The Loss of National Security Expertise

A diplomatic historian sees opportunities for middle powers as Western dominance weakens. --- Turkey has little appetite for choosing sides between the West and its rivals. As a NATO member, an economic partner of the European Union and an interlocutor with Russia, it wants the freedom to work with competing powers in pursuit of its own interests. While the EU, Canada and other countries worry about the “rupture” of the global order, Ankara doesn’t necessarily equate Western decline with chaos and disorder. In fact, it offers the prospect of greater independence and influence. This is the view of my guest on the latest episode of The Diplomacy Podcast: Onur İşçi, a professor of political science and international relations at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. A diplomatic historian specializing in Turkey and Russia, he pointed out that Ankara has “always wanted multipolarity.” İşçi drew a distinction between political upheaval and economic collapse. Governments may reject Western values and conditions while continuing to participate in the international economic system. Even the EU is increasingly accepting relationships based on transactions rather than shared values, he said. Doubts about U.S. commitments are encouraging new security arrangements, he added. He views Turkey’s recent defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as an expression of shared insecurity among countries whose strategic priorities otherwise differ considerably. Asked whether Trump’s international pursuits have served Turkey’s interests, İşçi’s answer was yes. At the same time, however, the United States “is becoming a less respected state, not more,” he said. For İşçi, that decline has a personal dimension. Having lived and studied in the United States for years before returning to Turkey, he said he was held and questioned for hours when entering the country last year, and his phone and laptop were “taken and copied.” “This is how it begins, the decline,” he said. “It’s impossible for me right now to encourage my students to go to the United States.”

A 30-year veteran of the U.S. Embassy deplores Trump’s assault on a relationship to which she dedicated her career. --- For decades, the relationship between Germany and the United States was more than a strategic alliance. It rested on a sense of friendship, shared democratic values and trust painstakingly built across generations. That relationship is now changing. Under Trump, many Germans have come to see the United States not as a dependable friend, but as an increasingly hostile power whose worldview is fundamentally at odds with their own. To explore that transformation, I invited Martina Kohl onto the latest episode of The Diplomacy Podcast. Now a lecturer at Humboldt University in Berlin, she spent three decades in the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Germany, first in Bonn and later in Berlin. Kohl was one of the local employees who provide U.S. embassies with contacts, cultural knowledge and institutional memory as American diplomats rotate in and out every three years. She organized encounters between American experts and Germans at schools, universities, conferences and civic organizations across the country. She stayed so long because she considered herself a committed transatlanticist who believed in the alliance and the values it represented: democracy, open societies, the rule of law and international cooperation. Public diplomacy, she said, is long-term work — planting seeds, developing relationships and building trust that may take years to bear fruit. Toward the end of her embassy career, however, the work became increasingly difficult. Programs grew more political, the tone changed and the line between explaining U.S. policies and promoting an ideological agenda began to disappear. “When the tone changes and the policy becomes more polarized and, to a certain extent, extreme, then you do cross that line to propaganda,” Kohl said. She views the Trump administration’s attacks on Europe, its embrace of “might is right” and retreat from democratic values as a repudiation of much of what U.S. public diplomacy promoted for decades. As a German conscious of how quickly democratic institutions can erode, she is particularly troubled by what she sees happening inside the United States. German public opinion reflects that estrangement. In a YouGov survey this summer, 74 percent of Germans said the United States had become more of a force for bad under Trump, 69 percent considered it a less trustworthy ally and 72 percent said it had become less friendly toward Germany. “The American century is over,” Kohl said. “Europe is becoming, hopefully, more independent and also more sure of itself.” To hear our conversation, watch or listen to the episode above — or on one of these platforms: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. As always, my guest’s opinions don’t necessarily represent my own views.

A security expert warns that Canberra is betting on a partner reluctant to defend its primacy in Asia. --- As Canada and European countries search for greater independence from the United States, Australia is moving in the opposite direction, accelerating its military integration with Washington. That stands in contrast even to neighboring New Zealand, whose strategy has been to keep its head down and avoid attracting attention. To examine that dependence, I invited Sam Roggeveen, director of the International Security Program at the Lowy Institute, a leading Australian think tank, onto the latest episode of The Diplomacy Podcast. He argues that the country can defend itself without relying on U.S. help. Australian public opinion reveals a striking contradiction. According to Lowy’s latest poll, confidence in the United States to act responsibly in the world has fallen to a record-low 31 percent, and only 21 percent of Australians trust Trump to do the right thing in international affairs. Yet 73 percent still consider the U.S. alliance important to Australian security, while 68 percent support acquiring nuclear-powered submarines through AUKUS, a security partnership between Australia, Britain and the United States. Roggeveen said that Canberra’s continued dependence on Washington reflects a failure to recognize that the decline of U.S. power and commitment in the Asia-Pacific began long before Trump and will continue after he leaves office. He warned that Canberra is betting on an increasingly unreliable partner reluctant to defend its primacy in the region. He questioned whether Washington would risk a catastrophic war with China to preserve its position — or to defend Taiwan. And if a war were to break out, he doubts the United States would win it. We also discussed Australia’s economic interdependence with China, the possibility that Trump could pressure Canberra to restrict exports to Beijing and the country’s diplomatic efforts to strengthen its position among Pacific island nations and with Indonesia. To hear his analysis, watch or listen to the episode above — or on one of these platforms: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. As always, my guest’s opinions don’t necessarily represent my own views.

A retired career ambassador doubts Canadians will ever trust the U.S. as they did before Trump. --- More than a year and a half into his second administration, it remains unclear why exactly Trump decided to pick a fight with Canada. What began with threats to make the United States’ closest partner the 51st state has escalated into an open trade war — and a fundamental reassessment of a relationship that Canadians had long taken for granted. After Washington imposed 50-percent tariffs on billions of dollars in Canadian goods, Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from negotiations that he said would undermine Canada’s sovereignty. Ottawa’s retaliatory tariffs took effect this week, as it tries to reduce its economic and security dependence on the United States. To explore what this historic rupture means for Canada, I invited Patricia Fortier, a retired career ambassador, onto the latest episode of The Diplomacy Podcast. During 34 years in the Canadian Foreign Service, she served as ambassador to Peru and Bolivia, as well as the Dominican Republic, and headed the political section at the Canadian Embassy in Washington. Fortier said that Canadians no longer view the U.S. government as a reliable partner, which she described as “a very big change.” Although Carney has tried to respond calmly and rationally to Trump’s hostility, she added, “we’re not dealing with much that is rational.” The rupture has already changed the daily behavior of Canadians, Fortier said. Travel to the United States has plummeted, while consumers and provincial governments have boycotted U.S. products. According to government figures, Canadian visits to the United States fell by a quarter last year, the steepest sustained decline on record outside the Covid-19 pandemic. Canada is now drawing closer to Europe and expanding its engagement with countries such as China and India, Fortier said. It’s also considering non-U.S. suppliers for fighter jets, submarines and other defense systems — choices that would have been difficult to imagine when Washington was still regarded as Ottawa’s indispensable ally. Rebuilding a functional relationship will remain necessary, because neither country can change its geography, Fortier said, but it may never again resemble the partnership that existed before Trump. “Coercion only lasts as long as you can coerce,” she said. “But if countries maintain their sovereignty and turn away, then the power of coercion starts to diminish.” To hear what all this means for Canadian diplomacy, watch or listen to the episode above — or on one of these platforms: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.

A former senior official calls Trump's agenda "conducive to confrontation," not "peace and prosperity." --- Spain has emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of the Trump administration’s upheaval of the international system — unlike the many countries trying to avoid getting caught in Washington’s crosshairs. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has challenged the administration over its war against Iran, its approach to Gaza and the International Criminal Court, its demands for higher European defense spending and its broader rejection of international law and multilateral cooperation. Yet Spain continues to regard the United States as a “natural and historic” ally. That tension — resisting Washington’s worldview while preserving the transatlantic relationship — led me to invite Cristina Gallach as the guest on the latest episode of The Diplomacy Podcast. She served as deputy foreign minister in Sánchez’s government, following a stint as U.N. undersecretary-general for communications. Explaining Spain’s position in its current disagreements with Washington, Gallach noted that Spanish public opinion largely supports Sánchez’s defiance of Trump. Nearly 70 percent of Spaniards expressed unfavorable views of the United States in a YouGov poll in February, and 78 percent said they didn’t trust Trump “to do the right thing regarding world affairs” in a Pew survey in May. The Trump administration’s agenda runs counter to Spain’s commitment to international law, Gallach said. “We don’t think it’s conducive to peace and prosperity. It’s conducive to confrontation,” she added. “We don’t like it.” Today’s overlapping wars, trade conflicts and climate emergencies require more cooperation and stronger international institutions — not abandoning multilateralism, she said. But she called for a “new multilateralism” that reflects the distribution of power and influence in 2026, not a return to the system created in 1945. I also asked her about the misinformation campaign that persuaded tens of thousands of migrants to swim from Morocco to Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta last month. That social-media campaign was based on a wrong interpretation of a Spanish Supreme Court ruling, falsely claiming that the migrants wouldn’t be expelled. To hear her response, watch or listen to the episode above — or on one of these platforms: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. As always, my guest’s opinions don’t necessarily represent my own views.