As I’ve noted many times before, the Trump 1.0 foreign policy contained two tracks; the man on golf cart offended allies, embraced dictators, and changed positions on a dime, while the State Department conducted business as usual and pretended there was no conflict. A column written by a conservative Trump fanboy in the NYT predicts more of the same for Trump 2.0, with terrific results; after all, Nixon used the madman tactic, and it worked well for him. Is the writer correct?
No, for multiple reasons. First of all, we cannot effectively contain Russia and China without allies; being capricious and offensive to them will drive them away instead of bending them to our will. Second, it is quite clear that some of the establishment victories in the first Trump term were due, not to the deliberate workings of a good cop, bad cop system, but to obstruction on the part of the bureaucracy. That is unlikely to occur the next time around. Finally, unpredictability can lead to misunderstanding, which can lead to disaster. Just ask Archduke Franz Ferdinand about that.