Retreat, America

President Trump wants to ratchet up America's military engagement. We should do the opposite.

American soliders in battle.
(Image credit: REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih)

The most disturbing part of President Trump's first State of the Union address was his war-peddling bombast on North Korea. In a clear echo of George W. Bush's fulmination against Iraq in 2002, Trump argued that "North Korea’s reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland. … We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and to our allies."

In this, as in other policy arenas, a reliable heuristic to find sensible, wise policy is what we might call the Costanza Doctrine: Whatever Trump is proposing, do the opposite. If Trump is angling for war in North Korea, America should push for peace. If Trump wants to build a wall on our border with Mexico and deport millions of immigrants, America should give full amnesty to all of them. And so on.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.