Seriously?
Why does Donald Trump need any staff?
A guy who ran a NYC Real Estate company with little staff and no Board of Directors is at 2 years as President running things the exactly same way….
He doesn’t listen to his Defense, Intelligence or even Economic staff….
He gets his information from rightwingnut talking heads…
His foreign policy consists of his feeling that America doesn’t need anyone that doesn’t ‘pay’ for its services….
His actual actions leave just about EVERYTHING undone….
With Defense Sec Mattis gone in a week we will get his #2 elevated to Sec title ……
Unlike others?
He’ll probably confirmed right away because SOMEBODY HAS to run the nation’s military….
Mattis isn’t irreplaceable….
But he was the guy most of us though could let us sleep at night knowing he was a sane head in the Trump admin…
One by one?
Trump is cutting those people away from his staff….
Trust in military affairs is based on clarity and consistency—saying what you will do, doing it, and making it clear when and why you are changing course. It is the bedrock for the Pentagon’s effectiveness, and after two years of this administration and despite the best efforts of Secretary Mattis and his team it is broken with almost every group of stakeholders that matters.
They will need to rebuild relationships. Allies will need to be brought back into the fold. The bridge to congress that every effective SecDef has nurtured and leaned on will need its own infrastructure project. The unique relationship with the press that lives inside the Building will need to be rebooted. And the American people will need to know more, not less, about what it’s military is up to so they can feel confidence in its actions.
They will need to rebuild processes. When you are talking about putting America’s sons and daughters into mortal danger you need to have systems and processes in place that ensure the facts you are depending on are correct, that the decisions you are making are sound, and that all the options have been considered. When those systems are ignored or circumvented they begin to crumble. Similar systems exist for interacting with our allies and our advisories so that we are able to avoid unneeded confrontation and maximize the impact of our actions. Those processes will need to be reengaged and reinvigorated.
They will need to rebuild morale. Sudden changes in strategy, ignoring senior military officers, unnecessary holiday season deployments to the border—all of these actions erode morale. The decisions that are made in the Situation Room ripple down to the most junior personnel in the military, and the instability that Trump creates threatens the confidence of everyone in uniform. That is a problem, and it will need to be addressed.
America leads because it is not only good for the world, but it is good for America. Decades of work building systems and relationships that allow us to sit in that leadership position are being thrown out the window, weakening our position not just militarily, but diplomatically and economically….
Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan will replace outgoing Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Jan. 1, President Trump tweeted on Sunday, ending Mattis’s tenure two months prior to his planned resignation date.
“I am pleased to announce that our very talented Deputy Secretary of Defense, Patrick Shanahan, will assume the title of Acting Secretary of Defense starting January 1, 2019. Patrick has a long list of accomplishments while serving as Deputy, &previously Boeing. He will be great!” Trump wrote.
Shanahan, who has engineering degrees from the University of Washington and MIT, had no military or foreign policy experience before becoming deputy defense secretary last year.
The abrupt decision to push Mattis out sooner comes amid a growing crescendo of criticism of the president’s snap decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, which prompted Mattis’ resignation on Friday, as well as the resignation of the top U.S.diplomat in charge of defeating ISIS, Brett McGurk. It follows two days of wall-to-wall coverage of Mattis’s resignation letter, which was a stinging rebuke of the president’s foreign policy and his rejection of international alliances like NATO….
image…kv3.com