A fiasco, according to Orlando Bloom’s character in Elizabethtown, is not just a disaster — it is a disaster of mythic proportions. That’s the right word for the now-infamous Signal group chat of Trump’s national security hands — a group chat laced with emojis, snark, and the kind of backstabbing usually reserved for college dorm rooms or Silicon Valley Slack channels. But for all its absurdity, this fiasco is more than a meme-worthy embarrassment. Signalgate – as the media seems to be calling it – reveals something deeper, and frankly more important, about how the second Trump administration thinks about grand strategy — and how it might act when it comes to matters of war and peace.
The Challenge That Is Signalgate
To be clear: this wasn’t just a group of irrelevant hangers-on trolling from the sidelines. This was the shortlist — the national security brass of a returning Trump presidency. The leaked messages show a remarkable unseriousness about issues of great strategic consequence. There were petty squabbles over who gets credit for which white paper. There were emojis sprinkled across policy debates. And there were the tell-tale signs of a cliquish culture that prizes performative loyalty and posturing over mature deliberation and actual competence.
In normal times, this would trigger resignations and dismissals. But these are not normal times – and neither of these seem forthcoming.
And yet, even as the chat’s contents went viral — some of it cringeworthy, some revealing — many of us watching this saga unfold felt something unexpected: relief. Because for all the signs of chaos, the leaks also revealed something else — something actually quite reassuring, if you know what to look for.
What You Missed: This Team Is Different
For starters, the chat made one thing crystal clear: there is no appetite among the serious Trump-aligned national security community for a return to the post-Cold War vision of American hegemony. There is no crusading Wilsonianism lurking in the shadows.
There is no “return to Pax Americana” fantasy being cooked up behind closed doors. If anything, there is broad (if fractured) consensus that the United States must pursue a more restrained, interest-based grand strategy — and that America’s allies, and Europe in particular, must finally grow up and shoulder its share of the security burden.
That alone is no small thing. In fact, it is what many of us have been urging for years.
As I’ve written elsewhere, restraint is not isolationism. It is not weakness. It is a serious strategic alternative to the hollow idealism and overextension that has characterized much of U.S. grand strategy during the so-called Unipolar Moment. The old bipartisan orthodoxy — that America must uphold the “rules-based international order” everywhere, all the time, no matter the cost — has failed. A growing number of Trump-aligned thinkers, including some of the Signal chatters, understand this. And thank the Heavens they do.
But here’s the rub: understanding something in theory and executing it in practice are two very different things. And this is where the fiasco starts to look a little more ominous.
The leaked messages — their tone, content, and utter disregard for operational security — raise serious questions about how a future Trump team might govern in the fog of war or the pressure cooker of crisis. The national security apparatus requires discipline, not just ideas. It requires judgment, not just instincts. And above all, it requires a culture of seriousness — the kind that was plainly absent in this backchannel circus.
Let’s not overstate the case. Plenty of White House teams — including under Obama and Biden — have suffered from cliques, leaks, and performative posturing. But this is different. Because this is a team that has entered office knowing it faces extraordinary resistance from within the bureaucracy, from the press, and from the blob. This is a team therefore that needs to be tighter, more professional, more strategically minded than any before it. Instead, the leaked chats suggest quite the opposite. Rather than an episode of serious strategic deliberation it came across as something closer to a reality show audition.
There’s also the matter of security itself. The fact that anyone thought it wise to hash out serious personnel discussions — including naming potential senior officials and advisors — on a Signal thread with dozens of participants speaks volumes. In the era of digital warfare and nation-state surveillance, this isn’t just bad practice. It’s strategic malpractice.
What Team Trump Needs to Learn from Signalgate
And yet — here’s the irony — there is still a path forward, a path through and beyond this Signalgate mess.
First, Trumpworld needs to grow up. That means ditching the emojis, the gossip, and the clout-chasing, and getting serious about power. If you want to take on the blob and remake American foreign policy for the new multipolar era, you better look like you can handle the pressure. You better look like you can govern.
Second, there needs to be an internal reckoning about personnel. Some of the names floated in the ‘Signalgate’ chat were encouraging. Others were cartoonish. The future national security team must be stacked with people who not only understand the theory of restraint but can execute it under fire. That means combat veterans, seasoned bureaucratic knife-fighters, and policy hands who know how to get things done. It also means a healthy dose of ideological pluralism within the restraint camp. There are real and meaningful divides — on Russia, on Ukraine, on the Indo-Pacific — and these need to be managed like adults, not litigated via Signal.
Third, and perhaps most importantly in the short run, the Trump team needs to get serious about operational security and process. That means running a much tighter ship going forward. It means clear hierarchies, smart compartmentalization, and a real strategy for navigating the inevitable sabotage from within the federal bureaucracy. This is not paranoia — it is preparation.
There are real adversaries out there — not just for the United States in Beijing and Moscow, but for the Trump team inside the Beltway too. If the goal is to execute a restrained, interest-based grand strategy that pulls the United States back from the edge of imperial overreach, it will not be enough to have the right ideas. It will require competence, clarity, and above all, seriousness.
(June 18, 2023) An F/A-18F Super Hornet from the “Fighting Redcocks” of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 22 breaks the sound barrier during flight operations near the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN 68). Nimitz is underway conducting routine operations. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Kevin Tang)
The Signalgatge fiasco, in that sense, was a gift. It showed us where the cracks are. It revealed the tensions, the blind spots, and the vulnerabilities of Trump’s likely defense team. But it also confirmed something else: the core ideological shift is real. The age of unipolar crusading is over. The restraint agenda is here to stay.
Now the question is whether its champions are ready to govern — or whether they’ll be too busy Signaling each other into irrelevance.
Fiascos, after all, are not just disasters. They’re disasters of mythic proportions. And unless the lessons are learned quickly, this one might only be the first of many problems like so-called Signalgate.
About the Author: Dr. Andrew Latham
Andrew Latham is a non-resident fellow at Defense Priorities and a professor of international relations and political theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN. Andrew is now a Contributing Editor to 19FortyFive, where he writes a daily column. You can follow him on X: @aakatham.
