Cindy Otis

Opinion contributor

This week had to be one of the worst so far for President Donald Trump, but it has not been great for our allies either.

Leaked details from Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book came just before the New York Times published an op-ed written by an anonymous senior administration official. Both painted a clear picture of an unhinged and dangerous president with a circle of advisers who know he should not be in office, but are working to blunt the impact of his actions — or at least the most damaging ones.

America may own this political circus but we are certainly not the only ones closely watching it, because instability in the White House has global implications.

While advance Woodward excerpts were nothing but damning, the op-ed appears to have been meant to provide some comfort to the American people. “There are adults in the room,” the author said. “We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”

Global foes welcome, exploit our disarray

This is consistent with the administration's ongoing two-track foreign policy in which the president says whatever he wants and senior officials sweep up after him. The “steady state,” as the op-ed calls these insiders, told our NATO allies to trust that the U.S. will come to their defense after the president questioned the entire purpose of the transatlantic alliance. The “steady state” tells them to ignore the president’s Twitter rants.

Privately, the “steady state” also reassures our foreign intelligence partners that we will still protect their most classified intelligence sources and methods even as the Republican Party majority releases intelligence for political purposes, and Trump’s loose lips, unpredictable temper, and poor security practices suggest he cannot be counted on.

But a two-track approach comes with no guarantees and our allies can only be so trusting when the White House is a virtual revolving door and even the “steady state” has not been able to prevent the president from waging damaging trade wars, for example, or spilling sensitive intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office. The author of the op-ed admitted Trump cabinet officials at one time had discussed the possibility of removing him from office under the 25th amendment.

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For our allies, particularly our European ones, these new revelations drive home what many of them have already said publicly — that they cannot depend on U.S. leadership anymore. In the past year alone, Europeans have increased economic ties with China and launched new defense initiatives that do not include the U.S. We can expect that to continue.

For other countries that benefit from a distracted U.S., or even a chaotic one, the revelations of this week are welcome. More than perhaps any other president, Trump has shown in many ways that his personal style leans more toward the authoritarian than democratic. His administration’s foreign policies reflect that, with the noticeable absence of talking points on topics like human rights when he meets with world leaders. If there were any hopes that a presidency almost two years in might remember it is supposed to be pushing democratic values worldwide, they have been thoroughly squashed.

Leaders in places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are increasingly clamping down on the rights of their own citizens, knowing there is no risk of the U.S. making a policy U-turn when it is consumed with simply keeping the trains from coming off the tracks and the executive branch from imploding. The Syrian government was preparing to wage an all-out assault against 3 million civilians in Idlib who have nowhere else to go, knowing the American president is more likely to spend his time railing on Twitter against “traitors” and the “failing New York Times” than watching what Bashar Assad is doing to his own people.

A White House distracted by loyalty tests

Our adversaries and emerging world leaders benefit from a U.S. that is nearing, if not already, in a constitutional crisis. Countries like China are already working to fill the global leadership vacuum the U.S. has left behind because of our own internal chaos and isolationist policies. Russia has long worked to destroy the liberal world order and the goal of its covert influence campaign during the U.S. presidential election in 2016 was in part to undermine faith in U.S institutions, like the executive branch. We also know countries like Russia, China and Iran are continuing cyberattacks, disinformation, and other covert attacks against the U.S. — and the revelations this week will only encourage them.

In what feels a little like loyalty tests foreign authoritarian leaders sometimes make their own inner circle go through, a long line of senior government officials has released public statements either denying they wrote the op-ed or denying they said certain reported quotes from Woodward.

The time they spend pointing the finger away from themselves is time they are not doing their real jobs. For our enemies, all of this is great news.

Cindy Otis, a writer and consultant, worked for the CIA for 10 years as a military analyst and a branch chief, specializing primarily in Europe and the Middle East. Follow her on Twitter at: @CindyOtis_