Trump Doctrine Research Articles

The Trump Doctrine: Redefining U.S. Foreign Policy through Immigration, Security, and Diplomacy

‘Waking up from an American Dream’ discusses the US foreign affairs during Trump’s presidency with an emphasis on the particular pillars of terrorism, immigration, and international relations regarding the adversary countries. Written by professors Hossein Daheshiar, Ellias Aghili Dehnavi, and Marzieh Iranpour, the work analyzes both the application of the so-called “Jacksonian” politics by the Trump administration besides the variants of the containment politics, regarding the foreign policy of the U.S, the book addresses the multidimensional aspects of security, immigration and diplomacy, addressing those particular interactions that are especially relevant in the aftermath of 9/11. This piece, published by tredition gmbh in 2020, is also a part of wider scholarly debate concerning changes in American politics within the presidency of Trump with, however, deeper implications for international relations[i].

The US-China Trade War: Hard Implications of a Soft War

The end of the Cold War reinforced the term globalisation, where states became more intertwined economically, tilted towards consolidation of their economic ties. However, great power politics kept in gaining buoyancy in the international relations; resultantly, the United States initiated and later amplified its trade with China. Hitherto, the latter became the second largest trade partner of the former. During the last couple of years, such ties between the two witnessed a turbulent trajectory. However, America under Trump administration, accused China of raping the US economy, being an unfair trade partner, and spattered of becoming a currency manipulator. To minimize and equalize the trade deficit that reached almost 345.6 billion USD in 2019, the Trump administration initiated a unique trade war between the two great economies; consequently, such policy decisions remained one of the hottest issues in international politics. The Trump Doctrine hinged upon America First; and the imposition of strict tariffs on numerous Chinese products, surprised the international commentators and economists. The article intends to probe the strategic context of the US-China Trade War and the implications of such on a global level. It also explores continuity of the same under the Biden administration. It tentatively provided a way forward for both great powers as well.

Communicative Power America: A Vision for a New US Grand Strategy

ABSTRACT President Trump’s credo ‘America First’ marked an end to American exceptionalism. Against this backdrop, President Biden aims to restore America’s moral leadership. Yet, he lacks a clear vision. Against the Trump doctrine and realist arguments for the end of a values-driven foreign policy, we propose a vision for a US foreign policy guided by self-restraint and critical self-reflection. We argue that following such vision is in the strategic interest of the United States. The search for a vision for a US grand strategy is not just an abstract question for International Relations scholars, but of high importance for practice. Shared visions are crucial if not necessary for successful leadership.

America and the special relationship: the impact of the Trump administration on relations with the UK.

The article seeks to assess to what extent the Trump presidency damaged the Anglo-American special relationship. By drawing on a theoretical framework that is broader than much of the existing literature, this article argues that the Trump presidency inflicted largely short-term damage on the special relationship. Though common interests, common sentiments and mutual utility between the US and the UK were weakened in the Trump era, the institutionalized underpinnings of the special relationship were sufficiently robust to withstand the corrosive effects of the ‘Trump doctrine’. While President Biden cannot undo the negative impact of Brexit on the UK’s utility to the US, the early period of his presidency has witnessed the special relationship’s rapid recovery from most of the damage inflicted by the Trump presidency.

Global Horizons of the Atlantic Alliance: the Biden “Vaccine”

The article examines the conceptual issues of the transatlantic relations under the American administration in 2021 and the renewal of the NATO strategy. The NATO summit in Brussels on June 14, 2021, which was attended by US President Joe Biden, was initially seen as a US “coming back” to Europe after a turbulent “trumpism” period in transatlantic relations. The summit communiqué defines the main lines of the alliance transformation in response to the growing challenges to Euro-Atlantic security, considering the main ones incoming from Russia and China, while also imposed by international terrorism. The analysis of the Summit decisions and the follow-up of Joe Biden's European meetings proves the alliance globalization trend, both in geopolitical and functional terms. The summit, while having adopted the NATO 2030 Agenda, decided to adopt a new strategic concept at the next meeting in Spain in 2022. The author argues that the unresolved transatlantic problems and the allies’ disagreements internally challenge the alliance “global” strategy. The “trusted leadership” the Biden administration sets against the “Trump Doctrine” undermines the allies’ ability to step up the European strategic autonomy project, including in relations with Russia and China, as well as in after-Brexit Euro-Atlantic rebalancing.

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The Impact of the Trump Doctrine on U.S. foreign policy toward Iraq

Under the Trump administration, U.S. foreign policy has focused on curbing Iran's influence and the role and maintaining counter-terrorism operations in Iraq. President Trump's focus in Iraq has been through smart power, an approach that stresses the need for a robust military presence and invests in political relationships to expand influence and establish its legitimacy. Trump's focus is pursuing U.S. interests in Iraq while curbing Iran, which, in the Trump administration's perspective, is counter to the previous administration's actions of engagement by the Bush administration and disengagement by the Obama administration that deteriorated U.S. interests in Iraq at the expense of the United States. At its core, Trump's policies can be defined as Transactional Realism. Therefore, it can be argued that, despite focusing on U.S. troop withdrawal, Trump will maintain U.S. involvement in Iraq and contain and deter threats to U.S. interests in Iraq. Keywords; Trump Doctrine, Iraqi crisis, War on Terror, Iranian intervention,

Theorizing unpredictability in international politics: a new approach to Trump and the Trump Doctrine

On the campaign trail, then-candidate Donald Trump expressed a desire to pioneer an unpredictable US foreign policy that would both deceive opponents and disrupt the status quo. Academic and media commentators readily labelled this Trump’s ‘Unpredictability Doctrine’ and have since debated its merits and demerits. Beyond inevitable partisan divides, however, these responses also revealed enormous disagreement over conceptualizations of unpredictability and its impacts, raising fundamental questions for the IR discipline and the foreign policy analysis it informs. What are the ontological and epistemological roots of unpredictability in international politics? How can scholars simultaneously grapple with the conundrums posed by erratic actors and the larger, ever-changing systems they shape? This article unravels the philosophy of science (PoS) issues inherent in theorizing unpredictability, offering a novel, synthesized typology. Recognizing that PoS assumptions both frame accounts of unpredictability and represent a source of uncertainty, this article instead advocates epistemological humility, offering a new typology that transcends assumptions and facilitates dialogue between camps. This typology includes three ‘buckets’ of unpredictability – risk, uncertainty and complexity – that can be interpreted according to varying philosophy of science traditions. When applied empirically, this terminology helps contextualize analysis and expose oftentimes overlooked contours of US foreign policymaking.

The Impact of the Trump Doctrine on Syria

United States foreign policy has sought to maintain primacy on the global stage, but every U.S. president has maintained U.S. foreign policy in their own context. Counter to previous administrations, President Donald Trump has focused U.S. foreign policy through the lens of transactional realism concentrating on counterterrorism and challenges to U.S. interests and allies in the Middle East. Trump has criticized his predecessors for their policies of deep engagement leading to a deterioration of U.S. ‘Greatness,’ wasted tax dollars, and wasted American lives. Rooted in his background as an entrepreneur, President Trump has centered foreign policy around “America First.” However, U.S. interests in Syria are complicated by a multitude of actors involved in the Syrian conflict. Consequently, President Trump utilizes smart power with limited engagement in Syria based on cooperation with regional and international actors, particularly with regards to the ‘War on Terror.’ This strategy focuses on working with Russia, even if concessions are necessary, to curb Iran’s role in the region while protecting longtime ally, Israel.Furthermore, the United States exerts limited engagement through Syrian Kurdish forces in the region to maintain its strategy in Syria.

US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Logic of Hegemonic Retreat

AbstractThe Trump administration's foreign policy is often perceived as an isolationist ideology that has radically reversed American global leadership in a matter of years. In the Middle East, critics have harangued the Trump Doctrine as an even hastier surrender of the US hegemony that has defined regional order since the 1980s. In reality, American interest in this region has been declining for a decade as expressed by its rising reluctance to leverage its economic and military supremacy to constrain, regulate, and destroy perceived foes as it once did. This waning interventionism precedes the Trump Doctrine. It stems not from any ideological turn, or the financial and military exhaustion of a cresting superpower, but rather a structural dynamic: the Middle East no longer generates credible threats against the US. Whereas in the past alarmist fears of communism and energy insecurity propelled Washington's regional imperium, today the perceived enemies of US interests – radical Islamism and Iran – do not endanger the political institutions and economic prosperity of American society. Absent a catastrophic terrorist attack, the US will continue to relinquish its hegemonic mantle, turning away from overt interventionism as the logic of coercively dominating a region of diminishing importance runs its course.

Strategic repositioning of the United States in the 21st century: Is there a ‘Trump doctrine’ on the horizon?

The core interests, strategic guidelines of the United States and the priorities of the American president are also elaborated and expressed in the key documents of National Security and Defence Strategy, which are accurately scrutinized and analysed both by the allied and rival, challenging powers of the United States. Following the rather passive and restrained interest assertion of the Obama administration’s foreign and se-curity policies, the incumbent Trump presidency tends to show more power, resoluteness as well as quite unpredictable measures and controversial strategic framework in the ev-er-changing arena of international affairs. Many analysts claim that the new American administration tends to focus primarily on preserving the relative American economic and absolute military primacy, and the global status quo without any clear future vision or strategic set of objectives that would be desirable from a super-power. A question quite frequently emerges whether a Trump-doctrine is due to get into shape or it is rather total-ly out of scope for the time being?

The Illusive Search for a Trump Doctrine: Implications for U.S. Foreign Policy

It is a gross understatement to say that 2016 has been a year of profound political surprises. Polls and analyst predictions on Brexit and the US Presidential election proved woefully inaccurate. The unexpected election victory of Donald Trump has had profound reverberations across the world. Some European leaders expressed shock at the prospect of a Trump Presidency.

Divining a “Trump Doctrine”

This essay, written before Donald J. Trump's election as 45th President of the United States, sought to divine a “Trump doctrine” on national security and foreign policy, based on what Mr. Trump himself said and wrote over the preceding decades. It shows Mr. Trump's sympathy for a unilateralist (but not the pejorative isolationist of which some charge him) approach to defining American interests and for strategic ambiguity in dealing with America's adversaries. There, in fact, is a sizeable body of material from which to discern the contours of his thinking in these areas, much of it quite prescient. What some find disorientating is that Mr. Trump never felt compelled to synthesize it into a definitive “Trump doctrine,” or at least not one that satisfied the orthodoxy.

The Tradition of the Written Constitution: Text, Precedent, and Burke

The Tradition of the Written Constitution: Text, Precedent, and Burke