Mapping out the Trump Era

Mapping Out the Trump Era Drew Angerer/Getty Images Mapping Out the Trump Era Researcher’s Note: In the wake of the election of Donald Trump as the next United States president, the media has been saturated with noise about what it all means. In this report, which adds to our coverage of the issue, we show that media bloviation aside, geopolitics trumps politics. The Trump Presidency and Geopolitical Realities 3 Considering Populism in the Wake of Brexit and Trump 7 The Role of Populism and the Media in Trump’s Election 12 Looking at the Map to Understand the World After Election Day 15 Understanding America’s Global Role in the Age of Trump 18 Manufacturing: A Campaign Promise That Cannot Be Kept 22 The Trump Doctrine: A Work in Progress 25 Taiwan, Trump and a Telephone 30 This report cannot be shared or copied without express permission from Stratfor. ANTON BALAZH/Shutterstock The Trump Presidency and Geopolitical Realities We hear all the time about how the world “should” won’t bury you in academic pretension or require a work. Self-proclaimed liberals and conservatives, fancy algorithm to model. But its simplicity doesn’t Keynesians and Reaganites, humanists and hawks, make it any less powerful. When you boil down the globalists and nationalists have crammed the air- frothy mixture of ideas, personalities and emotions waves and filled our Twitter feeds with policy pre- that have bubbled up over the past year, what is scriptions, promoting their worldview while scorning left are some fairly obvious answers on how we others’. But after the emotionally charged year this got to this point and, more important, where we has been, I suspect many people are growing weary are heading. of big theories and cursory character assassinations. Instead, it may be time to replace the pedantry with Geography Doesn’t Argue something more fundamental — and less divisive — in which to ground our thoughts and make sense of It all starts with the map. And not just any map, the world. but one that emphasizes topography over political borders. The beauty of such a map is that it Rather than focusing on what should happen, per- doesn’t leave much room for polemical debate. As haps we would do better to turn our attention to the Dutch-American geopolitical thinker Nicholas what will happen. And in this, geopolitics can come Spykman once put it, “Geography does not argue. It in handy. It is a deceptively simple tool, one that simply is.” STRATFOR • 3 The map can tell us the basic facts about a particu- America. Meanwhile, Japan was starting to feel the lar nation or region. Is it massive or tiny, mountain- pain of its first Lost Decade, and China had begun its ous or flat? Is it a land power or an island? Is it stuck rapid ascent as the world’s economic “miracle.” between bigger powers or does it loom over smaller neighbors? Is it enclosed by geographic barriers Now consider the cycle we are in today, one that or split from within? Do its river systems run in a began with a crisis that shattered the world. direction that unites or divides? The map will show The 2008 collapse of the global financial sys- whether a place has navigable waterways and tem stripped away the prosperity that bound the coastal depth, where its biggest population centers European Union together, short-circuited China’s are, how much rain its lands get and how many low-end manufacturing boom and triggered a resources those lands contain, whether it rests in prolonged slump. Jobs were lost and disillusion- a temperate zone or an inhospitable wasteland, ment with the political establishments spread. At what infrastructure links it with others or isolates it, the same time, discontent began to boil over in and so on. the Islamic world as populations rose up against their ruling strongmen, all while the United States Then, we layer on history. How has the map shaped drowned in its Middle Eastern wars. Russia a nation’s behavior over the centuries? Regardless used these regional fires to blow smoke into of the prevailing personality or ideology of the time, Washington’s eyes, distracting it while Moscow what were the constraints that limited that nation’s rebuilt its influence in the Russian borderlands. options, or the compulsions that pulled it in a par- From this position of relative strength, the Russians ticular direction? What internal and external condi- squeezed Ukraine’s energy supplies and warred tions existed when the nation was most celebrated with Georgia to remind its neighbors of Moscow’s in its history? When it entered its darkest days? Do military might — and of the weakness of U.S. the circumstances emerging today resemble a cycle security guarantees. of the past? Once we find our place in the generational cycle, we Time is important. Geopolitics is the study of the can look to the future and weigh the bigger struc- human condition, and human history is told through tural forces at play. How will aging demographics, the passing of generations. On average, a new energy availability, climate change, migrant flows, generational cycle is completed every 20 years or expanding power vacuums, technological advances so. This means that the world we knew two decades and China’s economic evolution work together to ago and the world we will see two decades from now compound global stressors, create opportunities should look very different from the one we’re ex- and revive historical compulsions? This is where periencing today. If you’re skeptical, consider 2016. the “-isms” will rear their heads: Nativism, protec- Now subtract 20-25 years and see what picture you tionism, populism and nationalism will flow easily end up with. In the late 1990s, the United States from these broader forces as the world tries to was in the midst of an economic boom, and political steady itself from the hyperglobalization of the theorists in a postwar euphoria boldly claimed that previous generation. we had reached the “end of history” and that liberal, capitalistic democracy had triumphed over danger- Only at this point do we add in the individual. If you ous ideological thinking. Russia was still in sham- skip ahead, as many intuitively do, and try to glean bles, and the European Union was convinced that answers from what figures such as Donald Trump, closer integration would invite economic prosperity, Marine Le Pen or Rodrigo Duterte say, you risk positioning the Continent to better compete with falling into the deep chasm between intention and STRATFOR • 4 reality. But when you organize the world into genera- ones. These countries tend to have the most acute tional cycles and base your understanding on a firm sense of their environment, and they often adapt geopolitical foundation, individuals form but a thin to the shifting tides of geopolitics before anyone film on what is already a thick body of analysis. The else sees them coming. The rim of states in Central leaders in question are then revealed as products of and Eastern Europe will have to soberly calculate their time, not aberrations in need of constant psy- the course of negotiations between Russia and choanalysis. And the structural forces that brought the United States at a time when core Continental them to power will be the ones to constrain, shape powers such as Germany are trying to manage the and bend their actions once in office, limiting the fallout from the European Union’s disintegration. possibilities as to what may actually transpire. For nations sitting on Russia’s front lines, such as Poland, now is the time to band together and bol- ster their defenses. But for those such as Hungary Imperatives Laid Bare that rest easier behind the shield of the Carpathian Mountains, now is the time to stay close to Moscow We find ourselves today at a particularly compel- and keep their options open. ling phase of this generational cycle. The election of straight-talking populists amid a stressful global Russia will surely run into roadblocks as it barters environment has laid bare the basic imperatives with the Americans, but it can use the perception of of the nation-state. Whereas idealism in better, a budding bargain with Washington to intimidate its more prosperous times does a good job of cloaking neighbors while taking advantage of the geopolitical unpleasant truths, hard survival instincts will drive forces pulling Europe apart to weaken the West’s behavior under more trying circumstances. resolve. As an island nation, the United Kingdom’s instinct will be to distance itself from the Continent And this is where geopolitics matters most. — and balance off of the United States across the Atlantic — as other European powers revive Russia’s sprawling landmass and lack of natural their age-old feuds. France, rooted in the southern defenses compel it to reach beyond its borders and Mediterranean, will become increasingly polarized build buffers against the West. As tension inside from Germany and its allies in Northern Europe as Russia increases, solidifying those buffers while nationalist forces chip away at their troubled union. Russia is still strong enough to do so will become a matter of urgency. Regardless of who sits in the Questions over the United States’ security commit- White House, Moscow has no choice but to as- ments in the Far East have presented an opportunity sume that the West will take advantage of Russia’s for China as well. The nations stretching from the inherent vulnerabilities to keep the Eurasian power Indochina mainland to the island chains of Southeast in check.

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