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An interesting read:

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/a-senior-white-house-official-defines-the-trump-doctrine-were-america-bitch/562511/

 

A Senior White House Official Defines the Trump Doctrine: ‘We’re America, Bitch’

The president believes that the United States owes nothing to anyone—especially its allies.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG
JUN 11, 2018
 
 
lead_720_405.jpg?mod=1528726482KEVIN LAMARQUE / REUTERS
 

Many of Donald Trump’s critics find it difficult to ascribe to a president they consider to be both subliterate and historically insensate a foreign-policy doctrine that approaches coherence. A Trump Doctrine would require evidence of Trump Thought, and proof of such thinking, the argument goes, is scant. This view is informed in part by feelings of condescension, but it is not meritless. Barack Obama, whose foreign-policy doctrine I studied in depth, was cerebral to a fault; the man who succeeded him is perhaps the most glandular president in American history. Unlike Obama, Trump possesses no ability to explain anything resembling a foreign-policy philosophy. But this does not mean that he is without ideas.

 

Over the past couple of months, I’ve asked a number of people close to the president to provide me with short descriptions of what might constitute the Trump Doctrine. I’ve been trying, as part of a larger project, to understand the revolutionary nature of Trump’s approach to world affairs. This task became even more interesting over the weekend, when Trump made his most ambitious move yet to dismantle the U.S.-led Western alliance; it becomes more interesting still as Trump launches, without preparation or baseline knowledge, a complicated nuclear negotiation with a fanatical and bizarre regime that quite possibly has his number.

 

Trumpian chaos is, in fact, undergirded by a comprehensible worldview, a number of experts have insisted. The Brookings Institution scholar (and frequent Atlantic contributor) Thomas Wright argued in a January 2016 essaythat Trump’s views are both discernible and explicable. Wright, who published his analysis at a time when most everyone in the foreign-policy establishment considered Trump’s candidacy to be a farce, wrote that Trump loathes the liberal international order and would work against it as president; he wrote that Trump also dislikes America’s military alliances, and would work against them; he argued that Trump believes in his bones that the global economy is unfair to the U.S.; and, finally, he wrote that Trump has an innate sympathy for “authoritarian strongmen.”

 

Wright was prophetic. Trump’s actions these past weeks, and my conversations with administration officials and friends and associates of Trump, suggest that the president will be acting on his beliefs in a more urgent, and focused, way than he did in the first year of his presidency, and that the pace of potentially cataclysmic disruption will quicken in the coming days. And so, understanding Trump’s foreign-policy doctrine is more urgent than ever.

 

The third-best encapsulation of the Trump Doctrine, as outlined by a senior administration official over lunch a few weeks ago, is this: “No Friends, No Enemies.” This official explained that he was not describing a variant of the realpolitik notion that the U.S. has only shifting alliances, not permanent friends. Trump, this official said, doesn’t believe that the U.S. should be part of any alliance at all. “We have to explain to him that countries that have worked with us together in the past expect a level of loyalty from us, but he doesn’t believe that this should factor into the equation,” the official said.  

The second-best self-description of the Trump Doctrine I heard was this, from a senior national-security official: “Permanent destabilization creates American advantage.” The official who described this to me said Trump believes that keeping allies and adversaries alike perpetually off-balance necessarily benefits the United States, which is still the most powerful country on Earth. When I noted that America’s adversaries seem far less destabilized by Trump than do America’s allies, this official argued for strategic patience. “They’ll see over time that it doesn’t pay to argue with us.”

 

The best distillation of the Trump Doctrine I heard, though, came from a senior White House official with direct access to the president and his thinking. I was talking to this person several weeks ago, and I said, by way of introduction, that I thought it might perhaps be too early to discern a definitive Trump Doctrine.

“No,” the official said. “There’s definitely a Trump Doctrine.”

“What is it?” I asked. Here is the answer I received:

“The Trump Doctrine is ‘We’re America, Bitch.’ That’s the Trump Doctrine.”

It struck me almost immediately that this was the most acute, and attitudinally honest, description of the manner in which members of Trump’s team, and Trump himself, understand their role in the world.

I asked this official to explain the idea. “Obama apologized to everyone for everything. He felt bad about everything.” President Trump, this official said, “doesn’t feel like he has to apologize for anything America does.” I later asked another senior official, one who rendered the doctrine not as “We’re America, Bitch” but as “We’re America, Bitches,” whether he was aware of the 2004 movie Team America: World Police, whose theme song was “America, Fuck Yeah!”

 
 

“Of course,” he said, laughing. “The president believes that we’re America, and people can take it or leave it.”

“We’re America, Bitch” is not only a characterologically accurate collective self-appraisal—the gangster fronting, the casual misogyny, the insupportable confidence—but it is also perfectly Rorschachian. To Trump’s followers, “We’re America, Bitch” could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege. To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of foreign and national-security policy, “We’re America, Bitch” would be understood as self-isolating, and self-sabotaging.

I’m not arguing that the attitude underlying “We’re America, Bitch” is without any utility. There are occasions—the 1979 Iran hostage crisis comes to mind—in which a blunt posture would have been useful, or at least ephemerally satisfying. President Obama himself expressed displeasure—in a rhetorically controlled way—at the failure of American allies to pay what he viewed as their fair share of common defense costs. And I don’t want to suggest that there is no place for self-confidence in foreign policymaking. The Iran nuclear deal was imperfect in part because the Obama administration seemed, at times, to let Iran drive the process. One day the Trump administration may have a lasting foreign-policy victory of some sort. It is likely that the North Korea summit will end, if not disastrously, then inconclusively. But there is a slight chance that it could mark the start of a useful round of negotiations. And I’m not one to mock Jared Kushner for his role in the Middle East peace process. There is virtually no chance of the process succeeding, but the great experts have all tried and failed, so why shouldn’t the president’s son-in-law give it a shot?

 

But what is mainly interesting about “We’re America, Bitch” is its delusional quality. Donald Trump is pursuing policies that undermine the Western alliance, empower Russia and China, and demoralize freedom-seeking people around the world. The United States could be made weaker—perhaps permanently—by the implementation of the Trump Doctrine.

The administration officials, and friends of Trump, I’ve spoken with in recent days believe the opposite: that Trump is rebuilding American power after an eight-year period of willful dissipation. “People criticize [Trump] for being opposed to everything Obama did, but we’re justified in canceling out his policies,” one friend of Trump’s told me. This friend described the Trump Doctrine in the simplest way possible. “There’s the Obama Doctrine, and the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine,” he said. “We’re the ‘Fuck Obama’ Doctrine.”

 
 
 
 
 
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JEFFREY GOLDBERG is the editor in chief of The Atlantic and a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Reporting. He is the author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror.

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Edited by T1R9sledder
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Also, “The Fuck Obama Doctrine!”

That cracked me up. 

Middle America gets moist over both that and the “We’re America, Bitch” idea. Honestly, Trump keeps this mantra up and he could win again. Approval is going up, economy is going through the roof, and fuck you Canada. That shit plays where he needs it to play. Call it right or wrong, but it’s working. End the war in Korea and make it seem like NK is playing ball, and he will jump to around 50% approval I bet. 

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2 minutes ago, xtralettucetomatoe580 said:

Also, “The Fuck Obama Doctrine!”

That cracked me up. 

Middle America gets moist over both that and the “We’re America, Bitch” idea. Honestly, Trump keeps this mantra up and he could win again. Approval is going up, economy is going through the roof, and fuck you Canada. That shit plays where he needs it to play. Call it right or wrong, but it’s working. End the war in Korea and make it seem like NK is playing ball, and he will jump to around 50% approval I bet. 

And driving the left insane to boot..........

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1 minute ago, Mainecat said:

Embrace dictators and insult your allies. That’s gonna work.

Oh yeah, cause our limp dicked allies are going to say mean things to the media. That’s it. They don’t want to play hard ball. Not in their interests. They’ll take it and like it cause we’re America, Bitch.

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6 minutes ago, xtralettucetomatoe580 said:

Also, “The Fuck Obama Doctrine!”

That cracked me up. 

Middle America gets moist over both that and the “We’re America, Bitch” idea. Honestly, Trump keeps this mantra up and he could win again. Approval is going up, economy is going through the roof, and fuck you Canada. That shit plays where he needs it to play. Call it right or wrong, but it’s working. End the war in Korea and make it seem like NK is playing ball, and he will jump to around 50% approval I bet. 

Hopefully lots of American soldiers remains returning home very soon.   This was another agreement of the summit.  I would think that will resonate with soldiers of all generations. 

Edited by Highmark
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4 minutes ago, xtralettucetomatoe580 said:

Oh yeah, cause our limp dicked allies are going to say mean things to the media. That’s it. They don’t want to play hard ball. Not in their interests. They’ll take it and like it cause we’re America, Bitch.

:russianflag: for MC

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8 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

Embrace dictators and insult your allies. That’s gonna work.

They constantly insult us and especially Trump, long before any tariff talks began.   

I hope to God Trump stands firm on changing how things are done within NATO.   We've been Europe's military protection for far, far too long.  

Seriously can someone explain to me what we owe ANY so called ALLY?

Edited by Highmark
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Just now, Highmark said:

They constantly insult us and especially Trump, long before any tariff talks began.   

I hope to God Trump stands firm on changing how things are done within NATO.   We've been Europe's military protection for far, far too long.  

Agreed....back when it was needed after WW2 and the Cold War was escalating. It's for them to pay their fair share.

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Just now, T1R9sledder said:

Agreed....back when it was needed after WW2 and the Cold War was escalating. It's for them to pay their fair share.

Its time for them to pay for everything regarding their own military protection.

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I might be new to this conversation but are you trying to tell me that the only reason the U.S has troops stationed in Europe is for the protection of European countries and has nothing to do with America's interests?

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19 minutes ago, Highmark said:

They constantly insult us and especially Trump, long before any tariff talks began.   

I hope to God Trump stands firm on changing how things are done within NATO.   We've been Europe's military protection for far, far too long.  

Seriously can someone explain to me what we owe ANY so called ALLY?

Of all the money spent on military actions by all of the allies, do you think the US saved or cost their allies money?

Iran was the US installing a government for cheap oil, Israel treat their neighbours like shit and steal land because America props them up, Iraq propped up Saddam, told him it was OK to Attack in the first Gulf war.  Created the Taliban, Armed the Contras. Prop up the Saudi dictatorship to so they provide cheap oil for the US.  When you consider what other Countries spent on the Gulf wars and Afghanistan do you really think they owe you?

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5 minutes ago, revkevsdi said:

Of all the money spent on military actions by all of the allies, do you think the US saved or cost their allies money?

Iran was the US installing a government for cheap oil, Israel treat their neighbours like shit and steal land because America props them up, Iraq propped up Saddam, told him it was OK to Attack in the first Gulf war.  Created the Taliban, Armed the Contras. Prop up the Saudi dictatorship to so they provide cheap oil for the US.  When you consider what other Countries spent on the Gulf wars and Afghanistan do you really think they owe you?

I think Europe would be speaking Russian if it wasn't for the trillions we spent over and above everyone else during the decades of the cold war.   I have no doubts without the financial and military might of the US the Soviet Union would have steamrolled Europe at some point after WW2.  

So to answer your question I think we've saved our Allies trillions and trillions of dollars as well as their freedom.  

As for the conflicts in the ME....please.

 

Edited by Highmark
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2 minutes ago, revkevsdi said:

Of all the money spent on military actions by all of the allies, do you think the US saved or cost their allies money?

Iran was the US installing a government for cheap oil, Israel treat their neighbours like shit and steal land because America props them up, Iraq propped up Saddam, told him it was OK to Attack in the first Gulf war.  Created the Taliban, Armed the Contras. Prop up the Saudi dictatorship to so they provide cheap oil for the US.  When you consider what other Countries spent on the Gulf wars and Afghanistan do you really think they owe you?

Could you explain that one you need more in depth?

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6 minutes ago, T1R9sledder said:

Could you explain that one you need more in depth?

In early 1963, Saddam had more important things to worry about than his outstanding bill at the Andiana Cafe. On February 8, a military coup in Baghdad, in which the Baath Party played a leading role, overthrew Qassim. Support for the conspirators was limited. In the first hours of fighting, they had only nine tanks under their control. The Baath Party had just 850 active members. But Qassim ignored warnings about the impending coup. What tipped the balance against him was the involvement of the United States. He had taken Iraq out of the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact. In 1961, he threatened to occupy Kuwait and nationalized part of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), the foreign oil consortium that exploited Iraq's oil. In retrospect, it was the ClAs favorite coup. We really had the ts crossed on what was happening, James Critchfield, then head of the CIA in the Middle East, told us. We regarded it as a great victory. Iraqi participants later confirmed American involvement. We came to power on a CIA train, admitted Ali Saleh Sa'adi, the Baath Party secretary general who was about to institute an unprecedented reign of terror. CIA assistance reportedly included coordination of the coup plotters from the agency's station inside the U.S. embassy in Baghdad as well as a clandestine radio station in Kuwait and solicitation of advice from around the Middle East on who on the left should be eliminated once the coup was successful. To the end, Qassim retained his popularity in the streets of Baghdad. After his execution, his sup- porters refused to believe he was dead until the coup leaders showed pictures of his bullet-riddled body on TV and in the newspapers.

 

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/51/217.html

 

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43 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

Embrace dictators and insult your allies. That’s gonna work.

I wonder what politician would put their troops in harms way to help the US now.

Or what allied politician could be seen to make a deal with Trump on Trade.

Every politician is on Trudeau's side against Trump.  In fact if Trump keeps this up, Trudeau will probably get re-elected.

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12 minutes ago, revkevsdi said:

I wonder what politician would put their troops in harms way to help the US now.

Or what allied politician could be seen to make a deal with Trump on Trade.

Every politician is on Trudeau's side against Trump.  In fact if Trump keeps this up, Trudeau will probably get re-elected.

For someone so focused on our politics and trade you clearly have very little understanding. We’re going to win, you can bet on it.

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