Trump's grand strategic train wreck

Washington

BELIEVE it or not, President Donald Trump has a grand strategy. According to some analysts, Mr Trump's endless streams of erratic and apparently improvisational ideas don't add up to anything consistent or purposeful enough to call a grand strategy. We see it otherwise. Beneath all the rants, tweets and noise, there is actually a discernible pattern of thought - a Trumpian view of the world that goes back decades. Mr Trump has put forward a clear vision to guide his administration's foreign policy - albeit a dark and highly troubling one, riddled with tensions and vexing dilemmas.

Grand strategy is the conceptual architecture that lends structure and form to foreign policy. It represents a more purpo…