Political theorist Alex Gourevitch (Brown) posted these interesting remarks on Facebook, and kindly gave me permission to share them here; I'll permit comments, which will be moderated as usual for relevance and substance (submit only once, they may take awhile to appear). Herewith Professor Gourevitch:
So here are three facts about the Trump presidency, when it comes to foreign policy, that I think are worth thinking through.
First, in the history of the modern presidency - say FDR onward - he has been among those presidents most reluctant to use military force. There has been a lot - too much - attention to what he says, but not enough to what he does. There are very few American presidents who by their third year had not started a major war, dramatically escalated an existing one, or otherwise materially supported new, major conflicts in various countries. In terms of the actual use of force Trump is closest to Carter, Clinton first term, and Obama. And Carter and Obama were objectively constrained by Vietnam and Iraq/Afghanistan fallout respectively in ways that Trump is not, while Clinton was arguably more willing to send troops off in the first year (Somalia escalation, invasion of Haiti) than Trump has been during the equivalent period. There have been no new invasions of countries, no major increase in troop levels nor direct escalation of conflicts. If anything, Trump's tendency has so far been to de-escalate: threaten North Korea then walk it back and be the first President to set foot there, bomb an empty airport in Syria then move on, a half-hearted effort to stage a coup in Venezuela but again he just moves on, even Iran he calls of a strike and in the name of not wanting to kill Iranians! (Hard to imagine Hillary having said that had she been at the helm). He partially withdrew forces from Iraq more successfully than Obama. Yemen stands as a horrendous stain, but that has been more or less going along with the Obama policy he inherited, not some major escalation nor does it involve any major militarization of foreign policy generally. There is little evidence that Trump really has the stomach for a sustained, military engagement with significant casualties with anyone.
Second, the one place Trump has quite confidently sent troops - against the grumblings of the military itself - has been the border. The militarization of the border, not just the family separation stuff but the actual deployment of forces, has been, while not some radical departure from the past, a clear escalation. And there are the promised interior raids as well. He has pursued that project of militarizing the border and policing immigration with far more focus and consistency than any kind of foreign adventurism. Where the foreign affairs stuff has involved crazy tweets, full of bluster, without much follow through - to the clear frustration of the foreign policy establishment including his own neocon/warmonger advisors like Bolton and Pompeo - the control over borders has been a much more seriously pursued goal as a practical matter, not just as a matter of rhetoric.
Third, the first two facts are, I think, best understood in light of the third: Trump's use of the tariffs. The main criticism of Trump's tariffs and trade wars has been economic. But that misses the degree to which they are not just an instrument of economic policy but his most favored tool for conducting foreign policy. Bully people with American economic might and tariffs on the ground that you can eventually get them to do what you want by cowing them into economic submission. Trump is far more comfortable with that kind of 'diplomacy' and certainly the use of economic force than military force.
If you put together (i) the retreat from direct uses of force, (ii) militarization of borders, and (iii) more overt use of tariffs you get something of a strange result. It looks like a retreat from American hegemony and a kind of return to a muted form inter-imperial rivalry. Trump makes America 'great' by retreating to American borders. It's all partial and limited, of course. And things could change - he could end getting drawn into military conflict with Iran, for instance. Though even there, it looks more like Bolton/Pompeo trying to draw him in than his own sense of imperial purpose or identification with American hegemony. Anyhow, the point is, it seems to me we've been through a long enough period of the Trump presidency for this to be a significant shift that needs to be understood. Especially since all the alarm over the past few years has been about him getting us into nuclear war with North Korea, overthrowing Maduro, invading Iran, and generally being utterly out of control. This is, on the foreign policy front, one of the most restrained presidencies we've had in quite a long time when it comes to major and even minor uses of force. I don't think that is accidentally related to the turn to trade wars and militarizing the border.
Why Trump has taken this approach is yet another question, perhaps explained in part by his own (cowardly) psychology and in further part by the fact that he is not a product of the major parties. He comes from outside the party system itself, isn't beholden to its bipartisan foreign policy establishment, and has an intuitive connection to a kind of anti-war mentality among some of the right-wing voters in his base. He hasn't been marinating in the institutions of American hegemony, has no spontaneous identification with American imperialism and no developed sense of its purposes and the need to preserve that global dominance. His relation to the military seems to be more as a showpiece, to spend lots of money on and have parades. But anyhow, the point is, that explanation is a separate question from just trying to understand and recognize the interconnection between trade, border, and military policy.
