Trump looks to preserve U.S. prestige
In speech, he’s to stress strategy for national security
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has found it much easier to say “America first” than to fit the nationalist slogan into actual national security strategy. Now, nearly a year into his term, he is seeking to define his vision — often articulated in impulsive tweets — in a comprehensive overview.
The president will deliver a speech on Monday distilling a lengthy strategy document that has been months in the making. During a Cabinet-level meeting this month, he signed off on an approximately 70-page draft that his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, summarized by another slogan: President Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength.”
The plan will focus on projecting U.S. military and economic strength overseas, McMaster said at a Washington think tank last week, with a particular emphasis on countering major powers China and Russia and containing nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea.
“In many ways, we vacated a lot of competitive space in recent years and created opportunities for these revisionist powers,” McMaster said.
Critics, who include veterans of past Republican administrations, complain that Trump has ceded leadership around the globe, economically and diplomatically, opening opportunities especially for China and Russia and raising tensions with Iran and North Korea, as well as with longtime allies.
Increasingly, the critics lament that Trump has demoted diplomacy and undermined the work of the State Department, creating skepticism in international capitals about the United States’ reliability.
“He made the situation worse by cutting the State Department,” said Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, a Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. “He’s not putting America first, he’s weakening national security with erratic tweets and threatening nuclear war.”
Trump’s national security strategy has been in the works since March, with White House officials working to translate his nationalist and populist campaign promises and tweets into a coherent, wide-ranging guide for the military, diplomatic corps and intelligence agencies.
Since Reagan, administrations have chosen to write such a strategic plan about once every four years; the most recent was President Barack Obama’s in February 2015. Trump’s draft was structured around four main pillars: protecting the homeland through tightening immigration, advancing American economic prosperity by pressuring China and other trading partners, projecting hard power by building up the military, and increasing American influence.
Trump’s version may have a stronger influence on policy decisions given that his inner circle is stacked with senior military leaders — McMaster, a three-star Army general, and two retired Marine Corps generals, White House chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis — who are accustomed to applying broad strategic guidelines to real-world decisions.
McMaster oversaw the national security strategy, along with his departing deputy, Dina Powell. The document was written by Nadia Schadlow, a former academic whose expertise is competition between great powers. Schadlow met with Trump during the drafting and now is on a short list of people who could succeed Powell.
The exercise has forced a focus and discipline on Trump’s thinking that could — officials hope — reduce the episodes in which he feels boxed in between his campaign promises and advisers’ policy recommendations.
Trump had campaigned on tearing up the multinational nuclear deal with Iran that the Obama administration had brokered, and he faced a deadline to certify to Congress that Iran was in compliance. Advisers, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and McMaster, favored certification and had to repeatedly tell the president they hadn’t prepared other options to consider, and would have to warn allies if Trump was about to reverse course.
Trump exploded, within earshot of more than a half-dozen senior advisers.
“This is never ... happening again,” Trump said, using an expletive, according to two people, one who heard him and another who was briefed on the meeting. Neither would be identified.
He reluctantly agreed to keep the deal in place. But in October, when the certification deadline came up again, Trump demanded a compromise plan to tell Congress to fix the deal or he’d end it himself.