INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
01.19.2026
January 19th, 2026
Greetings! Let’s face it. It’s the end of the world as we know it. But unlike the classic 1987 R.E.M. song, we do not feel fine.
Tomorrow—January 20th—will mark the first full year of President Donald Trump’s second term in office. Ahead of this milestone, we’ve had multiple media requests to come on air to evaluate his national security record.
Photo credit: White House. President Donald Trump.
The easy answer would be an I for incomplete.
But we aren’t paid to play it safe. Especially given how dangerously fast traditional U.S. security alliances are unraveling. Our job is to call balls & strikes as we see & judge them and to always do so apolitically.
Let’s get started.
***
Trump began his second term with every advantage when it came to U.S. national security. As we observed in The New York Post, World War III—not Hollywood’s version but death by a thousand Russian & Chinese cuts—was his to win.
Moscow was stuck in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin was down to relying on North Korea for troops & ammo. China was turning the Russian motherland––chiefly its far east oblasts––into a cheap gas station for Beijing.
An easy “A+” was there for the taking.
Especially since former President Joe Biden & his administration refused to put Putin & his so-called ‘special military operation’ down for the count in Ukraine. Time & again their escalation fears needlessly allowed Putin to survive & fight another day.
We were highly encouraged that Trump could quickly succeed where Biden had failed when Team Trump tapped retired U.S. Army Lt. General Keith Kellogg to be his special envoy to Russia & Ukraine.
Kellogg, once in charge of the Special Operations Command Europe & a former 82nd Airborne Division commander was exactly the man who could—and would—call Putin’s military bluffing about the reality on the ground.
There were just two problems. The Kremlin rejected Kellogg as an envoy & Trump allowed Putin to get away with it.
Consequently, Kellogg was relegated to Ukraine & instead, Steve Witkoff—despite no previous military or diplomatic background—was appointed to represent Team Trump as a special envoy to Putin.
It quickly became a disaster. Trump & Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had a blow up in the Oval Office in late February & Witkoff quickly became an obsequious & teen-like smitten fan of Putin. While being interviewed by Tucker Carlson on March 21st, 2025, Witkoff admitted that “I liked him. I don’t regard Putin as a bad guy.”
Let’s be blunt here, it takes a special kind of guy—none of it good—to say he ‘likes’ an indicted war criminal.
Lest Witkoff forgets going forward, 2025 was the deadliest year for civilians in Ukraine since Putin invaded in 2022. According to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU), 2,088 Ukrainian noncombatants were killed on Team Trump’s watch; 9,138 were injured.
The number killed is 31% higher than during Biden’s last year in office. We take Trump at his word that he wants to “stop the killing.” But he hasn’t. Putin’s response to Trump’s stated goal has been to simply kill even more Ukrainian civilians.
By April 3rd last year, we were forced to do a 180-degree turn & argue in The Hill that Team Trump had lost the plot. If Biden was late to World War III, as we once argued, then Trump was already in danger of losing it to the Axis of Evil less than three months into his second term.
The easy A+—at least on Russia—had devolved into an F.
It hasn’t gotten better since. Trump—despite repeated Jekyll & Hyde instances of blaming Putin, then Zelensky—keeps returning to blaming Ukraine for a war that Putin clearly planned, started & refuses to end.
Trump blamed Zelensky again last week. Not only is it not true, but it is also self-defeating. Earlier this month, the White House greenlit the Senate to pursue secondary oil & energy sanctions against Russia.
We once accused Team Biden of operating in a ‘Bizarro World’ in Ukraine at the now defunct The Messenger. Team Trump is following suit.
This isn’t hard. Putin is the bad guy. Period. If Trump would finally acknowledge that we could give him extra credit to try & up his grade.
***
To fully evaluate Trump’s first-year record, we must examine the totality of his policies, decisions, & actions on a global basis. To that end, if Ukraine is the bleeding wound in Europe, Iran is the ticking time bomb in the Middle East.
Trump’s decision to bomb Tehran’s nuclear weapons program facilities at Fordo, Isfahan & Natanz last June was an A+ out of the box.
We had long warned of the growing threat of Iran becoming a nuclear power. In June 2022, Mark warned in a piecepicked up by the Drudge Report that in Doomsday Clock terms, Iran & Israel were five minutes from Armageddon.
We then continued warning, year after year, but to no effect.
Iran kept amassing highly enriched uranium. Tehran kept increasing its centrifuge capacity to enrich at even a faster rate. We kept pointing out that Iran was enriching uranium to 60%––well beyond 3% to 5% needed for nuclear power fuel rods or hospital experiments.
Yet, to no avail.
Team Biden was unwilling to act. Trump, to his great & lasting credit, did. Alas, however, he then—inexplicably stopped—and prematurely declared victory.
His grade on Iran—in our view—immediately dropped from an A+ to a B-. The immediate nuclear threat was deterred. However, there were no absolute assurances that Iran’s sizable stockpiles of HEU were “completely obliterated” as Trump declared.
Dirty bombs are a thing. And it is highly likely that Iran still has enough remaining nuclear fissile material to make them.
Allowing Iran to fight another day was a mistake. It prolonged the wars between Israel & Tehran’s proxies—Hamas, Hezbollah, & the Houthis—and it preserved Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s security forces.
More on that below. Especially the deadly price Iranian protesters are paying as a result throughout the country.
Spoiler. His grade didn’t go up.
***
If giving Iran a lifeline last June was perplexing, Trump’s approach to Chinese President Xi Jinping is an enigma. Much fanfare was made during his presidential campaign that China was the pacing military & economic threat to the U.S.
It started that way. Trump’s tariffs––or threats of tariffs––on imports from China were certainly eye-opening. Some as high as 130%. Yet, Xi came to play & was undaunted. Ultimately, Trump was forced to back down after dire warning signs that U.S. markets were heading toward a major meltdown.
Plus—at least economically—it didn’t work. Beijing just reported 5% GDP growth in 2025 on the strength of a record $1.19 trillion trade surplus.
On the surface, this looks like an F.
Especially since Trump’s new National Security Strategy signaled a significantly “softer approach to competition with Beijing, playing down ideological differences between the two superpowers and marking a break from years in which China was singled out as posing the U.S.’s greatest challenge.”
Yet sometimes the devil is NOT in the details. But rather in actions taken. Perhaps—and we are just theorizing here—the softening of the language was a feint.
Why?
Because slowly but surely Washington has been putting a stranglehold on China’s global oil supply chain outside of Russian oil & gas. First by toppling President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, then by striking ISIS in Nigeria––and now, potentially, by seeking the fall of Khamenei & regime change in Iran.
Certainly, it’s fair game to question Trump’s tactics. But we can’t ignore some of the results. By boxing out oil-needy Beijing from key markets, Trump is—wittingly or not—creating negotiating leverage against Xi.
China—as is—is oil needy. In that light, Trump’s comments earlier this month about Xi & Taiwan may not have been the green light many thought they were. Meaning, by saying “that’s up to him,” it might have been a warning.
Time will tell.
Until then, it’s enough to raise Trump’s grade handling China to a C.
***
Evaluating Trump’s second term handling of China prompts us to circle back to Iran—especially his tightening grip on a chunk of Beijing’s oil supplies.
Strategically, Trump could have achieved this last June. He should have. Particularly since the U.S. had sufficient assets in the region & a willing partner in Israel.
That said, there has been a higher tragic & needless human cost to Trump’s dithering. Khamenei, undeterred by Trump, has been killing his own people in the uprising that began in the bazaars of Iran on December 28th.
Granted, Trump’s inclination appears to have been to help & come to the aid of the protesters––and that’s certainly admirable. But, as he quickly found out, the U.S. simply didn’t have the means of acting decisively in Iran due to the buildup of U.S. military forces in the Caribbean.
Blame Pete Hegseth for that. As the Secretary of War—or Defense—it is his job to be prepared for all contingencies. Simply put, he failed.
Iran’s streets erupted & Hegseth had no game-changing options at the ready. Estimates vary widely, but many outlets are reporting upwards of 16,000 Iranian civilians have been slaughtered by Khamenei & his thugs.
That—tragically—is a bloody overall F on Iran.
***
Everyone has a bad week. Trump, thus far, is having a disastrous week when it comes to Greenland & his Gaza Peace Board.
Many things can be true at once. Trump might want his Thomas Jefferson-like Louisiana Purchase moment in time. One last commercial real estate triumph. Ditto securing—in his mind—a platform for a much-needed Golden Dome.
(By the way, he gets an A+ on Golden Dome itself. The U.S. absolutely needs to heavily invest in a potent multilayered air defense system given new & rapidly emerging threats—including drones, hypersonic missiles & North Korean ICBMs.)
HOWEVER, Trump could achieve all of that & much more without threatening—or even implying—that he might be willing to militarily invade & conquer Greenland. Doing it this way—bluffing, threatening & throwing a temper tantrum the way he did in a letter to Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre by whining about the Nobel Peace Prize snub––is needlessly self-defeating.
It also risks destroying NATO. A point not lost on Kirill Dmitriev—Putin’s special envoy to the U.S.—who has been gloating on X all week. Posts like the European Union & the United Kingdom “have no cards.” Another proclaiming that the EU & NATO “lost” & that “it’s time for [their leaders] to start drinking!”
Even Putin senses the opportunity to deliver a death blow to NATO. During an address, he noted that the U.S. has been trying to buy Greenland since the 1860s.
True, but Putin’s intent here is to use it to justify his war on Ukraine—and please mark our words here—to eventually justify it to invade the Baltic States & Moldova if he is allowed to win. Washington cannot allow that to happen.
Team Trump throwing Putin a lifeline in Ukraine is self-defeating. Giving him yet another lifeline in the Mideast by inviting him to be on the Gaza Peace Board is beyond baffling. It’s madness. Especially given his enabling of Iran & disastrous involvement in Syria.
Israel is angry about it. Cairo likely isn’t thrilled (especially given Turkey & Qatar’s presence on it—both supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood; an organization banned in Egypt).
We get it. Many in Team Trump believe Putin can play a role in deterring China in the future. Our take? That’s nonsense.
Putin—for better or worse—is wedded to Xi. Trump is not going to change that. Putin, of course, will try to exploit it but ONLY to get what he wants or what his military can’t get for him on the battlefield.
Enabling Putin is an immediate F in our book.
***
Trump’s overall final grade? F.
That said, our primary objective here isn’t to grade Trump. It is to stop the end of the Western world as we know it—one that has kept global peace since the end of World War II.
To turn his grades into As—ideally A+s—Trump needs to do the following going forward. Recognize that Putin isn’t the solution. He & Russia are the problem. Permanently solve Iran—yes, that means regime change (we’ve only ever called for it in Iran)—and you solve much of the Mideast.
Trump should build upon his call to increase U.S. defense spending to $1.5 trillion. But do so in partnership with our NATO allies & by building a similar defensive alliance to protect the Indo-Pacific.
How to start? Finally put Putin down for the count in Ukraine. Russia is there for the taking.
Year two starts tomorrow. Let’s hope—indeed, pray—that Trump gets it right. Lastly, if Trump wants extra credit, solve Cuba. The Cuban people have suffered long enough. Secretary of State Marco Rubio can attest to that.
***
Thank you for reading! We will see you tomorrow. Please subscribe, comment and share. We truly appreciate it!
Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social.
Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.
The Intrep360 is working for you guys to establish chronological and empirical trends, I applaud that effort. Yet your work effort went thru the roof and I remain in awe that you can function by catnaps.
I see Pres Trump differently. I suggest you use a Rubric of DIME then evaluate. Yet I am not using a Rubric to write, just expressing my opinion.
Also keep in mind, Trump Nobel Peace prizes are "Trump Stunts" engineered to disrupt and cause chaos in his quest for Greenland or whatever the latest strategies are. He repeats this pattern over and over. Its exhausting, wierd and that is the intent. It works.
He is not my ideal leader yet there is an allure to the man that both repells and attracts me because of the underlying strategy and policies are correct. He is the modern Samuel Flagg Bemis pumped up on steroids and automomously programmed to overwhelm by any means.
He "flipped the script" (takingJons favorite saying, his epitaph to be used on his tombstone) on NATO, assigning accountability, both in mission and money, which actually strengthened NATO as the little birdies were kicked out of the warm U.S. nest.
He correctly embraced U.S. (Elbridge Colby) strategic interests against China and protection of the "the commons" and "containment" with conservation of arms for the next long enduring 100 year war in the Pacific. I believe Taiwan is indefensible yet there will be a fight soon.
Nice take on strangling China with oil as it is intentional (you must be give credit to Trump Mark) as it is China's archilles heel.
While Trump is regenerating alliances to protect the second island chain in the Pacific he reinvigerated the Monroe Doctrine by removing a pesky dictator in Venezuela, disrupting drug trade and giving both its people and Chevron (I own stock) blue skies while waving off Commies and Putin.
He smartly did not make the "Fools Errand" (CATO book) of nation building instead made deals with its present forever corrupt institutions. Pres Little George Bush with his Neocon aspirations, Trump is not.
He changed the stupid European Greta Thornburg goals to waste trillions to reverse climate change and instead listened to Steven Koonin to prepare geoengineering and adaptation. He disrupted the European extremist trend to control free speech. Its a long term fight.
Lets face it, EU NATO has exhausted both you and Jon by endless meetings, fretting and the full use of a proxy war that is exhausting the Ukrainian people and its resources. Your goals to help Ukraine are just getting crushed by Europeans.There is so much fragility in EU it cannot function. Until EU spills its own blood in Ukraine, they await thier own demise.
Putin's endless destruction and inhumane quest to sieze Ukraines freedom is repugnant. Putin is a monster and he will use thermonuclear devices if his regime wobbles to destroy Kiev and Ukraine and noone will lift a retalitory finger in Europe or the U.S.
If the Ukrainian war stays coventional and Europe does not spill blood, Pandoras box will be cracked opened. Russia will continue to advance. Eventually, Poland and it's eastern, Baltic and Northern allies will erupt. Pres Trump will not use nuclear weapons as no U.S. strategic goals are at risk nor will he race to EUs rescue as "he only helps those who help themselves" (Kieth Kellogg).
NATO I now believe with their endless failure to take action to protect "Europe and Ukraine" will likely break apart on its own without the U.S. deciding to leave. All its ancient rivalries just behind their exquisite doors will tear it apart. The pressure from the east is speeding up the fracture which will both weaken and strengthen Europe.
Europe does not have unity of action nor a single responsibile commander without the U.S. Its nuclear umbrella is not reliable nor adequate. That eastern pressure will further fracture it. Some will go east, some West, some will try to hide in neutrality.
Europe is already lost in the "fog of war" of indecision while the U.S. has a clear strategic path, building it's own sphere of influence, protecting the commons, arranging economics and staying out of decisive and costly battles like Iran and Ukraine.
Putin released a nuclear arms race. Its covert yet make no mistake, its there. Greenland is the close consequence and it is essential to Canada, the U.S. and NATO (if it survives) to build the Golden Dome. I believe Carney will get fired over China in Canada and a less stupid person will be elected.
Yet right now, Europe continues to fret over the U.S. while Putin and Xi flood EUs area of responsibility increasing horizontal warfare pressure with the Chinese method of War Without Rules,(Gen Robert Spalding) over-immigration, lethal drugs, loss of freedom of speech, sabotage and economic turmoil and "little kinectics".
Pres Trump and his administration is shaping the world and Europe doesnt get it. Trump is mean, weird and very correct. It's very ugly to watch. Yet my hope is that EU NATO sheds blood in Ukraine soon.