Trump, as President Elect sat through only two of the scheduled daily security briefings in two weeks.
Trump said in August that Russia isn’t invading any country
President Elect Donald Trump told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on July 31 that Vladimir Putin is "Not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He's not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want," Reminded by Stephanopoulos, "Well, he's already there [in the Crimea], isn't he?" The candidate Trump said: "OK -- well, he's there in a certain way.
But I'm not there. You have Obama there.” Mr.Trump spent days tweeting explanations and corrections of his point-blank statements, but many presidential decisions simply can’t wait a day or two for the President to learn last week's headline news.
Trump’s willful foreign policy ignorance
Candidate Trump when asked said on MSNBC in March about who his foreign policy advisors were, “I listen to lots of people ... at the appropriate time I’ll tell you who the people are, but my primary consultant is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff." Other times he has said, “I have a very good brain” and “I know more about ISIS than the Generals, believe me.” In his defense businessman Trump has had indirect business dealings with many foreign governments perhaps thinks that international relations between governments with armies are just an extension of simple business deals between banks.
Everything suggests he is uninterested in learning.
Trump - I’ll be unpredictable
Trump has repeatedly said the U.S. has been “stupid” saying what it would do and that his administration would strive to be unpredictable. Many historians believe that unpredictability has been and continues to be the most dangerous possible international position, having led to North Korea feeling it could invade South Korea because it wasn’t clear the U.S.
would choose to defend. The Cuban missile crisis happened risked nuclear war in part because it wasn’t clear how the new, young, President would react. Lastly, when Austria-Hungary declared war on tiny Serbia did it expect WWI and 17 million dead?
This unpredictability scares foreign leaders about Trump. In April reporters with "The Guardian" wrote, “Dangerous, foolish, irrational, scary, terrifying, irresponsible, a clown, a disaster.
These are just some of the words used to describe the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency by politicians, diplomats and analysts around the world.
Trump blows off security briefings
The reliance on himself as his own top advisor is really scary when you combine his ignorance with President Elect Trump skipping almost all opportunities to learn the most secret details of domestic and international security situations and become aware of potential danger zones.
Former CIA employee Beth G. told "Blasting News" "The CIA spends months preparing background papers on various international threats for a new president." Presidents also get The President’s Daily Brief papers at 7:45 every morning and personal briefings about current threats which are so numerous and fluid that the briefings usually last an hour or more.
Trump's explanation for skipping security briefings over the weekend was that he was trying to keep Carrier (an air conditioning company) from moving a factory to Mexico. This is willful ignorance.
Trump's dangerous ignorance
At 4 a.m. in The White House Situation Room willful ignorance is dangerous if an aircraft has wandered off course or an army has invaded another country - such as India moving into the disputed Kashmir region. When nuclear war threatens anywhere its too late to learn that Kashmir it is a highly disputed territory between two nuclear-armed countries, not a luxury cloth. Or that Osama Bin Laden was located and killed while living comfortably in a massive compound two kilometers from the Pakistani Military Academy so Pakistani Intelligence may not be reliable.