Is There a Trump Great Game ?

freerepublic.com · Feb 26, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Skip to comments. Is There a Trump Great Game? American Greatness ^ | Feb 26 2026 | Victor Davis Hanson Posted on 02/26/2026 2:19:30 AM PST by texas booster Trump’s strategy prizes preemptive deterrence over drift or isolation, exploiting leverage to sap rivals, steady allies, and avert the cascading conflicts that metastasized under Obama and Biden. Critics of Trump’s second-term foreign policy—the usual Left and some on the neo-isolationist Right—claim it is recklessly herky jerky and guided by no consistent grand strategy. Yet, in both the first Trump administration’s National Security Strategy paper and its second-term update, he clearly disdained ground wars abroad, nation-building, and isolationism. A better description of U.S. strategy across Trump’s two terms in office might be called Jacksonian or preemptive deterrence. That is, Trump’s foreign policy neither ignores nor merely reacts to crises. Instead, it seeks out favorable cost-benefit scenarios to weaken its strategic enemies and bolster its friends. The aim is to preclude the outbreak of major wars of the sort that were common during the Obama and Biden years. Those two administrations projected indifference abroad and anemic deterrence. As a result, four major theater conflicts broke out during their tenures: the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, the 2014 absorption of much of the Donbas, the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the 2024–25 Middle East theater war. Some telling first-term examples of the Trump grand strategy were the lethal strikes on Iranian general and terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The 2018 demolition of a Wagner Group force in Syria and the 2018–19 bombing of ISIS into irrelevance also restored a deterrent U.S. presence in the Middle East. Trump’s first-term warnings to China and Russia, respectively, not to move on Taiwan or invade Ukraine, were effective—as were ultimatums to North Korea to cease its reckless missile launches. (Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ... TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events KEYWORDS: vdh; vickyhanson; victordavishanson Message from Jim Robinson: Dear FRiends, We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. No spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers. If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today: Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you, Jim However, the ensuing Biden administration’s skedaddle from Afghanistan, its mixed prewar signals to Putin, and the pathetic efforts to reenter the Iran deal and to put distance between Israel and the U.S. all collapsed prior U.S. deterrence, ensuring the outbreak of major wars. Biden’s own cognitive decline and his policies of open borders, therapeutic woke/DEI Pentagon initiatives, and uncertainty over who was in charge of U.S. foreign policy also confirmed an image of an America adrift at home and abroad. Trump’s second-term strategy has focused on diminishing the power and influence of China, weakening Russia while offering it an eventual out by détente/reset with the West, and neutering Chinese–Russian terrorist client states. Compare the following: Trump’s confrontation with Panama about its de facto violations of the spirit and the law of the Panama Canal Treaty eroded China’s effort to absorb or control the canal. In Venezuela, the removal of the Maduro Marxist government and the restoration of the Monroe Doctrine restored U.S. predominance in the Western Hemisphere—again, at the expense of China. Closing the U.S. southern border, stern warnings to the Mexican government, and efforts to stop Chinese shipments of raw fentanyl to the cartels have likewise damaged China’s Western Hemisphere efforts. The diminution of the Iranian nuclear threat, and perhaps soon even the theocracy itself, with the end of the Assad regime in Syria—both terrorist states supported and aided by North Korea, Russia, and China—also restored American preeminence in the Middle East. Record U.S. oil and gas production lowered world prices at the expense of Russia and the Middle East. Interrupting embargoed oil shipments from Venezuela and Iran has weakened Chinese influence and nearly strangled Cuba. Passive-aggressive, tough-love talk with NATO members encouraged (or enraged) Europeans to raise their NATO spending targets from 2 to 5 percent and expand the alliance with strategically valuable members like Finland and Sweden. Trump’s appeal to Europe’s self-interest (and its innate anti-American chauvinism) helps the region rearm and deter Russia, while freeing up U.S. assets for an increased Western profile in Asia and the Pacific. Efforts to strangle the Cuban and Iranian governments will starve their respective anti-Western surrogates and their own terrorist efforts in Latin America and the Middle East—once more to China’s chagrin. Pivoting the defense budget toward both weapon quantity and quality, prioritizing battlefield efficacy over social agendas, and expanding the number of defense contractors will increase American lethality. Quietly continuing aid to Ukraine to ensure it does not lose the war, while appealing to Putin that it is in his self-interest to cut his catastrophic losses, could restore Russian triangulation with the West vis-à-vis China. The Trump domestic economic, social, and cultural counterrevolution has encouraged the spread of conservative, pro-American governance in South America, Japan, and soon Europe as well—with negative consequences to China. To: 5th MEB; 6ppc; agondonter; Alberta's Child; AndyJackson; Aria; artichokegrower; ... 2 posted on 02/26/2026 2:23:13 AM PST by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!) To: texas booster Reposting the main points of his discussion: Trump’s confrontation with Panama about its de facto violations of the spirit and the law of the Panama Canal Treaty eroded China’s effort to absorb or control the canal. In Venezuela, the removal of the Maduro Marxist government and the restoration of the Monroe Doctrine restored U.S. predominance in the Western Hemisphere—again, at the expense of China. Closing the U.S. southern border, stern warnings to the Mexican government, and efforts to stop Chinese shipments of raw fentanyl to the cartels have likewise damaged China’s Western Hemisphere efforts. The diminution of the Iranian nuclear threat, and perhaps soon even the theocracy itself, with the end of the Assad regime in Syria—both terrorist states supported and aided by North Korea, Russia, and China—also restored American preeminence in the Middle East. Record U.S. oil and gas production lowered world prices at the expense of Russia and the Middle East. Interrupting embargoed oil shipments from Venezuela and Iran has weakened Chinese influence and nearly strangled Cuba. Passive-aggressive, tough-love talk with NATO members encouraged (or enraged) Europeans to raise their NATO spending targets from 2 to 5 percent and expand the alliance with strategically valuable members like Finland and Sweden. Trump’s appeal to Europe’s self-interest (and its innate anti-American chauvinism) helps the region rearm and deter Russia, while freeing up U.S. assets for an increased Western profile in Asia and the Pacific. Efforts to strangle the Cuban and Iranian governments will starve their respective anti-Western surrogates and their own terrorist efforts in Latin America and the Middle East—once more to China’s chagrin. Pivoting the defense budget toward both weapon quantity and quality, prioritizing battlefield efficacy over social agendas, and expanding the number of defense contractors will increase American lethality. Quietly continuing aid to Ukraine to ensure it does not lose the war, while appealing to Putin that it is in his self-interest to cut his catastrophic losses, could restore Russian triangulation with the West vis-à-vis China. The Trump domestic economic, social, and cultural counterrevolution has encouraged the spread of conservative, pro-American governance in South America, Japan, and soon Europe as well—with negative consequences to China. 3 posted on 02/26/2026 2:25:16 AM PST by texas booster (Join FreeRepublic's Folding@Home team (Team # 36120) Cure Alzheimer's!) To: texas booster Trump’s approach combines Hamiltonian promotion of US economic and financial strength with a Jacksonian focus on enhancing US national interest and power. This is a potent combination that is reversing America’s trajectory of decline that our corrupt and stupid establishment had set for the country. 4 posted on 02/26/2026 3:44:39 AM PST by Rockingham To: texas booster Speak loudly and carry a big stick 5 posted on 02/26/2026 3:50:48 AM PST by ComputerGuy To: Rockingham DJT is not playing any game. He had already achieved victory in the greatest game where he built a corporate giant development organization and became a billionaire flying in a gold plated 767. He’s bored with that achievement, handed a beer to Melania and said, “Watch This”... Then he descended the golden escalator and that’s where we’re at now. He’s doing whatever he can to build America in a similar way that he built his Trump organization. He knows how to do it. He surrounded himself with experts and managed them. That is what he does. In his first administration he chose poorly from the pool of pundits and talkers who back stabbed him and steered him into a telephone pole. Having learned that lesson in the second administration he chose better. This is just the first year. Hold tight there’s three more to come! 6 posted on 02/26/2026 3:51:23 AM PST by Samurai_Jack (This is not about hypocrisy, this is about hierarchy!) To: