February 21, 2025
"Based" means "true to yourself" and implies a kind of mobilizing integrity, an integrity that leads to action. The pinions of Trump's foreign policy were developed over decades of New York real estate, construction, and business competition, as well as a bit of Hollywood, and a lifetime of sleeve-worn patriotism. The influence of a smart, entrepreneurial wife and ex-wife, who grew up under, and later escaped, European totalitarianism, socialism and communism cannot be under-estimated.
It looks like old style realism, a bit of Thucydides' Melian Dialogue, where we hear, "...the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." Increasingly frantic screams from neoconservatives, left-globalists, and the uni-party cartel about a realistic peace in Ukraine bear this out.
Trump's major foreign policy actions so far have mainly been a show of US "strength" with an accurate recognition of where weakness resides. Tariffs in bilateral trade; re-engagement with Russia to end the NATO-Russia war in Ukraine and pull Russia from a Chinese orbit; forcing Netanyahu, pre-inauguration, to agree to ( but not necessarily to comply with) a Gaza cease-fire; grandly launching a new Monroe Doctrine; and a possible outlier, giving his public stamp of approval to a longtime Zionist plan for permanent elimination of Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. Other decisions also fit: Trump's immediate crackdown on illegal immigration; demands for regional cooperation to end the illegal drug trade; and requesting ( again) a troop withdrawal from northwestern Syria that should end US military protection for Conoco's illegal drilling there.
Combined with a long-promised and surprisingly well-organized swamp-drain project, complete with its own media machine, Trump's based foreign policy is doubly audacious.
To remove the stain of decades of Ukraine-related double-dealing out of the EU, NATO and Washington, Trump will settle the Ukraine question. Because he is necessarily working with the Russians, this settling will be largely on Russia's terms. The Minsk treaties, signature-guaranteed by Germany's Merkel and France's Hollande, were not model agreements but tricks to "buy Ukraine time to arm." NATO shelves are bare, the EU is rife with political instability, due in part to three years of war they paid for, cheap energy they sacrificed, and 6.3 million Ukrainian refugees living in their countries unlikely to ever return home. Ukraine itself is politically, economically and militarily devastated, and Trump wants the US investment back. The weak suffer what they must.
Yet, the weak do have power - the power of panic, the power that comes from having nothing left to lose, the criminal liberation of having no honest options. The losers in the settlement of Ukraine will include a wasted and angry NATO - under heavy pressure from the US to "defend itself" and pursue its highly debatable "mission." Will a newfound clarity lead NATO members to reject the hollow NATO construct? That would require electing a new kind of European leader - the kind the current leadership cannot tolerate, as Vance pointed out last week. Will Scholz ever admit that he supported the US-led project to destroy Nordstream, as he appeared to, when he stood beside Biden as the latter telegraphed the upcoming inter-NATO act of war? How Europe reacts to the end of the Ukrainian propaganda and weapons gravy train, and the humiliating failure of the former US-led psyop, remains to be seen. How the shrinking dictatorship in Kiev reacts is likewise unpredictable. Ending a war through US and Russian strength may not be as simple as imagined. A panicked animal - even if it is small, needs a way to escape what is unbearable to it. Will based realism offer enough "ways out" for the many angry, hissing weasels in Europe and in Washington?
Trump's realism seeks long-term resolution of US wars abroad. We see this in Ukraine, and also in the US -funded, -supplied, -assisted and -justified Zionist genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. For Israel, these are long-term strategic land grabs, reliably assisted by every president since LBJ. Israel works hard with both major parties, and all presidents, assisting them in the design of "their" Israel policy, and politically and reputationally harming any public figure who opposes the Zionist project. This is old news, and it's an old war - October 7th 2023 is just one Israeli facilitated marker among many.
Realism requires reality - an honest understanding of not just a situation, but a history, the evolution of events and relationships. It requires introspection, and a kind of honesty that the American political class has not exercised with regard to Israel in 65 years. We are now witnessing the mass unease caused by fresh US introspection on Ukraine, and seeing the direct danger of publicly contradicting false US, European and Ukrainian narratives even though the war has only been active since 2014. We are debating only a dozen years of irrational ethnic warfare, and a relatively recent popular emergence of Ukrainian neo- National Socialism. We are learning about a narrow segment of Ukrainian political ideologies that call for expulsion and destruction of the people associated with a "state enemy," and the militarized elimination of their places of living, farming, working, and worship. We are just beginning to debate if elimination of the culture, religion and language associated with those demonized by the state is moral, proper, and democratic - in Ukraine.
Trump 47 has rejected, and ejected, the neoconservative pro-NATO, pro-Zelensky cadres in DC. Trump had been interested in what was behind the conflict, in part because his first term and second election were derailed by false charges and a deep state attack that used Ukraine and Russia as the battering ram. Trump's education on Ukraine and Russia - and about the lying neoconservatives with anti-American agendas - was personal, emotionally charged, and came at a heavy cost. These were perfect conditions for learning a hard lesson, and Trump learned the lesson.
A similar process has not yet happened with regard to Israel. Trump shocked many of his America First supporters with his claim a few weeks ago that the US would buy and own Gaza, and use other people's money to create a Gaza Riviera - a place of great beauty and profit, without Palestinians, nor a right of Palestinian return. At the time he made this announcement, the IDF slaughter and destruction of Palestinian homes and property in the occupied West Bank where 6 million other Palestinians live had been accelerated, even as Trump's demanded Gaza cease fire was in place. Trump doubled down on the Gaza evacuation proposal - an idea fed to him by Zionists, including those he respects, and made justifiable by the obscene level of destruction the IDF and the US taxpayer delivered throughout the Gaza strip. The process of Trump "learning" about Israel from any perspective beyond his rabidly Zionist friends and advisors has not yet begun.
As an investor, Trump may someday be inspired by what Gazans This is what Gaza looked like before and after October 7 | DRONE VIDEO , again and again, in Gaza, despite the regular IDF lawn mowing, despite the Israeli-prescribed diet for Gazans, and despite strict limits on construction materials and concrete Israel allows into the strip. As an employer and property owner, Trump may someday be appalled at the Zionist culture of theft, murder and contempt for the Palestinian Israelis who labor in Israel. As a person who genuinely loves people, and values family, Trump may someday realize the greatest strength of Israel is not paranoid and racist Zionism, but in a Palestinian spirit of endless rebuilding, innovation, education, and their remarkable ability to distinguish between the Zionist state and some of their Jewish neighbors who really do want peaceful co-existence, despite the cruel despicable record since 1948.
This reality reflects where real power resides in the region - and it is not in Zionism. The reason Israel lobbies both parties and US presidents so aggressively is because it must. US money, political and military support is fundamentally, and humiliatingly, necessary for the continuation of Zionism in Israel. Israel's government is weak, and Israelis resent their dependence on the security, top cover, and cash flow facilitated by US presidents - none of whom they respect. Netanyahu has much more in common with Zelensky - a criminally motivated, corrupt, and unpopular leader of a country disturbed and weakened by endless, pointless war - than Trump may currently realize.
I hope and expect Trump will continue to discover reality, and keep the US on a new path of based realism. Unfortunately, there are many enemies of American success, and American realism. There are many who financially and politically benefit from war, conflict and the corruption of American ideals at home and abroad. Those funding and promoting ambitious ethno-states in the false name of American interests are working hard to make sure Trump fails in his pursuit of both knowledge and realism.