President-elect Trump believes that the United States has no important interests in Syria, or so he tweeted last week. This announcement has strengthened the view of some in the restraint community who reacted to his election with cautious optimism, hoping the new administration will turn away from decades of counter-productive foreign policies. More than a few people have suggested that the second Trump administration might prove to be a good one for advocates of restraint and that perhaps an embrace should be in the offing.
Such a move would be a catastrophic mistake. The once and future president represents not a boon to strategic restraint but a dire, existential threat. No grand strategy will survive the association with Trump and the MAGA movement, and restraint is no exception.
The GOP is riding high now, but it will govern on a fragile foundation. Today, it is less of a coherent political party than a cult of personality, and cults do not outlive their leaders. Eventually, Father Time will catch up to the president-elect. Probably sooner rather than later, the taco bowls, filets-o-fish, and inactivity will contribute to his involuntary retirement from politics. And when that happens, the GOP will face a reckoning. No one will rise to take his place. No new voice will be able to match Trump’s appeal to the masses, his charisma, and his instincts. When he goes away, so does MAGA, at least as a force that can produce victory in national elections. Historians will mark November 5, 2024, as the movement’s high-water mark.
Since 2015, when Trump was on the ticket, the GOP has outperformed expectations. Without him, in the off-years and special elections, the GOP has underperformed. Only the Dear Leader can inspire the MAGA nation to go to the polls.
Trump 2.0 will be unrestrained by archaic constitutional notions of checks and balances and is likely to produce catastrophe and disgrace beyond the imagination of reasonable people. Not long after it falls, there will be a backlash against everyone who helped and everything this man claimed to stand for. Once MAGA withers, its values and shibboleths will be rendered anathema to the next generation. By 2034, it will be hard to find any serious Americans who will admit to having supported Trump.
If its proponents are not careful, strategic restraint will become a casualty of the poisonous Trump legacy. Its opponents already associate it with Charles Lindbergh, Father Coughlin, and the other quasi-authoritarians of the 1930s. If it becomes identified with the quasi-authoritarians of the 2020s, it will not survive as an option for grand strategy moving forward. Years of effort to distance restraint from the caricature of isolationism will have been for naught. Restraint—and perhaps realism itself—will never recover from association with MAGA.
Trump is a nativist. His policies may overlap with restraint, but only by coincidence rather than shared values or goals. The neoconservative is the intellectual enemy of both MAGA and restraint, but in this case, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. Few restrainers have advocated for closing borders, restricting trade, or drawing lines between enemies and friends abroad. Even fewer support a massive buildup in the Pacific to deter a Chinese attack on Taiwan. In fact, restrainers tend to worry about the potential deterioration of that relationship and many others under myopic, manichean nativist leadership. And no restrainers support throwing more and more money at a bloated and wasteful Pentagon. Most are unified in their horror at Trump’s slate of unserious nominees for very serious jobs.
Prior to the rise of Trump, restraint had momentum in American strategic circles. Revulsion at unnecessary wars and preposterous defense spending levels was growing on both sides of the aisle. Money was even starting to flow into restraint-related coffers.
If the movement becomes synonymous with MAGA, that momentum will come to a halt—not today or tomorrow, but soon. And the damage could be permanent. Proponents may be willing to focus on the short-term gains that the new GOP’s leadership might bring, but they will be illusory.
The restraint tent must be wide and open to all political persuasions. However, if the movement is to be sustained, not everyone can be welcomed. The only acceptable outlook for those who want to build a truly sustainable route to restraint is to jockey for position on the anti-Trump bandwagon. There may be plenty of room now, but once the Dear Leader is gone, that bandwagon will become crowded quickly.
Restrainers must not fall for short-term policy illusions or sell their souls, no matter how strong the temptation. Sulfur does not quickly wash off. Its odor will stick to whatever Trump touches and will bring down entire movements if their proponents are not careful and crystal clear in their values from the beginning of what promises to be a long four-year stretch.
Christopher J. Fettweis is a professor of political science at Tulane University. His most recent book is The Pursuit of Dominance: 2000 Years of Superpower Grand Strategy (Oxford UP 2015).
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