politics
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November 18, 2024
His inner circle includes establishment hawks and cranky outsiders who are more likely to bring about global anarchy than world peace.
Donald Trump won the presidential election in both 2016 and 2024 because he ran as an outsider with anti-war tendencies, in contrast to a bipartisan political system discredited by the eternal wars. has made a considerable contribution. But President Trump’s first term left behind Barack Obama’s legacy of foreign diplomatic engagement, while repeatedly giving establishment hawks such as John Bolton, John Kerry, HR McMaster and Nikki Haley powerful positions. It set him back and showed how shallow his anti-war efforts actually were. Iran and Cuba. Trump’s actual foreign policy The main topics include continuing forever war, pursuing a nuclear brinkmanship policy with North Korea, applying maximum pressure on Iran (and tearing up Obama’s nuclear deal), and a long-standing arms control agreement with Russia. It was the withdrawal of
Trump didn’t start a new war, but he took up long-range bombing earlier than Obama. Far from being an “isolationist” (a meaningless accusation made by establishment figures clinging to outdated frameworks of World War II and the Cold War), President Trump’s actual philosophy is “more debris, less problems.” It was. In other words, President Trump was eager to project violence abroad (including, in the case of North Korea, the threat of pre-emptive nuclear war), but cautious about putting his feet on the ground.
Given his track record, Trump could not have promoted himself as a peace candidate in 2024. The fact that he did so is partly due to his astonishing rudeness, but also based on Joe Biden’s questionable foreign policy record. Biden, an establishment internationalist at heart, has made maintaining American global hegemony a guiding principle, including negotiating an end to the Russia/Ukraine conflict and reining in the barbaric and nihilistic Israel in any meaningful way. It meant being reluctant to do so. A fight against the Palestinian people and neighboring countries. Given the escalating conflicts in both Europe and the Middle East, and Biden’s continued confrontational stance toward China, war-weary populations once again sought anti-establishment options.
Trump, cynical and stubborn, answered the call by claiming his America First foreign policy was an anti-war alternative. He claimed, “There was peace in the Middle East during my administration, and there will be peace again soon!” President Trump’s victory speech said“I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop a war.”
The left should demand that President Trump keep this promise. But one should also be skeptical about whether President Trump’s second term will be even more anti-war than his first. Either President Trump or his foreign policy team has the skills and desire for a truly anti-interventionist foreign policy that would bring down the American empire, use diplomacy to engage with rivals, and shift resources away from a bloated nation. There is little reason to think that there is. Military budgets for domestic repair and international climate action.
One reason to be wary of President Trump’s foreign policy is that his advisory team is a mix of establishment hawks and fractious America First outsiders. The foreign policy establishment (including Democratic hawks) is reportedly excited about the nominations of Sen. Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Rep. Mike Walz as national security adviser. That’s what it means. On the contrary, the facility side not free Some of Trump’s wild card picks, particularly his nominations of Fox News host Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. Hegseth is more of a militaristic nihilist than a hawk, but in 2017 advocated A pre-emptive nuclear attack on North Korea.
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Gabbard is a more maverick and interesting figure. She is extremely hawkish on the Middle East, but advocates diplomatic engagement with Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine. Now she won abuse from the ruling class (Including Democrats such as Hillary Clinton) They smeared Gabbard as a Russian asset. Trump backer-turned-consigliere Elon Musk is tasked with gutting the federal bureaucracy, but he also has some unconventional foreign policy ideas. new york times report Musk reportedly met with Iranian diplomats to ease tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic (Iran’s claim) vehemently deny).
We should welcome any suggestions that Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Musk may make in the diplomatic direction. Some very enlightened Trump supporters believe that Trump is, in fact, ignoring his more hawkish advisers and making a decisive move away from Joe Biden’s reckless interventionism and sponsorship of multiple wars. Some argue that it will pursue a monocentric foreign policy. this was very controversial skillfully made Recently foreign affairs By Dan Caldwell, public policy advisor at Defense Priorities, and Reed Smith, vice president of foreign policy at Stand Together.
Caldwell and Smith argue that “Republicans should adopt President Trump’s ‘art of the deal’ approach to foreign policy.” President Trump has expressed a desire to negotiate with America’s adversaries, including China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, to reduce tensions and avoid new conflicts. ”
Alas, these idealistic sentiments deserve Jake Burns’ sarcastic response in an Ernest Hemingway novel. the sun will rise again: “Isn’t it nice to think that way?” We should be grateful that conservatives like Mr. Caldwell and Mr. Smith are embracing restraint in foreign policy. This portends a future in which the left and the right can work together on a bipartisan basis to dismantle the American empire. But that would have to take place under a different presidency. There is nothing in President Trump’s record that assures us that his spasmodic anti-war tendencies will yield any real restraint.
Rather, we should be troubled by the incoherence of President Trump’s cabinet appointments. The governing principle of his nomination is neither hawkish nor repressive, but rather rapacious. Trump is assembling not a team of rivals but a team of cronies united by obedience to his whims. As President Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton memo“Their connection is loyalty to Trump, not loyalty. Loyalty is good, but loyalty is obedience, a medieval idea. He just wants yes-men and yes-women. is.”
Influencing the foreign policy team in the direction of President Trump’s momentary fantasies will be understandably precarious. President Trump may be reluctant to send American troops to war, but is otherwise willing to use American power, including the threat of nuclear annihilation, to bully foreign adversaries. . Trump also doesn’t have a strong track record of negotiating with rivals. Even if the Ukraine war ends in a negotiated settlement, hawks in the Trump administration are likely to use the freed up resources to screw with Cuba, Venezuela, China, and Mexico. This is not a true anti-war leader, but rather the American Empire in a new guise. The most reasonable path for the second Trump administration is not America first, but chaos first.
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