Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has proven himself to be expert in maneuvering around President Trump, serving the country’s interests and not the peculiar emotional needs of the president and guiding the national defense posture back to a footing widely acceptable on both sides of the aisle.
Failure to meet our defense objectives will result in decreasing U.S. global influence, eroding cohesion among allies and partners, and reduced access to markets that will contribute to a decline in our prosperity and standard of living. Without sustained and predictable investment to restore readiness and modernize our military to make it fit for our time, we will rapidly lose our military advantage, resulting in a Joint Force that has legacy systems irrelevant to the defense of our people.
In a much-remarked upon pivot, he defined our biggest threat not as jihadist terrorism but from aggressive big powers, China and Russia in particular. (Mitt Romney gets credit for spotting the latter in the 2012 presidential race.) With regards to Russia, he addressed the threat it poses to the West — something Trump never does:
Russia seeks veto authority over nations on its periphery in terms of their governmental, economic, and diplomatic decisions, to shatter the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and change European and Middle East security and economic structures to its favor. The use of emerging technologies to discredit and subvert democratic processes in Georgia, Crimea, and eastern Ukraine is concern enough, but when coupled with its expanding and modernizing nuclear arsenal the challenge is clear.
He also slyly rebuked Trump apologists who say Trump’s unpredictability is desirable. As Mattis put it, “Be strategically predictable, but operationally unpredictable. Deterring or defeating long-term strategic competitors is a fundamentally different challenge than the regional adversaries that were the focus of previous strategies. Our strength and integrated actions with allies will demonstrate our commitment to deterring aggression, but our dynamic force employment, military posture, and operations must introduce unpredictability to adversary decision-makers. With our allies and partners, we will challenge competitors by maneuvering them into unfavorable positions, frustrating their efforts, precluding their options while expanding our own, and forcing them to confront conflict under adverse conditions.”
In addition, he places appropriately heavy emphasis on our international alliances. “Mutually beneficial alliances and partnerships are crucial to our strategy, providing a durable, asymmetric strategic advantage that no competitor or rival can match,” the NDS states. “This approach has served the United States well, in peace and war, for the past 75 years. Our allies and partners came to our aid after the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and have contributed to every major U.S.-led military engagement since. Every day, our allies and partners join us in defending freedom, deterring war, and maintaining the rules which underwrite a free and open international order.” In other words, they are not a burden but a crucial part of our national security strategy. He also points to the danger of operating without regard to our allies interests.
The document is straightforward, professional and persuasive — very un-Trumpian, in other words. He deserves great credit for setting forth a vision that will not engender push-back from Trump but will fully address our national security needs. His admonition to Congress to stop operating by continuing resolution and shutdown cliffhangers was well-timed. “As hard as the last 16 years have been, no enemy in the field has done more to harm the readiness of the U.S. military than the combined impact of the Budget Control Act, defense spending cuts and operating in nine of the last 10 years under continuing resolutions,” he said.
Mattis remains above and outside Trump’s dysfunctional and ethical cloud that seems to envelop so many of his Cabinet colleagues. He’s remained a voice of reason on North Korea, Iran and Russia, despite erratic pronouncements from the White House. For all this, we can say, well done, Mr. Secretary.
