Trump’s second term could bring chaos around the world. Will it work?

CNN
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It can be terrible and redefine the world order. Or there is an overwhelming bluster about the content. But US President-elect Donald Trump’s second term will certainly be disruptive. And even the strongest American isolationism—the greatest level of doing little—is likely to herald significant change.

We really know shockingly little about Trump’s foreign policy. He says he likes it that way. We know he is against wars that drag America along. He seems to like dictators, or at least strongmen. He likes business that he considers good and destroys what he considers bad. He doesn’t like American allies who he believes are taking advantage of him. He doesn’t believe in global warming. His first term in office marked a man who always wanted to be at the center of every issue.

But the president-elect is also unique in that he has had little time to articulate his foreign policy positions. Remember the horror George W. Bush felt when he couldn’t mention the name of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in a 1999 campaign interview? You would never ask Trump a “gotcha” question like that.

The mainstream media is arguing about how they got this election so wrong. A similar approach to assessing Trump’s likely foreign policy is perhaps appropriate. To be clear, Trump is not inheriting a world of peace in which America’s undeniable role as a beacon of freedom and moral superiority has ensured lasting calm.

The incumbent Biden administration leaves behind a series of global crises that are at best unresolved – at worst, raging. The current White House may have done the best it could under dire circumstances. But is it possible that disruption could be fruitful? Could a chaotic rethinking work? Even though there is a risk that we are approaching a new government, let us develop this idea further for a moment.

Trump’s first term was relatively uneventful compared to the four years that followed. The End of ISIS; immigration bans and strange insults; Withdrawal from the Iran deal and conclusion of a new agreement with the Taliban; allow Turkey to invade northern Syria; and all this strange coziness with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Biden’s term included a comparable deluge: the sudden but inevitable collapse of America’s longest war in Afghanistan; the Russian invasion of Ukraine; and then October 7th in Israel, then the spiral from Gaza, Iran and Lebanon. Trump may have started some of this, but Biden undoubtedly had the busier side.

Did Trump have an impact on his quiet first term? If you’re looking for a bright spot in 2017 to 2021 – where erratic, angry gestures may have paid off – the assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 is a glaring example of this. I remember the news that Soleimani – not only the commander of the Quds Force in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, but at the time the region’s most important military figure – had been killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad.

Even a US official involved in the operation expressed surprise to me at the boldness of this move. It felt as if the region’s wheels could fall apart if Iran fell to its knees to retaliate. But in the end, remarkably little happened. And the limits of Iranian power – reinforced by Iran’s years-long role fighting Syrian rebels and then ISIS – became clear. The US could suddenly kill Iran’s most prominent commander at any time and without much backlash.

Did this lead to Iran supporting more and more proxies who slowly plunged the region into the post-October 7 crises? Possibly. Or did the attack simply limit Iranian ambitions? We’ll never know; But it was the first of many occasions in the years to come when Iran appeared weak.

Trump’s clear alliance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to benefit the Israeli incumbent. But the president-elect’s broader instincts could limit Israel’s options. Israel’s endless funding and weaponization of its many conflicts is at odds with Trump’s broader goal of reducing U.S. global engagement.

He may also be aware of the damage his support for the Gaza war did to Democrats in the election he won. Netanyahu must surely have completed much of his regional to-do list after the horrific attacks on Lebanon and Gaza and may find his victorious US counterpart less willing to support him in new attacks.

The ongoing war of attrition with Iran requires urgent attention. Nevertheless, Tehran has now learned that Trump is someone who is willing to be extremely careless and not afraid of international norms. If Iran pursues a nuclear weapon, it will face a very strong response from the United States. Trump could also forestall this Iranian decision by attacking Iran with Israeli support. As President Joe Biden – who did everything he could to avoid war with Iran – leaves power, Iran looks incredibly weak. Tehran now has to contend with a U.S. president it says it tried to kill and who – four years ago, when Iran was more powerful than it is today – showed he was not afraid of war with them.

Trump’s mix of unpredictability and pride could have the biggest impact on China, whose leader Xi Jinping congratulated him on his victory while warning that the U.S. would lose in confrontation and win in cooperation. A damaging tariff war can be avoided through agreements. But most of all, China must contend with the heady mix of a U.S. president who would deeply resent having to fight to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion, but who would probably also dislike being labeled weak, if he were to back out of such a fight.

Beijing must have frustratingly few signals with which to probe about the intentions of such a singular and irrational decision-maker, and therefore struggle to know when and whether a potential move toward Taiwan will encounter the U.S. soldiers on the ground promised by Biden would.

The earliest and riskiest decision Trump will face concerns continued U.S. support for Ukraine. Any agreement will likely involve Kiev accepting territorial concessions and a pause in fighting that allows Moscow to regroup. This alone will prove extremely dangerous for European security.

But in the current situation where we are at war, Ukraine also needs time to regroup and rearm. It may be losing territory at the fastest rate since the invasion and would immediately benefit if the fronts were frozen. It also finds itself at the sharp, bleeding end of Biden’s biggest foreign policy paradox: Give Kiev enough support not to lose, but not enough to let it defeat Russia. One day, Ukraine will eventually run out of combat-ready troops.

President Volodymyr Zelensky knew that the day would come when the idea of ​​another “forever war” would become unattractive to NATO and the world’s largest military alliance would eventually try to end its involvement. Everything Trump has said suggests he wants the same exit very soon.

Trump’s grotesque and incomprehensible fondness for Putin makes the details of any agreement extremely dangerous for Europe and the NATO alliance created to confront Russia. But it is a moment that, had there not been a Russian uprising or collapse, Ukraine would have arrived at some point anyway. Will Moscow accept a better deal with a US president who has been less confrontational and personally abusive towards Putin? Is there a risk for Putin that Trump will take further offense personally if the same deal is later betrayed and their agreement is exposed as a fraud?

The answers to these questions are currently unknown. But it would be naive to think that they are necessarily a good sign for Kiev.

But Trump’s rise has not brought with it any new global crises and problems. Rather, it means that the United States and its allies must be prepared to address the same problems with different focuses, means, and priorities.

This could prove disastrous for the current world order and Western democracies as a whole. Or it forces tired societies and alliances to embrace a new spirit of enlightened compromise and passionate defense.