Trump’s High-Wire Act of Reestablishing Deterrence without War

In short, Trump might learn from the past and avoid what his opponents hope for — a series of conflicts dovetailing with the 2020 election, as the financial and psychological strain tax the electorate, as they did from 2006 to 2008.

Note in this regard how deeply Trump’s opposition is invested in seeing him fail or, specifically, how private citizen John Kerry, last spring and summer, and, most recently, Senator Dianne Feinstein have met with the oleaginous Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, ostensibly as “adults in the room” who agree on waiting Trump out — which in fact was the explicit advice recently given to the Chinese by former State Department official Susan Thornton.

Trump’s “principled realism,” “Jacksonianism,” or “the Trump doctrine” ostensibly is tit-for-tat deterrence, notnation-building or optional interventions. If Iran hits an American ship, the U.S. will take out a port facility — but not set foot in Iran. If North Korea sends more missiles over Japan with Chinese approval, maybe Japan might have to do the same thing to North Korea with U.S. sanction.

But Trump also must remember that he ambitiously is trying to solve the major festering challenges of U.S. foreign policy — all at once and right before an election, when his political opposition at home, most of the European Union, and our enemies would like to see him fail at last. So in the next 17 months we should expect all sorts of provocations from abroad, and so-called Logan Acting at home, to make Trump stumble and get into a messy intervention before the election.

 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/trump-foreign-policy-challenge-deterrence-without-war/ Trump has been very successful with domestic issues from energy to taxes, defense, the economy. His foreign policy is ambitious and like domestic policy puts America first. The foreign governments are testing him and he’s restoring American influence without getting us into new wars. Trumps domestic so called loyal opposition are almost rooting against American success and for the foreign regimes in order to put their partisan election chances above the interests and success of the country.