The Trump Doctrine - CBS News & WSJ

"The president embarked on his first foreign trip with a clear-eyed outlook that the world is not a “global community” but an arena where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage. We bring to this forum unmatched military, political, economic, cultural and moral strength. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs, we embrace it."  McMaster & Cohn

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This oped appeared in the WSJ on 30 May.  I missed it.

Listen up, pilgrims!  This is important!  Even Fareed Zakariya, the ultimate Globalist took note of this paragraph on his weekly Sunday call to the faithful to rally to the left.  It is interesting to watch him discuss Islam as though knew little of it.  It is interesting because his father is a Sunni 'alim back at the home ranch in India.  Does anyone know anything of Zakariya pere? 

The sentiments expressed in the McMaster/Cohn oped are a radical departure from globalist internationalism.  Wow!  The world is an "arena" and not a "community?"  No wonder DJT talked trash to the NATO bosses!  He sees them as his competitors, not his henchmen.  Yo momma!   He's from NY City.  He could have "gone there."

Logically, this set of attitudes leads to competitive mercantilism and withdrawal from blocs that do not directly improve US economic and military power positions.  Israel is probably safe.  They have a stranglehold on both major political parties, but all the other people looking for love in the US had better be useful in this brave new world.

Will the American people like this phenomenon?  I think they will outside the territory of the bi-coastal elites.  Fox News interviewed some people in a diner in Plainfield, Connecticut, a town of 15,000  in the NE part of the state.  SWMBO (my genealogist) tells me that some of my ancestors founded the place in the early 17th Century.  I took an internet tour of the town.  There doesn't seem to be any source of employment in the town except for the Connecticut Turnpike (toll takers and maintenance) and a little company that makes cast iron wood burning stoves for the cutesy crowd in Boston. etc. who probably voted for Clinton.  The old folks in the diner all voted for Trump.  pl   

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/h-r-mcmaster-gary-cohn-pen-op-ed-on-meaning-of-america-first/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/america-first-doesnt-mean-america-alone-1496187426

Comments

[Tom Cafferty]

You are so right!
But there are two models at work here:
1.Gangs of New York:
Mobbed up with the Italians and the Russians. Now that's some globalism. Let's get every mob on the planet working together. One Mob, One Tong.
2. East India Company model: Not too different from item 1.
The Prinz boy, Betsy DeVos' little brother wants to establish Afghanistan as an American protectorate under Trump, a la the East India company.
Outsource it, just leave the uniform military for parades on the Mall.
This is gonna work out so well.
Isn't Afghanistan that place where empires go to die?

[BraveNewWorld]

I am curious about how your going to support a $20T debt with out trade? Also if you do that kiss good bye the biggest club you have in the bag. Control of the world banking institutions.

[Lemur]

The eloi in charge of Europe don't have the stones to go it alone in actuality. They've been fooling themselves for years their world historic gay pride parade is sustainable without the muscle and will to power of Washington. Since the pride parade is far more important to EU elites than national or even continental independence, their fate is an eternal return to the United States.

China will be no less transnational. The reality is the ASEAN states are far more implicated in China's economic orbit than they are in America's.

In perspective, the Trump doctrine is a recognition of an emerging multi-polar world. In this world, America is no longer on top, so whatever she wants to do internationally will require more hard-nosed and less soothing bromides about developing the 'international community'. The long term question is whether America will fight on this stage for the common good of her people like the Great Powers of old, or for the ruinous "values" of the French revolution.

[Marcus]

People can't be globally minded and compete with each other? I don't see a big departure here except bellicose posturing. No cohesive ideas coming from this president, just bellicose posturing to play to his true believers. He's a TV guy. Critical analysis is out of his reach.

Looking for a globalist conspiracy? You got it, the world united against the US.

[Brunswick]

There is no Deal with Saudi Arabia.

It's all offers and letters of intent, with no money changing hands, dating to the Obama Administration.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/110-billion-arms-deal-saudi-arabia-fake-news

On the other hand, NAFTA talks start in August, Canada has a team of experts assembled, Mexico has a Team of Experts assembled, there is no Team Trump, there's not even a Commerce Secretary Nominee or a Trade Representative Nominee.

If the Trump Doctrine is going to as the McMaster's/Coen Op-Ed suggests, judge every Treaty/Alliance/Trade deal on the basis of the cost/benifit ratio, as analized by people who can't do basic math in a budget and routinely ignore or lie about facts and figures,

America first is very quickly going to become America Alone.

[Brunswick]

Yup, Article 5 for example,

Why would South Korea continue defence treaties with the US, that when push comes to shove, it's worthless?

[bks]

Last month, President Trump visited Saudi Arabia and his administration announced that he had concluded a $110 billion arms deal with the kingdom. Only problem is that there is no deal. It’s fake news. ...
https://www.lawfareblog.com/110-billion-arms-deal-saudi-arabia-fake-news

[Babak Makkinejad]

I do not expect this to outlast this presidency. Are the puritans who crushed CSA and then proceeded to go from strength to strength going to give up on their imperial project now?

[The Porkchop Express]

b

I agree with your premise. We have long advocated ideas that are diametrically opposed to or act as a masking agents for our actual, implemented policies.

But devil's advocate: what's the alternative? Isn't that just human nature writ large?

[Sam Peralta]

"...extend American influence around the World..."

What happens if the US chooses to not extend influence around the world anymore? What would that do the security and standard of living of Americans?

There is an assumption by many that if the US stops intervening in the internal affairs of other nations, and solely focuses on the security of its borders and lanes of trade, that it is inherently bad for the American people. Let us assume for a moment that the US does exactly that, and closes all its overseas military bases and returns all its military forces back home. And further, that China, Russia, Japan, Britain, Germany, France seek to extend their influence all over the world. How would that situation disadvantage the US in any meaningful way in furthering the standard of living and security of the American people?

[Sam Peralta]

Mark

This must have been brewing for sometime for it to be this draconian. There is more than meets the eye here.

[Bandit]

I think many people misread the McMaster and Cohn article and put their spin on it as if it was a new development, brutally honest or whatever; much like the non-story of the Merkel and Trump divorce, which is just political theater. My personal opinion, is that it is, at least, refreshing to see language that most accurately defines US motives in setting foreign policy. However, aside from the frank appearance, I cannot see any real "change" in the effect or consequences of past policy and this, the most recently stated one. Correct me if I am wrong.

[Poul]

Patrick Cockburn of the Independent has more details of the ransom intercepted in Baghdad.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/qatari-royals-kidnapped-iraq-ransom-half-billion-shia-militia-syria-saudi-hunters-baghdad-a7703946.html

[JJackson]

I too was wondering what had precipitated this and was hoping someone here had some insights and was willing to share.

[Mathiasalexander]

I think b just hates certain parts of the US state apparatus and its associates, rather than the US as a whole.

[Cee]

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/06/the-qatar-conundrum/

[Ante]

different clue
I'm sorry to tell this to you, but Trump has made clear (as clear as he makes things) that they plan on bringing back the TPP, but on a bilateral, country by country, basis. And Trump recently said "that NAFTA will remain, but he plans to 'renogotiate.'"
I have my doubts that his trade deals will be any friendlier to the average American worker than those of the Obama and Bush and Clinton years.

[turcopolier]

bandit, b et al

"I cannot see any real "change" in the effect or consequences of past policy and this, the most recently stated one. Correct me if I am wrong." Some of you think that the US has never acted from anything other than selfishness and rapacity. You are enemies of the US through and through. Therefore you simply see this revolutionary statement of policy as a confession of an eternal truth. pl

[English Outsider]

Simplicius - is it not an advance that Trump seems to be moving away from the neocon pretence that cloaked a predatory foreign policy in the language of freedom and democracy and R2P?

Putin's world view is that each country should pursue its own interests robustly - he's no Utopian - but should do so within the framework of a moral order that excludes predatory excesses. I don't know if that's genuine but it sounds good and is winning hearts and minds in a lot of places. Since only the top few percent in the West truly benefit from neocon predatory excesses - tell me how many of us deplorables are better off for the Ukrainian or the ME debacles - Putin's approach might even be winning hearts and minds in the West itself.

Anything that edges Trump in that direction can only be good news, and perhaps dropping the Soapy Sam R2P pretence might be a step that way. But he's got the swamp and the Israeli lobby like chains round his neck so even if he is edging that way he may not make it.

Our lot are easier to read. The European mini-neocons yapping furiously because the big dog might have found other games to play. That wasn't a noble Transatlantic alliance we had going for us, it was a hunting pack and if it should get broken up that can only be for the good.

So Hobbesian sounds depressing, I do agree with you, but Hobbesian in R2P and hands across the ocean disguise was worse and offered less hope of progress.

[turcopolier]

bks

The real lefties here either have never been in business or are so eager to propagandize that they ignore how large scale business works. I will play along with the game and ask if you think checks should have been signed and handed over at the meeting in SA. pl

[Annem]

I note that this globalized world was set up to support the interests of American capital and, to some degree, production. One only need look at the overall pattern of WTO decisions that MAKE even developing countries open their economies to our goods and investments whether or not that helps the development of the country. That is shy "economic growth" is a crock. Meanwhile, we have littered the world with military bases to enforce our and other Western prerogatives. We look at threats from China and Russia, but which country is surrounding each of these with military bases or exercises, threatening them? Of course, there are silly aspects of this, like saying that we have bases in the Gulf to ensure the flow of oil to other countries when the real reason is to protect these states from Iran. The orders are issued by Western powers. The EU head of foreign affairs informed Serbia recently that it will join the EU whether they like it or not! No independent foreign or domestic policies allowed. If they try to avoid this demand, they will find themselves at the receiving end of another "color" revolution led by neo-liberal parties, like Ukraine.

Yes, the way that Zakaria feigns ignorance of Islam or even foreign affairs when it comes to the Middle East is VERY disingenuous. Of course, to do otherwise would compel him to ask more probing questions to his "expert" guests and in the process, bring down the wrath of the keepers of the narrative within the mainstream media.

[turcopolier]

Brunswick

Countries do not go to war for pieces of paper. It is a matter of their interests requiring war. DeGaulle correctly understood that the US would not necessarily fight for France because of Article Five and for that reason withdrew control of France's forces from ACE although not from NATO itself. For the same reason France developed the Force de Frappe (boomers) The same kind of realpolitik would cause the US to consider fighting for S. Korea. Pieces of paper mean little except as "markers" in the game of nations. pl

[turcopolier]

annem

We seem to live at opposite ends of the DC metro area. In your view the US created the UN, the WTO, NATO, etc with the objective of controlling the world? Just, to clear things up was it the "MIC," the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Wise Men of Zion, the freemasons, or maybe the Catholic Church who organized all this? Or maybe the whole US government has been a conspiracy to accomplish world domination? pl

[Morongobill]

It appears to me that some in Nato have gotten very close to getting a response from the Russian bear with all this encroachment business and would love nothing more than to have said response trigger this article 5.
Trump, to his credit, seems to have seen through the gambit and is sending a strong signal that he won't fall for it.

[c]

I value both your efforts to dissect current situations and their background and the way you offer your point of view (even if they are diametrically opposed) for about ten years plus.