Republican Representative Mike Waltz picked as national security adviser
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Mr Waltz will be responsible for briefing Trump on key national security issues and coordinating with different agencies.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON - US President-elect Donald Trump has picked Republican Representative Mike Waltz to be his national security adviser, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Nov 11, tapping a retired army Green Beret who has been a leading critic of China.
Mr Waltz, a Trump loyalist who also served in the National Guard as a colonel, has criticised Chinese activity in the Asia-Pacific and has voiced the need for the US to be ready for a potential conflict in the region.
The national security adviser is a powerful role, which does not require Senate confirmation.
Mr Waltz will be responsible for briefing Trump on key national security issues and coordinating with different agencies.
While slamming the Biden administration for a disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, Mr Waltz has publicly praised Trump’s foreign policy views.
“Disruptors are often not nice... Frankly, our national security establishment and certainly a lot of people that are dug into bad old habits in the Pentagon need that disruption,” Mr Waltz said during an event earlier in 2024. “Donald Trump is that disruptor.”
Mr Waltz has a long history in Washington’s political circles.
He was a defence policy director for defence secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates and was elected to Congress in 2018.
He is the chairman of the House Armed Services sub-committee overseeing military logistics, and also on the select committee on intelligence. He is also on the Republican’s China Task Force and has argued the US military is not as prepared as it needs to be if there is conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
In a book published earlier in 2024, titled Hard Truths: Think And Lead Like A Green Beret, Mr Waltz laid out a five-part strategy to preventing war with China, including arming Taiwan faster, reassuring allies in the Pacific and modernising planes and ships.
On Ukraine, Mr Waltz has said his views have evolved. After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine
But during an event in October, Mr Waltz said there had to be a reassessment of US aims in Ukraine. “Is it in America’s interest, are we going to put in the time, the treasure, the resources that we need in the Pacific right now badly?” Mr Waltz asked.
He has praised Trump for pushing Nato allies to spend more on defence, but unlike the President-elect, he has not suggested the US pull out of the alliance.
“Look, we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations,” Mr Waltz said in October.
Mr Waltz demonstrated his loyalty to Trump earlier in 2024 when he appeared at Trump’s May 16 hush-money court hearing in Manhattan, one of only a handful of lawmakers to do so.
Mr Waltz, who was in the running to be defence secretary, could rankle some in the uniformed ranks.
As a congressman from Florida, he has been at the forefront of a conservative movement opposed to teaching certain theories about racism and has criticised military officials for it.
He has also lamented the Pentagon’s failure to fire generals and civilian bureaucrats who fail to perform.
“We need to get a culture of accountability into that place. No one ever seems to get fired, with these massive cost over-runs, massive waste,” Mr Waltz told Fox News last week. “We don’t need managers there. We need reformers.”
Trump is expected to have a far darker view of his military leaders in his second term, after facing Pentagon resistance over everything from his scepticism towards Nato to his readiness to deploy troops to quell protests on US streets.
He has criticised the military for being political under US President Joe Biden’s administration.
In 2023, Mr Waltz introduced an act in Congress that would have required an audit of “unnecessary and political DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programmes” in the military and “restore a merit-based culture to our ranks”.
During a tense congressional hearing with the top US general in 2021, Mr Waltz was critical of the US Military Academy at West Point for teaching critical race theory, which maintains that legacies of slavery and segregation have created an uneven playing field for black Americans. REUTERS
