American Foreign Policy For the Next Two Years

Let’s just check the news headlines this AM: New York Times: “DEMOCRATS ROUT G.O.P.”Wall Street Journal: ”DEMOCRATS TAKE CONGRESS IN STUNNING REBUKE OF TRUMP.”Washington Post: “DEMOCRATS RIDE HISTORIC BLUE WAVE.”Politico: “TRUMP’S WHOLE THEORY OF POWER IS IN RUINS.”Yeah, the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World is feeling pretty good about our predictions from 48 hours ago.

Drezner’s World is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Of course, as an international relations professor, I’m constitutionally incapable of feeling sunny for longer than a few hours at a time. Which is why Elizabeth Saunders and I wrote “The Dangers of a Lame-Duck Trump” for Foreign Affairs about what to expect from U.S.

foreign policy over the next two years. An excerpt: There are plenty of ways Trump could act out: issuing fresh threats against Canada, launching new attacks on U.S. alliances, or colluding with Russia or China at the expense of Ukraine or Taiwan. But to turn those threats into policy would require serious effort, such as repositioning U.S. troops or painstakingly negotiating with other great powers.The two places where Trump can inflict the most damage are Iran and Cuba.

According to The New York Times, the Trump

According to The New York Times, the Trump administration and Israel have drawn up plans for fresh strikes on Iran as soon as the midterms are over. A last-ditch effort to compel Tehran to surrender is unlikely to work and would put at risk the global economy and the security and stability of Persian Gulf allies. Trump might also try to force regime change in Cuba. Military action against both adversaries would only require Trump to give his say-so.

With no election on the horizon, all that constrains the president abroad is the sense of his own legacy….The most surprising foreign policy option Trump could take during his lame-duck period, however, is doing nothing at all. The president has busied himself with remaking Washington, D.C., in his own image by redecorating the Oval Office, designing a White House ballroom, and attempting to remodel the Kennedy Center.

There is a chance that he could spend his last two years in office issuing pardons, trying to prosecute political enemies on the side, and erecting monuments to himself. Given the alternatives, inaction on foreign policy may well be the best-case scenario for Trump’s lame-duck years.Please to read it and weep the whole thing — Saunders crafted most of the good words but I contributed a few!

It will shock you to learn that Elizabeth

It will shock you to learn that Elizabeth and I did not write this in real time as the results were coming in last night. We wrote it days in advance, expecting a good night for Democrats.But it turned out to be a very good night for Democrats. Which raises an obvious question: does the size of the massive blue tsunami — one in which Democrats won every statewide seat in Texas, won Senate seats in South Carolina and Kansas, and might even win in Mississippi for God’s sake!!!

— affect any of our analysis? Unfortunately, I think the answer is no. If anything, the scale of this defeat will only incentivize Trump to change the political conversation even more. And Trump is a fan of the Jason Mendoza theory of problem-solving: This does not mean that Trump will succeed in changing the conversation in any of these foreign policy gambits. Politico’s Alexander Burns is correct in his assessment today: The essential problem for Trump is that his favorite instrument of governing is fear.

His second term has been a 22-month exercise in projecting invulnerability and ruthlessness, then presenting powerful people and institutions – even foreign countries – with a choice. Either live peacefully with Trump on his terms or prepare to suffer the consequences….This has been the defining dynamic of elite politics in this chapter of the Age of Trump. That is how Trump has wrangled lavish investment pledges out of foreign nations and tech giants, deterred corporate criticism of his agenda and raised money to fund a new White House ballroom, inspired the NATO secretary-general to call him “daddy” and assembled a gallery of rictus-faced billionaires at his inauguration.And that’s over now.The breadth and depth of Republican defeats have shredded the aura of invincibility that any strongman needs: the sense that no matter what his adversaries do and no matter what the courts say, at the end of the day he will still be there, with the apparatus of the state in his grasp, and he will remember the names of his friends and his enemies….For leaders in Washington and far beyond, the risk calculus involved in dealing with Trump is different now.

The expiration date on all of Trump’s inducements

The expiration date on all of Trump’s inducements and threats looms larger than ever, and the downside of playing by Trump’s rules has come sharply into focus….A foreign leader pushed by Trump to make concessions in a trade deal must now ponder whether it is more important to stay friendly with Trump or to stay on the right side of Americans who have rejected his protectionist policies.The problem is that Trump has very few moves in his political bag of tricks, so he is unlikely to shift course now.

Which means a lot of foreign policy mishegas — and a lot of messes that will need to be cleaned up by his successor. Thanks for reading Drezner’s World! This post is public so feel free to share it.Share