'Stark': Conservative gives dire warning that Trump policies would plunge world into chaos

Former President Donald Trump winning another term would do more than just transform American policy at home, warned conservative columnist Max Boot for The Washington Post on Wednesday — it could mean the complete collapse of the American-led international order and a new era of chaos around the world.

"Ever since World War II, the United States has played a vital, indeed indispensable, leadership role in the world," wrote Boot — and it still does, as can be seen by U.S. efforts to secure safe shipping against Houthi pirate attacks in the Red Sea.

"Other U.S. troops stand guard from Poland to South Korea to protect allies against aggressors. In all, there are some 171,000 U.S. military personnel deployed across 750 bases in at least 80 countries. Notwithstanding the tragic loss of three service members in a drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan on Sunday, most of these deployments keep the peace without incurring any casualties."

All of that could be thrown out the window under a new Trump administration, he wrote.

"In Trump’s first term, he did not manage to overturn more than 70 years of American global leadership, but he certainly undermined it," wrote Boot, citing the withdrawal from climate, trade, and security deals, Trump's trade war with China, and accusations that he attempted to extort Ukraine into investigating the Bidens by withholding arms deliveries. He was only kept in check by establishment conservatives in his administration — but those will be gone the next time around, Boot said.

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This ultimately means that "there would be little — aside from his own mental fog — to stop Trump from carrying out his isolationist agenda," wrote Boot. He would likely refuse to honor the terms of NATO, if not withdraw from it outright, cut off funding for Ukraine, and would stand by and let Taiwan fend for itself against Chinese aggression.

"The conventional wisdom is that foreign policy doesn’t decide U.S. elections, but the choice has seldom been this scary or stark," Boot concluded. "The November election will decide whether America continues its post-1945 internationalist foreign policy — or risks a return to the pre-Pearl Harbor policy of isolationism. How did that work out?"