No more “ridiculous endless wars” lies at the heart of President Donald Trump’s national security agenda and encapsulates his break from, and disdain for, the foreign policy approach of the Republican political establishment. 

In Trump’s first term, many of the president’s senior national security advisors deemed the president and his worldview as dangerous and consistently undermined his agenda. Though Trump has vowed to do better with staffing in his second term, some of his cabinet officials may again diverge dramatically from the president on major foreign policies. 

Senator Marco Rubio, the first official confirmed for the new Trump administration, would be a prime example. Included in the same category are other nominees, especially those sporting the label of national security “hawk,” who might not understand the difference between being tough and engaging in the foreign adventurism of yesteryear. 

In the 2016 campaign, Trump’s critique of endless wars centered on America’s post-9/11 interventionism in the Middle East—most notably, the disastrous war against Iraq waged by the George W. Bush administration. 

Rubio had for years offered a full-throated defense of the war, until it became politically inconvenient to do so. Indeed, he changed his tune only when he ran for president in 2016 when it became clear that American voters overwhelmingly regretted the Iraq tragedy and had little appetite for those who defend it.

Whatever Rubio may say to align himself with Trump today, his views on the most inept and inexcusable U.S. foreign intervention of the twenty-first century do not inspire confidence in his effectiveness or inclination to help Trump prevent the next ridiculous endless war.

If Iraq represented the foreign policy calamity foremost on the minds of voters in the 2016 elections, the Russian war on Ukraine that started during the Biden administration took the prize in the 2024 campaign. Trump has declared it a priority to negotiate a peace settlement between the two countries, rather than continuing to provide unending military aid to Ukraine while risking a nuclear confrontation with Russia.

Here again, the incoming secretary of state had supported what Trump considers a major provocation that led to the Russian invasion: the West’s flirtations with Ukraine on NATO membership. Though Russia is indisputably the aggressor in the current war, Trump sees it as irresponsible for the United States and its European allies to have dangled the prospect of NATO membership to Ukraine, especially when Russia had made clear that is a scenario it would not tolerate.

Who were the doyennes of U.S. foreign policy that considered it wise to provoke Russia in such a way? Many of the same people who bequeathed the Iraq catastrophe to the world. Agreeing with them was Rubio, who had previously declared himself open to Ukrainian NATO membership.

Meanwhile, China, America’s most significant adversary in the twenty-first century, presents the biggest test case for whether staffers would implement Trump’s vision in the second term.

Trump’s strident rhetoric and actions taken against China in trade and economics are well known. He noisily waged a trade war against Beijing in his first term and has threatened 60 percent tariffs on goods imported from China in his second. Animating his confrontational approach is the conviction that China has ripped off or “raped” America economically, whether by brazenly stealing U.S. intellectual property and American technology, engaging in unfair trade practices, contributing to the massive loss of manufacturing jobs, or spying on American citizens and corporations.

Trump’s approach might confuse many into thinking that he wants to confront China across the board. He does not. Indeed, he is reluctant to needlessly heighten security tensions or provoke armed conflict with Beijing. This does not mean he will be ineffective at deterring Chinese aggression—after all, a hot war with China appeared far less likely during his first term than under the Biden administration—but he is as uninterested in starting an endless war with China as he is with the rest of the world. 

Many of Trump’s top national security advisors in the first term pushed for a very different approach. For example, his last secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, advocates recognizing Taiwan as an independent country, a provocation that is certain to trigger armed conflict with China. 

Trump himself has never shown any interest in supporting Taiwanese independence. Rubio, however, has long supported it.

Certainly, staffers to the president cannot possibly agree with him 100 percent of the time. As secretary of state, however, Pompeo did far more than disagree—he systematically went about hiring and elevating staffers who secretly or openly hated Trump. Prominent Trump allies have outright called Pompeo “filthy” for sucking up to the president while undermining his agenda and administration from within during the first term. 

There is no indication that Rubio would engage in the same type of obsequiousness or sleaze. Indeed, he had repeatedly defended Trump on politically charged issues during the 2024 presidential election.  

The broader concern is that Trump supporters have already seen previously the havoc wrought from within by cabinet officers and their staffers who disagree sharply with the president on the fundamental foundations of his policy outlook. What will the second Trump term look like if senior advisors are working toward a foreign policy agenda and priorities that are not the president’s?

Let’s hope we don’t find out. Appointing national security officials who actually share Trump’s foreign policy views would help.

(Source: The National Interest)