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Friday, December 21, 2018 7:22:52 PM
Mattis’s Resignation Isn’t a Crisis Yet—But It Probably Will Be
The U.S. secretary of defense was right to resign in protest, but Trump can’t handle the consequences.
By Peter Feaver | December 21, 2018, 1:12 PM
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis arrives for a closed intelligence briefing at the U.S. Capitol on December 13, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis’s resignation in protest .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/politics/jim-mattis-defense-secretary-trump.html .. has triggered the most serious civil-military challenge the Trump administration has yet faced. It is not a full-blown crisis but could easily turn into one if the administration mishandles the next several weeks or if adversaries take advantage of the policy chaos and make focused attacks on U.S. interests at home and abroad.
This challenge comes as a result of the administration’s mishandling of policies and failure to step up to adversaries at home and abroad, which means there is every reason to be pessimistic about what’s coming
First, let’s stipulate three obvious facts: Mattis left in protest and did not simply retire. President Donald Trump’s spin to the contrary lasted only a few minutes, until Mattis released his own resignation letter .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/21/defense-secretary-james-mattiss-anti-trumpism-resignation-letter-annotated/?utm_term=.8b644f609fd2 .
[...]
Trump should thus expect that Congress will call Dunford and others to testify and will ask them the awkward questions raised by the Syria and Afghanistan decisions: Will abandoning the battlefield give the Islamic State an opportunity to regroup and rebuild? Will Iran benefit from this policy decision? And how will the abandonment of the Kurds affect America’s ability to work with local partners in the future? Proper civil-military relations require that the military honestly answer those questions, even if its answers contradict the views of the commander in chief.
Mattis was able to resign in protest without triggering a crisis because he is a political appointee. Dunford and the handful of top brass entrusted with being the strategic leaders of the military should not resign in protest, even if they agree with Mattis that Trump has committed a strategic blunder that will hurt U.S. interests and likely raise the butcher’s bill in the fight against terrorists and American adversaries.
[...]
This does not mean that the president has unlimited power to do whatever he wants. On the contrary, Congress and the courts are empowered as checks on presidential mismanagement. The cabinet has constitutional power to put further limits on a rogue president. Everyone in the executive branch is required to follow the law and thus to defy outright illegal orders. And the First Amendment guarantees that individual citizens and the media can and should speak out when the president makes a mistake. But these are primarily roles for other political actors. Healthy civil-military relations depend on the other civilians—not the military—holding the president accountable.
That’s what should happen. But what will happen? Firstly, the departure of the most respected administration voice on national security—and the reckless moves that led to his departure—will mean policymaking will get harder, not easier. The military will continue to obey explicit, legal orders, but they will likely exhibit lots more foot-dragging and other forms of bureaucratic politics to slow down policies they deem unwise. The U.S. record of civil-military relations is an enviable one, but it is a record of what I call “military shirking,” namely military efforts to get policies to align with their preferences rather than the preferences of their civilian masters. And shirking increases when civilians are weak and when they try to push the military to do things the military deems unwise. The civilian side of the national security house was already pretty weak in the Trump administration. Mattis’s departure makes it even weaker.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/mattiss-resignation-isnt-a-crisis-yet-but-it-probably-will-be-syria-afghanistan/
The U.S. secretary of defense was right to resign in protest, but Trump can’t handle the consequences.
By Peter Feaver | December 21, 2018, 1:12 PM
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis arrives for a closed intelligence briefing at the U.S. Capitol on December 13, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis’s resignation in protest .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/us/politics/jim-mattis-defense-secretary-trump.html .. has triggered the most serious civil-military challenge the Trump administration has yet faced. It is not a full-blown crisis but could easily turn into one if the administration mishandles the next several weeks or if adversaries take advantage of the policy chaos and make focused attacks on U.S. interests at home and abroad.
This challenge comes as a result of the administration’s mishandling of policies and failure to step up to adversaries at home and abroad, which means there is every reason to be pessimistic about what’s coming
First, let’s stipulate three obvious facts: Mattis left in protest and did not simply retire. President Donald Trump’s spin to the contrary lasted only a few minutes, until Mattis released his own resignation letter .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/12/21/defense-secretary-james-mattiss-anti-trumpism-resignation-letter-annotated/?utm_term=.8b644f609fd2 .
[...]
Trump should thus expect that Congress will call Dunford and others to testify and will ask them the awkward questions raised by the Syria and Afghanistan decisions: Will abandoning the battlefield give the Islamic State an opportunity to regroup and rebuild? Will Iran benefit from this policy decision? And how will the abandonment of the Kurds affect America’s ability to work with local partners in the future? Proper civil-military relations require that the military honestly answer those questions, even if its answers contradict the views of the commander in chief.
Mattis was able to resign in protest without triggering a crisis because he is a political appointee. Dunford and the handful of top brass entrusted with being the strategic leaders of the military should not resign in protest, even if they agree with Mattis that Trump has committed a strategic blunder that will hurt U.S. interests and likely raise the butcher’s bill in the fight against terrorists and American adversaries.
[...]
This does not mean that the president has unlimited power to do whatever he wants. On the contrary, Congress and the courts are empowered as checks on presidential mismanagement. The cabinet has constitutional power to put further limits on a rogue president. Everyone in the executive branch is required to follow the law and thus to defy outright illegal orders. And the First Amendment guarantees that individual citizens and the media can and should speak out when the president makes a mistake. But these are primarily roles for other political actors. Healthy civil-military relations depend on the other civilians—not the military—holding the president accountable.
That’s what should happen. But what will happen? Firstly, the departure of the most respected administration voice on national security—and the reckless moves that led to his departure—will mean policymaking will get harder, not easier. The military will continue to obey explicit, legal orders, but they will likely exhibit lots more foot-dragging and other forms of bureaucratic politics to slow down policies they deem unwise. The U.S. record of civil-military relations is an enviable one, but it is a record of what I call “military shirking,” namely military efforts to get policies to align with their preferences rather than the preferences of their civilian masters. And shirking increases when civilians are weak and when they try to push the military to do things the military deems unwise. The civilian side of the national security house was already pretty weak in the Trump administration. Mattis’s departure makes it even weaker.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/mattiss-resignation-isnt-a-crisis-yet-but-it-probably-will-be-syria-afghanistan/
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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