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

[Lurker]

Thank you Colonel, I appreciate your international business development experience. Yet, I have observed that even after contracts are signed and partially executted the delivery of the goods might be blocked by political forces. For example: Charles deGaulle blocked the delivery of 50 Mirage 5 to Israel in the late 1960's and Hollande blocked the delivery of the Mistrals helicopter ships to Russia last year.

I am entertained by seeing Norwegian forces at the army base for coalition forces training Syrian rebels at the al-Tanf border crossing while at the same time Norsk Hydro's ( or YARA) massive fertilizer joint venture investments with Qatar are being called into question. If I was the Norwegian government, I would be pulling out if al-Tanf pronto to demonstrate my displeasure with TPTB. It seems TPTB are either interested in: A) incremental LNG Shipments to Europe ex America B) Increased desirability of NG off shore Israeli operated Leviathan in the Mediterranean basin or a combination of A and B.

[Lurker]

Something else might explain the Saudi row with Qatar besides the Saudis and the forty thieves coveting the coffers of Qatar and its gargantuan Natural Gas reserves. Qatar supports the MB (al Qaeda) but the Saudis support ISIL / ISIS (Daesh). According to Voltairenet.org quoting:
Asharq Al-Awsat, the Pan-Arab daily edited in London, has revealed that the leaders of Al-Qaeda and Daesh are currently negotiating in Iraq for their coming together as one entity.

[Lurker]

I think I got it right this time. If the South Eastern border of Syria is wrestled from the Syrian Arab Army and from the Iraqi PMU then a Qatari - Saudi - Golan Heights Natural Gas Pipeline could be secured. This sidelines:Turkey, Syria, Russia, Iran and even the Kurds. Hence the need to force the Qatari leadership to abandon their support for their independent course and ditch the MB (Turkey). Norway will be given a piece of the pie for their loss in Nork Hydro's Qatari joint ventures. Hence, their special forces present at al Tanf.

[turcopolier]

Lurker

No. You do not "have it right." You still need to work on map reading. To run a pipeline to the Golan Heights you must first destroy the Syrian government. pl

[b]

You, Pat, always argue against economic determinism, especially in war decisions.

Now you are asking me if the U.S. fought for economic advantages in WWI, Korea and Vietnam?

I agree with you. Economic advantage is probably a factor in war but only ONE factor and not necessarily the biggest.

The ideological factor, fervent anti-communism, and the urge to build a U.S. empire to replace the British one were much more decisive in committing to those wars.

The U.S. saw the embracement of communism in more and more countries (even when it was only an expression of nationalism) as danger to its developing empire as well as a danger to its (puritanical) libertarian economic ideology. That was the reason for the wars in Korea and Vietnam.

It was the reason for the Marshall plan. (Which was also rather small in comparison to modern programs and more marketing than content.) Western Europe could not be allowed to "fall into communist hands" and had to be propped up for that reason. That was also the reason for the U.S. program of creating a European Union (i.e. European Coal and Steel).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/27/the-european-union-always-was-a-cia-project-as-brexiteers-discov/
(For the other side of the same coin see the anti-communist coups led by the U.S. in Greece and Italy.)

The entry into WWII is a bit more complicate but basically also driven by the selfish motives of replacing Britain as world power and countering the Russian led block.

In Europe the U.S. waited with its serious entry on the continent until Britain was exhausted and indebted enough to diminish it as a competitor and until the Russian armies had bled enough and had thoroughly defeated the German Wehrmacht.

So yes, the motives in all cases were selfish. But they were not immediate economic ones. They were ideological (with a very long-term perspective of economic advantage being behind the U.S. ideology.)