Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Donald’s big bomb shows he wants to shock and awe the world

Boom! Are you impressed? The US Commander-in-Chief has just dropped the biggest non-nuclear bomb ever on Afghanistan. Why? Well, to kill terrorists, natch, but also because he’s Donald J Trump, and he’ll do what he wants.

The new president was clearly heartened by the positive response he received from the usually hostile media to his Syria intervention, so presumably he felt emboldened to do something even bigger. Because in Trump world, bigger is always better.

It’s also clear that Trump has decided, since he’s struggling at home, to make a lot of loud bangs abroad. He seems now to be employing the same tactics on the world stage as he did during his campaign. It’s shock and awe, Trump-style, hog the news agenda with shocking escalation after shocking escalation, leaving everybody gasping but gripped to their screens.

Or is this the Nixonian ‘crazy man’ theory to international relations put into 21st-century practice? Is Team Trump, like a mafia don, telling enemies and rivals that the new leader of the free world is completely unpredictable, so they better do what he wants.

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