Trump uses the "stick" on whatever side is misbehaving at the time.This is hardly the stuff of fashioning guiding principles; this is the ad hoc, slapdash, reactive policy that so many have complained of characterizes the Trump administration.
If the ad hoc policymaker gets out of the right side of bed in the morning he rebukes the correct side, but if he gets up wrong… Relevant to our discussion, it matters not if he gets it right or wrong, we are talking about finding principles to form policy, not hero worship.
The principle is to freeze the war and to negotiate a peace. The principle is to use a carrot and a stick on both sides to get them to cease fire and negotiate a settlement. That does indeed involve being "reactive". Of course one can be reactive, to obtain their goals. Understanding that is not "hero worship". It requires one not to be a TDS globalist on one side nor a Putin toady on the other side.
Please advise of any "serious conservative liberal, Republican or Democrat, who was advocated sending troops." Please do not Dodge, we are talking about Ukraine.
Please don't say that the policy of no troops on the ground is Trump "following established dogma". That's what I was responding to. It's wrong. It's ironic. As I pointed out it is Trump since 2016 (and before)and not the "establishment" that that has made that principle popular and a big reason why we don't have troops on the ground in Ukraine today.
Consider the position of Donald Trump with respect to Ukraine. At the end of his first administration he sent javelins to Ukraine to deter Russian invasion. During the interim between his administration's he harshly criticized Biden's policy and as soon as the returned to office, Donald Trump sided with Putin against Ukraine in negotiations. That is until he moderated his stance somewhat when he cut a deal on mineral rights and later reversed to a great degree his oft stated opposition to the war after a disappointing telephone call with Putin. Now he has reverted to a policy resembling his original stance when he sent javelins to Ukraine. I repeat here my recital of Trump's shifting position on Ukraine to demonstrate that while The President unquestionably has articulated a foreign policy of avoiding foreign wars especially in the Middle East, his actions concerning Ukraine cannot be said to be a coherent application of his philosophy.
You and I disagree about that, we spent the rest of our contributions to this thread debating whether there is consistency of action and philosophy.
I am concerned about this because hero worship of Donald Trump, or anyone, is perilous. For example, can those whose foreign policy analysis consists only of supporting whatever Donald Trump says, tell us today what should be our position respecting kinetically defending Taiwan if China invades tomorrow?
Let me conclude my contribution to this discussion by shamelessly quoting myself once again from the same reply:
"God gave us enough intelligence to be conservatives let's not dishonor the gift."
