Yeah but people live online now. Perception tends to be reality. I know that I tend to have pretty negative feelings about online Euros whenever the US is brought up. Everyone is basically an ambassador for their country these days. I think the Europeans make the mistake of getting too wrapped up in our domestic politics. From where I sit, true or not, my perception is that they tend to love America when a Democrat is in charge and hate it when a Republican is. They are bad about playing both sides of the aisle and it causes our relationship with them to get viewed through domestic political lenses which ends up being bad for them. The Israelis aren't perfect but they are far better at playing both sides of the political establishment. Maybe a little less so with Netanyahu but much better than the Euros have been and that is a problem with Western Europe going back to at least Reagan.
(And to be fair, the Euros probably get tired of, "Well if it wasn't for us you'd all be speaking German...." and things of that nature.)
I've long preached we should have a foreign policy which is consistent from president to president with members of the Senate from both parties such as Lugar and Nunn helping to maintain stability. The notion of a big shift from a Biden to Trump thus concerns me.The first thing we need to understand tgat Trump and Biden are totally different Biden is very passive aggressive in that he says many aggressive things(Putin is a brutal dictator, take Trump behind the barn and beat him up etc.) but he never follows through. Putin knew that. The Afghanistan cluster f—- was a tell.
Biden was scared of escalation. So scared he didn’t meaningfully act. Ukraine had to win the war in the first months or year or it was over. Biden withheld all weapons that could be seen as offensive. Thus no HIMARS until too late. He quashed the F 16 deal. Previously he gave Nordstream Ii the green light. Biden’s sanctions were indeed a joke, they were symbolic and didn’t really hurt Putin’s oil transactions.
Pages could be written in this answer, but I don’t have time
In contrast to this, along come a book which suggests my fears are unfounded. The article on the book in part states the following...
The United States has experienced striking changes in leadership in recent years. From Obama to Trump to Biden, Americans have elected presidents with vastly different political commitments and bases of support. Do such leadership changes lead to drastic changes in policy? A new book by Michaela Mattes and Ashley Leeds, Domestic Interests, Democracy, and Foreign Policy Change, suggests that democracies’ foreign policies are actually more stable than is generally assumed. This interview was recorded on Sept. 29, 2023. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
So, does Michella Mattes have it right? Also, will foreign policy in Trump's second term change dramatically thus making Mattes wrong?