Hopes are high that new defense secretary James Mattis will be an anchor of stability serving an unpredictable president. But he will soon face intense tests

No more 'Mad Dog' – but will defense secretary Mattis keep Trump on a leash?

One of the first corrections the new Pentagon chief subtly issued to his boss concerned his name.



Donald Trump, a president who considers his bluster an asset, has enthused over the reputation of his defense secretary, even to the point of misunderstanding it.

“Mad Dog Mattis plays no games,” he told a North Carolina rally when announcing James Mattis as his choice to lead the Pentagon.

“You know he’s known as Mad Dog Mattis, right? Mad Dog for a reason,” he emphasized to the New York Times, after expressing surprise that a man with such a nickname wasn’t keen on torture.

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After less than a week on the job, Mattis walked through the Pentagon press corps bullpen with a message: call him Jim. “Enough of this Mad Dog business,” paraphrased Military Times reporter Andrew DeGrandpre.

The correction needed no explicit rebuke of Trump to convey its message. Whatever mad dog Trump thinks Mattis to be, Mattis’ first week at the Pentagon showed him gripping the leash from the other end. Mattis set out to assure traditional US allies that Trump’s harsh assessments of them are not the final word from Washington.

In a flurry of calls to his counterparts, Mattis has sent signals that he is both a traditional Atlanticist and an anchor of stability serving an unpredictable president.

On 16 January, Trump revived his dismissal of Nato in an interview with the Times of London and Germany’s Bild, reiterating that the Atlantic alliance was “obsolete” – “it wasn’t taking care of terror” – while in the same breath calling Nato “very important to me”. For good measure, Trump professed his “respect” for German chancellor Angela Merkel while repeatedly referring to her “catastrophic mistake” in “taking all of these illegals”.

On Monday, one of Mattis’s first acts at the Pentagon was to call the Nato secretary general. The Pentagon account of the call conspicuously noted Mattis’s history as a Nato official and, unsubtly, explained that Mattis “wanted to place the call on his first full day in office to reinforce the importance he places on the alliance”.

By Thursday, Mattis called German defense minister Ursula von der Leyen and set a similar tone. The US-German alliance was important “bilaterally and as members of Nato”, according to the Pentagon’s account of the call. Particular sources of gratitude from Mattis were “the role that Germany plays in fighting terrorism” and hosting 35,000 US service members.

For good measure, Mattis praised German leadership “in Nato activities on the eastern flank”, near Russia, which Mattis had told the Senate seeks to break the Atlantic alliance.

It was not the only call Mattis made that day. In speaking with French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, he was practically emotional. The US-French defense relationship is “stronger than ever”, in the Pentagon readout of the call, thanks to soldiering “side-by-side in the fight against terrorism”. Mattis thanked Le Drian for France’s commitment to both Nato and the fight against Islamic State, which Trump wants to accelerate, and they looked forward to their first meeting, at next month’s Nato defense ministerial conference.

Left unsaid were Trump’s comments that terrorism in France is “their own fault”, “because they allowed people to come into their territory” days after the Nice truck attack.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Enough of this Mad Dog business.’ James Mattis climbs the steps into the Pentagon. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

Not everyone, however, thinks Mattis is walking Trump back.

“It’s clear that General Mattis will be given a relatively free hand in running the Department of Defense,” said Jack Keane, a retired US army general who played a leading role in designing the 2007-08 Iraq troop surge and who has advised Hillary Clinton.

Mattis, Keane said, was “doing things that a secretary would normally do, like when he assumes his duties and calls his counterparts around the world and reassures them that this administration intends to continue to support their allies”.

“I don’t think it’s a reining-in so much as President Trump relying on his judgment,” he said.

Charles Kupchan, a Georgetown professor and Europe adviser to Barack Obama’s White House, said thus far “there is not a lot of discipline to go around” in Trump’s circles and considered it too soon to tell how extensive Mattis’ access to Trump would be.

“It’s going to be a daily challenge to see if those in the cabinet who have more experience, more moderate views are able to tame the president,” Kupchan said.

But the reassurance of traditional allies, particularly Europeans alarmed by Trump’s bent toward Russia, was what prompted palpable relief within US defense circles – and especially establishment Republican ones – over Mattis’ nomination. It was enough to override a longstanding prohibition against recently retired officers helming the Pentagon.



Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican hawk who does not miss an opportunity to voice his contempt for Trump, told a GOP retreat on Thursday: “I’m not sure if one person can have a profound effect, but if anyone can have a profound effect it is General Mattis.”

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The soaring hopes that Mattis can control Trump will soon face intense tests. Trump is weighing the removal of sanctions on Russia. Since Russia remains in Ukraine, any relaxation on sanctions will appear as payback for Kremlin interference in the US election.

Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, tweeted that Russia would understand it as a green light from Washington to gobble up more Ukrainian territory. US lawmakers, including McCain, are already vowing to write sanctions into law and dare Trump to veto them.

Another pivotal decision is looming in Iraq. With Mosul likely to fall to US-backed Iraqi forces in the coming weeks, the final Isis stronghold in the country will be gone, leaving Trump to reckon whether the US ought to remain or withdraw.

Should Trump desire to stay, Mattis will likely have to clean up the messes from Trump’s repeated longing to take Iraq’s oil and to ban Iraqis from entering the US, moves that appear to have shocked Iraqis.

Mattis ended his first week as defense secretary by receiving Trump at the Pentagon, where Trump signed an executive order for a military build-up. He called Mattis “a man of action” and, though Mattis was a Marine, a “tremendous soldier”.

Mattis did not correct Trump, however, and Trump did not call Mattis “Mad Dog”.