Trump Needs Foreign Policy

Editorial

Domestic Politics,

Trump has not explained his views in sufficient detail on American foreign policy. The clock is ticking. 

Donald Trump has excited many voters with his challenge to the status quo. For Americans increasingly accustomed to—and frustrated by—their leaders’ politically-correct and clichéd foreign policy declarations, he appeared both courageous and pragmatic, especially in comparison with Hillary Clinton’s ritualistic repetition of establishment dogmas.

Yet Trump has also been simplistic and cavalier. As his first debate with Clinton approaches on September 26, Trump has considerable work to do in refining, elaborating and disciplining his message on foreign policy. This may be essential in persuading a majority of voters that Trump is suited to serve as the leader of the free world. The clock is ticking.

In his sweeping primary victory and competitive race against the former Secretary of State and First Lady, Trump has demonstrated that the neoconservatives who have dominated intellectual discourse in the Republican Party—by arguing that Republicans won’t support other foreign policy approaches—are in fact a paper tiger, of little interest to those outside the Washington Beltway. Many neoconservatives have simultaneously demonstrated their tenuous commitment to the conservative and Republican principles in their support for the Democratic candidate.

Trump has asked hard questions about the costs and tradeoffs of military interventionism, even at the risk of re-litigating his own party’s record on the Iraq War. He does not subscribe to the naive and reckless Washington orthodoxy on democracy promotion abroad. And he has raised tough questions about what the United States should expect from its allies, many of which are not contributing their fair share financially or militarily to our common defense. Trump seems to want to provoke a genuine debate about NATO’s mission, including whether moving NATO closer and closer to Moscow and St. Petersburg contributed to U.S. national security or triggered new tension in Europe, something our foreign policy establishment has avoided for over two decades.