Someone else who I think has it about right is Jackson Diehl in his most recent Washington Post column:
The Trump administration will put an end to the 100 years of U.S. global leadership that began in 1918. It will rend the NATO alliance, cede Eurasia to Russia and the Pacific to China, and adopt as the United States’ best friends populist and authoritarian regimes that despise immigrants and globalization.
Or, after a few early scrapes, its foreign policy will slowly devolve into a somewhat ruder version of President Obama’s. It will bomb terrorists while trying to extract the United States from the Middle East; mix negotiations with Russia and China with pushback against their aggressions; and berate European and Asian allies about their inadequate defense spending without breaking the U.S. commitment to defend them. It will downplay human rights and may even look for deals with rogue regimes, such as North Korea.
The most amazing think about American foreign policy is not its changeability but its continuity through different presidents and different political parties. President Obama’s foreign policy, at least during his first term, was much like George W. Bush’s during his second.
There are limits to what presidents can do on their own. Don’t be surprised if when the dust has settled we’re still in NATO, we’re still in the UN, and the agreement with Iran is still in place in some form. Since most of the benefits to Iran were front-loaded the incentive for us is to stay the course.
Trump will appoint interventionists to his foreign policy positions for the simple reason that he won’t be able to find anyone else. Positions of influence are so dominated by interventionists the only way he could find an alternative is by thinking way outside the box and I wouldn’t expect that. That practically ensures continuity.
As to RF President Putin, I hope that Mr. Trump curtails the cult of personality and demonization of Putin that dominates U. S. foreign policy thinking. It isn’t helping. Something a little more neutral would be a pleasant change but I have no illusions that will actually happen.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-u-s-remains-deeply-complicit-in-the-war-on-yemen/
Of necessity I suppose you gloss over the wretched excesses of Obama’s policies. Which are no worse than were Bushes, granted.
Frankly I hope Trump-Bannon ethno-nationalism hastens the settling of national identity feuds here which means the U.S. will not have the ability to attempt to “settle” (impose its will on) feuds in eastern Europe and the Middle East.