The "Strategic" Errors of American Leadership

As I watch the world unfolding as it should not, I am struck by several confounding realities.

First, if some tin pot despot in a tiny country in a distant hemisphere were to issue vacuous and erratic pronouncements about levelling or taking over a country that has pissed him off, or continued to malign democratic processes that brought him to power, or insulted well respected world leaders, most of the world would laugh him off as an aberrant and passing curiosity. However, if that despot represented a once powerful and revered nation state, the impact is the opposite; those actions are destructive beyond compare in their affect every corner of the globe in a profoundly negative way.

Exemplary nation states of all systems and sizes, act in their own self-interest, protecting their standing in the world community and operating as part of a world order that champion's stability for the mutual benefit of that order as well as the benefit and prosperity of their citizens. Nation states that act, through their leaders in the manner described above conduct their business of governing with a narrow modus operandi for the personal self-interest of the leader and his closest family and friends. These are the pariah states.

Secondly, even in pariah states, there is a coherence in their foreign policy. The narrowness of their personal interest compels them to direct their energies toward preserving the nation state, often through unchallenged repression, conducting their business with only a few like minded states.

In the case of the United States of America at this point in their history, a coherent foreign policy does not exist. The leader who swore to end all foreign wars has started a war he cannot win. Now he swears like a frustrated mafia boss at other leaders who dare to challenge his decisions or refuse to join in on his misadventures, charting their own path in their own interest (i.e. Oman, Israel, South Korea). He vacillates, by his direction, in the country's approach to solving problems from deadline to deadline, ignoring the considered advice of people more experienced and knowledgeable than him, relying instead on his hand picked band of sycophants whose positions, of power are without merit and only dependent on their leader's graces. 

In desperation what bubbles to the surface - but is quickly forgotten? It is more underhanded self-interested actions designed to enrich family and friends and put the world in future peril. By way of example, the self-interested motives behind the recent "deal" to permit the Saudi's access to nuclear technology (the family has made investments in nuclear fusion) has, in the confusion of a continuing war, handed the Iranian regime an incentive to protect their ability to develop and retain a nuclear weapon. This is the very opposite of what Trump says in public about his motives for conducting his war and is aside from the fact that earlier stated objectives (regime change for example) have disappeared from his narrative. This is a gross strategic error.

The incoherence extends to trade policy with the never ending issuance of tariffs on both adversaries and long time trade partners has upended a long established peace in mutually beneficial trade relationships. These shifts in trade policy not only harm his own citizens by adding to their daily costs for the goods and services that were once traded to their benefit, they establish a pattern of mistrust that will harm his country's relationships for years to come.

Recent trade negotiations with Canada are a dramatic case in point. A trade agreement negotiated to the benefit of both parties in many key industries, which has worked for several years in various forms, was not enough for an American administration led by real-estate agents and poorly chosen incompetents. The bully, bent upon a win-lose negotiating strategy, which worked in real-estate when he could bankrupt his suppliers and so-called business partners, has used the playbook again on much larger scale. 

In all these things, the normal conduct of diplomacy, business, occasional confrontation and above all, cooperative self-interest, are the outcomes of a coherent strategy, developed and deployed by intelligent leaders and their experienced teams.

Erratic and irrational decisions, focused upon we win, you lose, guided by a once powerful nation state, create relationships and a world destined for continued conflict and instability. The mistrust that results will take many years to correct.

These are the strategic errors of our time and Canada need not be sucked into a vortex of a nation-state in decline, and instead should focus upon charting our own difficult path forward.