When a mood driven president's decisions lead to chaos, chaos can lead to catastrophe. By Hal M. Brown

I wrote the following as a comment to Max Boot’s Washington Post column about Ukraine’s successful attack against air bases deep inside Russia: “Ukraine just rewrote the rules of war” (subscription).

Two sentences, really two words (I put in caps), stand out to me. This one about the US sending more Patriot missiles:

President Donald Trump appears in no MOOD to send any replacements.

... and this one about the planes being hit also are designed to carry nuclear weapons:

This should serve to remind us of why it is so dangerous to have such a CHAOTIC U.S. administration at such a dangerous moment.

We have a president making decisions which are often based on his moods of the moment. There are no suggestions of a rational process which he engages in where he consults with expert advisors and considers the pros and cons, and the short and long term, ramifications of his actions. He's a mood driven person who thinks he knows it all. This is leading to chaos and chaos can lead to catastrophe.

In context, follows are the sections I referenced:

Operation Spiderweb was a brilliant and daring gambit to make up for the fact that Ukraine is running low on ammunition for its Patriot air-defense systems — and President Donald Trump appears in no mood to send any replacements. European countries are trying to help, but Patriots are in scarce supply. Rather than simply trying to shoot down Russian missiles in flight, the Ukrainians figured out how to disable the aircraft that launch the missiles while they are sitting on a tarmac.

and

While signaling Ukrainian resolve, Sunday’s attack could also undermine nuclear stability, because the same bombers that launch conventional cruise missiles against Ukraine are also designed to launch nuclear weapons. This should serve to remind us of why it is so dangerous to have such a chaotic U.S. administration at such a dangerous moment. At a time like this, it would be nice if the president had a fully staffed National Security Council led by a tested, seasoned adviser — rather than an NSC that is led by a moonlighting secretary of state and that has just been purged of many of its most experienced staffers.

Boot also has a somewhat snarky observation regarding Trump:

During the infamous Trump-Zelensky argument in the Oval Office in February, the U.S. president told his Ukrainian counterpart: “You don’t have the cards.” Well, Zelensky just played — if you will pardon the phrase — his trump card: Ukrainian ingenuity.

Trump is moody. He’s impulsive. He considers himself to be infallible, but he’s really like a ball in a pinball machine. He thinks he’s the pinball wizard. He thinks he’s a genius at working the flippers and tilting and banging the machine to cheat to get the highest score ever.

Eventually the ball settles down back into the machine and the game is over. The world as we know it doesn’t end. With Trump this is not a game and his modus operandi could result in the world, our democratic world, ending.

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