Gabbard is well positioned to become the most influential advisor to President Trump regarding the critical foreign policy and national security problems that will be faced by his administration.
Former U.S. Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, nominated for DNS, speaking with attendees at Revolution 2022 hosted by Young Americans for Liberty at Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida. (Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)
By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News
President-elect Donald Trump has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment by appointing former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as his nominee for the position of director of national intelligence.
Social media is ablaze with criticism and condemnation of both the nomination and Gabbard, primarily over past statements she has made critical of U.S. policy regarding Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine, and Russia. Apparently, Gabbard, who serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has served in combat in Iraq, is somehow deemed “un-American” for daring to speak out against bad policy.
It doesn’t matter that history has shown her criticisms to be well-founded.
Or that the ability to make pragmatic, accurate analysis of complex national security problems free of partisan bias is exactly the trait one seeks in an intelligence officer, especially one entrusted with personally briefing the president of the United States.
There are some who say that the task of managing America’s far-flung intelligence empire, comprising 18 distinct agencies spread over multiple departmental jurisdictions, is a task that exceeds the skill set that Gabbard brings to the table. This, of course, is an absurdity — there is no career path that can prepare one for such a challenge.
Just ask Dan Coates, a Republican Senator from Indiana, who served as Trump’s first DNI during his first term despite having no prior experience in the intelligence community. Or Avril Haines, the current DNI for President Biden, who served briefly as the Deputy Director of the C.I.A., again with no previous experience in the intelligence community, before becoming DNI.
Traditionally, the DNI serves as a manager, overseeing an empire the day-to-day running of which is delegated to subordinates within the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI), or the 18 discreet intelligence agencies.
Donald Trump, however, is no traditional president, and the job of DNI that Tulsi will likely be called upon to perform will be unlike that of any DNI before her.
Traditional establishment models used by all presidents in the post-war era involve policy direction given by the president, before responsibility regarding the formulation of the specifics of the policy is turned over to the national security advisor, where it is staffed out to the various agencies and departments for development and coordination, before being finalized and briefed back to the president, who would then order its implementation.
Donald Trump, however, is not your run-of-the-mill president. He is a top-down manager, who conceives his own policy ideas in a virtual vacuum, dictating orders to cabinet level officers whose job is to implement his instructions to the letter. This can lead to chaos and, in cases where there is opposition to his ideas, rebellion.
Admits He Was Unprepared
Complex in McLean, VA where ODNI is located. (ODNI)
It should be noted that one of Trump’s most innovative policy initiatives, the North Korean denuclearization plan, was strongly opposed by his secretary of state, secretary of defense, national security advisor, and director of national intelligence.
Trump, in his pre-election interview with Joe Rogan, admits that in 2016, when he formed his first cabinet, he was not prepared to govern, and as a result was dependent upon the support of people whom he knew little about and who were nominated for the job by advisors whose loyalty was to the establishment, not the president.
In the intervening four years, Trump was opposed at every opportunity by people whom he entrusted to carry out his orders, but in fact were motivated by holding him in check.
The Donald Trump of 2024 is a far different person than the one that won the White House eight years ago. He has four years of experience of how readily one can be betrayed by those who are supposed to be working for you, and four more years of plotting and planning on how a second Trump administration would function, and who he could trust to help bring policy concepts into reality.
Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra, when examined from a foreign and national security perspective, has several components. First and foremost, there is the notion of “peace through strength,” which implies a certain aggressiveness regarding America’s global posture.
This aggression, however, will be tempered by several factors. First and foremost is Trump’s commitment to keep America out of wars. This implies a reliance upon diplomacy over force. Here, two issues emerge.
The first is that Trump is inheriting a world that is very different from the one he left back in 2021. The war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, a nuclear North Korea, and an expansive China are all problem sets that did not exist in their present state of development when Trump left the White House.
The emergence of BRICS, the fall of the dollar, and the weakening of the rules based international order have all come together to create a new foreign policy reality that will dominate the agenda.
Add to this the reality of a weakened American military, and the fact that, even if Trump wanted to take his country to war, the military would more than likely not be up to the task. All this means Trump will be placing a priority on diplomatic solutions while the military rearms and reorganizes.
Trump will likewise be seeking to emphasize economic solutions to problems that might have in the past been resolved through sanctions and/or military action. This will require an ability to engage diplomatically with persons and entities which the United States would normally eschew.
Trump has shown an ability to take on such tasks by himself, as he did with his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, and it is highly likely that he will seek to do so again in the future. This puts both the secretary of state and the secretary of defense in supporting roles, reacting to Trump’s initiatives as opposed to proactively guiding the president.
An Outsider
Trump returning to Washington, D.C. after the MAGA rally in Panama City Beach, FL in May 2019 with Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, whom Trump has nominated as secretary of state in his second term. (Office of the U.S. President)
Here the role of DNI becomes paramount. One of the major tasks of the DNI is to produce the Presidential Daily Briefing, or PDB, a compilation of the most sensitive and relevant intelligence information produced by the intelligence community.
Tulsi Gabbard may be an outsider as far as the intelligence community is concerned, but she has earned the trust and confidence of President-elect Trump, something that will serve her well as she becomes the conduit for the intelligence information that will guide the thinking of President Trump once he is sworn in.
She will be able to provide informative, factual and pragmatic briefings that will help guide the president as he formulates his ideas. When he has questions, she will be the one he asks and seeks answers from.
In short, Gabbard is well positioned to become the most influential advisor to President Trump regarding the critical foreign policy and national security problems that will be faced by his administration.
And, in doing so, she will be able to hold in check the ambitions and policy prerogatives of both the secretary of state and the secretary of defense. She will also have the national security advisor reacting to her intelligence, and not the other way around.
There is no guarantee that a Trump administration will play out in the manner described above. But one thing is for certain — had Trump picked a more traditional choice for DNI, drawn from the ranks of the very establishment which conspired against him in his first term, Trump would find himself trying to implement policies in an environment where he faced constant resistance and opposition.
As Trump’s DNI, Tulsi Gabbard is a force multiplier for the president, potentially empowering him with the knowledge, information, and insights he would need to successfully take the lead in implementing the policies he believes will Make America Great Again.
Trump’s decisive electoral victory has given him a mandate to enact revolutionary changes in the way America is governed and interacts with the world. To be successful in this revolution, Trump needs fellow revolutionaries.
Tulsi Gabbard is one such revolutionary, and her selection to be Trump’s DNI, when seen in this light, was a stroke of genius.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
This is optimism to the point of absurdity. Gabbard is a dedicated Zionist. As is the president she will serve. Unless we want to ignore what Israel is doing in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and threatens to do in Iran this analysis seems at best way off the mark. What precisely will she “hold in check” in West Asia?
Counter point:
“Trump literally standing before an Israeli flag and vowing to kill free speech for the advancement of Israeli information interests makes a lie of everything the so-called “MAGA movement” has ever claimed to stand for and exposes it for the scam it has always been.
Meanwhile, Trump supporters are already falling all over themselves to justify his warmongering cabinet picks and his vow to crack down on freedom of assembly on college campuses, and he’s not even president yet.
These people will put zero pressure on Trump to end wars and fight authoritarianism. They’ll bootlick and make excuses throughout the entire four years, just like they did last time. They’re not anti-establishment populists, they just want to feel like anti-establishment populists. ”
hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2024/11/17/caitlin-johnstone-suppressing-speech-to-aid-israel/
What’s to prevent establishment (deep state) agents from painting a false picture of events by telling her only what they want her to convey to the president?
11.16.24: IMO, either the $enate; or, the Commander-In-Chief will “Make It Rain,” 1) Tulsi Gabbard, Confirmed! Director of National Intelligence; 2) Fingers crossed, Scott Ritter gets back, his file cabinet, w/its contents, in tact! That file cabinet is home to Scott Ritter’s lifetime of work, in black & white; seized, in broad daylight. An unannounced, imo, “Grab & Go!” hxxps://consortiumnews.com/2024/08/09/cn-condemns-fbi-raid-on-cn-columnists-home/
Forever, “Kudos, Scott Ritter!!!” IMO, all hail, Scott Ritter, for handling the “invasion/occupation/coup d’état,” w/grace, dignity, divine honesty!!! W/o a doubt, Scott Ritter showed the Universe what “Emotional Intelligence,” looks like, i.e., “the ability, capacity, & skill to perceive, assess & manage the emotions of oneself, of others, and of groups.”
“Tulsi Gabbard & the Trump Revolution,” just might be, the 21st Century’s “Watson,” i.e., *“Cognitive computing is about partnering between machines and humans, combining their strengths to solve big problems.” Keeping in mind, “Between the conception & the creation. Between the emotion & the response, Falls the Shadow,” genocide.
“Now that we have technologies that help us think, we need a government that’s designed to act.”
……. * hxxps://www.scientificamerican.com/article/famed-u-2-spy-plane-takes-on-a-new-surveillance-mission/
TY, Scott Ritter, CN, et al. Onward & Upwards!!!
Ritter’s analysis of the Gabbard selection makes sense within the narrow political context he has chosen; but it ignores that the incoming administration’s positions and actions are and will be as corrupt as the existing corrupt institutions the new Trump administration will be challenging: opposing a corrupt system with corruption will do the American people no good!
We get our intelligence reports these days from late night talk show hosts!
War is barbarianism . Genocide is the worst of it. Wish there existed eternal damnation for its practitioners and enablers…
Geeze, look at the comments.
A thought or two or twelve about the incoming administration.
On topic of Trump consolidating power. Scott I am sure will get this right away.
When I consider Trumps picks I see reasons for most of them. Trump wants loyalty above all else.
The U.S. military has used the ‘compartmental concept’ to ad in secrecy. Generally if you don’t have any need to know certain details of any operation, strategy or communications in general, you will not be informed of such until and if such a reason, ‘need to know ‘ , arises. See especially someone such as Mat Gates.
Gartz gets his orders from DT, who work directly under Geats say for instance DOJ consists of forty component organizations, of which for example DOJ has eight divisions of lawyers, criminal, civil, anti trust, civil rights, environmental natural resources, justice management division, national security division, tax division.
Does anyone actually think Telsi will be given the latitude to closely monitor the activities of each of these. I think not. If
Trumpians have learned anything it likely has to do with how CIA, NSA and the other umpteen security agencies of the National Security, Intelligence community work.
Telsi will get the orders and be responsible for the results expected, but she will not be the prying eyes of the Department, IMO.
Some one will monitor her activity and the same will be true of Lying Mat Gaetz. and his domain. They will direct contact with the individual entities , lets say the eight that exist with DOJ, who will be scrutinized by others in the Trumpian administration.
Dictators work that way. Those reporting to Trump will the be those he owns and can destroy.
More later kids.
Tulsi Gabbard as DNI will not solve all the problems with the 3 letter agencies: nobody could. But she is definitely a great pick who I think will approach the job with energy, intelligence, and integrity. Here’s hoping she has at least some partial success.
I would love to agree with Scott here, as I usually do. In this case, I would say the assessment is far too optimistic, given the deep-seated institutional corruption of all three branches of govt. You can’t expect something different from the same corrupt institutional framework just because the deck chairs have been rearranged. Or as Ross Perot used to say when I was a kid: you can’t slap a new paint job on an old wreck and expect it to run, you have to look under the hood and overhaul the motor.
Since there is nothing we can do about it, and there is no functioning democracy, all we can do is “hope” that something positive may come from the current regime.
Is she pro-Israel?
will it matter if she isn’t? the idea that anyone remotely reasonable will survive their first year in the trump administration seems laughable.
On many foreign policy issues, Tulsi’s opinion will matter to Trump. Israel isn’t one of them. Trump is massively pro-Israel and pro-Bibi. Neither Hamas nor Gazans will get any succor from the Trump administration. His focus will be on getting Israel everything they need to finish the job and end the war via total victory, not on trying to negotiate a cease-fire. He may even go off the reservation and give Israel approval for knocking out Iran’s nuclear program and oil fields (something the Biden administration has been vehemently against). Iran’s [alleged] assassination plots against Trump will certainly come back to bite them before his term is up.
“This aggression, however, will be tempered by several factors. First and foremost is Trump’s commitment to keep America out of wars. This implies a reliance upon diplomacy over force. Here, two issues emerge.”
Why would Trump appoint someone rabidly promoting war with Iran as Secretary of Defense if he wanted to “keep America out of wars”?
Israel wants US military support and Trump’s appointments shows he will give it to them in spades. I thought you opposed genocide? What happened?
How will Trump react when he can’t get Putin to agree to his proposals like one of his trained poodles in the congress? What do you think of his proposals to use the US Military to attack the “the enemy within”( a favorite term of Joe McCarthy)? As far as I can tell you are cherry picking to present an unjustifiably positive image of an erratic authoritarian who is every bit as contemptuous of the US constitution as the Democrats. Are you open to withdrawing support for Trump and what will it take?
I’m sure many others are wondering the same thing. This is a 2 party oligarchy and it is steering us toward nuclear war and/or a mark of the beast style banking system.
Tulsi is generally awful regarding Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians. This is unacceptable.
She’s generally terrific regarding the dangerous proxy war on Russia’s border. She’ll likely advocate for a serious de-escalation. This is to be applauded.
I wonder about Gabbard’s Hindu affiliation and how that might affect her view of Muslims. In India, Hindus and Muslims are, to put it mildly, not on friendly terms.
Change is never easy and it won’t be easy this time, but has to be done to save our Constitutional Republic.
I find it ironic that this election was described by the political parties with the same old mantra of, this is the most important election ever. Well, I finally believed that this time.
President elect Trump is a strong man. He has shown it to me over the past four years. With all the lawfare and assassination attempts in his life he is battle worn and ready for action.
He has said he wants to fight the “swamp” in D.C., and he found out in his first election that the swamp goes very deep in the US, and now he has a better understanding of what he is staring in the face.
The socialists have a big start on him and it will be difficult to start the process of changing our country into what the founding fathers envisioned.
Tulsi Gabbard is a great start in the renewing process. She is smart and has experience within the government and military. Trump did good in putting her within his cabinet.
I agree with Scott that the choice of Tulsi Gabbard to head National Intelligence was masterful and will hopefully result in, if not a return to sanity, at least to a turn in its direction. However, reading this article led me to speculate on whether the incredibly inept and indeed terrible conduct of foreign affairs by the Biden/Harris administration during the past four years might not have been deliberately designed as a Machiavellian political strategy to present Mr. Trump with unsolvable dilemmas, i.e., who cares about the country or the world as long as Tea Party Republicans can be made to look as inept as “woke” Democrats proved to be. Of course, that would presuppose that they knew he’d be back, perhaps because they knew he had not actually lost in 2020. Something many will always believe. Which led me to Elphaba, the purportedly Wicked Witch of the West in the 1930’s version of the Wizard of Oz, and her prescient wisdom as she melted, exclaiming: “what a world, what a world!”
I think it’s more a case of Hanlon’s razor …. never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence.
America’s adversaries perceived Biden as a weakling, and ran wild once Trump was out of office. They perceive Trump as an unpredictable madman, so they largely tried not to provoke him during his first term. The question is whether Trump’s madman mojo will be able to pull them back from the brink in his second term, or whether they will choose to continue down the current path and Trump may have to forcefully demonstrate some of his unpredictability (which could cause them to pull back, or cause problems to escalate out of control).
Your recent pronouncements on the Trump phenomena reveal the hollowness of your political understanding, Scott. I know you will scoff at this statement if you ever read it.
The Constitution has been shredded (even before Bush decided to use it as toilet paper).
Have you read the Princeton study of 2014? It declared that the U.S. is an evident oligarchy, unresponsive to the majority of its citizens. The oligarchs are quite comfortable with genocide and Gabbard is a creature of the oligarchs. Oligarchy results from capitalism fulfilling its profit-above-all mission.
Please use your resources to call for and build systemic change and quit tinkering around the margins of the monstrous bureaucracy.
Spot on, tactful assessment!
However, I disagree with you in saying Scott Ritter’s political understanding has a hollowness to it.
No matter anyone’s incisive intellect and understanding, each and every one of us has blind spots.
Wow that’s scary! Are the Democrats also creatures of the oligarchs? Or are both parties equally creatures, or one not at all and the other entirely so.
Of course the Democrats are creatures of the oligarchy. One look at Barack Obama’s presidency and you can see that. Albert Einstein called us an oligarchy in the 1940s, and Noam Chomsky confirmed it in the 80s. The problem is Trump is also owned by the oligarchs even though he claims to be a dictator or autocrat. He’s not. His vision of the “swamp” is inaccurate because he is part of the swamp polluting our country.
Project 2025 is Neoliberalism of the past 40 years on steroids. Watch closely as P2025 is implemented within the first 90 days. Trump hasn’t even taken office and he is already making decisions that will make Elon Musk even richer. Watch which oligarchs thrive under the P2025 plan…
Disagree!
Ritter is right on.
Gabbard is a Godsend.
I agree with Scott as well. Seeing the neocons sweat bullets is a great sign. Add RFK Jr into the mix and we will learn some deep dark secrets.
and a bunch of kids will likely die of preventable communicable disease-a trade off perhaps for doing some other useful things the FDA and CDC? as f*&^ked as both are in some ways, they also perform some useful functions and RFK Jr and the rest of the trump fk ups appear more bent on revenge than real reform or sensible policy. And the Dems? lots of them suck the neocon tit but lots of them aren’t actual neo liberals and have a lot to lose as do I. people are rightfully scared and its distressing to see the computer commandos here trying to find something good about all of this.
Personally, having an affinity for Latin Americans, I’m pretty concerned re the American private prison complex which can’t wait to put a substantial part of the American workforce into their very own concentration camps for profit. Trying to find much of a silver lining in the trump presidency is like saying to a man who has lost his leg “but at least you lost some of that weight you wanted to get off.”
“…bunch of kids will likely die of preventable communicable disease…”
No, RFK Jr. just believes in following the science. If you can’t ask questions, it’s not science, but propaganda.
RFK is vaccine-skeptical, but he has never advocated for banning vaccines. His concerns are mostly about toxic additives in the vaccines, the number of vaccinations kids are being exposed to today versus 20-30-40 years ago, and the push mandate vaccinations during the Covid pandemic. And he’s not wrong. Childhood immunization for the big, dangerous childhood diseases has been a boon, but institutional capture by Big Pharma has led to those shots getting bigger and bigger every year with more and more immunizations that do more for Pharma’s bottom line than kid’s health. Kids are developing more and more autoimmune disorders today than in decades past, and some of that may be down to their immune systems being overstimulated by dozens of only marginally useful vaccinations.
Re: the Princeton study….
As acknowledged by none other than President Jimmy Carter in his 2010 radio interview with Thom Hartmann in which he replied to the question, “HARTMANN: Our Supreme Court has now said, “unlimited money in politics.” It seems like a violation of principles of democracy. … Your thoughts on that?”
CARTER: “It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody’s who’s already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who’s just a challenger.”
Meh
That kind of nihilistic take on the country and it’s government isn’t constructive. Anyone who truly believes that America is hopelessly down the path of being a fascist oligarchy and that the constitution is no longer effective is just giving up on the American experiment. If you REALLY believe that, you should drop off the grid, start stockpiling guns, and make preparations to water the Tree of Liberty with the blood of tyrants and patriots in a civil war against the oppressive oligarchic government. Or, perhaps you should accept that while our country and government have many flaws, they are not beyond repair and it is not hopeless to try and change things.
Tell that to the dead Palestinians.
Truthful intelligence is certainly a plus for reality-based decision making. There has certainly been precious little of that in the last four years and more. Just a ruling elite who is addicted to drinking their own kool-aid.
When I consider all the appointments by all the presidents of the last twenty years, they have all been animal crackers. Tulsi Gabbard is unique. She is a real human being who knows her own mind. A small step perhaps but a very meaningful and pivotal appointment. We shall see…
Will she give pause to Trump’s current ideas on how to solve Ukraine? These are: stop the combat and establish a DMZ; delay Ukraine entry to NATO for 20 years; Ukraine’s ceding all territory lost to Russia at this time; and US continuing to support Ukraine, including militarily. This “solution” (in 24 hours!) is not likely to fly given the actual history of the conflict back to at least 2014. It is, in short, on the side of stupid. What is Gabbard’s view here?
I feel very much the way Scott Ritter sees the situation. Nobody can predict the future – and neither is Ritter doing so. But there is certainly a rational case to be made the way Scott Ritter is doing here.
Quite an optimistic view that I do not share. Trump will be sabotaged at every possible step. If in the next 4 years Trump manages to keep the USA out of other countries business, I will consider that a win.
What Mr Ritter fails to understand about Government Departments is that they believe they are the permanent Government and politicians are temporary impediments.
They will misinform Gabbard in order to misinform the President in order to get the results they desire.
No, Tulsi Gabbard is too intelligent to be bamboozled by the war mongers.
Perhaps, but is she willing to sell her soul to remain in a corrupt administration run by delusional feebs and neonazis? I sort of doubt it.
Scott, the duty of government actors is loyalty to the Constitution, not to the President. Otherwise, they would be following the führer principle. And we know what that led to.
I think you, and others, give Trump too much credit. He ran for President to pad his ego and and bank account. It was just and accident that he was elected. Now he own self-worth is tied in to his quest to be President again. He is just a world-class huckster with the gradually diminishing mind. He and Biden can compare notes on the subject.
We really have no exact idea what he will do. My guess is he might stop a war or conflict somewhere but start another somewhere else. I think everyone in Central and South America is on edge right now.
The point is Trump is just like all the others but to a different degree.
I agree. Everyone seems to be ignoring what this administration will mean for Latin America.
An accident? I didn’t vote for either Trump or Harris, but this election seems more like a referendum by the people of the USA than an “accident.” I really didn’t want Harris to win. I want the Democratic Party to complete the suicide they keep botching so that a true representational political party can rise from its ashes.
People within Trump’s sphere are advocating for an invasion of Mexico…United Fruit/Chiquita Banas just lost a court case and owe millions to the families of some people they had killed…I’m sure they’d like a little government intervention especially as they transition from Cavendish Bananas to whatever they will replace their dying cultivars with. There are a smidgen of actual leftists running things in south America-I doubt trump’s circle of criminals and profiteers love that idea and I doubt we will stop messing with Venezuela . Will trump e also continue the support Modi in India? People all over the world have reason to be scared and Tulsi Gabbard ain’t gonna fix that.