Realist or neocon? Mixed messages in Trump advisor’s foreign policy vision Last night, retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn addressed the Republican convention as a headline speaker on the subject of national security. One of Donald Trump’s closest advisors—so much so that he was considered for vice president—Flynn repeated many of the themes found in his new book, The Field of Fight, How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies, which he coauthored with Michael Ledeen. (The book is published by St. Martin’s, which also published mine.)
Written in Flynn’s voice, the book advances two related arguments: First, the U.S. government does not know enough about its enemies because it does not collect enough intelligence, and it refuses to take ideological motivations seriously. Second, our enemies are collaborating in an “international alliance of evil countries and movements that is working to destroy” the United States despite their ideological differences.
Readers will immediately notice a tension between the two ideas. “On the surface,” Flynn admits, “it seems incoherent.” He asks:
“How can a Communist regime like North Korea embrace a radical Islamist regime like Iran? What about Russia’s Vladimir Putin? He is certainly no jihadi; indeed, Russia has a good deal to fear from radical Islamist groups.”
Flynn spends much of the book resolving the contradiction and proving that
America’s enemies—North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and ISIS—are in fact working in concert.http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/markaz/posts/2016/07/19-michael-flynn-trump-isis-mccants
