Deciphering Trump’s Opaque Foreign Policy

Alastair Crooke, Consortium News, 11 February 2017

It is now a commonplace that Mr Trump is advocating a mercantilist ‘America First’ foreign policy, at odds with the prevailing globalist view of a cosmopolitan, super-culture: that he is intent on dismantling this globalist zeitgeist, that he believes imposes moral and cultural norms which both have weakened America’s mercantile ‘animal spirits’, and whose embrace of the politics of diversity has sapped the strength out from America’s moral and cultural sinews.

In practice, the policy that emerges will not be so black and white, or so easily categorised. ‘Team Trump’ in fact embraces three distinct approaches: the ‘benevolent American hegemon’ traditionalists, the Christian warriors pitted against an Islamic ‘hostile’ ethos – and of course, Trump’s own ‘America First’ mercantilism. Each of these trends distrusts the other, yet must ally with one or the other in order to balance the third, or, at least avoid having it act as spoiler. This makes it especially hard to read the runes of likely US policy given the jostling and elbowing ahead between three distinct world views. And it is made even harder given Trump and Bannon’s deliberate embrace of a politics of feint and distraction, to throw opponents off-balance.

Trump’s style of mercantilist politics – though novel in our era – is not new. It has occurred before, and in its earlier setting led to profound geo-political consequences. It led then, to war, and ultimately to the emergence of a new geo-political order. That is not necessarily to say that the same will occur today, but on 17 September 1656, Oliver Cromwell, a Protestant puritan, who had fought a civil war in England against its Establishment, and its élite; who had deposed, and then executed the reigning king, addressed his revolutionary parliamentarians in Westminster by posing the question: “Who are our enemies; and why do they hate us?”. There was, he answered to the gathered parliamentarians, an ‘axis of evil’ abroad in the world at that time. This axis – this axis of evil – had a leader, he told his Parliament: It was represented by a powerful state – Catholic Spain, and the Pope was at its head – and this ‘hate’ which his countrymen faced, was, at its root, the ‘evil’ of a religion – Catholicism – that “refused the Englishman’s desire for simple liberties … that put men under restraint … [and] under which there was no freedom.”

Since Cromwell’s day, the mainly English speaking (Protestant) world has demonised its ‘enemies’ as opponents of ‘God’s will’ through their clinging to the failings of a static and backward religious ethic (as the Puritans characterised Catholicism). And, as for the complaint of ‘restraint’ and ‘lack of liberty’? At its crux lay English frustration at the impediments faced by its traders and merchants. The Puritans of that time saw in Catholicism an ethos that was not welcoming to individual enterprise, to profit, or to trade. English ‘hawks’ – usually Puritans and merchants – wanted an aggressive anti-Spanish policy that would open new markets to burgeoning English trade.

Catholicism was not an ethos, the Cromwellians fervently and dogmatically asserted, in which the nascent capitalism of the time could thrive. Cromwell’s address to Parliament in 1656 was an early articulation of the Protestant ethic: one that has contributed hugely to shaping American entrepreneurial capitalism, and in taking America to its position of power (Steve Bannon does in fact acknowledge the parallel: “I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors”, he once said to a reporter). Today, for one significant Trump constituency (the Tea Party base), Iran is today’s Spain, and it is Islam (vice Catholicism) that is frustrating ‘God’s will’, by embracing an ethos that ‘hates’ the Christian ‘ethic’. And, it is secular globalisation that has sapped America’s mercantile animal spirits, imposed restrictions on trade (i.e. NAFTA), and whose cultural and ‘value’ norms are sapping America’s moral and spiritual muscularity.

Why should this Cromwell analogy matter today? In one sense, Trump had little choice. In opposing the (‘restrictive’) globalist, foreign policy – with its spinal cord of a US-led global defence sphere – the President needed to stand up some alternative foreign policy to the embedded totem of ‘America as the gyroscope of the global order’. Pure mercantilism – in the style of businessman negotiator-ism – is not really, of itself, a foreign policy. The power of the ‘benign US hegemon’ meme would require something more powerful to be set up, over, and against it, to balance it out. Trump has opted for the ‘Christianity in peril’, narrative. It is one that touches on deeply buried cultural veins of Protestant imagery, within the President’s Tea Party constituency.

General Flynn perhaps best represents this religiously based, pro-Christian Republican foreign policy, whilst General Mattis, perhaps, has a foot in both Republican camps — as Martin Wright from Brookings explains:

“Republican foreign policy since 9/11 has had two basic strands, which sometimes contradict each other. The first is that the United States is in an existential fight against radical Islam. The second is that America’s global interests involve the maintenance of U.S. leadership in Europe and East Asia—interests, in other words, that extend far beyond combating radical Islam. The Republican establishment has always toed the line on the first, but it has increasingly focused much more on the second. The global war on terror has, of late, taken second place to balancing China and containing Russia.
But a group within the Republican tent never made this shift. These are the people who believe the United States is engaged in a war against radical Islam that is equivalent to World War II or the Cold War. They believe it is a struggle rooted in religion to which all else should be subservient—that America’s overwhelming focus must be on radical Islam instead of revisionist powers in Europe or Asia. They also generally favor moving away from a values-based foreign policy to harsh methods to wage a major war.
For the most part, the leaders of this school of thought have been dismissed as cranks or ideologues. But their views were widely shared in the Republican electorate, who were increasingly alarmed by the Islamic State. And they found an ally in Trump.” (emphasis added)

In short, we should expect the Administration’s policy to oscillate between these two poles of Repulican foreign policy, as Trump plays off one against another, in order to insert his own (‘non – foreign policy’) of radical mercantilism. The Cromwellian meme, of making Iran the ‘number one’ terrorist state, and radical Islam, the ‘hostile ethos’, does fit well for the US President to embrace the businessman-negotiator modus operandi – under the cover of belligerency towards the Islamic ‘ethos’. Beligerency towards Iran is, of course, popular, and in this way, Trump’s policy translates well, or, at least, understandably, to the mores of the Washington Beltway. This ‘hostile Islam’ meme also provides the rationale (defeating Islamic terror) for détente with Russia. We have suggested earlier that détente with Russia is key to Trump’s dismantling of Washington’s ‘benign hegemon’ global defence sphere. Trump argues that the ‘blanket’ US defence sphere precisely limits the possibilities for the US to negotiate advantageous trade terms with its allies, on a case-by-case, bilateral basis.

In effect, under the cover of fighting an hostile Islamic ‘ethos’, Mr Trump can pursue détente with Russia – and then toughly ‘businessman-negotiate’ with allied states (now stripped of the Russian ‘threat’, elevating them to a status as America’s somehow privileged, defence allies).

This seems to be Mr Tillerson’s intended role. Martin Wright again:

“This is why naming Rex Tillerson as secretary of state was so important for Trump. A week before he was named, Trump’s senior aide Kellyanne Conway told the press that Trump was expanding the list of names for secretary of state and that the most important consideration was that the nominee “would be to implement and adhere to the president-elect’s America-first foreign policy—if you will, his view of the world.” The implication was clear: Romney, David Petraeus, and others would not fit the bill, so Trump would have to look elsewhere. He found Tillerson.

Tillerson is a pragmatist and a dealmaker. In many ways, he is a traditionalist. After all, he was endorsed by James Baker, Robert Gates, Hadley, and Condoleezza Rice. However, Trump also sees him, based on his personal relationship with Putin and opposition to sanctions on Russia, as someone willing to cut deals with strongmen and who sees national security through an economic lens and is thus an embodiment of his own America First views. Speaking in Wisconsin hours after naming Tillerson, Trump said, “Rex is friendly with many of the leaders in the world that we don’t get along with, and some people don’t like that. They don’t want them to be friendly. That’s why I’m doing the deal with Rex, ‘cause I like what this is all about.” (emphasis added)

Is this – the war with a ‘hostile Islamic ethos’ – then just a ploy, a diversion? Something for Iran to ignore? We suspect that Iran should not assume that Mr Trump’s targeting of Iran and radical Islam, is just some harmless diversion. It is not likely that Mr Trump actively seeks war with Iran, but were Iran to be perceived to be deliberately humiliating Mr Trump or America, the President (self-confessedly) is not of a temperament to let any humiliation pass. He likes to repay those who do him harm, ten-fold. But additionally, since, as polls show, and a leading American commentator on religion and politics, Robert Jones, has written, the Trump phenomenon is also deeply connected with the end of an American era: The End of White Christian America (as his book is entitled). In point of fact, the era has already passed. For, as Jones notes, “1993 was the last year in which America was majority white, and Protestant.”

Jones writes of the “vertigo” felt – even within the insular settings of many southern and Midwestern towns where white protestant conservatives continue to dominate society, and politics – at their “loss of place at the centre of American culture, democracy and cultural power”. Salt has been rubbed into this wound by a Democratic Party that has somewhat revelled in the passing of white majority America, and exacerbated the sore through rebranding itself as the new ‘majority’ of minorities. Jones remarks that whilst some [in America] “might celebrate” its passing – white Christian America did provide some kind of “civic glue”, and ruminates on how the sense of void and anxiety on “what might serve that purpose [in the future], might well turn destructive. This is, Iran might recall, Trump’s core constituency, which he must mollify if he is to remain in office. The destructive impulse of Tea Party-ists, if scratched repeatedly, might seek to let off steam at some convenient target.But secondly, it seems that Mr Trump shares in some measure, this embrace of Judeo-Christian values. Certainly Steve Bannon does. He has said plainly that American capitalism – if it is to survive – must be reconnected to Judeo-Christian values. But what explains Trump’s paradoxical focus on Iran, which is fighting Islamic radicalism, rather than say, Saudi Arabia, which is not? Here, Martin Wright gives us the clue:

But secondly, it seems that Mr Trump shares in some measure, this embrace of Judeo-Christian values. Certainly Steve Bannon does. He has said plainly that American capitalism – if it is to survive – must be reconnected to Judeo-Christian values. But what explains Trump’s paradoxical focus on Iran, which is fighting Islamic radicalism, rather than say, Saudi Arabia, which is not? Here, Martin Wright gives us the clue:

“In January and February [2016], Trump was under pressure to unveil a foreign-policy team. The Republican foreign-policy establishment overwhelmingly condemned him, largely because of his America First views. It was at this point that retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn started advising him … Several weeks after Flynn came on board, Trump rolled out a list of foreign-policy advisors. Most were completely unknown, but the name Walid Phares stood out. Phares has a controversial past as a leading figure in a Lebanese Christian militia, and is known as a hard-liner in the war on terror.”

Mother Jones’ investigative report is plain: Phares, a Lebanese Christian Maronite, is a Samir Gagea man, who has a long history, dating back to Lebanon’s civil war of (intellectual) animosity towards Iran and Syria. It seems Trump (and Flynn too?) may have imbibed deeply at the bitter well of Lebanese prejudice, and civil war hatreds?

So what do the runes tell us? The occult alphabet of Trump’s foreign policy will prove hard to read. The essential tension between, on the one hand, the ‘America Firsters’ and the religious warriors – and all those who adhere to the American ‘traditionalist’ policy position – portends the prospect of policies that might oscillate, from time to time, between these three diverse and conflicting poles. Let us remind ourselves – ‘traditionalist’ includes “all those officials who support the institutions of American power, and are generally comfortable with the post-World War II bipartisan consensus on U.S. strategy, even though they may seek to change it on the margins”. It is quite likely that some of Trump’s team members who are mercantilists (such as Tillerson) or ‘Christian warriors’ (such as Flynn), might be ‘bi-polar’: that is to say will be pulled in both directions on certain policy issues. We perhaps might be advised, therefore, to disregard most leaks, as more likely to constitute self-serving exercises directed towards influencing the internal struggle within ‘the team’ (i.e. kite flying exercises), rather than as true leaks that describe a genuine consensus reached within the ‘team’.

But the runes will be harder to read precisely because of Trump’s tactics of feints and distractions. As one astute Chess coach-turned analyst has observed, Trump seems to be a pretty accomplished hand at chess:

“Chess is a game where the number of possible positions rises at an astronomical rate. By the 2nd move of the game there are already 400 possible positions, and after each person moves twice, that number rises to 8902. My coach explained to me that I was not trained enough to even begin to keep track of those things and that my only chance of ever winning was to take the initiative and never give it up. “You must know what your opponent will do next by playing his game for him.” was the advice I received.
Now, I won’t bore you with the particulars but it boiled down to throwing punches, at each and every turn without exception. In other words, if my opponent must always waste his turn responding to what I am doing, then he never gets an opportunity to come at me in the millions of possibilities that reside in the game. Again, if I throw the punch – even one that can be easily blocked, then I only have to worry about one combination and not millions.

My Russian chess coach next taught me that I should Proudly Announce what exactly I am doing and why I am doing it. He explained to me that bad chess players believe that they can hide their strategy even though all the pieces are right there in plain sight for anyone to see. A good chess player has no fear of this because they will choose positions that are unassailable so why not announce them? As a coach, I made all of my students tell each other why they were making the moves that they made as well as what they were planning next. It entirely removed luck from the game and quickly made them into superior players.

My Russian coach next stressed Time as something I should focus on to round out my game. He said that I shouldn’t move the same piece twice in a row and that my “wild punches” should focus on getting my pieces on to the board and into play as quickly as possible. So, if I do everything correctly, I have an opponent that will have a disorganized defense, no offense and few pieces even in play and this will work 9 out of 10 times. The only time it doesn’t work for me is when I go against players that have memorized hundreds of games and have memorized how to get out of these traps. With all that said, let’s see if President Trump is playing chess.

First, we can all agree that Trump, if nothing else, throws a lot of punches. We really saw this in the primaries where barely a day could go by without some scandal that would supposedly end his presidential bid. His opponents and the press erroneously thought that responding to each and every “outrage” was the correct thing to do without ever taking the time to think whether or not they had just walked into a trap. They would use their turn to block his Twitter attack but he wouldn’t move that [chess] piece again once that was in play but, instead, brought on the next outrage – just like my [Russian Chess] coach instructed me to do.

Second, Trump is very vocal in what he is going to do. Just like I had my students announced to each other their [chess] strategy, Trump has been nothing but transparent about what he intends to do. After all, announcing your plans only works if your position is unassailable. It demoralizes your opponent. You rub their face in it. Another benefit to being vocal is that it encourages your opponent to bring out his favorite piece to deal with said announced plans. This is a big mistake as any good chess player will quickly recognize which piece his opponent favors and then go take them.

Time has been the one area that our president is having problems. Executive Orders and Twitter Wars have pushed the opposition off balance but he has not been able to use this time to get all of his pieces into play. The Justice Department (his Queen) is still stuck behind a wall of pawns. Furthermore, only 5 of his 15 Cabinet picks have been confirmed as of this writing. Without control over these departments, the president can fight a war of attrition but he really can’t go on the offensive. In chess, I will gladly trade a piece for a piece if it means you have to waste your turn dealing with it. It isn’t a long term strategy if you do not have all of your pieces ready to go.”

Well, maybe its best just to sit and observe, and stop trying to read the runes …?