Is Trump really cutting back on the American war machine?Josh wrote:If anything, a lot of the #NeverTrump crowd on both the left and right is in a cold panic because Trump doesn't seem to be interested in continuing to promote and coddle the American war machine. I find it very disingenuous when supposed peace-loving Christians see fit to ally themselves with this crowd.
That's not the impression I get looking at his budget. Here's an overview from military.com.
And when I look at the writings of people like Max Boot and Peter Feaver, one of their main points is that Trump seems to care more about military power than diplomacy.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/22/tru ... oft-power/
Trump is singularly failing to “close the deal” for America abroad. Note that, while it’s within his power to unilaterally end supposedly “bad deals” like the Trans-Pacific Partnership or NAFTA, his promises to conclude “great deals” are utterly hollow. He hasn’t made any appreciable progress on any new trade negotiations, even the bilateral ones that he favors for mysterious reasons over multilateral (and hence more beneficial) accords. Nor, needless to say, has he had any success in renegotiating the Paris climate accord, which he (wrongly) claims is harmful to America. Trump has managed to convince the United Nations Security Council to toughen sanctions on North Korea, but only because Russia and China have no intention of enforcing the resolutions. He had no luck in selling his decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem or his desire to redo the Iran nuclear deal. Allies simply don’t want to help America, no matter how much Trump blusters and bluffs.
Trump is entirely focused on American hard power — military and economic might. What he doesn’t realize is that much of America’s success as a superpower has rested on our “soft power.” America is an empire by invitation: We have troops in more than 170 countries and military alliances with as many as 60 countries, because most other nations do not feel threatened by American power. Anti-Americanism is a fact of life, but the United States simply has not engendered the same kind of fear and loathing that less altruistic, more militaristic would-be hegemons have done — whether Habsburg Spain and Napoleonic France or Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Today, China and Russia, both illiberal great powers, have a few satraps but almost no real friends. They are regarded with suspicion and hostility by their neighbors.
