Well, I'll back off my hyperbolic statement that almost anyone would have been better, but I think it's very difficult to take about foreign policy in a vacuum. We could all design better Presidents than the ones we have at any given point in time.
Yes, the Chinese take the long view, but if we've had contingency plans in place for countering the Chinese island building, you could have fooled me. I'd have thought it wiser to do some pushing back before all those new military outposts became fully operational.
I you could anticipate unintended consequences they wouldn't be unintended. I personally think the whole "choas at the White House" theme is seriously overplayed. Some of it is simply Trump's management style, to which I'm sure people who have spent their lives in government, in particular, have some trouble adjusting. As for North Korea, Trump has certainly moved the ball further than anyone else has managed to do, and it seems to me that the South Koreans, on the whole, are pretty supportive of what he has been doing.
I'm aware of Middle Eastern history, and the west's role in carving it up to their own satisfaction, and I see no indication that this president thinks that part of the world operates according to the same norms that we do. I have to say that was an illusion that the former administration seemed to hold to. Yes we and our allies under Obama's international leadership allowed ISIS to flourish, and we and our allies under Trump's international leadership brought it to its knees. It is important to distinguish between ISIS and other terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, which I believe is what you were alluding to. ISIS had clear territorial goals, and managed to set up a very effectiely functioning bureaucratic state (which I have recently learned depending on taxation, not things like ransoms, for the bulk of its revenues). That state has now been virtually wiped off the map, and that represents an existential defeat in my book. Could they rise again elsewhere? Only time will tell.
As for NATO, getting recalcitrant members to meet their agreed upon obligations which they have been allowed to shirk for decades was never going to be pretty. I always thought it was the height of irony to hear Europeans disparage the amount of money the US dedicates to it defense budge, while touting the social programs that the US defense umbrella allowed them to pursue. George W. Bush, pushed for Europe to ante up, but also to begin developing specialist expertise, by country, rather than duplicating standard military structures, which hopefully is something that this President will also pursue.
I personally believe that history treat this President considerably better than a lot of his contemporaries do, but of course, that' just my opinion, and I was interested to hear yours. Thanks.
