My first impression of Trump’s potential National Security Advisor
Elbridge Colby
Before you read this, understand three things…
- I’m a libertarian, not a liberal, conservative, or populist.
- I voted for Chase Oliver, the Libertarian Party candidate, but even so, I want Trump to succeed, not fail!
- I have a bit of optimism about Trump Administration 2.0. I’m cautiously pro-Trump at the moment.
With those stipulations in mind, I offer the following…
I listened to potential Trump National Security Advisor Elbridge Colby on Tucker. Part of what he said sounded congenial to my libertarian ears. The Trump people seem serious about reducing war risks, foreign entanglements, and military costs. Wonderful. On the other hand…
Colby talked about Russia as an unrecognized industrial power. I almost fell off my chair laughing. And what was his evidence for this claim? The Russians make a lot of artillery. Again, I almost fell off my chair laughing. Here’s the reality…
Russia has a GDP smaller than Texas (roughly 2.2 trillion versus 2.6 trillion). And the Russians have always produced an excess of artillery. They have a fetish for the weapon. It’s also old technology. It suggests absolutely nothing about Russia’s industrial prowess. Rather, Israel’s recent easy destruction of Russian-made air defense systems in Iran suggests that Russian industrial prowess is fairly non-existent.
Colby also suggested that U.S. rearmament (are we really lacking in arms?) could be used to leverage overall U.S. industrial expansion, as if producing bullets and bombs is the same as producing the kind of stuff China offers through Alibaba. Factories are purpose-built. You can’t use the same industrial plant that builds tanks to build TV sets, or whatever other consumer goods the Trump team thinks we should start making in the U.S. again.
Finally, I don’t know who will work in these new factories the Trump people envision. We already can’t fill the jobs we have in existing businesses. I can only hope that, just as only Nixon could go to China, perhaps Trump will sponsor legislation that will actually increase legal immigration. Without that, there will be no new factories, and the demography-driven debt crisis will just get worse and worse and worse.
Build a wall if you want (I don’t want) and create a vetting system if you want (the bad people will avoid your vetting system) but please, please, please, do something to increase legal immigration. We desperately need it, and oh yeah, start charging people money to come live and work here. Use that money to stabilize and perhaps even reform Social Security and Medicare. Meanwhile…
Elbridge has a book. I may try to read it.
If you like to have your thinking challenged by someone who isn’t a part of the tired old red and blue teams, please follow me.
Copyright © Perry Willis 2024
Perry Willis is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He co-created, with Jim Babka, the Read the Bills Act, the One Subject at a Time Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress. He is a past Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and was the campaign manager for Harry Browne for President in 2000.
