Jim Mattis and his boss don’t see eye to eye on Russian threat

Source: Washington Examiner | July 24, 2018 | Jamie McIntyre

As the cameras panned President Trump’s national security team as they sat across a conference table from President Putin in Helsinki, there was one face that was noticeably absent: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.

Mattis could be spotted a few days earlier escorting his boss around NATO’s gleaming new headquarters during the allied summit in Brussels, but unlike Pompeo was not called upon to speak, and remained for the most part where he is most comfortable — in the background, out of the limelight.

While the rest of Trump’s team left Belgium for the marquee event in Finland, Mattis continued to Croatia and Norway for the less glamorous, but important business of ally maintenance.

The defense secretary had his work cut out for him after six-day stretch in which President Trump again berated NATO allies as deadbeats; accused Germany of being a captive of Russia; chastised British Prime Minister Theresa May for bungling Brexit; called the European Union an economic foe; and capped it all off with a squirm-inducing performance in Helsinki in which he faulted the U.S. for being “foolish” while praising Russia’s Vladimir Putin for his “powerful” denial of interference in U.S. elections.

Mattis’ job just got “100 percent more difficult,” said former Pentagon and State Department spokesman John Kirby on CNN after Trump’s widely-criticized appearance with Putin.

“If I’m Jim Mattis or I’m Mike Pompeo, I’m thinking, holy cow, what do I do now? How do I wake up tomorrow and figure out, what am I going to do in terms of policy?” said Kirby, a retired Navy Rear Admiral.

Mattis, who was once Trump’s favorite cabinet member back when he liked to call for retired Marine “Mad Dog,” is now increasingly the odd man out, with his views rarely sought and his advice even more rarely followed.

Yet Mattis plods along, showing no outward sign of frustration, and going about the methodical and often thankless job of attempting to reshape the U.S. military into his vision of a more nimble, modern, and lethal force.

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