Getty WASHINGTON AND THE WORLD Memo to Jim Mattis: Don’t Talk Like Trump The defense secretary makes his first mistake.

Daniel Baer is a former deputy assistant secretary of state and was, until last month, the U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

Inside an American national security community unnerved by President Donald Trump’s careening approach to world affairs, Defense Secretary James Mattis is seen by many as his strongest Cabinet pick—no less, some whisper, than the potential savior of the nation.

Given the caliber of many of Trump’s Cabinet picks, being qualified and decent already puts one near the top. And Mattis may well prove to be a good deal more than that. So far, he’s been dispatched to reassure U.S. allies in Asia and has talked Trump out of terrible ideas like reviving torture as an instrument of American policy and ripping up the Iran deal. But this week, Mattis misstepped.


At a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels, echoing Trump’s past promises to get tough with allies, the Pentagon chief issued an ultimatum: Cough up more in defense spending, or the U.S. will turn away from the transatlantic defense alliance. Mattis’s remarks may have pleased the president—who trashed NATO as “obsolete” during the 2016 campaign—but they renewed the unease in European capitals, where the hope has been that Trump’s bark will turn out to be worse than his bite.

Mattis’s recitation of his boss’s threat, though delivered in a gentlemanly manner—was an error. It’s not that we shouldn’t encourage deeper investments in defense spending among our European allies. That is a well-established and salutary goal of U.S. foreign policy—no less an eminent figure than Bob Gates, hardly a careless bomb-thrower, delivered similar warnings as defense secretary for presidents of both parties. A handful of NATO allies have made progress on the 2 percent of GDP target in recent years, but others need to do more. So it is right for Mattis to press them to boost their spending. But Gates, who already had well-established relationships across the Atlantic, sent his message in a much different context—before Russia invaded Ukraine and meddled in the U.S. elections, and before there was an American president who talked down NATO and cozied up to Vladimir Putin. So here are three reasons why Mattis’s ultimatum was ill-advised:

First, the new defense secretary’s chief goal at his first meeting with his European counterparts should have been reassurance—soothing allies who are wary of the policy choices of an erratic U.S. president and unnerved by his odd relationship with the Kremlin. The message allies needed to hear—and that Mattis surely delivered behind closed doors—is that he and others in the administration remain sober about the threat to European security posed by a revanchist Russia that continues, for example, to attempt to redraw European borders by force in Ukraine. This is not about some kind of concern for their emotional health. It’s because an alliance depends on the confidence that allies have in it, and as its strongest member, the U.S. plays a unique role in setting the agenda within NATO, and in maintaining confidence in it. In his public remarks, Mattis did emphasize at length the importance of the transatlantic alliance and of its role as a bulwark of European security, but this message was overshadowed by the main headlines that arose from his visit: that the U.S. might “moderate our commitment” to NATO.

Second, such public ultimatums are unlikely to persuade Europeans to spend more on their own defense and could inadvertently provoke divisions in NATO, thus advancing one of Putin’s chief aims. Getting NATO allies to bolster their defenses is a political goal—it requires persuading finance ministers, defense ministers, prime ministers and parliaments in democratic countries to hike taxes, borrow, or make spending cuts in other areas. “Because the Americans threatened us if we don’t do it” is unlikely to be the most effective or sustainable political argument to persuade European parliamentarians and their constituents, weaned on a well-earned skepticism of war, to support deeper defense investments.

Ultimatums are cheap; they need only be declared. Politics is hard, but it’s what America needs to do: In Berlin, Copenhagen, Paris and Madrid, U.S. diplomats have to continue to highlight the advantages that all allies get from their participation in NATO—including training with the best military in the world and an improved ability to protect their people against terrorism. And sure, we should also make the point behind the ultimatum: European security is a common asset, and it demands a shared investment. But I worry that in this era of populist opportunism, ultimatums will provoke some—a minority, but a vocal one—in some European countries to challenge their governments’ engagement with NATO and the U.S., not deepen it. There will always be differences within the alliance, but public differences come at a cost. They give the Kremlin openings into which wedges can be inserted. At a time when Moscow has already interfered in our own elections and is actively meddling in several in Europe, we should be particularly mindful of these political dynamics. We can’t get European countries to spend more if they’re too busy squabbling among themselves—or with us.

Third, it was a mistake because in a negotiation, you don’t make a threat you’re not willing to follow through on—red lines are a test of others’ willingness to comply, but also of our own credibility. Mattis is, by all accounts, a deep-thinking strategist and a clever tactician, so I suspect he agrees that there is no foreseeable circumstance in which “moderating our commitment” to NATO could possibly be in the U.S. interest. As a former U.S. diplomat in Vienna, I get how frustrating it can be to deal with the complexities of European politics. But, as American leaders have understood for decades, NATO is not a charity project for Europe. The alliance was created under U.S. leadership and built through U.S. investment. It’s the most successful military alliance in the history of the world—an indispensable factor in the advance of democracy and open markets in Europe and of building a rules-based international system, all of which contribute substantially to U.S. security and prosperity. We invest in our defense and in NATO for our own reasons, not because we’re being nice to Europe. To scale back our commitment out of frustration with our allies would be to cut off our nose to spite our face.

Avoiding ultimatums doesn’t mean that we soften our approach—it just means we need a more sophisticated diplomatic and defense strategy to achieve our objectives: one that focuses on the affirmative benefits that NATO delivers and our common interest in the future of the alliance. Secretary Mattis is a smart, well-read person and a student of geopolitics; he’ll get it right the next time.