U.S.-Russia meeting in Azerbaijan will mark first such face-to-face since in 2014
The meeting between Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov
.. senior military officials at the Pentagon are pushing to elevate communication and coordination between the two militaries. Under a Pentagon proposal, three-star generals at the Pentagon would routinely discuss operations over Syria with Russian counterparts.
.. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has expressed a harder line on Russia than other members of the Trump administration. During his confirmation hearing last month, Mr. Mattis said the U.S. must recognize that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance.” He classified Russia among the principal threats to the U.S.
Listen Closely: Donald Trump Proposes Big Mideast Strategy Shift
In a separate passage, one in which Mr. Trump clearly was following a script rather than freelancing, he said: “We will stop looking to topple regimes and overthrow governments, folks.”
.. On their face, these statements suggest:
— An end to the effort to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, for the effort to throw out Mr. Assad is nothing if not an effort to topple a regime.
.. — A warmer relationship with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a strongman who has demonstrated an unmistakable ferocity in his own fight against Islamic extremism
.. — A policy toward Iran that doubtless will be hostile and include an attempt to dissolve the Obama-negotiated deal on nuclear arms, but one that won’t include regime change in Tehran as an explicit goal.
.. Aaron David Miller, a longtime U.S. Middle East envoy and now vice president of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, says this Trump approach will be “transactional.” By that he means it will use whatever means are necessary to transact the specific deal on the table, whether that deal is ending the Islamic State threat or retreating from the Iranian nuclear agreement without provoking a war.
.. The Trump formula also suggests an approach unburdened by the need for consistency or adherence to any ideological framework. One problem with that approach, though, is that it is full of inherent contradictions and potential unintended consequences.
.. So teaming up with Russia and tolerating Mr. Assad in Syria to defeat Islamic State could have the unintended consequence of further empowering Iran—much as the war to topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq had the unintended consequence of clearing the path for expanded Iranian influence in the region.
.. That won’t please America’s Persian Gulf allies, who abhor Iran’s leadership, and surely isn’t the goal of Mr. Mattis and incoming national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, whose antipathy toward Iran’s clerical regime is well documented.
.. “If you end the Iran deal you’re going to end up with a lot of awkwardness and unpleasantness with Mr. Putin,” says Mr. Miller.
Trump, The Man in the Crowd
Evan Osnos has pointed out that one element to look for in Trump’s decision-making is exploitation—how he is influenced by those around him who want things like taxpayer money, or contracts, or time with the President, for themselves or their clients.
.. All of this love seems, for Trump, to demand enemies. He told the crowd that he was not against all immigrants, but “they are going to come in legally!”
.. “We have no idea who they are, where they come from, do they love us?” Trump said. “In a lot of cases, nooooo, they don’t love us.” This is the rhetoric that he has used in the past to argue for bans on Muslims or on people from certain parts of the world. It would be a mistake to believe that he has put aside those goals.
.. He walked out, with a smile, and thanked them and Trump “for the confidence you have shown in me.” Then he said, “I look forward to being the civilian leader, so long as Congress gives me the waiver and the Senate votes to consent.” He was referring to the need to work around a law that normally keeps generals from leading the Department of Defense until they have been retired for seven years. (Mattis has been out for three.) Then Mattis left the stage, as Trump returned, nodding approvingly. “Oh, if he didn’t get that waiver there’d be a lot of angry people,” he said. “Such a popular choice.”
.. Trump did not explore one of the reasons that the choice has been popular: the idea that Mattis will be someone he will listen to, and will guard him from the recklessness that others around him, such as retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, Trump’s designee for national-security adviser and an in-Tower conspiracy theorist, might encourage.
.. Trump went on to say that torture might not yield the information people expected, but, “if it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it. I would be guided by that.” This was a remarkable admission: that torture might be something worth doing just for the emotionally satisfying spectacle of it.
.. And that is why the rallies are likely to endure: to serve as calibrators of or infomercials for what Trump believes that “the public” wants. One can waste a lot of time delving into the question of Trump’s psychological need for affirmation. What is politically more important is how he might use the set piece of a cheering crowd to brush aside other considerations, particularly those involving the checks on the Presidency, and the willingness of those in other areas of the government, or in the White House itself, to exercise them. Should courts worry about “a lot of angry people”?
Mattis on Our Way of War
Some of General Mattis’s statements and reasoning follow; my comments are in italics.
–America doesn’t lose wars, it loses interest.
–We have no overall strategy about how to defeat our enemy. (Just killing them is not working because, as I wrote years ago, the proper analogy comes from Greek mythology, Hercules’ adventure where, for every enemy soldier he killed, ten more sprung up in each one’s place.)
.. –Irregular warfare must become a core competency of our military; also our new weaponry must be focused on this new kind of war. (Most military training and procurement still concerns the strategy of World War II.)
.. Pentagon insiders say that he rubbed civilian officials the wrong way—not because he went all “mad dog,” which is his public image, and the view at the White House, but rather because he pushed the civilians so hard on considering the second- and third-order consequences of military action against Iran.
.. Washington did have a “strategy” when it attacked Iraq, the neoconservative one. This was to intimidate the Muslim world with massive bombing, “Shock and Awe”we called it, so all Muslims would be afraid of us and then do what we ordered. Then we planted giant, billion-dollar American air bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. These would, they thought, give us hegemony over Central Asia, intimidate Russia and Iran, while Iraq would turn into a friendly, modern democracy dependent upon Washington.
.. In past wars American “strategy” has usually been to return to the status quo ante, the prewar situation. Washington violates nearly all of Sun Tzu’s dictums for success. Endless wars for little purpose and with no end strategy are thus likely to continue. They are, however, profitable or beneficial for many Washington interests.