If the first two weeks of the Trump presidency has shown anything, it's that chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon has outmaneuvered his White House rivals, Cabinet secretaries and even Republican leaders in Congress. Bannon's got a long-term strategy to dominate White House policy making for months and years. The question is whether anyone opposed to his power grab can prevent it from happening?

The most immediate effects of Bannon's influence were laid bare during the chaotic rollout of President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration. Several reports detailed how Bannon and White House policy director Stephen Miller not only took the lead in writing the order but also took charge of its defense. Cabinet secretaries, including Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, were barely kept in the loop. Rex Tillerson, then the nominee for secretary of state, was reportedly "baffled" about his lack of consultation. Republican leaders in Congress were totally unaware.

Bannon's other public coup was to have himself added as a permanent invitee to the meetings of the National Security Council and the National Security Council Principals' Committee. Because the executive order makes Bannon an invitee and does not actually alter the makeup of the National Security Council, the 1947 law requiring Senate confirmation of members does not apply to Bannon.

Some Republican leaders are alarmed by the move.

Inside the White House, Bannon is busily constructing a policy staff of his own. As the Daily Beast reported, Bannon has created his Strategic Initiatives Group, seen by some as "an alternative lodestar of power and influence" within the White House.

"It's not a team of rivals, it's rival teams," one White House official told me.

Some call the Strategic Initiatives Group Bannon's internal think tank. It's led by Christopher Liddell, a former General Motors executive who hails from New Zealand. Goldman Sachs executive Dina Powell is heavily involved, along with Baltimore real estate developer Reed Cordish. On the national security side is Sebastian Gorka, a controversial pundit and analyst with strong views on how to fight the war against Islamist extremism.

Gorka has been deployed to defend Trump's executive order on immigration in the media. He told popular radio host John Batchelor this week that the Trump administration might expand the list of countries impacted by the immigration executive order and should look at the social media of those trying to enter the United States.

"We have to think of new ways, more intensive interviews of these individuals, until we have at least certitude that this individual's attitude towards the United States, its Constitution and the Americans that live here is one that is positive and not a threat," Gorka said. "If you look at the San Bernardino attack that illustrated this issue, the capacity for federal agencies to look at public information such as social media postings, there's no good reason why that should be excluded."

Critics of Bannon's ascendancy, such as the New York Times editorial page, argue that Trump should not let Bannon take over the White House policy-making process because the president "needs advisers who can think strategically and weigh second- and third-order consequences."

Bannon and his team are doing just that -- thinking strategically and planning ahead -- and doing it more skillfully than his administration rivals. There's no sign they have the ability to stop him and no sign the president would want them to.

Josh Rogin writes commentary on national security for Bloomberg View.