Glenn Diesen has conducted a highly interesting discussion with Nicolai Petro on what Petro calls The Trump Doctrine. We have featured Petro once in the past—all the way back in December 2023—and I highly recommend a reread of that substack, because Petro’s views have withstood the test of time quite well:
Obviously, Petro at that time was speaking a full year before Trump’s return to the White House. Now he has written a brief article six months into the Trump 2.0 regime, and that brief article, The Trump Doctrine, serves as the launch point for a forty minute discussion with Diesen:
Nicolai N. Petro is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island, in the United States. He also served as the US State Department's special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union under President George HW Bush.
I’ve prepared a part transcript that begins somewhere in the vicinity of the 15 minute mark. I disagree strongly with a number of views that Petro expresses, but agree with much of his core argument.
The first two paragraphs are an area in which I largely disagree with Petro. Petro maintains that Trump’s attack on Iran was simply war theater to gin up political support for the BBB. Whatever we think about the timing, I think these paragraphs indicate a major flaw in Petro’s thinking. He fails to understand that the Anglo-Zionist Empire—of which America is the motive force—is facing a fiscal crisis. The power of this Empire ultimately rests on King Dollar’s hegemony, which has fueled domestic political profligacy. That fiscal crisis must be overcome through foreign policy—domestic austerity cannot by itself fend off default. Thus, domestic US politics cannot be separated from the struggle to maintain Anglo-Zionist imperial hegemony—indeed, domestic policy is very largel subordinate to the imperial project.
The irony in this is that few Americans view their country as an Empire—let alone as an oppressor of others. Nor do they truly understand the magnitude of the financial crisis that Empire has brought on. Most Trump voters undoubtedly thought of MAGA as being a move to return to a simpler national existence based on self sufficiency. Trump understands that the vision is unrealizable. He needs the support of simple believers from a political standpoint, but he also knows that the solution is to put the Empire on an explicitly imperial financial basis—by extracting tribute from the outlying provinces of the Empire. This is exactly why Trump has been focused almost exclusively on foreign policy, only interfering in domestic matters when necessary to keep his base support energized. The war on BRICS is a war to maintain King Dollar’s hegemony, and the importance of the Big Beautiful Bill in the big picture is the massive defense portion of the budget. That was underscored by the military trappings that accompanied the signing of … a budget bill? Where else in the world could that happen?
NP: But, with respect to foreign policy, I think Trump's vision of America First is one that secures what he defines as America's best interests. It could be increasing our military alliances with certain countries. It could be reducing them. It is definitely using economic leverage as a weapon--something that the West has long accused Russia of doing, but no one does it as blatantly as the United States. And among American presidents who have always used this power, no one has done so more than Trump, more blatantly than Trump. So this is in the pursuit of whatever again as I see it tactical advantage there is to be achieved--particularly for Trump in the domestic arena. So it's very telling that the Iran war had to be ended before the discussion of the budget began in the Senate and the House. That had to be the sequence, because if it couldn't be ended before the domestic agenda--which is more important to him--overtook and overshadowed everything else, it couldn't have been pursued. I mean, that's the way I understand it. And that's the way I see the quick ending for the modest strike--it's important that it yields for the president a political benefit that lasts weeks. It doesn't need to be real. It doesn't need to actually show that the Iranian nuclear weapons program has been demolished as he claims. This will probably be revised many times in the future. But from his perspective, it has to last and provide him a significant political boost in his battle currently to achieve his budget, which is overshadowing everything else.
And which is one reason why we're not going to have any bombings in the next--well, probably this month. As long as the budget is still being negotiated and reconciled between the two houses of Congress and until that final decision, we are in for a relatively peaceful US foreign policy. With just, you know, proclamations as to why we have won and why whatever we did was successful. And this will be be backed up by Trump loyalists, and that's it. It's all showmanship. So for the future it leaves the United States, again, without any real doctrine.
Here we get to what I see as the kernel of Petro’s thinking. Petro argues that since the end of WW2 America has been dominated by a foreign policy that is expressed in terms of “liberal internationalism.” However, while liberal internationalism claims to respect international organizations and cooperation, that is mostly propaganda. The reality is that liberal internationalism is the velvet glove, as it were, that covers the iron fist of American will to power. He doesn’t mention that constant regime change operations over those decades, but that’s the reality—the further reality being that liberal internationalism, despite its claims to the contrary, has been the vehicle for the destruction of international law. Indeed, the idea of a Rules Based Order has superseded International Law throughout the West—not unlike the way that liberal jurisdprudence has replaced the idea of a constitutional order based in a written document with the idea of a “living” constitution. In each case, reasonable analysis of reality is replaced by the will to power of a ruling elite.
Now, we used to have a doctrine. There is a liberal doctrine--the Biden doctrine, the Obama, before that various democratic presidents going back to Clinton. Despite their differences, they all agreed that there was a liberal world order that the United States had a vested interest in expanding and promoting. And it did so through propaganda, through soft power of its cultural benefits, the benefits of trade and capitalism, globalization. And it did so militarily through alliances which occasionally needed to be backed up by the use of limited force--in coalition with other members of the West--to assert some abstract principle of international politics which was clearly in the interests of the United States. But not backed by international law. As we know, in hindsight, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, probably much of the war on terror which was conducted illegally, and now the war in Iran, and the bombing of Yugoslavia--despite these individual activities, they were always justified from the perspective of international law. Nowadays, the rhetoric has changed, so that the Trump administration argues that we're not really that concerned about international law. We're not even sure it's worth the paper it's written on. What is, however, crucial is American power--and we need to exercise that power in order to remind other nations of their obligations to uphold the order that American power has created. The content of this world order is really nothing beyond Western dominance and a world order favorable to the United States, first and foremost, and to those allies that the United States considers loyal. There's nothing else. There's no international law beyond that, or any international order hoped for beyond that.
In other words, Trump has simply ripped the mask of American benignity away to reveal the raw will to power:
If I were to bet, I would say that that's where we are right now. It's the revelation of the harsher side of what was always American foreign policy, at least clearly since the end of World War II. That has been disguised in liberal rhetoric. It is likely to continue--disguising [that reality] in liberal rhetoric is something that will probably return after the Trump era.
Next, Diesen interjects to express Trump’s rationale for his actions—that the US had been played for a sucker by the rest of the world and now it was time to get ours back. Tariff Shock and Awe is the most obvious example. Diesen appears to see this as a type of America going-it-alone strategy, as opposed to relying on alliances. The reality, however, is simply Trump once again ripping the mask off. The pretense of the past was of a partnership of the West. Trump reveals the reality of the vassal relationship. The Trumpian rhetoric about the US being played for a sucker was never intended to convince the vassals that they needed to mend their ways—it was rhetoric aimed for domestic consumption, to gain support for the aggressive policies needed to maintain imperial hegemony. Toward the end of this brief paragraph, however, Diesen gets to the heart of the matter: “making hegemony sustainable.” That is the core of MAGA, as I’ve explained in the past.
GD: But one of the things Trump responds to—which seems reasonable—is what I mentioned before, that the US hegemonic model relied too much on alliances which were seen as draining US resources--which is why Trump was quite hostile and pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), NAFTA, things which elevated the United States to a leadership role but were also seen as alliances draining the resources of of the United States. So it does appear that, if not giving up on dominance, that [the Trump Doctrine] is more about making hegemony more sustainable by building up US power as opposed to relying on these alliance systems. [Petro nods, agreeing]
In response, Petro points to the fundamental problem at the heart of liberal internationalism. Liberal internationalism is fundamentally opposed to national feeling, love of country and culture. It is, when all is said and done, based on the notion of humans as simply interchangeable units who come together under a social contract. Natural law—from which international law flowed historically—is irrelevant to the construct of liberalism. Thus the logic of liberal internationalism should lead to international government—one world government. And, indeed—to once again draw the comparison to the American legal system—liberal judges have for several decades taken to citing “precedent” from foreign lands. The problem is with this is US electoral politics, as Petro points out. He begins with more of the liberal internationalist propaganda line, but then gets to American politics:
NP: There was a liberal power argument. The liberals--in response to the critique that you are undermining, America First or America's interest--would say, 'No, look at the network we're creating, and the conditions and limitations that it is imposing on the world, and the way that we are able to manipulate this intricate network of financial, military, and legal institution and'--subsequently, after the Carter administration--'also human rights organizations and NGOs to our benefit, in the long run.' The disagreement there was not about tactics. The disagreement was about the ultimate vision, and that ultimate vision, that disagreement remains because it is not clear what the liberal vision truly is. Because no liberal internationalist can stand up and say what they truly believe, which--if they do believe this, it's certainly the logical end point of liberal globalism--is a world government. And in the world government, in a true world government, the United States would have a vote--a powerful vote, or an important vote--but not the only vote. And no liberal internationalist can say that, can admit that, and make that a cause in American politics.
Petro then contrasts that liberal internationalism with its fake appeal to benignity with the “conservative” school of foreign policy “realism”, which portrays international relations as the field of the pursuit of power. I would point out that not even Trump can express that idea out loud, any more than liberal internationalists can openly advocate for surrendering US sovereignty to a world government—at least not on the presidential campaign trail. Thus, Trump has to construct the narrative of nice Americans being played for suckers by conniving foreigners to mask the pursuit of maintaining American hegemony because we’ll go bankrupt otherwise.
Whereas on the conservative side, the realists see that as just a fantasy that we don't even need to indulge in. Politics is only about power today, and power that can bring us benefits in a very foreseeable political time frame--two, three, four, at most five years. But beyond that, who knows?
I think the Trump strategy [with regard to membership in international organizations] is to say, 'We'll join your organization, but we will do exactly what we want and you will do exactly what we want in our organization--then we'll be part of your organization. And so we had Rutte saying, "Yes, Daddy." [Hearty mutual laughter]
Next, Diesen explains the two-page Trump playbook—and its very real limitations. We’ve seen in the last few days Putin pretty much telling Trump where to get off.
GD: If this is the problem which Trump has identified-- that the problem is just weak American leaders--then he is the solution: what we need is a great negotiator who's willing to exert pressure and, as you also write in your article, this is more or less his main approach. This aggressive diplomacy and, if it doesn't work, then overwhelming military force. This was always one of my concerns about Trump, because if he's the great negotiator and he puts forward these very high demands and he's not successful, what happens then? Because it is a common theme with the Chinese or the whole world with the tariffs, for example: Trump took great pleasure, it seemed, when he was saying, 'I put tariffs on the whole world and now they're' all calling me trying to get a deal from us,' so the the whole world was kind of running to America, bending over backwards [i.e., coming to kiss his ass] in order to agree to anything that he said. Of course, it didn't play out like this. And this is one of his frustrations with China, that they seem comfortable to sit on the sideline and wait for the US to come to them, instead. And the same with the Russians. The idea that we'll offer a ceasefire and that's it, and the Russians will come to us. But the Russians saw this--or see this--as an existential threat. So they have a limited room for maneuver. So what happens when Trump doesn't get his deal?
NP: There's two categories of countries that are not susceptible, for different reasons, to the blandishments of the Trump bluff--the bluff that we will destroy you economically, militarily. You'll be isolated. You'll be nothing if you don't do what we say. And these two--one of them is acknowledged indirectly by Vance--and the other is not. And they're at the opposite extremes. So on the one hand, there are the nuclear powers, because you you can't bluff them--the power differential in the nuclear arena is not large enough. ... The other category is a country that is weak--they see the disparity in power, but they believe they have no choice but to fight, regardless of the disparity of power. [Example of North Vietnam]
The example of North Vietnam as a “weak” country gives away the problems with this analysis. Perhaps North Vietnam was weak, but it happened to have some very strong backers. So that looks like at least a third category of country—countries with significant strength with powerful allies. One thinks of Iran, currently.
Again, in this next paragraph, we come back to a weak point in Petro’s analysis, his failure to place all this in an economic context—which is the true foundation of American global power. The American economy would not be able to support our global forever wars on its own, without the hidden tax of King Dollar’s hegemony on the rest of the world. Marshall was not wrong, but he was speaking before some fundamental changes in the world economy took place. The other factor that makes these modern wars different from the wars that Marshall was thinking of is that modern wars have largely been low casualty affairs—for us. And they take place “over there.” Out of sight, out of mind.
Secretary of State George C. Marshall, after whom the Marshall plan is named, testified before Congress that America cannot, given its political system and its internal dynamics, conduct a foreign war for more than seven years. Now I think he was coming out of the experience of World War II, and we have seen the United States has been able to engage in longer wars. The longest war over 20 years that the United States fought was in Afghanistan. And there are the modern wars that can be conducted without involving large groups of the population. There are professional [soldiers now], you could almost call them domestic mercenaries who are a professional caste sent to war. The economy--if necessary, a significant portion of it, but not a damaging portion for the rest of the economy--is devoted to keeping those resources available. And of course, you create a pro-military culture in order to ensure that these people and their families are valued for their efforts on behalf of the national elite.
Next, I think Petro fundamentally misunderstands the import of what the Russian negotiator said in Istanbul. The Great Northern War was immensely costly and destructive for Russia. His point was that Russia endures suffering for the sake of the nation in ways that few, if any, other nations have proved willing to do. Certainly, and repeatedly, in ways that Americans have never been called upon to do. Petro’s example of Israel is also remarkably inapt. Israel is a country that could never exist without the US military umbrella. It’s systematic oppression of the local populations is enabled because lavish US support—itself enabled by King Dollar’s hegemony—has, until recent changes in modern warfare, been able to keep casualties low.
That sort of war, it seems, can be conducted indefinitely, or at least over a span of decades. As Midinski, the chief Russian negotiator in Turkey, with Ukraine, said at the last meeting, he said, "Peter the Great conducted the Great Northern War over 21 years. We are ready to do the same." He said to his Ukrainian interlocutors, "Can you say the same for your country?" [Laughs] I don't know what the response was. I only ever see that portion of the dialogue, but it's an astute comment because I think the assumption that countries can conduct very significant and damaging military operations at low cost to themselves domestically is a new reality. And we have to figure out how to deal with that. In some ways, you could say Israel has been that way since its inception, and is likely to continue as long as it exists to be in that regime. They have a a militarized society, but most of the time, most of the people conduct normal lives. The war goes on in the background, as it were, and you just get used to that noise. You just get you just get inured to it.
Overall, the Trump Doctrine is a high risk strategy that's likely to fail at some point. That point is when some country that falls outside the two categories listed above resists, and America's nuclear bluff is called. Canada is an example.
Lest UK readers think I’ve forgotten about the Anglo- part of the Empire, I ran across several items attached to a post that Geroman retweeted regarding some place called Glastonbury:
“The irony in this is that few Americans view their country as an Empire—let alone as an oppressor of others.”
If you want to really turn your stomach and challenge some of your preconceived notions about the U.S. as a great country, indispensable for world peace, check out Scott Horton’s very long interview with Tucker Carlson. Horton lays out, in excruciating detail, the lawless and counterproductive behavior of our intelligence services and government since the installation of the Shah of Iran in the 50s. We citizens were but pawns in this deadly drama. There were basically no wars we entered with pure intentions, we had a role in getting all of them started, and we were a primary aggressor. We engaged in terrorism, mostly via proxy, and it often turned against us.
And our leaders blatantly lied us into the wars, lied about their causes, lied about our victory, just as Trump is doing now.
Thinking about the first Iraq war 'Desert Storm' started by G Bush 1st, I think gets kind of overlooked these days. S Hussein was the Empire's man heading Iraq, installed after a CIA operation to remove his uncle. Iran, post Ayatollah Homeini, needed to be punished so the Iraq_Iran Eight year war was prosecuted with US support for Iraq and over a million deaths ensued. Iraq had been promised, by the USA, reconstruction assistance and compensation to be paid by the Gulf countries Iraq had 'protected'. Kuwait reneged on the US agreement, negotiations failed with a half hearted participation by the US, Iraq suggests that in the absence of any engagement it will be forced to take other measures and advances troops to the Kuwait border. Kuwait was also claimed to have been drilling into Iraqi oil fields. Neither James Baker nor April Gillespie / Glaspie, do anything about this nor say much of any substance. As silence implies consent, Hussein invades Kuwait, and suddenly Bush decides to protect the Kuwaities, not by seeking a ceasefire, but by planning a full scale invasion of its vassal state.
That's pretty much how I remember it, and it struck me at the time that the whole thing could have been avoided at a number of stages, but this did not happen.
I guess this was the beginning of the new ME policy post losing Iran, where the US wanted full control of Iraq, and launch endless wars.
“The irony in this is that few Americans view their country as an Empire—let alone as an oppressor of others.”
If you want to really turn your stomach and challenge some of your preconceived notions about the U.S. as a great country, indispensable for world peace, check out Scott Horton’s very long interview with Tucker Carlson. Horton lays out, in excruciating detail, the lawless and counterproductive behavior of our intelligence services and government since the installation of the Shah of Iran in the 50s. We citizens were but pawns in this deadly drama. There were basically no wars we entered with pure intentions, we had a role in getting all of them started, and we were a primary aggressor. We engaged in terrorism, mostly via proxy, and it often turned against us.
And our leaders blatantly lied us into the wars, lied about their causes, lied about our victory, just as Trump is doing now.
Thinking about the first Iraq war 'Desert Storm' started by G Bush 1st, I think gets kind of overlooked these days. S Hussein was the Empire's man heading Iraq, installed after a CIA operation to remove his uncle. Iran, post Ayatollah Homeini, needed to be punished so the Iraq_Iran Eight year war was prosecuted with US support for Iraq and over a million deaths ensued. Iraq had been promised, by the USA, reconstruction assistance and compensation to be paid by the Gulf countries Iraq had 'protected'. Kuwait reneged on the US agreement, negotiations failed with a half hearted participation by the US, Iraq suggests that in the absence of any engagement it will be forced to take other measures and advances troops to the Kuwait border. Kuwait was also claimed to have been drilling into Iraqi oil fields. Neither James Baker nor April Gillespie / Glaspie, do anything about this nor say much of any substance. As silence implies consent, Hussein invades Kuwait, and suddenly Bush decides to protect the Kuwaities, not by seeking a ceasefire, but by planning a full scale invasion of its vassal state.
That's pretty much how I remember it, and it struck me at the time that the whole thing could have been avoided at a number of stages, but this did not happen.
I guess this was the beginning of the new ME policy post losing Iran, where the US wanted full control of Iraq, and launch endless wars.