By Paul Silverstone | 9 January 2026
Church and State
Donald Trump’s attempts at foreign policy forecast immediate and long-term trouble for the United States. Pleased with himself over trying to destroy 80 years of general peace (excluding minor local wars), he is determined to continue his very poorly thought out policy.
1. The idea of dividing the world into three areas of dominance, in which America looks after the Western Hemisphere, means a lessening of interest in the rest of the world. His idea seems to be Putin in Europe-Near East, Xi in the Far East, and Trump (!) in the Americas. Already he has tried copying their unlawful ways although they have needed no precedent from him.
2. One of America’s greatest assets in the recent past has been its system of alliances with other countries, such as NATO. Trump disapproves and finds fault with this. Neither Putin nor Xi have such saving alliances; they are alone.
3. He sees no benefit in soft power, the aid America has given out to the world’s poor countries. This aid is a minuscule amount of our total budget, only a rounding error, but it has brought America friends around the world.
4. He has little interest in what makes America truly great, our system of freedoms of speech, the press, and law-abidance and the rest of the Constitutional guarantees. He has attempted to trash the non-political stature of the military and justice departments. He also dislikes our country being the choice of immigrants from other countries, despite the many benefits they bring.
Already our reputation in the world community has been severely hurt by his policies. Even if and when he goes and his policies are reversed, others will remember what happened, and be aware that it could happen again. After World War I, America isolated itself from the world not joining the League of Nations. Co-incidentally Russia was absorbed in its inner trials and so was also absent. Thus the ‘20s and ‘30s saw the European nations continue to dominate international affairs benefiting from the absence of America and Russia. Will his policies renew these failures, which could lead to a new devastating world war?
Paul Silverstone is the author of several books on naval vessels including a five-volume series covering all US warships from 1775 to 2007. His latest book “The Navy of the 21st Century” was published in 2024. He is a graduate of Yale University (BA 1953) where he majored in political science and international relations, and Harvard Law School (JD 1956) and for many years was in the travel business in New York City. In 2020 he moved from New York to Vancouver, Canada.
He does genealogical research on his extended family with particular emphasis on families from the United States, Canada, Poland and Ukraine. Paul was a member of the Executive Council of the New York Jewish Genealogical Society from 1996 to 2020 and was Treasurer from 2000 to 2007. He was the treasurer and board member of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) from 2009 to 2015.
"The Navy of the 21st Century, 2001-2022 (The U.S. Navy Warship Series)" by Paul Silverstone.https://t.co/cf8GEMBjhF
— Church and State (@ChurchAndStateN) September 10, 2025
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