Late Friday, president-elect Donald Trump announced his pick for Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent. The announcement had taken a longer time than other appointments, suggesting a period of extended infighting within the coalition on economic policies and personnel.

According to reports, opposition to Bessent was centered on the idea that he was insufficiently committed to Trump’s proposal to hike tariffs to 50-60% on all imports from China and to 10-20% on imports from all other countries. On the other hand, he was the candidate most favored by the financial markets, a consideration that may have prevailed at the end, reflecting a presidential disposition to treat the performance of the stock market as a report card. (...)

And in an illuminating interview conducted just this fall, Bessent goes into greater detail (beginning at around 30 minutes) about how the U.S. should make use of its combination of three huge assets — military strength, financial preeminence, and sheer market size — as usable tools along a spectrum that runs from cooperation through suasion to outright coercion.

He plays with the idea of a stratification of tariff levels (green, yellow, red) based on adherence to American values and interests, invoking a hypothetical reminder to India of the risks it might run by buying Russian oil. He suggests that countries that benefit from the American defense umbrella return the favor by buying long-maturity U.S. debt of 30 or 40 years, “paying upfront” for what they receive.

Bessent then welcomes the fact that the centrality of the dollar in the international monetary system allows America to use its power of sanctions extraterritorially (against entities outside its borders) to influence or punish their behavior. And finally he talks about the potential to use tariffs against China not to push regime change but rather to force it to change an economic model based on investing and exporting too much and consuming too little. (...)

Is the world doomed to live under an increasingly discredited and selective “rules-based international order” (RBIO) instead of an inclusive order centered on international law? Is the RBIO the only construct that can strengthen American security and prevent the world from descending into chaos, or is a better alternative possible?

The Quincy Institute’s Better Order Project has brought together more than 130 experts, scholars, and practitioners from over 40 countries to collectively develop a package of proposals aimed at rejuvenating and stabilizing the international order, based on shared commitments to international law, multilateralism, and the ability of states to participate on an equal basis.

Join us live on November 25th from 10:00 AM - 1:30 PM Eastern Time as we address how to chart a smoother path through today’s rocky transition away from unipolarity, and discuss several of the Better Order Project's proposals with some of the international initiative's participants, including: Michael Mazarr of the RAND Corporation, Antonio Patriota, Brazilian Ambassador to The United Kingdom and former Foreign Minister of Brazil, Professor Asli Bali of Yale University, Christopher Sabatini of Chatham House, Fyodor Lukyanov, Editor-in-Chief of Russia in Global Affairs, Nathalie Tocci, Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali in Italy, Naledi Pandor, former Foreign Minister of South Africa, and more.

This euphoria may be nausea-inducing, but it shouldn’t be too surprising. After all, to most mainstream US foreign policy figures and thinkers, a “serious and credible” foreign policy is one that reflects a commitment to maintaining US military and economic dominance over the planet. By that metric, Rubio is a splendid choice. He has never met a war he didn’t love. (...)

Americans are more tired of war than ever before and desperate for some kind of opposition to the US’s bloodthirsty foreign policy—even if it comes in the form of these haphazard promises. Though Trump is not anti-war in any real ideological or moral terms, he has shown that he at least seems to understand the political downsides of protracted military engagements. Many of his most hawkish decisions were confined to quick actions, whether it was the brutal annihilation of the ISIS caliphate (and the civilians living there) or the assassination of top Iranian general Qassim Suleimani.

This is not the approach of the US foreign policy elite—which is why it’s so telling that Rubio’s selection in particular has been met with such praise. The Blob believes the United States needs a long-term military effort to try to contain China or potentially draw it into a conflict, even though these prolonged battles are politically unpopular. When liberal lawmakers like Booker or Fetterman are relieved about Rubio and Waltz’s joining the cabinet, it’s because they’re relieved that there will be someone in the room who will be holding firm to the US’s dedication to endless wars. When Rubio meets with outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Blinken—whose tenure has been as blood-soaked as anyone’s—will no doubt express the same gratitude.

News Monday that President-elect Trump was eyeing three hawks for top slots in his administration has put a bit of a damper on the headiness that restrainers on the right were feeling over weekend news that Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo would not be joining the administration.

By 8 p.m. Monday, there was confirmation that Elise Stefanik, arch-defender of Israel who once worked for the neocon outfit Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, and Bill Kristol's Foreign Policy Initiative, is Trump's pick for UN ambassador.

China hawk Rep. Mike Waltz, who spent much of his time on Capitol Hill this year saber rattling about Chinese military and spies in our backyard, and calling for a "new Monroe Doctrine" and a lot more military build-up to confront them, is expected to be Trump's pick for National Security Advisor, according to "multiple sources." He worked in the George W. Bush Pentagon and for Vice President Dick Cheney as a counterterrorism advisor.

Add to that, he resisted Trump's efforts to get the U.S. military out of the 20-year war in Afghanistan, and like many uber-hawks in Congress, has been open to bombing Iran.

To top it off for appointment watchers, news hit that Trump is going to tap Senator Marco Rubio, longtime hawk who spent the better part of his Capitol Hill career promoting neoconservative foreign policy positions, particularly on Iran and the Middle East. He was a big defender of the war in Iraq until he was running for president in 2016 and Trump had made it unpopular. (...)

President Joe Biden has called America “the world power,” and has referred to his “leadership in the world.” If Biden does indeed see himself as a, or the, world leader, then he has been disappointing in his job and has mismanaged it.

The world today stands on the brink of larger wars, even potentially world wars, on two fronts simultaneously. That is, perhaps, a more precarious position than the world has found itself in in over half a century, since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and perhaps longer. Then, the danger came from a single front: today, there is danger on two or even three.

The Biden administration seemingly subscribes to a foreign policy doctrine of nurturing wars while attempting to manage them so that they remain confined to America’s foreign policy interests and do not spill over into wider wars. But such fine calibrations are not easily done. War is sloppy and unpredictable. Though a nation’s plans may be well understood by its planners, calibration of what might push the enemy too far and cause a wider war depends equally on your enemy’s plans, calibrations, passions and red lines: all of which are harder to profile or understand.

What is more, the contemporary culture of the U.S. foreign policy establishment seems dedicated precisely to excluding the kind of knowledge and empathy that allows one to understand an adversary’s mind, and instead to fostering ill-informed and hate-filled prejudice. (...)