Trump, Military Expansionism, & the Risk of Global Conflict over Trade
With the certainty of Donald Trump as the GOP's candidate for President of the United States, and recent polling which puts Trump within striking distance of the possible Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, many moderate republicans ( and even not-so-moderate republicans ) are regarding the 2016 elections with a mixture of horror and disgust. The unpleasant fact of having a reality T.V. star as their nominee is forcing some in the republican rank and file to contemplate their actions since President Obama took office. The results of eight long years of pandering to the furthest extreme of their party is staring the GOP in the face. Many in the republican party realize that if Trump wins, they would be responsible for placing an egotistical sociopath in the Oval Office and handing him the nuclear launch codes. A thought that should send a shiver down the spines of every single American. And they are not alone...
In a recent estimate by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a British think-tank and research firm, one of the Top Ten risks that the world faces is Donald Trump winning the 2016 election for President of the United States.
The British research firm warns a President Trump could disrupt the global economy and heighten political and security risks inside the United States. The EIU warns that Trump's extreme language, directed towards Mexico and China in particular, "could escalate rapidly into a trade war". The firm places the risk to a stable global economy that Trump brings to the world stage as greater than jihadist terrorism.
When his bombastic rhetoric towards other nations and school-yard bully attitude are combined with Donald Trump's call for an explosive increase in military spending, it is very easy to envision that a trade war with China could quickly escalate into a shooting war, particularly in the South China Sea. Trump has repeatedly expounded on using what-ever means that are at his disposal to bring other nations to heel in what many are describing as a very confrontational set of foreign policy guidelines. On the campaign trail, Candidate Trump has advocated killing the families of terrorists and invading Syria to eradicate the Islamic State group and appropriate its oil. "His militaristic tendencies towards the Middle East and ban on all Muslim travel to the US would be a potent recruitment tool for jihadi groups, increasing their threat both within the region and beyond," the EIU explained in it's findings.
Why is it that Donald Trump considered only slightly less of a threat to global security than a new Cold War? It may be because unlike more traditional GOP presidential front-runners, Trump has little or no policy substance to back up his "shoot-first-ask-questions-later" ego-driven pronouncements. If other global leaders and governments are looking for details on how the reality T.V. star would restructure US trade relations with China? Or how Trump would implement his proposed Muslim immigration ban? Exactly how would Trump twist Mexico's arm to finance a "Big Big Wall, the Biggest Best Wall Ever"? Good luck finding out... Donald Trump has been promising to reveal his foreign policy team since mid-February, but the few nuggets of real information coming from the Trump campaign since have been long on talk and short on facts. Trump's calls for a massive expansion of the United States military is giving many European leaders cold shivers as they remember the threats Europe faced during the forty-plus years of the Cold War. Indeed, when asked about the use of nuclear weapons in a recent interview, Trump refused to take the usage of tactical nukes in a conventional fight off the table.
As an example of just what might happen should Donald Trump become president, let's look at a recent incident in the South China Sea. Just this past week, two Chinese fighter jets made an "unsafe" interception of a U.S. Navy patrol aircraft in the disputed South China Sea where tensions between China and the United States are high. A vital shipping route believed to be home to vast energy deposits is also located in this region. China claims almost all of South China Sea which is disputed by several nations including two U.S. allies in the region, the Philippines and Taiwan. Beijing has been building islets in the disputed area into artificial islands with military facilities including radar systems and airstrips, which creates serious security concerns for the United States, it's allies, and other nations that are heavily involved with trade in the region and the usage of international shipping lanes. Now, imagine if you will this happening with Donald Trump sitting in the Oval Office... How long do you suppose, given Trump's rhetoric on military expansionism and the use of force, before he was down in the situation room ordering the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to launch an attack on the islet air-strip those fighters had taken off from, or to shoot down the Chinese planes at the very least? In this theoretical yet highly probable situation, we would face the reality of the United States in a shooting war over resources and trade routes with another nuclear power....
Food for thought as we head into the national conventions and the November 8th election....
