Anne Applebaum

And that's, you know, stepping back.

I mean, that's the broader danger of a policy that doesn't take into consideration the desires and needs.

of the people on the ground.

If America is just a brutal regional bully and nothing else, then it will find it harder and harder to have allies.

And people will, you know, they will organize against the US or they will seek to thwart the US or they may eventually use violence.

I mean, I don't want to be too specific in predictions because it's just too early to say what this is going to be like.

But if you look at the history of the world, that's what happens.

I mean, an action has a reaction.

The US of the second half of the 20th century and the first, I don't know, 15 years of the 21st century was a country that did have an enormous amount of power, sometimes abused it, but very often sought to share it with others or to incorporate others or to build alliances and work together with partners, either with partner governments or partner organizations in other countries in order to achieve things.

And this is an administration that doesn't seem interested in doing that at all.

I mean, not the Venezuelan opposition, not anyone.

And so that means that some people will begin to say, well, is this in my interest?

Maybe not.

And that will create a backlash eventually.

Yeah, and a million people have died.

It's deeply bizarre.

I mean, first of all, you're right.

So I don't think Trump himself has a strategy or has ever had a strategy.

I think he has –

He's somebody who wants to win whatever is the situation, whether it's a conversation with a journalist or with the president of Ukraine or with Maduro.