The Trump Phenomenon and the Future of US Foreign Policy

The following sections are included:

• Executive Summary
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface

Donald Trump is a phenomenon. He has called for an about-face in American foreign policy. Many of his criticisms reflect the public mood, but he has not yet devised a carefully-considered alternative because his barbs are often contradictory. This is his challenge. Diagnosing the disease is not enough. He has to go further by designing an optimal therapy…

Sane policy means replacing insiders in-command with public servants. It means preserving our core culture and re-directing government policy (domestic and foreign) to the public good.

Cosmopolitan policy is expressed in big government. But big government cannot fulfill its promises and only uses promises as a cover for inside maneuvering.

Sane policy rejects the claim of insiders that unless government does more, precious missions will remain unaccomplished.

Sanity means that America should not pretend to do the impossible as a cover for insider dealing.

In this chapter, we propose a very specific policy for the United States. Our effort responds to a continual demand made in the election campaign for specificity about alternatives to the current Administration's policies. Trump has been understandably reticent in responding to these demands since they are made by his political enemies and with no other purpose than to find additional grounds on which to attack him…

The following sections are included:

• Complete
• Comprehensive
• Coherent
• Consistent
• Credible
• Compliant

Specifically, these characteristics mean…

Twelve principles of strategy underlie the specifics of the policy which are detailed above. We begin with the basic principle of nationalism, which is the topic of this book. America should…

Of the principles identified in the previous chapter, several will benefit from further discussion.

The following sections are included:

• America Should Seize Opportunities To Secure The Future
• The Myth Of Collective Security
• An Increasingly Pacificist Electorate And Allies
• Collective Security As A Political Fig Leaf
• The NATO Illusion
• The New Anglo-Saxon Bloc

The following sections are included:

• Doomsday Approaches
• Nuclear War Is More Imminent Because Our Adversaries Are Better Able And More Willing To Endure It
• How Not To Be Concerned About The Risk Of Nuclear War
• Nuclear Protection For Vicious Regimes
• Asia As A Nuclear Hotbed
• Today's Greatest Nuclear Threat

Americans, by and large, do not respect Russia. A typical example is an article that appeared recently in the Boston Globe. It was entitled, “Putin's Russia is a Poor, Drunk Soccer Hooligan.” Citing data about the Russian economy, the article sought to prove that Russia is a paper tiger…

There is a significant political controversy in the United States about the nature of the terrorist threat. The Administration refuses to refer to it as “radical Islam,” insisting that Islam is not the source of terrorism. Others insist that the threat is from radical Islam and that to deny this is to cripple our attempts to defend ourselves…

China is a rival to the United States mainly because of the American presence in the Far East. China now aspires to a zone of special influence in the same area. The United States opposes this, and so there is the potential for conflict, intended or accidental, between the two great powers…

The following sections are included:

• Underestimating Germany
• German Success
• The Fate Of The EU And Why
• The Difficult Future Of Europe
• Where Brexit Takes America
• Consequences For The United States

We have seen in the preceding chapters that an appropriate policy can be fashioned out of a nationalist perspective. We have seen that it can meet the principles and have the characteristics desired of an effective policy. We can now turn our attention to what our politicians are offering to us as choices for a policy orientation for America.

Before we identify the alternatives in a general manner, it is useful to examine a specific example.

America continues to have great strengths. It has elite military units which are the best in the world. It exerts leadership in key areas of technology. It has a free and ambitious population. It has some excellent schools and scientific researchers. These are the American lions.

But the American situation today reminds an observer of what the German high command during World War I said of the British army it faced — that the British soldiers were lions who were led by generals who were donkeys. Similarly, America's lions are currently being led by politicians who are donkeys.

In this chapter we discuss how and where the donkeys have led our lions.

Spin is now an accepted part of American political culture. As such, it is assumed to be benign. We will see below that the New York Times has even defended it as a positive part of our political culture. It is not. It is fundamentally dishonest and it interferes dramatically with effective governmental functioning. It limits the identification of public problems; it makes their analysis difficult; and it virtually prevents the solution of public problems — of, for example, America's problem with joblessness; of our problem with a slow growth economy; of our decaying infrastructure. Spin denies the existence of problems and so precludes their solution. It is a very bad thing…

The following sections are included:

• Americans Greatly Overestimates America's Strength
• American National Decay
• The Erosion Of American Military Strength
• America's Situation Is Now The Opposite Of What It Was Before The Second World War
• The United States Can Win Battles But Not A War
• From Decay To Disaster
• Abnormal Immigration In America
• The Rule Of Democratic Failure

In our world, in which spin dominates political communication, the president generally is able to claim that he is already doing everything that is advocated by critics. This is because White House spin includes claiming that the president is on both sides of all issues…

What is the next step in the complex struggle over the direction of American policy? It is a new form of domestic politics in the Western democracies. The new form is likely to dominate Western politics for the next decade. But it is a hidden form of politics — it is intentionally disguised. It is the creation of the political establishment. It involves a deeper exploitation of Goebbels' theme of propaganda. Many people will not even realize it is happening. But it will hold the key to our futures.

The following sections are included:

• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Authors