SCOTT RITTER: Tulsi Gabbard & the Trump Revolution

President-elect Donald Trump has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment by appointing former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard as his nominee for the position of director of national intelligence.

Social media is ablaze with criticism and condemnation of both the nomination and Gabbard, primarily over past statements she has made critical of U.S. policy regarding Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine, and Russia. Apparently, Gabbard, who serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves and has served in combat in Iraq, is somehow deemed “un-American” for daring to speak out against bad policy.

It doesn’t matter that history has shown her criticisms to be well-founded.

Or that the ability to make pragmatic, accurate analysis of complex national security problems free of partisan bias is exactly the trait one seeks in an intelligence officer, especially one entrusted with personally briefing the president of the United States.

There are some who say that the task of managing America’s far-flung intelligence empire, comprising 18 distinct agencies spread over multiple departmental jurisdictions, is a task that exceeds the skill set that Gabbard brings to the table. This, of course, is an absurdity — there is no career path that can prepare one for such a challenge.

Just ask Dan Coates, a Republican Senator from Indiana, who served as Trump’s first DNI during his first term despite having no prior experience in the intelligence community. Or Avril Haines, the current DNI for President Biden, who served briefly as the Deputy Director of the C.I.A., again with no previous experience in the intelligence community, before becoming DNI.

Traditionally, the DNI serves as a manager, overseeing an empire the day-to-day running of which is delegated to subordinates within the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI), or the 18 discreet intelligence agencies.

Donald Trump, however, is no traditional president, and the job of DNI that Tulsi will likely be called upon to perform will be unlike that of any DNI before her.

Traditional establishment models used by all presidents in the post-war era involve policy direction given by the president, before responsibility regarding the formulation of the specifics of the policy is turned over to the national security advisor, where it is staffed out to the various agencies and departments for development and coordination, before being finalized and briefed back to the president, who would then order its implementation.

Donald Trump, however, is not your run-of-the-mill president. He is a top-down manager, who conceives his own policy ideas in a virtual vacuum, dictating orders to cabinet level officers whose job is to implement his instructions to the letter. This can lead to chaos and, in cases where there is opposition to his ideas, rebellion.

Admits He Was Unprepared

It should be noted that one of Trump’s most innovative policy initiatives, the North Korean denuclearization plan, was strongly opposed by his secretary of state, secretary of defense, national security advisor, and director of national intelligence.

Trump, in his pre-election interview with Joe Rogan, admits that in 2016, when he formed his first cabinet, he was not prepared to govern, and as a result was dependent upon the support of people whom he knew little about and who were nominated for the job by advisors whose loyalty was to the establishment, not the president.

In the intervening four years, Trump was opposed at every opportunity by people whom he entrusted to carry out his orders, but in fact were motivated by holding him in check.

The Donald Trump of 2024 is a far different person than the one that won the White House eight years ago. He has four years of experience of how readily one can be betrayed by those who are supposed to be working for you, and four more years of plotting and planning on how a second Trump administration would function, and who he could trust to help bring policy concepts into reality.

Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra, when examined from a foreign and national security perspective, has several components. First and foremost, there is the notion of “peace through strength,” which implies a certain aggressiveness regarding America’s global posture.

This aggression, however, will be tempered by several factors. First and foremost is Trump’s commitment to keep America out of wars. This implies a reliance upon diplomacy over force. Here, two issues emerge.

The first is that Trump is inheriting a world that is very different from the one he left back in 2021. The war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, a nuclear North Korea, and an expansive China are all problem sets that did not exist in their present state of development when Trump left the White House.

The emergence of BRICS, the fall of the dollar, and the weakening of the rules based international order have all come together to create a new foreign policy reality that will dominate the agenda.

Add to this the reality of a weakened American military, and the fact that, even if Trump wanted to take his country to war, the military would more than likely not be up to the task. All this means Trump will be placing a priority on diplomatic solutions while the military rearms and reorganizes.

Trump will likewise be seeking to emphasize economic solutions to problems that might have in the past been resolved through sanctions and/or military action. This will require an ability to engage diplomatically with persons and entities which the United States would normally eschew.

Trump has shown an ability to take on such tasks by himself, as he did with his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jung-un, and it is highly likely that he will seek to do so again in the future. This puts both the secretary of state and the secretary of defense in supporting roles, reacting to Trump’s initiatives as opposed to proactively guiding the president.

An Outsider 

Here the role of DNI becomes paramount. One of the major tasks of the DNI is to produce the Presidential Daily Briefing, or PDB, a compilation of the most sensitive and relevant intelligence information produced by the intelligence community.

Tulsi Gabbard may be an outsider as far as the intelligence community is concerned, but she has earned the trust and confidence of President-elect Trump, something that will serve her well as she becomes the conduit for the intelligence information that will guide the thinking of President Trump once he is sworn in.

She will be able to provide informative, factual and pragmatic briefings that will help guide the president as he formulates his ideas. When he has questions, she will be the one he asks and seeks answers from.

In short, Gabbard is well positioned to become the most influential advisor to President Trump regarding the critical foreign policy and national security problems that will be faced by his administration.

And, in doing so, she will be able to hold in check the ambitions and policy prerogatives of both the secretary of state and the secretary of defense. She will also have the national security advisor reacting to her intelligence, and not the other way around.

There is no guarantee that a Trump administration will play out in the manner described above. But one thing is for certain — had Trump picked a more traditional choice for DNI, drawn from the ranks of the very establishment which conspired against him in his first term, Trump would find himself trying to implement policies in an environment where he faced constant resistance and opposition.

As Trump’s DNI, Tulsi Gabbard is a force multiplier for the president, potentially empowering him with the knowledge, information, and insights he would need to successfully take the lead in implementing the policies he believes will Make America Great Again.

Trump’s decisive electoral victory has given him a mandate to enact revolutionary changes in the way America is governed and interacts with the world. To be successful in this revolution, Trump needs fellow revolutionaries.

Tulsi Gabbard is one such revolutionary, and her selection to be Trump’s DNI, when seen in this light, was a stroke of genius.

Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.