(A bit long but scary reading and hopefully worth your time)

For starters, both countries exhibit the familiar warning signs of excessive military influence. In Germany, the Army was essentially “a state within the state,” and scholars have all documented how military dominance distorted German thinking about its security and led to an overreliance on military power and an overly confrontational foreign policy. The German military used domestic organizations like the Navy League and the writings of co-opted academics to make its case to the German people; in America, the Pentagon runs its own public relations operations and weapons manufacturers give generously to think tanks that favor increased defense spending.

Under Wilhelm Germany abandoned Bismarck’s reliance on diplomacy and subordinated that function to the dictates of the General Staff. When asked about the wisdom of the Schlieffen Plan, for example, Foreign Minister Friedrich von Holstein replied “if the Chief of the General Staff … considers such a measure imperative, then it is the duty of diplomacy to concur in it and to facilitate it in every way possible.”

Wilhelmine Germany did face genuine strategic challenges, with a resentful France on one side and a rising Russia on the other. Yet Berlin consistently exaggerated the actual dangers it faced, especially when one remembers that it took on France, Russia, and Great Britain (and later the United States) and nearly won. Even worse, Germany managed to solidify the alliance that opposed it, instead of working assiduously to undermine it. When exaggerated German fears about a hypothetical future decline led its leaders to launch a preventive war in 1914, they were (as Bismarck might have put it), “committing suicide for fear of death.”

One sees a similar pattern in the United States today, where threat-inflation is endemic, the utility of force is exaggerated, and the role of diplomacy is neglected or denigrated. Professional militaries have powerful tendencies to inflate threats, because worrying about remote dangers is part of their job and doing so helps justify a bigger budget. They are also prone to think that force can solve a multitude of problems, when it is in fact a crude instrument that always produces unintended consequences (usually failure!)

Consistent with this pattern, the United States routinely views third-rate powers like Serbia, Iraq, Iran, and others as if they were mortal dangers, treats problems like the Islamic State as if they were existential threats, and tends to assume these difficulties can be solved by blowing more stuff up or sending in another team of special forces. The results of these efforts have been mostly disappointing, yet few in Washington are willing to question this approach or ask why “the world’s best military” isn’t winning more often.

This trend began long before Trump became president, but his own policies are making it worse. We have a general atop the Pentagon for the first time since the early 1950s, another heading up the National Security Council, and yet another as White House chief of staff. At the same time, we have a clueless secretary of state who is either deliberately trying to destroy the State Department or is doing so in fit of absent-mindedness. Like Wilhelmine Germany, in short, U.S. foreign policy is increasingly long on brawn but short on brains.

Wilhelmine Germany and Trumpian America share another trait: an inability to get their finances in order. Germany was Europe’s most dynamic economy before World War I: It had overtaken Great Britain as an industrial power and was leaving France far behind. It also boasted outstanding universities and a world-class scientific establishment. Yet the German state was chronically starved for funds, even as it tried to maintain Europe’s most powerful army, build an expensive modern navy, and pay for social programs that were quite generous by the standards of the time.

And why was Germany in this pickle? Because neither wealthy Junker landowners nor rich German industrialists wanted to pay taxes, and both groups had the political influence to stop the government from raising them.

Again, sounds familiar? America suffers from chronic budget deficits at the state and federal levels, in good part because 1) it spends far more on defense than any other country, 2) it provides lots of entitlement programs for its citizens, and 3) its wealthiest members keep demanding tax cuts, and buy political support for this proposal. Meanwhile, public education, infrastructure, universities, and institutions that helped assimilate new arrivals — are all atrophying for lack of resources and political commitment.

There are ways in which Wilhelmine Germany and Trumpian America are different. America’s overall security situation is far more favorable than Germany’s was. It remains the only great power in the Western hemisphere, the only possessor of truly global power-projection capabilities, and the owner of a robust nuclear deterrent — and it has valuable allies in several key regions (at least for now).

Let us hope that is the case, because another critical difference is more worrisome. Chancellor Theobald Bethmann-Hollweg knew the kaiser was a loose cannon and didn’t want him messing up the chancellor’s own plans to exploit the crisis in 1914. Wilhelm wss kept firmly out of the loop, and ironically, bore little direct responsibility for the war, whatever his personal defects may have been. By contrast, Trump is still in charge of the executive branch, and for the most part it is doing his bidding. The generals may have been able to temper some of Trump’s worst instincts, but he’s still managed to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, alarm key allies, cause a precipitous drop in global confidence in the United States, undermine the Iran deal, fuel escalating tensions on the Arabian Peninsula, and repeatedly pour gasoline on the delicate situation with North Korea. Because top officials are still following his orders, Trump’s personality defects are more worrisome and consequential than Wilhelm’s were.

All of which suggests that we may need more effective means for constraining the Divider-in-Chief. The Founding Fathers created a divided government because they understood deeply flawed people sometimes get elected, and they did not want the country to be overly vulnerable to one person’s flaws or ambitions. They also created mechanisms to remove such a leader when circumstances warrant. I hope it does not come to that, but for now I’ll take some comfort that such mechanisms exist. Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy – I have heavily edited this and apologise for it still being too long!

Comment: This is the crucial test for Republican Senators and Congressmen – are they true, patriotic Americans, or are they time-servers and permanent fundraisers, indifferent to the calamitous drop both in respect from abroad and the financial and health security of citizens at home? When, if ever, will these people stiffen the sinews and get rid of this dreadful interloper? One year is enough!