In a Pentagon Press statement, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered American Department of Defense (now Department of War) personnel to not attend high-level annual defense summits around the world (such as Halifax, Munich, Singapore, and also those inside the U.S.). Secretary Hegseth’s office opined that such events promote “the evil of globalism, disdain for our great country, and hatred for the President of the United States.”
I am worried, as many of us are, that the inmates are now running the institution. This simple order not only reaffirms that belief but highlights why our former allies are convinced they can neither rely on the U.S. nor predict what Trump and his advisors will do in the future. Will this bring Europe together as a more unified bloc? Most think not because of cultural, political, and historic history. While all the meetings of the major NATO and European Union ministers make the right noises in supporting Ukraine and developing a more robust defense structure, the differences and economic situations seem insurmountable. This would seem to leave us in a world predicted by Putin: the U.S. having major influence over the Americas while Russia is dominant in the surrounding European territory and China has basically free run in Asia, and especially Taiwan, which it has announced a plan to seize in 2027.
I guess many Americans have given up on a future other than that now dictated by Trump. Comments by foreign military and political attendees at the recent Halifax conference seem to affirm that. The most trenchant statement was made by a senior military officer from one of our allies when asked if it is too late for the U.S. to be accepted back as a leader, which it was for 80 years, in the group of nations who believe in post-world war liberalism and are opposed to right-wing, autocratic governments. As quoted by Matt Gurney, an attendee, “We will never f…… trust you again.”
This is scary stuff—just thinking about one man turning the world upside down. It is even more concerning if you have been reading The New York Times’ ongoing analysis of our deteriorating military capabilities. The latest article shows that we are preparing to fight wars of a previous era rather than accepting and learning from the lessons of Ukraine and the new high-tech battlefield. With the aggressive stance of Russia and China, and the inability so far of Europe to fully support Ukraine without American help, we may soon see more and larger wars. If you think of it, Trump’s support of Ukraine was focused mainly on having Europe buy American armaments for Ukraine, a deal founded on American manufacturing and our military-industrial complex’s profits from the sales.
Just today, the papers reported that the chief of staff of the Israeli army announced that Israel’s new borders included large parts of Gaza, in direct violation of the ceasefire agreement promulgated by Trump and supposedly to be enforced by an international coalition (no nation has so far volunteered for this mission). What will Trump do? Who knows? Send his real estate negotiators out to try to solve the most complex and longest political problem in the world? What are the chances, with Hamas reduced but far from defeated and executing Gazans in the public square as a message that they still control major parts of the territory.
Cambodia and Thailand have recently engaged in boarder strikes, and small but deadly wars continue around the world. They may be small, but thousands regularly die in Sudan and the rest of Africa as well as in the Americas. We are in an announced but “unofficial” war with Venezuela over alleged drug smuggling while Hegseth says he and Trump agree that America may invade the country to depose Maduro. In that self-proclaimed war, we are killing people in international waters in violation of our laws and the international laws of war, with no attempt at transparency or proof that we are acting properly. While this goes on, our president has pardoned the ex-president of Honduras after he was convicted in a U.S. court of charges directly related to large-scale drug smuggling. (Honduras just issued another warrant for his arrest after the pardon.)
Trump’s peace prize aspirations have been reduced to his recent acceptance of the FIFA peace prize from the World Cup organization. I am glad that soccer recognizes his efforts, but it would be better for the world if he actually had some vision of the United States as a supporter of democratic governments around the world and an opponent of autocrats, particularly those who play him like a violin. Do we want the world divided up into zones of influence dictated by Russia, China, and the United States? Perhaps he should read our founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But with his penchant for chaos and his total lack of knowledge of American history and ethics, he probably believes the apocryphal story that the British played the old song “The World Turned Upside Down” when Cornwallis was defeated at Yorktown in 1781 and our fragile experiment in democracy began.
