Trump before and after he took office, the prevailing public opinion was whether he’s got the right temperament to handle the office of the President. Even though it was the perception held by then out going President Obama. The issue of temperament have unfortunately dominated and saturated the mainstream media coverage of his three year and counting in office. With the recent publication of “Rage” by Bob Woodward, lots of question continue to swell around, especially considering the human toll associated with the pandemic. His perceived deception on the threat of the pandemic did not help either as it feeds into the temperament narrative. One must note, he is not your typical politician, his unorthodox approach makes his kind of populism a challenge to conventional states like America harder if not difficult to comprehend. But why after such an avalanche of accusation he still manages to have a job? A case like those that confronted him would have sank or swallowed any ordinary President-link to Russian election interference, thereafter soliciting from Ukraine dirt on his presumptive democratic opponent. Yet, all resulted in unsuccessful impeachment bid. America election though an internal matter of Americans, America is a world superpower and, what happens in America have immense international political bearing. As custodian of the status quo, America’s leadership demands acting accordingly. Since the leadership of Trump, immense shift have taken place in America’s foreign policy. The most recent being restriction placed on International Criminal Court (ICC). Though it comes as shocking yet not surprising. Others includes attack on alliances like NATO, to mention but a few. With respect to the ICC, as mentioned, it didn’t come as a surprise because America have never rectified the Treaty of its existence. Still, it points to a shift in America’s foreign policy as we expect it to be. Countries and continents have not been spared from Trump’s shakedown, Europe for instance have seen tariffs thrown their way. It is a cautionary tell from hard saber rattling that seems like an outright war from Iran to North Korea and recently China. Trump brought with him more or less a transaction approach to foreign policy in which thin line appears between friends and foes.
What can we make of such unusual approach in American foreign policy? Usually we look at National Security Strategy to dissect the direction in any given administration. This involves understanding what form of grand strategy it is pursuing or hopes to adopt. For instance, the administration of President Obama was known for his liberal internationalism-famous for its utility of multilateral institutions. America NSS revolves around three known grand strategy which includes; Primacy and Neo-isolationism as part of the trios. Trump from the look of things, have combined the two approach of both Neo-isolationism and Primacy. He’s managed to sieve through it, picking and choosing what would work for him. This is both fascinating and problematic. Fascinating because, he employs and discards at the same time, the hawks and moderate of both strategies as both winners and losers. The problematic because of the way he went about doing it. Above all, the usual benefit derived from established expertise were totally shunned or overlooked, creating an added spirit of discontent amongst those who would have wanted to play a part. His over reliance on new other than established and tested expertise comes with it challenges of predictability and continuity.
On neo-isolationism, he manages to infuse elements of American nationalism-exceptionalism, as an ethos-the MAGA concept. Neo-isolationism as a strategy we must remember is built on anti-alliance. For the established expertise whom have managed decade long American foreign policy, this is utter nonsense. The general belief is that America’s strength is stronger within and among alliances membership. Trump seems to differ, his perception of alliances is that it is burdensome, one sided, alliance benefits the weak and weakens the strong. This actually is the prescriptive approach of neo-isolationism, whereby the emphasis is on America’s needs and interests convergence.
Primacy, as another grand strategy, speaks to preponderance of power, counterbalancing as opposed to outright challenge, because other outlays of power knows where the power lays. This is to remain and maintain preeminence of power. Understanding the lose nature of today’s power from unipolarity to multipolarity requires a strong America. An America that is not bugged down through military adventurism and commitments-policeman of the world. Understanding this requires repurposing commitment and importantly withdrawal from long foreign military engagement. This eliminates distraction, overstretched and constraining effect on its military. This can helps America refocus more adapting to important geopolitical competition.
How he manages to navigate through this two separate strategies is something of great interest. He fuses the idea of burden sharing with increased military budget among alliance, although a long overdue response by threatening to pull away, with the hope of achieving the conceptual ideals within offshore balancing. This way, America can achieve the ultimate goal of not fighting every war but acting as a strong pillar to existing alliance that can sustain the status quo, therefore eliminating full entanglement. The pace with which he completed among others ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan points to this fact thereby, repurposing American hard power, though not everyone would agree with him especially within the established policyholders.
Furthermore, on primacy, he’s moved to challenge China. China was identified as America’s threat in modern era. Russia, isn’t much of a greater threat compared to what China represents. The critical question within this analysis might give better insight, If Russia doesn’t pose much of a challenge given existing Western imposed isolation, the West is caught in the middle while doing business with China whom as it stands has seen Russia orbit towards. Having stated the above, Western isolation of Russia makes no sense as it present a much more dangerous path toward western security arrangement. Also because Russia in bed with China is a nightmare the west can barely overlook. While courting China and dispersing Russia makes no sense, it makes for better sense rather than achieving long standing fear, a self fulfilling prophecy-China and Russians working together. This was the ultimate achievement of the Cold War era policy which is in reverse.
More so, the growth of China both economically and militarily adds to the cause for alarm since Chinese intentions much as they are hidden are a great threat towards sustaining the status quo. Russia’s revisionist desire, have long been made clear by Kremlin so is no longer as hidden an agenda. Russia and China share one thing in common as argued by Friedman .T, “feelings of humiliation and questing for dignity.” They can be ascribed as new imperialist which challenge the existing system. For these reason, restraining China, means Russia could be weaken, and for Trump it is a gamble worth taking. Unfortunately, it means undoing what was achieved during the Cold War, to weaken Russia the West courted China. China grew out of the goodness of the West. They starved off Russia economically while dealing with it politically and managed to win the Cold War. The reality is, China as a hybrid of Cold War era, with strong economic muscles isn’t going to be a push around into today’s global politics.
By managing to separate economic from politics, Trump have placed much of the burden of economics on Chinese threat. By going after big Chinese company, he raised the bar too high for these individual company to bear additional consequence on choice they make. This makes the issue bordering on decoupling much a heavy consequence to those selected companies other than the country. In actual fact, Trump aims to feed into the gains made by China as a whole over the years. It carries with it smart sanction rather than wholesale effect on China as a country. By picking on these few companies, China is forced at bargaining as country on how it conducts business to remain relevant in global economics. We can see the ripple effects brought about by countries scrutinizing Chinese businesses. Most recently, India have rained in on as many as 100 Chinese software applications and other countries have started looking at Huawei critically. Although these action have raised the specter of nationalism around the world as in the case of India and also America, nonetheless, it falls into geopolitical competition from a multi layer dimension in today’s global engagement.
On Trumps action in the Middle East, it is part of grand strategy of primacy. The carte blanch granted to Israel on possibility of legitimizing annexation have seen shift in attitude among some Arab states. Although it can still be viewed as raining in on Iran malign behavior. The alliance of Gulf states can become a form of offshore balancing for America. The recently signed Abraham accord opens up closer relationships between Israel/United Arab Emirate and other Arab states. UAE and Bahrain are now among four Arab states -Egypt and Jordan to recognize Israeli statehood while UAE on the other hand, have recently welcomed direct flight from Israel. This sign was greeted with enthusiasm Albright and Hadley who described it as “strategy is worth embracing.” Overall it falls into a vision of Trump’s America Middle East outpost.
To then understand Trump foreign policy as indicated above, requires multi prong, octopus mind boggling and dissecting approach for his three year and counting in office. He is your unconventional politician-not the typical but one with wide mouth, Twitter foreign policy guru. Others tried to copy him but failed, because he is a one man politician. Though risky given it’s unpredictability in international politics, so far he’s managed to avoid war. He’s courted enmity with establishment, whose singularity approach are as opposed to multiplicity of any sort. Can he successfully pull the election? I wasn’t surprised by the way he won the last time because I predicted to my friends to watch that guy’s space. This is as far as I can get. He’s proven his critics wrong by diving into Israel-the whole Middle East issue, and China too. If his current Israeli success stands, and China fumbles he wins. If either one fails he puts his reputation on the line, and if neither stands, he would have proven that international politics is not for the faint hearted. It is a gamble which so far he has weathered. For Trump and his American dream, it is a fight to maintain the status quo and starve off imperialism by other means. This said, Trump has no appetite for war. This brings the Thucydides trap into sharp focus. Would Trump with Xi avoid such trap? It all depends on how Trump manages the Taiwan issue amid other escalating situation both in South China Sea and related trade dispute. I predict there could only be economic spheric dispute which could avert direct military confrontation. The world has changed since the peloponnesian war, the inclusion of nuclear weapon, means countries would do everything to avoid direct warfare. But make no mistake, miscalculation can heighten possibility of war. At the moment, all Trump wants is to bring the worst out from China, maybe the rest of the world can take note or follow in his footsteps on raining in on China. This is evident from the framing of the pandemic and trade dispute respectively. Either way, they play to his political audience at home while setting out his vision of the world he perceives. Time we read it as it is.
Celestine Chidi
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