Trump Does War
People who understand global dynamics can be nothing but alarmed. All the rest don’t understand the words.
Many of Trump’s supporters make vigorous arguments about how he’s going to fix their country. That’s all well and good, but they don’t seem to give thoughtful analysis to, and acknowledgment of, the risks and consequences from these serious decisions regarding military action around the world. That’s being out of touch.
Donald Trump’s personality shows clear signs that he will be on a mission to gain street cred as soon as possible, from Day 1 in the Oval Office. He has forced himself into this position of dangerous impulse with his grandiose statements and promises.
It won’t take him long to realize that he’s over-matched, and out of his league to run the country’s domestic agenda with any fluidity and meaningful progress. In fact, most of Trump’s cabinet is as unprepared as he is to lead this country. A more perfectly written script for disaster just could not be written. (See article here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/19/donald-trump-has-assembled-the-worst-cabinet-in-american-history/?utm_term=.2b3b965616ec)
As Trump realizes the wheels of the biggest changes (his glory moments) don’t move as fast he wants, he will seek out any, and all options, to act out, and fill, his driven need, if not obsession, to show strength and power, and to be applauded by an audience.
He will find those clearest options in war, because that’s what Trump does. In his narrow business, and obsolete, adversarial salesman’s mind, life is always a war. Its black and white. There’s a winner and a loser, and a (Trumpian-branded) simplistic strategy of how to prevail.
He has already sold his soul to Putin, and even he must know the Middle East quagmire has no returns for him. East Asia is the place for him. Its the place that Trump will try to show he’s king of the schoolyard, and in charge of all the chalk lines. This is too dangerous for words. ISIS and the Middle East are skirmishes compared to the risk of armed conflict in this part of the world. The entire Pacific Rim is at risk from military maneuvers here.
North Korea, and China, are problematic. From the nuclear situation and the developing South China Sea controversy, both of them have engaged in little more than patronizing diplomacy. This is not the same style of quagmire of the Middle East, but its still a complicated mash up of power and insecurity, that needs to be addressed. It was bound to test one American President or another eventually.
I am sure that Barack Obama is happy to leave behind these two complex dynamics on someone else’s plate, but as a human being, and a citizen of this country with a family, he has to be concerned of what will come of it.
East Asia needs to be dealt with. Whether Trump is the right American President to do it will come clear soon enough. Its sitting there right in full view, waiting for him to make his move. For him, it may be the easiest move of all. Its what he’s built for. Trump does war.
