Matt Kroenig: Hey Emma! Greetings from New York City. I’m here to speak to a group about U.S. President Donald Trump’s foreign-policy tonight. Help me figure it out, so I have something good to say. Any hot takes this week?
Emma Ashford: I always have hot takes. But I’m more concerned about whether I still have an office. Did you hear that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has now started forcibly raiding semi-independent nonprofits like the U.S. Institute for Peace (USIP)? Makes me wonder how long we think tankers have.
MK: I heard the news. Fortunately, the Atlantic Council (and I assume Stimson) have a diversified funding base, so we will be able to survive any U.S. government funding cuts.
It does make me wonder, however, about DOGE’s priorities. USIP spent about $3 million last year out of a total $6 trillion in U.S. federal spending. It is a hunt for small potatoes.
Of the $6 trillion in federal spending, roughly $4 trillion is entitlement spending. Another $1 trillion goes to defense. And the remaining $1 trillion goes to other stuff.
If DOGE really wants to make a difference, it should focus on reforming entitlements, not shuttering tiny think tanks.
EA: Or cutting the defense budget? I know getting you to admit that is unlikely, but you’re not wrong about the overall picture. At least in foreign-policy terms, DOGE is focusing on the smallest and cheapest agencies and not on, say, looking for waste in the defense contracting industry. It does rather feel like it’s looking in the wrong place.
MK: On defense, I predict we will see the foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. There is waste that will be cut, but Washington will need to increase defense spending overall to return to historical norms and to compete with powerful and threatening adversaries, especially China.
EA: Cutting the defense budget is certainly tricky. It’s a necessary expenditure, and you can’t just slash away things that might be needed for readiness. But maybe Musk could take a look at the F-35 as my friend and colleague Dan Grazier has argued? It’s a huge pork-barrel project that doesn’t work as intended.
But DOGE is starting to have an effect, and I worry that these individual cuts are really starting to build up into a more cohesive destruction of pretty much every soft power arm of the U.S. government.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), USIP, Voice of America—the Cold War-era broadcasting service that helped spread anti-communist messages—and a variety of other smaller programs. Washington has stopped funding Agent Orange cleanup in Vietnam, for God’s sake. That’s penny wise and pound foolish when the United States really needs to work with Vietnam on China-related issues.
What’s your theory of the case here? What is DOGE actually trying to do?
MK: I’m supportive of the impulse to cut wasteful government spending. I am also a strategist. I like to have a clear plan of where I am heading before taking drastic action. And if DOGE has a clear plan, I haven’t seen it.
In another cut that will hit home for foreign-policy wonks, it was announced this week that the Defense Department’s legendary Office of Net Assessment (ONA) will be closed. It has operated since the 1970s, and its foundational studies of the Soviet Union’s weaknesses are credited with helping win the Cold War.
The office has produced good research over the years. I am not unbiased. Andrew Marshall, the founding director of ONA, recruited me for my first Pentagon job. And my book on the return of great-power rivalry started as an ONA study. It would be a shame to shut down an office like this.
Fortunately, shortly after the announcement, it was reported that the office would be reorganized and reconstituted.
It seems like we are getting bold announcements of what will be cut before anyone knows what will happen next. In the case of ONA and some of the soft-power programs you mention, I suspect senior officials are going to come along later and say, “You know what, we need that after all.”
EA: Well, let me make the devil’s advocate case for what DOGE is doing. I think the theory is that many of these institutions—even if they work on important issues—have become repositories of conventional wisdom, where staff are keener to sustain the status quo than actually examine tough questions or make changes in U.S. foreign policy.
You’ll hear some Trump-aligned folks talk about “sinecures” for former officials at institutions like USIP, despite their track record in governance. USIP, for example, was a landing spot for a number of folks from the George W. Bush administration who were architects of the war in Iraq. So there is something to this.
MK: There could also be a political logic to the actions taken thus far. I mean, how many USAID employees voted for Trump? Probably zero.
EA: Revenge might be a motive, but why USAID and not the Environmental Protection Agency?
Another good reason could be that for most of the institutions that have been targeted, I can make a case for why reform was badly needed. At USAID, the inclusion of democracy promotion with humanitarian aid was widely unpopular with many countries around the world. One African official voiced happiness at USAID’s closure last week by calling it a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” With Voice of America, it does great reporting in many areas, particularly overseas, but many conservatives also feel it has a liberal bias.
ONA is revered for its Cold War history, but it has not been nearly as influential—or as willing to think outside the box—in recent decades.
So while I cannot and will not make the case for destroying these agencies entirely—let alone for unlawfully breaking and entering—there is a case that reform or closing and rebooting some of them is reasonable.
MK: I agree that reform and rebooting is reasonable if done the right way.
But there was other foreign-policy news this week. Ukraine and Russia are maybe or maybe not inching closer to a cease-fire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to a cease-fire. Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to a highly circumscribed set of cease-fires, related to the targeting of energy and infrastructure facilities and firing in the Black Sea. But then shortly thereafter, both sides accused the other of breaking the terms of the deal.
What do you think? Is peace breaking out in Europe?
EA: Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Ukraine and Russia agreed to different cease-fires, so there’s actually nothing official or binding yet. Ukraine supported an unconditional 30-day cease-fire, but Russia countered with this narrower set of areas for the cease-fire. Both make sense when you consider that Russia has more to lose from a pause in the fighting, since it is winning now.
But I also think it’s cause for optimism. These areas—infrastructure, Black Sea trade, and such—are all areas where there was either previously a deal that broke down or where the Russians and Ukrainians got close before. So they’re feasible, and they’re exactly the kind of first steps you’d want to see as you move toward broader negotiations on the conflict itself. I understand negotiators will meet again in Riyadh this weekend, and I assume that they’ll be thinking about next steps in peace talks.
You’re less optimistic?
MK: I am hopeful that even a highly circumscribed cease-fire can alleviate some of the suffering from this war. The Ukrainian people would benefit from a more stable supply of energy and services.
But let me bring it back to the strategic level. There is a clear conflict of interest between Ukraine and Russia. Zelensky wants Ukraine to emerge from the war as an independent country capable of defending itself and anchored in the West. Putin wants either direct or indirect control over a Ukraine anchored within Russia’s sphere of influence.
So a cease-fire and a peace agreement may be possible, but it would only come about as a tactical pause on Putin’s part. He will not give up his attempt to conquer Ukraine through nonmilitary means (such as by attempting to install a puppet in power in Kyiv) or by licking his wounds, reconstituting his military, and reattacking in the future.
A cease-fire or peace agreement can still be valuable in the short term, but it should be designed with those future risks in mind. It does seem like the Trump strategy can navigate these dilemmas so long as it ensures a sovereign, independent Ukraine that’s capable of defending itself.
EA: That is why I’m pleased to see a more robust process spinning up in the administration, rather than just leader-to-leader phone calls. We’ll see how it goes. But it is astounding how rapidly the window of “acceptable” options in Ukraine has shifted since the inauguration, and I do think we’re now looking at the freezing or ending of the conflict rather than the more open-ended continuation of war that we might have seen under a Joe Biden or Kamala Harris presidency.
Speaking of failed cease-fires, though, it looks like the Israeli government decided it was done with peace for the time being. It started bombing Gaza again this week, although it’s very unclear why.
MK: I see two reasons why. First, Israel’s (and Biden’s) initial goal for the conflict is the right one: the elimination of Hamas. That goal has yet to be achieved. Second, Trump warned that “all hell will break loose” if Hamas does not honor its end of the hostage deal and time is up. These are the consequences.
You see it differently?
EA: As I understand it, it was the Trump administration that extended phase one of the cease-fire, giving the Israelis and Hamas more time to negotiate the second phase—in which all the remaining hostages would be returned. And that window wasn’t up yet. It seems like Hamas was playing hardball and the Israelis just gave up on negotiations. It’s also pretty telling that in restarting the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government got a shot in the arm, readmitting one more right-wing party to the coalition.
I still don’t see what the endgame is here. If the Israelis didn’t “destroy Hamas” during the first year and a bit of the war, what are their prospects for doing so now? At some point, there needs to be a permanent cease-fire, a reintroduction of aid and governance to Gaza, and some move on the political questions. It seems like Netanyahu is perfectly happy to keep bombing so he never has to consider the day after.
MK: During the first year and a bit of the war, Netanyahu was both helped and restrained by Washington. That made the complete elimination of Hamas impossible. Trump might be willing to give him a freer hand.
EA: The only way Biden constrained the Israeli war effort the first time around was to deny Israel an ongoing supply of the biggest bunker-busting bombs. Unless they wanted the rubble to bounce all the way to outer space, that didn’t prevent them from destroying Hamas. What did is the fact that insurgency is notably hard to defeat. Israel isn’t having any easier time in Gaza than the United States in Iraq or the Soviets in Afghanistan.
MK: I do agree with you on the bigger political question. Who governs Gaza when the war is over? And if regional actors don’t like the Trump Gaza Riviera vision, then they need to produce a better alternative. Turning it back over to Hamas is not an option.
EA: It is rather astounding that almost everyone—in the region and outside it—seems to have largely given up on resolving this conflict, as if the violence in Gaza is something that can be ignored simply because it’s a difficult conflict and because no one wants to criticize Israel. It’s looking like more violence is the most plausible path forward.
MK: The war in the Middle East is hitting home this week with a Columbia University student potentially losing his green card for leading the pro-Palestinian protests on campus. I am not a constitutional lawyer, but I see both sides. On one hand, I support free speech on college campuses. On the other hand, it is risky for immigrants, who are guests in the country, to participate in and lead disruptive protests sympathetic to violent terrorists.
EA: It’s going to chill free speech, even if it’s technically true that those on visas have fewer rights in practice than their American citizen counterparts.
After all of this, I’m struggling to think of good news for you to tell your audience tonight about U.S. foreign policy. I know! Congratulations to the German government, which seems to have finally got its act together to lift the so-called debt brake, enabling it to spend more for its own defense going forward. Good news for Europe and good news for America.
MK: OK, that’s pretty good. I think I can just send a link to this article to my audience tonight and go to dinner and see a Broadway show instead.
Anything you would recommend?
EA: As long as it isn’t Hamilton. You wouldn’t want to get in the president’s bad books by seeing a musical he just told everyone he doesn’t like. Maybe play it safe with “Apprentice: The Musical,” starring Elon Musk and the DOGE chorus line.
MK: Good recommendation. But you’re still fired!
EA: Nice try.
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