Colonel John Boyd was one of the greatest military strategists you’ve probably never heard of. A genuine Top Gun who graduated first in his fighter aircraft class, he revolutionised combat aviation, developed a theory of how to comprehensively unsettle any opponent’s decision-making processes and was the architect of America’s stunning victory in the first Gulf War in 1991.
He summed up the secret of his success quite simply: “People, Ideas, Machines, in that order!” For Boyd, even in the uniquely technically complex area of how to develop and deploy jet fighters, personnel mattered more than any other consideration.
The same truth applies even more so in politics. The machinery of government – departmental budgets, legislative plans, procurement frameworks – matters if you’re going to achieve change. But not as much as ideas, the animating purpose of your cause. And not even they matter as much as choosing the right people.
On that basis, there is reason to be more optimistic about the Trump Presidency than many have so far been willing to allow. One of his first, and most important, appointments has been the choice of Elise Stefanik to be his Ambassador to the United Nations. That is good news for Israel, for Israel’s friends, and the wider West.
Stefanik, who currently sits in the House of Representatives for a Congressional District in upstate New York, shot to prominence in December 2023 with her fiery cross-examination of university chiefs who had allowed anti-semitism to run riot on their campuses. Not just any university leaders but those in charge of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania, three of the most prestigious schools in the States. Stefanik showed dogged determination in her efforts to pin down academics unable or unwilling to condemn calls for “intifada” from within their institutions as clearly antisemitic. Her efforts resulted directly in the head of UPenn resigning and contributed, in part, to the departure of Harvard’s then-president Claudine Gay.
Stefanik will undoubtedly bring that spirit – a persistent, fearless, uncompromising opposition to anti-semitism – to her new role and there is probably no institution more in need of an infusion of precisely that approach than the UN. From its repellent decision in 1975 to resolve that “Zionism is Racism” to its continual passage of resolutions slanted against the Jewish people and their state, the UN has a dismal record as an enabler of hate and a warm house for prejudice. The UN Human Rights Council has been turned into a permanent instrument for delegitimising Israel. And the UN’s refugee and aid agency in the Palestinian territories, UNWRA, has been used ruthlessly by terrorists to target Israel and its citizens.
Stefanik will undoubtedly bring renewed vigour to condemning the anti-Israel bias of the UN’s institutions, just as Nikki Haley did in Trump’s first term. It is to be hoped that this will embolden other countries, including our own, to face down the forces fanning antisemitism globally.
Of course, one single appointment, however encouraging, does not a great administration make. It’s disappointing that another great friend of Israel and the Jewish people, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, has been ruled out by Trump for a government post. From Tehran to Pyongyang, Pompeo has a clear-eyed grasp of how to handle the West’s enemies and knows how to effect change on the diplomatic stage. It’s been reported that he, and Haley, fell foul of Trump’s broadcast cheerleader Tucker Carlson, who sees them as “neocons” of a kind that rattles sabres too loudly for a country that needs to husband its military strength. It’s to be hoped that the same stigmatisation does not prevent talented Pompeo allies, such as the brilliant Stanford academic Peter Berkowitz, from playing their part in government.
Who Trump picks to staff his State Department, and the Department of Defense, matters hugely for all of us. Other friends of Israel with real defence expertise, like Senator Tom Cotton, have ruled themselves out. But his Senate colleague Marco Rubio, who has been reportedly offered the role, would serve equally well.
For some, of course, the very act of identifying welcome Trump appointments is a form of moral myopia. The man himself, they believe, is such a monster that to discern any virtue in his administration is to be blind to the broader horror of this raucous populist as the most powerful man on earth.
But as the election result itself has shown, Trump has been consistently under-estimated by his critics. Their own distaste for him has skewed their ability to assess his effectiveness, understand his appeal and appreciate when he is actually right. On issues from gender to the Iran deal, government regulation to the threat from China, Trump’s instincts and ideas have been proven shrewder than those of his opponents. Even though there were mistakes aplenty in his first term, the success of the Abraham Accords marks one of the single most successful diplomatic coups of the last two decades.
One does not need to be an uncritical admirer of the 45th President to feel that there are, so far, hopeful signs that the 47th could be a force for good.
