He sees an earlier period in which Trump staffed major foreign policy with more establishment Republicans like Rex Tillerson. Wright calls this group the "axis of adults" which provided a Trump "age of constraint." Trump grew frustrated with them for not being belligerent and nationalist enough. What followed was an "age of action," characterized by the ascendency of John Bolton, who replaced H.R. McMasters as National Security Adviser in April 2018.
He sees Trump as now in a new period, an " age of reckoning." The turning point he finds last month in the military attack on Iran that Trump called off at the last moment. Wright takes the advice of FOX News personality Tucker Carlson, a hardline rightwinger currently in an anti-interventionist mode, for calling off the strike.
Wright interprets this with a touch of Hegelianism, reading it as Trump wrestling with the "consequences and contradictions" of his two major views he likes to promote of himself, "as a dealmaker, and as a militarist."
One way or another, Trump seems determined to present an image of himself in 2020 as a dealmaker who is getting tough with allies who have taken advantage of the United States and making peace with the country’s enemies. The risks are enormous. Trump may strike bad deals. He could permanently weaken America’s influence and encourage aggression against allies. But it may work for him politically, throwing the Democrats off balance and setting the stage for a second term in which he will be empowered to follow his instincts to their logical conclusion. The bullets Trump never fired in his first term— such as withdrawal from NATO and the World Trade Organization—may be put back in the chamber. The 75-year-old American-led international order will be back in his firing line. Men like [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo may tell themselves they can steer him in a different direction."But if they finally stand up to him," Wright concludes, he will likely dump them, as well.
It's important to look for patterns in Trump's behavior. It's also tempting to look to psychological quirks affecting the decisionmaking of someone holding the power of the US Presidency.
But we also have to keep in mind that Trump has a well-established record of incompetence, lack of basic knowledge (Washington seizing the airports during the Revolutionary War!), and a spastic, unpredictable style of management whose purpose is in part to keep his staff off guard and forced to cater to his whims. And he evidences no obvious empathy for the potential victims of his decisions: not for Americans soldiers, not for Iranian or Venezuelan civilians, and certainly not for kidnapped Latino children in his border concentration camps.
And what we are also seeing is drift. A large an well-established organization like the federal Cabinet Departments can continue functioning for a while on old patterns and procedures even with incompetent management. But the quality of management matters. With departments managed by greedy plutocrats, ideologues, and grifters, all operating in a lawless atmosphere, things will go wrong. And get worse over time.
The June near-strike on Iran is a reminder how quickly and badly that things can go off the rails with a leader like Trump. And, at this point, the Democratic Congressional leadership under both Nancy Pelosi in the House and Chuck Schumer in the Senate clearly have no intention to use what Congressional power they have - and the power the Democratic majority in the House has is substantial - to constrain Trump's actions, even the most illegal ones. There is clearly major concern among Democrats and some Republcians Members of Congress about US involvement in Yemen and Iran. But blocking Trump from starting or expanding a war with impeachment fully off the table will not be possible.
And it's always worth keeping in mind John Kenneth Galbraith's observation on the beginning of the First World War (Age of Uncertainty 1977):
There was a final consideration, one that it is always thought a trifle pretentious to stress. Rulers in Germany and Eastern Europe, generals in all countries, held their jobs by right of family and tradition. If inheritance qualifies one for office, intelligence cannot be a requirement. Nor is its absence likely to be a disqualification. On the contrary, intelligence is a threat to those who do not possess it, and there is a strong case, therefore, for excluding those who do possess it. This was the tendency in 1914. In consequence, both the rulers and the generals in World War I were singularly brainless men.The aftermath of the First World War was especially catastrophic, of course,for the ruling groups of 1914.
None was capable of thought on what war would mean for his class - for the social order that was so greatly in his favor. There bad always been wars. Rulers had been obliterated. The ruling classes had always survived. To the extent that there was thought on the social consequences of war, this was what was believed.
Tracking patterns in Trump's Administration is important. But it shouldn't distract us from the fact that we have to expect a continuing decline in competence during Trump's Presidency. And that not only means greater risks of war. It means that as long as Trump is President, progress on nuclear proliferation and climate change will have to proceed with any significant help from the United States.
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