It would be a political catastrophe for Donald Trump if [Chinese] taikonauts reached the lunar south pole before the U.S. hoisted its flag there again..
[W]hen ethics are abandoned for epics, and when political power subverts rational military decision-making, it is not surprising that symptoms of strategic fatigue begin to develop.
Trump, grandson of a German immigrant, is particularly peeved at an independent South Africa, which was the worst example of a Western supremacist-cum-colonial mindset.