Thread by @BaldingsWorld

There is astounding poverty of foreign policy thinking. It is both Trump obsessed and gratuitously narcissistic in US political self absorption. Virtually any geopolitical problem you cite will NOT be fixed by changing the President. Let's go down a quick list of hits: 1/n

South Korea is governed by a kumbaya singing Pyongyang appeaser who wants the US to put personnel at risk giving it a blank check while he actively tries to give goodies to a totalitarian mad man. That's not changing with a new President 2/n

China is governed by an unabashed totalitarian wannabe that will not negotiate on anything but how low you will bow to recognize their supremacy. That's not changing with a new president 3/n

Iran is governed by unabashed autocratic theocracy that is intent on gaining nuclear weapons having cheated on every agreement and destabilizing the Middle East driving Israel and Arab states together. Not changing with a return to the deal or new President 4/n

Germany is governed by narcistic elite that fundamentally dislike America but want to free ride off of our security blanket all while under cutting democracy around the world and democratic security objectives. That's not changing with a new President. 5/n

We could do this list on and on and on. Foreign policy thinking needs to move decidedly away from the Trump obsession that we're just a new president away from returning to some romanticized unicorn and cotton candy world view that never existed in the first place. 6/n

Foreign policy thinking also needs to move away from the US political centric view. There are structural, political, and policy issues that mechanically determine how the world works that have nothing to do with ANY US administration. Until foreign policy thinking 7/n

wrestles more with how to create and govern this world outside of the US political bubble we're going to do nothing but chase our tail. The UN is going to be governed more by autocrats than democracy. This isn't a US political issue this is a structural and mechanical issue 8/n

Until foreign policy thinking moves beyond its US political bubble thinking, we're going to be faced with these issues across administrations. It's not "be nicer" or "work harder" at the UN. There are reasons these issues don't go away.