The Risk of War is Very Real
Published at 12:38 on 10 November 2016
First off, Trump is careless and short-tempered. That makes it easy for him to carelessly embroil the USA in foolish conflicts.
Secondly, there may be something more sinister at play. This assumes that he’s going to make peace with the capitalist elite and the GOP establishment and rule as Bush v3.0. That means double-crossing the base that elected him and reneging on his promises to scrap free-trade deals. A conveniently-timed war could serve as a useful means for distracting the attention of that base.
The Economist alludes to the latter possibility here. Perhaps tellingly, increasing the size of the US military is a significant part of his platform. Note that he’s such an unpredictable character that making any definitive predictions is impossible. I’m merely laying out one possibility among many.