9 November 2016
Despite the perception that he is an isolationalist, Trump said very little on the campaign about Syria, but what he did say caused alarm, writes Dr Christopher Philips. “Former US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld once famously remarked that throughout its history, the US has faced "unknown unknowns": what we know we don’t know. Trying to forecast how his namesake, President-elect Trump, will approach foreign policy in general and the Syria crisis in particular, seems to fall into this category,” he says.
