Is Trump really the anti-aggressor some voted him in for?

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One of the reasons why people voted in Trump becuase they viewed Hillary as hawkish and also previous administrations.

Especially his stance on Putin, I think people were assuming this was a general principle being followed, but apparently not.

Was this a miscalculation on their part?

Given he has not even taken office yet, he is determine to ruffle feathers in the Middle East and China. I think his tenure will be marked by foreign relations gaffes.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 17 Dec 2016, 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"Make America Great Again" was a Regan slogan. Ironically the guy the supported improved relations with china, and the economic reforms.

Safer to have the US and Russia on the same side rather than Russia and China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_o ... _relations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_split

China has had reasonably good relations with the US since the 80s, I fail to get your point. Russia is actually a lot weaker militarily than China.

Because the US has been afraid to upset China. Russia + US = China worried.

You say that like it is a good thing. China has the largest navy and army.

US doesn't need Russian military support against China, it wouldn't make a differnce.

You realise that Trump want his ambassador to Israel to be pro-settlement and also move the US Embassy to Jerusalem?

https://news.google.com/news/story?ncl= ... YQqgIIIjAA

You so keen on him now?

So it's best to let China and Russia team up and place troops against Russian borders and keep threatening them? And just hope that China stays out of it?

Some of Trump's picks have been accused of being anti-Semitic and some of have spoke against settlements in the past. I didn't say I was ever keen on Trump he's just a billion times better than Clinton and can end the conflict in Syria.

I'm still reeling from his secretary of state pick - ie. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon. That's some garish neoconservatism.

I always take a gander at who they surround themselves with and who will be advising them, Clinton has a record and history we can analyze, Trump only has what he claims he wants to do, many of his picks so far are questionable in different areas, we'll have to see how he reacts, adjusts and approaches situations as they continue or unfold. At any rate, he was a better choice than the slimy neocon wet dream Rubio who would have gained a lot of momentum without his involvement in the race, his slogan was quite funny ''A new american century'' which quite clearly harks back to the think tank 'Project for the new american century' where they had some quite fascinating aggressive opinions on america's grasp on the planet, which went on to being imposed after that complex period of history, several members of that think tank went on to serve in Bush Jr's merry administration.

Why? Just because he was an oil executive? Tillerson seems like thee guy to implement 'the Trump doctrine', he's worked with and had good relations with leaders all over the world. 'The Trump doctrine' is not one of interventionism and regime change, we will most definitely destroy ISIS and we will do it with Russia's help. Tillerson was somebody that opposed putting sanctions on Russia over Crimea, I think people that actually understand the situation in Ukraine would agree so that's worth a few points all by itself. I think Tillerson will do the job much better than another politician that was owed the position and is trying to springboard into even higher office. Mitt Romney or heaven forbid John Bolton would of been the triumphs the neoconservatives were looking for.

I've read a number of people bring up that Trump is naming to many generals to his administration and the worry some might have over that, I think people have a stereotyped view of the military of being overly gung ho when it is usually our servicemen and women who have the most restraint when it comes to matters of war as they know it's implications. The military is the most trusted institution in the America, maybe the only trusted one at the moment and I do not fear their hand nearly as much as I do the politicians or big business or the special interests. Something else Trump has done has been to call out the MIC on the price gouging, we're spending billions and billions and for what? I am happy for the departure from decorum.

The reality is that ISIS and whatever residual jihadist movement that comes after needs to be wiped from this planet, we cannot do this in the midst of supporting sectarian civil wars or 'protest movements' where a bunch of college students with English signs swarm a CNN camera. We need stability and containment of the extremist threat, we cannot force liberal western democracy and Enlightenment ideals on people that do not accept those values so the idealism about what the middle east should look like needs to stop. It cannot be recreated in our image and they don't want to be, so what the west must do is be realistic about the situation and what serves our best interest. The Obama administration has distanced itself from the military backed President al-Sisi in Egypt from removing the Muslim Brotherhood from power before they were able to turn Egypt into a theocratic state like Iran, Egypt has long been the cog of US middle eastern foreign policy so Trump bringing Sisi back into the fold is desperately needed. Egypt has become much closer with Saudi Arabia and Russia in our absence, our idealism is getting in the way of practical thinking.

I am not worried about Trump's policy with China, I think they are obviously more intelligent than our MSM gives them credit for and do not react to rhetoric the same way they do. I think the Taiwan stuff is leverage, I think it shows that Trump is actually serious about changing the exploitative relationship China has with us. North Korea is an issue and China is the only one that can deal with them, I think you're probably going to see a remilitarization of Japan. The Philippines seem to be quickly falling out of US orbit but I have hope that Trump can smooth things over with President Duterte, I think Vietnam could also become a player in these east Asian problems as well.

You worry about Iran and I don't know how things will go, I would hope that having a better relationship with Russia would mean better relations with Iran but that will have to be seen. I think it's a relationship that needs baby steps to be regrown, token gestures of respect and hopefully a face to face meeting with Trump. There are a lot anti-Iranian interests at play however with the Israelis, Gulf Arabs, and Turks all wanting to curb their influence. I think the Iranians could and should be worked with as well, if we can work with the Saudis then why can't we work with the Iranians?

While I probably shouldn't bash things like that too quickly, even if he were the most convivial guy in the world it puts us in a place where it clearly looks like Secretary of State is functioning as Oil Procurement Department and a lot of our neoconservative/neoliberal policies have centered around energy in that regard.

I suppose it's not impossible that he could function soberly and effectively as a person in the particular role, any direct implications of his position on who he is for me at least is theoretical rather than proven and I will of course give him a chance before saying anything more critical about the guy. Still Secretary of State and Oil CEO is still a conceptually creepy upfront pairing and it does send up some pretty big smoke signals.

Another thing - foreign policy in the middle east is so complex, especially bringing in China and Russia and their orientations to Iran and Syria, that it seems like almost any particularly good or bad decision will only be known with 20/20 hindsight. For what it's worth I feel really bad for anyone who has to try to attempt wrangling out the most responsible policy. While on one side I think us working with China and Russia for common ground would be helpful - Russia reabsorbing old satellite states could go badly, that would probably take the whole west standing up to them rather than the US, and for the kind of hellhole that Syria's degenerated into we'd be best off arguing that Assad should be ousted and replaced with someone who can craft a China/Russia/US win-win scenario while working to democratize the country (within limits to keep that from going too illiberal).

There is no time or money to be spent on 'democratizing' countries, that is the interests of the neoconservatives and one we've seen be nothing but an abject failure. Trump is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't with his critics, either they're too inexperienced or too connected so the never ending tirade continues. It's a real oversimplification to sum these wars up as all being about oil, if it really were all about that then the job would of been really easy to complete in comparison to what it actually has taken. Trump is right that we'd be better off if we had simply just took the oil but instead we use it as a scapegoat, ideology has far too often guided our foreign policy.

I think Tillerson will do a fine job, he is experienced as an executive in one of the world's most powerful companies and maintains relations with many heads of state while operating as someone outside of government. Trump sold his administration on being the real deal, 'the killers' who will use their talent to negotiate on our behalf. I think a lot of people are conditioned to have this knee jerk reaction to anything oil particularly ExxonMobil, that it clouds their thinking when dealing with the subject but the reality is that oil is something that is going to a part of this earthly equation for the rest of our lives like it or not and the 'greens' just have to deal.

I cannot see a downside to normalizing relations with Russia, they are not a threat to the US and the better relation we have with them the more influence we have over them. I think a reset of relations with PR China is in order as well, I think it is time that they become more involved in world affairs especially when it comes combating international terrorism and reigning in their nuclear armed satellite state, the relationship we have right now is exploitative both ways and I think both sides think things can be better.

The thing that sucks is we have a leader who the people of that country have been fighting to remove, failing abjectly with significant aid of Russia to keep Assad propped up. They'd need to figure out how to diffuse that one because it hurts every day not just for Syria itself and its neighboring regions but it's also a significant driver of the refugee crisis and Europe getting overrun with refugees by way of places like Lesbos.

I generally don't favor us playing nation-building games either but we've gotta figure out if there's any way that the standoff can be resolved aside from US, China, and Russia getting goaded into some type of WW3 scenario. I'm not sure if I want to say much more than that aside from perhaps open up a side discussion here perhaps - ie. what do you think Putin is trying to do with specifically backing Assad and do you think Assad himself is a necessity or just someone aligned with Russian interests? I'd really worry if it's the former because it would signal that the current chaos is actually their aim rather than just an incidental cost.

Whether its a democracy or a much more liberal dictator - something has to give in Syria.



It's probably best that they tune that criticism out as much as they can and focus on workable solutions. Our country is a bit basketcase right now and they can probably write off a fair amount of it to the current climate.


I think we really have the view, particularly on the neoconservative level (and I agree with them up to this point) that if there's chaos and ideological fascism in the middle east it demonstrates repeatedly that it will spill out over here and in Europe even more so. Really any time this kind of activity is going on over there it has a cost to us. If we intervene then we've historically wanted to at least get partial reimbursement for our efforts, in Iraq we wanted to work that out in terms of oil.

People can argue how much of it is our desire to stabilize the region to lower national security threats and how much of it is about oil, or if someone wants to down the Noam Chomsky rabbit hole how much they want to try interpreting as western imperialism. For as much as I don't think we want it to be ideologically about oil, we're somewhat forced to admit that without it our economies would collapse so it's closer to a grim necessity than a fetish.


I won't deny the possibility that he could do a good job, I won't even deny that within the five or six square mile whorehouse that is Washington DC he's literally the best choice that could have been made in comparison to the alternatives. What I would say is it's damn inconvenient that he comes with that label; that could be circumvented if he behaves with broader interests but it'll compound the penalty if he doesn't.


I think we'll have to play a much more active game of chess with them and be political frenemies. Putin's clearly a gangster though and while we'll really want to work with him to try and diffuse the situation in the middle east we can't tolerate it if he decides to make a run on Eastern Europe and we'll want to do a lot to try and manage his motivations to keep him away from attempts to reuptake the satellite states.


Truthfully I don't know enough about Xi Jinping and his administration to have a grasp on what kinds of carrots or sticks we can put in play to get them to be a more philanthropic actor on the world stage. I do think if they can do one thing it would be to use their activities in Africa as a place from which to make the spread of political Islam through the African continent more difficult and do so through their infrastructure building and also through aiding basic education where they can.