As the Washington Times notes, by passing the tax reform bill today both houses of Congress have achieved a trifecta: “In one bill, Republicans said they were checking off three major parts of their agenda: The massive tax overhaul is coupled with a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate and authority to drill for oil in a remote Alaska refuge.”
The success at last of a major Trump-Republican campaign promise and the swift defeat of ISIS have produced a turnaround in part of the Never Trump wing of the Republican party: Ross Douthat at the New York Times, Conrad Black at the National Review, and several others noted today by Breitbart.
But not the Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin, who is eviscerated by Powerline along with her defender David Frum.
Whither after the National Security Strategy?
The National Security Strategy (NSS) outlined by President Trump has drawn expected criticism from strategic rivals such as Russia, whose English-language loudspeaker, RT, headlined its commentary “Trump’s ‘Orwellian’ strategy speech: Triumph of the neocons?” and seemed especially unhappy with the President’s pledge to “maintain global supremacy while defending America at home. Many observers noted disconcerting echoes of neoconservative policies Trump himself once criticized.”
The Chinese preferred to focus on promise of their own foreign and military expansions. According to a spokesperson in the Foreign Ministry “No-one and no country can stop the Chinese people from unwaveringly continuing following the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and reaping greater achievements.”
A senior fellow at the Cato Institute isn’t very happy with the NSS either, describing it as “Literally and Seriously Awful” — certainly an unusual epithet. He writes:
“Sadly, Trump’s 2017 National Security Strategy contains not only the worst elements from the past, namely the pursuit of primacy and a commitment to an endless war on terrorism, but also charts new territory by embracing a new nationalism that unnecessarily elevates immigration to a national security threat and retreats from the post-World War II commitment to free trade….
“Because we have no clear national objective, our foreign policy has been reduced to preventing our own loss of power on a world in which others have positive national objectives….
“Since 9/11 we have been constantly reminded to walk fearfully. Our better judgment has been corrupted into supporting a whack-a-mole reaction to inflated “threats,” while the values that made the United States respected, and legitimated its military and economic dominance have fallen into disuse. Excessive reliance on military force and interventions abroad to spread U.S. values, rather than to protect the country’s national security, have mired the United States in its longest war and failed either to inspire or intimidate.”
Another whack-a-mole complainant
A woman playing Whackamole
Monica Duffy Toft, a political scientist at Tufts University, has a similar analysis:
“There has been excessive reliance on military force and interventions abroad to spread U.S. values rather than an effort to protect the country’s national security.
“Can U.S. foreign policy be rationalized so that it advances a positive and sustainable national objective? This is a critical question, but sadly it is a question that has escaped historically-informed analytical scrutiny and debate for decades.
“Instead, over the span of four administrations, we have seen U.S. foreign policy reduced to excessively militarized “reactionism,” which is essentially a game of international whack-a-mole that relies too early and too heavily on the use of military force as compared to other tools of statecraft.”
Keith B. Payne’s warnings
Keith B. Payne is arguably the nation’s leading nuclear strategist. His focus is on deterrence, which is more challenging today but also more urgent. Implicitly this is where he would have the US defense effort focused, not on deploying troops hither and yon to Whackamole. His essays — recommended reading both — are here and here.
Click here to go to yesterday’s Founders Broadsheet (“Who leads the West, Trump or Merkel? He has a historic tax victory. She can’t form a government”)
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