I’m seeing a lot of writers on foreign policy madly searching through the State of the Union trying to find a unifying theme in the Trump foreign policy other than a few slogans (America First!, Make America Great Again). They shouldn’t bother. Trump is transactional in his approach. There will be no Trump Doctrine. He’ll throw any number of bargaining chips up against the wall and see how many he can get. That’s so obvious it’s amazing that everyone can’t see it.
He might once have had an embryonic doctrine. During the campaign he expressed skepticism about NATO and a desire to scale down and end our every-expanding foreign wars. It is conspicuous that both attitudes (not really policies) were squashed by the security state, and the Pentagon, CIA, NSA are firmly in charge of our foreign and military policies, which have not changed since Truman.
That flip-flop should be combined with the news that the FBI sent five senior officials to the White House last night with orders to change the House memo. Our security agencies will not accept direction from the Presidency and are now fully independent of the Constitutional government, such as it is. Does anyone remember the Praetorian Guard?
I’m not sure a transactional, some might say practical, approach is all bad. There is no one world, or foreign policy. Its more complicated. Perhaps a few overarching themes will do.
I hadn’t heard about the FBI sending a truth squad out. I say let all the info out. Period, full stop. Methinks the FBI and Democrats protest to much. And their arguments so far range from vague to fluid to transparently disingenuous. If the Republicans are perpetuating a scam they will pay a huge political price. I’ve followed this fairly closely. I wouldn’t bet on it.
Let all of the information out, agree on that wholeheartedly. However, the GOP pays no price that I can see. They made many, many false claims about Benghazi, all proved wrong by 8 investigations, including the ones they ran, and there was no price to pay. We are in an era where the 2 sides really won’t care what the findings might actually be.
On the larger topic, the Trump Doctrine has always been and will be whatever the last person to talk with him convinced him to do.
Only slightly OT, what do you make of his not enforcing sanctions on Russia? One of the few really bipartisan things to come out of Congress. Assume he did not collude. Why does he do this? What is his motivation, remember his history (he has no prior expertise or knowledge about foreign policy, no prior interests in Russia), in protecting Russia from sanctions? Don’t get it. They really aren’t much of a viable trade partner. I can understand not wanting to be at odds with them so much, but this is the guy who is Mr Macho with everyone else. He talks tougher with our allies.
Steve
Probably just not interested. It may just not be a priority.
Not interested? If he wasn’t interested he just lets the bill passed by 97 senators take effect. Not buying it.
Steve
Beats me. Not a Trumpologist.
It’s early days but right now I’d guess the Trump Doctrine is: Do whatever is good for Trump.
As usual. To much amateur mind reading, er, psychology. Or is it astrology?
I fear, Dave, that you, and several commenters, are guilty of an erroneous assumption, that Trump has any interest in having a foreign policy. He is dealing with individual actors on individual situations and he’s dealing for himself, not the country. He’s refusing to implement the Russia sanctions for fear of gawd knows what the Russians might do to him. Evan Osnos at New Yorker notes that a Chinese think tank studied the Trump administration. They decided the best way to sum it up was, “an obscure phrase from feudal China: jiatianxia—“to treat the state as your possession.—