Small Wars Journal

Mattis and Trump: The Odd Couple That Works

Wed, 04/26/2017 - 3:54am

Mattis and Trump: The Odd Couple That Works by David Ignatius, Washington Post

As President Trump nears the 100-day benchmark, it’s a good moment to examine the relationship that has evolved between the mercurial and inexperienced commander in chief and his unflappable defense secretary, Jim Mattis.

It’s an unlikely partnership, but so far it mostly seems to work. Trump may have relatively few domestic-policy accomplishments to show after three months, but he can take credit for selecting a generally solid national-security team and for listening to its advice.

Traveling with Mattis last week in the Middle East, I had a chance to watch the delicate balancing act between a media-obsessed White House and a national-security leadership that mostly would be happy to stay out of the news.

During his meetings in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel, Mattis focused on alliance issues. But the big running stories last week were about symbolic displays of U.S. military power by the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, and by dropping a massive weapon in Afghanistan whose nickname, “Mother of All Bombs,” was catnip for journalists. Mattis struggled to adapt to this ever-shifting information space, and his messaging wasn’t always clear.

Mattis is mildly eccentric by military standards, with his penchant for studying Roman philosophy in Latin and suggesting reading lists for his troops. But like every successful Marine and Army general, he is fundamentally a team player who moves with a group, rarely in isolation.

What that has meant in practice is that Mattis has bonded with Trump’s other key foreign policy advisers: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, national security adviser H.R. McMaster, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. This is a strong, self-confident group; there’s little of the infighting that characterizes Trump’s domestic advisers.

Mattis’s closest link, interestingly, may be with Tillerson, the ExxonMobil chief-turned-diplomat. Mattis believes that U.S. foreign policy became overmilitarized in recent years and that a strong State Department voice is essential…

Read on.