It’s Trump’s Messy, Dangerous World Now

Opinion|It’s Trump’s Messy, Dangerous World Now

We live in an increasingly dangerous and threatening world. There are more flashpoints in today’s global geopolitics than we have seen in decades, presenting a generational challenge to the incoming administration of Donald Trump and all of America’s elected leadership.

At the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, I tell students that in our democracy, we govern either by leadership or by crisis. If leadership is there and willing to take the risks associated with responsibility, we can avoid, or certainly contain, crisis. But if leadership is absent, we will inevitably govern by crisis. The same is true when it comes to foreign policy.

As President-elect Trump is about to be inaugurated for his second term, a fundamental question being asked around the world is whether he will repeat the unpredictable and chaotic approach to foreign policy that defined his first term or embrace the idea that he stressed repeatedly during his campaign of “peace through strength.”

President-elect Trump cannot adopt that foreign policy concept, which holds that a strong military can prevent conflict, without also embracing the definition that President Ronald Reagan so eloquently gave it in his speech marking the 40th anniversary of the Normandy invasion. “We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars,” said Mr. Reagan, who made the idea famous. “It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost.” He also made clear that “the strength of America’s allies is vital to the United States.”

The world that awaits Mr. Trump is far different from and more threatening than what he had to confront in his first four years. Autocrats that once operated in their own spheres of influence have now joined together in an axis of mutual support and aggression: Vladimir Putin of Russia is not just a temperamental bully but also a tyrant who invaded the sovereign democracy of Ukraine and continues to threaten democracies in the West; Xi Jinping of China has made clear that he is prepared for a potential Taiwan invasion and wants to compete with the United States as a leading military power; Kim Jong Un of North Korea is not just threatening democracy in South Korea but has also sent drones and thousands of troops to Russia to fight Ukrainians; Iran, weakened by Israel, continues to enrich uranium and is ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon; and ISIS has once again raised its ugly head by inspiring a “lone wolf” attack in New Orleans.

Mr. Trump has always prided himself on being a dealmaker, pledging in his campaign that he would resolve such conflicts in the first few days of his presidency. But precisely because it is a more dangerous world, that’s unlikely to happen. And if he tries and fails, the United States will appear weak. There is concern that Mr. Trump may have already started off badly by threatening Greenland, the Panama Canal Zone and Canada. Those are the kind of careless and disruptive comments that only undermine American credibility when it comes to dealing with real-world crises.