FORGET, if you can for an instant, Trump the man. Forget the bully, the racist, the misogynist, the serial liar, the narcissist. Instead, focus on what Trump wants. Concentrate on what The Donald project really means for the world. Trump’s America First policy is no passing fancy. It represents a strategic shift in the direction of a declining but still militarily dangerous US capitalism.

Trump’s default foreign policy is to tear up the present global trading order, which he views as inimical to American interests. That includes breaking up the European Union (which he sees as an anti-American cartel), de-legitimising the World Trade Organisation and other international institutions that fetter US power, as well as ensuring China does not replace America as the world’s hegemonic state. Memo to Theresa May, Liam Fox and Jacob Rees-Mogg: anyone who thinks the UK will get an equitable trade deal with Trump that is in British interests is being naive to the point of criminal stupidity. As regards Russia, Trump is probably no more enamoured of Vladimir Putin than he is of Angela Merkel. But he sees dealing directly with the Kremlin as a good way of putting pressure on the Europeans. There’s also a dangerous degree of arrogance involved. The Donald thinks he can out-negotiate any other world leader face-to-face. Alas for him, global diplomacy is not a surrogate reality TV show: Russia and China are busy with military and nuclear arms build-ups that are fast eroding America’s technological superiority in defence.

There are, as in all political projects, contradictions in the Trump camp. His climb to power was an insurgency against the traditional Republican Party establishment, with its close links to Wall Street banking interests. As a result, Trump found himself having to staff an administration without support from the usual Republican suspects. But his autocratic and paranoid style means he quickly fires anyone who shows the slightest independence. Thus, in his first 18 months in office, Trump has dumped his chief of staff, chief strategist, secretary of state, three communications directors, two national security advisers, the homeland security adviser, the US ambassador to the UN, and two FBI directors.

This makes any kind of stable government virtually impossible. As a result, Trump has come more and more to rely on senior military or ex-military figures to give his administration some kind of stability. Behind The Donald we are seeing the steady militarisation of the US government – with everything that implies for American foreign policy.

The embrace between Trump and the military establishment started during his presidential campaign when 88 retired generals and admirals published an open letter publicly endorsing his candidature. Now in the White House, Trump has been only too happy to oblige his military patrons by ratcheting up the defence budget, funded by the biggest increase in borrowing the US has seen in peacetime.

Much of the spending is going into new and massively destabilising nuclear weapons systems – destabilising because they wreck the existing system of nuclear arms limitation and verification. First up is the so-called Long Range Stand Off cruise missile. The US Air Force wants a thousand of these stealthy, supersonic, fire-and-forget missiles. They will have a “dial-up” warhead meaning the nuclear yield can be small (to use against “tactical” targets) or large (for strategic targets). Which means commander-in-chief Trump can nuke a Daesh bunker, if he fancies.

Thus the borderline between conventional and nuclear war will disappear. Given Trump’s proclivity to pursue diplomacy through brinkmanship, the likelihood of a nuclear exchange is about to increase dramatically.

But the real impact of Trump’s love affair with the US military goes far beyond weapons. Rather, he has invited the generals directly into government, and it will be difficult to get them out. Trump’s first head of homeland security was John Kelly, a four-star Marine general, who introduced sweeping immigration raids. So enamoured was Trump with Kelly’s methods against immigrants from Mexico that he appointed the general as his new White House chief of staff.

Which brings us to the major contradiction in current US foreign policy: isolationism versus striving to maintain global dominance. Trump’s politics are a throwback to the tradition of American isolationism that preceded the Second World War. He represents a section of American capitalism that relies heavily on domestic markets rather than foreign exports – in the presidential election, he won the overwhelming support of small business owners. His America First policy is focused on provoking a global trade war in order to block foreign imports invading the US domestic market. True, China and the EU are imposing tariffs in retaliation, but they stand to lose far more because of their huge exports to America. And Trump’s America no longer needs foreign oil, having become near self-sufficient in energy thanks to fracking.

Which brings us back to the generals ensconced in the White House. Since the Second World War, the US military has been a global expeditionary force in the service of the wing of US capitalism bent on dominating world markets and accessing oil (hence the two Gulf Wars). It is this wing of US business that benefited from imposing “free trade” on the rest of the world. But now the international wing of US capitalism is dominated by giant investment banks and high-tech internet companies that innovate State-side but manufacture in cheap labour zones in Asia.

Actually, the banks don’t mind Trump, as they make profits from uncertainty. As a result of Trump’s trade wars, frightened investors are pouring cash into the US from abroad, much of it going to buying US shares (hence last week’s record highs on Wall Street).

However, there remains a tension between Trump’s isolationism and the inclination of his military establishment to maintain America’s strategic outreach. Trump had to be pressured by the military into remaining in both Afghanistan and (this year) in Syria. This tension reflects a deeper divide inside US capitalism itself. On the one hand, there are those who want to build  a protected domestic economy while breaking up the EU and putting China back in its box (hopefully to collapse when its debt-ridden economy implodes). On the other hand, there are those who cling to the idea US hegemony can dominate the globe as it has since 1945.

Here’s my conclusion: the odious Donald Trump probably represents the rational choice for American capitalism, not some pathetic aberration. The rise of China and the growing self-interest of the powerful German-EU bloc really has ended US global hegemony. Plus America finds itself tied down in endless wars in the Middle East and Asia in a Muslim zone that will never accept free-market capitalism. So Trump’s inclination to retreat to Fortress America – while deliberately disrupting the global order to sow confusion behind him – seems perfectly understandable.

However, as Napoleon found when abandoning Moscow, strategic retreats are always messy. Trump’s bluster and lies only serve to hide from Middle America the true nature of US imperial decline. And he is increasingly dependent on a bloated military that is bent on defending its privileges and authority.

All this suggests the world has entered a dangerous new era. Forget Donald the Eejit. Prepare to be worried.