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Trump Seeks Middle Ground in Foreign-policy Balancing Act
Townhall.com ^ | April 19, 2018 | Victor Davis Hanson

Posted on 04/19/2018 5:55:33 AM PDT by Kaslin

Was the latest round of airstrikes in Syria a one-time hit to restore deterrence and stop the future use of chemical weapons, or was it part of a slippery slope of more interventions in the Middle East?

President Donald Trump was elected in part because he promised an end to optional wars, such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the Libyan misadventure.

But Trump also guaranteed an end to perceived Obama-era appeasement. Trump said he would no longer put up with false red lines in Syria, or complacence about North Korea's new generation of nuclear missiles.

He also claimed that he wanted to remind enemies that the penalties for attacking U.S. interests are not worth the risk of obtaining some sort of perceived transient advantage. And he inherited American overseas commitments symbolized by some 800 U.S. military facilities in 70 countries abroad.

These paradoxes were supposedly resolved by his administration's doctrine of Jacksonian "don't tread on me" punitive retaliation. Trump might promise to "bomb the s--t out of" the Islamic State, but then not send a division of U.S. Marines into Syria to police the savage postwar landscape.

This middle ground was more or less codified by former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in the recently published National Security Strategy. His team called threading the intervention needle "principled realism." The Trump administration would use military force to protect U.S interests, but only in a context of what was practicable, given the existing quagmires abroad.

(Excerpt) Read more at townhall.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Russia; Syria
KEYWORDS: foreignaffairs; presidenttrump; russia; syria; vdh; victordavishanson

1 posted on 04/19/2018 5:55:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: aposiopetic; bestintxas; bitt; Bodega; BroJoeK; carolinablonde; COBOL2Java; DarthVader; Deb; ...

Victor Davis Hanson Column


Please Freepmail me, if you want to be added, or removed from the ping list

2 posted on 04/19/2018 5:56:36 AM PDT by Kaslin (Politicians are not born; they are excreted -Civilibus nati sunt; sunt excernitur. (Cicero)
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To: Kaslin
Hanson needs to read Greenfield. Maybe he will learn something about the Donald.

Understanding Trump’s America First Foreign Policy - Greenfield

3 posted on 04/19/2018 6:01:44 AM PDT by Louis Foxwell (Islam is Satans finest work.)
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To: Kaslin

A division of Marines is not going to “ police” Syria


4 posted on 04/19/2018 6:25:24 AM PDT by silverleaf (A man who kneels for the national anthem doesn't stand for much of anything)
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To: Kaslin

This assumes it wasn’t a false flag operation.


5 posted on 04/19/2018 6:39:14 AM PDT by McGruff (Bring our troops home. Defend our border.)
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To: McGruff

As of now, the US govt position is still that it relied on social media “evidence” from Al Qaeda-affiliated White Helmets and Syria rebel medical arms funded by Soros.

A key “victim” shown in the video is an 11-year old. He has now gone public on video saying that he was given good and gifts to go to the hospital room where the White Helmets sprayed him with water. He says there were no chemicals and he was simply doing what he was told.


6 posted on 04/19/2018 7:32:57 AM PDT by Trumpisourlastchance
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To: Trumpisourlastchance

Given food.


7 posted on 04/19/2018 7:33:23 AM PDT by Trumpisourlastchance
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To: ransomnote; Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; 2ndDivisionVet; ...

p


8 posted on 04/19/2018 10:52:09 AM PDT by bitt (We do not need the electric chair - we need electric bleachers!)
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