A President in Reverse Gear

It was the perfect location: the Ronald Reagan Building, named after one of the presidents that incited the dirty wars known as “low intensity conflict.” The new leader in the White House, Donald Trump, explained his National Security Strategy as a way of fine-tuning the objective launched during his “America First” election campaign, clearly evidencing his imperial nature. This is not a policy for 2018. It is drawing guidelines for an immediate future, except that it looks only at the past, at a policy and era of constant tensions and confrontations, which the world has already experienced and which was known as the Cold War.

I have said more than once that this is a president in reverse gear. But as he rolls backward without the rearview mirror of experience, he could run over anything, and his constant threats indicate that he is ready to do it.

The strategy has two basic aspects, one related to foreign policy and one related to defense. The military seems to prevail in the 70-page strategy document, where Russia and China are designated as “rival powers,” obstacles to plans to dictate to a world that the U.S. sees as a servile second child, rather than a world it sees in its image or likeness. Although Trump states that the U.S. will seek “cooperation” from them, there were direct threats to Iran and North Korea. With good reason, the Trump’s audience at the strategy announcement was predominantly military along with top administration officials.

Trump pointed out that “we will stand up for ourselves, and we will stand up for our country like we have never stood up before.” He stated that the strategy demonstrated “every dimension of our national strength” and it explained what should be done to position the U.S. “in the place it deserves.”* In this manner, he spoke of  creating borders – you already know where –and also about barring entrance to citizens according to their nationality or religion, as in the case of the excluded Muslims.

In the mandate to “defend the homeland,” the administration includes an international economic plan designed to defend the interests of the United States above the interests of the rest of the world. Defending those interests implies strengthening the military, which Trump is securing with almost $700 billion in allocations to the Pentagon for the 2018 fiscal year. According to Trump, rearmament is the way to achieve security, although in reality it is the path that leads to enrichment of the great death industry.

One asks oneself: Where is diplomacy? Diplomacy is nothing more than an element that is subordinate to military intentions. Perhaps Secretary of Defense James Mattis made this clear when he explained that those who make up “the world’s most lethal armed force” are the ones who “ensure our diplomats always speak from a position of strength.”

The reactions have been swift: Russia protested; China spoke; Iran affirmed that the nuclear accord would remain in force in spite of Washington.

But Washington, Trump’s Washington, is tenacious and directed against humanity. “A nation that is not prepared to win a war is a nation not capable of preventing a war,” said the new Caesar.

*Editor’s note:  Although accurately translated, the quoted remark could not be independently verified.