A disruptive foreign policy, such as the Trump Administration’s, is not necessarily disordering, and may even be warranted, especially when the status quo is unstable or unjust.  But to be justified morally, it must be creatively destructive, replacing the old order with a new one.

We were mostly right about his hateful rhetoric, fundamental dishonesty, trade wars, admiration for foreign dictators, and wild inconsistency. But we overestimated Trump’s competence and work ethic. His ability to bring material harm to the United States has been limited by how little he works and how little he knows about the presidency.

The Trump foreign policy is like the administration’s domestic policy: a little irreverent, ambitious, and completely impervious to experts’ warnings.

Instead of debating President Trump’s character, we should ask which is more Christian: the experiment with globalism that seems now to have faltered, or the somber return to nations that seeks, modestly yet earnestly, to fortify transnational alliances where they are possible, but reject them where they are not.

Pastor Brunson is free, but many others are not. The U.S. should not push Turkey away, but continue the hard work of diplomatic engagement around core human rights issues. It should also continue to engage broad range of challenges these partner countries are facing in the region. 

We must deal with the world as it is and fashion solutions that protect innocents, promote justice and defend the shared values of liberal democracy. The UN has failed to do that for more than seven decades. Worse, it has hindered responsible powers from playing that legitimate and necessary role. Perhaps it’s time to try something new.

Generally, American presidents who try to work through the United Nations and want it to live up to its noble mission often become disappointed.

We have heard much in recent years about Washington’s “Pacific pivot” aimed at deterring Chinese adventurism in the South China Sea and the “reassurance initiative” aimed at deterring Russian revisionism in Eastern Europe. What has received far less attention is Beijing’s pivot to the Americas and Moscow’s revival of Cold War-style intervention in the Western Hemisphere.

Are American evangelicals right to support US sanctions against Turkey to release American missionary Andrew Brunson?