India and Pakistan have reached a ceasefire in their recent conflict, which significantly decreases the risk of a nuclear war this week. However, the amateur-hour way Donald Trump’s administration handled this crisis increased (if only slightly) the chance of a nuclear exchange down the line. It illustrates why Trump’s everything-is-about-me style of governance isn’t just a harmless embarrassment, but a daily disaster.
To understand the impact of Trump’s subcontinental blunders, it’s crucial to get into details—precisely what he refuses to do with life-and-death emergencies. Consider two of the dangerous missteps last week that triggered containable—but completely unnecessary—timebombs for any future conflict. In prior administrations, both would have been avoided with the expertise of the so-called “Deep State.”
First, Trump claimed credit for the ceasefire, boasting that the U.S. had “mediated” it. India issued an immediate denial, but the mistake ran deeper than poaching an honor. In diplomacy, words matter. And as everyone in the region knows, the word “mediate” is a diplomatic landmine. Ever since 1947, India has strenuously rejected outside “mediation” of the Kashmir conflict. India has fought (and won) two major wars over the disposition of Kashmir, as well as more minor conflicts and a long-running insurgency. India considers the governance of its portion of the disputed territory an internal matter, with relations between Indian- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir to be a bilateral (rather than international) issue.
Trump should have known better because he had made the same mistake before. In 2019, sitting next to Pakistan’s prime minister, he claimed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to “mediate” the dispute. Then, too, India immediately called out his lie. Trump may have forgotten this episode (if he had even been informed of it), but India certainly hasn’t.
Did the U.S. play an intermediary role in helping India and Pakistan reach a ceasefire agreement? Sure—as did Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and China (none of which rushed to the microphones to seize credit). As India stated in smacking down Trump’s claim, it was the two parties themselves who reached an accord, not any external actor seeking to impose “mediation.”
Second, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a far more substantive negotiation than the one approved. Mindful of his boss’s unquenchable thirst to be seen as a master deal-maker, Rubio posted that the two nations had agreed to “talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.” A “broad set of issues” really means “long-term disposition of Kashmir”— or at least that’s how Pakistan wants (and India fears) these words will be interpreted. Did Modi agree to such negotiations, and in response to a terrorist action? Vanishingly unlikely. Did India agree to any talks on any topic? Unlikely, but not impossible, although India immediately denied this, too. So even if Rubio’s statement contained a kernel of truth, any talks were ones India intended to keep secret. Rubio’s decision to spotlight them (if they even existed) stroked Trump’s ego, but at the expense of progress or U.S. credibility.
These may seem like diplomatic niceties, but they have real-world consequences. For starters, they degrade trust in the U.S. as a responsible interlocutor. If the president and his aides don’t try to understand key elements of the conflict, how can they be relied on to uphold agreements that might be forged? If they can’t keep confidences, why should either party trust them? That may matter greatly during the next crisis. For instance, one way the U.S. can help prevent escalation is to use its satellites to diffuse suspicion that nuclear assets were being mobilized. But if the president’s word doesn’t count, why should Delhi or Islamabad believe him?
Another dangerous result of Trump and Rubio’s statements is that they unwittingly promoted Pakistan’s agenda, thereby encouraging a replay of the same hazardous behavior. This crisis began with a terrorist attack on two dozen Indian tourists last month. Similar outrages have been carried out by the Pakistan-based groups Lashkar-e Taiba and Jaish-e Mohammad for decades to advance Pakistan’s strategy of internationalizing the Kashmir dispute. Indian observers view the Trump/Rubio statements as advancing this goal. Judging by the rhetoric from Pakistani leadership, they likely did too. When Pakistan’s generals have to decide whether to encourage or suppress the next terrorist attack, they’re likely to view this week’s crisis as a successful template for the future.
Trump and his acolytes don’t seem to understand any of this, which reveals the danger of policymaking by improvisation. The administration’s response started with ignorance (“It’s a shame,” Trump initially said, incorrectly stating that the conflict, less than 80-years-old, had been going on for “centuries”; he would later revise that to “a thousand years”), moved to a bleat of isolationism (Vice President J.D. Vance dismissed it as “none of our business”), before settling on a claim of omnipotent stage-management. Why? That’s how this administration makes every decision.
Trump has declared war on the “Deep State”— the career government professionals who know how things work. In a normal administration, these experts would have ensured that a president never claimed to “mediate” the Kashmir dispute and would have known better than to reveal secret negotiations (if they existed). These statements were not vetted by career professionals serving as Assistant Secretary of State or National Security Council Senior Director for South Asia, or Ambassadors to India and Pakistan, because such officials do not exist; Trump fired the holders of these posts and has not found permanent replacements. The response to the crisis seems to have been essentially unstaffed.
The president can’t be expected to have expertise on the intricacies of Kashmir diplomacy, trade treaties with the European Union, F-35 co-production, or the funding of Medicare Part B. The commander-in-chief needs staff who have such expertise.
For 12 years, that was me. I was one of the nameless, faceless government officials tasked with helping policymakers avoid doing dumb things. My bosses were Joe Biden and John Kerry. You may love or hate them, but I guarantee you’d like their unstaffed version far less. And they’d be the first to acknowledge it. They relied on expert staff to minimize missteps. Both Biden and Kerry counted on my honest input on sensitive topics—indeed, they demanded it. They’d have fired me if I’d failed to tell them when they’d slipped up (as everyone does).
Trump takes the opposite approach. Instead of relying on staff who know their subject areas, he boasts that “my primary consultant is myself,” and he makes decisions on “really more of an instinct than anything else.” The 47th president’s conclusions are fueled by narcissism. The touchstone isn’t what’s in the national interest, but his own. This inevitably filters down to his subordinates: Briefers must pepper their reports with mentions of Trump every few sentences, or he tunes out. His cabinet meetings are not policymaking exercises, but competitive displays of tongue-bathing.
Is Trump even aware of his blunders? No subordinate would say, “Sir, India has denied your statement, so you’ll need to clean that up.” I’ve had such discussions with my bosses. They’re never pleasant. Who in Trump’s circle would dare try?
This week’s crisis showed why a Deep State is necessary. Details matter. A blithe disregard for other nations’ sensitivities and interests fomented risk with stakes that include nuclear annihilation. We escaped that outcome this time, increasing the chance we won’t next time. The most frightening part is that the most powerful person on earth has no idea of the damage he has done.
