Aides to Trump: America Needs to Police the World to Protect Corporate Interests
September 18, 2017
1:52 pm
By Eric Levitz
In most respects, it is unfortunate that the American president’s understanding of geopolitics is barely more sophisticated than that of the average Fox News viewer. The fact that White House advisers must expend time and energy policing the commander-in-chief’s media diet — to prevent a single cable news segment from reshaping his understanding of Middle East policy — is less than ideal; as is the fact that decisions of global import often seem to hinge on how the president responds to this or that visual aide.
Still, having a low-information voter in the Oval Office isn’t without its advantages: After all, in the innocence of their ignorance, laymen often ask vital questions that experts are far too smart to ever ponder.
Donald Trump’s ignorance of the realities of geopolitics — as defined by America’s foreign-policy Establishment — allowed him to ask some “stupid” questions, during the debate over America’s Afghanistan policy back in July. The “pros” in the Trump administration all knew that America must commit more troops to the project of winning a 16-year war (that most analysts consider unwinnable) in a country that is of little strategic value to the United States. The layman asked “why?”
Apparently, the ensuing discussion led the president to pose even broader, more profound versions of this same question. Eventually, Trump’s advisers were forced to justify the very existence of a globe-spanning, American military (a.k.a. American imperialism). This led our secretaries of Defense and State to explain that America must maintain worldwide military dominance — even at a prodigious cost in blood and treasure — so as to protect the interests of multinational corporations with ties to the U.S. state. Or so this new report from the Associated Press suggests:
Trump’s national security team had become alarmed by the president’s frequent questioning about the value of a robust American presence around the world. When briefed on the diplomatic, military and intelligence posts, the new president would often cast doubt on the need for all the resources. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson organized the July 20 session to lay out the case for maintaining far-flung outposts — and to present it, using charts and maps, in a way the businessman-turned-politician would appreciate.
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http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/aides-to-trump-u-s-empire-is-good-for-your-business.html
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