George Friedman: Presidents and foreign policy

George Friedman is the founder and chairman of Geopolitical Futures, a publication dedicated to explaining what happens around the world and predicting what’s next. Much of our Q&A with Friedman is in the Nov. 12 issue of WORLD Magazine. Here are some of his comments about the difference presidents make and don’t make.

Let’s go back a few years. We know what happened when George W. Bush became president. Would things have been different in Iraq if Al Gore had been president? Here’s the problem with all of them. The pressure on them to do something politically was overwhelming. The kind of person who would say, “Look, if we go into Iraq, I’m not sure what will happen and I’m not going to do it regardless of what the pressure is,” is a man like Eisenhower. Eisenhower was pressed heavily to intervene in Vietnam under the French, to make a massive intervention in Egypt. In each case he had the confidence to say no regardless of what the pressure was and the expectations were. Some presidents can say no to what is clearly the popular thing to do at the moment. Some presidents can’t do that, and I think that’s at the heart of character. At the heart of character is also a level of knowledge that gives you the self-confidence to say no regardless of what the immediate consequences will be.

And not to panic when everyone else is getting anxious? I speak of Eisenhower because I thought he was an extraordinary president. When Sputnik went up and everybody was panicking he pointed out that this thing is about the size of a grapefruit. What’s it going to do up there? It was a very important insight. Kennedy felt he had to promise a mission to the moon. Eisenhower was extremely low-key but he had made some extraordinarily hard decisions in his life.

Reporters generally thought Eisenhower was incoherent. Yes, and it’s very clear now that he was deliberately incoherent because he didn’t want to give answers. He understood that unlike when he was commander in chief of world forces going to Europe, he had to as president speak to the press. But he also learned that the less said to the press the better. So he found a compromise. He spoke a great deal to the press, most of which made no sense.

The problem with Trump is that he has spent his life making deals, and all that was involved was money.

Donald Trump is also incoherent. I am not sure underneath that he understands where mistakes are. The problem with Trump is that he has spent his life making deals, and all that was involved was money. In his mind there is nothing more important than money. Therefore he must be very good. Here he is going to be making life and death decisions and there are two possibilities. One, he can’t conceive of mistakes and goes forward, which is frightening. The other is he finally realizes that men are going to die as a result of what he decides, and he freezes. Trump may in the end be a quite capable president. My problem is when I see him now I can’t imagine it.

What can you imagine concerning Hillary Clinton? When she was secretary of state, every move she made was conventional, what was expected of her at that time. I don’t think she ever stood back and said, “We’re losing this war, what we’re doing isn’t working. We need to think of something extraordinarily different.” Roosevelt would have done that. Eisenhower certainly would have done that. I think George W. Bush’s father would have done that, but Clinton had trouble thinking beyond the obvious.