Keylor in Cognoscenti on Trump’s Foreign Policy Plans
William Keylor, Professor of International Relations and History at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an Op-Ed discussing presidential candidate Donald Trump’s recent speech on foreign policy.
Keylor’s August 25, 2016 Op-Ed, entitled “On Foreign Policy: Even With A Teleprompter, Trump Gets It Wrong,” was published by WBUR’s Cognoscenti blog.
From the text of the Op-Ed:
Donald Trump’s foreign policy speech last week was more coherent than his earlier pronouncements on the topic. It was carefully crafted. He relied on a teleprompter to ensure he said exactly what he meant to say without his trademark off-the-cuff remarks. He focused on “radical Islamic terrorism,” which will resonate here and in other countries that have suffered jihadist attacks.
But Trump being Trump, he made several assertions that kept media fact-checkers working overtime.
To be fair, I’ll acknowledge the cogency of two of Trump’s points. He criticized President Obama and, by extension, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for promoting the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi of Libya without giving sufficient thought to the political consequences. Obama himself admitted that the Libyan intervention was his biggest foreign policy mistake in light of the chaos that continues to afflict that country. Second, Trump’s critique of “nation building” is hardly controversial. Few observers of the unsettled situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya would defend the policy of relying on external military force to install democratic governments and promote national cohesion in countries lacking a tradition of self government and nationhood.
You can read the entire Op-Ed here.
Keylor served four consecutive terms as Chairman of the Department of History at Boston University (1988-2000) and has been Director of the International History Institute since 1999. At Boston University, he has received the Metcalf Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Methodist Scholar-Teacher Award. Learn more about him here.