The End of the Affair (June 6, 2025)

Welcome to Home & Away. What a week. Elon Musk, the “Special Government Employee,” is no longer special, at least in the opinion of the occupant of the Oval Office. That Musk is no longer heading up DOGE is the least of it. Musk has broken with the man who only four months ago he professed to love “as much as a straight man can love another man.” The public spat began with Musk describing the Trump-endorsed “big and beautiful” budget reconciliation bill as a “disgusting abomination” and urging Congress to “KILL the BILL.” This led the president to express his disappointment with Musk and threaten his government contracts, prompting Musk to claim that Trump chose not to release the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein to shield his own involvement. It is hard to keep up with the back and forth, which at one point included Musk’s seeming endorsement of Trump’s impeachment, but you get the idea. As is often the case, these things rarely end well.

That all being said, Elon has a point about the budget legislation. (He is also likely right in predicting the tariffs will prove to be inflationary.) The bill, were it to become law, would (according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office) grow the debt by $2.4 trillion and almost certainly more over the next decade. Despite their claims, Congressional Republicans cannot have it all: extending tax cuts, reducing revenues by weakening the IRS, imposing inflationary tariffs that will lead to slower growth and higher interest rates (in the process increasing the cost of servicing the debt), and refusing to make commensurate or even meaningful cuts in spending other than by reducing health care coverage to more than ten million people and cutting research funding—steps that would make this country less competitive and less healthy over time. There is as well the prospect that the ballooning debt will trigger a financial crisis of great magnitude.

As for Elon’s stint in government, it qualifies as a bust. Savings turned out to often be exaggerated. In reality, they were mostly small and were more than offset by revenue loss likely to stem from DOGE-endorsed policies such as downsizing the IRS. And what savings there were would be dwarfed by the impact of the budget bill, as Elon himself now seems to recognize.

Two other points. DOGE was never about efficiency. Efficiency results from increasing output generated from the same or reduced level of input. In government, it can result from improved procedures, better personnel, and more effective leveraging of technology. Eviscerating agencies (USAID for one) or shutting down programs entirely (VOA comes to mind) is about political agendas, not efficiency. Both USAID and VOA served as cost-effective instruments of U.S. soft power, saving lives and advancing freedom through development aid and credible public diplomacy. There is no way to justify these cuts.

Musk’s tenure also demonstrates that skills that proved valuable in the business world do not necessarily carry over into government. Government tends to require buy-in from multiple organizations and staff. There is something to be said for listening to and learning from those with institutional memory and experience, and from winning over those who ultimately will be responsible for implementing whatever policy is decided on. All this might slow things down and make for less efficient and more expensive government in the short run, but it could also help avoid big, costly mistakes and ultimately result in better policy outcomes.

Hole Card

President Trump more than once has turned to card game analogies when referencing Ukraine, telling its president in a February meeting, “you don’t have the cards.” Implicit in this assessment is that Ukraine should accept the sort of one-sided, pro-Russia ceasefire deal Trump and his special envoy Steve Witkoff have been peddling, lest Ukraine find itself at Russia’s mercy, or lack thereof, on the battlefield.

But it turns out Ukraine has some cards that Trump may not have known about. For those of you who did not spend your college years playing poker, a hole card is dealt face down and known only to the player holding it. We now know Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in possession of a valuable hole card. An ace.

Last weekend, he played it. I speak, of course, of Ukraine’s audacious drone attack that destroyed, in whole or in part, 41 Russian bombers according to Kyiv’s estimates. In the short-term, this will reduce the number of Russian aircraft available to launch long-range missiles against targets in Ukraine, something of real value given Kyiv’s lack of missile defenses.

Three takeaways from this attack stand out. If, as seems likely, the United States decides not to continue providing military aid to Ukraine, I predict we will see more such Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia. While the Trump administration appears uncomfortable with such strikes, the White House cannot expect to maintain the same degree of influence if it continues to distance itself from Kyiv.

Second, and as he made clear in his phone conversation with Trump on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin will respond to this embarrassing development. Whether he elects to do more of the same or something different remains to be seen. But beyond any tactical retaliation, the fact remains that prospects for a ceasefire were remote and remain so, in large part because Putin believes that he is better positioned than Ukraine to achieve his war aims by prolonging the fighting. While the secondary sanctions being considered in Congress are designed to make it more difficult for Russia to export oil and gas, this step alone would not force Putin to rethink his assumptions and reconsider his policy. The only policy with the potential to change Putin’s calculus would be the United States making clear through continued military aid and intelligence cooperation that it will make sure Ukraine can defend itself for as long as Russia constitutes a threat to its existence. Alas, such a U.S. policy is highly unlikely to come about.

Third, the successful drone attack underscores a significant trend in contemporary warfare. Around the world, we are seeing the proliferation of relatively inexpensive, unmanned, effective systems capable of destroying or significantly degrading exquisite and expensive platforms. Think surface-to-air missiles such as Stingers bringing down advanced fighter jets and bombers. Or anti-ship missiles taking out a battleship or aircraft carrier. Or anti-tank weapons.

The Department of Defense needs to think seriously not just about its vulnerability to the sort of drone attack experienced by Russia last weekend, but more fundamentally about U.S. force structure. The U.S. military increasingly is made up of a relatively small number of costly aircraft carriers and ships, aircraft, and tanks that are vulnerable to drones or other capable systems that are far cheaper to produce and operate. Drones can cost as little as a couple hundred dollars and can traverse hundreds of miles, oftentimes evading traditional defense systems. It is not at all clear the military-industrial-legislative complex is adapting sufficiently to the realities of modern conflict, where asymmetric advantages increasingly allow smaller, less well-equipped adversaries to pose far greater threats to U.S. forces and assets than would have been possible in the past.

Is There a Doctrine in the House?

Trump 1.0 was about America First. Trump 2.0 is about many things, including unilaterally imposing tariffs on just about everybody, adopting a decidedly pro-Russian tilt, seeking to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, giving Israel what amounts to a free hand in Gaza and the West Bank, making no effort to slow or mitigate climate change, and pressuring countries in the Western Hemisphere. But more than anything, U.S. foreign policy in the second Trump administration is about business, which takes precedence over many of the political objectives that have traditionally been part of U.S. foreign policy, including the promotion of democracy and the protection of human rights. What follows is a column I wrote on this for Project Syndicate.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s second administration is barely four months old, but already there are signs of an emerging foreign policy doctrine. And like so much else about his presidency, it represents a striking departure from the past.

Doctrines play an important role in American foreign policy. With the Monroe Doctrine, announced in 1823, the United States asserted that it would be the preeminent power in the Western Hemisphere and would prevent other countries from establishing competitive strategic positions in the region. At the outset of the Cold War, the Truman Doctrine pledged U.S. support to countries fighting Communism and Soviet-backed subversion.

More recently, the Carter Doctrine signaled that the United States would not stand by if an outside force sought to gain control of the oil-rich Persian Gulf region. The Reagan Doctrine promised assistance to anti-Communist, anti-Soviet forces and countries. George W. Bush’s Freedom Doctrine, among other things, made clear that neither terrorists nor those who harbored them would be safe from attack.

What these and other doctrines have in common is that they signal to multiple audiences critical U.S. interests and what the United States is prepared to do to advance them. Doctrines are intended to reassure friends and allies, deter actual or would-be enemies, galvanize the bureaucracy tasked with national security matters, and educate the public.

Although no Trump Doctrine has been explicitly put forward, one has begun to emerge all the same. You could call it the “look the other way” doctrine, the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” doctrine, or the “none of our business” doctrine.

Whatever the label, the doctrine signals that the United States will no longer try to influence or react to how countries conduct themselves within their borders. The administration has refrained from criticizing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for arresting his principal political opponent, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for repeated attempts to weaken the country’s judiciary, or Hungary’s long-serving prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who has steadily undermined democratic institutions there.

While Trump has disparaged the foreign policy of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the economic policy of Chinese President Xi Jinping, he has not made an issue of either leader’s repression of his own people. The Trump administration has also cut back or dismantled many of the instruments, including Voice of America, the Agency for International Development, and the National Endowment for Democracy, long used to promote civil society and democratic movements around the world.

The closest there was to a public articulation of the new doctrine came in Saudi Arabia on May 13. Trump spoke with admiration of what he described as that country’s great transformation, adding it “has not come from Western interventionists…giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs…In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins.”

Trump’s actions, above all his pursuit of business deals with authoritarian governments in the Gulf and far beyond, underscore these words’ import. Unlike Reagan, Carter, Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, Trump has made it clear that the United States has no interest in advocating for human rights and democracy, speaking out against authoritarian abuses, and pressing for the release of political dissidents.

To be sure, the look-the-other-way doctrine avoids the sort of overreach that characterized Bush’s presidency, when zeal for spreading democracy led to the costly, ill-advised invasion of Iraq. It also makes it easier for the U.S. to work constructively with governments carrying out policies at home that would normally pose an obstacle to commercial ties or cooperation on critical bilateral, regional, or global issues.

But the downsides of the new approach offset these considerations. The Trump Doctrine increases the odds that governments so inclined will double down on domestic repression and efforts to subvert democracy – a form of government often associated not just with greater personal freedom but also with free markets supported by the rule of law and less aggressive foreign policy. Promoting democracy thus benefits American investors and limits the risk that America becomes mired in costly or prolonged foreign conflicts.

The Trump Doctrine also distances the United States from many of its traditional friends and allies, most of which, not coincidentally, happen to be democracies. Such estrangement works against American influence.

That said, the ability of the United States to conduct a foreign policy that supports freedom abroad depends in no small part on its willingness to practice what it preaches. No country can talk the talk without walking the walk, and the Trump administration’s violation of many of the norms and practices that sustain democracy would undermine its ability to advocate for it elsewhere, were it so inclined.

No doctrine is entirely consistent—during the Cold War, the United States often supported anti-Communists who were anything but democrats—and Trump’s doctrine is no exception. There is a self-serving, rightist bias. His administration has been critical of European governments and has made clear its preference for far-right forces, including the nationalist Karol Nawrocki, who won Poland’s presidency. Despite reducing America’s foreign entanglements, Trump has also waged a campaign against Greenland and Canada.

But these are exceptions. The thrust of the Trump Doctrine—not to allow anti-democratic behavior to get in the way of doing business—is clear.

For a long time, the United States sought to change the world, annoying some and inspiring others. Those days are gone, in some ways for better, but mostly for worse. The United States has changed. It is coming to resemble many of the countries and governments it once criticized. It is as tragic as it is ironic.

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Richard Haass in the news

Tuesday, June 3: Katy Tur Reports (“Second Round of Direct Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks Falls Short”)

Wednesday, June 4: Project Syndicate (“The Trump Doctrine”)

Check out The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens