If foreign policy, as David Gergen, advisor to four American presidents, said, “is chess in three dimensions,” can it be said that Donald Trump is playing in only one of them? Certainly, what we have seen so far is that the occupant of the White House is in a hurry, surely too much of a hurry, to solve too many problems at the same time. Will this lack of medium and long-term strategy end up being paid for by the United States itself?
Enrique Cocero
It is the experience of recognizing defeat that determines the character of those who want to stay in the game.
In 1970 George H.W. Bush tells his friend James Baker that he is going to run for senator and that he, in turn, should run for the seat he vacates in the House of Representatives. He accepts, but soon after his wife is diagnosed with breast cancer and he withdraws from the race.
His wife dies that year and, to help him cope with his grief, Bush insists that if he does not run, he should help with his Senate campaign. Baker accepts, but Bush loses. He is rescued for Nixon’s reelection campaign and, well, Watergate breaks out, he sees that this is not going anywhere and decides to return to the private sector.
Nixon resigns, Ford arrives and calls Baker to be Secretary of Commerce, a position he will abandon to run Ford’s re-election campaign, which you know how it ended. In 1978 he runs for attorney general of the state of Texas and loses. In 1980 he ran the primary campaign of his friend Bush, who was running against Reagan to head the Republican ticket against Carter, and they lost.
“Runaway,” you may be thinking right now. Well, all that resistance served him well, and that was for a friend of the Reagans, Stuart Spencer, to tell them “who you need [to be Chief of Staff] is James Baker”: efficient, organized and committed. Imagine what kind of influence Spencer had, who also told Reagan that Bush was his only realistic choice for vice president.
Baker, seasoned in complication, knew that a president is not properly served by saying yes to everything. He knew he had to be honest, to say what he was thinking, whether he liked it or not. In short, he knew how to speak to power.
After Bush’s victory in 1988, he was appointed Secretary of State. With that, it was time to consolidate the role of the United States on the international stage. First objective: to put an end to the Cold War. A careful diplomatic agenda, meetings with Eduard Shevardnadze… but, suddenly, everything could explode with the fall of the Berlin Wall.
As I once heard David Gergen say, foreign policy is chess in three dimensions. Baker enjoyed that pragmatism that dominates those who know the volatile engineering that is international relations. First, he tells Bush to be prudent and not to go to Berlin to show jubilation over what has happened. Secondly, with reunification, he tells Thatcher and Mitterrand (the same one who said “I like Germany so much that I prefer there to be two of them”) that this was the path Europe was on and that it would be better for them to travel it together.
Baker lived through the Cold War in its entirety and helped to end it. He always did it methodically, calmly, relying on his knowledge and his ability to measure risks, collect and process information. He did so knowing that the two personalities he worked for were very different from each other, but with both he was equally honest and efficient.
By now, I understand, you know a parallel is coming.
I have already talked on occasion about how, since the Obama era, the United States is much more focused (or, simply, “centered”) on the Pacific Axis. Europe has been subjected to a progressive cornering that has had its hatching with the arrival of Trump’s second term, although in the first term there were already meridian warnings.
From my point of view, we are too focused on the impact of change, but not on its consequences. We forget one thing: it is chess in three dimensions. Donald Trump has put too many pieces in play at the same time and in his game only one factor is evident that Baker knew how to manage: time.
Trump is in a hurry.
He was in a hurry to demonstrate to the American people the block repeal of the Biden years; he was in a hurry to stop the budgetary drain that the war in Ukraine represents for him; he is in a hurry to abandon Europe to the fate of the Europeans and the fastest way out is given to him by Russia. If, on top of that, Russia can quickly favor his relationship with China, all the better.
It is in a hurry to keep Israel in charge of the Middle East in partnership with the Saudis; it is in a hurry to establish a new commercial rhythm and the quickest way to do so is the threat of tariffs. They’ll say it’s not a threat because he’s already executed them with Canada, but if he doesn’t execute any, he’s going to be seen to be bluffing.
In fact, it’s the same reason he’s putting the pressure on Ukraine: because it’s easier to make Kiev feel the risk than Moscow. To deal it out is to show a mediator’s vocation in a negotiation, and Trump doesn’t want that. It consumes too much.
Add to this that the slightest hope for Ukraine is a deviation over planning and, like hope, any alternative put on the table on Ukraine, on NATO, on tariffs… everything is a delay in the expected times. Hence he is forcing to cede the occupied territory because, with the loss of Kursk, Ukraine no longer has much to negotiate with and to get into discussions would stretch the timelines too far.
He wants everything and it wants it fast, but it has put too many things at stake at the same time and all by way of immediacy, which means that a stabilization on any of the fronts it has open could mean the collapse of the whole plan. I understand that this is why he has already warned the Americans that his trade policies may entail sacrifices at the beginning. He is asking for patience in case the plan does not work out as well as he imagines, especially in the states that will be most affected (Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana…).
That is the third dimension of Gergen’s chess: time. To any offensive comes a stabilization and that stabilization acts as attrition or as an opportunity for replenishment. Trump trusts in the first one, preventing the opportunity for the second one and it has to work fast because, otherwise and with so many variables activated, the United States will end up paying for the attrition.
Enrique Cocero
Political consultant in government cabinets and electoral campaigns in the United States and Spain. He began his professional career working in a consulting firm analyzing data and the data led him to politics.
Guest lecturer in master’s degrees at Carlos III, CUNEF and member of the master’s degree design team at VIU.
He is a contributor to various media (El Confidencial, Expansión, COPE, Trece TV, The Objective…).
