Grown-ups Are Not Running America’s Foreign Policy

In New York Magazine, Heather Hurlburt wrote about four signs that the Trump administration's foreign policy team is still lacking cohesion and expertise.

Americans have gotten at least a little bit used to the idea that the Trump White House is in a permanent state of chaos and crisis — or at least that cycles of crisis come regularly, every few Scaramuccis. But Washington and much of the media are still in the grip of a narrative that says shadowy, unelected adults are keeping a steady hand on the tiller overseas, and that because national security Cabinet members are so impressive our foreign policy is showing barely a ripple.

That hasn’t been true since the moment newly inaugurated President Trump rolled out his first Muslim ban, a piece of immigration policy with profound implications for U.S. relations with dozens of majority-Muslim countries. But this was the week it became clear to everyone, or should have, that the grownups are not in charge, and U.S. foreign policy is in the same painful state as everything else. These some of the telltale signs: ...