Of Poetry and Prose (February 28, 2025)
Welcome to Home & Away.
I will begin with the 45th and 47th president of the United States, who spoke at a Saudi investment conference I attended in Miami last week. For three or so minutes, President Trump just stood on stage, occasionally swaying to “Proud to be an American” courtesy of Lee Greenwood. Then he began his remarks, sometimes using the teleprompter, oftentimes not.
On one level, he was effective. Trump appears strikingly vigorous for someone closing in on 80. It was impossible not to draw a sharp contrast with his predecessor. It was entertaining, especially the unscripted moments. And that entertainment value is not to be underestimated, as for four years we invite the occupant of the Oval Office into our lives and homes. That a good deal of what he had to say was factually incorrect or painfully familiar seemed not to matter to the assembled.
But the point I want to make is that here Trump was, a month into his second term as president, and he was still campaigning. Mario Cuomo, the former governor of New York and the never-could-quite-make-up-his-mind almost presidential candidate, once pointed out that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. What is noteworthy about Trump is that in many ways he has chosen to govern in poetry. He appears not to be worried about what he says or its consequences. He leaves many of the details of policy and implementation to others. Process is an afterthought.
I don’t know when this will catch up with him. But it will. I would even go so far as to say it is more a question of when than if. Americans are getting much more than they voted or bargained for. Inflation will continue to pick up as labor markets tighten and the effects of tariffs and tax cuts kick in. There will be direct and indirect economic effects of the mass reduction in the federal workforce that is anticipated. The country could well find itself vulnerable to a deadly disease outbreak or terror attack because of the dismissal of experts. Markets may tank because businesses and consumers tire of the sheer unpredictability of it all. It is not hard to imagine an overseas crisis caused by an adversary who sees an opportunity or a friend who is undermined; just two days ago, for instance, Trump declined to state whether he would act to prevent China from taking Taiwan by force.
So far, the Republicans in Congress have been unwilling to act as a check on the administration, even though they’re in the majority. Many members fear Elon Musk will follow through on his threat to fund candidates primary-ing Republicans who interfere with Trump’s agenda. But at some point, there will be Republican members who come to be more fearful of being defeated in a general election by Democrats and others who came to be disillusioned with the second Trump presidency and its enablers. Stay tuned.
O, Canada
One overseas effect is already visible, and decidedly not one this president sought. About a month ago, the polls in Canada showed that the party of the incumbent prime minister, Justin Trudeau would be blown out in the upcoming election. But Trump’s nonsense about Canada becoming the 51st state and unilateral tariffs have predictably caused Canadians to rally around the flag and support those willing to take on Trump. In less than two months, the Liberals (to be headed by either Chrystia Freeland or Mark Carney) have erased a 26-point deficit and opened up a slight lead over the Conservative Party. Bullying has consequences.
The Cost of Peace
Ukraine has been much in the news recently, and President Zelenskyy is set to meet with President Trump later today. What has been front and center has been the Trump administration’s pressure on Ukraine to sign an agreement on the development and extraction of its mineral deposits that would transfer some of the money raised to the United States as a way of offsetting the cost of what the United States has provided to Ukraine over the past three years.
The details of the accord, which is set to be signed by Trump and Zelenskyy, remain murky. Let me say there is little about this transactional foreign policy that is desirable. It was not just that the original demand was for $500 billion— multiple times the value of what the United States has provided Ukraine—but rather Trump’s inability to recognize that the United States benefited from Ukraine’s success. Ukraine’s resistance weakened the military of one of our foremost adversaries without any Americans dying. It sent the message not just to Vladimir Putin but to Xi Jinping and others that territory cannot be acquired through force, a principal tenet of the international order that the United States has championed and benefited from for decades. It reassured other friends and allies that they could count on us, in the process increasing their willingness to stand up to Russia and China while decreasing their appetite to develop or acquire nuclear weapons of their own.
My second concern is the reported lack of explicit U.S. commitment to provide Ukraine with the arms it needs for its defense and Trump’s insistence that Europe shoulder that burden mostly without U.S. support. I understand the opposition to a U.S. troop presence in Ukraine and to Ukrainian membership in NATO at this point, but as I wrote about earlier this week, there can be no justification for shutting off the flow of arms. President Trump says he wants to be a peacemaker, but as the saying goes, si vis pacem para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war.
The Post is Toast
The formerly great Washington Post continues its fall. First there was the 11th hour nixing of an endorsement of Kamala Harris, reportedly at the behest of Jeff Bezos, and now his decision to remake the op-ed page into one that no longer carries opposing viewpoints. Instead, the paper will only publish opinion pieces that champion personal liberties and free markets. Bezos appears more interested in cultivating the White House than in speaking truth to power. As an aside, I look forward to seeing the pro-free market Washington Post vociferously denouncing Trump’s tariffs.
What comes to mind is a successful businessperson taking over a sports team and wrecking it because he or she has no idea how to succeed in a different line of work and culture but cannot recognize their own shortcomings. Not surprisingly, the Post is hemorrhaging readers and talent. This couldn’t be happening at a worse time, as the paper is needed more than ever to shine a light on the federal government’s activities. The advertising line for the Post used to be, “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.” Unfortunately for us all, it is the owner who doesn’t get it.
Unwarranted
Then there were the late night firings at the Pentagon one week ago, in which Air Force General and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff C.Q. Brown was fired along with the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, and the top lawyers for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. The administration’s decision to do so was as abrupt as it was unwarranted. General Brown (a friend for many years) appears to have been a mutiles de guerre of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anti-DEI campaign for recording a video articulating his thoughts after George Floyd’s murder. This is both unfair, as Brown was a four-star general and a fighter pilot who rose through the ranks due to talent and was more than deserving to hold the job, and ironic, as the military has been one of the most successful institutions in this society, one characterized by merit, performance, and opportunity. There is as well the argument that General Brown was right to reach out to African-Americans in uniform—who constitute one-fifth of the armed forces—in the wake of George Floyd’s death. What the secretary of defense seems not to understand is that this was not DEI or wokeness run amuck but good leadership and management.
Frank Wisner, RIP
I also want to write about Frank Wisner, who died this week at the age of 86. Frank was Washington royalty and the consummate diplomat, equal parts charm and steel. He served as the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Zambia, Egypt, and India, as well as a senior official in Washington at the State and Defense Departments. He could work a room better than anyone, recalling names and family details, regaling listeners with stories.
Frank was wingman to Chet Crocker when during the 1980s they helped ease the transition of southern Africa away from colonialism and apartheid. He was one of the many talented individuals who facilitated a much closer and more significant U.S-Indian relationship. Frank was treated badly by the Obama Administration when he warned them that their public abandonment of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak would backfire. But he was right.
Frank’s death is not just a personal loss for me, the passing of a friend and colleague I both liked and respected. It also underscores the passing of a generation. Frank was one of a cadre of extraordinarily talented Americans whose outlooks were forged by the Vietnam War. Some, like Richard Holbrooke, were foreign service officers. Others, like David Halberstam, were journalists. What they had in common is that they dedicated their lives to public service, and in many cases to foreign policy. I do not see many equivalents today. The best and the brightest tend to gravitate towards Silicon Valley and Wall Street and away from the State Department given decades of disparagement and underfunding of public service, its loss of sway to the National Security Council, and the unpopularity of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The nation will be poorer for this trend and for the loss of Frank. May his memory be for a blessing.
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Richard Haass in the news
Sunday, February 23: Quoted in the Telegraph (Starmer Out in the Cold as Trump Seals New Special Relationship)
Wednesday, February 26: Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC CEO Shaikh Nawaf Saud Al-Sabah & Dr. Richard Haass on Decision-Making: The Liberation of Kuwait)
Thursday, February 27: Quoted in the New York Times (With Trump, Alliances Come With Strings Attached)
Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens