Donald Trump's bar-stool foreign policy
Trump's foreign policy ignorance is fine for someone holding forth at the bar stool. It's disastrous for someone sitting in the Oval Office.
The best reason for conservatives to withhold their support from Donald Trump is that he cannot be trusted to lead America's foreign policy or command its military. For many this is so self-evident given Trump's character and the lack of normal political constraints under which he operates, that there's no need to elaborate. But some need convincing.
Many of Trump's supporters are happy that he seems to have taken on the foreign policy orthodoxies of his party. They want an America that doesn't waste trillions of dollars in fruitless efforts like turning Iraq into a democracy, or helping Libyan rebels only to see that country become an operating base for ISIS. They know that Hillary Clinton's instinct is to use American air power in the name of human rights even if it leads to pro-Islamist outcomes, whether in Kosovo or Libya. In fact, I want and believe the same things.
But there aren't strong reasons to believe Trump is any better than Clinton when it comes to making peace. In fact, he may be much worse.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Trump supported all the dumb wars and interventions that he now claims to have been against. He supported President George W. Bush on invading Iraq. Though he says he was against it, Trump supported the intervention in Libya in the most anti-realist terms possible when he said, "We've got to go in and save these lives." He is just all over the place, saying that we shouldn't be involved in Syria, and then a few minutes later saying that the U.S. should create safe zones in Syria.
The simple explanation for these changes is that Donald Trump hasn't ever thought hard about foreign policy; he simply has an instinct for where public opinion is at any moment on any given war and runs ahead of it. That's fine for someone holding forth at the bar stool. It's disastrous in a man who sits in the Oval Office.
Almost the entirety of the foreign policy establishment is against Donald Trump. That includes not just the hawkish neoconservatives, but also the foreign policy realists who would be the only group of advisors that could shape Trump's "America First" foreign policy into a real alternative to the last 25 years of post-Cold War interventionism. He would simply be disarmed of the kind of expertise needed to run America's foreign policy. Getting his way with the full-time employed members of the State and Defense Departments will prove difficult and lead to upheaval or administrative gridlock, at best.
Trump has named a handful of under-qualified foreign policy hands. Some of them are quite alarming in themselves, like Walid Phares, who has repeatedly sounded the bell that Muslims have a secret plot to take over America and impose sharia law.
Trump seems to believe any and every conspiracy theory that passes by his nose — not just that vaccines cause Down syndrome or that Barack Obama may be a secret Kenyan. He has said he believed that Obama struck a deal with the Saudis to keep oil prices low ahead of his re-election in 2012. If you thought that it was bad when the Bush administration came to believe its own bad intelligence, imagine what a Trump administration would do when the president wants to believe something. Beyond that, Trump has promised that American military members will commit war crimes and other acts of torture on his say-so, merely because he is Donald Trump.
America is already too quick to use its military power to try to shape outcomes in far-off places throughout the world. This defect would only be exacerbated if a person with Trump's twitchy sense of honor and aggression steps into the role of commander-in-chief.
The very fact that most of the elected officials of the Republican Party — including those that once called Trump a "cancer," a "con artist," or an "erratic individual" who can't be trusted with America's nuclear arsenal — have lined up to endorse him or even become his vice president shows that our political class is unlikely to resist him doing something truly dangerous if he is perceived as popular. Too many, when faced with the choice between their high principles and Trump, chose Trump as an expediency. We should not tempt them with a choice between their president and the security of our nation.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.
-
Her Lotus Year: Paul French's new biography sets lurid rumours straight
The Week Recommends Wallis Simpson's year in China is less scandalous, but 'more interesting' than previously thought
By The Week UK Published
-
Today's political cartoons - November 21, 2024
Cartoons Thursday's cartoons - wild cards, wild turkeys, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Say Nothing: 'sensational' dramatisation of Patrick Radden Keefe's bestselling book
The Week Recommends The series is a 'powerful reminder' of the Troubles
By The Week UK Published
-
US election: who the billionaires are backing
The Explainer More have endorsed Kamala Harris than Donald Trump, but among the 'ultra-rich' the split is more even
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US election: where things stand with one week to go
The Explainer Harris' lead in the polls has been narrowing in Trump's favour, but her campaign remains 'cautiously optimistic'
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Is Trump okay?
Today's Big Question Former president's mental fitness and alleged cognitive decline firmly back in the spotlight after 'bizarre' town hall event
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
The life and times of Kamala Harris
The Explainer The vice-president is narrowly leading the race to become the next US president. How did she get to where she is now?
By The Week UK Published
-
Will 'weirdly civil' VP debate move dial in US election?
Today's Big Question 'Diametrically opposed' candidates showed 'a lot of commonality' on some issues, but offered competing visions for America's future and democracy
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
1 of 6 'Trump Train' drivers liable in Biden bus blockade
Speed Read Only one of the accused was found liable in the case concerning the deliberate slowing of a 2020 Biden campaign bus
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attempt
Speed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published