Three millennia ago the Egyptian king Rameses II signed a peace treaty with the Hittite Empire after protracted warfare. The two kings inscribed the treaty on a silver plaque. Two versions of the agreement existed thereafter – the Hittite king went away with a text that said the Egyptians had sued for peace, and the Egyptians' copy said the opposite.
One might think an event so long ago irrelevant. Donald Trump, however, evidently thinks he is acting in accordance with time honoured principles of politics in which an enemy today is a friend tomorrow. His worldview is one in which might makes right. There is little room for legal or moral principles... or friends. It is a worldview in which alliances shift and states must rely on themselves as far as possible. In Russia people like to quote Alexander III: 'Russia has only two allies – its army and its navy.' It is tempting to think Trump might say something similar about the United States.
The US is not at war with Russia, but by contemplating a peace settlement negotiated bilaterally with Russia (and Trump clearly has contemplated it) we can infer rather a lot about how he understands international politics. Assuming the US president is not a 'Russian asset' – that claim lacks a 'smoking gun' – there are the broad contours of a strategy behind his chaotic day-to-day foreign policy. This blog explains that strategy and asks how Europeans should respond to it.
Trump's grand strategy