Reflecting on the First 100 Days of the Trump Administration: A Political-Organizational Perspective

By Yahel Arnon 

When looking at the Trump administration through the prism of the stages of starting a new job, we should remember that the new President, as well as most of the people appointed to support him in the execution of his task, are inexperienced in the management of the systems and the people under their responsibility. In other words, if we rush to examine the Trump administration during its first few months in order to assess its future actions – against the background of orders banning the entry of Muslims from some countries defined as threats; ambivalent moves regarding Russia; attacks on the American media; settling accounts with members of the previous administration and attempts to erase the Obama legacy; the warm embrace of the Israeli Prime Minister and the declarations regarding policy in the Middle East; and the attack in Syria in response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons – we would do well to identify the stage the administration has reached in the empirical process of starting a new job. Any study of the administration's current behavior must take into account the possibility that what we are seeing now will not necessarily reflect the future picture.

© The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) - Sunday, April 23, 2017