There was a time when US diplomacy was conducted across mahogany tables, national security debates were articulated in full sentences and presidential decisions filtered through knowledgeable institutions.
But that era is over with the second coming of Donald J Trump, who governs not as a head of state but as a market-reactive mechanism. The US presidency has thus morphed into a volatile, screen-driven experiment in governance by impulse.
It is not policymaking; it is platform trading, with the global economy as collateral.
The algorithm is Trump—and the algorithm that is Trump is broken. For what it is worth, algorithms are supposed to be clear sets of rules designed to…