The Brülljesmacher’s Einkreisung: Trump's Strategic Isolation of America
Friday Flashpoint: March 20, AD2026
Einkreisung: encirclement, which can refer to a self-inflicted strategic isolation
This week’s critical flashpoint is the refusal of American allies in Europe and elsewhere to help open the Strait of Hormuz.1 America’s European allies may eventually decide to help open the strait, but they are signalling they will no longer be bullied. They and their voters have had enough.
US President Donald John Trump is repeating mistakes made by Germany in the First and Second World Wars, and proving that culture and personality have strategic consequences. Trump’s reaction to old America power structures and immigration reflects his insecurity over his own origins—his grandfather was deported from Germany—and lack of strong ties to the United States. Many are belatedly recognizing what was clear for a decade, that he is unfit for the presidency, as the Iranian-born, post-liberal, Catholic convert Sohrab Ahmari has proclaimed in his article for Unherd “Trump was never the one: His flaws finally became catastrophic.”2 However, as Trump clearly did not possess—nor sought to acquire—the habits of character that made America the leader of the West in the first place, how could he have ever made it “great again?”
The 45/47 president is known for his fixation on—and a shallow understanding of—19th century tough guy history from Andrew Jackson to William McKinley, but both Germany and America have evolved and moved on from the 1800s. His behavior is a regression that does not fit the modern world, or the lessons that the German leaders learned the hard way.
Ich bin ein Kallstädter — The Economist quoting Donald Trump in Kings of Kallstadt3
The Economist, back in early 2016, was the first to warn that what was perhaps most important about Trump was that he was not very American; his family was of recent origin and had not engaged in the normal rituals of early 20th-century assimilation—public school, intermarriage, or military service—while remaining sensitive to their German roots. As The Economist pointed out, Donald Trump possessed a very different personality from other German-American presidents like Herbert Hoover and Dwight D. Eisenhower, men who were archetypically American through and through and built their public lives on public service versus personal service. In particular, it noted that his family hailed from Kallstadt, a village known for its culture of the Brülljesmacher—the braggart or “roarer”, someone who makes a big noise. Growing up, the Trumps were encouraged to be “killers” with a “free relationship with the truth.”4
The problem occurs when the village braggart becomes a global leader you end up with the Kaiser Wilhelm II problem: perpetually insecure and thus perpetually aggressive. They burn every bridge because they believe their own hype about not needing them.
First, the Kaiser’s Germany went to war without securing Italian support. Because the Triple Alliance was defensive—like NATO—Italy was able to avoid the start of the Great War, later joining the French and British to open a new front against Austria-Hungary and Germany. By declaring war first, Germany made it so the defense alliance did not apply. Italy pursued a policy of sacro egoismo which meant not letting German vanity and arrogance get to you while you focus on your realist objectives.5
Adolf Hitler made a similar mistake with Japan. He invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941 without consulting the Japanese, who were already upset that Hitler had agreed to the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, violating the 1936 Anti-Comintern pact. The 1940 Tripartite Pact did little to fix the problem, as the new alliance between Germany, Japan, and Italy was again defensive. Japan stayed out when Hitler attacked Joseph Stalin in Operation Barbarossa. Once again, Germany suffered for assuming too much of its allies and acting alone. Hitler did not understand practical security architecture.
This is not being a strongman, it is being strategically illiterate.
