Like many who read the Signal chat published by The Atlantic, I was shocked by the reckless negligence of President Trump’s national security team as they communicated highly sensitive details about a pending military operation in Yemen on a commercial app. As a former national security adviser who served almost four years in the same role as Michael Waltz, I was struck by some other things, as well.
Why was the national security adviser doing the tedious administrative work of setting up a chat group that should have been left to his special assistant? Why was Mr. Waltz using Signal rather than the well-established, secure process? How on earth did a journalist get added to the group? Why did none of the principals on the chat raise any concern about classified deliberations and operational details being discussed on an unclassified system? Was this laziness, expedience, habit? Or was it a deliberate effort to keep the conversation outside the proper, legal channels to make sure the conversation would never be revealed?
The first major military action of the new Trump administration unfolded in a negligent and unserious way, and that bodes ill for how it will handle far more complex national security contingencies or, almost inevitably, a major crisis. That should raise alarms. In the same way that the Department of Government Efficiency is moving fast and breaking things, Elon Musk -style — whole agencies, the federal work force, critical programs — so too it appears the national security team is approaching its decision-making recklessly.
The strikes against the Houthis were relatively straightforward. The U.S. military had plans at the ready, prepared under the Biden Administration. Our military is familiar with Yemen after years of action in the region. The decisions to be made were not complex by national security standards.
The Trump administration will likely confront an array of global challenges that would sorely test the most experienced and competent national security team. Imagine war with Iran. A deadly foreign terrorist attack on U.S. soil. A bird flu pandemic with high mortality rates. China blockading or attacking Taiwan. Russia invading a North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally. China winning the A.I. race for super-intelligence and putting our economy and security at risk. Each of those contingencies is more than just conceivable. None would be handled responsibly on a Signal text chain littered with frat-boy-quality emojis.
To understand the stakes, let us review how this unfolded. In initiating the text chain on Signal, Mr. Waltz appears to have done little more than request contacts for his cabinet-level counterparts, or the “principals,” so they could be updated easily in anticipation of planned military action. That request by itself was seemingly unclassified (except to the extent that it may have elicited the name of a covert Central Intelligence Agency operative).
It was Vice President JD Vance’s intervention that turned a comparatively innocuous text chain into a classified deliberation. When the vice president chimed in to raise concerns about the plan to strike the Houthis, the group that had been harassing commercial shipping through the Red Sea, he started a classified discussion that most certainly should not have been conducted on Signal.
Longstanding guidance from the director of national intelligence cites as a reason for classification the inclusion of information that could affect the “foreign relations and foreign activities of the U.S.” Deliberations that implicate our relations with foreign countries, or whether and when to attack a foreign adversary, are inherently classified. Revealing information that could adversely affect relations with our European allies clearly meets that standard. That would include Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth referring to actions by the Europeans as “PATHETIC” and Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, revealing Mr. Trump’s apparent intent to extort economic advantage from Europe and Egypt as compensation for facilitating freedom of navigation (even though they did not request U.S. military action).
The secretary of defense was supremely negligent in using Signal not only for classified deliberations but also to share specific operational details about military action hours before the strikes occurred. Intelligence agency guidance clearly states that “military plans, weapons systems or operations” are classified. The reason is simple: If a foreign adversary were to discover in advance that the United States was planning an attack, it could take steps to prevent it or mitigate the damage, including by targeting American personnel or assets. By putting the timing, weapons systems and ordnance to be deployed on a nonclassified system, Mr. Hegseth risked the information being hacked and shared with the Houthis, who could potentially strike U.S. personnel, aircraft and warships. His reckless disregard for operational security, even as he used the chain to tout the purported maintenance of “OPSEC,” would be laughable, if it were not so dangerous.
The fact that no one on the chat raised any concern about discussing classified matters on a commercial app strongly suggests such behavior may be common practice in this administration, as recent reporting indicates. This is particularly egregious, given how many participants have had direct responsibility for protecting classified information during their careers. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, was the director of national intelligence. Tulsi Gabbard, who is the current national intelligence chief, Mr. Waltz and Mr. Hegseth are former military officers. They all know better.
After getting caught, they defended the use of Signal for such purposes. Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News that Signal is a “very safe way to communicate,” adding, “I don’t think foreign adversaries are able to hack Signal, as far as I know.” Mr. Ratcliffe called Signal “an appropriate channel to communicate sensitive information.” Such statements indicate that the Trump team could continue to hand U.S. secrets on a silver platter to Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
For decades, administrations have followed well-established processes for national security decision-making. Take the example of conducting strikes against a foreign adversary. Such a matter should be the subject of a series of meetings first with deputies and then cabinet members conducted in the secure confines of the White House Situation Room. All the relevant players should participate, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the regional combatant commander, neither of whom was included in the Signal chat. Every principal has 24/7 access to secure communications if they can’t join in person.
These meetings would be organized around an agenda circulated in advance, a detailed options paper, a military concept of operations, a diplomatic strategy and a communications plan. The deliberations should weigh the policy options, the risks and benefits of the proposed military action, as well as the regional and global diplomatic, economic and security implications. The principals should ensure that adequate precautions have been taken to defend American personnel and our partners in the Middle East from potential retaliatory action. All this should be considered in advance of the principals making a recommendation to the president, preferably in a National Security Council meeting chaired by the president in the White House Situation Room. If the vice president wished to reopen the issue, as Mr. Vance did in the chat, the national security adviser should have reconvened an in-person meeting for further secure deliberations. All such meetings are documented in written summaries for the agencies and the N.S.C., which are preserved, as required by law, as presidential records.
Once a decision is taken by the president to conduct a military operation, the timing, launch and effects of the operation should be communicated by the Defense Department to the White House and other agencies in a highly secure setting. Recall the famous photo of President Obama’s national security team squeezed into a small room where they received real-time updates during the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden? That’s how those who need to know are kept informed — and our adversaries are not.
Susan E. Rice, who has worked in three Democratic administrations, was President Obama’s national security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations, and director of President Biden’s Domestic Policy Council.
Source photographs by Kayla Bartkowski and Historical/Getty Images
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