Der Preis der Unvorhersehbarkeit: Wie Trumps Außenpolitik die amerikanische Glaubwürdigkeit ruiniert

[SS from essay by Keren Yarhi-Milo, Dean of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Relations. She is a co-editor, with Hillary Rodham Clinton, of [*Inside the Situation Room: The Theory and Practice of Crisis Decision-Making*](https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Situation-Room-Practice-Decision-Making/dp/019779100X).]

For decades, U.S. foreign policy has depended on credibility: the belief that Washington would honor its commitments and that its past behavior signaled its future conduct. The United States, for instance, was able to develop a large network of allies because its partners trusted that, if attacked, Washington would defend them. It could strike free-trade deals with countries around the world and negotiate peace agreements because, generally speaking, it was seen as an honest broker. That is not to say the United States has never surprised, or that it never reneged on a promise. But for most of its modern history, it has been a trustworthy actor.

But unlike any U.S. president before him, [Donald Trump](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/topics/trump-administration) has abandoned all efforts to make Washington reliable or consistent. His predecessors had also, at times, made decisions that undermined American credibility. But Trump’s lack of consistency is of an entirely different magnitude—and appears to be part of a deliberate strategy. He proposes deals before backing down. He promises to end wars before expanding them. He berates U.S. allies and embraces adversaries. With Trump, the only pattern is the lack of one.

Consistency has virtues but it also has weak points. If adversaries expect your behavior they can find the loopholes to your response. If you want to shake a status quo you have to become unexpected.

More generally, Trump, like many politicians before him and alongside him, has multiple objectives, and those objectives are sometimes in conflict with each other. When a conflicted situation like this arises, the “multi objective optimization” for the situation is often a mixed strategy. Mixed strategies have the unfortunate attribute of looking like “inconsistency” but they aren’t necessarily. They may be exactly that: intentionally mixed.

In any case, the specific claims in th comment above are baseless. First, Trump hasn’t started a war. It’s worth remembering that the US, under every recent president, has been involved in military endeavors around the globe—that’s part of its expected “job” as the western world’s police force. That said, his “peace through strength” approach has been partially successful with both the Houthis and Iran. With the Houthis it got an agreement that got them to stop attacking American, though unfortunately not also Israeli, assets. With Iran, it set back the impending nuclear program for some time. Especially in the latter case, it also made the Arab world take the US more seriously, which is critical in getting everyone in lock step for his attempt at a “mega deal.” Not sure it will work, but it’s relatively consistent.

As regards attacking friends and berating adversaries: if you follow closely you’ll notice that trump compliments whoever he’s courting and/pr whoever is in line with his program. Otherwise, you face a potential attack. That also has a consistency to it, though you may not agree with the approach.

As for his offers and take backs, this is clearly a form of marketplace haggling. You begin be anchoring your opponent on something scarily big. Then you put them on the back foot by having to respond and compromise. For example, he anchors the Arab world initially on his Gaza plan: remove all Gazans for some time while the whole place is rebuilt. Many are appalled. But you’ll notice his written recent 20 point plan makes no mention of this idea anymore. It was an anchor to get the Arab world onboard something more in the middle like the offer at present—and it worked! At least in getting the Muslim world onboard, though the jury is out on Hamas. In any case, sometimes this approach works and sometimes it doesn’t. It seems to have gotten NATO allies to agree to increase spending—something every president on the left and right has wanted for decades. It also got the Ivy League universities to reform their approach to antisemitism and commit to a fine. However, it has not yet gotten Iran to agree to no nuclear program. Mileage may vary for various reasons.

In any case, he does not appear to me to be the chaos agent typically described. He has conflicting constituencies and goals like every president and pursues strategies that make him partly unpredictable as a negotiation strategy.