20 - Retrenchment, Engagement, and Weakness: Trump and Biden, 2017–2022

Summary

This chapter examines the Trump and Biden administrations. The Trump administration resembled the Clinton administration in that both had presidents who were personally undisciplined, bereft of any knowledge of military or foreign affairs, and followed their own courses while their respective national security apparatuses charted different ones. They both achieved impeachment (twice for Trump), performed well economically, and had little interest in anything else. Trump continued the Afghanistan and the Islamic State wars. Trump raised tariffs and insisted the US was in a “trade war,” particularly with China. The chapter also examines the North Korea crisis, relations with Russia, and the beginning of the Ukraine War. It reveals the triumph of flawed strategic ideas such as hybrid war and the gray zone in American strategic thinking, as well as reborn Great Power Competition. Joseph Biden succeeded Trump. His short tenure has thus far been marked by losing the Afghan War by ordering a precipitous withdrawal, the highest inflation in forty years at least partially caused – by his own admission – by administration overspending, and the failure of the administration’s grand strategy of “integrated deterrence” demonstrated by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.