December 20, 2018

President Trump’s abrupt announcement of an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal from Syria, along with indications he wants a significant drawdown in Afghanistan — decisions that bucked the advice of senior advisers, upended his administration’s own strategy, shocked U.S. allies and led to the resignation of his defense secretary — mark the full emergence of the foreign-policy president he always said he would be.

Over the past two years, as promised, Trump has canceled international climate and arms-control agreements and shattered trade accords. He has insulted traditional friends and fawned over adversaries.

But despite threatening to withdraw U.S. military forces from virtually every long-term deployment in the world, from South Korea and Japan to Germany and Iraq, as well as Syria and Afghanistan, Trump has been repeatedly constrained by the counsel of his own revolving-door national security team.

Read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/with-syria-decision-trumps-foreign-policy-doctrine-emerges/2018/12/20/ad055810-0487-11e9-9122-82e98f91ee6f_story.html?utm_term=.4e37f8493fef