Umm.... wasn't that almost literally Obama's position? Haven't other countries been filling the vacuum in? Doesn't it make a lot more sense to look at Trump's election precisely as a rejection of eight years of that idea? Aren't we supposed to be very afraid of Trump being a maniac with the nuclear button and using the US military to do crazy things?
Obama wasn't that long ago. I'm astonished at how quickly his policies and platforms have been memory-holed in the service of the need for today's claims.
Obama always had a muscular foreign policy based on the ability of the United States to bring its unique moral rightness and light into the world. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
That is an interesting formulation that reminds me former presidential advisor Zbigniew Brzeziński's book "The Grand Chessboard".
Trump is purely an anti-establishment impulse (lubricated by racism, sexism, etc). To claim it's a reaction against Obama is to claim (ludicrously) that Obama == establishment.
Until he stops saying NATO is obsolete and he won't defend an ally he perceives as not having fulfilled its obligations, I'm going to believe him.
We need adults in the room, being thoughtful, pointing out, for instance, that withdrawing is not a form of strength, and only permits other countries (China) to fill the vacuum. The vote for DT was a nihilistic, anti-establishment moment from a demo that wants change but isn't willing to think about what kind of change.