Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe.
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon is clearly gleeful as we sit down to discuss the new U.S. National Security Strategy and the hostility it displays toward America’s supposed allies in Europe.
With its brutal claim that Europe is headed for “civilizational erasure,” the document prompted gasps of horror from European capitals when it was released this month. But the MAGA firebrand — and current host of the influential “War Room” podcast — only has words of praise.
“It is a shot across the bow of the EU, and even NATO,” he purred, seemingly astonished that the 33-page document ever saw the light of day in its published form without being muted by the more fainthearted Trump aides. Famously, Bannon had once claimed he wanted “to drive a stake through the Brussels vampire.” And now, he and other MAGA influencers get to sharpen their stake with the encouragement of U.S. government policy.
Above all, it’s what Bannon describes as the commitment to “back resistance movements to the globalists” that thrills him most. “It was pleasantly shocking that it was so explicit,” he said of the document’s prioritization of support for so-called “patriotic European parties,” with the aim of halting the continent’s supposed slide into irreversible decline due to mass migration, falling birth rates and the dilution of national cultural identities.
But while Bannon extols Trump’s foreign-policy priorities, former U.S. diplomats fret the administration may be signaling an intention to go beyond expressing its rhetorical support for MAGA’s ideological allies and browbeating their opponents. Could Washington be tempted to launch more clandestine activities? And if the continent’s current trajectory does, indeed, represent a threat to U.S. national security interests by weakening transatlantic allies — as the document claims — would that justify straying into the unsettling territory of covert action?
In short, could we see a reprise of Cold War tactics of political subversion? A time that saw the CIA competing with the KGB, meddling in elections in Italy and Greece, secretly funding academic journals, magazines and think tanks across Western Europe, and disseminating black propaganda to shape public opinion and counter Soviet propaganda.
“[The NSS] could just be seen as a guiding document for people who are trying, in an overt way, on behalf of the Trump administration, to exert influence over the direction of European politics,” said Jeff Rathke, head of the American-German Institute at Johns Hopkins University.
But the former U.S. diplomat worries it could also entail more: “It remains unclear the degree to which other parts of the U.S. national security and foreign policy establishment might also see it as a nudge to do things that go beyond simple overt expressions of endorsement and support,” he said. “That, I think, is an interesting dimension that hasn’t really been explored in the media reporting so far.”
According to Rathke, who previously served in the U.S. embassies in Dublin, Moscow and Riga, and was the deputy director of the State Department’s Office of European Security and Political Affairs, “different agencies of the U.S. government” are now probably trying to figure out how the NSS should shape their own activities.
NSS documents are generally aspirational, explained former U.S. diplomat and CIA officer Ned Price. “They set out the broad parameters of what an administration hopes to achieve and act as a helpful guide. When you’re talking about something like covert action, the NSS isn’t in itself a green light to do something. That would take a presidential finding and a lot of back-and-forth between the president and the CIA director,” he told POLITICO.
But while Price finds it unlikely the administration would resort to covert action, he doesn’t categorically rule it out either. “Maybe in extremes, it could go back to Cold War-era CIA activities,” he mused. “That said, there’s been a lot of rule-bending. There are a lot of norms being broken. I don’t want to be too precious and say this administration couldn’t do such a thing — but it would be highly risky.”
Bannon, for his part, pooh-poohs the idea that the administration would organize clandestine operations against European liberals and centrists. “Even if Trump ordered it, there would be zero chance his instructions would be executed — particularly by the intelligence agencies,” he scoffed. As far as he sees it, they’re all “deep state” enemies of MAGA.
Plus, why would you need covert action when you have the MAGA movement and deep-pocketed tech billionaires like Elon Musk promoting far-right European figures and parties?
Trump aides like Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers say they oppose the DSA, which aims to block harmful speech and disinformation, because it amounts to foreign influence over online speech, stifles the free speech of Americans, and imposes costs on U.S. tech companies. But European MAGA allies have lobbied Washington hard to help them push back against the legislation, which, they say, is largely aimed at silencing them. The Department of State declined a POLITICO interview request with Rogers, referring us to the White House.
The NSS will now likely turbocharge these transatlantic activities, and we’ll no doubt see the administration give even more love and attention to their “ideological allies in Europe,” said Price. “Instead of hosting the German chancellor, maybe we’ll see the hosting of the AfD head in the Oval Office.”
For Europe’s ultraconservatives and populists, the document serves as an invitation to double their efforts to gain MAGA blessings as they try to reforge their politics in Trump’s image, hoping that what’s worked for him in America will work for them in Europe. “I think, in the past it was a big mistake that conservative forces were just focused on their own countries,” explained Markus Frohnmaier, an Alternative for Germany (AfD) lawmaker who sits on the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee.
Frohnmaier is among the AfD politicians flocking to the U.S. to meet with Trump officials and attend MAGA events. Earlier this month, he was the guest of honor at a gala hosted by New York’s Young Republicans Club, where he was awarded a prize in memory of founding CIA director Allen Dulles, who had overseen the agency’s massive operation to manipulate Italy’s 1948 election and ensure a Soviet-backed Popular Front didn’t win.
“What we’re trying to do is something new, with conservatives starting to interact and network seriously to try to help each other with tactics and messaging and to spotlight the issues important for us,” he told POLITICO.
Among the key issues for Frohnmaier is Germany’s firewall (brandmauer), which excludes the AfD from participating in coalition governments at the federal and state levels. He and other AfD politicians have discussed this with MAGA figures and Trump officials, urging them to spotlight it as “undemocratic” and help them smash it.
But Bannon hopes it isn’t just the firewall that cracks — and he’s clearly relishing upcoming opportunities to amplify the radical populist message across Europe. “I think MAGA will be much more aggressive in Europe because President Trump has given a green light with the national security memo, which is very powerful,” he said. And he’s brimming with iconoclastic schemes to smash the bloc’s liberal hegemony and augment the Trump administration’s efforts.
Interestingly, first up is Ireland.
“I’m spending a ton of time behind the scenes on the Irish situation to help form an Irish national party,” Bannon told POLITICO.
At first glance, Ireland wouldn’t seem the most promising territory for MAGA. Last year, none of the far-right candidates came anywhere near winning a seat in the Dáil, and this year, professional mixed martial arts fighter and MAGA favorite Conor McGregor had to drop out of Ireland’s presidential race, despite endorsements from both Trump and Musk.
None of that’s deterring Bannon, though. “They’re going to have an Irish MAGA, and we’re going to have an Irish Trump. That’s all going to come together, no doubt. That country is right on the edge thanks to mass migration,” he said definitively.
Of course, Britain, France and Germany figure prominently in future MAGA plans too: “MAGA thinks the European governments, by and large, are deadbeats. They love AfD. They love what National Rally is doing. They love Nigel Farage,” he said.