What is Trump's target?

George W. Bush, who took the presidential seat after Bill Clinton, had in essence run an election campaign promising the restoration of the US at home. However, it was also known that in that period he was under the influence of the group known as the neo-conservatives, who argued that the US could not, and should not, escape the responsibilities that the global order imposed on it. This group argued that American power should be used in all its aspects in all the crisis areas that threaten the world system.

The Bush administration's persuasion of public opinion to this perspective became possible only with the September 11 Attacks. For the first time since World War II the US was attacked on the homeland, and, in the description of the legendary series Mad Men, support for the expansion of US power increased among the American middle class, which had had a bit of university education, earned good money but thought it earned little because it worked long hours, wanted a lawn mower and a hammock, and had a lot of power tools in its garage that it did not use.

The Bush administration also did not neglect to tie the expansion of the field of American power to a doctrine called Pre-emptive Strike, in other words to give it a bit of philosophical depth. According to the Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine, in a world that has now become a completely insecure place, the definition of attack needs to be remade. The September 11 attacks have shown that a state can now be the target not only of another state but also of various criminal organizations or terrorist organizations. Therefore, from now on the US must take measures, in the geographies it feels may pose a threat to itself, against the actor it perceives as a threat before the attack is carried to its own territory, and within this framework it reserves the right to intervene.

Within the framework of this doctrine, which changes or shapes the content of abstract and contested concepts such as intervention, as well as of relatively more concrete ones such as war and peace in international law and in the established literature of international relations, and which enables them to be taken up anew and in another format, US military power expanded throughout the Bush period. The prolongation of the Iraq Operation, which came after the Afghanistan Operation and was carried out with Saddam's nuclear missiles as a pretext, brought with it discomfort in American society, especially about the use of US soldiers outside the US.

The Obama administration, which inherited Bush's legacy, without completely rejecting the Bush Doctrine, developed a strategy called Smart Power. According to this strategy, instead of using US soldiers in crisis regions, the soldiers of local allied countries of the US, called pivotal states, were to be used. This was in fact a controlled step taken to bring back to the country the US military power that had expanded limitlessly during the Bush period. The aim was to lower US military expenditures and to manage processes without compromising its global power position, in other words, to "lead from behind."

The Syrian crisis's remaining unresolved was a result of Obama's "Smart Power" approach. This approach, which caused it to seek on the one hand to keep the US within the crisis and on the other to avoid taking responsibility, turned the US into an ineffective element of the process, while opening to Russia, for the first time since the Cold War, the ways of entering the Middle East this strongly. Leading from behind removed the US from leadership, at least in the Syrian example. The disruption of the US cog, which is expected to fulfill its role in the global system, or rather is expected not to malfunction in order to ensure the continuation of the system, indicated that a process of self-criticism needed to begin.

Looking at the process independently of the caricature-like aspects of Trump, who took over from Obama, it can be said that the present US administration is carrying out this process of self-criticism. Of course with its own findings and prescriptions.

Unlike Obama, the Trump administration thinks that it is not countries but the global system in which they find themselves that threatens the future of the US. The continuation of the current system is made possible despite the US's constant printing of dollars without backing, in return for meeting its need for manufactured goods from the Chinese or European market, the daily erosion of the production economy in the US, and the daily rise in unemployment rates. In other words, according to the Trump administration, the US carries the burden of the system but China or the EU wins. At this point, a tremendous trade war with both the EU and China is on the verge of breaking out. What the Trump administration says is quite simple: Just as we import from you, you must import from us; otherwise we will obtain the revenue we planned to obtain from imports by imposing additional taxes on the products we import from you.

In addition, support from allied countries is also demanded in covering the costs of the public goods the US has produced for a long time. For example, countries under the NATO umbrella are expected to contribute more to the alliance's expenditures. It may be illuminating to read in this context the warm messages being sent to countries such as Russia and North Korea while tensions with allies and trade partners rise. For the aim of the Trump administration is not to change alliances but to reshape the global system. And it does not seem it will be easy to achieve this. It may be useful to consider also from this perspective the value of our having held elections and taken a stance in favor of stability in a period when the potential for conflict in our region is increasing.