Donald Trump this weekend called the U.S.-backed offensive in the Iraqi city of Mosul "a total disaster" that is making America look "so dumb." He's dismissed U.S. intelligence assessments that Moscow is hacking the 2016 elections, while declaring Russian President Vladimir Putin a better leader than U.S. President Barack Obama. He has even said he knows more than America's generals about how to defeat the Islamic State, the terrorist group in control of Mosul.

At times, Trump sounds like he's running for critic-in-chief instead of commander-in-chief.


It's not unprecedented for White House aspirants to question America's national security strategy — remember the bitter debates over the Vietnam and Iraq wars? But Trump's comments stand out, observers say, because they come across as almost-willfully ignorant about the U.S. national security apparatus. And with the Republican presidential nominee likely to continue to get attention even if he loses the Nov. 8 election, possibly by launching his own media network, his effect on the national discourse may not fade anytime soon.

"The language he uses and the lack of meaningful critique — it’s unpresidential and deeply unhelpful for American foreign policy," said Matthew Spence, a former defense official in the Obama administration. "I can’t recall a presidential candidate or even a serious national leader saying publicly that the U.S. is 'looking so dumb.'"

U.S. presidential candidates traditionally make clear distinctions about whom they are targeting when they question foreign policy decisions. While a sitting president can expect to take some hits, especially if he's running for reelection, it's unusual for a candidate to trash individual generals or American troops, especially in the middle of battle.

Crossing the line is risky. In 2007, when Hillary Clinton, known to be eyeing the White House, questioned Gen. David Petraeus' progress report on the Iraq War, she drew a conservative backlash for saying his information required "the willing suspension of disbelief."

Even in 2004, when the country was intensely debating the fallout of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, then-President George W. Bush implied White House rival John Kerry was undermining the troops by criticizing him. "I understand what it means to be the commander-in-chief," Bush said in a debate. "And if I were to ever say this is the wrong war at the wrong time at the right — wrong place, the troops would wonder, 'How can I follow this guy?'"

Clinton has repeatedly pounced on Trump's national security rhetoric. On Monday, the Democratic presidential nominee slammed Trump's tweet about Mosul. "He's basically declaring defeat before the battle has even started," Clinton said in New Hampshire. "He's proving to the world what it means to have an unqualified commander-in-chief. It's not only wrong, it's dangerous."

But Trump doubled down on his criticism of the week-old Mosul offensive, questioning why the U.S. and its allies were so public about their plans. “Why did we have to tell them we’re going in? Why didn’t we go in and then tell the public a week later: ‘Congratulations, we just got the leadership. We didn’t lose many people,’” Trump asked during a rally in Florida. "I’m telling you, folks, our leadership — I went to an Ivy League school, but there’s some words that you can’t describe any better: Our leadership is stupid. These are stupid people.”

Perhaps most grating for national security figures — including scores on the right who have, to their astonishment, sought refuge with Clinton — is that Trump doesn't seem to understand the basic facts of the situations he is describing. That's especially true when it comes to the Islamic State.

For instance, Trump's claim that the Mosul offensive should not have been announced in advance contradict standard procedure. Militaries often announce an offensive ahead of time so that civilians can try to flee and because it's impossible to keep such a large operation a secret. (The Iraqi city still has some 1.5 million inhabitants.) The Republican also has suggested that the Obama administration, which is backing Iraqi forces with airstrikes and advice, timed the offensive to boost Clinton.

"The Mosul operation is an Iraqi operation, not a U.S.-led one," rebutted Michael Singh, a former Bush administration official now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "And it appears quite likely to succeed in wresting the city from ISIS' control. The notion of a 'sneak attack' makes no sense here — this is a massive operation, and Iraqi and other coalition forces have spent months 'shaping the battlefield' in preparation for it."

Peter Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who aided Petraeus in Iraq, said political rhetoric such as Trump's can affect the morale of those "serving in uniform at the sharp end of the spear."

"I recall Sen. Harry Reid state in April 2007 that the surge had failed and the war was lost," Mansoor said of the strategic influx of U.S. troops into Iraq. "In fact, the surge was only three months old at that point and still had more than a year to run. When it was over, the surge had reduced ethno-sectarian violence in Iraq by more than 90 percent, remaking the war and enabling the political process to proceed."

But Trump has said so many unorthodox things during his White House run — including suggesting more countries should possess nuclear weapons — that people in the national security realm are getting desensitized to his once-jaw-dropping rhetoric.

"When you look at the other things he’s said about the military, about how the senior officers are a disaster and so on and so forth, my guess is most folks on active duty don’t take seriously what he has to say," said Robert Gates, who served as defense secretary for both Bush and Obama.

Trump's perceived fondness for Putin may be affecting his views of the fight against the Islamic State. The Republican's allegation that the timing of the Mosul offensive is designed to help Clinton's campaign is a charge that also has been peddled by Kremlin-backed media.

In many ways, Trump's unwillingness to sound tough on Russia, whose alleged hacking appears designed to boost the Republican, is in many ways more troubling than his lack of knowledge of the Islamic State, said Peter Feaver, a former Bush administration national security official.

Republicans and Democrats already are quibbling over exactly how to destroy the Islamic State, and plenty of Republicans agree with Trump's broader theme that Obama (and, by default, Clinton) have made America look weak. But there's little support on either side of the aisle for playing footsie with the Kremlin.

"The embrace of Putin part — no one’s gonna take that one up," Feaver said.

Louis Nelson, Nolan D. McCaskill and Jeremy Herb contributed to this report.