Koch-affiliated policy advisor playing key role in isolationist Pentagon appointments

A leading opponent of traditional Republican foreign policy who advocates for a vastly reduced U.S. presence in the Middle East has been quietly involved in the transition process at the Defense Department, according to four people familiar with the matter, underscoring a distinct ideological shift in the Pentagon as President Donald Trump builds his new administration.

Dan Caldwell, an Iraq War veteran and defense policy advisor with deep ties to the Koch network, has been working behind the scenes to help shape personnel decisions at the Defense Department, sources told Jewish Insider on Wednesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive topic.

Recent hiring announcements for key positions have reflected Caldwell’s preference for a more restrained foreign policy approach that would have the U.S. scale back its long-standing focus on the Middle East and regional adversaries such as Iran, while expressing a largely skeptical attitude toward Israel, among other views espoused by a growing isolationist wing of the GOP.

Michael DiMino, a former CIA military analyst and a Pentagon official in Trump’s first term, was sworn in this week as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East. Last year, he dismissed Iran’s second ballistic missile attack on Israel as a “fairly moderate” response and urged against bombing the Houthis in Yemen, instead calling for U.S. pressure on Israel to tamp down regional conflict. He has also cast doubt on the Abraham Accords, Trump’s signature foreign policy triumph, among other comments that could conflict with the administration’s expected approach to the Middle East.

DiMino most recently served as a fellow at Defense Priorities, a dovish Koch-funded think tank, where he overlapped with Caldwell — who has worked for the group as a public policy advisor. During a joint appearance in a podcast interview last summer, the two colleagues questioned Israel’s looming campaign against Hezbollah as misguided, cautioning that it would risk a broader regional war, which did not transpire.

In addition to DiMino, another ally of Caldwell’s, Elbridge Colby, has been tapped as undersecretary of defense for policy — even as his sanguine view of Iran and its nuclear ambitions, which he sees as a less urgent threat to American interests than China, has long been a source of contention in Republican foreign policy circles.

Perhaps most controversially, Colby has opposed direct military action against the Islamic Republic, while arguing that containing a nuclear Iran “is an eminently plausible and practical objective,” among other claims that have recently drawn scrutiny from hawkish conservatives. Two protégés of Colby, who has not yet been confirmed, were also named to top policy roles and sworn in on Tuesday.

“The Koch crowd,” David Wurmser, a pro-Israel foreign policy expert who served as a Middle East advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney, said in an email to JI, is “either isolationist, anti-American or both and seeks to use American fatigue to cynically weaken our allies and diminish American power.”

The picks have raised alarms among pro-Israel Republicans voicing concerns that their statements and policies are not aligned with Trump, who has indicated that he will actively engage in the Middle East — seeking to build on the Abraham Accords by normalizing ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia and returning to his maximum-pressure campaign against Iran. On Wednesday, he redesignated the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, pledging in an executive order to “eliminate” the Iran-backed proxy group’s “capabilities and operations, deprive it of resources and thereby end its attacks.”

Caldwell, whose role in the transition process has not been publicized, has taken an active position in staffing the Pentagon, even as Trump recently issued a directive against hiring those who have worked for the conservative donor Charles Koch or his political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, which has previously clashed with the president. Caldwell, for his part, has been intimately involved with the Koch network, serving as a foreign policy strategist and as a lobbyist for Americans for Prosperity, disclosures show.

David Wurmser, a pro-Israel foreign policy expert who served as a Middle East advisor to former Vice President Dick Cheney, said that Caldwell, “who is driving these appointments, comes at this from his deep affiliation with the Koch” network, which Wurmser has criticized. “The Koch crowd,” he explained in an email to JI, is “either isolationist, anti-American or both and seeks to use American fatigue to cynically weaken our allies and diminish American power.”

Despite such affiliations, Caldwell is a close ally of Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon. The two have previously worked together at another Koch-backed group, Concerned Veterans for America — and Hegseth has relied on his former colleague, among other supporters, while navigating a rocky confirmation process. 

A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday evening, and Caldwell declined to comment on his involvement in staffing the Defense Department when reached by JI. 

A Trump official involved in Middle East policy confirmed having met with Caldwell earlier this month to discuss personnel recommendations. The official, who was previously unaware of his views on the region, said that Caldwell’s approach “seems at odds with” Hegseth’s testimony during a recent Senate confirmation hearing, where he expressed support for Israel “destroying and killing every last member of Hamas.”

“The question is, why is Hegseth being surrounded by people who don’t share his views and don’t share Trump’s?” a conservative foreign policy analyst told JI. “He’s kind of given it over.”

In his testimony, Hegseth also broadly affirmed some of Caldwell’s positions as he argued that the U.S. military will need to focus on “reorienting away from entanglement in the Middle East” and that the Pentagon will need to shift “toward new priorities, specifically the Indo-Pacific.”

But critics of Caldwell suggested his stances are largely at odds with Hegseth and Trump on key issues. His positions are “the opposite of” Trump’s tough-on-Iran rhetoric, said a conservative foreign policy analyst who is wary of Caldwell’s involvement. “I’m not sure how different Dan Caldwell’s views are from the left flank of the Democratic Party’s views on Middle East issues.”

“The question is, why is Hegseth being surrounded by people who don’t share his views and don’t share Trump’s?” the analyst told JI. “He’s kind of given it over.”

In several interviews and articles, Caldwell has argued in favor of “significantly” pulling back from the Middle East, where he believes that “American interests are less pronounced,” as he argued in an essay co-written for Foreign Affairs that was titled “Trump Must Not Betray ‘America First” and published shortly after the election.

“Balancing against Iran, for instance, can be achieved largely by Israel and by the Gulf Arab nations,” he wrote in the article, arguing that the U.S. “should not have to substantially backstop them or bribe them to pursue their own interests.”

Elsewhere, Caldwell has expressed skepticism of normalizing Saudi relations with Israel and raised doubts about the value of the U.S. relationship with Israel, among other statements running counter to broadly held Republican views. He has also voiced approval of Rob Malley, a lead negotiator of the Iran nuclear deal who is under federal investigation for his handling of classified information as the Biden administration’s Iran envoy. 

Speaking on a podcast last year, Caldwell claimed that “we haven’t been able to have” what he called “an honest conversation about” Israel in more than two decades, which he said has “hurt American foreign policy.” He suggested the U.S. is “limited” in how it “can support Israel right now” — claiming that aid to Ukraine, which he opposes, has strained military resources. 

“Eventually, just like we have with Ukraine, where we’ve run out of stuff to give them,” Caldwell said on the podcast, “we may find ourselves in that same position with Israel — and it can’t be overcome right away by dumping more money into the military industrial complex.”

“This looks like a typically factional Republican condominium of interests, and it’s not surprising to me that someone of Dan’s background and experience would play some part,” said a GOP foreign policy expert familiar with Caldwell’s role.

Caldwell has also said protecting Ukraine is not a vital American interest, stressed he does not “think you should ever take something like pulling out of NATO off the table,” noted he “would not commit to defending Taiwan” and argued alliances should not “be viewed as holy sacraments.”

As Hegseth continues to seek Senate confirmation, the Defense Department is being led by Robert Salesses, the deputy director of its Washington Headquarters Services, whom Trump named acting secretary on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Caldwell is seeking to assert his foreign policy vision as the new administration takes shape, observers say. “This looks like a typically factional Republican condominium of interests, and it’s not surprising to me that someone of Dan’s background and experience would play some part,” said a GOP foreign policy expert familiar with Caldwell’s role.

Another foreign policy expert described the context as “a battle royale” between Donald Trump Jr. “and the ‘globalists’ he believes are represented by Jared Kushner” and his allies, who had populated Trump’s first administration.

Even as he has not publicly acknowledged his role, Caldwell has indicated he expects to see personnel changes that comport with his foreign policy views in a second term.“I think that there is a good chance that Trump does pursue policies that are closer to what I believe in,” he said in an interview before the election, “particularly in Europe, hopefully in the Middle East.”

“There’s a lot of folks that I think have been flying under the radar that we know of that could staff an administration,” he added. “There’s a lot of talent in different parts of the government and the think tank community that is more aligned and more willing to implement these policies than I think people realize.” 

Additional reporting contributed by JI’s senior national correspondent Gabby Deutch and senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod.