Danish professor thinks Trumps unpredictability may be a good thing for peace

President Donald Trump.Photo:(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Donald Trump’s unpredictability may be good news for world peace, said the Danish professor and researcher, Peter Viggo Jakobsen.

Jakobsen, who is affiliated to the Defence Academy in Denmark, was referring to Trump’s many sensational statements, that Mexicans are ‘rapists’, that NATO is ‘obsolete’, and that Muslims should be denied access to entry into the United States.

By communicating so aggressively, now Trump’s negotiating partners, both friend and foe, look on him as erratic. It may be a smart move’, thinks Jakobsen.

‘Game theory shows that unpredictable players achieve greater concessions in negotiations. He has gotten those.Since Trump’s election, his U.S. allies have shown far greater willingness to increase their defense budgets’, he pointed out in an article in Jyllands-Posten.
Jakobsen said that in December, Japan approved a historically high defense budget, and that South Korea also promised to do the same. The Danish Prime Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, also committed to increasing the defense budget after his first telephone conversation with Trump.

‘The end result is a more balanced burden-sharing among America’s allies. It will increase support for those in Washington, and strengthen the allied military. It will reduce the impact of China and Russia’s military adventuring’, argues Jakobsen.

The Danish professor believes Trump’s unpredictability is an advantage in dealing with China and Russia.

The two countries’ aggressive behavior in the East China Sea, and in Eastern Ukraine, and Syria, are due, according to Jakobsen, to an assumption that former President Barack Obama would not respond militarily.

However, it is easy to imagine that Donald Trump could use military force to show that the U.S.A. is ‘great again’, said Jakobsen.

’In this way, Trump increases, consciously or unconsciously, the likelihood of negotiated settlement with both these great powers. Therefore, his presidency is a good thing for world peace’, he said.

 

Source: NTB scanpix / Norway Today