That Donald Trump delivered a foreign policy speech just hours after his victories in five states’ primaries Tuesday night–another important step toward securing the Republican Party’s nomination–suggests that he views foreign policy as an opportunity and that he sees it as a vulnerability for his likely general election opponent, Hillary Clinton.
Particularly in the wake of the Paris attacks and the San Bernardino shootings last year, national security reemerged as a core question in this election cycle. In the 2014 midterms, Republicans revived a politics-of-fear approach on national security issues that had worked to great effect in 2002 and 2004. Mr. Trump has adapted that playbook to his in-your-face style. The disarray of Republican foreign policy and the party’s fracture into many different camps over the past few years helped create the opening that Mr. Trump has seized.
The above excerpt was originally published in The Wall Street Journal.
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