Under The Weather

With the UK hit by unseasonal snow, Jim and Chris spend a little bit of time discussing the shall we say unusual political approach of the Starmer government in the UK, which seems to involve annoying as many people as possible as quickly as they can whilst telling everyone things are not going to get better for years. They then move on to the main topic of the episode, a consideration of the foreign policy implications of Trump's election win. Whilst resiling not one iota from the likely dire domestic impacts (only made worse by Trump's picks for major government jobs), is there a possibility of a Trump administration bringing peace to an increasingly conlficted world? Given a distinction between US grand strategies of 'deep engagement' and 'restraint', might we see restraint under Trump? Or is his talk of peace just more Trumpian bluster and cover for ever more dangerous deep engagement? Do the answers to these questions depend on whether we are talking about Europe, the Middle East, or East Asia? Given Trump's brutally transactional nature and the lack of evidence of any kind of strategic thinking whatsoever, does it even make sense to talk of foreign policy prospects in these terms at all? We might not have the answers to these questions, but we chew them over for a little while that's for sure.

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