to go until the general and these things are volatile by nature. How about YOU make the argument about not caring about what the GOPe is doing? If you think the GOP lets Cruz get the nomination, I’ve got a few bridges to sell you.
Keli-A Said:
Agreed on everything.
Laura Said:
Oh, so you are of the crowd who hears G-d’s voice in their heads and deems people who disagree with them as “unG-dly”?
Good to know.
babushka Said:
@ bernard ross:
Trump defends Israel?? Doesn’t matter we don’t need defending not even from DJT
Trump is neutral on Israel
I hope he is neutrral and leaves us alone that’s best for Israel.
Trump will be financially punitive towards Israel.
I hope he would be but I’ll bite how would he do that?
You have no idea how strong we are and how much leverage we have if we didn’t have an ass hole like BB running our show… America hurts us more than helps and as for American Jews in general they can collectivly go fuck themselves…. there was a short period were they were mostly supportive between the 6 day war and Yom Kippur war after that it’s down hill.
Economic and Strategic
Ramifications of American
Assistance to Israel
In any event, Trump is a lowdown lyin’ cheat who has won only 37% of the primary vote but has 47% of the delegates. Rigged! By the Establishment! CHEATER!
And don’t tell me about the “rules”…President-to-be Cruz won by the “rules” in Iowa and Wisconsin (and again today in Wyoming…yay!) yet the Trumplings cried “Foul! Unfairness!! Fraud!!’ The People must be represented!”
37% of the votes but 47% of the delegates. That is not the people being accurately represented. That is cheating! That cheating Establishment Orange Bastard!! He only won 45.7% of the vote in Florida but got 100% of the delegates!! Establishment whore! Thief!
Of course, we are not supposed to apply the feverishly demented standards of the truly disordered Trumpling nutmuffins to their corrupt messiah, so…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FnpaWQJO0
babushka Said:
apparently you must keep relying on your lies.. Trump is not nuetral but you know that and lie anyway.
@ Avigail:
Take heart all you trumphets,the L-rd is with us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcpexpefVzE
and Bernie, Keli-A also, and yamit82 ,where ever he is tonight.
@ babushka:
nope, just dont want to waste time on trivialities when there are real and serious issues for discussion.
Trump defends Israel.
Trump is neutral on Israel.
Trump will be financially punitive towards Israel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJe0_pPA0x8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IR2Kt4FQeyA
@ bernard ross:
@ Laura:
Laura Said:
Trump Defends Israel, Bashes Media in Meeting With Jewish Journalists
I am in a discussion with a forum in Canada and never knew that they have the same nutty euro perspectives. We need Trump if only for the muslim issue…. Canada is on the same path as europe, if the muslims are not prevented from arriving they will destroy the nation as they do everywhere they go. the rest of this discussion is petty trivial crap, and I will not continue wasting time on this foolishness.
here is one post:
Our immigrants, at least the ones who claim to be from Syria, DO have special rights even before they step onto the Canadian taxpayer-funded plane to fly here. Our sicko government sends operatives over there and confers automatic landed immigrant status before they even depart. Once they get here they are legally impossible to get rid of even by the Supreme Court, no matter what crimes they may commit.
Terrorists get to keep their citizenship (they used to be stripped and deported under the previous conservative government) and so do the rest of the migrant lowlife. They get citizenship and a passport here, then promptly fly back to the ME to help ISIS. Then they’re welcomed back with open arms. They are all getting fast tracked to full citizenship, 3 years when it takes a lot longer for regular immigrants.
AND the government has tripled the number of “family reunification” immigrants to be allowed in. This means the Syrians can bring in all of their inbred and infirm relatives by the planeload and we get to pay for their health care etc. They get better “public” health care than taxpaying Canadians do. To add insult to injury, many jurisdictions in Canada are already concocting laws prohibiting anti-Islam speech. If you think it’s bad for Canadians now, wait until those laws are passed.
Canadian taxpayers are already being forced to buy prayer rugs, Korans, and to pay to build mosques – on our military bases! The libtards were so busy rushing hundreds of thousands of parasites in that they forgot about housing for them. So thousands of soldiers were kicked out of their billets on the bases to house the lowlife, and we were forced to pay for the crap that I mentioned above.
The reason for backing Trump is neither logical nor rational. It is the visceral yearning for an authoritarian father figure that led exactly the same emotionally stunted potatoes to support Perot and Ventura and Schwarzenegger. This is the cohort of mindless lemmings.
Trumplings cannot articulate a rationale because their attraction to the cult leader is strictly emotional, which explains why arguing with them by employing facts is like trying to persuade donkeys not to bray.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gROO7xSTxfY
Laura Said:
Lots of logical reasons were listed by number but you tend to ignore that which does not fit into your perspective. I notice that you rarely actually tackle specific reasons except in a cursory and superficial manner. You have your views but you have no idea of what logic is.
Laura Said:
you never watched that video or you could not make the comparison. Ivanka is highly articulate and intelligent…. Trump probably took them with him to work as he did the others… the girls are more confident than the boys. I think you make up your own stories which fit your narrative.
@ bernard ross:
He wasn’t around. He was busy schtupping other broads outside of his marriages.
Chelsea is a smart and strong woman. Does that make Bill a great man?
@ Avigail:
The only cult is the trumpets. His support is based on a cult of personality. There is no coherent, logical reason for backing him. He’s had multiple positions on a number of issues. His own supporters have made contradictory arguments on why he should get the nomination. And you can’t even make the argument that he’s electable in the general election since every poll shows otherwise.
@ babushka:
studying to be a DJ?
Laura Said:
Nah, no way those daughters could act with such empowerment, with such a strong father and not have got a lot of encouragement along the way. Do you have children? You should watch that one and see that Trump hardly even said a word when they spoke, and they werent shrinking violets or parrots.
@ Avigail:
YOU get lost.
@ bernard ross:
Likely because of her mother.
What is the algorithm for determining the collective intelligence quotient of the Trumplings?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuaG-TCpbtw
bernard ross Said:
‘ Oh how the Mighty have fallen” David
honeybee Said:
Yes, I thought I remembered a time when babs made cogent arguments with some humorous video punctuation… now its just name calling…. poor thing.
babushka Said:
bernard ross Said:
plus your video posts are getting stranger by the day