Trump's national security strategy consists of outbursts and is a farce

THE Trump administration has put out its new national security strategy. This is a farce. On any one issue, President Donald Trump and his team have several contradictory positions. That's what happens when your priority as president is to use foreign policy to throw red meat to your base while other Cabinet members are scrambling to stop Armageddon.

"It's impossible to know what the position of the United States is on any number of subjects," a European ambassador told me last week. "We could go sleepwalking into a war." Let's start with North Korea, whose small but growing nuclear arsenal is overseen by Kim Jong-un, a leader as volatile as Mr Trump.

Last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Trump administration's policy towards North Korea is "really quite clear". He said: "We're ready to talk anytime North Korea would like to talk, and we're ready to have the first meeting without precondition." That was Dec 12 at the Atlantic Council. By Friday, at the United Nations, Mr Tillerson was setting conditions.