Donald Trump said we must be "tougher," and he may be right in at least some cases. British leader Churchill was tough when he confronted Hitler, after Chamberlin mistakenly attempted to appease him. Roosevelt was right to be tough after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
But those are exceptions. Many times toughness has led to disaster. King George III was tough, certain his redcoats could defeat George Washington.
Napoleon had little doubt he could succeed in conquering Russia. Hitler was tough in repeating Napoleon's mistake more than a century later.
The West was tough in imposing draconian punishments on Germany after the First World War. Our southern states were tough when they fired on Fort Sumpter. MacArthur was tough in marching into North Korea. LBJ was tough in waging war in Vietnam. George W. Bush repeated that mistake in Iraq.
Mr. Trump has had an easy life. He recovered from his many failures because our bankruptcy code punished his creditors more than him. Perhaps that experience taught him the underserved value of unmitigated toughness.
Were Mr. Trump to hold the power of the American presidency his simple-minded policies would prove disastrous.
Stanley L. Rodbell, Columbia