For years, commentators have been fretting about the so-called Thucydides Trap: when an established power (the United States) fears a rising challenger (China), war becomes inevitable. But Donald Trump has now turned the concept of its head: instead of fighting to uphold the US-led international order, he is fighting to tear it down.
TEL AVIV – US President Donald Trump is not known for respecting science and history. From promoting unproven treatments for COVID-19 to insisting that any discussion of shameful elements of America’s past is “divisive,” he prefers to manipulate them for political ends. One wonders whether he realizes, when he waxes nostalgic about America’s historical “greatness,” that he is usually referring to times when the United States was a geopolitical weakling.
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