The 1914 analogy, of course, assumes that America is playing the role of the UK–the imperial status quo power in slight decline. The UK, however, fought and won World War I with the assistance of powerful allies. Trump is more interested in offending allies than making them. As a result, he looks a lot like Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose inept attempts at a bullying form of “diplomacy” left Germany with only the feeble Austro-Hungarian Empire to help fight the war in Europe (the Ottomans didn’t contribute there). In the final analysis, that probably doomed the German war effort.