OK. I am NOT defending it but there is an argument here and it is worth at least engaging with rather than creating strawmen.

And I will be honest, there is no grand book yet that I have found that coherently lays this all out and lord knows we are not getting a speech on the "Trump Doctrine" that will make sense.

As I understand it the argument essentially is that we are entering a new world characterized by great power competition that is divorced from ideological considerations. Long gone are the days of the US-USSR ideological conflict and elevated has been much more "raw" power politics. I am not sure that read about Realism (see your IR text books from Frosh year) is correct but that seems to be the argument.

Simultaneously seems to be a criticism that the post-war institutions like the EU, World Bank, Nato, etc. have long since transitioned from serving the interests of the populations of the member states and have become agents to either advance their own interests or some global "elite".

The conclusion from this is that the US needs to be fluid in its relationships ((and purely transactional) because self interest will rule the day. Realists would counter that this has aways been the case and squishy-realists might counter that while true the institutions set up to advance western self interests have gone on far past their shelf life after the end of the Cold War.

The challenge for the Trump doctrine is thinking about this new anti-institutionalists world. Is he right that US foreign policy goals can be advanced singularly and that institutions constrain rather than advance US interests? Is the world safer (or more dangerous) in a world in which our former allies either need to provide for themselves rather than rely upon an alliance structure? Can the global economy that has been advanced over the past 50 years that relied upon those institutions actually be decoupled ((Tom Freedman is good on this point) or will the pain in doing that be profound both here and abroad?

I am open to a serious discussion about these things. I do think it there is criticism about whether the institutions in the west really have advanced interests and the new literature on Free trade and its local impacts is really good and challenging the orthodoxy. That said, a world of 20-30 (more?) nuclear armed states and states working to develop a deterrent threat scares me.

DiabloWags said:

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Simply said, Trump is highly transactional with no real ideology besides being an isolationist.

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Not even fascism anymore? Wow, things change quickly.

Europeans doing European type ish

The keyword here is ALWAYS

That term always cracks me up, it's from the Marvel Comics school of international relations.

Cal88 said:

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The realpolitik brain trust think that China is the main rival, so they're trying to peel off Russia from their alliance with China and possibly Iran.

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This is laughable. US trying to peel off Russia?
How are we going to do that, show that we, too, can take over other nations? Trump trying to prove he's a worthy gang member so we can, together, run renegade all over the globe?

The Russians, especially people from St. Petersburg (ie Putin), have a mostly European identity. Putin lived in Germany (DDR) and was sympathetic to German culture despite the WW2 national and personal baggage (his older brother starved to death in the Leningrad siege, his mother nearly died as well). He had an excellent personal relationship with Merkel and other German leaders when he started out as president of Russia.

Putin went as far as asking to join NATO in the early days, he got a polite no thanks from Clinton.

🇷🇺🇺🇸‼️🚨 “Putin asked Clinton if Russia could join NATO. This, by definition, feels like a victory.”

Collective security was an idea yes … pic.twitter.com/TZfX58n7TO

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) May 29, 2024

Russia's current alliance with China is based more on convenience and "common grievances", the term used by Zbig Brzezinski. The current structure does work for Russia, but it puts them more in a subordinate position in this alliance as China is nearly 10 times bigger and 7-8 times the Russian economy. They would rather balance their influence with the West and others.

The problem with this strategy of American overture towards Russia is that unlike in the time of Nixon or Reagan, US policy is more unstable with two camps battling in DC. If the Russians thought that the US would stay the course with say future presidential mandates by Vance, this overture would have a good chance of working.

concordtom said:

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If Russia wants to be friends with USA then Maybe Russia should not invade other nations.

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Are you really that clueless? How many nations are we invading/occupying right now?? How many countries have we invaded, bombed, couped in the past few decades (hint, that list is longer than the list of nations we didn't invade, bomb or coup)? Were any of these countries on our borders with Russian or Chinese military proxy armies??

Cal88 said:

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concordtom said:

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If Russia wants to be friends with USA then Maybe Russia should not invade other nations.

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Are you really that clueless? How many nations are we invading/occupying right now?? How many countries have we invaded, bombed, couped in the past few decades (hint, that list is longer than the list of nations we didn't invade, bomb or coup)? Were any of these countries on our borders with Russian or Chinese military proxy armies??

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I finally got it!! Your ramblings are the Tucker Carlson neo-isolationist line. Took me a while because it is so incoherent (Tucker mostly, you a little bit)

IR is NEVER about who is right or wrong or "friends". It is about INTERESTS. That is really the argument here. I think there is a strong case that US interests are best served by a credible nuclear umbrella over Europe and that means being credible in proclaiming and then defending "red lines". I think that is where Tucker fails (often)....probably because the young'in never really grew up in a post cold war world. So he doesn't really think about IR crisis and that other countries have their own foreign policies. Instead he grew up in a hegemonic world.

But if you believe that is changing (which sometimes Carlson seems to argue) than you have to think about if (I say yes) US interests are served by stability in the multi-polar order and, if so, how to achieve that. It feels like it is NOT served by thinking about the transition of multiple European states forced to obtain their own nuclear deterrents.

"There are lots of different kinds of Republicans. You have Stephen Bannon, Elon Musk, and Mitt Romney. There are similarities, but there is enough daylight between the three that a good number of people can find a home in the GOP.

Dems are a social club. No room for difference."

This is an interesting take

"Sidestepping Carlson's opening question, Putin launched into a rambling half-hour lecture covering more than a thousand years of Russian and Ukrainian history that placed the roots of today's war firmly in the distant past. His core message was chillingly simple: Ukraine has no right to exist and he is fully justified in waging a war of aggression to reclaim historically Russian lands.

…. At the same time, the real takeaway from the interview was Putin's apparently genuine belief that his antiquated historical arguments could serve as plausible justification for a major war in twenty-first century Europe. This is perhaps the clearest indication yet of the dangerous delusions and imperial ambitions that led Putin to invade Ukraine.

….. How far could Putin go? Throughout his reign, he has consistently lamented the fall of the USSR, which he has referred to as the demise of "historical Russia." After the events of the past two years, it should be painfully apparent that anywhere Putin regards as "historical Russia" is potentially at risk.

In theory, at least, the same bogus historical arguments that have been used to justify the invasion of Ukraine could easily be applied to other parts of the former Soviet Union, or to the Russian Empire of the Czarist era. This would create an array of possible targets for Russian aggression including Finland, Poland, the Baltic states, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Alaska, and the whole of Central Asia. A maximalist interpretation could even see all of Central Europe's former Soviet satellite states besides Poland added to the list."


Putin's history lecture reveals his dreams of a new Russian Empire - Atlantic Council


https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-history-lecture-reveals-his-dreams-of-a-new-russian-empire/



Putin's new Ukraine essay reveals imperial ambitions - Atlantic Council


https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/putins-new-ukraine-essay-reflects-imperial-ambitions/

Article by Vladimir Putin "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" President of Russia


http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/66181

Cal88 said:

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concordtom said:

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If Russia wants to be friends with USA then Maybe Russia should not invade other nations.

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Are you really that clueless? How many nations are we invading/occupying right now?? How many countries have we invaded, bombed, couped in the past few decades (hint, that list is longer than the list of nations we didn't invade, bomb or coup)? Were any of these countries on our borders with Russian or Chinese military proxy armies??

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Sometimes you are thumbs up and sometimes you are kookie.

going4roses said:

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"There are lots of different kinds of Republicans. You have Stephen Bannon, Elon Musk, and Mitt Romney. There are similarities, but there is enough daylight between the three that a good number of people can find a home in the GOP.

Dems are a social club. No room for difference."

This is an interesting take

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Exactly, they're more cultish that way.

Eastern Oregon Bear said:

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bear2034 said:

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going4roses said:

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"There are lots of different kinds of Republicans. You have Stephen Bannon, Elon Musk, and Mitt Romney. There are similarities, but there is enough daylight between the three that a good number of people can find a home in the GOP.

Dems are a social club. No room for difference."

This is an interesting take

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Exactly, they're more cultish that way.

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I hear a lot more about RINOs than DINOs.

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There's no such thing as a DINO. You're excommunicated once you start asking questions.

Trump = Andrew Jackson

1829

Will Trump fight and win the Bank War, as Jackson did?

The times are profoundly different and the stakes are far higher. The world is much more economically interdependent and dangerous.

A war between European powers in the mid-19th century didnt pose nearly the same threat to America as it does today.

Vast oceans no longer guarantee our peace and property.

- - - Karl Rove