Trump and Emergent Strategy: The First Hundred Days

Dr. Popescu argues that President Trump’s turnaround in foreign policy is explained largely by the emergent strategy model. He writes, “the journalistic accounts regarding the president’s tenure as a CEO of the Trump Organization indicate that they he prefers to rely less on deliberate processes and long-term strategic designs, and more on ad-hoc improvisation and emergent learning. In short, scholars of ’emergent strategy’ regard successful strategy as a process of navigating through an unpredictable world by ‘trial and error’ and continuous learning.” Overall, Dr. Popescu is optimistic and believes that the Trump administration can continue this trend by adapting the emergent strategy model to policymaking: “The good news for the Trump administration is that an emergent strategy approach can be successful in the conduct foreign policy, and past administrations relied at times on improvisation and emergent learning as well.”

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