"Bellicosity and Disengagement"

Following the US military's assassination of Iranian terror master Qassem Suleimani, a lot of people have been trying to make sense of President Trump's Iran policy and the support for it among the otherwise isolationist nationalists. The New York Times sums up the sense of confusion: "Mr. Trump has yet to resolve the two conflicting instincts on national security that emerge from his speeches and his Twitter feed: bellicosity and disengagement."

It's not actually that big of a mystery. The explanation lies in a basic tendency of the American people—which has found expression in the dominant foreign policy theory, such as it is, of the Trump-era "nationalist" conservatives.

Read the rest at The Bulwark.