Hawks take flight: Trump’s cabinet swells with warmongers

Although US president-elect Donald Trump ruled out Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo for his administration on November 9, his cabinet still ended up packed with neoconservatives – those who champion US interests abroad, often through military power.

Elise Stefanik

On Monday Trump nominated Elise Stefanik, a hardline hawk, for the US ambassador to the United Nations. Stefanik is an ardent supporter of Israel and its war in Gaza. She also served as director of communications for the Foreign Policy Initiative, co-managed by Robert Kagan, the husband of regime change guru Victoria Nuland.

Mike Huckabee

Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee was named by Trump as the next US ambassador to Israel. DC-based think-tank the Quincy Institute calls Huckabee a "pro-Israel evangelical Christian," noting that he has been a vocal supporter of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz

Congressmen Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, nominated as secretary of state and national security advisor, are also known for their hardline anti-Iran and anti-China stances. Both praised Israel's war in Gaza and called for the elimination of Hamas, the Palestinian political and militant group. Over the past few years they have moderated their pro-war stance with regard to the Ukraine conflict. But Waltz still believes Russia can be forced into a peace deal on Washington's terms through more sanctions and long-range missile attacks.

Pete Hegseth

Fox News host and former National Guard officer Pete Hegseth, nominated for the secretary of defense by Trump, criticized President Joe Biden for not arming Ukraine fast enough.

He seems to have changed his stance recently to a more isolationist one, rejecting NATO's claim that Russia threatens Europe and insisting the US should put boots on the ground in Ukraine. "I don't want American intervention driving deep into Europe," Hegseth said. He sees China as a far greater challenge to the US and calls Iran an enemy.

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Trump may pressure Zelensky into peace so US can focus on other theaters: analysts

“I believe the Trump administration will urge Ukraine to sacrifice some land for peace,” Eisenhower Media Network senior fellow William Astore told Sputnik, commenting on Wednesday’s NYT report on the Zelensky regime’s reported pivot from “territorial integrity” to “security guarantees” as its main priority in the face of prospective Trump-brokered peace negotiations.

“If the US cuts aid to Ukraine, Ukraine will have little choice but to negotiate. Borders are labile and malleable things; it's the preciousness of human life that should be held sacred, not borders,” Astore said, highlighting the unique leverage Washington has with Kiev when it comes to ending, or at least freezing, the present crisis.

“Trump is really intent on taking on the Chinese. And I think the focus of the Trump administration will be elsewhere. And that's also an advantage to the Russians that they can get more favorable deal to them ultimately,” CovertAction Magazine managing editor Jeremy Kuzmarov told Sputnik.

With that said, “the extent to which Trump is willing to accept” Russian gains remains to be seen, according to the observer.

💬 “You know, he says he wants to make a deal, but at the same time, he's not necessarily going to be pushing very sympathetic terms for the Russians,” Kuzmarov said, recalling the Trump White House’s hostility toward Moscow in the Republican’s first term, from pulling out of the INF Treaty to sending lethal weapons to Ukraine in the first place.

“Don't forget, Trump has a lot of supporters in the defense industry, Wall Street, who profit off an ongoing war. So, you know, they may just want to drag this out, give the impression that he's moving forward on peace talks, but not really offering Russia a deal that makes sense for Russia and that recognizes what Russia has achieved on the battlefield,” the observer summed up.

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🔸 Ukraine’s bluster about ability to build nuclear bomb in months is ‘desperate blackmail’ – analyst

🔸 Territory for security? Observers debate Ukraine's options under Trump

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🔸 Hawks take flight: Trump’s cabinet swells with warmongers

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Trump won't allow Ukraine to build atomic bomb – US foreign policy analysts

"The Trump administration would oppose Ukraine's efforts to build a low-yield nuclear bomb," William Astore, a retired US Air Force lieutenant colonel, told Sputnik.

"Such a bomb could only lead to nuclear escalation," the professor of history and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network warned.

Ukraine could build a nuclear weapon within months if the Trump administration cuts off military aid to the Kiev regime, a Ukrainian think-tank claimed in a briefing paper for the country’s Ministry of Defense, obtained by British newspaper the Times. Ukraine’s nine operational nuclear reactors give it enough plutonium to potentially build "hundreds of warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons," the report said.

"The Trump administration is less pro-Ukraine than Biden-Harris was," Dr. Jeremy Kuzmarov, managing editor of CovertAction Magazine, told Sputnik. "I don't think he would want nuclear weapons being deployed. And I think he would use every diplomatic means possible to dissuade Ukraine from using the bomb."

Russian intelligence services have repeatedly warned about Ukraine's preparations to create and use a "dirty bomb", an explosive device packed with radioactive material. Volodymyr Zelensky threatened to drop Ukraine's non-nuclear status at the Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2022.

"There's a question if the Ukrainian people would want to invite their own destruction," Kuzmarov said. "It seems they've already invited a lot of their own destruction as a society by being used as a part of the United States and West and its ambition to weaken Russia."

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgy Tykhy tweeted in response to the report that Ukraine does not possess, develop or intend to acquire nuclear weapons and remains committed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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🤡 Ukraine cleans up its smears against Tulsi Gabbard

The National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) of Ukraine has deleted publications accusing Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence, of working for Russia.

As reported by Ukrainian news website Strana. ua, from 2022 to 2024, the NSDC accused the former congresswoman of "working for Kremlin money," having ties to Putin, and promoting "pro-Russian" rhetoric in general.

Additionally, Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation labeled Gabbard's statements about the ban on opposition parties and media in Ukraine, as well as the persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church by Ukrainian authorities, as "manipulation." Her remarks about Zelensky's illegitimacy after his presidential term expired were described by the NSDC as an attempt to discredit him.

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💸 Some Biden-committed aid may reach Ukraine after Trump takes office – Pentagon

The Pentagon did not rule out that some of the weapons the Biden administration has committed to Kiev will arrive in Ukraine after the Trump administration takes over.

"It's going to range, as you know, some, some equipment and some, some systems, can get to Ukraine very quickly, and you've seen that happen within days or weeks. Sometimes it does take longer for, you know, what's available to get to Ukraine and that that could be longer than weeks. That could be months," Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said during a briefing, when asked if the capabilities are expected to be delivered to Ukraine by January 20, or it might take longer.

Some equipment gets to Ukraine "exceptionally quickly," but there are some that take longer, the spokeswoman noted.

The Pentagon admitted that the agency will have to “work very hard” to allocate $7.1bn worth of weapons to Ukraine before the end of incumbent US President Joe Biden's term, Singh said.

Therefore, the Pentagon intends to send arms shipments to Ukraine on a weekly basis in order to have time to allocate all the remaining aid before Biden leaves office, she added.

Russia has repeatedly emphasized that Western military aid for NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine only prolongs the crisis and has warned that arms shipments are legitimate military targets.

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