Speaking during a commencement address at the academy, Vance said the second Trump administration marks the end of policies geared toward meddling in other nations and against focusing on hard power.
That “doesn’t mean that we ignore threats but means that we approach them with discipline and if we send you to war, we do it with a very specific set of goals in mind,” Vance told the 1,049 graduates in the Naval Academy’s class of 2025.
“No more undefined missions. No more open-ended conflicts,” Vance said, adding that he and Trump would “never ask you to do anything without a clear mission and a clear path home.”
He pointed to the U.S. military’s airstrikes against Houthi militants in Yemen – launched in March as an effort to stop the rebels from attacking American vessels in the Red Sea to questionable effect – as an example of the type of targeted and limited mission Trump would seek.
“We pursued that goal through overwhelming force,” Vance said. “That’s how military power should be used: Decisively with a clear objective.”
He also praised Trump’s Middle East trip last week while bashing the foreign policy decisions of previous presidents.
“We had a long experiment in our foreign policy that traded national defense and the maintenance of our alliances for nation-building and meddling in foreign countries’ affairs,” Vance said. “Even when those foreign countries had very little to do with poor American interests. What we’re seeing from President Trump is a generational shift in policy with profound implications for the job that each and every one of you will be asked to do.”
Vance, a former senator from Ohio, joined the Marine Corps and served in Iraq as a military journalist, later attending Ohio State University and Yale Law School.
Watch the full address at TheHill.com.
