This Is Not an Administration. This Is Not Even a Renaissance Court. This Is, Pure & Simple, a Chaos-Monkey House
Dumbf***s in disarray: whiplash foreign-policy reversals & unreliability with the triumph of impulses over institutions, & what we learn from the Ukraine arms-shipment reversal...
Dumbf***s in disarray: whiplash foreign-policy reversals & unreliability with the triumph of impulses over institutions, & what we learn from the Ukraine arms-shipment reversal...
Chaos-monkey policy yet again. July 8, 2025:
Economist: Trump embarrasses the Pentagon with a U-turn on Ukraine <https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/07/08/trump-embarrasses-the-pentagon-with-a-u-turn-on-ukraine>: ‘His decision to resume arms shipments is a victory for common sense—while it lasts…. The Pentagon had presented the halt in arms deliveries [to Ukraine] as a part of a review to ensure that America maintained its own stocks. “We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world,” declared Sean Parnell, the Pentagon spokesman… This was mostly misleading…. Those being sent to Ukraine now come from contractors’ production lines rather than from American forces…. Mr Parnell insists that the process to “evaluate military shipments across the globe remains in effect and is integral to our America First defence priorities”…. But that does not hide the humiliation of the Pentagon’s civilian leadership at having an important policy countermanded by the president…. Trump reportedly told Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, that he had not known about the halt in weapons deliveries…. Not even Mr Trump’s acolytes can predict his zig-zags. America First means what Mr Trump says, not what his ideologues and devotees think…
It may well be true that Trump does not remember approving the cutting-off of weapons shipments to Ukraine. It might even be true that Trump did not intend to cut off weapons shipments to Ukraine—that he said something ambiguous and then Hegseth and others who want to do Putin a solid ran with it. Who knows? There is no way for anybody outside to know. There is probably no way for anybody inside who was not in whatever room it might (or might not) have happened in to know either.
Random people claim that they have the baton from the Great Leader and set things in motion. They may well be routinely lying. But checking in with Trump may (a) not be possible, and (b) not be wise—until (c) it shows up on some “news” show he watches, placing him in an unfavorable light because of the consequences of what was set in motion.
The Trump insiders have settled on a scapegoat;
Robert Farley: The Great Switcheroo <https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/07/the-great-switcheroo>: ‘Not obvious that anyone is in control of Trump administration foreign policy: “Russia launched a major volley of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight on Wednesday, soon after President Trump had sharply criticized President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for taking only “meaningless” steps toward peace in settlement talks…. The attack came the night after Mr. Trump had made his latest flip-flop… saying on Monday that because Ukraine was “getting hit very hard” in Russian attacks, he would resume a delivery of weapons that his administration had paused only last week…. 30 Patriot missiles and other munitions, was in Poland, waiting to cross the border, officials said…”. Looks like Elbridge Colby is the source of some of the confusion…
Maybe?:
Jack Detsch, Nahal Toosi, Paul McLeary & Joe Gould: Pentagon policy chief’s rogue decisions have irked US allies and the Trump administration <https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/08/elbridge-colby-trump-administration-frustrations-00443337>: ‘Elbridge Colby… mak[de]… a name for himself as an experienced, restraint-minded foreign policy leader…. But since joining the second Trump administration as the Pentagon’s top policy chief, Colby has… blindsided parts of the White House and frustrated several of America’s foreign allies… gotten out ahead of the administration on several major foreign policy decisions…. [He] prompted last week’s decision… to halt shipments… to Ukraine, which caught many Trump allies and lawmakers off guard…. “He is pissing off just about everyone I know…” said one person familiar with the situation…. “He has basically decided that he’s going to be the intellectual driving force behind a kind of neo-isolationism that believes that the United States should act more alone, that allies and friends are kind of encumbering,” said a person familiar with the Trump administration dynamics….
William Martin, communications director to Vice President JD Vance, called Colby “a consummate professional, an experienced national security official and a reliable team player… wholly committed to President Trump’s America First foreign policy agenda.” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Colby is doing exactly what would be expected… “provid[ing] policy recommendations to Secretary Hegseth, and his advice has proved to be invaluable…. [There is] zero daylight” between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Colby…
The Politico reporters’ claims that Colby has “blindsided parts of the White House…”, “gotten out ahead of the administration”…, “prompted last week’s decision… to halt shipments… to Ukraine…”, “caught many Trump allies… off guard…”, “caught… lawmakers off guard…”, “is pissing off just about everyone I know…” are all very strange locutions for somebody who has no operational authority at all:
It is not Colby, but rather Trump and Hegseth who caught lawmakers off guard.
It is not Colby, who can take no action, but rather Trump and Hegseth who must have “gotten out ahead of the [their] administration…” one person familiar with the situation….
Slightly less nonsensical is:
“‘He has basically decided that he’s going to be the intellectual driving force behind a kind of neo-isolationism that believes that the United States should act more alone, that allies and friends are kind of encumbering’, said a person familiar with the Trump administration dynamics…
In short: people are telling their favorite Politico reporters that they do not like what Colby is telling Hegseth and think that it is garbage, but the problem is that Hegseth agrees with it and then Trump agrees with Hegseth. It is clear that these people with favorite Politico reporters do not push back. Perhaps they dare not push back in the moment because they know Hegseth will agree with Colby. Perhaps they cannot push back because Colby gets lots of one-on-one “by the way” face-time with Hegseth, and they cannot break into that ring.
In either case, these people are getting their favorite Politico reporters to help them set things up so that when Trump and Hegseth decide that somebody must be blamed for administration missteps, it will be Colby who is thrown out of the troika-sleigh to be devoured by the wolves as the scapegoat.
One would laugh. But:
The absence of even a pale shadow or a bad approximation to a coherent policy process under Trump’s administration renders both allies and adversaries unable to predict American actions. That undermines global stability. In the world of international relations, predictability is not a luxury but a necessity. Nations calibrate their own policies, investments, and security arrangements based on expectations about the behavior of others—particularly when it comes to a superpower like the United States.
During the Cold War, for example, the doctrine of “containment” and the logic of mutually assured destruction provided a framework—albeit a terrifying one—within which both the United States and the Soviet Union could operate. Allies could plan. Adversaries could strategize The world, for better or worse, had a certain stability. The sea of chaos could be kept within some bounds
By contrast, when American foreign policy becomes a function of—I was going to say “presidential whim, as it has under Trump”, but that is wrong, isn’t it? That imposes more structure on the process than it in fact has. Chaos monkey is the only term even half-adequate. And so the result is a kind of international vertigo. European governments, for instance, have found themselves scrambling to respond to abrupt reversals on NATO commitments, trade policy, and climate agreements. Adversaries, meanwhile, are emboldened to test boundaries. American red lines, they rightly conclude, are more likely to be rhetorical than real.
The net effect is a world system where trust erodes and the risk of miscalculation—and thus catastrophe—increases.
The lack of institutional memory and policy continuity means that major decisions—such as arms shipments to Ukraine—can be reversed or forgotten on a whim, with no accountability. In any functioning government, continuity is provided by career civil servants, established procedures, and a respect for precedent. These mechanisms ensure that policy is not simply the artifact of a single individual’s mood, but rather the product of deliberation, expertise, and accumulated experience.
Under Trump, however, these guardrails have been systematically dismantled. Arms shipments to Ukraine were halted. Arms shipments to Ukraine were resumed. Colby is blamed as having “prompted” the halt—as if Hegseth and Trump were actors on a stage who had forgotten their lines, and Colby in the wings was a malicious Svengali whispering the wrong lines to them. To even wonder whether this was a deliberate strategic recalibration or merely the result of presidential inattention is to commit a category error that it was more than random chaos.
The Trump administration’s penchant for reversals—whether on the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate accords, or military deployments—has taught the world that American commitments are not.
This collapse of administrative norms and the rise of personality-driven rule echo the worst tendencies of 20th-century authoritarian regimes. Throughout the last century, the world witnessed the dangers of governments that subordinated institutions to the whims of a single leader. Whether in Mussolini’s Italy, Stalin’s Soviet Union, or Perón’s Argentina, the pattern is familiar: rules give way to personal loyalty, expertise is replaced by sycophancy, and policy becomes a theater of flattery and intrigue. While the United States has not descended into full-blown authoritarianism, the Trump administration’s disregard for process, preference for loyalists over professionals, and willingness to flout established norms mark a dangerous drift. For students of history, this is not mere melodrama; it is a warning. When government becomes a stage for the leader’s ego, rather than an instrument for the public good, the costs are borne not just by the nation, but by the world.
We know what fresh hell this is. And we know we cannot get out of it.
"Chaos-monkeys" reminds me of Suskind's quip about Bush's (W) team and their disdain for the "reality based community." I think of that reality based community (of which I'm a part) as those who prefer to conceive of the human race as a going concern.
Within that frame, this morning I discovered that Brazil had, earlier this year, adopted an Economic Reciprocity Law: https://sanctionsnews.bakermckenzie.com/brazilian-economic-reciprocity-law-is-published-to-safeguard-brazilian-interests-against-unilateral-measures-adopted-by-other-countries-or-economic-blocs/
"The Law authorizes the Executive Branch in coordination with the private sector “to adopt countermeasures in the form of restrictions on imports of goods and services or measures to suspend trade concessions, investments, and obligations relating to intellectual property rights, and measures to suspend other obligations provided for in any of the country’s trade agreements”.
Intellectual property rights are our FDI of previous decades. Don't nationalize an oil field, steal intellectual property.
Lula has stated a few hours ago Brazil will respond with "reciprocity".
The chief chaos-monkey may have given BRICS an opening to attack where it will hurt.
You get Trump right and keep adding nuance to your portrait. The one thing I wonder is whether chaos monkeys are inherently narcissistic. Because he's a narcissist as much as he's a pot-stirrer, as you always note. So, "narcissist chaos monkey"? Good post. (And meanwhile people in Ukraine and Africa are very literally dying.)