Trump's Grand Strategic Train Wreck — Foreign Policy https: //foreignpolicy.

com/2017/01/31/trumps-grand-strategic-train-wreck)

SHADOW GOVERNMENT

Trump Grand
Strategic Train
Wreck
Believe it or not, the president
has a grand strategy. But it's a
nightmarish mess.
BY COLIN KAHL, HAL BRANDS

JANUARY 31, 2017

Believe it or not, President Donald Trump has a grand strategy.

improvisational ideas don't add up to anything consistent or purposeful

enough to call a grand strategy. We see it otherwise. Beneath all the rants,

tweets, and noise there is actually a discernible pattern of thought — a

Trumpian view of the world that goes back decades. Trump has put forward a

clear vision to guide his administration's foreign policy — albeit a dark and

highly troubling one, riddled with tensions and vexing dilemmas.

Grand strategy is the conceptual architecture that lends structure and form to

foreign policy. A leader who is “doing grand strategy” is not handling global

events on an ad hoc or case-by-case basis. A grand strategy, rather, represents

a more purposeful and deeply held set of concepts about a country's goals and

orientation in international affairs.

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At a minimum, a grand strategy consists of an understanding of the basic

contours of the international environment, a country's highest interests and

objectives within that environment, the most pressing threats to those

interests, and the actions that a country can take in order to address threats

and promote national security and well-being. Grand strategy, then, is both

diagnostic and prescriptive. It combines an analysis of what is happening in

the world and how it impacts one's country, with a more forward-looking

concept of how a country might employ its various forms of power — hard or

soft, military or economic — to sustain or improve its global position. Every

grand strategy has a “what” dimension, a notion of what constitutes national

security in the first place, and a “how” dimension, a theory of how to produce

security in a dynamic international environment and given the tools at hand.

(Photo credit: SEAN GALLUP/Getty Images)

Threats and fears

The fundamental grand strategic interest of the United States today is

precisely the same as it has been for the past 240 years: to ensure the country's

physical security, economic well-being, and way of life. The really interesting

part of a particular president's grand strategy, therefore, often begins with his

or her perception of the nature of the international environment and the main

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threats to these basic interests. For Trump, the principal threats to the United

States stem primarily from what might be called “intermestic” challenges —

that is, powerful external forces that reverberate directly into the American

domestic arena, threatening homeland security, disrupting the U.S. economy,

and contaminating our society.

In particular, three dangers dominate the

articular, three dangers dominate new president's worldview. The first is

the new president's worldview. the threat from “radical Islam” — which,
for the president and many of his closest

advisors, poses an existential and

“civilizational” threat to the United States that must be “eradicated” from the

face of the Earth. Trump and his team see this threat as emanating not only

from Sunni jihadist groups such as the Islamic State and al Qaeda, but from all

Islamists. Michael Flynn, Trump's national security advisor, has described all

forms of Islamism as a “cancer,” a “political ideology” that “hides behind being

a religion,” and a “messianic mass movement of evil people.” (K.T. McFarland,

the new deputy national security advisor, also appears to share these views.)

The Trump worldview draws no distinctions between Sunni, Shiite, or other

Islamic sects and traditions. Consequently, the description of the threat

extends to Shiite Iran, which is a deeply problematic actor in the Middle East,

but one that frequently finds itself at odds with radical Sunni jihadist groups

such as the Islamic State. And, perhaps most troubling of all, the perceived

threat also includes many devout Muslim-American citizens in the United

States, who — in Trump's view — are a potential fifth column of homegrown

Islamic extremists.

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Second, Trump portrays unfair trade deals and the trade practices of key

competitors as grave threats to the U.S. economy and therefore a national

security priority. In Trump's view, “disastrous trade deals” like NAFTA have

gutted American manufacturing and depressed wages for millions of

American workers. Trump has described the recently negotiated (but not

ratified) Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) along similar lines, labeling it a “rape

of our country” on the campaign trail.

In Trump's eyes, however, Enemy No. 1 in the economic domain is China —

which is not, contrary to what he often said during the campaign, a party to

the TPP. Just as Trump often accused Japan of waging a campaign of

economic predation against the United States in the 1980s, today Trump has

gone so far as to declare that “we already have a trade war” with China — one

that Beijing is winning. For years, Trump has accused China of devaluing its

currency, dumping steel and aluminum, stealing intellectual property, and

exploiting other unfair trade practices vis-á-vis the United States, especially

since China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001. The purported

goal of this Chinese campaign is to cripple American manufacturing and

advance Beijing's goal of economic and military dominance over the United

States.

Trump has delivered warnings about China's geopolitical behavior as well,

including its militarization of the South China Sea and failure to do enough to

rein in North Korea. But these issues are ultimately secondary to the dagger

China has allegedly stuck into the heart of the U.S. economy. Trump's pick for

U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, has expressed a similar zero-sum

view of the economic competition with China, as has Peter Navarro, the head

of Trump's newly created National Trade Council. And the view also extends

to Trump's top national security aides, Flynn and McFarland. Indeed, in White

House meetings during the recent presidential transition period, a number of

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incoming Trump officials made it clear that the new administration viewed

the economic war with China as perhaps the defining issue of the 21st century.

Third, and finally, Trump has consistently railed against illegal immigration,

arguing that the pace and scale of migration has cost American jobs, lowered

wages, and put unsustainable strains on housing, schools, tax bills, and

general living conditions. He has also consistently framed immigration as an

issue of personal and national security, arguing that illegal immigration is

associated with crime, drugs, and terrorism — and claiming, without

providing supporting evidence, that “countless Americans” have died as a

consequence. And, tying the issue back to his diagnosis of the terrorist threat,

Trump has consistently portrayed Muslim refugees, immigrants, and the

children of immigrants as a “Trojan horse” for the spread of radical Islam in

the United States.

(Photo credit: DREW ANGERER/Getty Images)

The Trump doctrine

To address these perceived threats, Trump has put forward an “America First”

grand strategy with four key pillars.

The first is what White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon proudly calls

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“economic nationalism.” Trump has signaled a willingness to embrace a

protectionist and mercantilist foreign policy more familiar to the 19th and

early 20th centuries than to the 21st. In his inaugural address, for example,

Trump declared: “From this day forward, it's going to be only America first,

America first. Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign

affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families. We

must protect our borders from the ravages of other countries making our

product, stealing our companies and destroying our jobs. Protection will lead

to great prosperity and strength.”

To enact this vision, Trump, in one of his first executive actions as president,

withdrew the United States from the TPP. He has also pledged to renegotiate

NAFTA, and to withdraw from that accord if Canada and Mexico do not meet

his terms. He has threatened stepped-up trade enforcement actions and the

imposition of tariffs as high as 45 percent against China and others engaged in

unfair trade. And he says he will impose “consequences” on U.S. companies

that move jobs overseas, perhaps by enacting heavy border duties on the

importation of goods manufactured abroad. If you think that the foreign

economic policies of the 1920s and 1930s worked well for the United States,

then Trump's economic statecraft is for you.

A second key pillar is what might be called “extreme” homeland security. This

includes the infamous wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and other

investments in stepped-up border security. It includes Trump's threat of mass

deportations of illegal immigrants, starting with those with a criminal record.

And his approach calls for an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees, a temporary

ban on all refugees, and a suspension of legal immigration from several

Muslim countries until such time as “extreme vetting” procedures can be put

in place to ensure that entrants to the United States “share our values and love

our people.” Last week, Trump signed an executive order putting all of these

measures in motion. Trump has also expressed openness to a registry of all

Muslims living in the United States, and threatened punitive action against

those who fail to report friends or family members suspected of holding

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extremist views to law enforcement.

What we call “amoral transactionalism”

in Trump?s view, the United States represents the third, and perhaps most
uld be willing to cut deals with any central, feature of Trump's grand
ors that share American interests, strategy. In Trump's view, the United
gardless of how transactional that
States should be willing to cut deals with
relationship is, and regardless of
whether they share — or act in any actors that share American interests,
:ordance with — American values. regardless of how transactional that
relationship is, and regardless of whether

they share — or act in accordance with —

American values. In the battle against radical Islam, for example, Trump has

said: “All actions should be oriented around this goal, and any country which

shares this goal will be our ally.” The biggest perceived opportunity, in this

regard, is for a strategic realignment with Russia — a country Trump and some

of his advisors see as a natural partner in the fight against Islamic extremists

and perhaps in countering China too.

Trump's grand strategy is transactional in another sense as well. It contends

that those allies and partners that gain from U.S. assistance should “pay up” —

and, ifthey don't, that the United States ought to cut them loose. Since the

19805, Trump has consistently characterized U.S. allies as wealthy freeloaders

who disproportionately gain from American commitments and expenditures,

to the detriment of U.S. security and the American economy. He has argued

that NATO is obsolete and questioned the wisdom of the U.S. commitment to

Japan and South Korea. For Trump, America's treaty alliances in Europe and

Asia are not sacred commitments; U.S. allies are no better (or worse) than any

other states, and, accordingly, our relationships with them should be

conditional rather than special. As Trump argued in April: “The countries we

are defending must pay for the cost of this defense, and if not, the U.S, must be

prepared to let these countries defend themselves. We have no choice.” Trump

put it even more starkly in his inaugural address, arguing that the United

States had “subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the

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very sad depletion of our military” — in essence, that America's alliances have

made the country weaker and less secure.

The final pillar of Trump's grand strategy is a muscular but aloof militarism.

For decades, Trump has advocated “extreme military strength.” On the

campaign trail and during the transition, Trump called for larger U.S. naval,

air, and ground forces, and significant new investments in cyber warfare

capabilities and nuclear weapons. (On Jan. 27, Trump announced an executive

order to follow through on this commitment, but the details remain unclear.)

Yet Trump's stated purpose is not to engage in military adventures, or to

bolster U.S. alliances, but rather to deter potential adversaries and defeat those

who attack the United States. Trump has pledged to intensify the military

campaign against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups — but he has

consistently criticized both regime change and nation building. In the

campaign against the Islamic State, it is clear Trump hopes to depend heavily

on local and regional “Muslim forces” to carry on the fight on the ground while

the U.S. military's role is primarily to “bomb the shit out of them” — and

perhaps, if Trump is taken literally, to take Irag's oil once the Islamic State is

defeated. Past U.S. presidents wanted an America that was strong enough to

shape global affairs; Trump seems to want an America that is strong enough to

eradicate terrorism and then simply be left alone.

Taken together, Trump's “America First” grand strategy diverges significantly

from — and intentionally subverts — the bipartisan consensus underpinning

U.S. foreign policy since World War II. American presidents in the postwar era

have generally seen a world of expanding democracy and free markets as safer

and more prosperous. They have also believed that the modest investments

the United States makes in protecting its allies and supporting international

institutions are bargains, because they prevent adverse geopolitical

developments that might ultimately require far higher costs — in both lives

and money — to address.

Not so for Trump. He simply doesn't subscribe to the long-held belief that

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“American exceptionalism” and U.S. leadership are intertwined — that the

influence of the United States on the world stage is rooted in the idea of

America and the values it represents, not just its material power. Moreover, as

Thomas Wright notes, “Trump believes that America gets a raw deal from the

liberal international order” it helped construct seven decades ago and sustain

to this day. He is therefore hostile to that order, institutionalized through

alliances with other democratic states and international agreements that

promote an open, rule-based international economy, and refuses to invest

blood and treasure to maintain it.

(Photo credit: DMITRY ASTAKHOV/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump's grand strategic dilemmas

Trump's grand strategy is thus at odds with longstanding traditions in

American foreign policy and poses an acute threat to the liberal international

order that has underwritten U.S. security and prosperity for the past seven

decades. Yet, even on its own terms, Trump's grand strategy is plagued by

internal tensions and dilemmas that will make it difficult to achieve the

president's stated objectives. There are many problems, but here we

emphasize six.

First, it will be difficult for Trump to reconcile his policies toward Russia and

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Iran on the one hand with his desire to defeat the Islamic State on the other.

Trump's apparent desire to go all-in with Russian President Vladimir Putin —

and perhaps Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — to fight the Islamic State in

Syria is likely to backfire. President Barack Obama conditioned the prospect of

counterterrorism cooperation with Russia in Syria on Moscow enforcing a

nationwide cease-fire and ensuring humanitarian access for the U.N. —

conditions the Kremlin was ultimately unable or unwilling to meet. Moreover,

during discussions with Moscow last fall, Obama insisted that the United

States would have a veto over Russian targeting, that Assad's air force would

be grounded over much of the country, and that the parties should return to

the negotiating table to discuss a political transition. If Trump chooses to

cooperate with Russia with no strings attached, it will make the United States

complicit in Russia's indiscriminate bombing campaign and its efforts to prop

up Assad. This is a recipe for fueling the civil war and jihadism, not combating

it, and it is likely to alienate precisely the Sunni states Trump hopes to join his

anti-Islamic State coalition on the ground.

Then there is the issue of Iran. In practice, backing Russia and Assad means

aligning — whether openly or tacitly — with Iran, its surrogate Hezbollah, and

Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Syria. This would effectively strengthen

Iranian influence in Syria and the broader region — the very opposite of what

Trump and his advisors desire. Consequently, if Trump means what he says

about taking a harder line against Iran — both in the context of the nuclear

deal and vis-á-vis Iran's destabilizing behavior across the Middle East — he

will have to try to convince Moscow to sever its partnership with Tehran and

attempt to box Iran and Hezbollah out of Syria. That is easier said than done.

Iran and Hezbollabh's tentacles in Syria run deeper than Russia's, and they have

a far greater stake in the outcome of that conflict than Moscow does. The

Tranians are, therefore, likely to react to any overt effort to push them out by

playing an active spoiler role that undermines the campaign against the

Islamic State and, potentially, puts at risk U.S. special operations forces

supporting counter-Islamic State opposition forces on the ground in Syria.

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A similar dilemma will face Trump in Irag. The United States should work to

balance and minimize Iranian influence in Iraq, in particular by encouraging

the Baghdad government to work overtime to rein in Shiite popular

mobilization forces (PME). But an overtly hostile posture toward Iran (not to

mention continued rants about taking Iraq's oil) would put Iraq's Shiite Prime

Minister Haider al-Abadi in a jam, empowering his rivals who seek to distance

Iraq from the United States. It could also incentivize Iran to unleash Shiite

PMF to attack the approximately 5,000 American forces supporting the

counter-Islamic State campaign in Iraq, something Iran has refrained from

doing over the past two-and-a-half years. The result could be dramatically

increased U.S. casualties and reduced American influence in Baghdad.

A second dilemma is that Trump's extreme measures to protect the homeland

could further complicate the fight against the Islamic State. At home, Trump's

expansive definition of radical Islam, his apparent belief that many American

Muslims harbor secret sympathies for the Islamic State, and his threats to

profile, register, and collectively punish entire communities, could poison

ongoing efforts to forge better relations between American Muslims and law

enforcement. Meanwhile, Trump's executive orders banning refugees and

immigrants casts the United States as deeply Islamophobic, making it much

less likely that Muslim-majority countries will step up their support for the

U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State overseas. This will be doubly true if

Trump follows through on other actions he has repeatedly pledged, including

resuming torture, expanding Guantánamo, and moving the U.S. embassy in

Israel to Jerusalem.

Third, Trump's approach to Europe and Russia — at least as he has outlined it

so far — is equally self-defeating and contradictory. Trump's warm embrace of

Putin; intimation that he will throw Ukraine (and potentially the Baltic states)

under the Russian bus and lift Ukraine-related sanctions on Moscow; repeated

trash-talking of NATO, the European Union, and committed Atlanticist leaders

such as Germany's Angela Merkel; and celebration of Brexit and European

populist movements will all drive a deep wedge between America and its most

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important democratic allies. These steps will also embolden Moscow's

attempts to divide and coerce its European neighbors, and incentivize

countries like Italy and Hungary, which are eager to get back to “business as

usual” with Moscow and lift sanctions against Russia. Meanwhile, although

Trump's threats to abandon U.S. allies might lead to greater European defense

spending in the short term, it will radically undercut the organic solidarity and

cohesion that make NATO so exceptional, and lead Washington's European

partners to consider whether the United States is a dependable partner after

all.

As problematic as these outcomes would be for European stability and

security — the preservation of which has been a fundamental objective of U.S.

policy since World War II — Trump might not find any of them particularly

objectionable on their own. But what he appears not to understand is that

weakening Europe will cut across his other policy objectives. Losing the

support of U.S. allies will make it harder for Trump to cut “good” deals with

Moscow: On issues from Ukraine to arms control to sanctions, the Kremlin will

take advantage of every opportunity to play the United States and its

estranged allies off one another. More broadly, the transatlantic alliance is the

primary vehicle through which the United States tackles nearly every world

problem, from the Islamic State to financial crises. Undercutting that alliance

will therefore make for a more dangerous world, and more onerous American

burdens of the sort Trump so often laments.

Fourth, Trump is likely to have difficulty

1 is likely to have difficulty taking taking punitive action against China

junitive action against China while while also contending with the growing
also contending with the growing threat from North Korea. Pyongyang
threat from North Korea. already has a fairly robust nuclear

arsenal, and according to news reports, it

could field test its first nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile in the

coming months. Two new U.N. Security Council resolutions passed last year

imposed unprecedented sanctions on Pyongyang, including a strict limit on

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coal exports. These represent the best hope for a nonmilitary solution to the

North Korean problem, but they will curb Pyongyang's programs only if China

faithfully implements them, something Beijing regularly holds at risk

depending on the tenor of the U.S.-China relationship. At times, Trump has

suggested that he intends to use economic leverage to pressure China to play

ball on North Korea. Most recently, in early January, Trump tweeted: “China

has been taking out massive amounts of money €: wealth from the U.S. in

totally one-sided trade, but won't help with North Korea. Nice!”

Yet, consistent with Trump's view that the main axis of U.S.-China conflict is

the zero-sum economic contest between Washington and Beijing, he seems

more likely to try to use geopolitical leverage to change China's economic

behavior. Trump has explained his threats to re-open the “One China policy,”

for example, as a negotiating tactic to force Chinese concessions on currency

and trade. The net result is likely to be a policy that is so antagonistic toward

China — an approach that puts Beijing's most important interests at risk, and

actively seeks to harm Chinas economic prospects — that it cannot generate

or sustain a working relationship to help address North Korea (or any other

global challenge). Trump's tendency to diss and dismiss America's key Asian

allies, Japan and South Korea, will further complicate his efforts to address the

North Korea threat.

Fifth, in a bid to supposedly help American workers by withdrawing from the

TPP (a pact creating a free-trade zone among a dozen countries representing

40 percent of global GDP), Trump is in fact helping China by ceding the

economic battlefield in Asia to Beijing. He is also undermining America's

geopolitical position in the world's most dynamic region. Seven of the 12 TPP

countries (Australia, Brunei, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, and

Vietnam), as well as eight other countries (Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos,

Myanmar, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand) are already in

negotiations with Beijing on a Regional Comprehensive Economic

Partnership. This partnership would promote trade with China, and offer new

opportunities for China to expand its political influence, without any ofthe

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requirements for economic liberalization or labor and environmental

protections built into the TPP.

Economists disagree about how much the TPP would or would not help the

U.S. economy. But what is indisputable is that the Asia-Pacific region views the

TPP as a bellwether of U.S. geopolitical commitment, and key states are likely

to make decisions on non-economic issues like the South China Sea based on

perceptions of retrenchment by the Trump administration. After all, ifthe

United States is willing to abandon them on the TPP after many years of

difficult negotiations, they may justifiably ask: What guarantee do they have

that a Trump administration will actually show up when a major security

threat emerges?

Finally, Trump's proposal to “build a wall” and somehow force Mexico to pay

for it (perhaps through a 20 percent border tax), his threat to deport millions of

illegal immigrants, and his pledge to renegotiate or even withdraw from the

North American Free Trade Agreement, could create a train wreck in the U.S.-

Mexico relationship — as evidenced by the abrupt cancellation of Mexican

President Enrique Peña Nieto's planned visit to Washington. A diplomatic

crisis with Mexico would deeply complicate cooperation on a host of issues,

including immigration, that are top priorities for Trump.

Since 2009, migration from Mexico itself has fallen dramatically. Nevertheless,

Mexico has served as a “land bridge” for tens of thousands of migrants from

other parts of Latin America seeking to make their way to the United States,

especially those fleeing poverty, corruption, and crime in Central America. In

recent years, Mexico has cooperated with the United States to address this

challenge by improving security along the Mexico-Guatemala border and

repatriating migrants back to their home countries before they reach the

United States. The Obama administration also worked with the U.S. Congress

to allocate nearly $1.5 billion since 2014 to address the economic, governance,

and violence-related drivers of Central American migration — and it will be

essential to partner with Mexico on these efforts if they are to succeed. Trump

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could put all this cooperation at risk with his shortsighted approach toward

Mexico. And if actions on trade that contribute to a free fall in Mexico's

economy compound Trump's approach, providing fresh incentives for

Mexicans to once again move north, the migration crisis will worsen even

further.

(Photo credit: DREW ANGERER/Getty Images)

No purpose without process

Every new president, of course, faces dilemmas to confront and strategic

contradictions to resolve. But what is remarkable about Trump's “America

First” grand strategy is the number, pervasiveness, and centrality of such

contradictions. In other words: Trump has consistently articulated a set of

basic grand strategic concepts, but the policy implications of those concepts

add up to a Gordian knot of conflicting initiatives.

This raises the question of why Trump's grand strategy is so tangled and

internally contradictory. And the answer has to do with the process — or

rather, the lack thereof — through which these ideas are born, as well as, shall

we say, the unique personality of the president himself.

It is hard to think of a presidential campaign, or a presidential transition, that

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has been more haphazard about translating ideas into a cohesive, practical,

and implementable body of policies. Trump's campaign had virtually no

foreign-policy apparatus to speak of — many of his senior advisors had little

foreign-policy experience and little contact with or influence on the candidate

himself. The Trump team produced no meaningful white papers during the

campaign — compared to those produced by Republican candidate Mitt

Romney's team in 2012, for instance — that undertook the task of turning

ideas into policy proposals and seeing how various themes might, or might

not, fit together.

The transition was similarly shambolic and disorganized. Even nominees for

top posts have apparently had few substantive conversations on issues such as

Russia or alliances with Trump, although Rex Tillerson, the president's pick

for secretary of state, has assured us that he has the president's phone number

should the need for such a conversation arise. Moreover, the mechanics of

transferring power from one presidential team to another — and thus the

mechanics of actually starting to grapple with the real world challenges and

contradictions of policy — were painfully slow to start moving. Add ina

candidate (now president) whose core ideas are strongly held but often poorly

considered, who likes bold proposals but disdains the nitty-gritty of turning

them into workable courses of action, and for whom intellectual coherence

does not seem to be a top priority, and you have a recipe for the grand strategic

contradictions we see in Trump's approach.

What all this means, in practical terms, is that the implementation phase of

Trump's grand strategy — the period in which the ideas upon which one

campaigns are translated into the day-to-day initiatives by which one governs

— is likely to be far messier than is normally the case. The Trump

administration will have to determine how to proceed on those issues — such

as Russia, Iran, alliance relations, trade, and homeland security — where key

advisors have staked out positions very different from those of the president.

More fundamentally, the Trump administration will have to determine how to

reconcile the president's various promises and impulses — and where those

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things cannot be reconciled, how to prioritize among them.

This could be good news for the country and the world. As the Trump team

realizes how intractable the contradictions are among the president's various

policy pronouncements, it may see the wisdom in backing off of some of the

more problematic or dangerous ones. And the fact that there are so many

profound disconnects between what Trump says and what is wise may create

space for the president's more sober advisors — such as James Mattis, John

Kelly, Rex Tillerson, and Nikki Haley — to shift policy and even influence the

president's thinking. We can hope that this is the scenario that ultimately

unfolds. But in the meantime, both the content and contradictions of Trump's

grand strategy make it seem likely that U.S. foreign policy and the

international order are in for a rough ride.

Top photo credit: ANDREW HARRER/Pool/Getty Images

Correction, Feb. 2, 2017: John Kelly is the secretary of homeland security and described as one af the

president's “more sober advisors.” A previous version of this article misstated his first name.

Colin H. Kahl is the inaugural Steven C. Hazy senior fellow at the Freeman

Spogli Institute for International Studies' Center for International Security and

Cooperation and a strategic consultant at the Penn-Biden Center for

Diplomacy and Global Engagement. From 2014 to 2017, he was deputy

assistant to President Barack Obama and national security advisor to Vice

President Joe Biden. (OColinKahl)

Hal Brands is the Henry A. Kissinger distinguished professor of global affairs

at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. He is

the author of several books, including Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S.

Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order and What Good Is

Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft From Harry S.

Truman to George W. Bush. He served as the special assistant to the secretary

of defense for strategic planning from 2015 to 2016. (4HalBrands1)

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Trump's Grand Strategic Train Wreck — Foreign Policy https: //foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/31/trumps-grand-strategic-train-wreck)

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