No need to belabor what the entire world now knows (in case it had any doubts) - Donald Trump, world class bad boy, wants to have everything his way, all the time. Even if His Way is the antithesis of the American way of fair play, of playing by the rules. His Way or the highway. Okay, no surprises here. Except His Way might change from one tweet to the next.
"No rules. Great Scotch." William Lawson's ad campaign has been fun: a bunch of randy shirtless Scots in kilts making off with the competition's women and downing their "no rules" whiskey. Try now to transpose that to the world of relations between countries. No wait, try applying that to crossing the street. "No rules" might just get you killed. Rules, norms, well, they exist for a reason. The law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, might makes right - all these are things that we're supposed to have evolved away from. Trump Man is a throwback to an age where it's every man for himself.
William Lawson's wild Scotsmen get away with playing soccer by firing cannon balls at their adversaries. Which is fine because their competition is always a bunch of losers who deserve to lose their women to the Lawson team. Problem is, in international relations, you can't count on the other side to always be dweebs. Sometimes, they have nukes and nasty intentions (Russia, for example), and other times, they have nukes plus an economy that's almost as big as yours (China). But these are rival powers. Since when do you make war with your own side (see G-7, or as it's been downsized, to G-6 plus 1)? Since when? Since Trump arrived in the White House, January 20, 2017.
I don't know how this will end, but it certainly doesn't look good for the good guys. Whose side, we ask, is Trump on?