What Happens When Warnings Are Inconvenient
Tulsi Gabbard has dismantled the Global Trends report, erasing decades of long-term intelligence forecasting because its truths clash with Trump’s political agenda.
Setting the Stage
The New York Times reports that Tulsi Gabbard, now Director of National Intelligence, has eliminated the team responsible for the Global Trends report, a long-term intelligence forecast issued every four years. Past editions warned about climate change, pandemics, migration, and global instability, with many predictions that proved prescient. Gabbard’s office called the report partisan and “in violation of tradecraft standards,” but former officials insist the real issue is political inconvenience.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan responded bluntly: “The United States is not going to be as prepared and as capable to contend with this challenge going forward.” His warning underscores the stakes: shutting down foresight does not stop threats from arriving, it just blinds us to them.
The Power at Play
The elimination of the Global Trends report is part of a larger campaign: dismantling the capacity of U.S. institutions to plan for the future. In recent months, Gabbard has also shuttered the National Intelligence University and cut back officers monitoring foreign election interference. At the Pentagon, Trump’s team earlier killed the Office of Net Assessment, which once helped leaders imagine the wars of tomorrow. Now, the Trump administration has stretched this philosophy across the federal government. Independent analysis is treated as an obstacle to power.
This is the same playbook used against the Federal Trade Commission and other independent agencies. The Supreme Court has already allowed Trump to fire an FTC commissioner, undermining a nearly century-old precedent that insulated regulators from presidential purges. Stripped of foresight and stripped of independence, the machinery of government becomes little more than an echo chamber for the president’s will.
The Global Trends project was not just a report but an exercise in developing analytic methods and global networks. It helped prevent U.S. policymakers from being blindsided. In Europe, intelligence agencies like the UK’s Joint Intelligence Organisation continue to issue long-range assessments precisely because they understand strategic foresight is national security. By abandoning it, the U.S. isolates itself, less prepared than its allies and more vulnerable than its rivals.
A Lens of Justice
This decision does not just weaken government. It disproportionately harms marginalized communities. Long-term threats like climate change and pandemics hit hardest at those with the least resources. The 2017 Global Trends report predicted that a pandemic could destabilize economies and societies. We learned in 2020 that those most affected were frontline workers, disproportionately women and people of color.
Similarly, as climate-driven drought displaces millions, it is often Indigenous communities and migrants who bear the brunt. When officials declare that climate warnings are “partisan,” they are also saying that these lives are disposable. Wealthier families can buy air conditioning, private health care, or even relocate. Poorer communities cannot. The erasure of foresight is not neutral. It is a political choice to privilege the survival of the powerful over the survival of the vulnerable.
Reframing the Debate
Conservatives frame this as cleaning up bias, but “bias” is a euphemism. What they call partisan is actually scientific consensus. The debate is not neutrality versus politics. It is reality versus denial. When intelligence officers warn about climate change, they are not endorsing a party platform; they are describing facts observable in the world.
Progressives should reframe foresight as an act of responsibility. A government that refuses to plan for the next decade is like a parent who refuses to save for their child’s future. The right’s dismissal of foresight is not about professional standards. It is about maintaining plausible deniability so they can ignore inconvenient truths. If the map shows danger ahead, they insist the map is broken because acknowledging the danger would require them to act.
Building the Conversation
When talking with skeptics, shift away from abstract debates about “bias” and anchor the conversation in lived consequences. Ask: if intelligence ignored pandemic warnings before 2020 and millions died, what happens when we erase foresight entirely? Use storytelling: the California farmer watching crops fail from drought, the family in Louisiana displaced by yet another hurricane, the Midwestern town hollowed out by climate migration. These are not hypotheticals. They are today’s headlines.
International comparisons can also land powerfully. The UK and EU continue to produce foresight reports, ensuring their governments remain aware of slow-moving risks. Why should America, with more resources than any of them, deliberately choose ignorance? The refusal to plan is not strength. It is surrender.
And remind people of shared values: preparation is responsibility. If conservatives claim the mantle of “family values,” then ask what value a government has if it refuses to safeguard the world our children will inherit.
The Counterpoint Trap
“The Global Trends team pursued a partisan political agenda.” → Strawmanning
This reframes objective science as politics to delegitimize inconvenient truths. The reality is that intelligence forecasting has been bipartisan for decades.
Takeaway: Emphasize that reality does not bend to party platforms. Climate change is not partisan.
“We are just eliminating inefficiency in government.” → False Equivalence
Cutting foresight is not efficiency. It is sabotage. You can streamline bureaucracy without erasing its only long-term planning body.
Takeaway: Point out that efficiency means improving analysis, not destroying it.
“Presidents should set national security priorities, not analysts.” → Projection
This argument hides a power grab. Analysts exist precisely to provide independent judgment so political leaders do not get trapped in their own echo chambers.
Takeaway: Stress that real accountability requires independent analysis, not political loyalty.
Deeper Dive
Naomi Oreskes & Erik Conway, Merchants of Doubt
Explains how industries and politicians manufacture skepticism to delay action on crises like climate change. Essential for seeing how “bias” claims are weaponized.Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk
A gripping account of how dismantling government expertise, especially in forecasting and planning, creates catastrophic vulnerability.Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise Built in Hell
Shows how communities respond to disasters and why preparation matters, centering resilience and justice rather than panic.Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom
A classic exploration of how foresight and equity must go hand in hand to build societies that can thrive under pressure.
The Last Laugh
Killing the Global Trends report does not stop the future. It just guarantees we meet it unprepared. Pretending a storm is not coming will not keep you dry. It just means you threw away the umbrella to score political points.