Or, a manufactured coup in Venezuela, resulting in an "immigration crisis" when masses of displaced people start washing up on our shores? Don't think a wall with Mexico is gonna prevent/fix that....
1
A southern border wall has to be one of the worst ideas an American president ever came up with. The stupidity was compounded by a promise that Mexico would pay for the wall, sheer lunacy. Then this lunatic president shuts down the government after Democrats refuse to support his wall idea and millions of Americans have to suffer through the shutdown. Now he threatens to do it all over again. The trend is obvious. Things just go from bad to worse with no sign of a letup.
27
Is he prepared for anything besides building the wall, then with Mexican money, now with our money, if he can get it? Actually, let us keep him watching FOX News, tweeting nonsense and bragging about the greatest things he has accomplished. This way, he will do less harm until he is impeached or voted out.
The Trump administration always reminds me of the incompetent soccer team that, with one pullstones play after the next, just keep putting the ball into their own team's goalpost.
This is truly the own-goal administration.
1
This from someone in the Obama administration, that gave us the Russian annexation of Crimea (after the U.S. backed coup in Ukraine), the Russian invasion and occupation of eastern Ukraine, the disastrous NATO take down of Qaddafi and the anarchy that followed, unchecked Chinese hegemony in the S. China Sea, failed red lines in Syria following a genocidal nerve gas attack, the rise of the ISIS sponsored caliphate after the U.S. pullout in Iraq...and Blinken worries about 'no process, no plan' in the Trump admin.
1
Once a bureaucrat always a bureaucrat. Nothing has been accomplished by bureaucrats in 18 years in the sands of Afghanistan or Syria by bureaucrats. Over bloated staffs. Wasting tax payer money. All the "bad" things you site, many of your fellow citizens approve of these actions.
1
@Ray, if "bureaucrats" had been consulted and listened to by Bush II and Cheney, the US might have avoided the whole Iraq mess by not invading. Beyond that, we might have avoided a measure of the chaos, death, and destruction by having some notion of how to run an occupation of the country. Instead we went in with no plan, no procedure, and no people to deal with what happened when the Iraqi government was eliminated.
2
@Ray
What defeated us in Afghanistan was Bush's invasion of Iraq.
4
We did not handle the end of the Cold War very well: we tried to grind Russia's face in the dirt by expanding NATO to Russia"s borders and this led directly to Putin. Hubris in place of policy rarely turns out well.
1
Donald and company are the very embodiment of an Edgar Allen Poe quote, “ I have great faith in fools; self confidence my friends call it.”
In other words, too incompetent to recognize their own incompetence. They are likely to start some disaster that they will be hopelessly incapable of addressing.
Everyone should be worried about this. Given Donald’s stellar achievement in creating the crisis of a 35 day shut down and stripping billions from the US economy for what was essentially an old man’s temper tantrum instigated by Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, one can only imagine how poorly he’d perform against a clever adversary.
3
Many years ago I did a deal as a lawyer for my client, a nimble high-tech company. We were negotiating with a less nimble company -- let's call them IBM to give them a name.
The deal was important to both companies. At our first meeting a VP from my client and I faced off against seven people from IBM. They started off with a process proposal -- that legal, business, and technical teams meet and negotiate separately. Once those teams were done we would all meet together again to get the deal signed.
IBM said that process had worked well in their negotiations with who I'll call company X. My client said, "I didn't know you had a deal with X." IBM said, "We don't. We mutually decided after negotiating that a deal no longer made sense." My client asked, "How long did you negotiate?" IBM replied, "Four years."
There is always the temptation to do like IBM did and do things right no matter how long it takes. It never works well, and few can afford it. We as a country certainly can't.
Donald Trump is doing it the right way. A few key people take small steps when you can, and see what happens. Then decide what to do next. He's a master at that. His main phrase is, "We'll see what happens."
Things move too fast for planning to make much difference. Lean and agile is much better than bloated and ponderous. We finally have a government that is the former rather than the latter. Let's enjoy it.
1
I don't see any problems here. Trump is "like, really smart" & he "alone can fix it".
Excellent analysis. The problem is exaggerated because this mis-management of foreign policy inside the White House and State Department has now been sub-contracted out to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee led by the Trump enabler and sycophant, Senator James Risch. Risch has confirmed in multiple interviews he will set aside his constitutional oath as a member of Congress and not provide the necessary oversight on US foreign policy. Risch is essentially granting this role to the House Foreign Affairs Committe which will no doubt lead in this critical area. Risch claims his responsibilities only include a role as a Trump Whisperer. Risch’s abdication of his role is dangerous for our conduct and development of sound foreign policy. We need less sycophancy from Congress, not more.
1
I'm sorry, but Bolton and Pompeo have far more experience and comprehensive knowledge about the subject of foreign policy than this Obama-era dolt. Anyone who thinks the Iran capitulation was a good deal is not qualified to give self-promoting opinions on foreign relations.
3
I found this article to be a frustrating. Comparing this mob-boss/president and it's sub-human white-house gophers to real people with brains isn't worthy of anyone's time.
3
Comparing Mr. Blinken's sane, practical and nuanced analysis of the state of Trumpian foreign policy to Ross Doubtthat's ingratiating fawning praise of chaos is like going from 'War and Peace' to 'Curious George'. Finally, an adult is walking the halls of the NYT op-ed staff, if only briefly.
2
This article and the overwhelming majority of thoughtful comments below are conclusive: this country is being exposed to an unacceptably high degree of risk. There is no need to belabor that point any further.
That said, what are we going to do about it. In the absence of any action plan it would seem that any further discussion is fruitless.
3
The quote from Mike Tyson is interesting and brings to mind another, attributed to Eisenhower, that seems apt here: "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensible."
102
@M.
It's almost impossible to believe the general and Mr. Trump were chosen by the same political party.
13
The same political party in name. Separated by time, the current GOP is a twisted shadow at best of the 1950s GOP.
7
@M. I've never understood Dwight Eisenhower's words. Why plan if plans are useless? Prepare, certainly. But plan? Why?
Instead, I've always liked the John Lennon quote: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." That fits perfectly with what I've seen as a lawyer working in Silicon Valley.
People used to put together business plans to get funding for a startup. But the plans were never really useful. They showed at best that the founders had thought about what they might do.
Nowadays most don't bother with business plans. They realize that you need to get moving with a product and see what happens. Real-world results matter; pie-in-the-sky plans don't.
2
"Mr. Trump’s failure to develop policies — and his tendency to countermand them by tweet — have caused major confusion worldwide about where we stand on issue after issue."
As if that's not bad enough, what will Donald Trump do when he really needs help from allies he's managed to insult into hiding?
Mr. Blinken, you're so right we've been very very lucky so far, particularly since December when so many of our critical federal worker mass was sent home or forced to work without pay. These critical responders, the folks who land the planes, patrol our borders (yes, it's not just the border with Mexico), manage our critical infrastructure and run fire-drills, were often bone tired, and angry to boot.
But worst of all the dangers administration has created--lack of staffing, lack of oversight, lack of strong management--the very worst resides inside Donald Trump's mind.
Which is that he actually believes he doesn't need to consult experts or lean on the smarts of a well-coordinated team because his gut will let him weather any crisis the world might throw at him.
98
Intresting (or is it?) that a TRUMpp supporter interviewed on the radio earlier this evening spoke of the recently unemployed federal government workers as being "dependent on the government" in the sense that they are, >Gasp
8
@ChristineMcM
Trump has threatened to shut down government again in three weeks if he doesn't get his way with the wall. All your country's adversaries know this and they've seen how stubborn he is. He's left the country wide open for an attack and doesn't care.
I wish you all luck.
12
The point about a lack of leadership in cybersecurity can not be emphasized enough. While the country is being distracted by the president's "wall" fixation, the real menace to our society is cyber warfare. This is what keeps me up at night.
140
@Scott Cole
The people who want the wall live in a false reality of some yesteryear. They can't comprehend cyber issues, let alone the effects of any attacks. The wall is a tangible thing they can imagine. The netherworld of the internet, not so much.
5
Right wing anarchy, exactly what Putin wanted collusion or not, and Trump is successfully providing just that.
184
@Riverwoman.
And Bannon. Don’t forget Brannon. All this is exactly what he wanted. Burn it all down so we can start over. No matter what the resulting pain, suffering and consequences. A fun scenario for a computer game or movie, but not for the country or the world.
19
Spot on. There's a lot I don't like about George H.W. Bush. However, in hindsight, he was the best President on foreign policy since Vietnam.
Sorry, Reagan wasn't great on foreign policy; he was mostly just lucky and only just barely. Carter was better than we give him credit for but not great. Ford was a non-starter. Nixon is arguably a traitor for interfering with the North Vietnamese peace talks during the election against Johnson. He botched the end of the war too. Nixon's legacy with China is questionable at best. Johnson, much to his regret, couldn't thread the needle Kennedy had left for him.
Bill Clinton messed up big in Somalia leading to an even bigger mistake in Rwanda. Bosnia wasn't as bad but there's room for debate. I would argue Bill Clinton made the situation worse compared to H.W.
I won't play the blame game with 9/11. We're right back to Reagan if we go there. However, I think we can safely agree George W. Bush was an unmitigated foreign policy disaster.
Obama's task in so many ways was putting the pieces back together again. He definitely made some mistakes. However, I'd rate him better than average overall. The main criticisms against Obama are his Middle Eastern misjudgments, primarily ISIS, and his failure to successfully resolve his diplomatic mission before the end of his term.
Of course, Obama gets a pass on the second criticism because normally a successor won't destroy ten years worth of diplomatic effort out of spite. Trump is by far the worst
5
It’s seems to me as if the range and extent of bad decisions by this administration must be driven by more than Trump’s animus toward Obama. Does someone burn down his own house just to get rid of a portrait of a hated uncle hung over the mantle?
It’s as if Trump were fighting someone else’s battles, someone whose animus is toward more than Obama’s legacy. But who? Not Bannon, who wants to change the government order. More likely by some who wants to destroy our entire way of life.
I might feel I was being paranoid about the Trump-Russia connection if it weren’t for the literally hundreds of pieces of evidence supporting the view that Trump was “installed,” at least partly by our biggest nemesis. Evidence broadcast nearly every day since the fateful day in 2016 when a minority of voters turned our government over to - well, to whom, exactly?
4
The Trump administration in not prepared for anything .
1
"The Trump administration is not prepared for a foreign policy"
You could have stopped with that sentence in the lede-in.
3
As long as Republican senators and congressmen conceal Russian's violation and invalidation of our country's 2016 presidential election, by a conspiracy directly involving the presidential candidate Donal'd Trump, and the highest levels of the Kremlin, Russian Intelligence GRU, and blood-stained, Russian mafia laundered money through the N.R.A.
As long as Robert Muller's and the Special Council's office investigation is kept secret from the press and the American people by a contaminated Department of Justice and formerly supreme court, as long as Congressional and Senate Hearings are closed to the American People,
Then these will be America's darkest hours.
Then the sins and omissions of our republican congress will share in the legal guilt of Mr. Trump, and a lawless Department of Justice.
3
I think we should all get behind an invasion of Venezuela - on condition that the C-I-C proudly leads his troops into battle (the US's very own Henry V du jour) and that John Bolton is in the vanguard.
p.
2
China is a real crisis and it is actually very badly handle...!
"Mr. Trump likes to express his disdain for policy by citing the boxer Mike Tyson: Everybody has a plan until he gets punched in the mouth."
As Mr. Rumsfeld discovered, in the face of uncertainty, it is MORE important to have a pre-planned policy, not less.
Jeez: you must read Douthat's column. He argues that Trump has it all figured out but then he has never worked in government.
1
Oddly, I think Trump's ignorance, idiocy, and intemperance may be preventing some of these policy crises. Yes, he would be completely unprepared for anything, and he's caused all the crises that have occurred to the U.S. since he took office (really, every single one has been created or enhanced by his foolishness).
However, most world leaders are sane, and sane people know you can't predict what Trump will do. We have been lucky because people have held off on antagonizing the U.S. because of possible psychotic retaliation. Maybe even fanatics like al qaeda are holding off on terrorist strikes because they think Trump might go off the deep end, and nuke Mecca.
Anyway, looking on the bright side, there's probably less than two years to go for Trump's reign of error (one week less, anyway). We can probably make it, and if some catastrophe does happen to America, at least about half of our voters deserve it.
2
Wow! What an honest, and expert, assessment of Trump's stupidity in trying to act as president of these United States...while trampling on the rule of law, and the need to maintain, even improve, our need to have trustworthy Allies worldwide. Trump being a political wheather vane on top of a chaotic White House, knows no restraint nor judgement in spilling hateful beans to disassociate from friends...while no disdain towards the despots of the world (of which he is one of them). Trump is used to do business 'his way or the highway' in an overt fashion, and now his spite towards certain pesky democratic rules to the contrary. No people nor process, and certainly no policy, to guide this administration to a coherent understanding of what is the goal, confusing and dangerous. Trump's arrogance and belligerence stems from his vast ignorance...except in his mastery in demagoguery (classic being his false promise of a 'wall' payable by Mejico, a major lie imposed on his credulous base). Your worry is everybody's, the mayhem just waiting to happen if a real crisis occurs (as opposed to his invented emergencies to justify his malevolent disruptive behavior).
1
I think so far most of our adversaries have seen the easiest way to manipulate Trump and thereby U.S. policy is flattery. Say nice things and Trump will give you anything you want. Cheap and effective. The exception, of course, is Russia. Putin doesn't have to say anything nice, he just raises his eyebrow and Trump say "Yes Sirski, how high?" One thing we can count on is Putin taking full advantage of his leverage while it lasts. What I fear is Putin deciding he has squeezed all the usefulness out of his puppet and forcing him to one last act with seriously damaging consequences for the U.S. before Mueller or the Democrats expose Trump for the traitor he is.
3
“People with the experience, temperament and intellectual honesty to give a president good ideas and to dissuade him from pursuing bad ones.”
The part you forgot to leave out is that, for whatever reason, past Presidents seem to have been bamboozled by the “professionals’” dumb advice.
Giving the Iranians $150 billion in cash was a gem.
Invading Libya, funneling guns and missiles from Libya to Syria to form ISIS and wreck Syria, invading Syria, invading Iraq, invading Afghanistan, all dumb ideas.
Writing trade deals that are inequitable and have the effect of decimating US industry are also dumb.
Given these professional experts’ record of dumb idea after dumb idea, Trump would do well to listen to the “experts” and do exactly the opposite.
@Ken
Invading Afghanistan was acceptable if we had stopped there and finished the job, i.e., destroying Al-Qaeda. The whole world was behind us because of 9/11. Going into Iraq wrecked whatever chance we had there. The height of hubris. Without having wrecked Iraq we may well have had a different outcome in Syria as well.
It's not the trade deals by themselves that decimated US manufacturing, it includes the relentless attacks on government programs that could have supported retraining the workforce, modernizing industry, and subsidized critical industrial capacities, because taxes would have had to pay for these. Lots of people (well, the 1% or so) who mostly vote Republican, got obscenely rich as a result of these trade deals.
Trump doesn't listen to anybody except Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
3
@Ken
Nobody gave Iran $150 billion. It was their money, frozen for decades.
4
Trump actually believes that whatever he impulsively pulls out of his gut - is better than anything people with decades of experience and knowledge can come up with. He actually say moronic things like "I know more than the generals". To him knowledge and expertise doesn't matter because he is convinced that whatever they tell him is either is part of "the deep state conspiracy" or wrong because they don't know as much as him (his gut). This is what happens when your president is a pathologically insecure narcissist. Elections have consequences (got that Howard Schultz!)
1
Ah yes. The good old days...McNamara, more recently Cheney.
@Sgt Schulz
You left out Kissinger.
People, process, and policies are also needed on the world stage if we are to survive as a species. Whether it's the result of a nuclear holocaust or climate change, humans are doomed if we don't come to our senses and undergo a paradigm shift in global human thought. We need people now who think such a change is possible. We need the computer model of the human mind to show us how we think and what we have done to that thought process with our beliefs; and we need a commitment to doing completely away with the belief system.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a linguistic "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
1
He has people: Sean, Ann and Tucker.
He has process: he clicks the remote, he tweets with his thumbs.
He has policy: his gut, his slogans, his wild ideas.
He believes Putin. Xi likes his chocolate cake. And he and Kim Jong-Un are in love.
What could go wrong?
2
Gosh, what to say?
There's a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling, "The Gods of the Copybook Headings." Don't ask me to quote from it--my memory is a bit shaky. But the gist is:
There is such a thing as wisdom.
The copybook headings are the old tags. Old proverbs. The long accumulated wisdom of the human race--distilled into short, easily memorized tag lines.
"Look before you leap."
"When angry, count to ten--when very angry count to one hundred."
Those AREN'T taken from Kipling's poem. But they might as well be.
Which is what bothers me--more than any other one thing--about Mr. Trump and his election. That is--
"--wisdom? Spell it!
"I don't NEED wisdom. We don't NEED wisdom. Or prudence. Or moderation. Or many wise heads coming together and confabulating.
"Or POLICY.
"No, what we need is SMARTS. Street smarts. The art of the deal. A foreign policy, a domestic policy that's all knees and elbows. (Intended for the guts and groins of whatever ready-made adversaries come to hand.)"
"Easy answers all the way. Life is easy. Running the United States of America is easy--
"--if you happen to be Mr. Donald J. Trump."
Two names you mentioned in your piece.
(1) James Baker
(2) Brent Scowcroft
I saw those names--I thought: "Hey, I remember those guys. From long ago.
"When we had WISE MEN in our government.
"Instead of the squalling, spoiled children we have now.
God help the United States of America!"
1
Somebody must be writing the movie script about the United States of America having an incompetent President who also acts like a 6 year old child. Many important jobs in his administration remain unfilled and chaos reigns.
Then one day, a day that will live in infamy, a powerful foreign power invades.....
1
This is a well-intentioned but lightweight smear piece by a second-tier member of Obama's blob. There is plenty to be critical of when it comes to Pres. Trump, but like the tiresome, knuckle-dragging Obama-bashers we all endured during the last presidency, worn out platitudes fall short of the requirement. Pawns have roles and needs but the NYT needs to find rational heavy-hitters who can gain and maintain the messaging high ground by being consistent, accurate and on point. Bites that might've appeared clever and catchy on the teleprompter emerge as feeble in this medium. Trump continues to do a better job with China/NK than Obama's milquetoast approach (unsurprising given the salon class rookies surrounding him). Trump's pulling out of strategically worthless, endless counterinsurgency efforts in the Middle East and Central Asia are more pragmatic approaches than either Obama's media-savvy cruise missile+specops games or Bush's overkill. That said, Trump's hamfisted daily handling of simple leadership challenges, the ire he raises with elites and downtrodden alike, as well as his relative weakness in debate should be straightforward to overcome. It won't take national hypnosis to revivify and consolidate the Left and center by admitting that while Trump has done some things adequately, the country can do, and deserves, so much better. However, it won't be because of substance-free, scattershot pieces like this which read like a high school newspaper film review.
@viktor64
What, in this context, is a "blob"?
Thoughtful, most interesting post here, though it reads as a curmudgeonly hit piece itself. As to "substance-free," pointing out the distinction between content and process is valid and often useful, since we so readily get preoccupied with content, and I think the author does us a service. Granted, there have been whole books already about the substance-free, scattershot process of what might sarcastically be called Trump's "administration."
Any thoughts about Russia? NATO? Venezuela? Paris accords?
This administration is a foreign policy crisis every day.
They're all acting from Trump on down. We have an acting president who should have stuck to acting; a Cabinet of acting secretaries, mostly millionaires and billionaires bent on making more money rather than governing; and a handful of career spooks, national security advisers and diplomats whose daily briefings are ignored and whose advice is never sought.
28
Donald Trump has declared his border wall his foreign policy crisis. He incorporates the wall with every other crisis too.
1
Blinken has Chutzpah
Foreign policy under the Obama administration, which Blinken was a member, was a crisis. Here are a few cornerstones of that crisis:
1) North Korea was testing nuclear weapons and long range missiles. Each day brought new threats of war
2) ISIS (remember the JV squad) spread
3) Russia invaded the Ukraine and annexed Crimea
4) Iran was rewarded for supporting terrorism
5) China was allowed to exploit American markets, steal trade secrets and gain Internet espionage leverage
6) The war in Afghanistan lingered with no objectives met and our telegraphed withdrawal of Iraq helped ISIS flourish. We also saw a resurgent Taliban
7) We blamed a video on the Benghazi slaughter
8) We manage to commit troops to Syria and allow our red lines of chemical attacks on civilians to be ignored
9) Abandoning South Sudan and then witnessing an ethnic cleansing
10) Normalizing out relationship with Cuba, without any concessions by the brutal dictatorial regime
11) Poisoning our relationship with the one true democracy and our most loyal ally in the middle-east Israel.
1
@James
I think this, like other posts here, is an example of the "genetic fallacy," where you attack what someone is saying by attacking him and his political party and not what he's actually saying. (Or is that "ad hominem"?) The point of the column is that in foreign affairs the Trump administration, and/or Trump himself which amounts to the same thing, has no coherent policy, no coherent process, and too few people doing the work, leaving the government uninformed, unprepared, and unable to make rational decisions, all of which suits Trump's impulsive, hostile, ignorant know-it-all, childishly simplistic way of operating, and which leaves us all at risk. A rejoinder that was worth anything would describe the ways this view is inaccurate. Getting it wrong before, if we did, is not a good reason to stop trying to get it right. Trump doesn't even seem to have the capacity to try.
3
@James
Is this your version of “Obama did it”? Your guy won the election, he’s up now, so we’re going to talk about his stats, not the guy who retired.
1
This problem seems permeate DJT's entire attempt at an "administration". Only yes men need apply
2
The fact that President Trump likes the Mike Tyson quote about planning made me think that our president cannot fully appreciate the context of great literature. It also made me think Tyson's words might be a little prophetic. The heavyweight champ also said, "When Jesus comes back, these crazy, greedy, capitalistic men are gonna kill him again."
2
And senate Republicans acquiesce...indeed, encourage this disfunction...this American Exceptionalism.
1
And this is the supposed CEO presidency! Any good executive would make it a priority to hire and retain competent individuals. Trump does neither. He has cynical or absurd bases for staffing, he fires, or drives away, those people who could compensate for his astonishing inexperience and lack of curiosity! Tillerson, Mattis, McMaster and others, all gone. And Trump imagines that he can be his own advisor! Please.
With Trump's self-satisfied, flippant, hardheaded, bullying attitude, he shows that he's not any brilliant manager, let alone fit to run the White House.
3
Bottom line for most Trumpistas: If anyone messes with us we got not just a multi-trillion dollar war machine but those glorious nukes ... and they don't. So, hey.
2
Thank you for the insights and confirming the truth about the utter incompetence of the Trump administration. I wonder if we as a nation have ever been in a more precarious situation? Flying by the seat of your pants might work if you are grocery shopping or organizing a party but running a country is pretty complicated stuff and requires more than hiring a bunch of your buddies and former business partners to help you out. I hope that our adversaries don't read your piece!
1
"But the administration has not faced an actual national security crisis..."
No, so it invented one: National security crisis at the southern U.S. border! Caravans with rapists drug dealers and murderers coming!
Trump himself is a pretense, a fiction conjured up for gullible consumption by his followers. Any genuine national security crisis would be viewed by Trump in the context of how it would likely effect him personally or how it would influence his "ratings" among his base. The man is no deeper than that, and the members of his administration are as unqualified as he is shallow. America and the planet are in a precarious situation as a result.
3
This is what happens when foreign policy is put into the hands of rank amateurs. Trump doesn't study, doesn't read, doesn't have the patience to listen to advisors--he is untrammeled ignorance in a narcissistic shell.
The most remarkable event over the last two years is the one that has not yet occurred: that China, North Korea, Iran, or ISIS has not decided to attack America, or American interests, in the wake of a policy vacuum.
1
Trump is running the country the way he runs his businesses: Driving them into the ground and then crying bankruptcy. He's not a conservative. He's not a Republican. He's a nihilist. His philosophy: If I'm going down I'll bring the country with me.
2
We have John Bolton on the job looking out for us, with Mr. and Mrs. Kushner available to help him through any rough spots.
What’s to worry about?
2
Trump knows nothing about diplomacy and cares less. He has surrounded himself with the most incompetent and corrupt cabinet since the Grant administration. There are no adults in the room since Mattis left,
2
Senator John McCain liked to remind us that it is always darkest before it goes completely black. That may prove an apt metaphor for President Trump’s foreign policy. The past two years have been plenty dark, with a long list of self-inflicted wounds: tearing up the Iran nuclear deal, pulling out of the Paris climate accord, walking away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, separating children from their parents at the border, insulting allies while embracing autocrats.
http://www.siyasat.pk/daily-talk-shows-f7.html
1
Its a bit odd to see such cogent critique of the Trump gutted State Department with no mention of just how well this serves Putin. Trump's chaos takes a different shape when observed through Putin's angle, and in fact it looks quite coherent. At least a half dozen of Trump's team are guilty of having talked to Russians already - so is there really any wonder why Trump and his cabal have been so willing to gut the State dept, to shut down the government and to strain the military on bogus enemies? Trump is preparing the way for us to be attacked and Mitch keeps providing cover as they both destroy one norm after another - all in the name of winning, no less.
3
there is a method to Trump's madness. he wants to give more space to Russia and he wants to weaken the rule of law in the US. he will achieve those goals if Congress let him do.
1
Without question, this editorial would be laughed at and then thrown in the garbage. Blinken's observations are so last Administrations. Trump doesn't have policies, strategies or even basic objectives. He has, by his own admission, a "brilliant gut." Therefore, until he leaves office, he (and we, by default) will be winging it.
Since he takes great pride in not reading either, we should imagine ourselves in the backseat of a car at midnight with a driver who has never driven before and has no idea where he is headed or what lies ahead.
The GOP may think this is thrilling but most of us want to get out now.
4
@Tom Q and with at least one headlight out
To paraphrase Louis Pasteur: Chance Favors the Prepared.
1
The only thing that Trump is good at is creating chaos and disorder in the world. His obvious subservience to Putin's Russia is sickening and a serious threat to our democracy.
Clearly, he was elected to the presidency through fraudulent means when Russia intervened on his behalf. As such, the election should have been declared "null and void"...We are dealing with a man without a conscience....without a soul.
It is obvious that the man has no moral compass and that the last place he should be is in the people's White House. We are now suffering the consequences of a fraudulent president whose vision doesn't extend beyond his nose.
I look forward to his impeachment and it couldn't happen soon enough.
3
Trump's over inflated man-child ego does not allow him to accept anyone who does not agree with him and would rather have his policies and actions shaped by the Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world.
2
Mr. Blinken doesn't lay the blame where it truly belongs and it isn't with the Reality Show Con Artist.
Of course he has no plan because he never intended or wanted to win.
He was never running for President; he was running for ATTENTION. The "campaign" was an extension of his brand and he was only in it for money and vanity. He has no interest in the responsibility or accountability of running a government. He has no interest at all outside of his own enrichment.
In fact, since he is such an easy to spot fraud, it actually absolves him of the sin of his own election.
The real blame rests with the Vichy GOP, the collaborators, who are propping up this charade even though they all know he is unfit and a fraud.
He is a protest President but they have proven they are a protest party, not a governing party. The only way to end our national demeaning is to vote them out of office along with the grifter in chief.
4
I think our President is and has been getting bad advice from his daughter’s husband Jared Kushner among others. It sure seems like Jared has done a bunch of sketchy things like weird financial arrangements and his friendship with MBS is very troubling.
I sure hope no more crisis emerges during the Trump presidency because virtually everyone in the Trump administration is unqualified and lacks integrity.
2
I blame Mitch McConnell.
In the world outside the beltway, when you don't have rules and policies in place, things go wrong and people die. Incompetence is criminal--or should be--when the result is life-or-death.
Trump needs pressure to get staffed and prepared. McConnell needs to quit playing politics and enter the real world. Pelosi is doing her part.
As taxpayers and citizens, the United States president, Congress, the Supreme Court, the military and the rest of the government exist to do for us what we cannot do ourselves. They darn well need to be prepared. Those down the line of command are way more prepared than those at the top.
3
Why in the world would you need people, process and policy when you have the worlds smartest "gut?"
1
Safe to say that the Trump administration is not really prepared for almost anything at all.
2
The worse it gets, the happier is Vlad, the more Tweet Boy thinks he’ll survive his Faustian bargain when he finally gets to stop his current reality show.
Trump's lack of knowledge to successfully guide America through an international crisis is obvious. How will America survive a poorly thought out Trump decision that leads to death and destruction. 9/11 was the first major attack on US soil from our enemies. Why would any intelligent person believe that it will be the last, especially since all the bad guys in the world know Trump is totally incompetent to defend America against a real threat? If you're not afraid you're not paying attention.
1
Ambassador Blinken,
We thank you for your honest words, judgements and thoughts. The 'darkness', incompetence of this Trump administration is beyond words, and America has suffered greatly under 45.
2
I worry that the current administration is incapable of responding to a domestic crisis--hurricane, flooding, wildfire, earthquake? Nope. Maybe the Japanese will send help. DT's legacy so far has been dismantling the federal government.
2
The cartoon would have been more accurate without shorts and T-shirt. The emperor has no clothes.
Mr. Blinken: You mentioned the Principals’ Committee which you led at one stage. If I recall accurately, it rose to prominence under President Clinton and was promptly defanged by the Dubya White House, thereby directly ignoring the written warnings of Richard Clarke about an impending terrorist attack on a high profile U.S. target such as the White House. The Twin Towers were destroyed a few months later.
Unfortunately, the U.S. is incapable of handling global crises because it has caused most of them. The nation is led by fools and ideologues who strengthen its enemies and alienate its friends. No European ally really wanted to invade Iraq. No European ally agrees with your unilaterally imposed sanctions on my nation, or your blind support of Saudi Arabia and Israel. And they are unilaterally furious with your unilateral imposition of your laws on their sovereign territories.
Yes, indeed, the process of becoming wholly unprepared for a global crisis is a U.S. work in progress, now being further developed by a Keystone Kops assembly of clueless misfits: Trump, Pompeo, Kushner, Bolton, Haspel, Kudlow, ......
2
A good friend of mine who was married to a mini-Trump narcissist for over 25 years sent the following comments, along with many others, shortly after Trump was elected.
5) Expect those around him to be damaged. They will be brain-washed into being extensions of him, ever parroting his thoughts, or they will fake same for personal gain, or they will be bewildered by the madness. Expect chaos: good people will resign in disgust or be fired, while marginal people will ascend to powerful positions.
6) Do not attempt to reason with or educate him. It doesn’t happen.
7) Manipulate him by using his disorder. Flattery will get you everywhere; convince him that your idea was his brilliant one and he’ll run with it.
My friend waited until her daughters completed their educations before getting a divorce.
Enough chaos already! Divorcing Trump is an immediate priority.
2
I believe it was Eisenhower who said "Planning is everything, plans mean nothing..." It is the process of anticipating the future that makes you ready to deal with the shot in the mouth that Mike Tyson talked about. Unfortunately this President thinks he can go into the ring and "trust his gut"
1
Communists used to have 5-year plans. Trump has 5-minute tantrums.
There are better ways to be prepared.
1
Lots of potential problems. No solutions.
If Trump ditches NATO, he will have created a foreign policy crisis.
1
Trump's approach to foreign policy has always been erratic, childish and uninformed, and that will never change because he does not learn or evolve. For a while he was minded by adults who attempted to impose some reason on his actions but they have fled. The current crew of neocons are the folks who dragged us into endless international conflicts and foreign policy failures in the past. They are still working for a man who is totally unprepared for the responsibilities of running a large, powerful and complex nation such as the US. I am fairly sure that several rounds of golf will not suffice to overcome a true crisis.
It is very hard to see how this will end well and our best hope is that it continues to be the mess that it is today and does not devolve into total chaos. During my lifetime I have seen a number of poor decisions from the American electorate but none come anywhere close to handing the country to this fool.
2
This administration, the bully who leads it and all who have participated, have created a train wreck looking for a time/place to happen. But here's the thing no one seems willing to discuss, at least out in the open. What if, we're not just dealing with a President who committed heinous crimes, obstruction of justice and etc, etc, but one who actively colluded with one of our oldest enemies? What if, he is a puppet controlled by that one Russia? What if, he is the "Manchurian Candidate?" Impeachment cannot be the solution for anyone who is possibly in that position, for it would take way too long. That president, if indeed he is guilty of such a crime, should be summarily and immediately and by force removed from office. Indeed, the damage that is being done to this country would seem to benefit but one entity and his name is Putin.
"I spent nearly 25 years in government, and almost as much time studying it. " Born in 1962, he starts his study at age 6. I remember him and his wife both working in the same office, taking very high ranking positions, hello Mr. Nepotism. Hillary's beach boy.
1
@Jubu
Yes (or actually no, since you don't have a valid point), but what about Trump's dangerous incompetence?
1
When Trump looks in the mirror, he really does see “a master of all trades,” both domestically and globally, guided by superior genes and an all-knowing gut, and there isn’t a Republican in congress or a journalist at Fox willing to disabuse him of this notion, except, tellingly, when they discuss his behavior in private. The MAGA electorate also remains steadfast.
We now have the perfect storm; A chief executive of low intelligence, combined with pathological narcissism, rounded off with insatiable greed and propped up by enablers who suffer from the same character defects to a greater or lesser degree. God help us!
1
It could be worse. We could have organized, activist, destructive crisis-makers like the Bush-Cheney administration, or the Reagan-Bush administration.
Pres. Trump has created crises -- tariffs, Iran, Palestinians, North Korea, asylum-seekers and routine visa applicants. These crises are harmful and shouldn't be tolerated. Even though they pale next to Bush-Cheney, or Lyndon Johnson.
P.S. The professionals in "acting" positions would do just fine if, as the author says, they were consulted in a systematic process.
I know the administration has many people, they do have a process and a policy. Just ones that the author probably does not understand or approve of. Some of those things are not really a crisis, just some trouble.
The question is whether the global community will grant the American electorate a "mulligan" and be willing to accept this chaotic presidency as an aberration, to be corrected in 2020. Or, instead, will the U.S. henceforth be known as merely another self-interested and transaction-oriented presence on the world stage, albeit one with a massive military. OR, will the U.S. re-elect Mr. Trump, in which case all bets are off and many of us move to Canada.
13
@Tim C Please move if they will take you, why would any citizen care about what other countries think, I only care what they do.
@vulcanalex
To get along better, promote trade, promote mutual goodwill, avoid war and other kinds of conflict, enjoy living in the world, all of it, things like that.
2
Mr. Blinken should talk to Mr. Douthat who thinks Trumps foreign policy "exceeds expectations" and will be "adopted by future administrations."
Blinken headed the Deputies Committee in the Obama White House and supported an apology leaning foreign policy. Perhaps it's good that 40% of State Departments positions are unfilled. Rex Tillerson believed the staffing was "bloated." As a CEO he would know. One committee meeting numerous times each day sounds like overkill and bureaucratic paralysis.
Read Douthat's Op Ed today - "The Trump Doctrine."
1
@Frank Leibold The entire federal government is bloated, probably the state department is one of the worst. It also depends on what you want them to do and if we can afford it. If 40% are not filled nothing bad is happening, perhaps 50% would be even better.
Yeah, no kidding. And yet, the stock market has been, for the most part, oblivious. The economy, and the microcosmic stock market, has some serious catching up to do with the reality that is Trump*.
3
If anything, Mr. Blinken undersells the dangers of a foreign policy nightmare under Trump. The president actively encourages dissension among his advisors because it feeds his narcissism to see them clamor for his favor. His massive insecurity over his intelligence level has led him to put all his faith in his "gut", which means crucial decisions in the heat of the moment will be up to the whims of a man who eschews reading, expert opinion and careful deliberation. Also, the motivation behind any decision he makes won't be the good of the country, it will be his own good.
So the buck stops with a man who sows chaos, has limited understanding of the issues and potential repercussions and is extremely resistant to council, and is motivated by greed and an overpowering desire for fame and attention. But this time the cost isn't a failed airline or casino.
23
After the end of the Cold War, I witnessed a number of African leaders shifting their policies to escape the potential wrath from Washington and fall in line in the international community. Yes there were challenges like Mugabe but all in all, a robust policy in Washington generally made the continent a more democratic place.
Under Trump, there is not a single African leader who worries about any backlash from Washington. Witness the brazen stolen election in Democratic Republic of Congo. Witness the chaos starting to emerge in Zimbabwe. Look at how President Museveni in Uganda has literally whipped opposition members to keep his grip on power. I could go on and on but you get the idea. Under Trump, no one fears America.
So yes, Mr. Blinken's point is very timely. People, process and policy not only make America a better place but these tend to have a positive effect on countries that need to get their act together.
23
@Godfrey So we mind our business and allow others to do what we insist on doing, that would be having a government appropriate for us, not anybody else.
It's not always a bad thing when presidents trust their instincts over recommendations from advisers. It's always a bad thing when Trump trusts his instincts. Good instincts are fueled by knowledge of a situation. Trump has no knowledge of any vital international situation. What is frightening is the breadth and scope of power he has to make decisions on instinct. Let's not forget, he knows more than the generals.
22
@nzierler
We can distinguish between "instincts" and "impulses".
1
@firestsar
He can't.
1
Great counter to Mr. Douthat's optimistic take on the "Trump Doctrine," which counter to his take--Trum has no people, no process, and thus, no policy.
26
This, from an individual who participated in the creation or exacerbation of many foreign policy crises, and the solution of none ?
I don't think anyone from the Obama administration has anything credible to say on the foreign policy front.
2
@Objectivist I think you missed the point here. While the Obama administration can be severely criticized for many of its policies and actions, the issue Blinken is raising is the total absence of adequate staffing, the lack of a process that informs and brings sound decisions, which should be all based on a meaningful policy to guide the administration, one that is non-existent in the current WH.
6
@Objectivist
Except maybe Osama Bin Laden, Paris Climate Accord, Trans Pacific Partnership, Keeping Russia out of Syria, sanctions on Russia, and keeping democracy on the upswing in developing countries. All now reversed under Trump, disasterously so.
12
@FrankWillsGhos
Keeping Russia out of Syria? Laying down a welcome mat and a get out of jail free card for the Russians was President Obama’s greatest foreign policy mistake. He was right not to send troops, but in 2012 failed to adequately support the opposition and forge a peace agreement that would have included the removal of Assad.
But you are quite correct that he had numerous foreign policy successes beyond the ones you cite, including the Iran deal, the Ebola crisis, and the respect that his intelligence and humanity earned from millions of people around the world after the debacle of Bush’s Iraq invasion.
1
"The Trump administration is not prepared for a foreign policy crisis."
The Trump administration, or what there is of it, is not prepared for ANY crisis, as the recent back-down from the shout-down based on the shut-down shows. It looks like running a complex policy machine based upon thoughtful diplomacy and fair compromise can NOT be run like a loud-mouth, bullying business.
However, Trump's base, who, probably without having read it, clearly buy into Machiavelli's "The Ends Justify the Means" theory of inter-personal relationships, are willing to put up with all of that IF he gives them their conservative judges (in progress), their tax cut (works long-term only if you are in the upper 1%), and their wall (OK, that needs some work, but he is still promising it).
Only when they realize that their own, personal, familial oxen are being gored might they consider abandoning the Trump Titanic, which has met its iceberg, a woman named Nancy.
49
@The Lone Protester
That's a great last line! I hope that's in the movie someday.
@MSC
Thanks. I would give my royalties for the nightmare to be over now. Of course, with Petty Puritan Pence in the wings, it would be just trading one nightmare for the next one....
I found this hard to read. I don't disagree that Trump & Co. are wildly unprepared. But does that really make them the least prepared ever? If we measure by results, not actions, it would have to be W. The forever war, bolstered by a collapse of the global economy triggered by US financial institution de-regulation. Now, there's a foreign policy crisis. So, perhaps it matters less whether an administration is "prepared" in any kind of Washington establishment sense, and matters more about the outcomes. Now, before anyone thinks I am defending our felon-in-chief, I am not. Unless Trump starts a nuclear war (which while admittedly possible, seems unlikely) he will have to do something pretty bad to match the loss of time, energy, humnn/financial/geopolitical capital, and lives perpetrated by at least one of his predecessors.
11
@sgoodwin
Your points about the destruction during Ws admin are quite well taken. I think the author is just making it clear that we are woefully unprepared to react to a true threat.
What if an American citys water system was poisoned? What if half the US lost internet service? How would this empty suit of a president respond? Who would guide him to a well reasoned and appropriate response?
And the elephant in this room is the devastating impact of climate change. Sea levels are rising, temperatures are rising - causing horrific storms to be more so. Does this admin know or even care that the worlds insect population has shrunk so dramatically that it is leading to species extinction?
Perhaps the biggest challenge that the next admin will face is to reverse course on the planet and civilisation destroying "policies" of the most ignorant and selfish human to have ever held the office.
Instead of listening to scientists, he listens to a certified white supremacist named Miller and creates a horrific crisis at the border where none existed.
2
@sgoodwin
George W. Bush was much better prepared. He just made a terrible decision to invade Iraq. That bad decision was due to the fact that his administration manufactured evidence to create a desired conclusion.
2
@DA Mann
Now, if you're going to pick on every little thing.
1
The only time that Trump was safely himself was on The Apprentice. He acted rashly and made impulsive decisions. The producers had to scramble to pull his actions into some sort of coherent narrative. They succeeded, somewhat, because they were in charge. Trump was just the mercurial talent.
Being President of the United States is as far from reality TV star as it’s possible to get without leaving the planet. Like his turn on TV, Trump fails to recognize that he is the center of attention only because of his position. As president, however, his actions have already had real-world consequences.
On reality TV, others were safe from harm. While a contestant might get their feelings hurt, no one died. Trump’s actions regarding refugees at the border have already caused the permanent separation of children from their parents. A few because the child died in American custody.
Trump needs to go back to the world of make-believe. We will all be safer.
36
I'm not sure I understand why Mattis' judgement is so highly regarded.
Wasn't he on the board of Theranos?
6
@brooklyn So was former Sec'y of State George Schulz. And other well-knowns. A bad financial decision says very little about a person. Mark Twain made a disastrous investment which made him broke. Sir Isaac Newton lost his shirt in an infamous 18th century financial scam. And there are some (many?) people with perfect financial acumen who you wouldn't want to touch with a ten foot pole.
1
@Brooklyn He only looks almost good by comparison!
2
The shock and surprise evident within the Administration at the quickly ensuing collateral damage caused by Trump’s government shutdown validates everything said in this op-Ed. An ignorant child, guided solely by malignant narcissism and desperate self-interest, is in the driver’s seat. We will all be destroyed along with him if the Republican Party refuses to protect the American people and the Constitution from him and his enablers.
76
This is a very sobering assessment of the perilous state of the dysfunction in the Trump administration when it comes to foreign policy.Mr.Blinken did not write this Op-Ed just to express a point of view- to me it sounds like a serious warning.For two years Trump has spent his energy on keeping people from entering the country, legally or illegally and fending off the special prosecutors investigation.This has left no time or inclination to build a strong foreign policy team.We are now facing challenges in Venezuela ,North Korea, China and Syria and others.The wise advisors have left or been fired.I, for one, do not trust the judgment of Pompeo and Bolton-I am very fearful!
43
@Janet Michael
Don't worry. We, our various last administrations, goaded by and dependent on the informational input of the MIC/CIA, were the creators of each of the problems you list. Their brilliance will surely get us out of these messes, unless the mess is our intention.
2
When I watched the film Forrest Gump that everyone was raving about I remember thinking soon the simple-minded will be on their way to powerful complicated positions. Intelligence never had it so bad. Gump was an innocent, Trump would like to be. Save America.
16
It is remarkable that public reaction to any particular government sometimes seems diametrically opposed to the latter's obvious incompetence: as Mr Blinken points out, obvious incompetence is apparently rewarded by astonishingly strong support from a vociferous minority (USA /Trump, United Kingdom/Theresa May) while one of the most gifted and intelligent leaders (Emmanuel Macron in France) or the skilled diplomat Angela Merkel in Germany are subjected to disgusting abuse - possibly because those steering the media would find their task easier if all leaders were as hopelessly incapable as Trump. I read earlier that people actually mistrust someone like Macron because he has often achieved success - elected President at 39 at his first attempt, for instance.
20
Our lack of a cohesive policy IS a crisis, never mind what our opposition does.
Musical chairs at the highest levels is a sign of the ego defficiency that insists on being the smartest guy in the room. That's easy if you dismiss those with real expertise.
Few people remember that Stalin eliminated a bunch of Russian generals who were all smarter than he. Made him the 'best' military leader they had. Didn't work out so well when they were invaded.
But of course lessons from history are so passé now.
24
don't forget Alexander Davis leader of the confederacy,who also insisted that if you disagreed with him you must therfore be of inferior intellect.
On a recent visit to a U.S. Embassy overseas to work on a policy proposal, I told my hosts that it was important to have a balanced variety of views, including those of the administration. In fact, for the purposes of debate, I told them that President Trump could have written several of my arguments for discussion.
Their response: “Did you have to?” The whole room busted up and like the true professionals they are, many points of view were considered, including those publicly stated by the administration.
Our diplomats overseas, like Tony Blinken, sacrifice so much toiling at long distances in the interests of our country. With the nation’s foreign policy being run on the gut instincts of Trump, aided by the likes of John Bolton and Stephen Miller with the sheer incompetence of Jared Kushner, our nation’s foreign policy is in disarray.
25
The recent government shutdown highlights the incompetence fed by petulance. It was based on a manufactured crisis when Trump and Republicans had two years to address border security, put funding in budget proposals and have completed detailed plans. Instead Trump responded to Fox and various talk show dominatrixes and "his base" leaving out his inchoate payment plan from Mexico.
This was how he dealt with an imaginary crisis. He has bad advisers who are embroiled with their own Russia legal dangers or focused on enriching themselves. Anyone with experience and expertise is forced out through petty politics.
Congress knows better so perhaps with a Democratic House, Republican legislators will stop muttering complaints in their locker room and step up to actually governing.
It is unlikely since they lifted the sanctions on Deripaska and awarded him hundreds of millions of dollars in debt relief after Deripaska interfered in the election. That also rewarded Putin.
With both Trump and most GOP legislators MIA, we can just keep our fingers crossed until 2020 and elect qualified Americans who care about their country and are prepared to govern with the help of experts.
Fox personnel need not apply.
26
It is like putting someone, who barely could get a plane in the air on MS Flight Simulator, at the helm of a real Boeing 777 and hope that he could land safely. The problem is we are on board too.
25
@Harry Sihan So Obama who knew almost nothing was better???
Perhaps the best hope we have short-term is that with Trump being so unpredictable it gives pause to any nation who may instigate, or attack the US directly.
Our biggest point of vulnerability, however, may come during the period when Trump loses the election and a new President takes office. Then, all bets are off...
3
Blinken and his ilk are primary reasons that President Trump inherited a foreign policy in such disarray. Their “approved” policies, processes, and people led us into a situation in which we intervened in every dispute without regard to whether US vital national interests were actually involved. The invasion of Iraq and the decades long war are prime examples of this folly. Their focus on such esoteric concepts such as human rights and democracy let us into many quagmires ( like Afghanistan) but not out of any. Their advice should be summarily dismissed.
2
Not having any government experience nor talents is precisely the point of Donald Trump's presidency. Ignorance and in credibility make facts and reason meaningless. The Trump team is an accurate reflection of the man at the top.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are Senior White House Advisers whose immense experience and talents Americans get for free. Coupled with the sage Stephen Miller and the domestic and foreign policy legends Kellyanne Conway and Melania Trump what could go wrong? And that is just the inside the White House people and policy and process team.
Standing on the outside are the two business bulwark legendary safari prince leaders Donald Trump, Jr. and Eric Trump plus Sheldon Adelson.
In what nation, on what planet, in what solar system, galaxy and universe could you find a more experienced and talented team among the first 100 million people pool?
30
@Blackmamba If you are not happy with the results of traditional type of thinking and people you do something very different. That is why Trump was elected, and to some it is working. Perhaps not perfectly but better than in the past.
My first thought on reading this article was the latest Madam Secretary episode concerning proxies - those nations that we use to further our agenda.
Syria, Israel, Iran and Russia were the examples used, but the principle applies equally as well to Venezuela which is now caught in the middle of a proxy crisis. It has a regime supported by China, Russia and a couple of other South American countries and another regime regarded as legitimate by America and Europe.
It doesn't matter what happens in Venezuela. They will be losers. They'll either get Maduro confirmed and supported by Russia and China, or a new presidential election that MAY install a leader supported by Europe and the USA, who will probably immediately lose interest.
3
It's all about public policy formulated by professionals with long experience and access to expert information, advisers who have differing opinions, advisers who are able to imagine unintended as well as intended consequences.
Policy is a completely foreign concept to the President of the United States as is any understanding that public policy can only be formulated by professionals who spend their lives addressing public policy issues.
A fine example is provided at Paul Krugman's column today 29 January 2019. So too does Venezuela provide ample examples, a country brought down by a dictator or two who while totally different from the American President share his policy blindness.
Two more years?
What will be left of my country of birth?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
11
@Larry Lundgren Policy should never be formed by professionals, they are to examine the alternatives and advise those we elected to decide. That is a massive issue for me the professionals think they are running the organization rather than the owners. Never happens in business, should never happen in government.
Since Trump's election America's three legged stool of governance has effectively been reduced to two legs, a reality which begs the question, can America afford the luxury of another folly of a presidency as bad or even worse than the one they are currently experiencing? America needs to apply its enormous can-do capabilities to amend its constitution, or find itself a serious part of mankind's going forward.
11
@Leigh The constitution is currently great, I wonder what you want changed. Insert a right to health care? Eliminate the electoral college? Change the senate to be by population? None of that is possible or desirable.
The policy of the United States is set by President Trump.
And it's clear:
America first, and the rest of the world can learn to govern itself.
So it's not that there is no process or policy in the Trump Administration.
It seems more likely that a former Obama political appointee hates the vision of America that Americans chose when they elected the president.
And views himself as more wise, experienced and worldly than any man or woman with less formal education.
Which is exactly why Democrats are losing the Senate and Presidency.
And why Trump will be reelected in a landslide in 2020.
2
@Rolf
No, not "America First." trump first, as demonstrated in the pointless shutdown that harmed Americans only -- in particular, the ones who look after the safety of Americans daily.
And as the event demonstrated, trump first = trump fails. And America pays. Which is his autobiography in a nutshell.
Still, obviously, the bubble remains, and you find it comfortable, Rolf. The bubble is shrinking.
15
@Rolf
Almost 3 million Americans did not elect Trump. He was successful only due to a massive Russian cyberattack on the election and other interference. He and his campaign had more than 100 contacts with Russia. Everything he has done has damaged America from his trade wars to his environmental damage to the $2 trillion he has added to the national debt in only two years.
Look at the polls. Forget young people voting Republican for a generation. Forget minority support.
And the poll released yesterday shows only 27% of all American women approve of Trump.
16
Rolf,
A man who has studied policy for 20 years and then has served this country in a policy capacity for another 20 years obviously knows more than the average man or woman. When did opinion weigh more than experience and education? Everyone has the right to his or her opinion, but that does not mean they should be given equal consideration. Until the unwavering 37% come to realize that our nation is better lead by educated administrators and policy makers than we are by a failed businessman and reality TV “Star”, thus country will remain in serious trouble.
16
Of course Trump has a policy: whatever Putin wants. As we just discovered, John Bolton has a policy, too: Troops to Colombia. How one policy intersects with the other is pure Trump Administration.
18
@Pietro Allar Putin wants Germany to buy natural gas from us rather than them? They want NATO to not spend more on their defense? They wanted hundreds of Russians killed in Syria? They want more arms given to their opponents? I could go on but you deny reality when it does not fit your views.
"I spent nearly 25 years in government, and almost as much time studying it. " Born in 1962, he starts his study at age 6. I remember him and his wife both working in the same office, taking very high ranking positions, hello Mr. Nepotism.
7
I’ve been playing music for 25 years and studying it just as long. Here’s a new word for you: concurrently.
9
@Paul Davis I just realize, that I was breathing air and studying it for more than 40 years! Can I get a job in EPA as a senior adviser and make 250k a year? I will bring my wife, she was breathing and studying air for about the same amount of time. Concurrently.
@Jubu
No, no, it's not actually nepotism unless one appoints the other to a position for which he or she is not in fact qualified, like, say, Jared Kushner.
3
We are faced with a true crisis: both climate if you want and environmental one, and the current repeat attacks on the truth. It’s time for us to recognize that these are more acute, and more harmful than any terrorist attack has ever been or will be.
25
The world need not manufacture any crisis, Trump is fully capable of making up a dozen just by opening his mouth.
A cogent and effective foreign policy depends on actionable intelligence on the ground. It requires a deep appreciation of local conditions and clear understanding of long-term risks and consequences. It is often a painful chess game involving multiple layers of complexities with multiple players.
Trump's foreign intelligence comes from his own fantasies. A person that cannot read and cannot think simply cannot strategize. The idea of a practical foreign policy and a realistic global diplomatic strategy cannot possibly exist in such a virtual construct.
My deepest fear is Trump actively looking for a diplomatic disagreement as an excuse to manufacture a crisis. The fake crisis then becomes his justification to perpetrate a war in order to shut down Mueller and to consolidate political support. With a war, he provides cover for GOP to support his declaration of "fake" national emergencies. He can then strip funds to do as he wishes. This is the most common tactic used by desperate dictators to consolidate power.
He still has 23 months to execute Putin's strategy to significantly damage our national interests and well-being.
39
The foreign policy of this administration is so scattershot and impulsive that people of all political leanings can choose something to call "right thing to do, wrong way to go about it."
We should be even more terrified of the fact that there is no constitutional way to prevent Mr. Trump from launching a first strike. Any effort to stop him would be ad hoc and extra-constitutional, so it's a little risky--a lot risky--to assume that it couldn't happen.
I'd like to hear any GOP senator explain why we should trust Mr. Trump with atomic weapons, and if he or she won't answer that question, explain why their party insists on keeping him around.
30
If George H.W. Bush's foreign policy team was so great, what happened to the "Peace Dividend"?
9
@Ellen - What happened to the peace dividend? His son spent it.
17
@Ellen
Read his lips. The man never delivered anything through them, out of either side of his mouth, that he actually believed.
1
Trump cannot grasp that people lived for tens of thousands of generations without all the luxuries that have been normal for him throughout his life. Laws and the fundamental trust that founds civilized life mean nothing to him. It exists and secures his advantages without his even recognizing them. His ignorance makes him careless about the consequences of his acts as a President of the greatest power in human history. His and ours distant ancestors understood how to make and use everything in their lives including all the people who they knew and they considered everything that they did with a seriousness that Trump has never had to do.
16
Let’s be honest, we don’t need to even read the article to say the trump administration is not prepared to manage ANY crisis.
I worry we go into recession and the trump administration bungles things so badly we start praying for the return of Herbert Hoover
31
Case in point (a domestic disaster and not a foreign policy disaster)?--
NY TImes: "Justice Department policy ordinarily prohibits public comment on open criminal inquiries." Apropos the Comey announcements before the 2016 election:
The acting attorney general Mr. Whitaker has just today made an impromptu announcement that the Mueller investigation is almost done.
In his own feckless words: "The investigation is, I think, close to being completed, and I hope that we can get the report from Director Mueller as soon as possible."
This is, in no uncertain terms, a national disaster.
Whitaker is a Trump loyalist, i.e., a CNN liar, who was unqualified for his present position. He was not approved by the Senate as is normally required. In a prior job helped to facilitate corporate fraud.
Given all of that, Whitaker did not have the leeway to do anything even remotely irregular (like this). The majority of the country will and must now assume that he is actively subverting the Mueller investigation on behalf of Mr. Trump.
The charges that Mueller is investigating are the most serious possible for a sitting president.
65
@Robert They are??? And it needs to be done.
@vulcanalex
I don't believe you actually need a reminder of what Mr. Trump and his associates are suspected of. Trump is being investigated for conspiring with a foreign adversarial nation to undermine our democratic elections. He is also being investigated for any other crimes that Mueller uncovers during his investigation. Chief among these: Trump's troubling and bizarre actions and statements vis-à-vis Russia have convinced most Americans that Trump is probably working as an agent for the Kremlin. Mr. Whitaker has violated DOJ policies. That is serious.
Here for your convenience is Mueller's letter of authorization, which includes :
"(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters."
1
Of course Mr. Blinken is right about Trump. BUT, where is any mention of George W. Bush and where his famous process landed our nation? We are still digging ourselves out of the quagmire his "team of experts" created - all with, I'm sure, a very thorough process that had many stages - filled with self-delusion, grandiosity, and just plain evil - that ignored dire warnings that invading Afghanistan would be fruitless and invading Iraq would destabilize the region.
22
I've always felt we were one major crisis away from disaster from Trump and his Administration for the American people and possibly the world. We have been lucky that to this point we have dodged that bullet. The risk of the disaster that awaits us all in the event of a major crisis is the primary reason that I think impeachment of Trump should be considered sooner rather than later. Can you imagine a President Trump confronted with a "Cuban Missle Crisis"? God help us all if something of that magnitude occurred.
26
Some suspect that even an inept President might turn a foreign policy crisis to his own advantage, declaring it an "emergency" to justify suspension of election 2020 or any other until order be restored.
22
@vishmael What might justify legally to suspend an election. Nothing did that, not even a world war. Now if our country suffered a massive nuclear attack that would justify it, nothing less.
This is a president, who got elected on his vaunted business career and “I alone can fix it” mentality. Unfortunately, the long-term effects of his flailing, “seat of the pants” foreign policy will not be felt until he leaves office. There is no equivalent of the “1979 American hostage crisis in Iran” situation that Trump has had to deal with so far, which might have given the American people an opportunity to see how he handled it and also had a more immediate impact on our foreign policy.
President Carter’s foreign policy successes with the Camp David Accords and the establishment of diplomatic relations with China in 1978 were overshadowed by the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the subsequent taking of hostages in the American embassy. President George H. W. Bush’s foreign policy successes with the 1990 reunification of Germany and in the 1991 Gulf War were forgotten by 1992 because of a flagging domestic economy. Both were one-term presidents.
When it comes to Trump, he’s had no foreign policy successes to speak of thus far. To make matters worse, Mr. Blinken’s astute analysis indicates Trump’s “No People. No Process. No Policy.” approach to foreign policy is a disaster waiting to happen. If we add “No Plan” to the list – we are left with Benjamin Franklin’s classic proposition, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Ironically, 2020, a year that signifies perfect vision might give us our first one-term president in 28 years because he lacked a foreign policy vision.
35
An international crisis has always been on my mind since Trump was elected. We will recover our cultural and domestic differences and we will, albiet painfully, recover economically, but internationally, I worry a great deal.
35
@L'historien The election of Trump is an international crisis for the rest of the democratic world.
The simple fact which any college graduate understands about the politics of foreign policy is a failure of the public to understand international relations and global relations between people. The relations between people across this world is too complex and diverse for the kind of simplistic notions expressed by our elected representatives seeking to gain the approval and support of our public. Yet, that kind of simplicity is the common level of discussion which we hear in the mass media. The nuanced expressions of people who have studied foreign relations are difficult to understand by those who have not learned the subject. Instead of motivating people to learn what these educated people have learned, many if not most simply think that they are being treated with disrespect.
40
@Casual Observer "...which any college graduate understands"...this disqualifies most of the MAGAs.
At this point in his Presidency, all his failings boil down to his essential failing: Trump is failing to uphold his oath of office.
“ I do solemnly swear (Trump contradicts himself and his admin at every turn) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States (has he read the Constitution?) and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States (his instinct is to tear apart and denigrate the Constitution and the rule of law)". The mandate to impeach is set - we just need the Mueller report to be 100% certain of specifics.
42
@DB What do we do when he has such a low "ability" that it is nearly non existent? Compliant is worse than complicit.
As hawkish and caudillistic as Republicans want Trump to be, he's more bark than bite. He's announced his plan to withdraw troops from Syria to acquiesce to Turkey. He conceded to Pelosi on the shutdown completely on her terms. He isn't a Commander-in-Chief as much as a dog who has realized he's not actually the alpha. In the end, he's going to lie down because he doesn't have any idea what else to do. And that puts us in a very dangerous predicament when we're faced with wild dogs that actually do bite.
19
He’s going to get us involved in Venezuela, one, for the oil. We go for oil. Two, he wants to be a war president. He thinks this is Grenada. We’re coming off a desert war to an urban jungle war. Are our soldiers and marines prepared for this one coming, I hope so. But, we at home are not prepared mentally for another life threatening mess. Maybe an impeachment might save lives.
46
@David J We don't need the oil, and I bet nothing will be done with the military unless our diplomats are harmed.
Well, we'll just have to wait ... until the next time he turns on the television.
15
Trump can’t even handle its own manufactured crises, each relegating the previous one to the background on an almost daily basis ; God help us if a real one were to occur...
25
About 25% of Venezuelan citizens voted for Maduro. That seems low. But then only 28% of US citizens votes for Trump. Perhaps it's not numbers but control of the media biased in his favor that makes Maduro an "illegitimate president"? Hmm. Or is it lack of interference by a foreign power?...
Maduro might not command my respect, but the author's assessment of his legitimacy warrants scrutiny.
8
Reality TV is scripted drama similar to 'professional' wrestling, so Trump was a 'natural'. He got to 'play' a successful businessman and generated plenty of publicity for himself, ultimately leading to his election. Unfortunately for the American people, as President he's required to be both competent and passionate about his job, and he is neither. While nothing catastrophic has happened yet on his watch, it's only a matter of time - and this charade will finally be exposed.
24
This runs through my head everyday. It is depressing to see it in writing. I thing the country will have PTS for years after this charade if and administration is either voted out or carted off to prison. I am not sure we will ever be the same as again.
10
what's not to like. He wants to get out of Syria and Afghanistan and rethink NATO. I like those actions although I'd also like to see this guy impeached. The wall: give him a little more of it. We already have over 600 miles of wall put on the border approval by Dems and Reps so what's a few miles gonna do. I think both parties are useless. That's MHO. As far as immigration policy goes. Fix it so it works for us all.
2
The Glorious Leader has decreed a Great Leap Backward to Make America Great Again. There is no need for anyone else or any process of consultation.
12
The deteriorating situation in Venezuela, which is mentioned in Mr. Blinken’s sobering “reality check” of the total unpreparedness of this incompetent Administration in the face of a future foreign crisis, should give all of us great concern. The rash, saber-rattling Bolton appears more than willing to lead the impetuous, ignorant Trump into a shooting conflict there involving American armed forces. Additionally, with domestic problems mounting for him in a number of different areas, the fear is that Trump will revert to his “shiny object” game of distraction, but with dire, bloody consequences. With the restraining Mattis gone, as mentioned, will the Pentagon’s generals and senior civilian staff be able to slow and halt this potential disasterous quagmire created by a process and policy-less Administration.
14
More meaningless Trump bashing, all based on what ifs. I do not like Trump, but articles like this accompanied by comments to the effect that Trump is “destroying our democracy” are like headaches. Moreover, I believe this sort of thing strengthens Trump, by a kind of boy-who-cried-wolf type hysteria.
As for crisis preparedness, the past 70 years do not furnish us with many great models. Worst of all is GW Bush and Cheney, who unleashed mass death and chaos in Iraq for no reason whatever and brought our own country to the worst financial crisis since the depression; Johnson and Kennedy’s best and brightest, who gave us Vietnam; Nixon who ushered in the stagflation of the 70s and was guided by the likes of Haldeman and Ehrlichman; Ronald Reagan, who gave us Central American death squads and Iran/Contra; Ike and Korea, and Guatemala etc. By comparison, Trump, so far, is mild. He is doing everything any Republican President would do - cutting taxes on the wealthy, increasing military spending, gutting regulatory programs and entitlements for the impoverished, and promoting world trade while pretending to be a champion of the American worker.
If you continue to attack him for no reason, when a serious reason arises, no one will listen. You will be the Newspaper which cried wolf.
10
@Mr. Little
"If you continue to attack him for no reason"
Let's agree to disagree that a president should have read the Constitution, avoid being laughed at in the UN General Assembly, refrain from lying thousands of times a year to the people s/he supposedly govern, comprehend how government works, understand why he shouldn't say "my senators", not discuss his imaginary middle class tax cut the week before Christmas, and many more that do not depend on Mr. Trump's ideology one iota.
14
@Mr. Little
FDR gave us Social Security; and he kept England going after Dunkirk; that is why he and Churchill remain icons of democracy. Ike managed to keep the allies moving together in order to win WWII; then he came home and built the inter-State highway system. Truman gave us Medicare. Kennedy didn't live long enough to leave a legacy; we can't predict how he would have finally handled Vietnam. MLK gave millions hope, both races. Finally, Bobby who spoke against the war, and who spoke for the poor he saw in the deep South. Those of us who were young at that time developed a certain cynicism about the powers unable to protect those leaders. LBJ gave us the Voting Rights Act, and it cost him his Southern base. Obama gave us the ACA which is still alive despite 44 GOP attempts to strike it down; it needs to be improved and made really affordable without the corrupting influence of big insurers. Other than Ike, I cannot think of any GOP leaders who have given us anything without a major battle. That remains true today, only worse. We now have an incompetent, appointed by the Electoral College in key States, in thrall to Putin, Russian financiers, and rich Saudis. He might be brought down by Mueller, a Grand Jury and Article 25 as Unfit to Serve. He is the worst, most incompetent and dangerous President seen in my long lifetime. He is the first President who is more loyal to a known adversary than to the country he leads.
11
@Linda Miilu
LBJ gave us Medicare, and the Civil Rights Act too. Truman kept MacArthur from invading China.
2
This administration is not interested in solving problems. Its only purpose is to create problems. Chaos, discord, dismantling perfectly good programs and processes, sowing distrust and hatred, appointing incompetent sycophants to high level positions. It's more important for Trump and his supporters to "stick it to the liberals" than to truly improve the lives of regular folk. What sad times we live in.
32
Trump saw no need for state dept officials as he makes all the decisions anyway. Trump knows more about foreign policy than anyone in the world except Putin. Trump has only one value money and will do anything to get it cheat lie and steal. Everyone is a loser except him and of course Putin. Why does Trump cower before Putin it is obvious by now since what we know by open source media is minor compared to what our and foreign intel agencies know. So Trump calls our FBI and Intel agencies the Deep State and trashes our allies as they know what we all will soon know TRump sold out the American govt to make money.
20
Anthony J. Blinken has written a well-reasoned column, but his criticism of the presidency of Donald Trump for being extremely weak on people, process and policy does not go far enough.
Mr. Blinken is using a measuring stick which does not work with a completely dysfunctional president.
Donald Trump has an almost feral instinct for the weaknesses of the people around him, which means that Trump knows exactly whom among his subordinates he can bully. They quickly learn to speak only to praise the latest hare-brained idea of the boss.
That fact, coupled with Trump’s inexperience in government, his ignorance of history, his overriding ego and his laziness, renders our president completely incompetent in foreign affairs and disaster management.
Donald Trump has not yet had a confrontation with a hostile power proceed to a full meltdown, and Mr. Blinken attributes that to luck. There is a simpler explanation.
Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong-un quickly learned that armed confrontation with the United States could be deferred indefinitely, because Donald Trump was so easy to manipulate by flattery and a little bribery. Less scary leaders like Turkey’s Erdogan and Saudi’s Mohammed bin Salman have learned the same thing.
They all play President Trump like a cheap violin. It will not last.
33
One can't help and think Putin has the US where he wants us to be - total chaos and with an incompetent President that he himself guided. Putin spotted a gullible, desparate stooge so we are. Step one: Elections.
It is very scary to think about how other countries are spotting opportunities for themselves during our vulnerable times.
13
I guess a former Obama official couldn’t bring up Trump’s worst policy, which is our support for the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen,since that policy began under Obama.
And of course our brilliant foreign policy geniuses applaud the pressuring of the Venezuelan government. Nothing about whether our sanctions have contributed to suffering there— if they have, that’s part of the plan. We are doing it in Iran and Syria too.
As horrible as Trump is, sometimes the “ experts” who criticize him are almost as bad. Our foreign policy under multiple administrations of both parties has consisted of constant meddling, sanctions, support for dictators and terrorists called freedom fighters, proxy wars and our own wars.
It would be nice if we had some third choice. What I see is a choice between different styles of arrogant meddling.
11
Mr. Blinken, I hope your informed warning penetrates the Republicans' bubble of privilege and partisanship and triggers their survival instincts. We have a White House that takes delight in bashing science and expertise to distract its "base" of bozos while it caters to the one percent. It revels in insulting educated people. We cannot afford to cater to the whims of a president who is so willfully ignorant, so weak-minded, that he could be swayed at the last minute by the rantings of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh not to sign a bi-partisan bill he had previously agreed to. I hope the recent shutdown has triggered Washington's survival instincts and they'll heed people like you who actually know what they're talking about.
12
American Intelligence.
Yeah Right.
So read the satirical billboards that once advertised a passable New Zealand beer called Tui.
Clearly the advertisers believed that the phrase "American Intelligence" is an oxymoron.
Public opinion is as it turned out was clearly on the side of the advertisers.
Many people did a double take when John McCain nominated as his running mate Sarah Palin whose intellectual standing it quickly transpired approximated that of the typical household vacuum cleaner.
This appears to have been the end of the era in which the American public had the good sense to reject incompetence in their potential presidents.
But the bar was lowered quite definitively.
Palin was an absolute air head. Of that there is no doubt.
With Trump America and the world got not only the vacuum cleaner but all the dust and detritus swirling around in random ways inside that proverbial "skull full of mush".
Barely educated and often incoherent, Trump makes George W Bush look like a choir boy. Perhaps American amnesia likes to forget "W" but he's the guy who lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and went to war in completely the wrong country if Al Qaeda was the target.
Perhaps American needs the disaster that Trump has been and will continue to be in order to learn the lesson that the truth and objective reality matter.
Electing high quality people who can stand on the world stage and collaborate with intelligently with the global community matters greatly.
15
@Richard Mitchell-Lowe
I remind you that 3M more of us voted for Hillary Clinton whose background as First Lady, NY State Senator and Secty. of State made her highly qualified. We also elected Obama, a scholar and a gentleman, obstructed at every turn by a GOP Congress. We now have a Democratic House; if we ever get a Democratic Senate, we can reform the current gerrymandered Electoral College. We might also have a public debate about lifetime political appointments to the SC which gave us Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. None of the above are more than shills for the rich Establishment, now richer due to the GOP tax heist. The GOP "base" might eventually wake up if it suffers financially long enough.
7
@Linda Miilu
Stop attacking the electoral college, please. I detest Trump as much as anyone, but I don't think for one second that Hillary or any of her supporters including I, would have rejected the election results if she (or Gore) had lost the popular vote and won the electoral vote. That's not "gerrymandering," it is the Federal-state bargain that allowed the Constitution to be ratified in the first place. If we ever get a Democratic Senate, even a Democratic President, 60-vote Senate majority, and House, that will still not be enough to "reform" the electoral college. That will require the passage of a Constitutional amendment and its ratification by 38 states. Since more than 12 states would lose some of the disproportional power they now hold, this can never happen.
The Democrats simply have to win more states, that's it. Fighting legislative gerrymandering, voter suppression, and the flood of insidious propaganda unleashed by Citizens United, Fox News and its ilk, and the repeal of the fairness doctrine are all worthy parts of this effort.
Most Americans are indeed appalled by the destructive antics of the ignorant, infantile fool who got elected President. Complaining about the rules won't help.
1
Some people ask, What would Jesus do?
Let's instead ask, what would a servant of the Lord of Lies do? Or if you are not religious, what would a secret Russian agent do to damage our foreign policy ability without being too obvious about it? Combined with wrecking our alliances. Combined also with exploding the yearly deficit, which the Republicans had previously engineered to be over a TRILLION dollars for this year and with the government shutdown it'll be a lot more. And add trade wars to slow down the economy over the next two years.
Trump is wearing feathers, waddling, and quacking. Is he a duck, or just incompetent and malevolent?
7
Not only is Trump hideously unprepared for a foreign policy crisis, he will actively court, if not start one outright, as we inch closer to 2020.
Two years on, any Trump appointee at the State Dept with any decency has left.
At the same time, Mr. Mueller's investigation will draw to a close in the coming months. Once it is made public, Trump will no longer have anywhere to hide. Mr. Mueller will have solid evidence of his criminal conduct.
So what will Trump do? Start a war, of course, to either (a) rally enough voters for re-election as Dubya did, or (b) use a military conflict as a pretext for declaring martial law, and extend his reign indefinitely. At this point, he understands that this is the only certain way he may avoid prison.
But Trump understands his base extremely well. They don't care that the U.S. is at best a laughingstock on the world stage, and a pariah at worst. We are now at a level of international disrespect that would have seemed unimaginable just two short years ago.
That said, Trump's base simply does not care that he has destroyed national alliances that have taken us decades to build. He has utterly destroyed our international prestige. And he has blatantly toadied up to his handler, Putin.
Trump's base believes all of these actions actions are great. And as long as he keeps his base, Trump will remain in power. And it is because of the willful ignorance of Trump voters that we are now an ignorant, racist backwater of a nation.
24
Trump will either stumble into a foreign crisis or engage in one to distract from his blundering domestic policies and the continuing investigations into his actions and those of his deviant family.
12
The sub-title says the terrifying truth in just a few words:
"The Trump administration is not prepared for a foreign policy crisis."
This should be obvious.
6
Yes, the President is draining the swamp. Draining it of the wisdom and experience of those who have left or will leave to escape. Draining it of the ability to attract new people of quality and the credentials to fill critical vacancies. President Entropy has impacted more than just the State Department, throw in the other Cabinet level departments as well. What is the policy? He seems to marvel at his ability to disrupt and inflict injury on the people of this country and others. Are we as prepared for emergencies as we should be? Don't look now but we are the emergency.
10
If I were Putin, Kim, or any other despot looking to extend my sphere of influence I'd be salivating in anticipation now. Trump has, with this government shutdown, managed to convince quite a number of Americans, particularly young ones who would have been mentored by senior officials, that working for the government is too risky. Worse than that, his/Pence's selections for the cabinet have driven out the senior officials and that means that the institutional memory has been fractured. It's truly a case of those who don't remember the past are condemned to repeat it. This time however, we may not avoid bloodshed on our soil. Something else we can thank the Supreme Court's decision on Citizens United for; Donald Trump, ignorance, and dark money.
27
You can thank the Grover Norquist people and Trump "base" for this situation, on top of the government shut-down debacle. They're having a wild and crazy field day with it all. That cartoon in this article should have their version of Uncle Sam jumping for joy. (Just use Trump's speech to the UN as a model.) Of course, the sooner we get rid of this mess because the majority of citizens (along with Mueller) have finally started to vote (as in 2018), the better!
8
While focus is on Venezuela's collapse, the article
about the Afghan "settlement" needs
more space than this single quote citing Afghanistan:
"Even the welcome progress toward ending the 17-year war in Afghanistan has been hobbled by Mr. Trump’s arbitrary and then partly rescinded announcement that he was cutting forces in Afghanistan by half, thereby undercutting our leverage in negotiations with the Taliban.
It is obvious from reading that article that selling the current Afghan government down the river will be the implicit plan
that never gets acknowledged until it becomes a
fait accompli via the breakdown caused by civil war soon
after American ground forces disappear from
the gossamer structure propping up the Afghan government.
The current Afghan military is no
match for the Talibans and their motley assemblage
of like minded 12th century warriors. Everyone knows
this but will never say it in public, and even if said,
will be responded to by "well that's just their opinion".
So in the presence of an irresistible urge to cut out ASAP, we'll cut a quick (and dirty) deal and stage a media event of "bringing peace in our time", which will dictate forthcoming "negotiations" that will define the outcome, as surely
as Munich did in 1938.
There is no one any longer at the American table who has the guts to push back against this not so camouflaged sell out,
and certainly there is no one in the Senate with committee authority to demand a thorough hearing.
13
Never before in my history have the gaps in our democracy been so evident. The recurring boast of our being the greatest democracy in the world is an empty one. We now have a known corrupt New York hotelier and builder now running the greatest democracy ever.
30
@Richard
We also have a corrupt leader in charge of a corrupt GOP Senate, giving tax breaks to billionaires and corporations on the backs of millions of working Americans. McConnell is the man who kept an honorable, respected moderate Superior Ct. Judge off the SC, Merrick Garland. Then he shoved a Catholic ideologue onto the Court to give us a right wing highest court in the land for decades. On a scale of 1-10 for sheer malign intent, McConnell is a 1.
@Richard "now running - we think you meant 'ruining' - the greatest democracy ever."
But not without the enthusiastic complicity of the entire
GOP.
Our entry into WWI was under a Democratic President, Woodrow Wilson. Our entry into WWII was under a Democratic President, FDR. Our entry into the Korean War was under a Democratic President, Harry Truman. Our entry into the Vietnam War was under a Democratic President, JFK, and greatly furthered by a Democratic President, LBJ. All of the terrorist planning and preparation (and pilot training in our country) for the attack on 9/11 was done under a Democratic President, Bill Clinton. It was a Democratic President, Carter, who was President when our hostages were taken in Iran and then launched the disastrous attempt to rescue them. It was Carter who was so shocked when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. It was a Democratic President, Obama, who drew a 'line in the sand' in Syria to purportedly prevent the use of chemical weapons that was absolutely meaningless. If this is what Mr. Blinken means by "experience, temperament and intellectual honesty" then I will take whatever alternative is being offered.
@Tom Wolpert
WWI & WW2 - both presidents tried to stay out as long as possible (and we emerged from both as the only remaining superpower)
Korean War - N Korea invaded S Korea
Vietnam - arguably inappropriate at the time and poorly managed overall, including by Nixon
9/11 - Bush's intelligence apparatus warned multiple times of potential attacks on WTC and terrorist attacks using passenger planes; then fabricated evidence of WMDs to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11
Syria - you're right, Obama should have just let Assad use chemical weapons /s
Are you really suggesting that we only got into these wars because of Democratic presidents? (Almost) all of these were caused by outside events and Presidents being forced to respond. Yes, responses could be better, and much of that has to do with the systems and policies in place to respond to these events. Hence this column. To think that all of these could be avoided just because of the President's party affiliation is beyond dumb
17
@Tom Wolpert so the Republicans have been soft on our enemies since WWII. Then Trump is just carrying on.
4
@Tom Wolpert - Vietnam is a bad example, Eisenhower sent a lot of Green Berets into Vietnam long before Kennedy was elected. I seem to remember George W. Bush invading Afghanistan & Iraq, and we are still fighting in both. Congress has as much blame as the President for the wars we get involved in, since they have to vote the fund the wars.
10
The four years awarded to Trump by his deplorable followers and the antiquated Electoral College are years that under a great president's leadership could have been used to help our country recover from the Republican disaster.
Infrastructure.
Education.
Climate change.
Etc.
Instead of Keeping America Great, Trump and his band of lewzers have brought us down to their level, and it may be too late to recover.
23
We do not know what the Swindler in Chiefs policies are, all we know he has a core of supporters that know even less about international relations, think force is preferable to diplomacy, think their hard earned money is going to some other country they do not like and know nothing about. We saw the hate campaign against France after 9/11, unjustified but brought about by W's rhetoric.
Now we see an administration that has no concept of what do do about the Venezuela situation, except hint at the use of force. A complete failure with N. Korea which is just jerking him around.
However Don the Dishonest is only a symptom, it is the GOP controlled senate that is the real force behind the decline of the countr's statesmanship. The approval of an oil company CEO as Secretary of State, with the exodus of several senior diplomats. The appointment of political hacks as ambassadors to our allies, no oversight of our policies. A whole department of unqualified representatives, with personal agendas.
The countries that need to be watched are just waiting their turn to get away with some skullduggery, while our friends do not have our support. The GOP is our enemy, it is the weasel in the house, the stink in our congress.
They care more about their purses than the fate of the country, traitors all.
126
Why didn’t the founding fathers write a citizen’s initiative into the 25th amendment? Trump would be gone by now.
25
@MidWest
"Why didn’t the founding fathers write a citizen’s initiative into the 25th amendment?"
The obvious answer is that by 1965 they were all dead.
18
This is far too serious to consider a reality show solution. The wheels will grind, too slow for some, but exceeding fine. Congressional Republicans will then be called to account for their misplaced loyalty. I hope.
8
@MidWest
They did. It's called an election decided by the electoral college.
Trump is not mentally ill. Just because you don't like him doesn't mean the 25th amendment should be invoked.
2
Trump doesn’t have polices, just a stream of random ideas that he pushes out via twitter or ramblings in interviews. Every time a member of the GOP says focus on what Trump does & not what he says, it’s a de-facto admission most of what Trump says isn’t serious. You need your Dotard filter operating at all times. So when Trump says the US should ‘take the oil’, its not an admission by the US government that it has adopted theft & looting of other countries natural resources as policy, rather, its just Trump waffling on about something he read on Drudge, or a news segment he misinterpreted during executive time.
25
Ya think? Well, guess what. We all know that. But since you're the experienced one(s). What are you gonna do about it? Aside from opining about it?
Is there any chance that you can gather many of the other experienced, connected players and DO something to end the madness?
I for one, am getting tired of reading the opinions of past policy makers, past politicians, past agency directors, telling us all how horrible this administration is, but seemingly doing little to stop it.
Here's an idea. Get everyone you know and start putting real pressure on your friends in the Senate and House. I'm guessing you must hobnob with some important people - bankers, captains of industry, judges, senators, congress people, and the like. Why not start exerting some real pressure? Put down the pen, pick up your phone, put on your hat, coat and boots and start taking real, tangible steps. YOU. After all, you do have 50 years experience. Who better than you - and other insiders - to start effecting the required change?
264
@Mike Bonnell
We whine because our politicians are not listening. Talking to them is like talking to a brick wall. The processes we have in place, the checks and balances are not really helping us.
We whine because it is frustrating to sit and wait for someone to get tough and oust our lunatic President out of office. Misery loves company.
We did say something with our last mid-term elections.
The biggest concern I think about is we have Americans that actually voted for this lunatic. Some still accept the Witch Hunt Theory. Education and common sense doesn't seem to be our strong points anymore.
Before long Canada will want a border wall because Americans will be clamoring to move to there or even Mexico.
43
@Mike Bonnell - Excellent. Even those most informed and engaged, as A.J. Blinken, demonstrate again the political impotence of mere citizens or mere language in a Potemkin "democracy."
13
@Mike Bonnell Yes, it's been clear for two years now that we are in very serious trouble with this Trump. Everyone knows. There are columns here every day reiterating many of the problems brought about by this administration. All of us know that. It needs no more reinforcement. We need action now, before it is too late.
25
Who needs People. Process or Policy. Trump and family will handle it. That’s why the very snark American public voted for Trump.
4
"But the administration has not faced an actual national security crisis that tests it and us in a profound way."
Half way into the first term and yet no actual major security crisis.
Luck? Perhaps "though this be madness, yet there is method in't."
3
@Joshua Schwartz
Yes, and we all know how well that turned out.
Unfortunately, an unbelievably high percentage of the President's most loyal Republican supporters continue to stand by him. I can only assume they hear of his feats of derring-do through very select media outlets. This piece makes it clear there are extremely serious problems.
58
Oh great, Trump bases his policy decisions on the words of somebody who is most famous for biting another guy's ear off.
49
These problems, which you discuss from 35,000 feet, also exist on the ground. A few months ago, a Chinese company won a bidding process to build the fourth bridge over the Panama Canals. Trump was upset (he had already lost his hotel in Panama City) so he dispatched Secretary Pompeo to lecture President Varela about not getting too close to China. Varela had to explain to Pompeo that the bidding process was started 18 months before the award and no US company bid, China has been the second largest user of the canals for more than ten years and the US has not had an ambassador in Panama during the Trump administration. It was a wasted day for Pompeo who went home with his tail between his legs.
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@James Ricciardi
Just one example of how dangerous Trump is to our nation's national security.
Trump doesn't know what he's doing yet those who hold positions in his administration do what he wants or Trump tells them to do what they want.
Bolton, Navarro, Kudlow, Ross, Mnuchin, Pompeo, Mulvaney - countless others with no name recognition. Led by a con man, a fraud, a charlatan, a bankrupt crook.
China just has to wait it out - two more years.
14
My initial fear of a President Trump was that we would be in a war within a year, mainly as a political distraction for Trump and a pet project for his advisers.
I never dreamed that Trump himself would be more damaging than war. That our adversaries actually gain more by allowing Trump the freedom to destroy our country. My greatest fear now is the war on the eve of the Trump Presidency, and how ill-prepared our government will be to fight it.
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@Chris It is extremely disconcerting that the president is our most serious national security threat. And worse is the fact that the GOP, especially republican senators who have the power to challenge the president, does nothing to stop him.
31
It would only be fair to remind us all, not merely of the passing of bureaucratic expertise from this nursery, but of sophisticated and learned Party support as well. Look at what is left of Trump's Party. This is free-fall, already. We just haven't met the ground.
19
The hurricanes and wildfires proved that Trump isn't prepared for any kind of crisis.
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".... the (Presidential) odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre—the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum."
"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
--- H.L. Mencken
63 million American bamboozled, propagandized, and snake-oiled voters found a cheap criminal con man more attractive than a knowledgeable policy wonk they were told to hate.
The Party of Stupid and Greedy loves to flush its own country down the toilet.
Dubya.....Daycare Donnie....the next Republican Moron-In-Chief is always more impressive than the one that proceeded it.
Time for Americans to grow an IQ.
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@Socrates
Don't forget Ronald Reagan, that senescent old fraud who is the Republicans' idea of a great President. Only the elder Bush is absent from this lineup of stellar mediocrities.
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@Socrates Too late for the IQ boosting; we're limiting immigrants from some of the most highly educated countries.
27
Most governments are a reflection of the leaders within them, from the top down. To put things into context, this President has web pages printed out for him (ON PAPER) so that he might respond to things online. (many misspelled)
One only need ask one very critical question, and that is how many positions (forget about even Senate confirmed) within the government overall, have not been filled 25 months in ?
The number is probably astounding which is all you need to know in how prepared this government actually is.
Scary.
27
@FunkyIrishman
My experience working in D.C. for 5 yrs. is that political individuals who value their reputations and careers will stay away from those who are known to be corrupt. There are qualified people in D.C. who won't go near this Administration; they will not want that on their future resumes. Any qualified individual will not want to be tainted by Trump, his family, or his Cabinet of political hacks.
1
The US is bumbling along without a functional president. Don't know how long we can continue this.
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@otto
The following from another commenter from Germany:
"consider abandoning the Trump Titanic, which has met its iceberg, a woman named Nancy."
1
Of course it's not prepared. This is completely
evident, but only of interest to those in the reality based
universe where the core base does not reside. So, there
will surely be a crisis some day over Iran, NK, Venezuela,
Syria, somewhere in East Europe, etc. But the ones
who matter, ie the base, couldn't bother to pay attention
and couldn't care less.
So what will happen? Presumably there will be a hilariously
absurd resolution by caving immediately without saying
as much, or a military resort that would get of
hand since that too is inevitable if capitulation is not possible.
But in the decadent era we are forced to be in, no
critical mass can be counted upon to support a well
informed rational, prepared response, leaving only poorly
thought out options that won't resolve anything.
Everyone one knows this but cannot say it in public...too
defeatist for MSM.
In the meantime the various pathologies eating away
at our body politic, be they opioid addiction, racial/gun violence, nativist immigrant hysteria, climate degradation, grid insecurity, collapsing infrastructure, looming mega deficit thanks to 2017 tax cut scam, you name it, continue unchecked.
How can most people afford the psychological space needed for sober reflection in order to contemplate the disasters awaiting us abroad given these domestic horror shows that the partisan chasm and budget deficit make solving impossible??
I suggest we all try and get real for a change.
33
@bl:
"How can most people afford the space needed for sober reflection in order to contemplate the disasters awaiting us..."
Unfortunately, the vast majority can not afford (financially, emotionally, rationally) the space to consider our situation. The vast majority are trapped trying to survive day-to-day to make ends meet.
A perfect situation for the ruling class. Pass the champaign, please.
15
Trump's foreign policy starts and ends at the U.S. - Mexico border. For all other places around the world he awaits word from Fox News as to how to proceed. Oh...wait, didn't he do Fox New's bidding to shutdown the government until his border monument was fully funded???
23
Pray for good luck.
10
@Tony Mendoza
Sorry but we more than prayer. And appears prayers during our last election didn't do much good either. God made this creature and here he is our President. Go figure.
2
What part of this was not anticipated before the 2016 election? Put an incurious, ill-informed, petulant narcissist who disdains reading (and, apparently, objective information in general) in charge and you shouldn't expect anything else.
Trump is a clear and present danger to the US and the world. If only the congressional republicans took their oaths seriously...
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@Rich While 3 million more Americans voted against him, there was general indifference by serious small city/town media and college educated Republicans to these predictable trends based on his business career and past policy advocacy (remember he was the principle "birther" advocate for years). It is amazing that still to this day (even after this abortive "shutdown"), 75% or more of college educated Republicans still support him! What, my friends, does this say, first, about them, but also about the administration of our educational system with respect to the teaching of constitutional government, world history, etc. etc. Civics anyone??? We have to rely on "GenZ", the youngest generation in America, which is by far the most progressive generation ever born! See, "Inspire USA" which is a strictly nonpartisan public charity registering them to vote in high schools across America,
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@Rich
In their complicity, they too are a danger.
1
@ira lechner
What the ignorance of constitutional government says is that the Kochs, starting with Reagan have won the battle to keep the American students suspicious and ignorant of constitutional government. It as clear they had won when Speaker Ryan, conceding defeat in the vote to repeal the ACA in 2017, claimed that because it hadn’t been the job of the Republicans to govern for the previous 8 years, they were going to have “learn how to govern” again. A startling admission of ignorance and even another muse towards democratic processes.
No, Mr. Speaker, it was ALWAYS your job to govern.
3
". . . bringing Osama bin Laden to justice . . ."
When oh when are we going to dispense with this euphemism? We hunted down the mass murderer and, like it or not, we executed him, wrapped him up, and buried him unceremoniously at sea. America often kills its enemies without "due process." It's what we do. Don't dress it up. Deal with it.
17
@Red O. Greene
He received the justice he deserved.
They could not take him alive, given the circumstance of the raid in a foreign country which did not support us.
We lost a helicopter and could have lost some of our men.
Yes, it would have been nice to take him to court.
But the circumstances did not allow it.
24
If you punch people in the mouth long enough, they get the message. I expect Nicolas Maduro will get the message when the Seals arrive and The Screaming Eagles drop from the sky.
1
And the people throw rose petals...
Now where have we heard that before?
4
@Norwichman
Have you any idea at all of the geography of Venezuela. It is not Grenada or Kuwait. It is more than twice the size of Iraq. The capital city lies behind a seven thousand foot mountain range. The country itself is one massive mountain range, not exactly suitable for taknks and armour led invasions. Not even Navy Seals know how to levitate.
@Norwichman
Just like Saddam Hussein did... that went so well.
Don't worry; there is Jarred...!
37
@yves rochette I actually did laugh out loud! Thanks for a moment of relief from the anxiety!!
6
@yves rochette
hooray.
Trump is not prepared for anything. He's been flying by the seat of his Daddy's money all his life, figuring it could always clean up all the messes engendered by his lazy, mindless, simply stupid and incompetent ad hocery.
186
@Fred White
This is the argument to re-instated the Estate tax to 1950 rates. Stop the cycle.
3
@Fred White -- he pays off his women for cheap -- in fact the National Enquirer paid off one of them "for free." He assumes that he can buy everybody else even cheaper.
3
Most governments are a reflection of the leaders within them, from the top down. To put things into context, this President has web pages printed out for him so that he might respond to things online.
One only need ask one very critical question, and that is how many positions (forget about even being Senate confirmed) within the government overall, have not been filled twenty five months in ?
The number is probably a huge number, which is all you need to know in how prepared this government actually is.
I would be very concerned.
13
@FunkyIrishman
Perhaps it is better these positions remain unfilled, rather than be filled by the venal incompetents that Trump typically selects.
It seems to me that there are too many appointed positions - positions that should be held by experts with experience, not cronies with big donations. If we get the chance to rebuild our government, Congress needs to strip away most of these appointments in favor of internal promotions of the people who have come up,through the ranks.
15
The hollowing-out reflects the decades-long right-wing antipathy to any and all functions of federal government, which they assume does nothing of worth, value, or national importance.
The Great Communicator, 'B' actor Ronald Reagan, was the most visible and effective detractor of government--and that attitude persists among most on the right today (as well as among many centrist Americans who swallowed that story).
This shutdown hasn't actually been nearly as effective in demonstrating the importance of governmental agencies, because many "public-facing" functions were exempted. Those exemptions were no doubt for the specific purpose of concealing the behind-the-scenes damage that has been wrought--and as this article notes, turncoats like Mr. John Bolton have undermined agencies and functions from which they have benefited for decades.
65
It’s been clear to most relatively objective observers that Trump’s decisions and actions have not been in the best interests of this country as a whole. Which leads me to wonder, are they the result of 1) a process intended to benefit only a very small group of people, 2) an arbitrary process, or 3) a process intended to actively harm the country?
The Mueller investigation may or may not clarify things, but the 2020 elections, as messy as they will surely be, most certainly will put a stop to the circus.
63
@Louis
Trump never expected to win the election. Once he was in the White House he became the pawn of the right-wing wealthy Republicans who couldn’t care less who he is, or who you are, or who I am, nor whether we have affordable medical care, affordable prescriptions, affordable retirement living, decent education. Trump can only see to the end of next week, in terms of valuing life. He can see further than that if he envisions his name on a hotel in Moskva.
Little of what he does is of his own imagination, other than watching TV til 11 am, or ordering some fast-food burgers for athletes way smarter than he.
So it’s your (1) that’s correct. The Repubs that tell him what to do have a very small group of folks they are concerned about. Think billionaires. Then add in Vladimir, who gave Donnie many millions in past, is best buds with lots of anonymous Russian Manhattan condo buyers, and, Donnie hoped, would open a small patch of land in Moskva for the new hotel.
23
If the Trump administration faces a foreign policy crisis it will probably have been caused by Trump himself and it may very well be caused intentionally in service to Trump's master, Vladimir Putin.
162
It seems like Trump is bent on destroying the US government by any means possible, and although on the surface his recent shutdown of portions of the government were about a dumb campaign promise he made, it also served to wreck morale for a huge number of government workers.
167
Antony, you are 100% right. How uncomfortable believing that a crisis is the only way out of this mess. It has been many years since I saw you last on the tennis courts of Vincennes - I appreciate your sage thoughts and wish we could transform them into a new, competent administration.
11
Until it affects them directly most American voters don't care about foreign policy. If you ask even the 60% of voters who don't support trump what they dislike most about him it would take a long while before foreign policy was even mentioned.
25
The title and subtitle say it all. I have been worried about this since day one.
70