A flag depicting Ukrainian and US flags, in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine, amid the Russian invasion. (Photo: Sergey Dolzhenko / EPA-EFE) 
After all the wild-eyed outbursts about taking over Greenland, retaking the Panama Canal and absorbing Canada, the incoming Trump administration will now be forced to deal with the world as it is, rather than what is in Donald Trump’s fever dreams.
Unfortunately for the Trump team, reality will be much more difficult to deal with (and more complex to understand) than just adding a few new sentences and grace notes in Trump’s stump speech.
The Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin once argued, “There are decades where nothing happens, and then there are weeks where decades happen.” Tweaking Lenin’s aphorism just slightly, the past two years or so — perhaps fundamentally — have overturned decades of the larger texture of the international landscape.
Back when Joe Biden became US president in 2021, certain things were true. The larger geopolitical landscape seemed reasonably stable, if not necessarily benign, and the shape of future issues seemed to be largely economic. This was the case even as the world was still in the midst of a medical meltdown and economic collapse due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the other hand, in geopolitical terms, a type of post-post-Cold War calm had largely seemed to prevail. It was true that the Nato alliance had settled into a kind of mid-life quiescence, even as Vladimir Putin’s Russia was demonstrating discontent with the structure of the prevailing continental and international order. Yes, Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula had already occurred, but there was, as yet, little sense of an imminent, large-scale ground war in Europe.
Unresolved issues
In the Middle East, despite the long list of unresolved issues and the fact that conflicts there could easily turn into conflagrations at any time, there was a kind of uneasy “calm” — from Egypt to Iran, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey — in force.
It was wobbly but was still largely holding. Heavily armed states such as Israel, Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and non-state actors like Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthi and even Daesh/Isis were not actively and vigorously engaged in open, broader, international conflicts, beyond smaller but vicious civil wars.
Back then, for that region, the most unsettling challenge still seemed to be the growing chance Iran would add nuclear-armed missiles to its arsenal. This was increasingly the case after the US in the Trump V1.0 years had withdrawn from the six-nation pact limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
In South Asia, conflict between the resurgent nations of China and India remained at a low level, and among the nations of Southeast Asia things were calm and — at least before Covid had caused severe economic setbacks — the nations were increasingly prosperous.
Meanwhile, China’s economic star was rising rapidly and its military presence in the South China Sea was increasingly challenging the other nations surrounding that water. However, China’s long-term threat to invade Taiwan remained a potential threat rather than an actual one.
The biggest ongoing, regional threat seemed to be continuing efforts by North Korea to develop and deploy nuclear missiles — to the growing consternation of its immediate neighbours South Korea and Japan.
Of course, there were other geopolitical challenges in Africa and Latin America, as well as the broader global economic, climate and other problems, but there was a sense the world was a safer place than it might have been, even despite the pandemic and its economic repercussions.
However, over the past three years, and especially over the past several months or so, things have changed.
Each incoming US president hopes — in some combination — to preserve what has been successful over the country’s history as well as to be a game-changer and shaper of the future. No president enters office hoping to gain a gentle sinecure, tending a quiet garden. Nevertheless, the international landscape is never entirely susceptible to or under the control of a president’s hopes, ideas — or whims.
Challenges and opportunities
However, the approach Trump appears to be embracing is one of strategic ambiguity (sometimes called the “madman theory,” once espoused by Richard Nixon to keep his enemies off balance) — and it has the potential for some seriously negative consequences as well.
As Harvard professor Stephen Walt, in his recent article in Foreign Policy has argued, “This [Trump’s] approach goes well beyond quid-pro-quo transactionalism; it’s a blatant attempt to blackmail, bully, and cow others into preemptive concessions, based on their fear of what Trump might do to hurt them.”
Trump is now about to assume office when the nation is, quite suddenly in some cases, confronted by extraordinary foreign policy challenges — and opportunities.
There is the sudden, recent collapse of the al-Assad regime in Syria, the near-destruction of Hamas (at the cost of the horrific devastation to Gaza and its population, and a tide of international opprobrium directed against Israel), the decimation of Hezbollah and its capabilities in southern Lebanon, and the apparent inability of Iran and Russia to prevent any of this happening to their erstwhile allies and cat’s paws.
Trump is entering office as there is a window of opportunity for reshaping the broader geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. One opportunity could be drawing Israel into a larger strategic architecture that includes the Saudis and that further restrains Iran, even as it sets out a process for rebuilding Gaza, finally delivering that near-mythical two-state solution and bringing some stability to Syria and Lebanon.
It is crucial to remember that moments of big success such as those listed above also offer real chances for major failures and fatal, missed opportunities. It will be dependent upon regional leaders being prepared to risk taking the necessary and politically unpopular chances for such big steps.
Simultaneously, the ongoing war in Ukraine, now about to enter its third year, and despite candidate Trump’s promises, gives no indication of reaching any sort of quick, decisive end. Accordingly, the conflict will test the incoming president’s oft-repeated claim that he will reach a deal with Putin in a single day. Crucially, that cannot be a deal that traduces the resolve of most Nato alliance members to support Ukraine, the sacrifices the Ukrainians have made to protect their nation, or even the creation of irredentist movements to overturn any solution reached.
Meanwhile, in East Asia, the foremost challenge will be dealing with the vast economic impact of China without damaging the global trade and economic networks (and the US economy) through massive tariffs directed at China. In the current climate that Trump himself has helped engender, this is going to be a really tough one.
Ultimately, Trump will need to learn yet again that bluster and snarky catchphrases do not create a coherent foreign policy. Instead, it will take real thought and lots of hard work. And none of these challenges will sit quietly and wait patiently for Trump’s team to figure out what they are doing and how they hope to get there. DM