WASHINGTON: In the most significant appointment yet for India from the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump on Monday announced Mike Waltz, a Congressman from Florida who is the co-chair of the India Caucus, as his new National Security Adviser.
Waltz, 50, is a retired Army colonel who served as a Green Beret, an elite special forces unit of the US Army.
He has been a member of the US House of Representatives since 2019. He has been a forceful critic of President Joe Biden's foreign policy and serves on the House Armed Services Committee, House Foreign Affairs Committee, and the House Intelligence Committee this term.
He has called for Europe to do more to support Ukraine and for the US to be more stringent with its support, aligning with a key foreign policy goal of the President-elect. He has also been a staunch critic of the Biden administration's 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Waltz has praised Trump for pushing Nato allies to spend more on defence, but unlike the President-elect has not suggested the US pull out of the alliance.
"Look we can be allies and friends and have tough conversations, " Waltz said last month
Waltz is also on the Republican’s China taskforce and has argued the US military is not as prepared as it needs to be if there is conflict in the Indo-Pacific region.
Waltz had been open about his willingness to serve in the administration and was considered a candidate to lead the Pentagon. The role of National Security Adviser does not require Senate confirmation.
Waltz is also a co-chair of the India Caucus in the House, which is the largest country-specific group in the US Congress.
Trump has been moving swiftly to announce key personnel of his incoming administration, including Susan Wiles, his White House Chief of Staff who will be the first woman to hold the position.
Trump's other appointments include Stephen Miller, as a senior adviser, who is a known critic of the H-1b visa programme which he tried to kill in Trump's first administration.
The President-elect has been quickly assembling a roster of senior staff since winning last week's election. He has already announced Tom Homan as his "border czar, " Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the United Nations, and Lee Zeldin as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
According to his website, Waltz was born in Boynton Beach, Florida, and grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute and went on to serve for 27 years in the US Army and National Guard.
As Trump's NSA, Waltz will be dealing with Ajit Doval, the Indian NSA who has dealt with a rotating roster of NSA starting with his first Michael Flynn in 2017 and then H R McMaster, John Bolton, and then Robert Brien; all in the Trump administration.
Doval then dealt with Jake Sullivan, NSA to President Joe Biden, who is expected to serve out his full term and leave the administration at the end of his tenure on January 20, 2025.