Unpredictability as doctrine: Reconceptualising foreign policy strategy in the Trump era

Abstract

This article tackles the question of whether US President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is informed by doctrine and, if so, what that doctrine is. In doing so, it positions itself with those who argue for the presence of a doctrine and specifically those who argue for a doctrine of unpredictability. The article problematises current understandings of doctrine, and the notion of unpredictability itself. The tendency to rely on the rational decision-making model is identified as a hindrance to analysis that acknowledges the possibility of a doctrine premised on a deliberate strategy of obfuscation and of wrongfooting both friend and foe. A four-pronged model of unpredictability is posited, consisting of inconstancy, inconsistency, unconstrainedness, and unreliability. This model encourages research unimpeded by prior ideas that treat Western foreign policy as rational and therefore expands the range of possible foreign policy doctrines that analysts contemplate.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michelle Bentley

Dr Michelle Bentley is Reader in International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she is also Director of the Centre for International Security. She has written two sole-authored books: Weapons of Mass Destruction and US Foreign Policy: The Strategic Use of a Concept (London: Routledge, 2014), analysing WMD and the strategic adoption of political concepts; and a second entitled Syria and the Chemical Weapons Taboo: Exploiting the Forbidden (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), looking at US foreign policy in relation to the Syrian crisis. She has also co-published two edited volumes on the Obama administration and continuity in US foreign policy. Email: [email protected]

Maxine David

Dr Maxine David is a Lecturer in European Politics at Leiden University. She is a Foreign Policy analyst, specialising in Russian, EU and US foreign policy. She has co-edited and contributed to a number of special issues and edited collections on EU-Russia relations, including The Routledge Handbook of EU-Russia Relations. Structures, Actors, Issues (Routledge 2021).