his lack of core convictions, choice of top advisers with different views, willingness to publicly contradict himself, and pathological craving for success and public approval give him both the incentive and the means to back away from some of his riskiest public positions.
The main risk is incoherence and accidents, not a foreign policy revolution.
The risk with Trump is less that he will pursue a grand strategy that causes problems than that he will have no coherent strategy at all.
.. Trump has few if any fixed policy positions or beliefs. To be sure, he has been fairly consistently opposed to free trade, in favor of greater “burden-sharing,” admiring of strongmen and obsessed with getting along with Russia. But beyond that—and probably even including that—everything for Trump is negotiable, if not disposable. Throughout his long public career, he has taken both sides of just about every conceivable position, from abortion, health care, and gun control to the merits of Bill and Hillary Clinton or even his own status as a Democrat or a Republican. On the invasion of Iraq—the biggest foreign policy decision in generations—he was initially in favor of the war, then passionately against the war, then in favor of a total and immediate withdrawal, and then deeply critical of such a withdrawal. On Libya, he recorded a video presentation in February 2011 strongly advocating in great detail the very sort of military intervention President Barack Obama undertook a month later, before making opposition to that intervention and its consequences a core campaign against Clinton.
.. Trump has few if any fixed policy positions or beliefs. To be sure, he has been fairly consistently opposed to free trade, in favor of greater “burden-sharing,” admiring of strongmen and obsessed with getting along with Russia. But beyond that—and probably even including that—everything for Trump is negotiable, if not disposable. Throughout his long public career, he has taken both sides of just about every conceivable position, from abortion, health care, and gun control to the merits of Bill and Hillary Clinton or even his own status as a Democrat or a Republican. On the invasion of Iraq—the biggest foreign policy decision in generations—he was initially in favor of the war, then passionately against the war, then in favor of a total and immediate withdrawal, and then deeply critical of such a withdrawal. On Libya, he recorded a video presentation in February 2011 strongly advocating in great detail the very sort of military intervention President Barack Obama undertook a month later, before making opposition to that intervention and its consequences a core campaign against Clinton.
.. Trump has few if any fixed policy positions or beliefs. To be sure, he has been fairly consistently opposed to free trade, in favor of greater “burden-sharing,” admiring of strongmen and obsessed with getting along with Russia. But beyond that—and probably even including that—everything for Trump is negotiable, if not disposable. Throughout his long public career, he has taken both sides of just about every conceivable position, from abortion, health care, and gun control to the merits of Bill and Hillary Clinton or even his own status as a Democrat or a Republican. On the invasion of Iraq—the biggest foreign policy decision in generations—he was initially in favor of the war, then passionately against the war, then in favor of a total and immediate withdrawal, and then deeply critical of such a withdrawal. On Libya, he recorded a video presentation in February 2011 strongly advocating in great detail the very sort of military intervention President Barack Obama undertook a month later, before making opposition to that intervention and its consequences a core campaign against Clinton.
.. will a President Trump really tell NATO allies—as he suggested during the campaign—that U.S. treaty commitments to their defense are not valid unless they all start spending more on their own defense, thus potentially putting in question all U.S. defense commitments all around the world? Or will he instead seek out harmony and popularity among allies at an early 2017 NATO summit and declare victory by pointing to the recent increases in European defense spending as the result of his brilliant diplomacy
.. If such flip-flops seem implausible, or impossible to sell to his supporters with a straight face, keep in mind that
- in the three weeks since his election Trump has already publicly concluded that humans might be responsible for climate change after all (having previously argued this was a “hoax”),
- that there were some parts of Obamacare worth preserving (something he discovered in a short conversation with President Obama),
- and that torture and waterboarding may not work after all (something he was “surprised” to learn in a discussion with Mattis, whose views were apparently not made available to candidate Trump when he was passionately arguing the opposite).
.. his lack of core convictions, choice of top advisers with different views, willingness to publicly contradict himself, and pathological craving for success and public approval give him both the incentive and the means to back away from some of his riskiest public positions.
.. his lack of core convictions, choice of top advisers with different views, willingness to publicly contradict himself, and pathological craving for success and public approval give him both the incentive and the means to back away from some of his riskiest public positions.