Is The Dog About To Be Wagged?
Plus a week of commentary
“Tanned, rested and ready, Congress has returned from the August recess. It is unclear why.” — George Will, September 5, 2025
Happy Saturday.
ICYMI, Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent Jennifer Griffin reported a curious development yesterday: “The Pentagon is deploying 10 F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico for counter-narcotics tasking in the Caribbean, a source familiar confirms to Fox News per Lucas Tomlinson.”
She followed up with a pointed question: “Why would you need F35 stealth fighter jets for a counternarcotics mission?”
This is, indeed, a head-scratcher. “The F35s being sent to Puerto Rico are usually used for large bombing missions like the targeting of Iran’s nuclear facilities….”
Griffin, one of the best-sourced national security correspondents extant has a hunch: “It looks to me,” she wrote, “like the US military is going to war. 8 US Navy destroyers in the Caribbean near Venezuela is a first.”
This is, of course, speculation, and nothing may come of it. But the dots almost connect themselves don’t they?
The deployment comes just days after the Trump Administration announced that it had bombed a vessel in the Caribbean, killing 11 alleged drug smugglers. In a deeply unwise move, Venezuelan jets then buzzed a U.S. Navy destroyer, in a stunt the Pentagon called “highly provocative.”
CNN is also hearing the war drums: “Trump weighs strikes targeting cartels inside Venezuela, part of wider pressure campaign on Maduro, sources say.”
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.1 “Really it has to do with winning,” Trump said. “We should have won every war. We could have won every war, but we really chose to be very politically correct or wokey and we just fight forever.”
Pete Hegseth was downright tumescent about the whole thing, rolling out his own faux rap lyrics to celebrate the embrace of “War.”
“The War Department is going to fight to win, not to lose/
We’re going to go on offense not just on defense/
Maximum lethality/
Not tepid legality./
Violent effect/
Not politically correct./
We’re gonna raise up warriors/
Not just defenders.”
I regret to tell you that this is not a parody.2 But even in its juvenile inanity, the move may be a signal: Having campaigned on a pledge to end “endless wars,” Trump is now itching for a war of his own.3
And what better distraction from badeconomicnewsEpsteinglobalhumiliations than a quick, bloody war with a country led by a leftist dictator? A country not only rife with gangs and drugs, but with massive oil reserves. What’s not to like?
Exit take: Since we are talking about Trump’s ambition to be a Great War Leader, you really need to read this extraordinary piece of reporting in the NYT: “How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart” - The New York Times
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A week of commentary
Sunday
Monday
Cross-posted from Daniel Drezner: Donald Trump's Biggest, Dumbest Personalist Foreign Policy Flop Yet
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday dogs
Auggie and I took a road trip Friday.
The Wapo provides this caveat:
{The] change is far from final. The Department of Defense name remains enshrined in law in a 1949 amendment to the 1947 National Security Act, landmark legislation that Trump’s executive order does not supersede.
The executive order states that Hegseth may use “Secretary of War” as an “additional secondary title” and “may be recognized by that title in official correspondence, public communications, ceremonial contexts, and non-statutory documents within the executive branch.” The department itself also may use the new title in similar fashion, the order adds.
The Department of War was originally created by Congress in 1789 and signed into law by President George Washington. It survived until 1947, when Congress and President Harry S. Truman combined to overhaul U.S. national security in the aftermath of World War II. The War Department initially became the National Military Establishment with the passing of the National Security Act and was renamed again two years later as the Department of Defense.
An official name change — even secondary in nature — could come with a hefty price tag. The Pentagon said in a statement Friday evening that cost estimates “will fluctuate as we carry out President Trump’s directive to establish the Department of War’s name” and that a “clearer estimate” will be available at a later time. The message was attributed to a “War Department official.”
Our friend, Tom Nichols, highlighted how pathetic this performative rebranding really is. “Pete Hegseth’s Department of Cringe - The Atlantic”
“Both men seem to think that wimps cower and defend, but real men go on the offensive and whack the bad guys.”
Wag the dog is a political term for the act of creating a diversion from a damaging issue usually through military force. It stems from the generic use of the term to mean a small and seemingly unimportant entity (the tail) controls a bigger, more important one (the dog). It is usually used by a politician when they are in a scandal, in hopes that people forget about the scandal and focus on the more important issue. The phrase originates in the saying "a dog is smarter than its tail, but if the tail were smarter, then it would wag the dog."
I live in a world where cat people (including me) coexist well with dog people. (Humming "Ebony and Ivory" as I type.) So, no need to worry about unsubscribing because delightful dogs are on display instead of friendly felines. It's all good.
But could we unsubscribe to a regime that says no new wars under its watch but goes looking for them like a high school punk seeking to bully geeky eighth graders? And from a Secretary of Defense, who supposedly knows a thing or two about combat, treating it like a game and the weaponry as if a toy?
Also somebody please tell me how provoking international incidents will help lower my cost of living -- that thing that was supposed to be fixed starting on Day One.
The millions of taxpayers money that is spent on his theatrics is criminal. Isn’t congress responsible for this debacle