OPINION — “Our [the Joint Chiefs of Staff] job is to current and my job with the Joint Chiefs and others is to current the vary of [military] choices that this President or any President ought to think about with the entire secondary and tertiary concerns that go into these choices, so {that a} President could make no matter resolution he desires to make — after which we ship.”
That was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers Gen. Dan Caine early in a 30-minute “hearth chat” with CNBC’s Morgan Brennan earlier than an viewers on the Reagan Nationwide Protection Discussion board on December 6, on the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Simi Valley, California.
I wish to analyze Caine’s remarks, as a result of they obtained nearly no public protection, and as Joint Chiefs Chairman, his acknowledged views are value recording – as had been his predecessors’ throughout the first Trump administration.
Caine, who’s extraordinarily cautious in his public remarks, was initially requested by CNBC’s Brennan early within the chat, “How are you advising the President on Venezuela?” His first reply was, “Rigorously,” which drew amusing, however then he went on with the intense reply above.
I picked that opening quote as a result of most senior army officers would have answered simply that they gave choices, however in my expertise few would have added the half about “the entire secondary and tertiary concerns that go into these choices.” Briefly, I consider what Caine stated in giving army choices to President Trump, was that he gave each the upsides and disadvantages of what might occur with every possibility.
In giving the above reply, Caine went on to say, “I would not wish to share any specific recommendation or choices that we’re giving, however we current lots of them.”
Once more I’d level out that Caine rigorously famous he wouldn’t spell out any “recommendation or possibility” he has given Trump, however the truth that to this point the President has not but adopted by means of on his menace to assault floor targets in Venezuela could also be due to the “secondary or tertiary concerns” Caine stated can be the end result related to endeavor such overt actions.
The general public reactions to the 25 narco-boat assaults with their 95 related deaths has been dangerous sufficient. However in addition they increase questions on the place Caine stood on that problem.
In reality, CNBC’s Brennan began the dialog with Caine asking his views about “these Caribbean strikes and the reporting round them.”
Caine diverted from the query saying he was struck by the “kind of lack of confidence within the American army by the American folks and that is deeply regarding to me.” He then stated he needed so as to add one element to what Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier advised the Reagan Discussion board concerning the boat strikes.
That element, Caine stated, was that it was his thought together with Adm. Frank (Mitch) Bradley, the operational commander who ordered the so-called second strike on September 2, “to go up and
share the data that we might share with the Congress.” The 2 gave labeled briefings to leaders of the Home and Senate Armed Companies and Intelligence Committees, in addition to army appropriators, on December 4, based on The New York Occasions.
Caine advised the Reagan Discussion board they’d achieved it “in order that we might proceed to maintain and scale that belief that we should earn every single day from the American folks by means of the Congress.”
All through the 30-minute dialog, Caine averted speaking about Trump administration coverage, simply two days after Trump’s 2025 Nationwide Safety Technique (NSS) had been launched.
For instance, when CNBC’s Brennan requested, “How do you see the alliance with Europe evolving?” – a controversial topic within the Trump NSS, Caine responded, “We do not do coverage within the Joint Drive. We execute these insurance policies.”
Caine did acknowledge the NSS’s new coverage emphasis on the Western Hemisphere.
“Defending the homeland isn’t just a time period that we are saying anymore. It is an actual factor and homeland safety is nationwide safety,” Caine stated. “I will not get into the operational issues, however there’s loads of seen examples…on the place we’re going to shield our neighborhood and do this pursuant to the issues that we’re in a position to do to ensure America is a secure and safe nation.”
Caine then added, “We’ve not, for those who look again over the arc of our deployment historical past over the previous couple of years, we’ve not had lots of American fight energy in our personal neighborhood. I believe that is most likely going to vary. We’ll see what we’re ordered to do and naturally we observe that steerage.”
However Caine did deal with conventional threats saying, “From a army perspective, army alone, {our relationships} are good in Europe, and I will let my bosses discuss concerning the coverage there.”
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Caine was extra open when it got here to NATO. “Allies and companions are key and important to us as we struggle collectively,” Caine advised the Reagan Discussion board. “NATO stays a key vital ally for us. They’re, I feel, going to personal European safety each by means of NATO and bilaterally and individually. The army leaders that I talked to are inspired by the protection spending that is occurring inside their nations. I’d say, and have stated to them, the identical narrative round their protection and nationwide industrial bases as we attempt to scale European protection so Europe can personal Europe.”
Caine added, “The SACEUR [Supreme Allied Commander Europe] over there, [U.S.] Basic [Alexus G.] Grynkewich, is carrying the identical message by means of his EUCOM [U.S. European Command] hat. However that stated, allies and companions stay a key half as specified by the nationwide safety technique.”
When it got here to the preventing in Europe, Caine advised the Reagan Discussion board, “I wish to be fairly cautious about commenting on Ukraine due to the continuing negotiations. And I am conscious that something that I say might get spun by hook or by crook. I feel, for me, I consider that we all the time wish to be striving for peace and what’s occurred in Europe there’s a tragedy out on the Ukrainian entrance traces. So I will be fairly cautious given the conferences which can be happening.”
He did say, “What the Ukraine industrial base has achieved to create tens of hundreds and tons of of hundreds of drones is extraordinary. These are the sorts of entrepreneurial classes that we wish to take from that struggle.”
Caine additionally talked of a army lesson from Ukraine.
“It is one other case examine within the significance of the flexibility to place air energy over a battlefield,” he stated. “And if you take a look at the fastened and frozen traces that we have seen out in Ukraine, it is a possibility for us to be taught concerning the significance of defending the power on the bottom. And having been a kind of guys on the bottom earlier in my life, I worth significantly the flexibility to have an air power or some type of functionality that may are available there and put an adversary in a selected place of ache. We’ve not seen that on the market in Ukraine.”
Caine stated, “One of many classes out of Ukraine goes to be mass. And there is lots of exchanges happening. And after I take into consideration struggle preventing sooner or later, I see lots of exchanges, each within the kinetic and non-kinetic house, that’s most likely unprecedented. So we’ll want a high-low combine that we have not seen earlier than…however we’re additionally going to wish considerably extra attritable [loseable] issues that may create a number of simultaneous dilemmas for the commanders on one other facet of a struggle than for us.”
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Whereas the Trump NSS hardly talked about China, Caine did.
“After we take a look at the rise of the Chinese language army,” Caine stated, “what our aim within the Joint Drive is to create a number of simultaneous dilemmas for the entire adversaries all over the world, in order that they’re very cautious and anxious about doing one thing that may convey any sense of menace to the American folks.”
Caine went on, “I feel China’s competing on the worldwide scale. I do know that from the U.S. perspective we have an financial relationship now that’s trying constructive and trending positive. We see China nonetheless creating lots of fight functionality and capability at scale, and because the Nationwide Safety Technique says, we owe it to the nation to ship a free Indo-Pacific and a free and secure and affluent Indo-Pacific. So after I take into consideration actions within the Pacific, conscious of the President’s steerage, that is how we give it some thought.”
As for the Center East, Caine referred to as it nonetheless “vital,” and stated, “It is nonetheless I feel undecided. I rigorously watch by means of the CENTCOM (U.S. Central Command) commander what’s occurring in Gaza. I stay as all the time involved about what Iran’s intentions are down there. These are conflicts which have been happening for an extended, lengthy, time. I am longing for peace however must be ready for any variety of eventualities there.”
As for right here at residence, Caine advised the Reagan Discussion board, “What the American system, as it has been working for a very long time now, is basically good at is shopping for behind the expertise improvement curve [emphasis added]. And what we have to do is get in entrance of the expertise improvement curve. And that is going to require the perfect of the army, the perfect of the Congress, the perfect of the personal sector, and the perfect of not simply the protection industrial base, however the nationwide industrial base.
Caine defined, “Again in my life, I ran a small mother and pop machine store in Denton, Texas, that made elements for America’s aerospace and protection trade. And I will inform you that everyone must up their sport right here.”
He went on, “We’ve to change the tradition contained in the [Defense] Division. We’ve to vary the tradition inside firms. And I have been in each. So I can see each of these items. We’ve to create and maintain and keep aggressive forces on the market out there the place we’re driving innovation in our company constructions and methods which can be going to present higher fight functionality to the Joint Drive.”
As well as, Caine stated, “The army and the federal government must be higher consumers and we have now to jot down higher contracts. I’m nonetheless on step certainly one of my 12-step restoration course of from promoting to the federal government after I was a part-timer within the army. I feel we have now to discover a method to share threat between us and the personal sector.”
Caine was an uncommon alternative by President Trump, who had first met Caine again in December 2018 in Iraq. The President claimed throughout a 2019 political speech he had met an Military officer, “Razin Caine,” who had worn a MAGA hat, stated he’d “kill for Trump,” and claimed in Iraq he might defeat the ISIS terrorist group in Syria “in lower than 4 weeks,” three Trump statements Caine later denied in interviews and through his 2025 Senate affirmation listening to.
After I first wrote about Caine final March, I used to be drawn to the info that starting August 2005 he served a yr as a White Home Fellow on the Agriculture Division and later, from October 2006 to January 2008, was Coverage Director for Counterterrorism and Technique for President George W. Bush’s White Home Homeland Safety Council. Caine’s final army submit earlier than resigning from the Air Drive in 2024 was three years as Affiliate Director for Army Affairs on the CIA.
Nevertheless, on the Reagan Discussion board, Caine confessed, “I really served on the Company [CIA] twice. One is in my bio, one will not be in my bio.” What’s that every one about?
Caine clearly is an individual the general public must observe extra carefully.
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