Under Trump, National Security Guardrails Vanish

New York Times

18-04-2025

This month, a network of pro-Russian websites began a campaign aimed at undermining confidence in the U.S. defense industry, according to disinformation analysts.
The F-35 fighter jet was one target. The effort, coordinated by a Russian group known as Portal Kombat, spread rumors that American allies purchasing the warplanes would not have complete control over them, the analysts said.
In the past, U.S. cybersecurity agencies would counter such campaigns by calling them out to raise public awareness. The F.B.I. would warn social media companies of inauthentic accounts so they could be removed. And, at times, U.S. Cyber Command would try to take Russian troll farms that create disinformation offline, at least temporarily.
But President Trump has fired General Timothy D. Haugh, a four-star general with years of experience countering Russian online propaganda, from his posts leading U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency.
The F.B.I. has shut down its foreign influence task force. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has ended its efforts to expose disinformation. And this week the State Department put employees who tracked global disinformation on leave, shutting down the effort that had publicized the spread of Chinese and Russian propaganda.
Almost three months into Mr. Trump's second term, the guardrails intended to prevent national security missteps have come down as the new team races to anticipate and amplify the wishes of an unpredictable president. The result has been a diminished role for national security expertise, even in the most consequential foreign policy decisions.
Trump administration officials said that is by design. In Mr. Trump's first administration, some members of his team tried to stop him from executing parts of his agenda, such as his desire to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and Afghanistan, or to deploy them against protesters in American cities.
The president does not intend to allow anyone to rein him in this time.
But tearing down guardrails has created room for America's adversaries to operate more freely in the disinformation space, according to Western officials and private cybersecurity experts.
This is not how the American national security apparatus is supposed to work, national security experts and former officials say.
The National Security Act of 1947 established the National Security Council to ensure that the president received the most expert advice on an array of global issues. The act also led to the establishment of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which advises the president on military strategy and planning.
But instead of advice, Mr. Trump is getting obedience.
'Right now, the N.S.C. is at the absolute nadir of its influence in modern times,' said David Rothkopf, the author of 'Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power.'
Mr. Trump is skeptical of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, so the Pentagon is considering plans to hand over U.S. command of NATO troops. The president is close to the tech billionaire Elon Musk, so the Pentagon invited him to view plans in the event of a war with China in the Pentagon 'tank,' a meeting space reserved for secure classified meetings (the White House stopped Mr. Musk from getting the China briefing).
Mr. Trump fired the director of the National Security Agency and six National Security Council officials on the advice of Laura Loomer, a far-right activist. Michael Waltz, the national security adviser, appeared to have little influence over the dismissals.
'When somebody with no knowledge can come in and level accusations at the N.S.C. senior directors, and Waltz can't defend them, what does that say?' asked John R. Bolton, one of those who had Mr. Waltz's job in Mr. Trump's first term.
Back then, Mr. Bolton said in an interview, Mr. Trump made clear that he disliked pushback, once saying: 'I knew I should have made Keith Kellogg the national security adviser. He never tells me his opinion unless I want it.'
Mr. Kellogg, a retired lieutenant general, is now Mr. Trump's adviser to Ukraine.
In February, Mr. Kellogg had cautioned against an Oval Office meeting between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine because he was worried such plans were premature, two administration officials said.
The meeting took place anyway, and blew up. Mr. Trump temporarily cut off crucial aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine, complaining that Mr. Zelensky had not sufficiently expressed his gratitude.
The rest of the national security team cheered the president.
'Amen, Mr. President,' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on social media, applauding Mr. Trump's stance.
Mr. Zelensky 'should apologize for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did,' Secretary of State Marco Rubio added during a CNN appearance.
Despite his role, Mr. Kellogg has been eclipsed in negotiating an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine by Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer who was initially tapped to be the special envoy for the Middle East.
During Mr. Trump's first term, senior members of his national security team became a sort of guardrail against the mercurial instincts of a president often disdainful of anything he sees as reflecting the national security establishment's policy preferences.
His first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, talked him out of using torture as a tool for interrogating detainees. Mr. Mattis and Mr. Bolton talked him out of withdrawing from NATO. His second chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, and his second defense secretary, Mark Esper, talked him out of using active-duty troops to shoot Black Lives Matter protesters in the legs, as the president had suggested.
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon press secretary, did not respond to requests for comment. Brian Hughes, the N.S.C. spokesman, said in a statement that 'members of the national security team of the first term actively attempted to undermine President Trump including General Milley calling his then-Chinese counterpart behind the president's back.'
Mr. Hughes added that it was the job of Mr. Trump's team to 'carry out the elected commander in chief's agenda, not weaken it.'
The Trump team's decision to use a commercial chat app to discuss plans for attacking the Houthi militia in Yemen is one example of the way the old security rules have been pushed aside, current and former officials and national security analysts said.
Mr. Mattis, Mr. Esper, Mr. Bolton and Mr. Milley would have all 'insisted that the highly classified conversations that were shamefully leaked should have been conducted in the Situation Room,' said retired Adm. James Stavridis, the former Supreme Allied Commander for Europe.
Instead, Mr. Hegseth was the one who shared the sequencing for when the fighter jets would launch for the attack, and Mr. Waltz set up the chat.
General Milley's immediate successor as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Charles Q. Brown, was fired by Mr. Trump in February; the acting chairman of the chiefs at the time was not in the chat.
The chat itself was a rare window into national security policymaking in Mr. Trump's second term. The participants included Vice President JD Vance; Mr. Rubio; the C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe; and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. They did not discuss the follow-on effects to American forces in the region of an expanded bombing campaign against the Houthis. Mr. Vance fretted about a spike in oil prices and the risk to Saudi oil fields.
Usually, someone would have at least asked whether U.S. bases need to step up security in case of retaliation.
Republicans have defended the Trump administration's efforts to remove the guardrails on disinformation.
This month, Representative Mark Green of Tennessee, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, praised the administration's efforts to end the role of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in countering foreign disinformation.
'We want CISA focused on protecting our infrastructure, right?' he said. 'That's what it was formed for. That's what it needs to be focused on. This disinformation campaign puts the federal government in a place of deciding what is and isn't justifiable speech and I, as a freedom-loving federalist, don't like that.'
A study by analysts at Alethea, an anti-disinformation company that has tracked the F-35 campaign, indicates that pro-Russian outlets are already stepping up their propaganda efforts.
'The U.S. government at least publicly seems to be taking a more hands-off approach or prioritizing defense against other threats,' said Lisa Kaplan, Alethea's chief executive. 'So foreign governments are currently targeting government and military programs like the F-35 program — if they can't beat it on the battlefield, beat it through influencing political discourse and disinformation.'
Alethea found that Russian-controlled websites began pushing narratives after China restricted the export of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets to retaliate against Mr. Trump's sharp increase in tariffs. The messages claimed that the United States faced a strategic vulnerability that could affect its ability to manufacture the F-35 and other weapons systems.
The Russian postings said that America's willingness to allow manufacturing to move overseas had made its military edge unsustainable. The websites also amplified the message that U.S. allies no longer trusted that American defense companies would be reliable suppliers.
It is hard to know how much traction the Russian disinformation campaign has gained. But it is tilling fertile ground. Canada, Portugal and other countries are reconsidering their commitments to buy F-35s in the face of Mr. Trump's criticism of Europe and Canada and his tariff policy.
With the dismantling of the disinformation programs, Ms. Kaplan said, American companies 'are increasingly on their own.'
'From what we are seeing, foreign influence efforts may actually be increasing, especially with the rise of anti-Americanism, and it will increasingly target the private sector and different companies of geostrategic and geopolitical importance,' she added.