In his second term, President Trump cast himself as a “peacemaker and unifier” and tried to bring a swift end to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. Six months later, however, those conflicts continue, and last month Trump launched strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran.
What has actually changed? Is Trump altering the trajectory of American global power or ultimately delivering more of the same?
Join Christopher S. Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim, from the Carnegie Endowment’s American Statecraft Program, as they unpack Trump’s second-term record thus far and discuss Stephen’s new essay in the New York Times, “Trump Wants to Put America First. He Has No Idea How.”
Transcript
Note: this is a rush transcript and may contain errors.
Stephen Wertheim:
For all the talk of Donald Trump being an isolationist, or bringing peace, or being anti-war, what are the results? They are not anything that resembles isolationism. Foreign policy should be judged by consequences first and foremost. Intentions count for very little, and rhetoric counts for even less.
Chris Chivvis:
I'm Chris Chivvis. Welcome to Pivotal States, where we examine the strategic challenges and opportunities facing the future of American foreign policy. Today I'm here with Stephen Wertheim, my colleague who has a new essay in The New York Times about Donald Trump's foreign policy. We started this discussion six months ago in an earlier version of Pivotal States, and it's a great opportunity now after we've seen what's happened over the course of the last six months, to reprise some of those themes and talk about Stephen's fantastic insights in his New York Times piece.
Great to have the chance to have you on Pivotal States again, Stephen.
Stephen Wertheim:
I'm delighted to do it. Six months ago seems like a different era altogether.
Chris Chivvis:
It really does. The amount of entropy that this president creates makes it very hard for analysts like us, both because getting a handle on what his foreign policy is about is difficult, although you've done a great job of it in this piece. But also, because of the amount of unpredictability that it creates in the world. Not only is it hard to analyze the trajectory of US foreign policy, it's also hard to analyze where the world's going to be in a month or six months, let alone in a couple of years.
Stephen Wertheim:
I'm glad that we've actually held off from having this conversation until now because I think if we had had it at-
Chris Chivvis:
It's dangerous waters.
Stephen Wertheim:
Absolutely. It's actually I think imperative to let some time pass with this particular president and not to over-read his latest move as signaling a new approach that you then project forward into the remaining time that he has at office. Because I think now, we've seen he can just go back and forth on any issue week-to-week.
Chris Chivvis:
A lot of people said that Trump was an isolationist. Is he an isolationist?
Stephen Wertheim:
I do not think so and I never have throughout his decade of getting into politics and being the commanding figure in American politics. Look, I think we should take him at his word on a certain level. He wants America first in the world, peace through strength, and that means he can go in either direction. The use of overwhelming force to crush America's enemies, or potentially he's open to withdrawing, but that doesn't mean that he's just out to retract American power as the isolationist label would suggest.
Chris Chivvis:
If he's not an isolationist, then we're back to the question that we were discussing six months ago, which is what is the right way to think about his foreign policy? What is the right analytic frame for understanding Donald Trump? We had a bunch of them that we went through, both in that earlier episode of Pivotal States, and also in our discussion since.
One is that his foreign policy is about a performance of strength. That it's all a show in order to demonstrate that he is at the center of world affairs and that he is the most potent figure in that, in world affairs. Another one is that he's purely focused on trade balances, another one that we've heard a lot. Yet another is that he's focused entirely on great power competition purely from a spheres of influence perspective. That's one that we heard a lot about at the beginning, but a little bit less so maybe since. Yet another, even beyond the isolationist label that you just rejected, is that he's focused only on deal making.
We have all of these different theories that are out there, none of which seem in and of themselves to clearly explain his foreign policy as it's played out over the course of the last six months. But you, in your New York Times piece, I think have got a fantastic formulation for understanding what we've seen from Donald Trump over the last six months.
You argue that Mr. Trump is a thoroughly situational man in a deeply structural bind. What do you mean by that?
Stephen Wertheim:
Well, Donald Trump I think takes the world as it is. He seeks to improve the terms of relations, particularly on trade, which he cares more about than geopolitics for sure, where he can find it. But he doesn't really seem to have a structural vision for how American power should change. That's another reason why the isolationist label just seems to miss the mark.
I think first and foremost, Trump is a performer and he's a nationalist, and I put those two terms in that order. The performance is really a performance about getting something that looks like a win, that he can sell as a win. It's not really about pursuing a coherent, sweeping theory of how America's power in the world needs to change.
Chris Chivvis:
I think that makes a lot of sense. There are a number of interpretations of Donald Trump's foreign policy out there that would seem to rely on the premise that he has some kind of a grand strategy. I just don't think we've seen that. We've seen a lot of flip-flopping.
Stephen Wertheim:
Yeah.
Chris Chivvis:
Take the Middle East, for example. This is an area where he was poised, he came into office with the opportunity to make a deal. Both potentially to promote a deal between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza. Also, the situation was even more ripe for a deal with Iran, given how much Iran had been pushed onto its back foot over the course of 2024.
On the one hand, he seemed to pursue both of these objectives. And appearances, certainly at the start, were that he was serious about getting a deal. Maybe more so with Iran than with Hamas. But then, when push came to shove, he flip-flopped and joined Israel in its strikes on Iran's nuclear program on premises that were one ought to be very suspicious of.
That flip-flopping to me seems to fit right into what you're saying, which is that there is no real guiding theory. That he is entirely, as you put it, situational.
Stephen Wertheim:
There is a kind of guiding theory. It wouldn't be something that international relation scholars would recognize as fitting into one of their camps. I think the guiding theory is that, first of all, the end state Trump wants to achieve with just about every state is a deal. That's his own personal ideology. Everything is in a service of that ultimately, even if it involves bombing Iran. Secondly, he's going to apply this process of dangling carrots, wielding sticks, and in theory, having done that, he achieves a point of maximum leverage to get a deal, whatever that deal is.
Chris Chivvis:
But it's not working.
Stephen Wertheim:
It's not working.
Chris Chivvis:
It's not working in the Middle East, it's not working with Ukraine, and it's not working with China, as far as I can tell.
Stephen Wertheim:
It has not worked. Absolutely has not worked.
Chris Chivvis:
Why not?
Stephen Wertheim:
He has not delivered deals, he has not delivered peace.
Chris Chivvis:
We had some hope that he would.
Stephen Wertheim:
Yes.
Chris Chivvis:
Let's just be clear. I went back and listened to what we said and we had some hope.
Stephen Wertheim:
Don't do that, please.
Chris Chivvis:
No, it's not bad.
Stephen Wertheim:
Okay.
Chris Chivvis:
But we had some hope that, for example with Ukraine, that he would follow through on the proposals that some officials in his administration had laid out previously. To use coercion against Russia, and also against Zelensky in order to get to a ceasefire. What have we seen? We saw plenty of coercion against Zelensky. There was that very ugly Oval Office meeting which quickly became emblematic I think for many of America's allies and partners around the world of his foreign policy style, if not substance. But we've seen really no willingness to bring the hammer down on Russia in order to get them to come to the table in earnest and sign anything resembling a ceasefire.
Stephen Wertheim:
That may be changing, we'll see, because Trump has been more critical of Putin, mainly of Putin-
Chris Chivvis:
In the last week or two.
Stephen Wertheim:
Right, in the last couple weeks. I think the fundamental thing that the president's missing is that states care a lot about their interests. Donald Trump may not have a vision of why all these geopolitical squabbles matter, and I have some degree of sympathy for that because for overseas conflicts, does it matter that much for the basic security and prosperity of Americans here at home? It matters, but much less than it matters for the direct participants.
Chris Chivvis:
Of course.
Stephen Wertheim:
But if you're going to be effective in brokering ends to these conflicts, you have to understand what's really driving the parties.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah, you need to have a more in-depth understanding of their interests, right?
Stephen Wertheim:
Absolutely. At least, how they view their interests.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
That seems to be a missing element across the board in Trump's attempts to do deals. I think it's been missing ... It was not hard to see that it would be difficult to bring Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table in earnest. That should have been pretty clear. And actually, I would say look, at least Trump has brought about a greater attention to the question of how might this conflict end? Both here and in Europe, he broke a taboo that was stifling open discussion of the end state. He has helped to get the Ukrainians and the Russians talking.
I would actually say, in this count, there's been net progress toward an ultimate resolution over the course of Trump's six months. But he himself harbored unrealistic hopes for what he could achieve.
Chris Chivvis:
He said he was going to solve it on the first day of his presidency.
Stephen Wertheim:
Right.
Chris Chivvis:
It's ridiculous.
Stephen Wertheim:
Therefore, he was going to end up continuing to support Ukraine, sending weapons, sharing intelligence, which I hope he does continue to do. Then he should have been clear about that from the start, to put more leverage on Russia. Even though I've basically praised the moves he's made as having at least advanced the ball.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
Because I didn't really expect that we were going to see the end of the conflict in the short run. Still, it's hard to defend the totality of what he's done because he himself seemed to harbor unrealistic expectations about bringing about the end of the war. And was not really putting himself in the best position to make that possible, or to think about how he'd react in the situation that we're now in, which is a continuation of this conflict.
Chris Chivvis:
It's also, it is just uncanny the unwillingness to bring down the hammer on President Putin. I'm not one to engage in conspiracy theories so I don't think we should dig too deep for some kind of a conspiracy-oriented explanation for that, but it is strange that the American president has been so slow to do things which his own advisors have publicly recommended and talked about, such as secondary sanctions, better enforcement of existing sanctions regime. I understand that those things are difficult and that they bring into play a host of other complications around the world. But I'm surprised that he hasn't done that.
Stephen Wertheim:
It also doesn't quite track with his own general record of applying pressure and offering incentives-
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
... to every party in a conflict. The exception seems to be Vladimir Putin's Russia. Trump has always, or for a long time, referred in favorable terms to Putin as an individual, even when his policies have not necessarily tracked with what seems to be his own personal proclivities.
I think if you look at his negotiations on Iran, it was more of a mix of carrots and sticks. There was some obviously demands that Iran never get a nuclear weapon. Those very problematically morphed into a demand for zero Iranian-
Chris Chivvis:
Zero enrichment, yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
... enrichment of uranium. But at the same time, Trump was talking about how he wanted Iran to succeed. He wanted Iran to be prosperous. He seemed to be interested in not only lifting secondary sanctions, but also primary sanctions so that American businesses could do business in Iran. That's something that the JCPOA didn't achieve.
There, I think, that was an expression of Trump doing his thing. But it also didn't work. I think largely because, first of all, Trump did not pressure the Israelis to keep them from ultimately attacking Iran. And Trump also adopted this poison pill position of zero enrichment. Which, maybe in his mind, he thinks, "I could walk that back if necessary." Or he thinks, "Maybe the Iranians will swallow this because I'm such a tough guy, and I'm not Obama," et cetera, et cetera. I think it's pretty clear that is not a position ... He's asking the Iranians to give up their legal right to enrich uranium at low levels that could be used only for civilian and research purposes, and that's just not likely to happen.
Chris Chivvis:
I agree 100%. One of the interesting things about his approach to Israel as we've watched the twists and turns of the discussion here in Washington, DC is the extent to which ... A couple of months ago, before the US strikes on Iran's nuclear program, there was a pretty robust discussion I think among Democrats as to whether or not Trump was demonstrating that the United States actually had a lot more leeway with Israel than had been assumed previously, both by Democrats and Republicans. Talking directly to Hamas, negotiating with the Houthis, and then pursuing another nuclear agreement with Iran, despite the fact that he had of course torn up the first one. All of this seemed to indicate that there was a capacity here to do more in the US-Israel relations than many people believed. But then, it all went out the window.
I don't know what lessons can be drawn anymore, or whether we need to rethink the lessons that people were drawing. What do you think about that?
Stephen Wertheim:
Even the moves that Trump was making that were unconventional and that went against Israeli government preferences, they were moves to go around Israel more than come at Israel. As with the Biden administration, the notion of exerting direct pressure on Israel by threatening to withhold US political and military support for Israel, that was not on the table to the extent that we have any information.
What did he do? He was trying to go around Israel on things that were not absolutely central to Israeli interests. He announced he was going to lift sanctions on the new Syrian government. He spoke directly with Hamas about releasing American hostages, but not about doing an end run around Israel to end the war in Gaza and get the Israeli hostages released. Yes, he pursued diplomacy with Iran, but we now know that the Israelis were pressuring him from the start, that their patience was limited, and that they could take military action.
The Trump-Bibi relationship absolutely one to watch, there may be more twists and turns. Fundamentally, he's never really brought the hammer down on America's ally.
Chris Chivvis:
One issue on which our expectations I think also maybe haven't been met is China. When we talked about what Trump's approach to China would be six months ago, we acknowledged that there was a lot of uncertainty. We were surprised that China had played such a minimal role in the presidential elections here in the United States, given the emphasis that Trump put on it in his first term. Things over the course of the last six months have focused, at least as far as we can tell in the public, almost exclusively on the question of tariffs, which is obviously a central part of what Trump has been doing since he came into office in January.
It still leaves us with a lot of uncertainty about the future of the US-China relations, which is the single-most important geopolitical relationship of the mid-21st Century. We still don't know what direction it's going. This gets to the entropy question that I mentioned a little while ago, so much uncertainty.
Is there going to be some kind of a condominium? Is there going to be still some significant level of integration of our economies? Are we headed for some form of soft decoupling? Could tensions flare up on account of the much more hawkish approach that his Defense Department under Secretary Hegseth has taken? What do you think?
Stephen Wertheim:
I'm just going to reiterate your question. Uncertainty is exactly the right word.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
I think some meaningful things have happened over the last six months on Europe and the Middle East. But in many ways, we're back to the same position we were in six months ago when it comes to Asia, which as you say is, in theory, China is the main strategic competitor of the United States. And it's intriguing, it's very interesting.
China dropped out of Trump's political narrative to a large degree. He had spent much of his first term casting China as a major adversary of the United States. He seemed to want to have a different and more diplomatic relationship with the country, and with Xi Jinping in particular. He imposed these extremely high tariffs that quickly escalated to the moon.
Chris Chivvis:
One moment that was quite funny was when he went above 100% and you said to me, "He's realized he can go above 100% on tariffs, that 100% is not the top."
Stephen Wertheim:
But yes, that was a bad moment. He has not done that with other countries yet, so we're still in just extremely high territory.
Chris Chivvis:
I don't think they were there for very long.
Stephen Wertheim:
No.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
We found out that China had a good deal of leverage over us.
Chris Chivvis:
Well, that's the thing. That's what I was going to bring up is that the fact that China has been less of a focus, or at least has been in the press a lot less really than some of these other issues. Not to mention all of the domestic issues that have been unfolding over the course of the last six months. I wonder if that is because Trump has sensed more strength, or at least more leverage in China, than he expected. I think the fact that China is able to have such a significant impact, not just on the US economy, but also on the US military by withholding rare earths might have really demonstrated to him that negotiating with China is going to be more difficult than he thought. And that he may not be able to get the great super deal that he had hoped for and implicitly promised the American people.
Stephen Wertheim:
I think that's hugely important. It does raise a question of whether some form of détente with a very lowercase D has been reached, and paved the way for a more stable relationship, which from my point of view would not be a bad thing. Now, I do think it's notable that Trump was not painting China as such an adversary even before he imposed those Liberation Day tariffs and China brought the hammer down on rare earths.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
Something is going on with Trump himself prior to that. But you're right, this must add some weight in Trump's mind. He wants to sit down with Xi Jinping and work some things out.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
Mostly on trade.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
But he must be aware now that the value of doing that is even greater. That said, we still don't really know, for example, what this administration's Taiwan strategy is.
Chris Chivvis:
Well, you and I obviously wrote that article encouraging the US government to pay more attention to what President Lai has been doing in Taiwan's domestic politics. And warning that, although China is clearly acting in an aggressive and unhelpful way with its military moves in the Taiwan Strait over the course of the last couple of years. We also need to pay attention to what Taiwan itself, specifically President Lai has been doing, and the ways in which that is exacerbating the relationship between Taiwan and China, and the risks that that is creating for the United States, which could end up holding the bag at the end of the day if a war were to break out.
Stephen Wertheim:
That's right. You would think that Trump would be, in some ways, well suited to adopting a more balanced approach that exerts some pressure on Taipei as well as Beijing.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
Trump is not known for being unwilling to criticize allies and partners.
Chris Chivvis:
Well, that's putting it lightly.
Stephen Wertheim:
Correct. And yet, we just haven't seen that so far.
Chris Chivvis:
Maybe it's coming.
Stephen Wertheim:
Perhaps. I think that gets to the question of the US-China relationship as well.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
Because if Trump is looking for something he can offer Xi Jinping that really would be meaningful, it might be assurances over Taiwan that would also have the effect of communicating to Taipei, "Please stop pushing the envelope in asserting Taiwan's independence, and distinctiveness, and separateness from Mainland China." We haven't seen it yet. I'm not predicting that it's coming, but it could come. It makes sense, given the underlying realities across the strait. It makes sense in terms of Trump's priority on relations with Beijing. And in light of the potential mini-détente that has been achieved with the tariffs and rare earths.
The other factor is that, for Donald Trump, if he's struggled to bring about peace everywhere else, he's struggled in Ukraine, he's struggled with Iran, he's struggled with Gaza, what's left? And he wants a Nobel Peace Prize, he wants to have some accomplishments to put to this rhetoric that he put forward at the beginning of his term, "I'm going to be a peacemaker. We're going to measure success not just by the battles we win, but by the wars we never fight and never get into." Well, being able to say, "I've calmed things down across the Taiwan Strait, don't worry about it for the rest of my term," that would be appealing I would think to Donald Trump. And actually, if he pulls it off, he may be justified in saying those things.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
By process of elimination almost, I think there's an opportunity here. But whether he'll take it, I look at his advisors, I don't know that it's something that they're going to put in front of him.
Chris Chivvis:
Another issue which we talked about back in January that's been a central part of discussions and analysis of Trump's foreign policy is his relationship with allies. Obviously, this spans across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. At least in the European case, there was a pretty significant shock that occurred at the Munich Security Conference. I remember the feeling of electricity that went through the whole building when JD Vance gave his speech in which he effectively aligned himself with the far right, and thereby aligned the whole administration with the far right in Europe.
The European audience was expecting to be beaten over the head on burden sharing, expecting potentially some bad news on Ukraine. What they did not expect was to hear the vice president come and so forcefully align himself with the far right and criticize centrist Europeans on the grounds that they were not allowing free speech.
I think what Vance was saying deserves some dissection, although maybe not right here. But it had a massive impact, at least on European allies who became after that very concerned that the administration actually had an ideological foreign policy. That was not at all realist, was not isolationist, but actually aimed to create a world in which the ideas of the European far right would flourish and strengthen.
Notwithstanding that, I think that what I've seen, again, with the European allies and maybe to some degree with Asian allies, is a shift from shock and despair towards more acceptance of the fact that they are going to have to do more when it comes to military burden sharing. You also have the tariffs obviously, which are problematic and certainly reduce the willingness of allies to do things that the United States might want them to do in other areas. They're counterproductive for that reason. But on the military front, certainly in Europe, and again I think you see this also among Asian allies, there is a real willingness to step up and do more, and I think that's probably a good thing.
Stephen Wertheim:
I agree. I do think though that it's up to Washington, it's up to the Trump administration to figure out what exactly they want these alliance relationships to be and I haven't quite seen it yet, particularly with respect to Europe. If you go back to that week that was capped off by Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference-
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
Earlier in the week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth-
Chris Chivvis:
Sure, another very important speech. Poorly reported though.
Stephen Wertheim:
Yeah, gave another important speech. Yes. But the headlines were that Hegseth said it was "unrealistic" for Ukraine to regain all its territory as an outcome of the current war. Likewise, for Ukraine to become a member of NATO. He spoke about Europeans taking ownership for conventional deterrents and defense on their continent.
Chris Chivvis:
But all three of those things make sense.
Stephen Wertheim:
All three of those things make sense. I would defend what he said.
Chris Chivvis:
He also stated, just as an aside, parts of that speech that were not reported, how much the United States has invested in NATO and how important the NATO alliance is to the United States.
Stephen Wertheim:
That's right.
Chris Chivvis:
Which it just didn't fit into people's narrative I think of Trump because everyone assumed that Trump was on the verge of withdrawing from NATO. The idea that the United States might take those positions, and yet still be committed to NATO, which is perfectly logical and possible.
Stephen Wertheim:
The speech was very clear.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
If you take the words seriously. If you don't take them seriously, I can't convince you of anything.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
If you analyze the words, Hegseth wanted a stronger NATO alliance, which in his view would be a less imbalanced one.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
Where the US is asked to do too much. That's one vision of where this administration might go.
Vance's speech suggested something a little bit different. Which is a preference for the very right wing forces in Europe that are opposed to European integration, and therefore seemingly would make it more difficult for Europe to step up as the United States steps back.
Chris Chivvis:
Right. Very important point, yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
There's a real tension there.
Chris Chivvis:
Because it would be more difficult for Europe to achieve economies of scale in its defense, individual European states, unless they are coordinated thoroughly, either through NATO, through the European Union, are going to have a really, really hard time.
Stephen Wertheim:
And the political forces Vance seemed to be propping up tend to be ones that are more skeptical that Russia poses a threat-
Chris Chivvis:
Yes.
Stephen Wertheim:
... to Europe, and also more nationalist-minded in how they define-
Chris Chivvis:
Their whole outlook, yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
... what needs to be defended in Europe.
Chris Chivvis:
Yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
Okay. What we've actually seen so far from the administration, in the main, is neither of those two visions. Instead, the NATO Summit was held, Trump was all smiles.
Chris Chivvis:
It went over pretty smoothly it seemed like, yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
Smoothly. But it seemed like what he wanted was Europeans to agree with a few exceptions. To spend 5% of their GDP on military-related affairs. It's really 3.5 on defense, and another 1.5 on other things. And maybe to call him Daddy as well, that probably doesn't hurt.
Chris Chivvis:
No.
Stephen Wertheim:
He seems quite fine with that. If that's the end state that this administration is heading toward, it's an end state of the United States doing essentially the same things in Europe that it was doing before. Not necessarily reducing its exposure to the risk of a conflict in Europe. But simply, having its allies spend more and presumably do more, adding their weight to what America's doing, but not reducing the defense burden. Burden sharing, not burden shifting. That would be neither the Vance nor the Hegseth version.
Now, we've not seen the end of the story to be sure.
Chris Chivvis:
Right, yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
I agree with you, some European allies are getting maybe over-confident that they figured out how to manage Trump. You sprinkle a Daddy here, you dangle some percentages there. We've got a long ways to go, three-and-a-half years. This isn't over. Trump will surely revert at some point to his ally bashing.
More proximately, or less proximately, we'll see, is the Global Posture Review that the Pentagon is completing, probably will come out toward the end of this year. That would be a key moment where, if the administration wants to reduce the US conventional military presence in Europe that we'll see some real flesh and plans articulated.
Chris Chivvis:
I think there's a real opportunity to do that. I think it has to be done in the right way, that strengthens rather than weakens the alliance.
In your New York Times piece, Stephen, you have a number of interesting points. I thought it would be good to talk a little bit about your critique of Trump's vision of, these are his words, "peace through strength." Which you say is something that he really means, but is also really a big problem because of what it implies as an approach to the world. Can you unpack that a little bit?
Stephen Wertheim:
Some people may think it's fresh for a president to favor peace through strength. Or fresh for a president, for that matter, to say that American interests should come first, and we shouldn't be doing regime change wars and nation-building wars. Well, actually every president since George W. Bush was repudiated-
Chris Chivvis:
Nation-building, yeah.
Stephen Wertheim:
... regime change and nation-building wars. George W. Bush himself…
Chris Chivvis:
When entering office.
Stephen Wertheim:
Yes, in his campaign in 2000, also said nation-building wars were a bad idea. Is peace through strength a new vision? Decidedly not. The term peace through strength has appeared in every Republican Party platform going back to 1980.
Chris Chivvis:
I was going to say it has almost a Teddy Roosevelt kind of a feel to it, going back to the beginning of the 20th Century when America was first rising as a power. Which could be connected, the aesthetic of the Gilded Age.
Stephen Wertheim:
Yes. Teddy Roosevelt is not a bad comparison. Though one has to say speak softly and carry a big stick doesn't seem to apply to Donald J. Trump.
Chris Chivvis:
I was going to say, yes, it's not exactly what Teddy Roosevelt does. I says it has a feel to it about this.
Stephen Wertheim:
"Speak loudly and speak often, and carry a big stick."
Chris Chivvis:
As a slogan, it has that kind of a feel to it.
Stephen Wertheim:
It does. But peace through strength in practice, so far, Donald Trump has been President of the United States in total for four-and-a-half years, has meant not just have a big, capable military. But also, posture that military around the world. But also, maintain defense commitments to dozens of allies in Europe, Asia, and in a less formal but very real way, the Middle East. That's not something that Teddy Roosevelt had in mind.
One gets the sense that Donald Trump's not quite comfortable with that arrangement. I doubt that if it didn't already exist, Donald Trump would have thought to create overseas and effectively permanent military alliances, and permanently station 200,000-some service members overseas. But that is the status quo as the world Trump inherits. That is effective what peace through strength means maintaining.
To change that, you have to have a real serious intention. You have to have a coherent concept of these are America's vital interests, the things that the United States must defend in the world, and these are the things that are not. Your defense perimeter can be set accordingly. Your military posture, your alliance commitments could be trimmed. But I just haven't seen that at any point in a decade of Trump being the commanding figure in American politics. He's a much more situational, transactional person.
Even if there's a potential for him to redefine the strength part of peace through strength in a less conventional way, we just haven't seen him deliver so far. I think he gets way too much credit for saying things that actually are not original, that are not different from presidents, and particularly Republican presidents in the post-Cold War era. It's just not fresh and refreshing to repudiate the very things that, say Joe Biden did when he said "the era of major military operations to remake other countries is over." Those are words that he spoke as the United States forces left Afghanistan during his first year in office.
I think it's important to raise the bar on President Trump. For those who want to see the United States reduce its military burdens overall and address the problem of strategic insolvency, which many now on the right have been talking about, stop giving Trump undue credit for just speaking words, and to boot, words that are not that original. Judge him by results.
Chris Chivvis:
It sounds like, Stephen, what you're saying is related to how we started this conversation with the question of whether or not Trump is an isolationist. It sounds, again, as though the answer is definitively no. That peace through strength as interpreted by Donald Trump means anything but isolationism.
Stephen Wertheim:
I think Trump is a primacist, de facto at least. He may not be a true believer, but he hasn't changed it one bit. American alliances, over the four-and-a-half years of his being President of the United States have grown, not in any way retracted. The US military presence around the world is very similar.
For all the talk of Donald Trump being an isolationist, or bringing peace, or being anti-war, what are the results? They are not anything that resembles isolationism. Yes, he's criticized wars in the Middle East. He does seem to want to bring about peace. In his inaugural address, he said "his proudest legacy would be that of a peacemaker and a unifier." I actually take him at his word on a certain level, but that does not make him an isolationist. It's also notable, he doesn't use that term to describe himself.
We seem, as a society, to be stuck in this do loop where we talk mostly about Trump and foreign policy, there's all this discussion about how Trump might overturn the apple cart, pull back American forces from the world in a big way. The term du jour a few months ago was spheres of influence.
Chris Chivvis:
Right.
Stephen Wertheim:
There's all this fear and all this talk, some of which is encouraged by Trump because Trump wants to be perceived as a peacemaker. Then it turns out, Trump bombs Iran. Just as in his first term, people had the same concerns if not more so about Trump, and then he bombed Syria to enforce the red line that he had criticized Obama for not enforcing. Where's the beef? We really need to look at ... Foreign policy should be judged by consequences first and foremost. Intentions count for very little, and rhetoric counts for even less.
If Donald Trump wants to show that his vision of peace through strength is different from the peace through strength that's been in every Republican platform since 1980 except in 2004, for reasons I don't fully understand, but I digress. Then by all means, show us the results. He's got three-and-a-half years to do so. But so far, I can't point to much.
Chris Chivvis:
Was your reference to a 1980s Wendy's commercial on purpose?
Stephen Wertheim:
I was not aware, I have to admit. Here, I'm embarrassed as a historian, about any Wendy's commercial being implicated in anything I said. What do you mean?
Chris Chivvis:
Where's the beef?
Stephen Wertheim:
Where's the beef? Okay, fair.
Chris Chivvis:
Stephen, it's great to talk to you. As always, wonderful to have you as a colleague.
Please join us again next time on Pivotal States. If you're interested in what we're talking about, we'd love to have you subscribe. We're always interested in getting emails and thoughts about the program here, and also the work that we do in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment. Thanks for listening.
