The new man in the White House

Fluency of thought and adaptability are the hall marks of a leader. Fixed ideas and a fascination with ones own power are hall marks of a dangerous individual especially if he becomes the leader of a powerful nuclear nation.

Much of the role of a tough negotiator on a building site is having experts in the various fields of building design working for you and knowing the constraints of building regulations designed to ensure safety.
Politics is about not having any meaningful regulations. In fact if regulations get in the way the law allows you create new ones.
This is the mix which confronts the world with Donald Trumps elevation to the most powerful job in the world.
His attitude to NATO and Americas self adoption as the worlds policeman and arbitrator could well be coming to an end. His clear supposition that nations should bear the cost for the protection America affords, if you can't afford it you don't get it,is similar to his views on Obama Care and whilst brutal it has the ring of economic sense to it.
After the war it was in Americas interests to rebuild the world in the image it wanted to act as a market place for its goods. A mixture of self interest with a willingness to invest in a democratic dream to ensure a stable working market place. They were not religious converts destined to save us from ourselves but hardheaded businessmen planing for the future.
One thing led to another and they became embroiled in the Korean and the Vietnam wars which taught them that war in Asia was a very different prospect to war in Europe. NATO and alliance of European countries to counter the weight and might of the USSR was, with the enormous nuclear strength that the Americans developed, a counter weight to Stalin, a status quo was arrived at and the economic attrition of stockpiling nuclear weapons brought the Russians to their knees.

The Europeans had an easy ride they bore little of the cost and benefited from the immediacy of the security. The willingness of nations in Europe to set aside a relatively small amount of the annual budget has waned over the last 20 years as the countries became complacent with Russia's loss of power. Now with Putin on the block, sabre rattling and re emphasising old fashioned power we need the collective muscle of NATO to act as a counterweight.

Real politic is about to come home to roost. Jeremy Corbin's life long held wish for unilateral disarmament seems as far from reality as it ever has.