Michael Waltz's removal isn’t just a scandal. It’s a national security alarm.

The national security adviser makes sense of chaos and competing claims. Now, it's just a loyalty post.

(C-SPAN screen grab)

By Brian O’Neill

When the position of the president’s national security adviser turns into a power center rather than a coordinating role, the results are rarely good. In Richard Nixon’s first term, Henry Kissinger amassed influence as national security adviser that sidelined other key officials, and his dual role in Nixon’s second administration national security adviser and secretary of state concentrated foreign policy decisions in a dangerously narrow circle. In Jimmy Carter’s administration, Zbigniew Brzezinski’s rivalry with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance fractured U.S. foreign policy at critical moments. The lesson from both cases—and others—is clear: When the national security adviser serves personal ambition or plays internal power games, national security suffers.

As Brent Scowcroft, George H.W. Bush’s national security adviser, emphasized, the role is to serve as an honest broker, someone who transparently identifies and elevates competing views for presidential decisions. The United States is safest when the system functions that way—and most vulnerable when it does not.

Which brings us to the departure of Michael Waltz.

The national security adviser is one of the most consequential figures in the American government—and one of the least understood. No law defines the role. No Senate confirmation hearing scrutinizes its occupant. But no serious foreign policy decision reaches the president’s desk without crossing the national security adviser’s path. In theory, the role is meant to balance competing voices, bring order to chaos, and guide the president toward sound, measured choices.

In practice, the quality of a national security adviser depends on experience and sound judgment. Michael Flynn, national security adviser in the early weeks of the first Trump administration, had one but not the other. Waltz had neither.

Waltz’s reported removal comes only weeks after he mistakenly included a journalist in a Signal group chat in which highly sensitive military operations were being discussed. Multiple reports have cited broader policy disagreements as possible reasons behind his removal, though these explanations remain conjecture.

President Trump has already moved to fill the role, selecting Marco Rubio as acting national security advisor while he continues to serve as secretary of state. Rubio brings deeper foreign policy experience than Waltz, but his tenure at State has been marked by a steady retreat from his earlier, more traditional positions—repeatedly adjusting to Trump’s preferences rather than challenging them. The decision to consolidate both posts under a single figure underscores that loyalty, not independent judgment, remains the president’s primary selection criterion—and further erodes the basic structure designed to ensure balanced national security decision-making.

Waltz, meanwhile, has been nominated to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations—a role more symbolic than operational in shaping national security policy, though still a post requiring Senate confirmation. The assignment offers a soft landing for Waltz and spares the administration from admitting outright failure in his initial appointment.

The timing of Waltz’s removal could not be more convenient for a president facing relentless coverage of a faltering economy at the symbolic 100-day mark. In this White House, distractions tend to land right on schedule.

The fallout from the Signal leak in March only underscored deeper concerns about Waltz’s fitness for the role. A former congressman with military experience but no deep background in managing national security policy or interagency processes, Waltz was selected primarily for his loyalty to Trump, not for his professional qualifications. Unlike Flynn—whose career included decades in the military and leadership of the Defense Intelligence Agency—Waltz lacked the institutional depth needed to coordinate the machinery of intelligence, defense, and diplomacy.

Flynn’s downfall stemmed from reckless judgment: secret conversations with foreign officials, misleading Vice President Mike Pence, and a general disregard for ethical and legal norms. Waltz’s failings were more foundational: a basic misunderstanding of what the job required coupled with an operating environment that prized loyalty and speed over discretion and rigor.

The Signal leak was not an isolated mistake. It was the natural outcome of treating the national security adviser’s office as a political loyalty post rather than as the last line of sober judgment before presidential action.

This distinction matters because the national security adviser does more than organize information; he or she shapes the decisions themselves. He ensures competing views from the Central Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon, and the State Department are clear, not distorted. In moments of crisis, when assumptions must be challenged and minutes matter, he might be the only person able to force a president to pause and reconsider.

When that role collapses—when the adviser is weak, reckless, or simply unqualified—the president is left exposed. Intelligence is cherry-picked. Military options are simplified or dramatized. Caution flags never reach the Resolute Desk. Decisions are made not in a disciplined system but in an echo chamber.

The United States has seen the consequences before. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, fueled by politicized intelligence and a distorted decision-making process, remains the most vivid recent example. But there is a critical difference between then and now. In 2003, the national security system still worked, even if it was misused. In 2025, under Trump’s second term, the system itself is hollowed out.

From the outset of his first administration, Trump nominated and brought in experienced figures to serve as advisers, department secretaries, and chiefs of staff. Individuals such as H.R. McMaster, James Mattis, and John Kelly might not have agreed on every issue, but many would argue they kept the system from fully going off the rails until the final year. Their presence brought a degree of discipline and pragmatism to a volatile presidency.

Waltz’s reassignment—and Rubio’s interim takeover—do not signal a course correction. They confirm a deeper reality: that the national security system itself, once built to balance competing interests and check presidential impulses, has been reduced to an instrument of affirmation. It no longer protects the decision-making process from distortion. And with key roles now filled on an ad hoc, loyalty-first basis, the risks of miscalculation—and global instability—only grow.

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