CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Trump’s National Security Chaos: What Needs to be Done

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Earlier this week, I wrote about the dysfunction and danger associated with Donald Trump’s national security policies, processes, and personnel.  No one should expect the Trump administration to correct these deficiencies.  It lacks the personnel, the experience, the inclination to do so.  But we should nonetheless focus on what needs to be done.

The most important problem is the current tension and rivalry between the United States and China.  This is Washington’s most important bilateral relationship as well as the most important bilateral relationship in the international arena.  The United States must abandon the notion that Chinese power can be “contained” by the power of the United States.  Containment may have worked against a weak Soviet Union, but it is a non-starter with China.  Washington and Beijing appear to be operating on the basis of long-term hostility, which may well be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

U.S. and Chinese national security would be more stable—indeed, the entire international community would be more stable—if the two sides could agree to pursue normal forms of communication.  Sino-American cooperation is essential to addressing our greatest security challenge—the climate crisis. Ironically, Trump has an opportunity to pursue such a dialogue when he arrives in Beijing on March 31st........

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