As the managing partner of a prominent political risk consulting firm, I can say with great confidence that the worst thing one analyst of global affairs can say about another is to accuse them of lacking intellectual coherence; of not understanding the basics of the world we all operate in. More often than not, this intended swipe really means that the accuser does not much like the views of the accused, rather than that they actually lack intellectual coherence. In other words, the accuser is basically saying: “If you don’t agree with me, you must be deeply confused.”

Of course this arrogant nonsense amounts to dire political risk analysis of the worst sort. And being the lightning rod that he is, US President Donald Trump has drawn a great deal more than his share of this all-too-typical charge.

But you can easily disagree with someone who actually has an internal logic to their ideas. Such is the case with Trump, the current disruptor-in-chief. So let us instead think again, go back to first principles and look at what Trump actually (and surprisingly coherently) thinks about the vexing, challenging world we all presently live in.

For Trump does indeed fit coherently into a standard American foreign policy school of thought, espousing a Jacksonian world view that has been around since the 1820s and that almost no one outside the US has any real knowledge of. Yet there is a reason that Steve Bannon urged Trump to place a portrait of Andrew Jackson, the seventh US president, next to him in the Oval Office.

What do Jacksonians think? They believe that America’s expansive globalist foreign policy in the Cold War was a specific response to a specific Soviet threat. With this danger passing from the scene, the US should now retrench and run a far less overweening foreign policy, worrying more about problems at home than abroad.

Jacksonians believe US foreign policy should prioritize American national sovereignty and internal coherence, and independence of action. Jacksonians do not want to order far-away people’s lives but are determined to protect their own lives, values, traditions and dignity from outside interference.

Trump has rejected the Obama administration’s approach and returned the US to the path of working with valued allies through thick and thin.

Dr. John C. Hulsman

For followers of this school of thought, their loyalty and sympathy moves outwards from those closest to home. For the supporters of the president, their first concern is family, then state or region, then country, and only then do they worry over-much about the international order.

Jacksonians see the three major foreign policy priorities as: Tamping down on illegal immigration; seeing the US stop paying the exorbitant costs of being the ordering power and being taken advantage of by friend and foe alike; and ending American free trade “losses.” Looked at through the Jacksonian prism, the Trump administration’s very different overall foreign policy begins to make sense.

In his reticence to militarily intervene around the world and his skepticism of nation-building, Trump rejects the neoconservative foreign policy of George W. Bush. And, in his assertion of American sovereignty and disavowal of multilateralism, he rejects the Wilsonian foreign policy of Barack Obama.

Finally, in true Jacksonian fashion, Trump is highly transactional with the rest of the world. Allies still matter, but only if they add immediate and perceived value to what the US is attempting to do.

So it is vital to truly understand the Jacksonian nature of the Trump revolution, for only then does the president’s overall Middle East foreign policy begin to make sense.

Trump’s Jacksonianism pulls him in two different directions in the region at the same time. On the one hand, mindful of the fact that the Middle East has been the graveyard of recent presidencies, and acutely aware that his base (in striking contrast to traditional Republican Party beliefs) is adamantly opposed to fighting “wars of choice,” as the Iraq conflict is increasingly seen to have been, Trump is extremely wary of making any significant troop commitment to the region, risking yet another disastrous war for little or no national interest gain.

On the other hand, Jacksonianism is not an isolationist belief system. In a region with five great regional powers (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Israel, and Iran), the Trump White House — in lieu of yet another increased American military commitment — has placed its eggs in the strategic basket of its long-time allies, particularly Saudi Arabia and Israel, vigorously supporting them in the face of what is universally seen as increased Iranian regional provocations.

It is precisely because of the president’s wariness about being ensnared in another Middle Eastern morass that he has rejected the Obama administration’s approach and returned the US to the path of working with valued allies through thick and thin, adding real strategic value on the ground by bolstering American national interests. Jacksonianism explains the paradox of why the US cares less overall about the Middle East, while at the same time is more closely embracing its long-term allies to sustain its interests in a region that still matters.

  • Dr. John C. Hulsman is the president and managing partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a prominent global political risk consulting firm. He is also senior columnist for City AM, the newspaper of the City of London. He can be contacted via chartwellspeakers.com.