Trump has a once-in a-century opportunity for change

Last month, Donald Trump was selected as Time magazine’s Person of the Year — “the individual who, for better or for worse, did the most to shape the world and the headlines over the past 12 months.” The designation proclaims no judgment on whether the nominee’s historic role is for good or ill, just that it is “consequential.”

Adolf Hitler was named Man of the Year in 1938. By 1999, Time recognized that women could also be consequential, and the award was changed to Person of the Year. Trump will soon begin his second four-year term as commander in chief, and will have the potential in that compressed time frame to earn the title of Person of the Century (at least, of the first quarter of the century).

That his term will be significant is a virtual certainty, given the need for a response to the international challenges pressing in on the United States today from the new Axis of Evil: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Whether Trump’s tenure will be for America’s and the world’s benefit or detriment will depend on how he responds to those external forces.

Trump will either grasp the opportunity history has thrust upon him to change the world for the better, or he will let it pass by and watch the downward slide into chaos continue. His historical reputation will be set by the strategic choices he makes now. If one or more of the four tyrannical regimes long plaguing the world has not been either removed from power or dramatically changed in its behavior, war and chaos will beckon and will forever stain his legacy. Or, his presidency can be honored by an appreciative global public and embellished with a Nobel Peace Prize.

The prospects for reform vary substantially among the four regimes and none of the possible outcomes is foreseeable with any degree of certainty. But each can be affected by courageous and prudent U.S. policy combining rewards with punishment, and can be nudged along the path of significant reform.

Some observers feared that America's unsteady foreign policy, especially on Afghanistan and Ukraine, projected an image of confusion and weakness that invites even further overreaching by our adversaries. As history has shown, strategic miscalculation can lead to major conflict. The specter of World War III was already bruited about by both of America’s initial 2024 presidential candidates, though with differing rationales.

President Biden had warned in February 2022 that Vladimir Putin, having successfully seized Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014 during the Obama-Biden administration, was planning to launch the next phase of his Ukraine invasion. When asked if the U.S. would intervene militarily even with a minimal no-fly zone over Ukraine, he quickly rejected the possibility, declaring, “That’s World War III.” He repeated his horrified reaction over the next three years of the war whenever asked about a more vigorous U.S. response to Russia’s aggression.

Trump, for his part, criticized Biden more than once for even the moderate level of weapons support he has provided Ukraine, accusing him of “leading us into World War III.”

In announcing its selection of Trump as the world’s most significant person for this period, Time described his foreign policy approach: “Trump promises to attack the sources abroad that he blames for the country’s malaise: economic interdependence, transnational criminals, traditional allies he sees as free riders on America’s long-running global beneficence. … Willing to upend the nation’s postwar role as a bulwark against authoritarianism, he promises to usher in a foreign policy rooted in ‘America First’ transactionalism.” Nothing in that litany of international challenges or Trump’s likely response would deter further aggressive behavior by America’s proclaimed enemies.

With the right U.S. approach in support of the Iranian people, the regime in Teheran is the most likely to undergo change, from clerical authoritarianism to political tolerance and democratic reform. The Iranian population demonstrated its commitment to political change during the widespread demonstrations in 2009, when the mostly young Iranian protestors fervently appealed for American support. The Obama-Biden administration spurned U.S. involvement — but the incoming Trump team may be more inclined to help.

Trump vigorously opposed the Obama-Biden nuclear deal and terminated it in his first term. Biden’s faltering efforts to revive it still allow time for its demise on behalf of the international community before the final screw is turned on its nuclear weapons program. As administration spokesman John Kirby stated, “President Biden has made clear that Iran will not have that capability. We had tried to do this through diplomacy. Obviously, that didn’t work, because the Iranians were not willing to negotiate in good faith. All other options remain available to the President.”

Those options have widened thanks to the serious undermining of Iran’s security situation over the past year. Israel’s major diminishment of Teheran’s allies and proxies in Hamas and Hezbollah, and lately the Houthis — punctuated by its devastating response to Iran’s missile attacks on Israel — have left Iran exposed and vulnerable to a coup de grace by a joint Israel-U.S. strike. With minimal external involvement beyond destruction of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the Iranian people can take care of the domestic governance problem.

The challenge of regime change in communist China, while more of a long-term project than Iran’s, may well be abbreviated by the trade and economic measures Trump is already contemplating, an activist policy he began to implement in his first term. U.S. and international support for much-needed governance reform in Russia and North Korea is warranted by their joint international aggression in Ukraine. It will need to be initiated by the populations of those countries and will require different forms of international support attuned to their own particular circumstances, especially in the area of strategic communications. The Iran precedent can help show the way.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies, a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute and member of the advisory board of The Vandenberg Coalition.

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