Opinion | Trump Fast-Forwards American Decline

He writes of “unilateral diplomatic disarmament” under Trump, born of “equal parts ideological contempt and stubborn incompetence.” The president’s view of diplomacy is “narcissistic, not institutional,” Burns observes, full of “muscular posturing and fact-free assertions” that insult allies and indulge autocrats.

Remember, all this comes from a supremely measured man who dedicated his life to the proposition that what diplomacy is all about is “not perfect solutions, but outcomes that cost far less than war and leave everyone better off than they would otherwise have been.”

Among those imperfect but beneficial solutions was the Iran nuclear deal that Burns played a leading role in negotiating and that Trump called “the worst deal ever” before withdrawing from it. This, Burns writes, “was exactly the kind of risky, cocky, ill-considered bet that had shredded our influence before, and could easily do so again.”

He notes: “Walking away from imperfect agreements, however, is rarely better than addressing their imperfections over time.” Especially when that “walking away” leads the United States to the brink of an unnecessary war.

For Burns, the erosion of American power and influence long predates Trump. He regrets the loss of the extraordinary American cohesion that, at the end of the Cold War, secured the place of a united Germany in NATO. He notes the failure to perceive early enough how Russian “humiliation and wounded pride” would, under Putin, spur a Russian resurgence.

NATO expansion was, he suggests, “premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst” — a debatable point in my view, given the need to secure and stabilize the liberation of more than 100 million long subjugated people in Central Europe and the Baltic States.

He thinks President Obama made a mistake by not upholding his “red line” against the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons. The Obama administration “had blinked” and, Burns notes, “it would leave an enduring mark.” Into that vacuum Putin strode.