It was only days ago that new US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz was belatedly confirmed by the Senate, in a drawn-out and somewhat embarrassing ordeal which took six months. Waltz took his seat at the UN Security Council for the first time Monday, and already came out swinging with anti-Russian sentiment, and appearing to side with the hawks in NATO.
“The United States stands by our NATO allies in the face of these airspace violations,” Waltz said. “And I want to take this first opportunity to repeat and to emphasize the United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory.”
Estonia and its partners in Europe have been making a lot of noise over the alleged Russian jet violation of its airspace days ago, which Moscow has vehemently rejected.
Days prior to that, there were reported drone incursion incidents also in NATO member Poland and Romania, resulting in jets being scrambled to monitor and intercept the UAVs which had been initially operating over Ukraine.
While Waltz’s warnings can be seen as hawkish, in his prior national security advisory position, he expressed Trump’s vision that Ukraine will never be in NATO. For example, last spring:
National security adviser Mike Waltz said on Sunday the U.S. does “not see Ukraine being a member of NATO.”
“One thing is clear, we do not see Ukraine being a member of NATO, because that would automatically drag U.S. troops in,” Waltz told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”
That prior position appears incongruous with the new assertions as UN ambassador that the United States is ready to ‘defend every inch’ of NATO.
Even Trump last week downplayed the drone incidents as well as latest jet incursions in Estonia. Trump merely said over the weekend “I don’t like it” and previously suggested the drone activity was inadvertent.
To review of Waltz’s tumultuous path toward the UN ambassadorship:
The vote on Waltz could easily have gone the other way. When his confirmation vote reached the floor, 10 senators were absent (there’s a reason Friday afternoon votes are uncommon), and Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky opposed Trump’s nominee.
That might’ve spelled doom for Waltz, were it not for the fact that three Senate Democrats — Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire — voted to confirm him, resulting in a 47-43 final tally.
This outcome might’ve been difficult to imagine in the spring. As regular readers know, Waltz’s troubles began in earnest, of course, in March after he organized a Signal chat to discuss sensitive operational details of a foreign military strike. That chat accidentally included a journalist.
In the days that followed, there were multiple reports that the Signal chat about a military operation in Yemen was not the first of its kind and that Waltz also allegedly used a private email account to conduct government business.
Publicly, the White House backed Waltz, but NBC News reported that Trump had privately “expressed frustration” with his aide.
Despite all of this Waltz will be even more visible, representing the US administration at the United Nations – where President Trump is getting ready to address the General Assembly on Tuesday.