An Unplanned War
Is there anything like a rational policy process? I don't see one.
[Updated with an additional footnote]
The main thing I’d want to get across to people about Donald Trump and his administration right now is that however unprepared you might think they are for war, the chances are very good that it’s much worse. Much, much worse.
To be sure: We won’t get full confirmation of this until much later. But what I see, and what reporters and experts have told us is happening, is what I’ve been saying since early in Trump’s second presidency: The entire administration has been set up to prevent the president from having to encounter information that makes him uncomfortable or challenges his impulses.
And the national security process as it has existed since Harry Truman was president has been at best hollowed out (with subject-matter experts removed from the loop) and at worst isn’t operating at all. What’s replaced it is the president’s impulses, based on whoever he happens to talk to, whatever he happens to see on his favorite cable news shows, or whoever is best at manipulating him.
So if you think that the administration “can’t get its story straight” in its public statements there’s a good chance that the underlying problem is that they have no idea what they’re doing.1 I know it seems incredible that no one bothered to game this thing out beyond the initial steps, but there’s a very good chance that’s exactly what happened.
As far as public evidence, I’ll submit three things:
Trump told CNN”s Jake Tapper that Iran’s attacks against Arab nations were the “biggest surprise” so far. Perhaps he was just saying that for unknown reasons, but let’s just say that a fully briefed president would hardly have been surprised at all.
Trump apparently okayed the Iran attack in part because he thinks his Venezuela operation went well. This is…nuts. For one thing, the massive attack on Iran is nothing remotely like the raid on Venezuela to capture once person while (apparently) leaving the rest of the nation intact. But also? You don’t have to be apocryphal Chairman Mao to conclude it’s too soon to tell how that one will turn out.2
And then there’s Trump’s behavior at his White House appearance Monday.. He gave a low-energy statement about the war, ending with repeatedly calling out those who said he would grow bored by the conflict in a week or so. He would not be bored, he promised. After which he was quickly distracted by some Oval Office decor, and launched into an extended rant about his White House construction plans – which obviously, protests notwithstanding, he found far more engaging than talking about Iran. It was hard for anyone watching to imagine Trump sitting through a serious war briefing, let alone actually reading briefing materials.
Look, I’m no expert on the national security questions involved, and nothing is impossible. But I’m quite confident that a broken policy process of this magnitude massively increases a whole host of downside risks, and makes it unlikely that any kind of positive result can be achieved.
As far as public opinion is concerned…
Several people (including David here at GP/BP, writing before the shooting started) have noted how little the administration did to sell this war in advance or to make a strong case for it after it started, either. It’s certainly plausible that this has contributed to how unpopular Trump’s action is so far, and how it’s totally failed to produce any“rally” effect.
That said? Increases in the president’s approval rating after a high-visibility foreign event – not just launching wars – generally depend on whether the out-party supports or opposes the president’s policy. And it’s not clear whether an unpopular president Trump pushing this policy could have won buy-in from the Democrats even with a perfectly orchestrated public relations campaign. So perhaps the chances of a rally effect were always slim.
Indeed: I think this is the only time a president this unpopular has launched this big of a war in the polling era.3 There’s a reason they don’t! It’s apt to be unpopular, and normal presidents try to avoid very unpopular policies.
But Trump just bulls ahead with what he wants to do, regardless of any of that. Which, to be clear, is one of the reasons he’s been such a consistently unpopular president even when things are going well.
Then again, as I’ve said before, the thing about rally effects is that they usually fade quickly. Going forward, what matters is events, not propaganda. And it’s pretty simple. If things go reasonably well, everything is forgotten quickly (as most of the US had already forgotten about Venezuela even before the attack on Iran). If things go badly — if wars drag on — they inevitably hurt the president’s popularity. Even if, unlike this one, the war started out with plenty of popular support.
Then again, if we’ve never had a president this unpopular launch a war ineptly with this little popular support, so perhaps this time will be different.
They seem to have gone through at least three different rationales for the attack on Monday. No doubt by the time you read this they’ll have moved on to a new one at least once. They’ve also switched from calling it a war to insisting it isn’t a war to calling it a war again. On Monday.
Not to mention that the focus on Iran makes it less likely that whatever they’ve gained in Venezuela will remain. If the regime there starts defying Washington this week, is Trump really ready (and prepared) to do anything about it?
[UPDATE] Phil Klinkner writes, “You mention that Trump was the most unpopular president to start a major military action. I went back and looked and Gallup had Truman at 37% just before the Korean War broke out.” This is correct! And I should have noted it. But (1) we only have a handful of polls for Truman, so it’s hard to be exact; (2) Truman did get a modest rally effect, which might have happened after the North Korean invasion and before the US response; (3) and at any rate, Truman’s net approval was only -10 in that last pre-war poll (and +6 after), so I think my claim is a fair one. That said, presidential disapproval was just a lot lower back then, so how to interpret net approval then vs. now is complicated.