Trump’s Maneuvers Won’t Handcuff Biden
But unfortunately they shouldn’t have ignored our responsibilities regarding NATO.
by Jed Babbin
November 23, 2020, 12:05 AM
President Trump formally exited the 1992 “Open Skies†treaty with Russia yesterday on the ground that Russia wasn’t performing its obligations under that agreement. The treaty allowed each nation to fly reconnaissance aircraft over the other to inspect weapon systems. Trump also directed that two Air Force aircraft, specially equipped for that mission, be disposed of to handcuff any effort by a president Biden next year. The disposal of those aircraft isn’t likely to take place before Trump leaves office — if he does — in January.
As I have written here before, our allies need to be respected and led without allowing them to control our actions. Trump’s announcement of the troop cuts neither respected nor led the NATO nations.
Trump’s announcement last week that we would be reducing our troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq to 2,500 in each nation may have been intended to similarly handcuff Biden into withdrawing all U.S. troops from those nations next year, but that is far less likely to succeed.
We have been at war in Afghanistan since October 2001 and in Iraq since April 2003. We have lost both wars but persisted in them for one reason: the impossible neocon strategy of nation-building. As I wrote on this page in early April 2003 — and on many occasions since — nation-building cannot possibly succeed. You can’t impose Jeffersonian democracy in Islamic states because Islam, even at its most benevolent, does not permit the separation of religion and state, without which democracy is impossible.
Former president George W. Bush established nation-building as our primary strategy which is a path to certain failure. Former president Barack Obama was content to follow Bush’s strategy blindly because he didn’t want to be accused of losing a war. Trump wanted to do better but he had no idea how and relied on “his†generals to win despite their strategy.
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https://spectator.org/trumps-maneuvers-wont-handcuff-biden/
