Speakers at SOF conference tiptoe around Trump on Ukraine, allies
Almost no-one mentions “the elephant in the room”
President Donald Trump was the “elephant in the room” at a Feb. 20 Washington special operations conference, as numerous speakers implicitly questioned his policies, but without mentioning him by name.
Days after Trump appeared to reverse decades of U.S. policy by cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and repeating Kremlin lies accusing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of being a “dictator” who started the war in Ukraine, panelists at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Special Operations Symposium nonetheless referred to Russia as an adversary and hailed U.S. special operations forces for the role they have played in helping Ukraine resist the Russian invasion that actually started the war.
“We want to be teamed with nations around the world that [support the] rules-based order” and that want “to push back against” countries like China and Russia “that are oppressive or [use] diplomatic coercion,” said Army Gen. Bryan Fenton, head of U.S. Special Operations Command.