Tough Trump Needs to Stay Tough on Self

Walter Mead’s “Napoleon’s Lessons for Trump” to not let his successful strategies go to his head are well-taken. The Greatest general of all time fell into the Russian wintry trap when Czar Alex finally refused to “negotiate” a peace & Trump must resist “the rest is history” pit.

The WSJ columnist praised the president’s already proven ability to grasp “power dynamics” as he negotiates trade deals for breakfast, peace deals for lunch & political deals for dinner. But, Mead ominously (and rightly) cautioned that No. 47 “should learn from the French emperor’s fall. To summarize the Corsican’s mercurial rise from hungry lieutenant in the French army to the most powerful man in Europe since Charlamagne would be a thick book in itself. But, suffice it to say, First Counsel Napoleon was repeatedly forced to fight off invading Kings of Europe. They were all “defensive wars,” yet each time the victor not only drubbed his opponents on the battle field but drove ever-tougher peace treaties “to make sure France (and then Empire) were never threatened again.” Of course, the chastised Euros waited for the Emperor’s

never back down mistake and it came when he was sucked into Russia, but Czar Alexander let Moscow burn to the ground, thereby stranding the entire French Army to freeze to death on its epic retreat back to Paris.

Well, the rest IS history for No. 47, Mead warns, if he has come to think he can never be taken for a sucker by the Euros, Russians, Chinese, Vietnamese or whoever. The best way forward for Trump, then, may be to stay tough, i.e., disciplined, but be even tougher on himself.

Davd Soul