lucky horse Trump and Vance Are Stripping Away Foreign Policy Illusions

Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger remarked in 2018, “may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretenses.”

That general first-term comment might as well be marching orders for Trump’s second-term foreign policy. From policy and speeches to Friday’s blowup in the Oval Office with the president of Ukraine, everything Trump is doing and saying, and everything his vice president is saying and doing, is ruthlessly stripping away pretenses around the United States, its alliances and the situation in the world.

A pretense: The United States is capable of playing the hegemonic role it played 20 years ago, fully supporting democratic allies in every region, standing ready to fight wars across multiple theaters, refusing any compromise with authoritarianism. The reality: America is overstretched, a more multipolar world requires making deals with unpleasant regimes, and we need to recalibrate and retrench in ways that will require much more of our allies.

A pretense: Our European allies are strong nations and equal partners in protecting the security of the world. The reality: Europe has been badly misgoverned by its establishment, once-lionized figures like Angela Merkel above all. Its economic position is parlous,jiliace casino its demographic situation is miserable and its military capacities have atrophied, and most of the chest-thumping about a revival of European power is empty talk and fantasy politics.

A pretense: With enough military aid and moral support, the Ukrainians can roll back the Russians, secure their prewar borders and eventually join NATO. The reality: The war is stalemated, there is no path to Ukrainian victory short of a direct American intervention, some kind of negotiated settlement is inevitable, and NATO membership was never realistically in the cards.

Many of these realities have been understood by American policymakers in both parties for some time. It’s why Barack Obama sought a “pivot to Asia” and proceeded cautiously when Vladimir Putin seized Crimea. It’s why Joe Biden pulled out of Afghanistan. And it’s why the Biden team supported Ukraine but with limits, and why it was clashing with Volodymyr Zelensky behind the scenes even in the first year of war.

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His debunked claims about Haitian migrants stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets in Springfield, Ohio, helped stir a firestorm over immigration in that community, which has dealt with bomb threats and evacuations after Mr. Trump made his comments.

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