The “Burn Our Own House Down” Grand Strategy

I have a piece in today’s Newsday on the swirling fog around Trump foreign policy. LGM regulars won’t see much new in it, but I do talk briefly about states that might be more optimistic about changes in U.S. foreign relation.

Only moderately less worrisome for U.S. allies is the proposition that Trump and his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, intend a geopolitical diplomatic revolution — one in which the United States leaves NATO to twist in the wind while it pursues a grand bargain with Moscow. Trump articulates a substantially different understanding of U.S. partnerships — as short-term transactions — than has dominated thinking among both mainstream Republicans and Democrats for decades. He seems to view long-standing democratic allies mostly as trade rivals, while flirting with less stable, less democratic regimes.

You can find similar themes in a recent article by Stan Sloan in the Diplomatic Courier.

Speaking of which, there’s a bill in Congress to withdraw from the United Nations. I doubt that it makes it out of the House, let alone the Senate, and I’m skeptical that even the Trump Administration would sign it. But the chances that something like will succeed are higher than they’ve been in decades.

Paul Musgrave has a good series of tweets running through the issue.

3) US membership in the UN will be imperiled principally only if Trump himself signs on to it
4) That is possible but not yet probable

— Paul Musgrave (@profmusgrave) January 22, 2017

6) I suspect a UN without the US would likely collapse into a rump organization very quickly, imperiling millions

— Paul Musgrave (@profmusgrave) January 22, 2017

Anyway, you can go read the rest yourself. Definitely worth your time.