GOP foreign policy elites don’t know whether they’ll serve if Trump is president

When the Republican foreign policy elite gets together these days, conversation quickly veers from challenges such as the Islamic State or North Korea to focus on two questions. How has Donald Trump come so close to becoming the party’s standard-bearer? If Trump were elected president, would any of them serve in his administration?

“It’s the only thing we can talk about,” said Eliot Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University and a former George W. Bush administration official. He’s answered the second question by spearheading an anti-Trump petition, which now has signatures of 121 GOP national security experts.

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Trump “is a massive outlier,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an officially nonpartisan antiterrorism think tank where many Republicans have found an out-of-office home. But beyond those who have said they would never work for Trump, “there are hundreds and hundreds left who have stayed silent.” For many, he said, self-interest may triumph over ideology if and when it becomes clear Trump will be the GOP nominee.

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