Stephens makes a good point that Trump has only a few ideas of the world that he locked into decades ago. I would add that such rigidity corresponds to the small menu of responses available to him when he tries to turn them into reality. What causes Trump's continual experience of disappointment with the selections offered by his foreign policy apparatus is that their options never correspond adequately with his menu. The gap between the two set of options does not arise from two different visions of strategy but rather from Trump's inability to think strategically. Nobody ever packed that Swiss Army knife into his haversack.

Keeping this spectacular demonstration of the Peter Principle in mind, I will argue with the following statement by Stephens:

Above all, he’s against “meddling,” whether it’s meddling in the affairs of others — or having others meddle in his. The Trump Doctrine is the doctrine of unaccountability.

Trump has no problem with meddling in the sense of killing other people at will or threatening to do so. He has not objected to the use of drone strikes. There has not been any push back on the idea of proxy wars or supporting what allies such as Saudi Arabia do in Yemen. In all his rhetoric involving nuclear arms in relation to Iran, North Korea, and Russia, the only consistent theme is that the U.S. is able to maintain dominance and rain "unbelievable destruction."

So, it is true that there is a "doctrine of unaccountability" in effect in terms of not working toward the benefit of other people unless they give him something in return. But since he is not able to conceive of transactions beyond sets of particular moments of quid pro quo, the strategic consequences of the approach are beyond his comprehension.

Even Trump's most hawkish enablers, such as Bolton, understand that using force in a diminishing sphere of global influence still means allying with others to achieve outcomes that won't harm the U.S. Trump's cognitive limitations means that he will never grasp what Garri Hendell means when he explains that Deterrence is not a Tactical Task.