The Signal chat group created by US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to discuss imminent strikes targeting Houthi terrorists in Yemen in March ultimately cost him his job. Waltz’s misjudgment exposed the Trump administration to substantial domestic political criticism at a difficult time and shocked friends and allies of the United States worldwide.
Other errors in judgment continue to be made. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth created his own Signal group chat to discuss the operation in Yemen with, among others, friends and family. Hegseth compounded his mistake by installing Signal on his office computer, demonstrating that he had learned nothing from Waltz’s initial mistake.
Hegseth is familiar with controversies. He has been criticized for inviting or wanting to invite Elon Musk to the Pentagon to inform him of US military plans in the event of a war with China. It is possible that Trump himself canceled this ill-advised meeting.
An outrageously simplistic vision
This episode, combined with other troubles, led to the resignation or firing of five of Hegseth’s aides, whom he had just hired. Hegseth was so concerned by the press leaks that he threatened to subject several high-ranking military officers to a lie detector test, including the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The term “chaos” is now commonly used to describe what is happening at the top of the Defense Department.
Failures to protect sensitive information and in making critical diplomatic and military decisions exemplify the most severe problems of Trump’s second term. He and most of his senior advisers do not take national security seriously enough.
Trump does not concern himself with political philosophy, grand strategy, or even “policy” as we usually understand the term. His world consists of transactions, one after another, with no connection or relation between them, implemented as if the consequences of one such transaction would not affect the others. This may be the world that Manhattan real estate operates in, which Trump proclaims he has been successful in, but it is no way to run the US government.
Trump sees international affairs as little more than his personal relationships with foreign leaders. In his mind, if he has a good relationship with Vladimir Putin, then the United States and Russia have good relations as states. The reverse is also true. Some readers will undoubtedly be put off by such an incredibly simplistic view of global affairs, but this is indeed Trump’s view, which applies to Chinese President Xi Jinping as well as his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-un.
How, under these conditions, does Trump deal with “Biden’s war” in Ukraine, which he has consistently said would never have happened had he been president? By sending a close friend, Steve Witkoff – another New York real estate negotiation professional – to meet with Putin, which he has done four times since Trump’s inauguration. Witkoff knows little or nothing about Russia, Ukraine or NATO, but he meets with Putin alone for several hours. The result is a draft agreement so adverse to Western interests, and especially those of Ukraine, that the Kremlin could have written it.
An agreement, period
Neither Washington nor Moscow has officially confirmed the details of the negotiations between Putin and Witkoff, but they reportedly include considerable concessions to Russia, hinted at by JD Vance during the 2024 presidential campaign.
The tentative US plans involve surrendering, at least de facto, all Ukrainian territory Russia currently holds (and perhaps recognizing Moscow’s sovereignty over Crimea) and barring future Ukrainian NATO membership and security guarantees. In Trump’s eyes, these concessions have no impact on the US, and if they trouble European nations, it’s their problem. Trump wants a deal, period.
The recently concluded US-Ukraine minerals deal does not fundamentally change this equation. Ukraine does gain some political advantage from the deal, and any prospect of investment that facilitates reconstruction is welcome, but Russia will not be impressed. Trump’s casual approach to unprovoked Russian aggression, twice in the last 11 years, is simply not the way to repel grave threats to US and Western security.
But this is also true of Trump’s approach to Iran. Having rightly withdrawn from Obama’s ill-advised 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, Trump failed to apply his rhetoric about “maximum pressure” effectively, and the ayatollahs remain in power in Tehran. Currently, his friend Witkoff is negotiating an agreement remarkably similar to the failed 2015 effort.
Witkoff, unsurprisingly, knows nothing about Iran, nuclear weapons, arms control and nonproliferation. On the Iran issue, however, there is apparently real disagreement within Trump’s administration over Witkoff’s uninformed exchanges with Iranians.
Damage control
Many Europeans have taken Trump’s chaotic approach to national security as an opportunity to lay the foundations for a post-American Europe. This would be a serious strategic mistake, undermining chances for a measurable upswing in NATO’s combined political-military capabilities.
The West generally badly misread the Soviet Union’s collapse as effectively reflecting the end of major geopolitical threats, some called it “the end of history.” Defense budgets were slashed dramatically (the so-called “peace dividend”) and have not yet recovered. At least before Trump, Washington had done more to rebound from this illusion than its allies, better understanding the dangers posed by the deepening Chinese-Russian axis, which comes complete with outriders like North Korea, Iran and Belarus, among others.
The threat posed by the Beijing-Moscow alliance will persist for decades if we do not respond effectively. Let us keep in mind that Trump has just under 45 months left. Planning the future as if he were a permanent fixture is as illusory as his attempts to reach an agreement with Russia and Iran. Serious defenders of Western security will instead strive to mitigate his casualness and ignorance of important issues by working to limit the additional damage he could inflict on NATO and international trade before beginning to lay the foundations for a post-Trump world. It can’t come soon enough.
This article was first published in Le Monde on May 6, 2025. Click here to read the original article.