U.S. Army Gen. Mark Hertling in 2011

When President Donald Trump chose John Bolton as his national security adviser in 2018, it was a surprising appointment — as Bolton is a very hawkish neocon, and Trump was a vehement critic of neoconservative ideology. But Trump and Bolton had a major falling out, and some MAGA Republicans attacked the Bolton pick as a failed effort to "own the liberals."

Trump, in 2025, is still highly critical of neocons, arguing that foreign crises call for diplomatic solutions. But retired U.S. Army Gen. Mark Hertling, in a biting article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on October 27, warns that Trump's message to other countries is one of hostility and aggression.

Herling, a former U.S. Army Europe commander, points to the positioning of the USS Gerald R. Ford as an example of the threatening message Trump is sending the world, and he calls out strikes on Venezuelan boats — which the U.S. president claims are smuggling illegal drugs bound for the United States — as bad foreign policy.

"When a carrier strike group changes oceans," Herling explains, "it's not just a move — it's strategy. The Trump Administration's recent decision to redeploy USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group from the Mediterranean to the waters off Latin America might sound like a shift from deterring adversaries near Europe and the Middle East to countering 'illicit actors' in the Caribbean. But beneath the Pentagon phrasing lies a far more consequential question: Why are we moving one of America's rarest and most capable instruments of military power from a theater of genuine danger to one of political ambiguity?"

Conservative/libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is describing Trump's strikes on Venezuelan boats as "extrajudicial killings," and he wants proof that the people killed on those boats were actually smuggling illegal drugs.

Trump's actions in Latin America, according to Hertling, are lacking "clarity of purpose."

"The reward — marginal disruption of transnational criminal networks — is limited and fleeting," Hertling warns. "The risk — thinning deterrence in Europe and the Middle East, miscommunicating intent to allies and adversaries, and inflaming regional sensitivities — is substantial. Strategically, it dilutes focus. Morally, it confuses power with purpose…. Power divorced from prudence is not strategy; it's noise. In the calculus of limited carriers and unlimited headlines, prudence — not spectacle — remains the most powerful signal of all."

Herling adds, "Using a carrier named for President Ford — a man defined by steadiness and restraint — seems more than misguided. Americans should ask what message this voyage really sends. Is it deterrence, distraction, or déjà vu?"

Gen. Mark Hertling's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.