Trump Embraces Unpredictability as Foreign Policy Strategy
Voice of America, NOV 24, 2016
accessed Nov 25, 2016
● Do not underestimate him. He isn't crazy at all.
Chong-Pin Lin Nov 25, 2016
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump repeatedly stressed the need for the president to be unpredictable when it comes to foreign policy. It seems he has succeeded.
With eight weeks to go until Trump enters the White House, many foreign policy experts concede they have no idea what kind of foreign policy he'll oversee.
"It's sort of like a new form of Kremlinology, trying to decipher which way he's going to go," joked Daniel Larison, senior editor of The American Conservative magazine.
Trump, a billionaire businessman who portrays himself as a master negotiator, has embraced two distinct and seemingly contradictory approaches to foreign policy.
At times, he calls for showing more restraint in the world, arguing that the U.S. has focused too much on building up other countries and not enough on itself.
On other occasions, Trump swings wildly in the opposite direction — for instance threatening to massively bomb Islamic State territory and work with American companies to "take the oil."
Backing away
Since winning the election, Trump appears to have backed away from, or least de-emphasized, some of his more extreme foreign policy proposals made during the campaign.
At the same time, though, the president-elect also has begun to fill out his new administration with several national security hawks, whose appointments seem to contradict a noninterventionist approach to the world.
Most notably, Trump chose retired Lieutenant General Mike Flynn to serve as national security adviser and Congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas to head the CIA.
Neither man's record suggests an isolationist worldview.
Both oppose the Iran nuclear deal, and they have suggested regime change as a way to keep Tehran in check. Pompeo has suggested bombing Iran's nuclear facilities. Both men also have advocated for a much tougher approach to fighting the Islamic State terror group.
Some of those views are more aggressive than that of outgoing President Barack Obama. But they're not exactly a rarity within the U.S. defense establishment, The American Conservative's Larison said. He predicted Trump would continue more of Obama's policies than many people expect.
No 'wholesale repudiation'
"What you're seeing with these appointments is people who are generally in agreement with the overall foreign policy consensus in Washington. Where they differ, it seems to be mostly differences of degree or tactical differences," he said. "It's not going to be a wholesale repudiation of basic assumptions about the U.S. role in the world."
That assertion was backed up this week when Trump named South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Like Pompeo, Haley comes from the more establishment, hawkish wing of the Republican Party.
But do Trump's appointments really suggest that his interventionist inclinations have won out over his isolationist ones? Not necessarily, said Elizabeth N. Saunders, a professor at George Washington University.
"There's contradictions within what Trump has said, [and] there's contradictions contained in his appointments. I just don't think we know yet," said Saunders, who also is a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Additional signs about Trump's foreign policy priorities will emerge when he names more of his political allies to high-level positions, including the heads of the Defense and State departments.
Those looking for Trump's behavior to become any more predictable, however, may be waiting a while, according to Saunders, who pointed out that the president-elect seemed to have embraced impulsiveness as a strategy.
"I think the new watchword for American foreign policy is unpredictability," she said. "And it is going to be a very interesting experiment."
No surprise
The strategy can't have come as much of a surprise — Trump himself has been boasting about it for months, including during his first major foreign policy address in April.
"We must as a nation be more unpredictable. We are totally predictable. We tell everything. We're sending troops? We tell them. We're sending something else? We have a news conference," said Trump.
Trump promised that under his administration, reliable patterns would end.
"We have to be unpredictable," Trump said, waving his index finger in the air to make the point. "And we have to be unpredictable starting now."
「我們中計了！」
紐約時報名評論家紀思道（N. Kristof）在三月廿七日承認媒體被川普利用了。被視為狂人的美國共和黨總統競選人川普，竟然在當初十多位角逐者中脫穎而出，遙遙領先，應在六月躍升為共和黨總統候選人。各國學者、美國名嘴、共和黨領袖都傻眼了！
目前看來，十一月初美國總統大選很可能是民主黨希拉蕊對共和黨川普。
雖然四月初全國平均民調顯示民主黨希拉蕊領先川普十趴，無人敢擔保川普不會當選總統。
川普吐露下層生活痛苦的心聲而崛起。因美國社會上下層嚴重脫節，無怪上層菁英感到意外。
川普不斷口出大話，被認為若當選將是全球的災難。他一發言，鄙視他的媒體暗笑，但超愛，因為報導川普可衝收視率。相對的壓縮了媒體對其他競選人的關注。但媒體不知道他說過：「負面的報導可以免費的為我帶來超過數萬美元的宣傳效果。我花大錢登廣告還沒人看。」何況，指出川普說錯話的記者（Tom Brokaw, NBC）發現，他的支持者不為所動，反而認為主流媒體對他不公平。川普從小跟隨父親做房地產，身價已累積高達數十億美元。精打細算是他看家的本領。
他雖然貶損墨西哥移民、歧視穆斯林等，強烈表現白人優越感，但他技巧的避提國內黑白種族的衝突。他雖然主張「美國第一」，但公開批小布希總統攻打伊拉克是錯誤。他雖然抨擊歐巴馬總統，但是主張保留歐巴馬健保。他精打細算爭取中低階層的選票，毫不糊塗。狂人居然有靈光的頭腦！這是害怕他當總統的人第一個噩夢。
川普的直言風格是：不看稿演說、不道歉。六月共和黨大會，總統候選人將出爐，聲勢日漲的他，已開始修正自己之前猛撞的作風，以減少當候選人，甚至當選總統的阻力。這是害怕他的人第二個噩夢。
三月廿一日，川普對美國以色列公共事務委員會演說，竟然謹慎的使用讀稿機！美以兩國關係敏感，他必須字字斟酌，以防得罪影響力龐大的猶太人。
四月二日，川普，很少見的，居然道歉了。對象是同黨得票僅次於川普的競選人克魯茲。事由是川普貼在他推特上一張克魯茲夫人表情不佳的照片和自己夫人光豔照片對比，以報復反川普陣營所貼川普夫人婚前作模特兒的裸露照。
七個月後，即使希拉蕊當選總統，川普的政策主張，已受中下階層的熱愛，應會影響美國未來的走向。與台灣有關的是：
- 國內民生優先：川普說「美國窮了，作不起世界警察。內部失修，重建設家園更重要。」美國東亞盟邦日本、南韓要自我防禦，不能免費靠美軍協防。菲律賓、越南等不用說。川普未提台灣，但意涵自明。
- 厭戰：對付中國南海的擴張，用經濟貿易制裁，不用軍事手段。
- 限制自由貿易：製造業要大量回國。希拉蕊和川普都反對歐巴馬倡議的「跨太平洋夥伴關係協定」（ＴＰＰ）。台灣不能指望進入ＴＰＰ。
我們常說台灣民主缺乏公民素養和法治，應學美國。如果未來台灣也出現川普，還要學嗎？
（作者為前華府喬治大學外交學院講座教授，曾任國防部副部長）
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