Say what you want, but this is exactly the kind of light footprint, heavy reliance on direct action SOF, interventionist foreign policy the "smart" club of natsec wonks (and puppeted by Biden, McCain, et al.) have been advocating for for decades and was (apparently) executed flawlessly.
No crashed helicopters—the calling card of US special operations overeagerness for decades (Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan)—and no thousands of body bags (Iraq, Afg). Just a huge W for the military/police industrial complex and the co-option and castration of the de facto sensible natsec opposition
Jan 3, 2026 16:49I feel some empathy for the people who have made it their life's work to write and speak about the "smart use of power" who woke up to Trump not only doing it, but successfully. There's going to be a lot of tricky identity, disavowal, cognitive dissonance, and splitting at various natsec roundtables
