Here's how foreign policy experts can work around Donald Trump

The problem with Trump is not so much that he sees a world of self-motivated states and individuals, but that he only sees the world that way

 

Donald Trump desperately needs a foreign policy doctrine.

He does have his views on global politics. Witness his speech at the United Nations in mid-September, where he called for a world where states do nothing more than jealously guard their sovereignty. (He used the word almost two dozen times.)

But slogans aren’t strategy. On North Korea or Syria, for instance, he offers bluster but little else.

And he doesn’t listen to those who know better. In the one case where he did listen to the advice of his generals —Afghanistan — he still ended up pledging more force