One hundred and two years ago, on this day, the United States exerted itself on the world stage when Woodrow Wilson presented his Fourteen Points for peace after the First World War. This was a shining moment of statecraft for our nation. Today, however, the United States has a foreign policy that is shaped by a president who seems to have fourteen moods.
Over the summer, Donald Trump stopped a missile attack on Iran after he had approved it. Then months later, he authorized the missile attack that killed Qassem Soleimani. Trump threatened to bomb Iranian cultural sites, only to be contravened by his defense secretary. He wanted to get out of Iraq but has instead deployed more troops. Our military headquarters in Baghdad released a letter saying it was withdrawing from Iraq, then the Pentagon said it was only a draft. Trump is now on his fourth national security adviser, third defense secretary, and second state secretary.
We are in an age defined by the Army War College as VUCA, or volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Things change unpredictably and quickly. Our tactical responses must be agile and must respond to those changing circumstances. This foreign policy, however, is like a frayed thin rubber band. When Trump snaps, so does the policy. There is no stable doctrine, only the mood of an erratic president. Once we defined threat based on color codes. Now we do it based on a retro 1970s mood ring.
Woodrow Wilson exalted the idea that the world “must be made safe” for democracy. Winston Churchill was grounded in a bleakly realistic view of the world. Ronald Reagan never wavered from his belief that American strength could deliver freedom abroad. John Kennedy was clear and calm when he let “every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
What are the pillars of the world view of this administration, other than the letters above the brim of a “Make America Great Again” cap? We are ranked 27th in the world in education and health care, according to the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Our infant mortality rate is 33rd while our life expectancy is 26th out of three dozen countries within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We have plummeted from presidents who once led the world to one who receives the most snickers from other world leaders.
It is basic stuff we are talking about, but it is critical that our allies and adversaries alike have a sense of where we stand and for what we stand. Security depends on stability. Stability requires a sense of predictability. Predictability requires consistency. But what we have today is a foreign policy version of a horrendous performance of the Ice Capades, slipping, sliding, and spinning all to the anxious breaths of the rest of the world.
It remains to be seen whether Iran will go further than it has in retaliating, despite Trump saying it is standing down. But rather than depending on the rational actions of the president of the United States for international security, we have instead relied on the rational calculations of decision makers in Iran. It does not get weaker or lower than that. Not yet, at least.
Steve Israel represented New York in Congress for 16 years and served as the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015. He is now the director of the Institute of Politics and Global Affairs at Cornell University. You can find him on Twitter @RepSteveIsrael.