I never argued that Trump was an interventionist, or that he was Ron Paul. Lol.

This post was edited by IceMage on Dec 20 2017 11:30pm

I think the official document detailing the Trump foreign policy is a pretty concrete piece of evidence towards what Trump's foreign policy leanings are;
https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=4332188-Trump-s-National-Security-Strategy-Dec-2017
The last quarter in particular lays out priority actions for each region.

Its rather explicitly laying out the case for a non-hawkish, non-dovish pragmatic policy that's more protectionist than Obama's and economically focused. Which is of course everything Trump has stumped on

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-07/female-traffic-light-signals-melbourne-pedestrian-crossing/8330560

They got their priorities straight

Ok, so the world's going to hell in a "flowered" handbasket.

Less hawkish than previous presidents, but it's only been a year. Trump may accidentally(or intentionally) start the biggest conflict since WW2, and if that happens, his criticism of limited interventions in the past goes out the window completely. That's a big if, but like I said before, Trump hasn't had to deal with a Libyan or Syrian uprising yet.

Many of Trump's foreign policy moves seem to be half-measures, teetering between his ignorant ideological positions and the informed positions of his advisers. Syria strike was limited, more Afghanistan troops(but not enough to upset Laura Ingraham), punting the Iran deal to congress, approving the sale of smaller arms to Ukraine, etc.

His position on the Iran deal is a significant issue... leaving that agreement almost guarantees a future military conflict. He's cutting the State Department budget significantly, and undermining his SoS. No, you can't point to an instance of Trump intervening to prevent the slaughter of thousands of people yet, you can just look at moves he makes that years(or months) from now will cause conflict.

This post was edited by IceMage on Dec 21 2017 06:31am

His Syrian strike, his afghanistan troops, his punt on the iran deal, his sale of arms to ukraine, his cutting the SoS and failing to intervene in myanmar- how consistent would you consider these with his explicit policy vision laid out in the 'america first' national security strategy? You call it half-measures, but the middle road is precisely what he says he's aiming for. Under Trump's affirmed strategy, we aren't looking to get dragged into a war in somewhere like Syria, we aren't seeking to stir up trouble, but we aren't isolationist either and will continue a US presence that won't be an idle paper tiger when tested. Can you chalk up something like Trump leaving the Iran Deal intact as merely the product of ideological ignorance? For geopolitical considerations, the Iran Deal is a big gambit with a hefty price we've already payed, and we have good reason to leverage Iran against the Saudis for the decades to come. If Trump was some ignorant buffoon who just wanted to piss on every bed Obama's ever slept in, he would have torn up the Iran Deal overnight. So are we supposed to credit that to 'informed advisers'? Or perhaps he just made the very basic calculation you or I could.

If Trump says he's going to do {thing}, then does {thing}, then explicitly lays out a detailed strategy of {thing}, I think at some point its fair to believe he's really up to {thing}. Now maybe 8 years from now I'll be looking back criticizing how Trump was really violating his own Trump doctrine as he got dragged into unnecessary wars and got carried away playing humanitarian world police in the conflict in zimbabwe of 2022, like how Obama spent a year malleable, then forged the explicit Obama Doctrine of 'don't do stupid shit', then promptly went out and repeatedly did stupid shit. But at least I still credit Obama with his intent. I think we've got a pretty clear picture of Trump's intent at this point

If Trump and other countries, get their way with these immigration reforms, they won't need to be "hawkish". Starvation will do their conquering for them.
The middle east has spent most of it's history, tearing up their own countries. If they aren't allowed to immigrate and are forced to live in the countries they created, they will die out naturally, from starvation, mostly.

Best of all if through other countries immigration laws, they MUST remain where they are...they will HAVE to alter their ideology, to survive, which will, one day, bring them to more civilized ways of thinking.
There will be no room for a bunch of ideological tribes, fighting over that same ideology. They will have to cooperate which each other to survive.

No matter how you look at it...seriously toning down emigration from the countries that just can't seem to get along with the rest of the world, will tone down the need for hawkishness, in leaders.
The same is true for the communist types as well. Just force them to live where they already live, they will defeat themselves from within.


/e Short version: Seriously strict immigration laws will do the hawks work for them.

This post was edited by Ghot on Dec 21 2017 07:19am

holy mother of hackery. how can anyone look at trump's foreign policy and call undercutting the iran deal / escalating with nk / escalating the palestine conflict / contradicting and embarrassing his own state department / threatening UN members / flip-flopping on NATO, syria, china, troop deployments / isolating america on climate change, immigration, and the israel conflic... and claim some kind of "strategy" or "plan"? he is a clueless buffoon bumbling and stumbling through international diplomacy, ridiculing himself and the whole country in the process, and if he didn't happen to be the leader of the most powerful western nation, no one would even consider taking him seriously... people are scrambling to clean up and rationalise the mess he tends to leave behind, but it really takes a whole lot of ignorance (or hackery) to actually not see what's going on and how incompetent he is.

given how high of a % of your (fender aka heinrich von goebbels, descendant of joseph) posts in the last 2+ years are rage essays about Trump it seems you’ve taken him very seriously since before he was elected.