What Trump Got Right About National Security

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/08/trump-foreign-policy-national-security-instincts/679602/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

4 Comments

  1. “Because Donald Trump is campaigning for a second term in the White House, it is worthwhile to recall his record on foreign affairs during the term he already served—especially on issues in which his instincts, as I saw them, were essentially correct,” writes H. R. McMaster, a former White House national security adviser for the Trump Administration.

    “In the realm of foreign affairs, despite what could sometimes be described as ‘chaos’ within the White House, Trump administered long-overdue correctives to a number of unwise policies,” McMaster writes. “In his first year, Trump articulated a fundamental shift in national-security strategy and new policies toward the adversarial regimes of China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba. In general, Trump recognized that America had to compete more effectively to promote American prosperity, preserve peace through strength, advance U.S. influence, and protect the American people.

    “Trump repaired frayed relationships among Israel and its key Muslim-majority neighbors, and at the same time pursued normalization of relations between them, something that many observers had dismissed as a futile endeavor,” McMaster continues. “He overruled the bureaucracy and defied foreign-policy experts by moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem; stopped providing aid to Pakistan, whose army was funneling support to our enemies; cut off hundreds of millions of dollars to the corrupt United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which was abetting Hamas in Gaza; and withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council, which counts among its members some of the greatest human-rights abusers. He unveiled long-term strategies to defeat the Taliban, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations, strategies based on objectives rather than arbitrary timelines. His administration strengthened defense, lifted senseless restrictions on America’s warriors, recapitalized the nuclear deterrent, and launched efforts to compete in space and cyberspace.”

    Read more here: [https://theatln.tc/DUv9dACk](https://theatln.tc/DUv9dACk

  2. Petrichordates on

    Is this just HR McMasters delighting over what he was able to accomplish as NSA? Because I don’t see how attributing things to Trump that he doesn’t understand or know makes much sense.

  3. Fast-Possible1288 on

    Drivel. I don’t know what McMmasters point was. Instead of an analysis from his unique vantage point in and out of the administration, he just lists stuff. “Trump was bad, but kinda good” and “Trump did this good thing but also these bad things.”
    This reads a second time like nothing but talking points and rebuttals for people to reflexively say, “But Trump got NATO to pay more!” Etc. etc.
    But did he? And was the means worth the ends?