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After months of speculation, Reuters reported earlier this month that retired Air Force lieutenant colonel Michael Jensen has been appointed as senior director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council (NSC), according to two U.S. officials.
Jensen’s appointment marks the first time in recent memory that a president has nominated a special forces operative — let alone a career military officer — to oversee U.S. policy toward Latin America at the NSC.
A review of the last 20 years of Democratic and Republican appointees to the NSC senior director role for the region reveals that the vast majority of Jensen's predecessors have hailed from the Departments of State and Treasury, USAID, Capitol Hill, or the Intelligence Community — not the Pentagon.
Jensen’s new role comes as Trump administration officials have publicly floated sending U.S. troops or executing drone strikes in Mexico to weaken the country's drug cartels, six of which were recently designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has rebuffed Trump’s offer, yet the former head of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has said that the recent revelation of foreign mercenaries fighting alongside the cartels could justify U.S. actions in Mexico.
Jensen’s appointment also comes amid a drastic restructuring of the National Security Council staff under interim national security adviser Marco Rubio. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the NSC was being “right-sized to facilitate more streamlined processes and greater coordination between the White House and the federal agencies.”
Sources briefed on the matter told Reuters that the NSC overhaul is part of a broader strategy to reduce the size and scope of the policymaking body which has doubled in size since the Bush II and Obama administrations, transforming it back into a smaller entity tasked with implementing, rather than shaping, the president’s agenda.
Last month, former national security adviser Michael Waltz was ousted reportedly because he was having private conversations about war with Iran with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In April, Politico reported that Victor Cervino, the Republicans’ top Latin America staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a former Rubio aide, had been named to the top NSC post on Latin America, but redacted its claim less than a week later, saying he never assumed the role for unknown reasons.
The White House has not formally announced Jensen’s appointment, and his counterpart at the State Department — the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs — has still not been announced. The duties of the State Department role are currently being filled by Senior Bureau Official Amb. Michael Kozak, a veteran State Department Latin America hand.
Under the first Trump administration, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the recently departed Special Envoy for Latin America at the State Department and a close Rubio ally, held the NSC post for two years, during which he led a “maximum pressure” campaign intended to dislodge the governments in Cuba and Venezuela.
Rubio, Jensen’s new boss, has signaled that the Western Hemisphere will receive renewed focus in Trump's second term, on everything from reducing irregular migration to fighting drug trafficking and curbing China's regional presence. He has already visited the region twice — to Central America and the Caribbean — and announced plans to visit again in the coming weeks.
Yet a glaring hole in Jensen’s background is his apparent lack of experience in the region he's now reportedly been charged with overseeing, according to his LinkedIn profile and other publicly available information.
In February, Jensen was nominated to the top Pentagon post in charge of special operations and low-intensity conflict, but that nomination was withdrawn last month, presumably to pave the way for his job at the NSC.
Over his 20-plus year military career, Jensen has held leadership positions in multiple special tactics groups at the Air Force Special Operations Command, specializing in counterterrorism operations and global defense strategy.
While much of Jensen’s Air Force career is not well known, an Air Force public affairs officer wrote in 2008 that Jensen helped oversee a five-and-a-half-hour “high-value target hunt” in Afghanistan, guiding “31 close air support and surveillance aircraft…which disrupted al-Qaeda operations.”
Jensen also served as lead strategist for the Air Force’s Checkmate office at the Pentagon, “advising the defense secretary and playing a key role in restructuring the Air Force’s approach to warfare.” He also commanded the 26th Special Tactics Squadron “following his leadership responsibility for special operations on four continents.”
Jensen's special ops expertise has also extended to the private sector, including after retiring from military service in 2021 to become chief strategy officer for the air utility transport vehicle company SkyRunner, about which he wrote his postgraduate thesis.
SkyRunner CEO Stewart Hamel brought on Jensen to “oversee strategic partnerships” and “optimize the warfighting configuration of its special light-sport aircraft,” which has been FAA-certified to support DOD and combat search and rescue missions, though its contracts to date with the Pentagon and State Department have been limited.
While President Trump has undoubtedly made the Western Hemisphere a focus for his administration, some critics worry about a militarized approach to the region, with Republicans and some administration officials saber rattling at times about invading Mexico, taking over the Panama Canal, and neutralizing the purported Chinese threat.
“Trump’s gladiator approach to conflict resolution is not improving things in Ukraine, the Middle East, or California, and the same approach in Mexico would not be any different,” said John Lindsay-Poland, an expert on U.S. arms trafficking in Mexico and author of two books on militarization in Latin America.
Though the administration has largely focused — so far — on deportations, making deals over cartels and cracking down on Cuba to please the Republicans’ South Florida base, Jensen’s appointment could fuel fears of increased militarization of U.S. policy in the region. Yet without a clear policy from the top, it remains to be seen how Jensen’s background will align, or conflict, with Rubio’s.
“Jensen’s experience in ‘high-value target operations’ is relevant in Colombia, where, according to a Washington Post investigation, U.S. Air Force special operations units trained Colombian special forces and provided Raytheon-manufactured precision-guided munitions (PGNs) to kill 45 FARC guerrilla leaders from 2006 to 2013, deploying a similar methodology as the one used to target and kill al-Qaeda leaders,” Lindsay-Poland said.
Amid ongoing personnel shake-ups at the highest levels of the Trump administration, Jensen’s background and appointment make increasingly clear the lens through which the president views the issues most plaguing the Western Hemisphere.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to accelerate his war against Iran with direct, offensive assistance from Washington — at a moment when there is less support for it than ever among the American people.
Netanyahu must expect that Washington will be compelled to accommodate and, if necessary, implement Israel’s expansive war aims – notably the complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile capabilities, and even regime change itself. U.S. assistance is widely considered to be critical to Israel’s success in this regard.
It might well be the case that Israel’s decision to go to war on Friday June 13 was contingent on an American-Israeli understanding that each side is, for the time being at least, reticent to acknowledge publicly. Indeed, since June 1967 and including the current campaign in Gaza, Israel has never gone to war without assuring itself of American support. And in this current conflict, Washington has already acknowledged downing Iranian missiles headed for Israel.
Yet Israelis would be right to be concerned about the limits of Trump’s commitment to their war aims.
Amos Gilad, a key architect of the bilateral relationship and a central figure in Israel’s security-obsessed deep state, is publicly expressing his concern that Trump was indeed telling the truth when he announced early on that, "The U.S. had nothing to do with the attack on Iran.”
“If we're alone,” Gilad noted in an interview with Israel Channel 12, “the Iranians will continue the confrontation, and Khamenei may decide to accelerate toward nuclear [capabilities]. There is the Fordow site, which is deeply buried underground and requires American assistance,” he explained.
Gilad voiced concern over Iran's capacity to retaliate, stating, “We may reach a situation where they continue to attack us. They understand, based on what our ambassador in New York, who is supposed to represent Israel, is saying, that the United States is not with us.”
Gilad warned that Iran may indeed accelerate its nuclear program. “Eventually, Iran will say, Israel attacked us, so we have no choice but to develop nuclear weapons. Our reward will be our defeat.
“The Iranians will fight, and it may take a long time. From their perspective, we have harmed their national honor,” he said.
Gilad also dismissed characterizations of Trump as unpredictable. “That’s not true — he has a method. He’s very happy for others to do the work. He will fight until the last Israeli,” he warned. “He might join, but he said it himself: only if American soldiers are attacked. And they haven’t been.”
Gilad noted concerns that Netanyahu has miscalculated his ability to steer American policy according to his intentions.
“What is the political leadership doing? We started the war, and now we’re asking Trump to intervene? Why would he? Is Trump obligated to us?”
Gilad concluded that Israel may indeed win the battle but lose the war. “The Iranians intend to continue launching rockets, and they may retain this ability. Countries like China and Russia might also stand by their side,” he said.
A quick stroll down memory lane highlights the unanticipated consequences of an Israeli decision to roll the dice in the expectation that Washington can be compelled, against its considered interest, to come to Israel’s aid in its campaign against Tehran, and indeed to become a party to Israel’s determination to destroy by force of arms Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and conventional missile capabilities.
The potential costs of Israel’s strategic isolation during wartime bring to mind Israel’s disastrous decision to join France and Britain in the “Tripartite Agression” against Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser in October 1956.
To compel Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula, President Dwight D. Eisenhower employed a brutally effective mix of diplomatic pressure, threats of economic sanctions, and international political maneuvering to force an Israel’s retreat from Sinai and the Gaza Strip.
When Britain and France vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire, Eisenhower took the issue to the UN General Assembly, where a resolution demanding withdrawal passed overwhelmingly.
Eisenhower threatened to cut off U.S. financial aid to Israel and suggested the possibility of suspending tax-deductible donations to Israel from American citizens.
He emphasized the importance of international law and non-aggression principles, framing his pressure on the three co-conspirators as a defense of the UN Charter.
In a candid Oval Office address in early 1957 Eisenhower declared:
“If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the very foundation of the [UN] Organization … I would, I feel, be untrue to the standards of the high office … if I lent the influence of the United States to the proposition that a nation which invades another should be permitted to exact conditions for withdrawal.”
Bowing to U.S. pressure, Israel withdrew from Gaza and Egyptian Sinai in March 1957.
In exchange, Israel received U.S. assurances of freedom of navigation in the Straits of Tiran and won the deployment of a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) in Sinai as a tripwire to conflict.
After Suez, policies adopted by Washington – foremost among them the forced Israeli retreat from Egypt — established the foundation for the U.S. to consolidate its role as successor to the legacy of French and British imperialism in the region. This was a foundation which, up until Trump, every administration has reaffirmed.
If Eisenhower’s diktat to Israel was the springboard for an era of U.S. ascendency in the region, Netanyahu’s decision to initiate a war without Washington’s collaboration may well signal another historic Israeli failure to correctly gauge Washington’s interests on the threshold of a new era.
However, chances are not inconsiderable that the Trump administration will decide to collaborate in an expanding Israeli military campaign to consolidate its strategic superiority throughout the region.
But at Suez, Israel paid the price for obstructing expansion of American power in the region. Today almost a century later, it may suffer the consequences of obstructing an American desire to retreat.
It’s been only a few days since Israel first struck Iranian nuclear and regime targets, but Washington’s remaining neoconservatives and long-time Iran hawks are already celebrating.
After more than a decade of calling for military action against Iran, they finally got their wish — sort of. The United States did not immediately join Israel’s campaign, but President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israel’s decision to use military force and has not meaningfully restrained Israel’s actions. For those hoping Trump would bring radical change to U.S. foreign policy, his failure to halt Israel’s preventative war is a disappointment and a betrayal of past promises.
Advocates of restraint should not give up hope, however, and observers abroad should not rush to prejudge the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy based on the events of the past week.
Trump can still avoid tarnishing his legacy by staying out of yet another long, costly adventure in the Middle East. This is best accomplished by eschewing any U.S. involvement in Israel’s war. But even if the United States is unable to immediately extricate itself from the conflict, there are compelling reasons to believe that the foreign policy consensus in Washington will ultimately shift in favor of those skeptical of U.S. military power and opposed to foreign interventions.
First, when it comes to U.S. foreign policy, Israel is a non-generalizable case. Though the United States does not have a formal mutual defense agreement with Israel, it offers the country a unique, de facto security guarantee and about $4 billion in military aid every year. When Israel’s security is threatened, Washington reliably surges air and naval power into the region, offering support to its partner’s air defenses even when Jerusalem acts against American interests.
Moreover, as the U.S. military commitment to Europe has come under increasing scrutiny, similar questions about the U.S.-Israel relationship have been muted. While Republican members of Congress pushed back on the Biden administration’s requests for additional Ukraine aid in 2024, there was little resistance to the related request for additional military assistance for Israel to support its wars against Hezbollah and Hamas.
In part, the resilience of Israel’s position in U.S. foreign policy reflects the powerful influence of U.S.-based Israel supporters who have for decades effectively used political donations and media pressure to shape U.S. strategy and commitments in the Middle East. While U.S. European and Asian allies also have influential advocates in Washington, none can rival Israel’s strength of support. No other tail will wag the dog this effectively.
Second, the recent push for greater restraint in U.S. foreign policy will continue to gain momentum due to an ongoing generational shift in attitudes about the limits of American military power and U.S. foreign policy priorities.
The voices pushing hardest for the United States to join Israel’s military campaign come from the “old guard,” including Reagan Republicans and Baby Boomers nearing retirement, including, for example Mark Levin of Fox News, long-time members of Congress like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and architects of the catastrophic U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, such as Ari Fleischer, Elliott Abrams, and John Bolton. Cold War crusaders and “end-of-history” triumphalists may retain some sway over Trump’s foreign policy today, but their careers are coming to an end.
Already, the advocates of endless war are being displaced by a younger generation that has had to pay its price. Anti-interventionist figures shaped by the failures of the War on Terror and the Iraq war occupy key positions in the current administration and increasingly staff mid-level positions in government. After watching the United States waste money, lives, and military power in the Middle East, this rising generation is eager to pursue a foreign policy more directly defined by the national interest.
Members of this cohort have already been pushing for changes to U.S. commitments abroad, especially in Europe, where the United States has signaled its intention to reduce its military involvement, and on Ukraine, where the Pentagon has indicated that it will cut military assistance to Kyiv in the coming months to focus on other priorities.
Finally, there are real structural limits to the ability of the United States to continue its pursuit of global preeminence, regardless of what happens in the Middle East in coming weeks. The most important of these is constrained resources. Washington simply does not have the monetary or military means to indefinitely sustain a strategy of American primacy.
Already the Pentagon is concerned about the depth of its munition stockpiles and the sufficiency of its air defense assets after years of supporting Ukraine and well over a year of battling the Houthis in Yemen and the Red Sea. At the same time, the military balance in Asia has shifted more in China’s favor in recent years, raising questions about Washington’s continued ability to credibly meet its commitments to allies and partners in that region.
Some argue that the solution for the eroding U.S. military advantage is higher defense spending. Roger Wicker (R-Miss), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and former Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky), for instance, have called for defense spending of at least 5% of GDP. The Commission on the National Defense Strategy also called for large increases in the Pentagon budget to sustain U.S. military dominance. This group, however, helpfully admitted that to do so in today’s budget environment would require both tax increases and entitlement reform. With no political appetite for either, the level of spending needed for continued U.S. primacy seems unattainable.
Out of necessity, then, U.S. foreign policy goals will have to become more limited over time. Future presidents, if not Trump himself, will have to make hard choices about how to expend U.S. military power. This decision point may come sooner rather than later if Trump gives into pressure to join Israel’s war on Iran. The military expenditures required for such a war would greatly reduce what the United States has available to support security goals and commitments in Europe and Asia—certainly in the near term and perhaps for decades.
This could demand significant shifts in U.S. strategy in both theaters and lead to a forced, rather than managed, U.S. military retrenchment.
Movement toward a more restrained U.S. foreign policy is not inevitable, but it remains likely despite Trump’s acquiescence to Israel’s military campaign. For those in the United States who are pushing for this type of transformation, the priority over the next days and weeks should be to focus public attention on the hard tradeoffs that the United States faces when it comes to military resources and security commitments and to remind Trump and his advisors of the limits of American military power to solve problems in the Middle East—Iran’s nuclear program included.
Advocates of restraint should also hold Trump to account for the promises he has made repeatedly during his decade on the political stage, including his commitments to avoid starting new “forever wars,” to put America’s domestic interests first, and to be a peacemaker.
For those abroad uncertain about the direction of U.S. foreign policy or confused by recent inconsistencies, the best approach is patience. Neoconservatism has grown old. Although it has refused to learn new tricks, it’s no longer the only game in town.
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