What foreign policy wonks seem to be saying openly much more often that the Trump 2.0 diplomacy is incompetent. Incompetent as in technically bumbling and ignoring the most basic conventions of diplomacy to the point that other nations cannot expect any agreement to be maintained in a way that would be conventionally assumed.
And that’s a big part of the discussion here: (1)
Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on authoritarian regimes, discusses how such governments often wind up acting in arbitrary and chaotic ways. She recently wrote:
Autocrats thrive on chaos and disruption, even if they claim they are bringing stability to the nation. They specialize in doing unexpected things, some of which were previously unthinkable, and in shaking up the system in the interest of pushing through their agendas and consolidating their personal power.
Claims of the strongman’s efficiency are meant to cover up the upheaval generated by his impulsive nature and his constant reshufflings of government to prevent anyone else from gaining too much power. Hitler resembled many later leaders in being an indecisive and insecure ruler behind his all-powerful Führer facade, his opinions sometimes reflecting the last person he had spoken to, while Mussolini would keep his spin doctors busy by saying one thing in the morning and its opposite that afternoon. [my emphasis] (2)
Notes:
(1) Trump's Russia-Ukraine Peace Plan: Why Key Allies Are Furious and What It Means for Global Stability. Katie Couric YouTube channel 11/24/2025. <https://youtu.be/VQnslLoxLSk?si=W7UqKtKDdR3usQjX> (Accessed: 2025-25-11).
(2) Ben-Ghiat (2025): "Both Sane and Insane": Autocratic Visions of Governance, and Chaos as a Strategy. Lucid 11/06/2025. <https://lucid.substack.com/p/both-sane-and-insane-autocratic-visions> (Accessed: 2025-25-11).
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