President Donald Trump, like Richard Nixon, has astutely understood that periods of political restructuring offer generational opportunities to update and reshape the world system (Saunders PJ, Freedom on Trial, 2024). Nixon's first annual foreign policy report of 1970 and the current geopolitical climate are remarkably relevant, and Trump's style of action has followed suit.

 When Nixon entered the White House, the world was undergoing a fundamental restructuring. He seemed to understand well the responsibility of a political leadership challenge to understand the nature of the changes at the time, to define American goals as they unfolded, and to formulate policies to achieve them. 

In the two decades after World War II, the conditions that created stability and prosperity were changing. Although America was the main power, Europe and Japan were coming closer economically. As Europe's economic and political confidence grew, European attitudes toward the Soviet Union were changing. After Willy Brandt became chancellor of West Germany in 1969, he chose the path of cooperation rather than tension with the Soviet Union and the countries of the Eastern Bloc by promoting the 'Ostpolitik policy'. The 'Moscow Pact' was signed with the Soviets in 1970.

Due to the shift in the nuclear balance, the US was feeling a weakening of its strategic superiority over the Soviet Union. China was also developing nuclear weapons. Nixon arrived at a realist synthesis of such changes in the balance of military power. Nixon echoed former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan's view that the changing nuclear landscape poses new challenges to NATO - alliances are held together by fear, not love. 

Nixon took advantage of the environment in which the Marxist dream of international communist unity was disintegrating. The Soviet Union and Communist China were facing each other as enemies. Among the Communists it was called the 'Great Controversy'.

Peace is not static, maintaining it requires constant 'calibration' as other powers act in their interests, Nixon wrote in his book 'Real Peace': Real peace will not come from some magical formula, which will be suddenly and once and for all 'found', such as the Promised Land or the Holy Grail. Real peace is a process—an ongoing process of managing and controlling conflict between competing nations, competing systems, and competing international ambitions. Peace is not the end of conflict, but a means of living with conflict. Once established, it requires constant attention, or it will not last (p. 7, 1990). 

Terms of Peace

We are now standing on the brink of a reshaping moment in international relations. This is a moment full of hope and fear of the end of the liberal international order consolidated in the 1990s, as old certainties, both bad and good, are disappearing. Charismatic opportunists shine above competent operators at such crucial moments.

Sharing of responsibilities is necessary to maintain peace. A partnership has both liabilities and benefits and both must be shared. Nixon formulated the premise that America's distinctive 'do-it-yourself' spirit and healthy impatience could lead to a 'do-it-yourself' tendency in American foreign policy. Nixon concluded that "more responsible participation by our foreign friends" was needed.

This eventually became known as the 'Nixon Doctrine': the US will participate in the defense and development of its allies and friends but cannot and will not 'imagine' everything. A nation under threat has to bear the primary responsibility of providing manpower and acting for its defense. Now Trump has only reminded Ukraine and NATO countries of this reality. 

It will be too early to say whether the small steps claimed by French President Emmanuel Macron after reaching the White House will prove meaningful going forward. Trump's words are worth as much as they are (The Economist, 24 February 2025). The United States voted against a UN resolution condemning Russia's attack on Ukraine and in favor of Russia, amid concerns among NATO allies that morning over the peacekeeping conditions.

Europeans, on the other hand, are rushing to respond to the upheaval of post-war security arrangements on their continent. Macron, who previously disagreed with the United States' unilateral diplomatic initiatives, was able to advance the conversation with Trump in a very productive way because he held discussions with 30 European and allied leaders before his visit to Washington. Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, he has emerged as a negotiator more than any European leader. 

Nixon deeply believed that force was necessary to maintain a lasting peace (Herman A., AP, 22 July 2024). He had the right view that American weakness would lead to an attack and that it would be very costly. Nixon saw negotiation as a sign of strength, not weakness. To that end, the concept of linkage was central to Nixon's negotiating style.

Henry Kissinger, his national security adviser and secretary of state, said: The president wanted to address the problem of peace on all fronts, on which peace was challenged, not just in nuclear weapons negotiations (Brandon Henry, New York Times, January 21, 1973). NATO countries have cut diplomatic ties with Russia for nearly three years.

Millions of people have died on the battlefield. The decision by diplomats to reject diplomacy is morally repugnant, because diplomacy works to reduce excesses of violence, prevent violence, and pave the way for peace. However, the scenario where the political-media elite was skillfully selling diplomatic exclusion to the public as proof of their moral rectitude was ironic. President Trump has done nothing unethical by breaking it. He has fulfilled the obligation of Trump's popular word 'commonsense', which the Biden administration completely missed. 

The three tools of peace—shared responsibility, power, and dialogue—just as Nixon made them key policies, are now being practiced by Trump. The new Trump administration is well aware of the restructuring currently taking place in the world (Lawson, George R., National Interest, 2024). Trump's re-election in 2024 seems to be the synthesis that he needed to complete the changes he began to address and manage in his first term.

Like Nixon, Trump understands power and how it is distributed in the world (Samet DJ, Deescalation and Double Standards, 2025). Specific aspects of today's geopolitical environment are decidedly different from those during Nixon's tenure. The Sino-Soviet split of the Cold War created an opportunity for Nixon. He took risks and succeeded.

Trump will have different opportunities. Like Nixon, he may have seen opportunities where others did not. Trump ran his campaign on a platform of peace through strength, memorably promising to "build the strongest military the world has ever seen" in his 2025 inauguration speech. Trump has no qualms about taking full advantage of

technological power to quickly acquire lethal forces, to demonstrate that the US can demonstrate to its adversaries that we can sustain the fight if necessary (Soliman M, National Interest, 13 February 2025). The Russia-Ukraine conflict has radically changed the way politicians, strategists, and the civilian population perceive war. 

Trump will continue to demand shared responsibility from US allies (Waver Wilson, The National Interest, 20 November 2024). He spent his first term pushing European partners to build up their forces and shift their weight within NATO. Now emphasizing it even more, he has made it clear that he does not want a weak Europe. Europe is now divided and stagnant on various fronts.

Like Nixon, Trump has begun using negotiations to improve America's position in key areas. In particular, he will continue the 'drive' towards the restructuring of the world trading system. Like Nixon, Trump likes 'linkage' a lot. He is trying to stretch it to its limits. The announcement of tariffs on Canada and Mexico forced both countries to deploy border security forces. The U.S. is mounting threats and diplomatic pressure on Panama to seek concessions on transit tariffs. He called it 

trying to link to tariffs (Halpert M and Murphy J, BBC News, 4 February 2025). Trump often takes disruptive approaches to sway others in his own direction (Magdi S, AP, 18 February 2025). His proposal to occupy Gaza could also force states in the region to push for reconstruction of the territory.

The Panama Canal standoff forced the Panamanian government to move toward Trump's approach to China (Gray Alexander, National Interest, January 5, 2024). The Riyadh talks on Ukraine are under further scrutiny as an additional linkage. Trump is sure to take whatever he can get from there in return for alleged Ukrainian military assistance. By controlling Ukraine and its vast resources, Trump is sending provocative signals to China and Iran through the Russia-US partnership.

As Nixon mentioned in his book, Trump appears to be moving in the direction necessary to maintain the balance of power to preserve the peace. No one of common sense should deny the belief that genocide must be stopped at any cost. Ironically, Trump is learning everything from Nixon, who rarely mentions his name. 

British writer Paul Johnson mentioned an interesting episode in one context, "One of the lessons of history is that no civilization can be taken for granted." Its stability can never be guaranteed. If you play your cards wrong and make enough mistakes, there will always be a dark age waiting for you (Modern Times, The World Form the Twenties to the Nineties-1983).'Like Nixon, Trump is on the edge of the future whether he can prove that periods of geopolitical realignment offer generational opportunities to update and reshape the world system. 

What will we learn? 

Nepal should learn a serious lesson from the talks between Trump-Macron and Trump and King Abdullah of Jordan. One must be ready to exploit any loophole that appears in the national interest. Trump's 'first friend' Elon Musk would be wise to use his desire to operate a Starlink satellite in Nepal as an opportunity for us. It makes no sense for us to get bogged down in the Pentagon's interests and conflicts with Beijing and Delhi.

But unfortunately, with regard to the United Nations resolution, Nepal has stood up to anti-US-Russia and tired Europeans at the same time to irritate Beijing, Delhi and mainly the Trump administration. From the beginning, China and India would remain neutral in this matter, but Nepal's style of becoming aggressive was fatal. Nepal should remain completely neutral in the Ukraine issue. Nepal has lost the last opportunity to correct the mistake and it has become a demonstration of our careless diplomatic backstabbing. Likewise 

It seems that the Oli-Deuba alliance is like a "crow of the fog" in terms of what kind of diplomatic practice it is going towards by revealing the mistakes of Befwak in the Palestinian issue. None of the best strategic leaders can achieve anything if their country has a bad strategy or no strategy at all—or otherwise lacks the will to fight for what they believe in. War, selfishness, and intrigue are, after all, expressions of human will, not just strategic ingenuity. Nepal could never understand this fact.

The need at the moment is not to spend the day rattling off that the Trump administration is unpredictable, perhaps Trump is more clear on his path than any president since the Cold War. He has a 920-page playbook titled 'Project 2025 - Mandate for Leadership' of the Heritage Foundation.

'USA Turning Point' is working around the clock. Amid unprecedented public support, the Trump administration has moved both strategically and aggressively at home and abroad. A strong network of conservatives called 'Sipak', which has never been seen internationally, has emerged. It has become clear that the Trump administration does not have much interest in the rest of the region except for the American peripheral region as a competition and balance with Beijing and Moscow in the military-nuclear race and the "Munroe Doctrine" in the race for economic progress.

The current American situation, or the status quo in the case of President Trump, is helpful to his opponents. Trump is trying to establish something new and unproven. His enemies are protecting the devils he has identified. According to Niccolò Machiavelli's formula that they benefit from it, Nike USAID is dismantling the so-called soft power from its own depstate.