| | | | |  | | By Robbie Gramer | |  Incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz in a Jan. 2 interview with Fox News acknowledged that transition periods can represent a precarious moment for U.S. national security. | Ted Shaffrey/AP | With help from Nahal Toosi, Phelim Kine, John Sakellariadis and Daniel Lippman Subscribe here | Email Robbie | Email Eric Shortly before the Biden administration clinched a 60-day ceasefire deal in Lebanon in late November, national security adviser JAKE SULLIVAN called Rep. MIKE WALTZ (R-Fla.) to update him on the plans — and give the incoming Trump administration time to process and react to the developments before they were made public. It was the start of a formidable working relationship between JOE BIDEN’s national security adviser and DONALD TRUMP’s incoming one — one of the most significant channels of communication between the two camps during the fast-moving transition period. There’s no love lost between their two bosses, but Sullivan and Waltz have developed a cordial working relationship — and kept their conversations hermetically sealed off from politics — according to three administration officials and two Trump transition officials. All officials were granted anonymity to discuss internal transition matters. That’s no small feat given the hyper-partisan cloud of acrimony descending on Washington as Trump prepares to take office. The two check in regularly and have done multiple in-person deep dives on national security issues for an hour or more with one another, according to one administration official and one Trump transition official. The Sullivan-Waltz channel of communication has also been spurred by an unusual spate of major national security news ahead of Trump’s inauguration. That includes a botched coup in close U.S. ally South Korea, the downfall of BASHAR AL-ASSAD’s regime in Syria, and the ongoing conflicts elsewhere in the Middle East and in Ukraine. The two also spoke at length after the New Year’s Day truck attack in New Orleans and the Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, the administration and transition officials said. Both camps aim for Waltz and his team to hit the ground running when Trump takes office on Jan. 20 — even as Trump and his political allies continue to bash the Biden administration over its foreign policy record and Biden’s allies rebuke Trump over his provocative comments on “acquiring” Greenland, pushing peace talks in Ukraine with Russia and more. Waltz in a Jan. 2 interview with Fox News acknowledged that transition periods can represent a precarious moment for U.S. national security. Trump backers have been making a public push to get his Cabinet in place as soon as possible. “That has to be in place day one, because this is a moment in transition, of vulnerability and President Trump is going to project because he is a leader of strength,” he said.
| | | THE STATE OF THE WORLD: Each year, the Council on Foreign Relations polls hundreds of U.S. government officials and foreign policy experts on the risk of conflict in the coming year. This year’s report just came out and spoiler alert: It’s grim. The report, relying on polling from some 680 U.S. officials and foreign policy experts, found a wide consensus that there are major risks of significant Russian military gains in Ukraine, escalation of conflict between Iran and Israel and increased conflict in the West Bank. Other notable concerns include a power struggle between armed groups in Syria following Assad’s ouster from power and the risk of a mass-casualty terrorist attack in the United States. The study represents one of the most comprehensive and data-driven snapshots of how the U.S. national security establishment views the threat of future war and instability. And officials and experts appear more jittery than ever before in the study’s 17-year history, PAUL STARES, the CFR scholar who helmed the study, told NatSec Daily. “There is clearly, for want of a better term, deep dread among hundreds of highly credentialed U.S. foreign policy experts about where the world is going in 2025,” he said. Still, it’s not all doom and gloom. A few foreign policy risks were downgraded or removed from the study as tensions cooled over, including the potential of a China-India conflict over their border disputes and further fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. JAPAN’S ‘CRISIS’ MOMENT: Japan’s former Defense Minister MINORU KIHARA warned today of a rising threat from Chinese and Russian military forces operating around Japan’s borders, our own PHELIM KINE writes in. They include a Russian maritime patrol craft’s incursion into Japanese airspace in September and a Chinese aircraft carrier’s passage across the edge of Tokyo’s southern territorial waters that same month. “I have a strong sense of crisis due to the fact that these incidents occurred one after the other over a short period of time,” Kihara, currently chair of the Japanese parliament’s national security affairs research committee, said at a Stimson Center event. Those incursions underscore how Beijing and Moscow — in coordination with North Korea — seek to “change the status quo by force,” he said. Japan is also keen to revisit a plan first floated in 2023 for opening a NATO liaison office in Tokyo. MCMASTER: GREENLAND INVASION RISK LOW: Don’t sweat Trump’s refusal to rule out the use of military force to bring Panama and Greenland under U.S. control. “This is just President Trump being President Trump — this is what he does,” said Trump’s former national security adviser H.R. MCMASTER at a Council on Foreign Relations event today. “President Trump is not someone who would use military force capriciously — quite the opposite,” McMaster said. Trump will “make comments that are disquieting to say the least,” but his track record of reluctance in deploying military force in his first administration will likely continue, McMaster said. And those bombastic comments are likely to continue. “It's going to be not boring,” McMaster added. MIDEAST UPDATE: U.S. officials are warning the incoming Trump administration of a potential “catastrophe” if the main U.N. refugee agency dealing with Palestinians is effectively barred from its work as Israel wants, Axios scoops. The Israeli military, meanwhile, said it recovered the remains of a hostage in an underground tunnel in Gaza, as well as another set of remains that could be that hostage’s son. IT’S WEDNESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily! This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at rgramer@politico.com and ebazail@politico.com, and follow Robbie and Eric on X @RobbieGramer and @ebazaileimil. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s global security team: @dave_brown24, @HeidiVogt, @jessicameyers, @RosiePerper, @nahaltoosi, @PhelimKine, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @reporterjoe, @JackDetsch, @samuelskove, @magmill95, and @johnnysaks130
| | SENATE STAFFER MOVES TO TRUMP NSC: A senior staffer for the Senate Armed Services Committee is joining the incoming Trump administration in a top Middle East policy role, as our colleagues HAILEY FUCHS and PAUL MCLEARY report. ERIC TRAGER, a professional staff member for the Senate Armed Services Committee, is expected to join Trump’s White House National Security Council as senior director for the Middle East and North Africa. FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY: MATHEWS LIKELY TO BE TOP DOD LAWYER — EARL MATTHEWS is the leading contender to be the Pentagon’s next general counsel, two people familiar with the Trump transition’s thinking on the role told JOHN SAKELLARIADIS and DANIEL LIPPMAN. At the start of the last Trump administration, Mathews served as a special assistant to Defense Secretary JAMES MATTIS and the principal deputy general counsel and acting general counsel of the Army. He subsequently served as the senior director for defense policy and strategy on Trump’s NSC. After leaving the administration in late 2019, he was appointed to the Defense Business Board in December 2020. Mathews declined to comment. In a statement, Karoline Leavitt, a transition spokesperson, said Trump has “made brilliant decisions on who will serve in his second Administration” and “remaining decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made."
| | NEW WARNINGS ON RUSSIAN CYBER THREAT: The State Department’s top cybersecurity envoy issued a fresh warning over Russia’s plans to try and meddle in elections on NATO and the EU’s periphery. “There are parliamentary elections in Moldova coming up in the next several months, and the Russians will use every trick in the book to try to influence the parliamentary elections,” U.S. Cyber Ambassador NATHANIEL FICK told our own MAGGIE MILLER in an interview (for Pros!). Fick, who is slated to depart his post before the new administration takes over, also issued a stark warning to China over its cyber espionage and attacks targeting the United States. “There's a whole set of espionage activities that are really troubling in their size and their scope, their scale, that exceed anything that I think we've seen before,” he said. “The Chinese need to understand how dangerous and escalatory we view this behavior.”
| | TURKEY’S NAVAL AMBITIONS: Turkey’s defense ministry has unveiled plans to expand its naval force, announcing it is simultaneously building 31 warships including an aircraft carrier and a destroyer. The shipbuilding spree reflects President RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN’s aspirations to project Turkey’s power in the Black Sea and Mediterranean, as well as the Horn of Africa. The bulk of Turkey’s navy prior to this was composed of aging second-hand frigates bought from the United States and Germany.
| | HFAC GOES FULL MAGA: There’s a new sheriff in town over at the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and its X account lets everyone know he’s gone full MAGA mode. As your lead NatSec Daily author reports, the Republican HFAC account doubled down on Trump’s plans to acquire Greenland and the Panama Canal RATCLIFFE HEARING SET FOR NEXT WEEK: JOHN RATCLIFFE’S confirmation hearing to be Trump’s CIA Director will be next Wednesday, Patrick McCann, a spokesperson for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, confirmed to NSD. Ratcliffe, who served as Trump’s Director of National Intelligence in his first term, is expected to sail through the confirmation process. New SSCI Chair Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) had been pushing to arrange confirmation hearings for both Ratcliffe and Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for DNI, before inauguration day. PUNCHBOWL first reported on the timing of Ratcliffe’s hearing.
| | THEY ARE NOT AMUSED: Trump’s expansionist ambitions are infuriating allies and neighbors, and they’re not being shy about responding. Mexican President CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM did not take kindly to Trump’s proposal to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. During a public appearance today, she unveiled some historic maps and suggested that at least parts of what’s now the United States could be included in a region called “Mexican America.” “It sounds nice, no?” she asked. RASMUS JARLOV, a member of Denmark’s parliament, blasted the president-elect over his insistence that the United States must acquire Greenland, a Danish territory. “This level of disrespect from the coming US president towards very, very loyal allies and friends is record-setting,” he said in one post. And in another post coupled with a graphic on the U.S. national debt hitting $36 trillion, he added: “So with what money are you going to buy Greenland ?? It seems a whole lot more realistic that Denmark could buy a piece of the US to bail them out of this poverty.”
| | — ANNA DEVANNY is now media relations manager for Mars Inc.’s global external comms team. She previously was press secretary for Senate Foreign Relations chair JIM RISCH (R-Idaho), and is a JOHNNY ISAKSON and DAVID PERDUE alum. — CLAUDIA MAJOR will be joining the German Marshall Fund think tank as a senior vice president overseeing transatlantic security initiatives and as a member of the executive team. — MATT CORRIDONI is now vice president of communications at VoteVets. He previously was a national spokesperson on the Harris campaign’s rapid response team. — AJ MANANDIC is now digital director at the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. She previously was press secretary for Rep. YOUNG KIM (R-Calif.), and is a Rokk Solutions alum.
| | | — IVO DAALDER, POLITICO: There is no such thing as good nuclear proliferation — EUGENE RUMER, Council on Foreign Relations: Neutrality: An alternative to Ukraine’s membership in NATO — ANDRES OPPENHEIMER, Miami Herald: Trump’s failure to receive Venezuela’s opposition leader was a major blunder — DAVE PITTS, the Cipher Brief: Welcome to the grey zone and the future of great power competition
| | — Brookings Institution, 9 a.m.: What do people in Taiwan and the United States think about Taiwan’s security situation? — Hudson Institute, 10 a.m.: Georgia on Your Mind: An Event with President Salome Zourabichvili — The Atlantic Council, 10:15 a.m.: Trump, trade and tariffs: The global economy in 2025 Thanks to our editor, Rosie Perper, who we will never allow to acquire our Arctic territories. Thanks to our producer, Gregory Svirnovskiy, who will always defend our sovereignty. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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