Here is a radical thought. Whether history repeats, rhymes or reverts, despite two personalities that could not be more opposite, consider how similar President Richard Milhous Nixon’s and Donald John Trump’s policy actions are.
Both are disruptors. Nixon was cunning and secretive, too often devious and very insecure. Trump is noisy, boastful and publicly vengeful, calling for “transparency” and concealing his insecurity with braggadocio.
Nixon had “the silent majority” he believed supported him and his views on Vietnam as his political weapon. After the Kent State affair, in which untrained Ohio National Guard members opened fire on students protesting the war, killing four and wounding a dozen others, many of the silent majority blamed the students.
Nixon, faced with ending the Vietnam War, saw the Soviet Union and China as the centers of strategic gravity in setting policy. In these efforts, allies and friends were critical. But aside from a nonexistent plan to end the Vietnam War, his policy was conducted in complete secrecy and guarded by illegal wiretaps and break-ins to prevent leaks.
In this regard, the most sensitive negotiations with North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front were conducted without the knowledge of the U.S. secretary of State and Nguyen Van Thieu’s South Vietnamese government. And when risks were required, Nixon took them.
Balancing China and the Soviet Union required great delicacy, much of which came from National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. After North Vietnam launched the highly unsuccessful 1972 Easter Offensive, and with Nixon’s breakthrough visit to China in the balance, the president unleashed fearsome air attacks that destroyed the enemy onslaught, questioning the trip. It went forward.
In December 1972, just before the historic trip to the Soviet Union to sign the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Hanoi backtracked from the peace accords for Vietnam. Nixon, unimpressed, raised the ante with bombings and mining of the north’s key port at Haiphong. North Vietnam relented and Nixon’s trip to China changed the strategic balance of the Cold War with this rapprochement.
The larger goals of Nixon’s foreign policies were to create a detente with the Soviet Union while befriending China to allow a “peace with honor” in Vietnam that would hold beyond the November 1972 election. He created the Nixon Doctrine in which the U.S. assumed responsibility for global stability and regional powers with greater roles in local defense. And he created the Twin Pillars policy in the Gulf aligning Iran under the Shah and the Saudis against the greater Soviet threat.
Domestically, Nixon was equally disruptive. To deal with economic issues, he imposed wage and price controls and severed the dollar from the gold standard. And he created the Environmental Protection Agency as a strong advocate of the environment.
His cabinet was strong and Nixon was anxious to return power to the states, and was defeated by a Republican House. Much of this that was highly disruptive was accomplished without great fanfare.
Trump is bombast. In foreign policy, he thrives in public disruption. He threatens NATO to spend more on defense or else. He bullies and insults Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accusing him of starting the war with Russia as well as being a dictator. He tilts toward Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping.
And he does so publicly through near-daily press conferences, tweets on his social network, Truth Social, or frequent appearances on Fox News.
Mobilizing Make America Great Again supporters, Trump is using tariffs to make America richer again; by all historical accounts, measures that have failed and are near certain to tank the U.S. and possible international economies.
And he demands unrelenting loyalty from highly controversial members with questionable experience and standing in his cabinet. While Nixon altered government through his cabinet, Trump is using the flamethrower approach of his Department of Government Efficiency and the world’s richest man, chainsaw Elon Musk.
Aside from styles and personalities that could not be more different, the similarities between the two presidents come with one big difference. Nixon was never impeached, as he instead resigned under pressure over Watergate. Trump was twice impeached and not convicted. Yet he is a convicted felon.
Trump’s presidency has 42 months to go. Do not be surprised if Trump shares a Nixonian tragic ending to complete the similarities.
Harlan Ullman Ph.D. is UPI’s Arnaud deBorchgrave Distinguished Columnist, a senior advisor at Washington D.C.’s Atlantic Council, the chairman of two private companies and the principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. He and David Richards are authors of the forthcoming book, “The Arc of Failure: Can Decisive Strategic Thinking Transform a Dangerous World.”
