The Odd Squad

The general assessment of Trump 2.0 so far, by those inclined to support him, is that his domestic operation is doing great, but his foreign policy operations is a work in progress, to be generous. It is still early, and the primary focus should be on domestic policy, but foreign policy is not unimportant. Thirty years of horrific domestic policy has often been justified on foreign policy grounds, so they are not entirely divorced from one another.

The reason the Trump foreign policy operation is struggling can be understood by looking at the team assigned to implement his policy. The top foreign policy job was given to Marco Rubio, a guy with zero experience in this area, other than sitting on Senate committees. A pawn of the Israel lobby, he also sided with the neocons for his entire career in the Senate. During the transition, this nomination was counted as the worst of Trump's cabinet picks.

Rubio seems to have had some sort of epiphany when it comes to politics that went unnoticed as he no longer sounds like a neocon. In fact, he sounds like a critic who has been reading dissident websites. His commentary on South Africa, for example, is the sort of stuff that used to get your bank account closed. Even so, Rubio is without experience, so he is learning on the job, a job that traditionally sets the tone for the administration’s foreign policy approach.

Things get more unconventional with the national security team. Mike Waltz was the National Security Advisor until it was revealed that he was playing footsy with far-left radicals in the media. Then there are Michael Anton and Sebastian Gorka as Deputy National Security Advisors. Both are best described as media personalities with close ties to the neocons. Eli Lake loves Anton and Lake is firmly in the paranoid anti-Russia social network of neocon media activists.

Then you have Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence and Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, two people with no experience in their areas of responsibility and zero experience running big, complicated organizations. Gabbard's claim to fame is breaking with Washington on Syria and her party on social issues. Hegseth was a popular Fox News star with unconventional opinions on the military. These are Trump's most out of left field foreign policy picks.

The two defining features of Trump's foreign policy team is a general lack of experience on foreign policy issues, and they have earned the trust of Donald Trump. That last part gets attacked by the media, but it is important if you are looking to redefine and revitalize the foreign policy community. Trump needs spear catchers who will do what must be done to implement policy. What sunk Trump's first term were all the people thinking they could use Trump to boost their career.

The main problem is the experience. This is not always a bad thing as fresh eyes are certainly needed in all of these areas. Old hands would never think to ask why things are done the way they are done, especially in how information is selected and filtered before it is presented to the President. The intelligence people in Trump's first term gave him the mushroom treatment. Most of the time, he was left with choices he did not want but was forced to pick from them.

The real issue here is these people are not just tasked with implementing Trump's vision of a new foreign policy, but they have to figure out what that is and then figure out if they agree with it. It is not all that clear if Trump's vision is merely dovish within the context of the standard Wilsonian model that has dominated America since Wilson or if it is a rejection of that framework entirely, in favor of the 19th century conservative approach embodied by the famous quote from John Quincy Adams.

Added to this is the fact that it is not all that clear if most of the people have thought much about this until this point. Seb Gorka is mostly known for being rude to people on Twitter and being a guest on conservative chat shows. Michael Anton is best known for one essay in 2016 and his love of fashion. Tulsi Gababrd is the only member of the team that has offered original thoughts on foreign policy. For the most part, Trump's team is a blank slate when it comes to foreign policy.

This may be a good thing, as at least he has a team that is open to questioning the status quo, even if they have not formulated an alternative. The foreign policy community is stuffed to the gills with people who have been carefully vetted by the Israel lobby and the neocons. Trump had little choice but to reach outside of that world for people he could trust and who would try to think for themselves. The result is an odd squad of neophytes and eccentrics.

It remains to be seen if this works but it explains why foreign policy is so uneven at the start of this term. It also explains why Trump has been so reliant on Steven Witkoff, as his personal emissary. He may be the one guy who understands what Trump is thinking with regards to foreign policy. There again, we see a man with zero experience in foreign affairs, outside of business dealings. Like everyone else in the Trump foreign policy team, he is learning on the job.

This may explain why the Russians are willing to talk to the Trump people. They see the effort to break from old patterns. It may also be why the Iranians have agreed to talks with Trump people, despite Trump breaking their deal in the first term. People who spend a lot of time studying American politics sense an opportunity to break from the past with regards to dealing with the Americans. It also explains why the Russians are so patient with the Trump team.

Again, it is too soon to know how this ends. It is an odd collection of people held together by a desire to head in a new direction, even if they have no clue as to which direction they will be heading. Perhaps for now a desire to break from the past is enough to get the ball rolling. If they managed to avoid being outflanked by the Europeans and subverted by the Washington establishment, they might finally create a plausible alternative to Wilsonian democracy.