I think this is what a lot of USians, including the pundit class, don’t get. It’s not that Trump is as steady as a willow branch in a windstorm. Trump 2 showed the world that the US electorate is fundamentally unreliable.
Replies
Speaking from next door, this is exactly right. We could excuse Trump 1 as an aberration. Trump 2 won the popular vote after being convicted, after rape, fraud, insurrection, the toilet papers, his inept covid response. But her emails, then but her laugh.
aug 19, 2025, 1:11 pm • 2 1 • view
By “if Trump is president,” I meant a minimum condition, not necessarily a sufficient one. Any commitment definitely wouldn’t be credible if this regime is in power. But even after, making commitments credible will be hard, since the world knows the US is only one election from potentially reneging.
aug 19, 2025, 1:16 pm • 6 1 • view
That's what I'm saying. Everyone knows that the US can make whatever commitments and arrangements and agreements, and within a short amount of time some new regime can come in and say forget it, we will threaten you into taking this new deal. I.e., Iranian deal. Or trade. Etc.
aug 19, 2025, 2:31 pm • 3 0 • view
Exactly. The one part of your post where I disagree is re: Bush/Cheney. Other countries, including some US allies, had serious issues with them. But it wasn't system upending. They stood with NATO and East Asian allies, had authorization from Congress for both Afghanistan and Iraq, etc.
aug 19, 2025, 2:34 pm • 3 0 • view
Maybe, just maybe, any international assumption that the US-forced destruction of the nation-state of Iraq and the flagrant use of torture was just some weird post-9/11 exception will look very different now in retrospect.
aug 19, 2025, 2:39 pm • 2 0 • view
Not as a "weird post-9/11 exception," but as something that could fit within the old world order. Serious hypocrisy, no question. But the stated goal was democracy, Saddam was a tyrant and international lawbreaker, a coalition supported it, the US never suggested annexation, and left as promised.
aug 19, 2025, 2:44 pm • 3 0 • view
It may not be the time, but having a stated goal that seems nice is not in any way a defense of a policy. No matter what the horror, countries can come out and declare that they have the most laudatory goals. No one is obligated to treat it seriously for even a single moment.
aug 19, 2025, 2:49 pm • 0 0 • view
I didn't defend the policy, I explained why US allies and other countries maintained their relationships with the US throughout the Bush administration, and made deals with subsequent US governments. They did not treat anything Bush did as global system-upending, and were correct in that.
aug 19, 2025, 2:51 pm • 2 0 • view
I would emphasize the strategic construction part of the post-9/11 moment. Allies chose to ignore the atrocities so that the decisions wouldn’t become system upending. They did it to save the system because it seemed possible and worth it. It’s reasonable to expect they no longer feel the same.
aug 19, 2025, 6:32 pm • 0 0 • view
Right. In other words, because Trump was in power, it will be harder. Or more precisely, it will be increasingly costly to make a credible commitment, assuming we’re willing to try anymore at all. And of course this goes beyond “just” security: any kind of cooperation will be costlier for the US.
aug 19, 2025, 1:56 pm • 2 0 • view