Some of America's key security allies are hopeful that President-elect Trump's impetuous streak might spur resolution to drawn-out conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, but there's also deep anxiety about the “America First” agenda, compounded this week by Trump's tariff threats.

These competing sentiments were on display over the weekend at the Halifax International Security Forum, where top diplomats, defense ministers, U.S. lawmakers, foreign politicians, military brass, and democracy activists scoured for any clues on where Trump can be convinced to stand with allies, and where he is intent on going rogue.

Rosa Brooks, a law professor at Georgetown who helped lead a series of spring 2024 simulation exercises examining how a second Trump administration might play out — with “sobering” results — said she was dismayed to see so many people at the conference assume a second Trump administration will be “business as usual.”

“Nothing about his postelection statements suggests this will be business as usual. Both in the U.S. and in allied countries, people should be expecting Trump to follow through on his threats, and should brace for the political and economic instability his actions will cause,” she said.

“I don’t want to put too fine a point on it, but the future of the world is at stake,” said a former official of a NATO country and high-level participant at the conference. “And if the United States goes bad then we’re done. We’re going to enter a century of a period of darkness.”

In security and defense circles, anxiety about the incoming administration has been compounded by surprise picks like Tulsi Gabbard for chief of intelligence, Pete Hegseth for the Pentagon and Elon Musk as a close adviser on global affairs.

Sen. James E. Risch (R-Idaho), the incoming chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sought to play down those worries.

“I wouldn’t focus on one person,” he said, when asked about the risk Gabbard poses to analyzing and presenting the threat picture to Trump, when she has been criticized for echoing Russian propaganda.

“I am not concerned........

© The Hill