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On June 14 — the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army and, not so coincidentally, the 79th birthday of President Donald Trump — a gaudy display of U.S. military power will parade through Washington. No doubt Trump thinks that all of the tanks and soldiers on display will make America, and its president, look tough and strong.

On Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy rewrote the rules of warfare. Almost no one had imagined that the Japanese could sneak across an entire ocean to attack an “impregnable fortress,” as U.S. strategists had described Hawaii. Yet that is just what they did. Japanese aircraft launched from six aircraft carriers managed to destroy or damage 328 U.S. aircraft and 19 U.S. Navy ships, including eight battleships. The Pearl Harbor attack signaled the ascendance of aircraft carriers as the dominant force in naval warfare.

The future of war has arrived in Ukraine. That country’s defenders are able to hold back a Russian advance, even though the Russians have a manpower advantage of as much as 5-to-1 along some parts of the front line, largely by using drones. By some estimates, unmanned aerial systems are now inflicting 70 percent of all casualties on both sides, reducing traditional weapons such as tanks and artillery almost to irrelevance. The war has also ushered in the use of ground-based and sea-based drones — indeed, using the latter, Ukraine managed to defeat Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.

President Trump suggested after the call that the United States could “back away” if Russia and Ukraine peace talks don’t advance. That could leave it to Europe to keep Ukraine in the fight.

President Donald Trump is not known for being patient or forgiving with those who defy his will. In just the past few days, he has lashed out at New York Attorney General Letitia James, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé and former FBI director James B. Comey — all of whom have incurred his wrath for various reasons. Yet when it comes to dealing with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin — who continues to sabotage Trump’s showcase efforts to end the war in Ukraine — the president seems to have an endless supply of patience, goodwill and understanding.

To visit the White House website is to enter an alternative reality where President Donald Trump is constantly concluding “breakthrough” deals and ushering in a “New Golden Age.” Reflecting the president’s immodest self-appraisal, the website is full of oleaginous praise for Trump as the “dealmaker-in-chief” who is delivering — make that “rapidly delivering” — on his promises.

With President Donald Trump now having been in office for more than 100 days, concern is growing that he is accumulating so much executive authority that American democracy is in peril. A New Yorker headline asks — in reference to “other countries” that “have watched their democracies slip away gradually” — “Is It Happening Here?” I put the question last week to one of the world’s foremost authorities on democracy. Larry Diamond is the Mosbacher senior fellow of global democracy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In its well intentioned but rushed and ham-handed attempts to end the war in Ukraine, the Trump administration is flirting with disaster. Apparently, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, has crafted a peace plan after traveling to Moscow for three lengthy meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin — but never once going to Kyiv to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The one-sided plan is now being presented to the Ukrainians on a “take it or leave it” basis, with Trump on Wednesday writing online that Zelensky “can have Peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole Country.”

Is there a better example of the Peter Principle — the theory that, sooner or later, most employees get promoted above their level of competence — than Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth?

By many accounts, he appeared to do well as a junior officer in the Army National Guard, serving as a platoon commander at the Guantánamo detention facility and in Iraq, and later as a counterinsurgency instructor in Afghanistan. On the battlefield, Hegseth appeared calm and levelheaded, two soldiers who served with him told The Post’s Dan Lamothe, even though in Iraq, Hegseth was part of a brigade that was notorious for its brutal tactics.

Since suffering the worst attack in Israel’s history on Oct. 7, 2023, the Israel Defense Forces have won one battle after another against both Hamas and Hezbollah, greatly diminishing the threat posed by both terrorist groups. But is Israel’s military getting dangerously overextended in a “forever war” in the Gaza Strip?

In 2014, eminent political scientist Graham Allison published an influential book called “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?” The subtitle referred to a famous passage in Thucydides’ “History of the Peloponnesian War”: “It was the rise of Athens, and the fear that this inspired in Sparta, that made war inevitable.”

Nobody would ever accuse President Donald Trump of being a coherent or consistent thinker. But, less than three months into his second term, a recognizable Trump Doctrine is emerging in foreign policy. It can be summed up with these famous words of Thucydides: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” Unlike most of his predecessors in the Oval Office, Trump shows no interest in promoting or defending democracy, the rule of law or free trade. He is all about power politics in a crude and blustering way that is a disturbing and dangerous throwback to the 19th century.

The full economic impact of the shockingly large “reciprocal” tariffs that President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday remains unclear because consumer behavior often changes in response to tax or tariff rates. But assuming that Americans continue to buy as many imports as they did last year, his plan would amount to an $880 billion annual tax hike that will be paid not, as Trump insists, by foreigners but by U.S. businesses and consumers. That’s 2.9 percent of gross domestic product, which would make this the largest tax increase since 1942. And that’s not even counting the cost of the likely retaliation from affected nations — or the billions lost in the stock market in response to Trump’s announcement.

If you want to see a maestro at work, pay close attention to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s negotiations over Ukraine with President Donald Trump and his special envoy (and fellow real estate tycoon) Steve Witkoff. The Russian president is playing the Americans like a Stradivarius.

The “Signal scandal” — the fact that top Trump administration officials planned military strikes using the Signal messaging app and included the editor in chief of the Atlantic in their supposedly secret discussions — shows what happens when a president selects senior officials for personal loyalty rather than competence or experience. Thus, you have Cabinet-level appointees and the vice president engaging in shocking “op sec” (operational security) breaches that, if committed by a lower-ranking official, likely would result in immediate dismissal and possible criminal charges.

Canada is, quite literally, America’s closest ally. It is also our second-largest trade partner. Little wonder, then, that for as long as anyone can remember, U.S. presidents have been praising our northern neighbor.

There is a sickening symmetry to President Donald Trump’s actions: While undermining U.S. democracy at home, he is also trying to end U.S. government support for democracy abroad. His victims range from a leading human rights organization to the U.S. government networks that beam factual information to victims of oppression around the world.

In case there was any doubt about which country — Russia or Ukraine — was the obstacle to peace, the Kremlin dispelled it this week with its response to the 30-day ceasefire plan pushed by the Trump administration. Ukrainian representatives unconditionally agreed on Tuesday to the ceasefire during a meeting with U.S. envoys in Saudi Arabia. But on Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin turned down the U.S. overture — even if he did so in language designed not to offend President Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump’s affinity for Russian President Vladimir Putin is of long standing. Who can forget his reply in 2015 when asked about Putin’s killing of journalists? “At least he’s a leader, you know unlike what we have in this country,” Trump responded, later adding. “I think our country does plenty of killing also.” Or Trump’s infamous news conference with Putin in Helsinki in 2018? Asked about the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 U.S. election, Trump replied, “President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

If you want to see a maestro at work, pay close attention to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s negotiations over Ukraine with President Donald Trump and his special envoy (and fellow real estate tycoon) Steve Witkoff. The Russian president is playing the Americans like a Stradivarius.