There are many uncertainties about the directions foreign policy will take under a President Trump.
The next president says being unpredictable is good, But the world is unpredictable and the impulse to act quickly in this day of instantaneous communication can lead to hasty decisions.
China and Russia are at or near the top of the foreign policy agenda, and Donald Trump has already become entangled with both of them, but flash points may erupt at any time and anywhere around the globe.
We tend to ignore lessons from the past. What are intended as short-term actions can have long-term complicating consequences. Two of the most ill-advised American actions in history were the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, with all the myriad and massive costs, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq and resultant instability and insurgency that continue today. Trump claimed President George W. Bush "lied" about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Those misadventures helped fuel the cynicism and mistrust about governments and "elites" that is a powerful factor in U.S. and European politics.
In statements and actions, including selection of his team members, Trump suggests he wants warmer relations with Russia, and a more confrontational relationship with China. However, there's no doubt Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, who seems to be the object of Trump's predilections, interfered in the American election through cyber hacking.
Trump has mostly offered broad views on policy prescriptions. Indeed, what we have seen thus far involves a heavy dose of provocation as policy. This is evident with China and in naming David Friedman as ambassador-designate to Israel. Friedman, with no diplomatic experience and extremist views, including accusing American Jews who favor an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution of being "far worse than kapos," referring to prisoners in concentration camps who collaborated with the Nazis. Friedman backs expanded Israeli settlements and other steps bound to be explosive in that over-heated region.
While Trump hasn't been specific on many international issues, he has threatened to roll back relations with Cuba after earlier supporting détente. Will Trump retreat into a failed policy that prevailed for nearly 60 years? Most members of Arkansas's Republican congressional delegation favor building ties with Cuba, which could be a prime market for Arkansas rice and poultry. Gov. Asa Hutchinson says he made this point to Trump, and Hutchinson said after the recent death of Fidel Castro that we should seize the moment.
In the case of China, a feature of Trump's campaign monologues, he accuses it of using unfair trade practices to steal American jobs. Then, as president-elect, came his phone conversation with the Taiwan president, which almost seemed designed to agitate Beijing, upsetting four decades of arranged ambiguity in the triangular U.S.-China-Taiwan relationship.
Trump later suggested Taiwan could be a bargaining chip. "I don't know why we have to be bound by a one-China policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things," he said. Soon thereafter, the already tense relationship was frayed further by China's seizure of a U.S. underwater research drone in international waters -- and China has been increasingly assertive in the strategically vital South China Sea. With Trump already threatening action because of China's trade policies, although continually misrepresenting China's "currency manipulation," a trade war doesn't seem out of the question.
Trump's foreign-policy team has very limited experience. Rex Tillerson, tapped to be secretary of state, has no government background, though as CEO of Exxon dealt with many international leaders, including his widely noted ties with Putin. Interestingly, Tillerson backed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an anathema to Trump, and has acknowledged the reality of climate change.
Confirmation hearings in the Senate will test Tillerson on such topics and on Russia's role in our presidential campaign. Although a respected business leader, he would take office at a challenging time and in an administration headed by a president with only a sketchy knowledge of national security issues.
I can't help but recall Robert McNamara, head of Ford Motor with a reputation for brilliance, who became defense secretary under Kennedy and Johnson. Years later, he conceded that he and other policy-makers had minimal knowledge of Vietnam, its history, culture or what was really at stake. "We were terribly wrong," he said. That could also be said of those behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq, uninformed about factions and sectarian differences in that region.
Trump is said to be incapable of inaction, although he expresses disdain for military action other than fighting terrorism. Inevitably, he will be confronted with whether or not the U.S. should intervene in certain situations and what constitutes the national interest. There's also the matter of what's acceptable to the American public in an era of cynicism about government and institutions.
The Trump administration will face complex decisions, some with long-lasting effects. What is occurring in Syria is a reminder that not intervening can be another form of intervention in an unpredictable world.
Commentary on 12/28/2016