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

National Review ^ | 5-28-2019 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Sir Napsalot]

...Trump inherited a superficially stable world from Barack Obama that, in fact, was quite volatile. There had been no tense standoffs with North Korea, but also apparent intercontinental ballistic missiles with possible nuclear warheads now pointed at the United States. Obama more or less punted on North Korea, by declaring it a problem — and hoping that Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear testing did not get too out of hand before 2017.

Then there was the “Iran deal.” It was an appeasing agreement that almost surely guaranteed that Iran would soon have nuclear weapons, along with a revived economy liberated from sanctions and empowered with American cash. Iran’s terrorist surrogates were the greatest beneficiaries of U.S. naïveté. At best, Obama assumed that when Iran went nuclear, it would be on someone else’s presidential watch and therefore not his fault. At worst, Obama, in delusional fashion, believed that empowering Iran would balance Sunni states and bring justice to historically oppressed Shiite and Persian minorities who would take their rightful place in the Islamic world.

Everyone knew that China violated almost every aspect of world commerce. …

Yet Trump all at once is attempting to straighten out all the foolishness of the last decade with China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and the Middle East, and, again, he is doing so simultaneously, not sequentially. He might remember that China is the chief threat, and it has some leverage with both Iran and North Korea. In other words, it would certainly be in China’s interest to see the U.S. in a mess with its surrogates in Tehran and Pyongyang while America seeks to face down Chinese mercantilism — with the Middle East descending into another hot war.

...Trump could achieve either high-profile success — or became mired in endless engagements and a pre-election, public-relations disaster.

[Sir Napsalot]

Trump’s opponents at home and abroad would love to see him get the U.S. into a messy intervention right before the election.

Read the whole article.

(more excerpt) "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.

He should not take the bait." (end excerpt)

[silverleaf]

VDH at his best
A brilliant summarization of international policy
A sad sad commentary on DEMOCRAT sedition and treason

[KC_Conspirator]

George W. Bush tried to address just three existential challenges all at once following 9/11, and it all but destroyed his presidency.

This is where I disagree with VDH. Never responding to the hate America left that astroturfed protest and more importantly, NEVER DEFENDING HIMSELF OR THOSE THAT VOTED FOR HIM was his biggest fault.

[Sir Napsalot]

I have no doubt that ChiComm and most of EU expected a president Hillary. And thus ‘business as usual’.

Then more than two years into Trump presidency, they found out he is ‘not your typical politician’. And thus posing a GRAVE existential threat to the “Global World Order”.

However, I mostly blame the Democrats (both politicians and the voters) who still can not accept an election result.

As you said “A sad sad commentary on DEMOCRAT sedition and treason”.

[bitt]

p

[bitt]

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