Photograph Source: Donald J. Trump – Public Domain

Two certainties have emerged after seven months of Donald Trump’s control of America’s national security policy. First of all, there is no comprehensive national security policy and no likely candidate in the administration for formulating and managing a comprehensive policy. Second, the greatest challenge in the national security arena is China—the most important bilateral policy in the entire global arena—and the Trump administration is doing everything it can—whether intentional or not—to make China great and to worsen America’s standing vis-a-vis China. The dumbing down of the United States continues under Trump, and China’s standing in the global community is becoming stronger.

Over the past 75 years, China has rarely relied on the use of military power—in Korea in the 1950s to stop the advance of U.S. forces, and in 1979 to “teach the Vietnamese a lesson,” which didn’t go well for Chinese forces. Conversely, the United States has relied on the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to pursue wars that were neither winnable nor affordable (Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq), and to use covert action unsuccessfully in overthrowing democratic governments in Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile.

U.S. military engagements that were designed to last weeks and months turned into decades of military engagement and occupation. Nearly every administration claimed it was not engaged in nation-building, but hundreds of billions of dollars were wasted in doing exactly that—nation-building. And, of course, the ridiculous absurdity of the Iraq War that was going to introduce democracy as a model for the........

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