Will the Real America Firsters Please Stand Up?

The Richard Nixon Foundation last Tuesday convened its (nominally bipartisan) Grand Strategy Summit, where President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien gave a little interview at the start. He tried to balance his own realist instinct to align with the crowd, which were more traditional institutional republican. The result was a slightly jarring mismatch in tone, especially for those who have seen the other speakers and panelists, which included Matthew Continetti, Carrie Filipetti, and Eli Lake, talking about the future contours of America First. 

The opening interview by O’Brien was at least somewhat interesting, as it tried to bridge the traditional currents in the Republican mainstream with the returning and ascendent “Old Right,” which is consistently dubbed “isolationist” by the consensus media. O’Brien naturally started to chart a course that tried to merge the ascendant tech right—with its focus on drones, research and development, and immigration—with the concerns of traditional Republican foreign policy, aid to Ukraine and Israel. It’s not an easy task. An incoming administration official has to show that it is allowing continuity, while signaling to the stakeholders who are the rising power and influence. O’Brien was perhaps, of all names mentioned as potential national security advisers, the one best suited for the job, and he delivered. 

But some questions were left unanswered. The crowd in the room and the panelists gave the impression that they were stuck in 2004. The party has moved on. In fact, Trump was in vintage form Wednesday when he said that any deal between Ukraine and Russia would have been better than a war. It is the classic Trumpian instinct for the unsayable truth, similar to his declaration that “Bush lied us into the Iraq war” during the 2016 campaign and presidential debates. That’s why he won and that’s where the party stands. 

“Any deal—the worst deal—would’ve been better than what we have now,” Trump said, per AP. “If they made a bad deal it would’ve been much better. They would’ve given up a little bit and everybody would be living and every building would be built and every tower would be aging for another 2,000 years.” 

He kept going: “What deal can we make? It’s demolished. The people are dead. The country is in rubble.” 

Europe is one theater where the major paradigm shifting changes will happen inevitably, due to a combination of structure and (if given a chance) Trumpian agency. Trump wants to defund Ukraine and cut off European free-riding. No amount of “managing” Trump is possible this time, due to the simple fact that the party has moved further to the old right direction, and Trump has made it clear by choosing Vance as an heir apparent. 

In 2020, O’Brien wrote a similar paradigm-shifting essay on Europe. A quote: “The Cold War practice of garrisoning large numbers of troops with their families on massive bases in places like Germany is now, in part, obsolete. Modern warfare is increasingly expeditionary and requires platforms with extended range, flexibility and endurance. While air bases and logistics hubs remain important, the Cold War-style garrisoning of troops makes less military and fiscal sense than it did in the 1970s.” 

He was right then, as Trump is right now. One might hope he will remember his own advice.