Washington, DC. Political observers in the US are now questioning Trump’s ability to lead the USA in time of crisis. Accused of being internationally unsophisticated and who is still operating under a cloud of illegitimacy, is beginning to face his first real foreign crises.
What worries critics most is that Trump seems to have no coherent plan, at least not one that he is willing or able to communicate. “I don’t show my hand” isn’t a strategy to conceal a plan as much as one to conceal the absence of a plan. Trumps statements are all bluster and bungling and bosh. The commander in chief is demonstrably not in full command of his emotions, facts or geopolitics.
Americans may sometimes think that the absurdity of Trump’s endless stream of contradictions and lies ends at the nation’s borders, but it doesn’t. Putin is watching, and the world is full of dangerous men who see killing as a means of maintaining and exerting power. They see in Trump a novice and know-nothing who can not even control his own cabinet, let alone run his own nation.
“President” Trump has now exposed himself to the world as an imbecile and burned through American credibility with his incessant lying. Even many of America’s allies seem confused and worried about where they stand and how Trump plans to proceed.
Trump is full of pride, obsessed with strongman personas, and absent of historical and geopolitical perspective. This is the worst possible situation. The man who could bring us into military engagement with Vladimir Putin or North Korea is woefully deficient in intellectual engagement
This recent Trump sabre rattling seemed to signal the possibility of unilateral action of some kind, but his delivery is not clear. The Syrian and North Korean problems are complex and can’t be solved by a simpleton. Every action produces a reaction. Every lever you pull risks a life, or millions.
The problem is not about Trump’s ego. It is about whether this man’s ignorance and insecurities could haphazardly plunge the United States and indeed the world into armed conflict. America now has a TV game show host as the man in control of it’s nuclear arsenal, not a comforting thought as one goes to sleep on his watch.