Richard Fernandez writes a column for PJ Media and blogs as wrechardthecat. Today he has an insight about Trump’s approach to foreign policy that I find useful and worth sharing with you.
Instead of invading hostile states with large ground forces, it has used a discontinuous series of actions to continuously nudge states in a preferred direction, rather like a tugboat pushing a ship rather than boarding it and seizing the helm.To use a construction industry metaphor, the Trump approach to regime change more closely resembles renovating and remodeling an old building rather than demolishing it and replacing it with a new structure.
We see this in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. We’ve tried nation-building and, since the World War II after-action clean-up ended, we haven’t been good at it. Trying something else makes perfect sense.
Think of the new approach as “post-Pottery Barn,” we don’t quite break it, and don’t end up owning it. It more nearly resembles the action of a muscular HOA, coercing a misbehaving homeowner to stop being a neighborhood nuisance.
