President-elect Donald Trump has pulled off the biggest Republican victory since George H.W. Bush in 1988. The stage is set for the return of a Republican approach to national security at the most geopolitically consequential moment since the Cold War.
But what exactly constitutes a broad, common denominator ‘Republican’ national security approach today? Some of the answers can be found in Policy Exchange’s recent event series – which hosted four senior officials who are shortlisted for major roles in the next administration.
The broad GOP national security tent shares a particular interpretation of state power. This concept is of the traditional Realpolitik variety that Bismarck would have recognised: hard power, military dominance, and favourable balances of power.
All Republicans are united by the belief that Biden has resided over a loss of American power, although their causal explanations differ: for some, Biden has expended resources imprudently in Ukraine; for others, he has not supported global allies enough. But none of them pushes the neoconservative agenda, as defined say by ‘The Project for a New American Century’ that was supposed to be so influential in the administration of George W. Bush (2001-2009).
All these currently influential perspectives may seem contradictory, but they are two sides of the same coin: the U.S. is weaker because it has haemorrhaged credible deterrence. By restoring this ‘forward defence’, the U.S. will avoid future wars while preserving the conditions which bring it security and prosperity. Former National Security Advisor Ambassador Robert O’Brien succinctly expresses this as he calls for “the return of peace through strength”. It is thus clear that the accusation of ‘isolationist’ tendencies within the GOP is misguided. They do not propose a retrenchment, but a reconfiguration, of U.S. power.
It is on the means of re-acquiring this deterrence that Republicans split. This divergence stems from a fundamental disagreement over the nature of contemporary geopolitical conflict.
The first camp is defined by the belief that interstate conflict is systemic, and so the U.S., which is implicated in an alliance system across the world, cannot always pick its battles. According to this analysis, the West is pitted against a multicontinental ‘new axis’ of ‘revisionist’ powers united by the desire to reconfigure world order. Advocates of this view, including former Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and former Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger, point to evidence of growing adversarial cooperation amongst America’s adversaries – Chinese purchases of Russian and Iranian energy to sustain their economies; North Korean troops in Ukraine; and the Iranian drones and Chinese dual-use components flowing into Russia’s war machine. During his event at Policy Exchange, Pompeo criticised those Republicans who do not appreciate the “connectivity” of world order. For him, they fail to see that American interests are implicated everywhere.
The second camp rejects this connectivity. They instead advocate drawing down American security commitments elsewhere to focus on pinning China down in its backward. The staunchest proponent of this approach – which we may call a ‘compartmentalist’ approach to geopolitical conflict – is Elbridge Colby, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, and mooted in some quarters as future National Security Advisor to Vice President-elect JD Vance. Colby does acknowledge the ‘new axis’, but he is willing to abnegate responsibility for other regional security architectures due to his belief that primary U.S. interests are not at stake.
From these different analyses of conflict arise two secondary contentions: on the nature of deterrence; and on the nature of alliances.
For Pompeo and O’Brien, the credibility of deterrence is universal. In other words, it must apply everywhere – or else it will exist nowhere. Both highlight the Middle East as a case study, rationalising 7 October as the product of an Iranian regime which became emboldened and enriched after four years of appeasement. Both also made the same observation that Russia did not take any Ukrainian territory during Trump’s first presidency. For both, the causal linkage is clear, and the deduction simple: the West’s enemies study our words and actions, drawing conclusions about our competence and readiness for war. Sending a message to one means sending a message to all.
Colby disagrees. Rather than construing deterrence as a system-wide construct, he espouses what he calls “differentiated credibility”. This form of deterrence is ‘positionable’, resembling a finite number of chips on a board to be shuffled around and stacked. In a “world of bad choices”, the U.S. must prioritise whom it deters. This is possible because, to his mind, our adversaries are blinkered and preoccupied with their own region: “China is looking at the decision about Taiwan… through the lens of the regional military balance vis-à-vis the United States in Asia.” He thus demands a (re)prioritisation – rather than expansion – of military capabilities.
Alternative theories of alliance flow from these concepts of deterrence. Those such as Pompeo who interpret conflict as systemic, and deterrence as universal, perceive the holistic value of deep-rooted and lasting allies. They interpret the longevity and depth of the Transatlantic Alliance as a source of American strength, to be called on when the moment requires.
In contrast, ‘compartmentalists’ are sceptical of such enduring benefits. For Colby, an ally’s importance does not exceed a “business-like or pragmatic point of view”. As conditions evolve and needs change, so too do interstate partnerships. Given his belief that Europe can only make “marginal contributions” to the Indo-Pacific balance of power,[1] there is little reason for the U.S. to invest in our defence.
This faultline is at the heart of the most vexed issue in the battle for the soul of Trump 2.0’s approach to national security: under the looming Chinese shadow, how should the U.S. allocate its limited resources to Ukraine, or NATO, or Israel and the Sunni Gulf, or partners in Asia? In each case, the dividing line is over the function of alliances, and the sources of American strength.
The verdict of these debates will reverberate across the globe. In the Indo-Pacific, Pottinger sees increased U.S. support for Asian partners such as South Korea and Australia as essential to curbing China. Colby, meanwhile, has euphemistically suggested that the U.S. should “overhaul” its military presence in South Korea, and that he is “quite sceptical” about AUKUS given U.S ship-building constraints.
The same is true of Europe. Pompeo’s prime concern is to buttress the continent’s stability, “crucial” as it is to U.S. security. O’Brien would continue to support Europe, but he also takes umbrage, à la Trump, at those trade partners – including the EU and Germany – who have run up large surpluses with the U.S. The working assumption in European capitals must be that Trump 2.0 will reduce spending on European security, or impose tariffs to adjust trade balances – or both.
The Middle East is another point of contention. Pompeo and O’Brien offer unwavering support for Israel in its showdown with Iran, and the latter condemned the UK’s decision to suspend 30 weapons licences to Jerusalem – implying that a future Trump administration might re-evaluate our position in the F-35 programme. Both men place great importance on bringing Saudi Arabia into the Israeli-Gulf pact to counterbalance against Tehran. This contrasts with the ‘compartmentalists’ who view Israel as an ally but, as with Europe, one that must become more self-sufficient.
These are all live issues which will be thrashed out internally during the presidential transition. For the UK, the prudent way to spend the intervening period is by contingency planning for all probable outcomes.
This exercise must be conducted in the same language as that used by Republicans – the language of global conflict, deterrence, and alliance. This means adopting the same realist grammar of hard power, transaction, and priorities. The UK Government’s championing of a maximalist interpretation of international law above strategic interests – as with the Israeli weapons suspension and decision to transfer sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius – appears incompatible with the Republican worldview. Reports that Trump’s team disagreed with the Chagos decision serve as a wake-up call about the need to think differently in order to preserve currency in the American-British relationship.
It is only by engaging with the worldview of Trump 2.0 that we can hope to fit into it – let alone shape it.
New Head of National Security Unit, Marcus Solarz Hendriks
[1] From Elbridge Colby, Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, (Yale University Press, 2021).