What Would The U.S. Defense Posture Look Like In A Second Trump Presidency?

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

72% : In a second term, Trump would be an strong supporter of the traditional defense industry.
65% : "In a second term, Trump would likely value his own intuition over the judgment of professionals in the military and the intelligence community.
64% : Trump sees an intimate connection between remaining a world-class economy and fielding a world-class military.
62% : "Trump views China as the only credible aspirant to superpower status other than America, in part because of the rapid economic growth after joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.
61% : During his presidency, Trump greatly increased the use of drones in Southwest Asia and Africa.
58% : Polls indicate that Donald Trump is favored by most Republican voters as their party's nominee in the 2024 presidential election.
50% : Trump currently leads Biden in virtually all of the battleground states that will decide the outcome of the election.
49% : Given his view of human nature, Trump distrusts treaties and prefers acquiring concrete military capabilities.
48% : In those rare circumstances where foreign provocations demand a military response, Trump will always favor the use of remote weapons over the deployment of U.S. personnel on the ground.
46% : If that happens, what would it mean for the one federal function that partisans of every stripe agree is essential -- national defense?Trump is often described as unpredictable, but on defense matters he has exhibited strong convictions on a number of fronts, some of them stretching back decades.
44% : Trump entered the White House with a high regard for military professionals, bending the rules to make one of them his first defense secretary.
39% : Like many of the Founding Fathers, Trump believes that human beings are by their nature grasping and selfish.
31% : The main lesson Trump has learned from recent wars is that Washington should avoid getting involved in local conflicts.
30% : With that economic power now translating into a steady buildup of military capabilities, in a second term Trump would continue to make China the driving threat in defense plans.
29% : Thus, the idea of deploying U.S. forces to defend embattled democracies elsewhere in the world does not resonate with Trump.
26% : Trump despises the theocratic leaders of Iran, but he is unlikely to go to war in the Persian Gulf.
19% : During his presidency, Trump exhibited little enthusiasm for arms control, withdrawing from the intermediate nuclear forces agreement and setting challenging goals for continuation of strategic arms limitations.
14% : However, Trump has little faith in alliances and has complained that countries like Japan and South Korea don't spend enough on their own defense.

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