He is doing it having virtually perverted the US civil service into a MAGA cheer squad, openly partisan, and no longer concerned with following law or procedure if it is against the will of the chief executive. But the judges are, for the moment, entirely unable to see their duty to the nation, the constitution and the rule of law. But those of his team determined on a shooting war, preferably over Taiwan, are doing their best to maintain tensions. The Pacific nations are not fools, even if some of them are increasingly mendicant. It would be even better if it were Australia which extracted itself from an unequal arrangement hardly likely to increase the nation’s military security.