This analogy isn’t quite right, but the last week has felt as if John Gotti had realized that the most potent military in history was available as muscle. It’s not just a foreign policy of plunder. It’s a world where intimidation is the only currency. Senseless threats are good for business. Of course, this comparison is probably unfair to Gotti, who had a sense of propriety among thieves. But he faced more restraints than Trump does.
This is what Trump has always done to everyone throughout his life to satisfy his narcissistic ego and his unbridled greed. Now he has fully realized that he can use the entire power of the USA unhindered for his own purposes. No one will ever be able to hold him accountable. As I said a year ago, the entire USA has become Trump's business empire, without any accountability whatsoever.
With the new White House stated goal of going from a military budget of $1T to $1.5T, reasonable observers would conclude that we are faced with a threat of the same nature and scale as Nazi Germany, with the same necessary response. Americans will resist such analysis for understandable cultural and psychological reasons, but for other states it would be dangerous not to act accordingly.
It very much feels like an intentional shift toward multipolarity. Maybe even a signal to the other great powers out there that as we reclaim total dominance in our sphere— kicking Denmark out of Greenland and kicking China out of Venezuela— with pure military might rather than soft power or diplomacy, or even military might backed by liberal coded justifications (WMD threat to world order), that this is the state of the world we’re ok with. Like you said, we’ve lowered the penalty for behaving like a rogue state by doing so unapologetically. I wrote recently that I didn’t think Venezuela would directly change China’s calculus for invading Taiwan, but I increasingly get the sense that Trump would barely have to think before making the decision not to intervene.
I’d like to see Dan comment on the role of individual leaders - it seems to me IR has difficulty dealing with that, resists it, because of a bias toward systemic explanations. But one guy can change the system in a big way. Some have called DJT an American Gorbachev. Something to that, I think.
I think on the one hand the Trump Admin wants a autarky that pushes wealth and power up to Dear Leader that, due to the (seemingly) abundant resources spread over the Americas is more or less regional, though the need for a number of resources like rare earths make a pure regional autarky impossible.
On the other, more important hand, they want a blood and soil hierarchy fueled by the love if not worship of violence for its own sake.
We've seen this before. We know Stephen Miller a) tucks Trump into bed at night and b) thinks he's Himmler reincarnated. Mimmler appears to have unlimited influence on Trump. If it sounds like a goose and it steps like a goose...
Hi Professor Drezner, I wrote something about Miller's force, strength, power doctrine here on substack. Would love to know your thoughts and if its worth sharing more broadly, please feel free. I am relying on conventional historical interpretations of major events in the Western canon, beginning with the Melian dialogue that you reference in the footnote of this post. Miller made a sweeping claim, so I checked the record. https://substack.com/@jamess89/p-188331073
In the post Cold War era the US has “occasionally” done things that violated its stated principles for world order? Are you kidding me? Where have you been for the last 30 years?
What about President George H. W. Bush’s invasion of Panama in December, 1989, his oil war against Iraq in 1991, President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq on the flimsiest pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and the non productive war in Afghanistan through three administrations?
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.” - Hannah Arendt
Along similar lines, I found these articles illuminating. Getting a sense of a new school of thought developing - neo-royalist, patrimonial, neo-feudal. Pick your poisonous term.
Latter two below.
Sins of the Father
The United States is joining the ranks of patrimonial states. It’s nothing short of a revolution.
The Forgotten Dystopian Vision That Explains Trump’s Canada Obsession
The president’s outlandish fixation on annexing Canada and Greenland makes sense when you understand his worldview. It’s pretty similar to one articulated in 1941.
Many are making the comparison to Noriega and Panama in 1989. Arguing, nothing special here - America does this kind of stuff all the time. There may be something to that in a narrow sense. But I guess the response would be that the context now is very different …
Seva Gunitsky
panama happened at peak of US hegemonic consolidation and the liberal order was about to expand dramatically. I think violations during periods of order-consolidation are different than violations during periods of dissolution, when they become the new rule. And panama was done with liberal justifications on the surface (democracy promotion, drug trafficking, whatever). This is being done with essentially putinist justifications, and I think that signals what principles the great powers want to govern the system
If anyone wants more on misinterpretation of Melian Dialogue
One other difference that strikes me relates to La Rouchefoucauld's "Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue." Great powers have often acted hypocritically, providing not-always-plausible "liberal justifications" for their actions, but the current US government seems unwilling or unable to acknowledge that 'virtue' exists.
As someone who is teaching intro political philosophy to undergrads next week, this nicely motivates why we still read Hobbes and Locke.
Stephen Miller's worldview in nutshell: Blood and soil at home, blood and iron abroad. - and not even the somewhat sophisticated Bismarckian version.
Miller is more like the boorish Thrasymachus at the beginning of the Republic: “Listen, then," says the angry Sophist (Thrasymachus), "I proclaim that might is right, and justice is the interest of the stronger. The different forms of government make laws, democratic, aristocratic, or autocratic, with a view to their respective interests; and these laws, so made by them to serve their interests, they deliver to their subjects as "justice," and punish as "unjust" anyone who transgresses them.” Socrates swiftly skewers this view as question-begging the relationship between self-interest and justice. Glaucon then presents the more sophisticated Hobbesian view. The entirety of the Republic is devoted to arguing that justice is ultimately in everyone's rational self-interest, including the strong.
It is amazing that for all their emphasis on classical education versus woke, they clearly haven't understood much of it. The latest confirmation of this is that a philosophy professor at UT Austin had to remove Plato's Symposium from his syllabus because it discusses homosexual love relations and is therefore too woke.
This analogy isn’t quite right, but the last week has felt as if John Gotti had realized that the most potent military in history was available as muscle. It’s not just a foreign policy of plunder. It’s a world where intimidation is the only currency. Senseless threats are good for business. Of course, this comparison is probably unfair to Gotti, who had a sense of propriety among thieves. But he faced more restraints than Trump does.
This is what Trump has always done to everyone throughout his life to satisfy his narcissistic ego and his unbridled greed. Now he has fully realized that he can use the entire power of the USA unhindered for his own purposes. No one will ever be able to hold him accountable. As I said a year ago, the entire USA has become Trump's business empire, without any accountability whatsoever.
With the new White House stated goal of going from a military budget of $1T to $1.5T, reasonable observers would conclude that we are faced with a threat of the same nature and scale as Nazi Germany, with the same necessary response. Americans will resist such analysis for understandable cultural and psychological reasons, but for other states it would be dangerous not to act accordingly.
It very much feels like an intentional shift toward multipolarity. Maybe even a signal to the other great powers out there that as we reclaim total dominance in our sphere— kicking Denmark out of Greenland and kicking China out of Venezuela— with pure military might rather than soft power or diplomacy, or even military might backed by liberal coded justifications (WMD threat to world order), that this is the state of the world we’re ok with. Like you said, we’ve lowered the penalty for behaving like a rogue state by doing so unapologetically. I wrote recently that I didn’t think Venezuela would directly change China’s calculus for invading Taiwan, but I increasingly get the sense that Trump would barely have to think before making the decision not to intervene.
Wendt’s classic article, ungated
https://pmachala.people.amherst.edu/Current%20Politics/PS-50%20IR%20&%20Foreign%20Policy%20Theory-THE%20READINGS/Archive/Wendt,%20Anarchy%20is%20what%20states%20make%20of%20it%20(1992).pdf
I’d like to see Dan comment on the role of individual leaders - it seems to me IR has difficulty dealing with that, resists it, because of a bias toward systemic explanations. But one guy can change the system in a big way. Some have called DJT an American Gorbachev. Something to that, I think.
I think on the one hand the Trump Admin wants a autarky that pushes wealth and power up to Dear Leader that, due to the (seemingly) abundant resources spread over the Americas is more or less regional, though the need for a number of resources like rare earths make a pure regional autarky impossible.
On the other, more important hand, they want a blood and soil hierarchy fueled by the love if not worship of violence for its own sake.
We've seen this before. We know Stephen Miller a) tucks Trump into bed at night and b) thinks he's Himmler reincarnated. Mimmler appears to have unlimited influence on Trump. If it sounds like a goose and it steps like a goose...
Hi Professor Drezner, I wrote something about Miller's force, strength, power doctrine here on substack. Would love to know your thoughts and if its worth sharing more broadly, please feel free. I am relying on conventional historical interpretations of major events in the Western canon, beginning with the Melian dialogue that you reference in the footnote of this post. Miller made a sweeping claim, so I checked the record. https://substack.com/@jamess89/p-188331073
In the post Cold War era the US has “occasionally” done things that violated its stated principles for world order? Are you kidding me? Where have you been for the last 30 years?
What about President George H. W. Bush’s invasion of Panama in December, 1989, his oil war against Iraq in 1991, President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq on the flimsiest pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and the non productive war in Afghanistan through three administrations?
Nothing has changed. Liked your article though.
Keep up the good work.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist.” - Hannah Arendt
Along similar lines, I found these articles illuminating. Getting a sense of a new school of thought developing - neo-royalist, patrimonial, neo-feudal. Pick your poisonous term.
Latter two below.
Sins of the Father
The United States is joining the ranks of patrimonial states. It’s nothing short of a revolution.
STEPHEN E. HANSON AND JEFFREY S. KOPSTEIN
MAR 05, 2025
https://www.persuasion.community/p/sins-of-the-father
(Neo-feudal)
The Forgotten Dystopian Vision That Explains Trump’s Canada Obsession
The president’s outlandish fixation on annexing Canada and Greenland makes sense when you understand his worldview. It’s pretty similar to one articulated in 1941.
https://newrepublic.com/article/193334/trump-greenland-canada-annex-ukraine
millers quote is one of the reasons for the large defence upcoming budget
This is one of the most helpful framings of the international mess I have read. I look forward to more.
Yes, history “rhyming” is of limited use here. Context matters.
Got into this question with U of Toronto’s Seva Gunitsky
https://hegemon.substack.com/p/venezuela-is-a-gift-to-putin/comment/194768848
Me:
Many are making the comparison to Noriega and Panama in 1989. Arguing, nothing special here - America does this kind of stuff all the time. There may be something to that in a narrow sense. But I guess the response would be that the context now is very different …
Seva Gunitsky
panama happened at peak of US hegemonic consolidation and the liberal order was about to expand dramatically. I think violations during periods of order-consolidation are different than violations during periods of dissolution, when they become the new rule. And panama was done with liberal justifications on the surface (democracy promotion, drug trafficking, whatever). This is being done with essentially putinist justifications, and I think that signals what principles the great powers want to govern the system
If anyone wants more on misinterpretation of Melian Dialogue
Do The Strong Suffer When They Do What They Want?
Seán Molloy
https://logosjournal.com/between-the-issues/do-the-strong-suffer-when-they-do-what-they-want/
One other difference that strikes me relates to La Rouchefoucauld's "Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue." Great powers have often acted hypocritically, providing not-always-plausible "liberal justifications" for their actions, but the current US government seems unwilling or unable to acknowledge that 'virtue' exists.
Seems that what Trump is doing, both internally and externally, is reforming status quos that haven’t been beneficial for years; decades, even.
As someone who is teaching intro political philosophy to undergrads next week, this nicely motivates why we still read Hobbes and Locke.
Stephen Miller's worldview in nutshell: Blood and soil at home, blood and iron abroad. - and not even the somewhat sophisticated Bismarckian version.
Miller is more like the boorish Thrasymachus at the beginning of the Republic: “Listen, then," says the angry Sophist (Thrasymachus), "I proclaim that might is right, and justice is the interest of the stronger. The different forms of government make laws, democratic, aristocratic, or autocratic, with a view to their respective interests; and these laws, so made by them to serve their interests, they deliver to their subjects as "justice," and punish as "unjust" anyone who transgresses them.” Socrates swiftly skewers this view as question-begging the relationship between self-interest and justice. Glaucon then presents the more sophisticated Hobbesian view. The entirety of the Republic is devoted to arguing that justice is ultimately in everyone's rational self-interest, including the strong.
It is amazing that for all their emphasis on classical education versus woke, they clearly haven't understood much of it. The latest confirmation of this is that a philosophy professor at UT Austin had to remove Plato's Symposium from his syllabus because it discusses homosexual love relations and is therefore too woke.