Trump threatens military action against Turkey.

There are good criticisms of NATO, but this threat is not driven by any of them nor likely to achieve better outcomes.

What we have here is a U.S. President clearing the way to allow one ally to attack another ally, then threatening to attack that first ally in retaliation for them doing exactly what he cleared the way for them to do when asked him to clear the way so they could do exactly that.

It's entirely incoherent as a matter of strategic decision-making. It's simply the flailings of somebody who operates on the spur of the moment, one moment being spurred to do something really thoughtless and the next being spurred to just as thoughtlessly respond to that prior thoughtless act.

As if Trump hadn't already damaged America's prestige and our allies' confidence in us, this likely destroys it entirely. They cannot but now know that there is no potential for relying on Trump, and they are surely trying to figure out what to do next in a world where the U.S. has gone from leader of the free world (however badly we did that at times) to completely unpredictable and unreliable quasi-adversary.

I've always understood that American dominance could not last forever. That just doesn't happen, throughout the history of the world. But I always wondered what would end it. I never imagined it would be the entirely undisciplined actions of a U.S. President who had less understanding of international politics than the average college political science senior.