President Trump’s ability to get along with America’s top military allies is the dominant storyline of this week’s NATO summit in Brussels.
But an intriguing subplot is emerging over Mr. Trump’s ability to get along with his own top military adviser.
Despite repeated Pentagon denials of a rift, the relationship between Mr. Trump and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis remains a source of intense speculation in Washington and in numerous NATO capitals, where the four-star Marine general is seen as a steadying force and calm voice in a U.S. administration that seems determined to question some of the fundamental premises and practices of the Western alliance.
The Brussels summit will be the first intentional trip the two men have made since Mr. Trump’s landmark North Korea summit in Singapore, a crowning moment of Mr. Trump’s diplomacy where Mr. Mattis and the Pentagon were conspicuous by their absence. Since that summit, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been the face of the administration’s North Korean outreach, even as Mr. Trump has made military gestures to the North that took Mr. Mattis and his generals by surprise.
The Pentagon repeatedly has shot down reports that Mr. Mattis is increasingly being frozen out of Mr. Trump’s inner national security circle, reports that refuse to die down ahead of NATO’s annual ministerial meeting that starts Wednesday.
Mr. Mattis “works behind the scenes, and works quietly” compared with some more public and political figures in Mr. Trump’s Cabinet and circle of aides, said Magnus Nordenman, director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, but his value to the administration should not be underestimated.
“The [European Union], from Day One, saw Mattis as their friend and colleague. At the end of the day, they believe everything will be fine as long as he stays in office and has the ear of the president,” Mr. Nordenman said. “If his star is fading, then fear among NATO [members] will rise.”
A former four-star Marine general, Mr. Mattis is one of the last remaining members of Mr. Trump’s original national security appointments still on the job.
His policy allies, including Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, have been replaced by more hawkish figures with a personal rapport with the boss. Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo now runs Foggy Bottom, and Gen. McMaster was succeeded by onetime U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton.
During their tenure, Mr. Mattis, Mr. Tillerson and Gen. McMaster were both praised and criticized for their moderating influence on Mr. Trump on issues such as the Iran nuclear deal, climate change and relations with Beijing. All three men appeared to be trying to roll back some of Mr. Trump’s more confrontational rhetoric against European powers within the NATO alliance.
Struggling for relevance
But the Pentagon has at times struggled to remain relevant in policy debates and repeatedly has been surprised by initiatives approved by Mr. Trump and his White House team.
The Defense Department was reportedly left in the dark on Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the groundbreaking Iran nuclear deal in May. Prior to that, Mr. Trump abruptly announced via Twitter plans to ban all transgender troops from serving in the U.S. military, despite the fact that Mr. Mattis and his staff were still in the midst of a six-month review of the Obama-era policy allowing transgender troops in the armed forces. Mr. Trump has become enamored of a new separate military Space Force for outer space; Mr. Mattis had opposed the idea in a letter to House lawmakers.
Most notably, Mr. Mattis and Defense Department staff were absent from the Singapore summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un last month, with Pentagon liaison officers remaining with White House and State Department support staff back in Seoul. U.S. military forces in South Korea were blindsided by Mr. Trump’s post-summit pledge in Singapore putting on hold major annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises.
A week before the Singapore summit, Mr. Pompeo also held a one-on-one discussion with Pakistani Army Chief of Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa, the top military official in Islamabad — a discussion traditionally conducted with the Pentagon chief. Days later, it was the State Department, not the Pentagon, that issued the formal U.S. government response to the recent cease-fire in Afghanistan between the Taliban and government forces.
Analysts say a weakened or sidelined Mr. Mattis would spark major concern on the other side of the Atlantic.
A premature exit by Mr. Mattis could be a signal to European allies that the U.S. “is no longer willing to back up the security alliances” that have underpinned the Cold War-era alliance since 1949, said Eric S. Edelman, former Pentagon policy chief in the George W. Bush administration.
“This has given us a whole different character” in the eyes of America’s NATO allies, said Mr. Edelman, now a senior adviser at the Washington-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
But a senior administration official said recent events show that the diplomatic and military strands of policy are no longer so easily separated. Mr. Mattis has repeatedly cited the need for the State Department to lead the diplomatic offensive so the U.S. military can avoid unnecessary conflict.
“I do not think these [diplomatic and military] threats separate out so easily,” the official said on the condition of anonymity,
NATO, the official added, is “a political alliance,” one with a major role for the State Department.
White House officials view the cooperation between Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon in the run-up to the NATO ministerial as harmonious, the administration official said.
Mr. Mattis may have to smooth some ruffled feathers in Brussels, as Mr. Trump has only ratcheted up his criticisms of NATO and the defense budgets of many allies in the weeks leading up to next week’s summit. The president plans to summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, perhaps NATO’s biggest critic, just days after he leaves the NATO gathering, noted Mr. Edelman, a former ambassador to Turkey.
Mr. Mattis “is going to be acutely sensitive to things that will knock the alliance off kilter,” he said. “After another bad [NATO] summit, going into the Russia meeting in Helsinki will be very unnerving to the alliance.”
• Carlo Muñoz can be reached at cmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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