The tutoring team at the Trump White House is attempting to teach Donald Trump the value of the rest of the world.
Trump's national security team had become alarmed by the president's frequent questioning about the value of a robust American presence around the world. When briefed on the diplomatic, military and intelligence posts, the new president would often cast doubt on the need for all the resources.
Trump has thrown missiles into Syria and exchanges almost daily threats with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but somehow it has eluded him that those places are not handy walking distance from military bases in the United States. As with previous attempts to educate Trump on any subject, getting him to understand that expressing military power on the far side of the planet first requires having military power on the far side of the planet required that the whole thing get boiled down to visual aids.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson organized the July 20 session to lay out the case for maintaining far-flung outposts - and to present it, using charts and maps, in a way the businessman-turned-politician would appreciate.
This follows in the level of detail that it requires to feed Donald Trump his intelligence briefings.
Keep it short and free of nuance—that is the new guidance that has recently circulated to some intelligence analysts who compile materials for the President’s Daily Brief on security threats around the globe.
Of course, Trump has also asked why America has nuclear weapons if we don’t get to use them. So whoever staffs the Department of Remedial Presidency should be asking for a budget increase.
On Donald Trump’s “reality” television show The Apprentice, contestants were promised that they would receive important jobs running part of Trump’s theoretical empire. Instead they found themselves given the title “Owner’s Representative” as they did publicity for Trump with morning radio programs and small town papers. Trump has excused not giving the winners the promised jobs by saying that they lacked the experience to actually operate multi-million dollar properties.
Meanwhile, Trump’s staff is working hard to put training wheels on America.
The session was, in effect, American Power 101 and the student was the man working the levers. It was part of the ongoing education of a president who arrived at the White House with no experience in the military or government and brought with him advisers deeply skeptical of what they labeled the "globalist" worldview.
Globalism. It’s a terrible thing … so long as you don’t live on a globe. In which case knowing what’s on the rest of it can be handy.
They could always introduce Donald Trump to Yacko’s Song.