He will start a war with Alec Baldwin.
Iran. Our navies are already playing “Ha! I’m not touching you! Neener neener!” Trump’s philosophy is, when someone hits you, you hit back harder. Some Iranian sailor will moon the crew of an aircraft carrier, and Trump will order them to sink the next Iranian ship they see. Things will escalate till we’re dropping bombs and sending in troops. We’ll justify it by saying we need to find those nukes Iran has been building all these years.
(Sorry, can’t vote on tapatalk.)
A war on twitter doesn’t count, right?
On the one hand, Trump is a coward. On the other hand, that means he’s ruled by fear and insecurity. So anything that touches his personal self-image of himself as a tough guy is met with insane panic. And anything else, even if it means abandoning our allies and breaking our commitments will be done easily.
So Putin invading Estonia? Not Trump’s problem, even though it means NATO falling apart. So no war, yay! Except when you signal clearly that you’re handing over Estonia to Putin, and there will be no consequences for doing so, that means it’s much more likely that Putin rolls the dice on invading Estonia.
This is the whole point of NATO, yes? NATO is, was, and always has been an anti-Russian alliance. An attack by Russia on one means an attack on all. It’s easy enough for Russia to invade a small country like Estonia or Slovakia. It’s another when it faces a united European and North American alliance.
On the other hand, some third world leader insults Trump personally? I can easily see him trying to start a war to avenge that insult. The only protection we have is if the generals stand up to Trump and tell him to fuck off rather than invade. And there goes civilian leadership, and we begin to turn into Egypt where the military brass decide what the president is allowed to do.
Nope. Putin will tug at his leash.
I have the OPPOSITE fear.
I’m afraid America will embrace isolationism.
Trump said many times he opposed the invasion of Iraq. Repeatedly critized Hillary for voting for it.
He even critized the liberation of Mosul a few weeks ago.
He’s conciliatory towards Putin.
This sounds like a guy that wants no part in international conflicts.
I’m very concerned what happens if the US withdraws from the international stage.
The up side is we fix and rebuild the US. The downside is there’s no longer anyone left to stand up for what’s right.
I think Russia may invade another ex soviet state, but I don’t think Trump will start a war with anyone right now.
I do worry about North Korea down the line though. Trump isn’t smart enough to handle a situation like that. Nobody has any easy answers to that situation, but I’m sure Trump will do something stupid.
I don’t think he’ll start any wars. I think Russia might and if so we will sit on the sidelines. I think his secret plan for ISIS is to let Russia and Assad put down any rebellion in Syria by any means necessary regardless of loss of civilian life (they’re all Muslims to their terrorist anyway). As far as ISIS strongholds in Iraq he may also follow Russia’s lead and bomb the crap out or occupied areas (see previous parenthetical). I could see Bayard being correct with regard to Iran, but if they are smart all they have to do is praise Trump as a great world leader, and he will probably let them do what they want.
I don’t like questions that make it 100% yes or 100% no. Because, yeah, if we go pure majority, I think it’s unlikely. But a lot of that is that I give a, say, 20% chance that he doesn’t make it through his first year. And another 30% chance that people are just going to ignore his bullshit and handle all that stuff without him. That cuts the probability in half, and the probability was not 100% to begin with.
I still think it’s more likely than with Clinton. For one thing, Clinton would not have a cooperative Congress, no matter what. For another, her “war hawk” ways are compared to Democrats, and are frankly overblown. We didn’t get into a ton of wars when she was Secretary of State.
I give a 20% chance of Trump starting another World War, but that has to be reduced to a quarter of that for this. So 5% chance world War. And I think I think, considering everything else, I’m okay with a 25% chance of a military action somewhere other than the current conflicts.
So 30%. Even though that feels small.
My concern is not that he’ll start a war.
There are already enough wars going on.
Even if he started one, would we even notice?
My concern is nuclear weapons.
I am not concerned about massive nuclear exchange, but given Trump’s comments about the use of nukes, and his desire to crush “Islamic Terrorism” I can see the use of tactical nukes being authorized to be used on the battlefield.
Small yield, not much fallout. In many ways, on a practical level, that sort of weapon makes sense to be used.
Down side, of course, is once we’ve used 'em, that sets precedent for others, and that we have just escalated to using nukes changes a number of dynamics.
He may have already committed what could be seen as an act of war, against Mexico, by declaring his intention to extract somehow from Mexico the cost for public works projects in his own country. How does he propose to make good on that threat, aside from force of arms or economic sanctions, which would punish the citizenry of Mexico.
I’m wondering how Trump feels about the Kim regime in general. He has such admiration for authoritarian leaders, and no one is more authoritarian than Kim, that he might actually admire the guy and forge some kind of alliance with North Korea. Vladimir Trump is so completely unpredictable that I can see almost anything happening WRT North Korea.
No chance. He has shown no interest in war — other than the obligatory US intonations of ‘supporting our troops’ — war is bad for business, at least his business, his voters wouldn’t want it, having followed his calls for detachment from the world, and the armed forces who helped vote him in don’t seem keen on more wars for a while.
Hillary’s wretched wars devastated North Africa, caused Honduras to go into meltdown and her support of terrorists made Syria what it is — I doubt if any American generals want into of that mess, and I am sure Trump learnt from the old warmonger’s foolishness. To suppose an irredeemably stupid man can win the presidency seems remarkably idealistic. Nor will he nuke Mexico, Texas wouldn’t like it.
Will he go isolationist ? Probably. But the permanent interests of the US state will basically see a continuance over the last 40 years since Reagan. Trump or any president can’t change the basic plan, any more than he could arrest all the banksters or impose a marxist economy.
You have an exceptionally broad definition of “act of war.” Is there bombing/shooting/invading/blockading involved in Trump’s proposal? No.
War is bad for business, so why would he start a war? It’s politicians who start wars.
He is so clueless that he will end up backing into a war(s), but likely not shooting wars.
If he truly believes that “China stole American Jobs” (which worked wonders in the polls), he may get us into a trade/economic war with China (which would harm the US MUCH more than China.
For direct escalation to military (but just airplanes, no boots, of course) I’d guess DPRK’s next “ICBM” (which they don’t really have) and/or “nuclear” (questionable that they have master fission) test will bring a bunch of Cruise missiles in an attempt at decapitation of the regime.
With Putin able to control/restrain the idiot (Hey girls, let’s put on a show for the folks watching and listening to us!). he will not get involved with Russia’s recapture of Ukraine.
“The Wall” which would destroy migratory species will never get built. And if Mexico has a few tanks…
He’d love to be remembered like Teddy Roosevelt = all he needs is a San Juan Hill.
I think he’ll cause multiple wars; both directly by his order, and indirectly by his incompetent flailing about. I also expect at last one and possibly more uses of nuclear weapons. Mecca seems a likely target, to “punish Muslims”; also Tehran since Iran isn’t going to roll over for him. Mexico City is also a likely target is he presses ahead on his stupid wall and they refuse his demands that they pay for it.
With all the grief we get from Europe, perhaps they should make sure they are capable of defending themselves against Russia without the US’s help. There is no reason they should need us for that purpose. They have several times the population and GDP as Russia does.
That is not to say that I don’t value the US being part of NATO. I do. But if we decide to exit NATO, and Russia grabs Estonia, then the (mostly Western) European Powers have only themselves to blame. We don’t make our defense dependent on any other country and neither should the (mostly Western) European Powers.
Trump approaches all deals at the highest level of grandiosity and then bargains down to something at least possible. He will be the same with foreign policy. He wants to weaken the dollar and strengthen the yen, his main objective. He will put pressure on China to quit artificially holding down the yen by the use of taxes and tariffs. Not sure how he will weaken the dollar as that will magnify the size of the national debt. I wouldn’t be surprised if he negotiated down the debt.
China has the yuan, not the yen. Japan has the yen.
But you’re saying Trump has a yen for a stronger yuan?