In picking fights and waging wars on multiple fronts, President Trump should heed the advice of Britain’s greatest sailor and naval hero Lord Horatio Nelson: Only a fool or a stupid ship’s captain would ever fight a fort.

While immobile, unlike ships, forts were better defended and protected. And forts were more easily reinforced, rearmed and resupplied by land than ships at sea, which then had to find suitable ports.

Trump is not at sea except in the minds of his many critics, yet he has joined several simultaneous battles against forts.

He has given Russia no more time beyond Monday's 10-day deadline to end the war in Ukraine. Former Russian President and Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev has threatened nuclear war if Trump is not careful. In that regard, Russia is a formidable fort armed with nuclear weapons equal to America’s.

Trump started a global trade war with his announcement Friday of new tariffs, having struck a deal with the

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