When it comes to foreign policy, the incoming Trump administration displays a split personality. This was readily apparent during the campaign, when, on the one hand, Donald Trump told us we were lied into the Iraq war, that NATO is "obsolete," and that we have no business supporting regime change in Syria – and, on the other hand, he declared that he would crush ISIS, that it was a mistake to leave Iraq, and that we have to "rebuild our military," as if we don't already spend as much as the top ten defense spenders. It was a combination of "isolationist" rhetoric and belligerent bombast – surely an odd combination (albeit not one without precedent in our history, but we'll get to that later).

We are seeing this ambiguity play out in the process of the Trump transition, as national security slots are slowly filled. Mike Flynn, a three-star general and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, exemplifies this Janus-faced persona: in Flynn's interview with Al Jazeera, interviewer Mehdi Hasan remarked "There's a dove General Flynn and there's a hawk General Flynn," and this applies not only to Trump himself but also to his latest appointee, Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis, chosen for Secretary of Defense.