With one very important exception, and despite a number of rhetorical and stylistic differences, the Trump Administration’s approach to the Middle East is not substantially different from that of the Obama Administration.[1] President Barack Obama prioritized the fight against Salafi jihadist groups (al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], and their offshoots) above…
Tag: Trump
Policy Series: Make America Grey Again?
In July 2017, the Washington Post reported that the new leaders of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were planning on updating the agency’s museum in the Ronald Reagan building in the nation’s capital. Given that the museum had opened just three days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the move was transparently based on political motivations…
Policy Series: A Double Standard?
The American political class has been working itself into a lather over the hacking of a number of email accounts, evidently by Russian intelligence, and the subsequent leaking of information from those emails during the recent presidential election campaign. Those leaks, it is said, hurt Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and might well have cost…
Policy Series: The “Global Order” Myth
During the Age of Trump, Year One, a single word has emerged to capture the essence of the prevailing cultural mood: resistance. Words matter, and the prominence of this particular term illuminates the moment in which we find ourselves.
Policy Series: Donald Trump and the New Turn in Canadian Foreign Policy
On 6 June 2017, Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed the Canadian House of Commons on foreign policy priorities in a speech that was widely interpreted as establishing a new direction in Canada’s international policies–a more independent course involving less reliance on the United States and more support for international forums.[2] The speech…
Policy Series: Donald Trump: The View from the Asia-Pacific. Loose Nukes and Loose Cannons
Slightly more than six months have elapsed since Donald Trump won the 2017 presidential election, and almost five since he took office. For all the Asia-Pacific nations—and virtually every other state—the ensuing days, weeks, and months have brought continuing revelations as to just how surreal United States politics might become. “Mr. Trump Goes to Washington”…
Policy Series: Stability versus Flexibility in Trumpian Foreign Policy
On 10 June 2017 newspapers record that President Donald J. Trump went out of his way during a press appearance with the president of Romania to declare that, “I’m committing the United States to Article 5,” of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) treaty.[1] Sighs of relief could be heard on both sides of The…
Policy Series: Going Rogue in the Age of Trump
With a nihilistic wild man in the White House, it is time for America’s diplomats to embrace their historic rebelliousness. Donald Trump has only been president for a few months, but he has already done more to debase United States foreign policy than any chief executive in memory. He has gutted the State Department, purging…
Policy Series: Donald Trump and the “Paranoid Style” in American (Intellectual) Politics
Richard Hofstadter’s famous catch phrase, the “paranoid style in American politics,” should be buried with a stake in its heart. As someone who has tried to hammer in the stake for several decades, I can’t help noticing that the term has again risen from the grave as in a horror movie populated, not by vampires,…
Policy Series: Donald Trump and NATO: Historic Alliance Meets A-historic President
NATO is a unique alliance in world history, outlasting its original purpose of deterring the Soviet Union and, in so doing, demonstrating the persistence of the shared values and interests among its members. Donald Trump is a unique president, rejecting past practice, procedures and principles. The interaction between NATO and this president in just a…