Donald Trump

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump is seen through his teleprompter as he speaks in Youngstown, Ohio, Monday, Aug. 15, 2016.

(Gerald Herbert, The Associated Press)

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Donald Trump used his best campfire voice.

In a Monday speech designed to outline his foreign policy proposals, the Republican presidential nominee whispered grave warnings, vague prescriptions and even a few tall tales.

At times, it was as if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 never happened.

In his introductory remarks, Rudy Giuliani - who was mayor of New York City on 9/11 - said there were no "successful radical Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States" in the eight years before President Barack Obama took office. Those eight years, of course, included 9/11.

And when Trump stepped to the microphone here at Youngstown State University, he painted a picture of a world that was largely peaceful until Obama entered the White House with Hillary Clinton, now the Democratic presidential nominee, as his secretary of state.

"In short," said Trump, "the Obama-Clinton foreign policy has unleashed ISIS, destabilized the Middle East, and put the nation of Iran - which chants 'Death to America' - in a dominant position of regional power and, in fact, aspiring to be a dominant world power."

Monday was a day to wrap your head around the idea of Donald Trump as commander-in-chief. The New York businessman and one-time reality TV star stuck to the bones of his "America First" theme. He promised an "extreme" vetting process for immigrants. He vowed an end to nation-building strategies like the ones he believes failed and promoted more unrest.

And Trump reminded us that, every now and then, he can tame his worst impulses, whip out a teleprompter and deliver a coherent speech. This might be the exception that proves the rule, but there was a dash of Trump's trademark irreverence and unpredictability throughout his remarks.

Trump likes to say that the latter tenet is all part of a plan designed to keep America's adversaries guessing. Such a strategy also risks confounding allies. And the irreverence - a combination of incendiary statements and outright falsehoods - risks credibility abroad.

While introducing Trump here, his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, chastised the media for "focusing on semantics, not the substance." But we can focus on both. So let's take a deeper dive into Trump's foreign policy point-of-view by homing in on three key topics.

Russia

Trump cannot escape suggestions that he would be too friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a time when Russia looms as a global antagonist. Trump has gone as far as to openly question whether he would keep U.S. commitments to NATO allies that face aggression from Russia, suggesting such support would be conditional on those countries' contributions.

"I ... believe that we could find common ground with Russia in the fight against ISIS. Wouldn't that be a great thing?" Trump said to cheers here Monday. "They too have much at stake in the outcome in Syria, and have had their own battles with Islamic terrorism."

The mutual admiration between Trump and Putin has alarmed many, including Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who during his unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination hosted a mock website promoting a Trump-Putin ticket. Fueling the angst is Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who has ties with pro-Russian groups, including those with influence in Ukraine.

The policy platform Republicans approved at their convention last month in Cleveland softened language with regard to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. There have been questions about how involved Trump's campaign was in engineering those changes. Meanwhile, anti-corruption investigators in Ukraine are looking at links between Manafort and Putin allies there, according to a New York Times story that broke on the eve of the Youngstown visit.

Most provocatively, Trump last month - at a time of accusations that Russians have hacked the email accounts of Democratic organizations in the U.S. - publicly encouraged Moscow to find emails that might be missing from Clinton's time as secretary of state.

ISIS

Trump's rhetoric has been most heated when discussing the terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State, or ISIS. He used Monday's speech to dial back on one of his most contentious proposals: a prohibition on foreign Muslims from entering the country. Such a policy would be impossible to enforce without some sort of constitutionally questionable religion-based test. Trump now favors a vague and temporary suspension on visas from "the most volatile regions of the world."

After the deadly mass shooting at a gay Orlando nightclub in June, Trump seemed to suggest that Obama was somehow in league with Islamic terrorists. And Trump invited scrutiny last week when he asserted - falsely and repeatedly - that Obama and Clinton were co-founders of ISIS. He has since walked away from the co-founders claim, describing it as sarcastic.

From any other candidate, these digressions would be stunning. But Trump once was a prominent "birther" who raised suspicions that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen.

Afghanistan and Iraq

Trump eschews nuance. Supporters argue that his "co-founders of ISIS" claim is rooted in the belief that the Obama administration, with Clinton as secretary of state, made existing situations worse in Afghanistan and Iraq, the two theaters of the post 9/11 wars on terror.

But Trump has been clumsy at best, callous at worst in discussing aspects of this fight.

He has offered praise for Saddam Hussein, the late brutal dictator of Iraq. He has openly feuded with the Muslim parents of Humayun Khan, a U.S. Army captain who died in Iraq. And a top Trump spokeswoman had to backtrack over the weekend after she blamed Obama for the start of the war in Afghanistan - a battle that began seven years before Obama's election.

On Monday, Trump again insisted he was against the war in Iraq from the beginning. But the record, cited often by independent fact-checkers, shows Trump spoke supportively of the invasion before it started.

It was the most flagrant lie during an hour loaded with revisionist history.