Trump’s foolish war is humiliating America

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If Barbara Tuchman were alive today, the American historian would have to add another chapter to her compendium of great-power hubris and bungled statecraft. Donald Trump’s “excursion” in the Gulf ticks all the boxes of her timeless March of Folly.

Her oeuvre romps through the Renaissance Papacy and the illusion of invulnerability, which, in fatal stages, led to the Protestant Reformation.

It marvels at the heroic wooden-headedness of George III and his court, who turned loyal American colonists into reluctant rebels through unforced, serial errors that leave you breathless today.

Lord North’s ministers brushed aside warnings that the colonies would fight if coerced – and fight hard. They failed to anticipate that France, Spain, and the Netherlands would all muck in to avenge their own humiliations in what would become a world war on five continents.

Tuchman describes how the US sank deeper into the Vietnam War, wasting moral credit and military power in “blind pursuit of a ghost”, while chiefly serving the interests of Communist China, and it ended in humiliation, high US inflation and price controls.

Trump’s power is at its peak. He has reason to be fearful of what’s coming

Cory AlpertFormer White House staffer

Former White House staffer

The common thread is the spectacle of great powers acting against their self-interest by indulging in illusions and refusing to understand with whom they are dealing. In each case, the conflict could have been defused with a little subtlety.

Future students of epic folly will wonder why the US chose to squander its dangerously thin reserves of munitions by launching a needless war in a region that no longer supplies its energy. Why attack a second-tier country that was essentially contained? Why use up fighting capabilities needed against the real threats from China and Russia?

General Dan Caine, the chairman of the US joint chief of staff, warned Trump that a war against Iran would “dramatically deplete stockpiles of American weaponry, with no clear path to quickly replenish”.

Regime Change, the exposé of the Trump White House by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swann, says that General Caine told Trump that “America’s........

© The Age