Is the future of Republican foreign policy Trumpian? Matthew Kroenig, deputy director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, thinks that Trumpism will not define the future of foreign policy. Kroenig is writing primarily to push back against a narrative he sees among foreign-policy professionals and commentators here and abroad that the Republican Party is permanently changed, becoming “a more isolationist GOP — one that is skeptical of free trade and international institutions, indifferent to democracy and traditional allies, and solicitous toward dictators, such as Russian president Vladimir Putin.”
Where Kroenig is indisputably correct in his analysis is in recognizing that the lines between Trump’s policy vision and a more Establishmentarian one often are unclear, or poorly understood. Trump’s administration did not offer as much of a break from America’s post–Cold War stance as his opponents imagined, or as he had flattered himself. And in some cases, Trump’s victory consolidated an ongoing shift in foreign-policy circles. Trump nudged us toward a position of confrontation with China on trade, and we are likely to remain there, even if with trepidation. If President Obama moved from us from Bush’s transformational strategy in the Middle East to an opportunistic one, Trump moved one step further toward more caution still. And the Establishment has tiptoed behind him.
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