Foreign Policy

The administration’s actions are driven by an open pursuit of resource control and strategic leverage. History shows that when this happens, confrontation becomes inevitable, and it leads to needless wars.

I will go to Washington to work to put America back on the path that led us to be leaders of the Free World. That is why I am running for Congress.

Among the world’s most mineral-rich nations, the closest to Washington are Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, and Greenland. Each of them now faces escalating pressure and direct threats to their sovereignty from us. The Administration calls this strength, but it is predation— a strategic weakness that isolates nations and accelerates opposition. Every American — regardless of party — will bear the consequences of a foreign policy built on pressure rather than principle.

This approach rejects the core American traditions of discipline, constitutional limits, and the understanding that unchecked power is dangerous. It violates principles valued by conservatives and liberals alike: restraint, discipline in the use of force, and constitutional boundaries. These were the guardrails that prevented miscalculation and protected American credibility for generations. We built partnerships that prevented wider wars and kept whole regions stable for generations.

We once understood this. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait to seize its oil, it was a Republican president who set the standard for responsible American power. He said we must build “a world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle… a world where the strong respect the rights of the weak.” That clarity helped prevent a wider war. It protected allies and upheld American leadership.

Today, those foundations are being abandoned. Renaming the Department of Defense as the Department of War and changing Veterans Day to Victory Day pushes the nation toward glorifying conflict. The Secretary of War said, “We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement… You kill people and break things for a living.” Their definition of “stupid” appears to be anything that limits their ambitions. His description reduced a constitutional duty to brutality, an insult to service members who defend the Constitution and protect the country. I have seen the quiet professionalism of those who serve, and we owe them leadership that values their lives over spectacle.

I am not a pacifist. I am an electromagnetic warfare expert. As a civilian Navy engineer, I worked on systems that protected sailors from missile attack. I understand both the purpose and the cost of military power.

A Navy SEAL I worked with once said he hoped he would be the last generation in his family who ever had to fight. That hope depends on leaders who understand both the cost and responsibility of wielding force. It reflects the strategic wisdom that it is better to negotiate, build alliances, and use American strength to keep the peace rather than provoke conflict.

Conservatives have long argued that the most dangerous foreign policy is one driven by impulse rather than strategy.

This trajectory will lead to a pattern of repeated conflict with every nation whose resources we covet. We are being conditioned to see intimidation as patriotism, refusal as enmity, and dominance as leadership. If this pattern continues, young Americans will pay the price — in conflicts created by leaders who never intend to bear the cost themselves. And the economic fallout will fall hardest on them as well — in higher costs, disrupted supply chains, and instability that reaches every household.

And we will risk the lives of service members who pledged their own so that force would be used only to protect, never to plunder.

This is a danger to us as much as it is to the rest of the world. History shows that once governments normalize the use of coercion abroad, they soon apply it at home. In the same meeting where the Secretary of War dismissed rules of engagement, no matter who holds office, the use of military power inside civilian communities must remain bound by strict constitutional limits. President Trump said the military should practice in our cities — a statement that crosses a line every democracy must hold. No American president has ever used civilian communities as training grounds for military force.

Those pushing this strategy ignore the long-term interests of the United States. The greatest generation built international cooperation on realism, restraint, and alliances because they had seen the cost of unrestrained power. Yet we now find ourselves repeating the very patterns they warned against.

There are real threats in the world, and we do need reliable access to critical resources. But threatening allies and neighbors — even those we do not like — to obtain them is not leadership. It is strategic incompetence. Nations pushed too far will turn toward our adversaries. Short-term dominance will become long-term isolation. And young Americans will inherit a more dangerous world shaped by our failure to act wisely today.

America cannot afford leaders who mistake provocation for strength; we need leadership that restores stability rather than accelerates danger.

Plain truth is required, because avoiding it now will cost far more than facing it. Moments like this define not only what we stand against, but what we stand for as a nation.