The National Interest published an interesting article that discussed how President Donald Trump is forcing China to reassess its strategy. The article was interesting because, if you read between the lines, it praises Trump’s actions. But it is buried under a multitude of personal attacks and well poisoning that often just repeats the talking points of the establishment elite. The end result is a hilarious article that praises Trump’s China strategy while spending most of its time attacking him. This article parses the rhetoric and shows how elites use fancy language and gobbledygook to bash Trump and barely acknowledge the reality that a factory worker with a high school education could plainly state in a single word that Trump is “winning.”
The author, Richard Heydarian starts by comparing Trump to the Persian dictator Xerxes. I’ve read the same material from Herodotus and provided the lessons for OpsLens readers. I found his comparison of Trump and Xerxes rather shallow. The autocratic Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has made himself leader for life, consolidated his power through an anti-corruption campaign, and rules by fiat seems like a better choice for Xerxes than Trump. This comparison shows the tendency of elites to compare Republican leaders to dictators, while giving actual dictators a pass. It is also the first example of poisoning the well by making a negative (though faulty) comparison and then letting that comparison do the heavy lifting.
Then the author characterizes Trump as a hedgehog personality instead of a fox, which becomes another backhanded attack on Trump. According to Heydarian the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing, which refers to Trump’s tendency to offer simplistic slogans like “winning” or calling people losers. But the problem with that analogy is that the rest of Heydarian’s article describes how Trump’s erratic behavior has produced many positive benefits. In my reading, that doesn’t make Trump crazy, it lets him “out fox” his enemies to produce winning results for America.
For example, almost six months ago I described how Trump’s Mad Men theory produced results in East Asia. This was a policy that let other nations believe that the president was ready to unleash great havoc (or maybe fire and fury) upon his enemies with the slightest provocation. With that stick firmly established, Nixon brokered a peace deal using various carrots that allowed America to withdraw its forces from Vietnam.
Lawmakers often condemned Trump’s fire and fury rhetoric against North Korea. Senator John McCain took exception to his words, Senator Dianne Feinstein called them “bombastic,” Senator Chuck Schumer called them reckless, Senator Ben Cardin said his rhetoric was little better than North Korea’s, and The Atlantic said the Mad Men policy didn’t work for Nixon and won’t work for Trump. They all failed to realize that his rhetoric has produced tangible progress in talks with North Korea. In the arithmetic of nuclear diplomacy, what might sound like reckless threats actually becomes a necessary step to credible deterrence and peace.
Heydarian also condemned Trump’s Mad Men rhetoric. Yet at the same time he said that China was too accustomed to the “cerebral Obama,” and that Trump’s unexpected level of unpredictability has made them reconsider their strategic policies like the militarization of the South China Sea. Take away the author’s spin of the smart Obama and crazy dictator Trump, and readers can see that Trump’s policy is working and Obama’s didn’t.
Next Heydarian said that “Trump’s seemingly unhinged leadership has forced other middle powers to step up to the plate…Thus, quite paradoxically, Trump’s unpredictability, and the seeming unreliability of America in extension, have proven as a catalyst for more middle power strategic proactiveness.” The author explained how all the major naval powers such as Australia, Japan, Britain, France and South Korea have stepped up freedom of navigation patrols in the South China Sea. These are important operations that signal to China that the world doesn’t accept their unilateral seizure and militarization of contested territory. They have also fought to protect their economic interests and form a block of military and economic power that is equal to or stronger than China. (It’s almost as though China’s aggressiveness, similar to Germany before World War I, has produced a string of neighbors allied against them.)
Again, strip away the spinning personal attacks of calling Trump “unhinged, unpredictable, and unreliable” and look at the results. Trump said on the campaign trail that America was being taken advantage of by its allies and they should do more. This was especially applied to NATO allies, but also works in an East Asian context. Trump has received more from his allies, so this suggests he is not crazy, but crazy like a fox and using his rough-hewn style to get results. Trump’s language might upset foreign policy experts like Heydarian, but those same experts are the ones that got us into this mess in the first place. The person they attack as dangerously unhinged is the one that actually gets results.
The conclusion of Heydarian’s piece just can’t help himself. “Trump’s hedgehog-like leadership is still drenched in ‘big dangers,’ but, at least for now, it has reset the Asian geopolitical landscape in many unexpectedly encouraging ways that were previously unthinkable. That’s the ultimate paradox of Trump’s presidency.” Even when Trump produces positive results that enhance American security, keeps his campaign promises, inspires allies to do more, and makes real steps to denuclearize North Korea, establishment elites can’t seem to acknowledge it. Heydarian is a typical example as he argues that these successes are just an accidental byproduct of Trump’s crazy behavior, instead of the intended results of shrewd maneuvering and political instinct.
