In his farewell tweet to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, President Trump promised that “a new Secretary of Defense will be named shortly.”
But finding someone with the requisite credentials who also shares Trump’s world view is going to be complicated, given his decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria and draw down U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Both moves are outside the mainstream of national security thinking.
The usual suspects named as possible replacements for Mattis are on the record as adamantly opposing Trump’s withdrawal from Syria before ISIS is defeated, and with no plan to train local security forces to keep ISIS from reconstituting.
Sen. Tom Cotton R-Ark., whose name is often mentioned as a potential secretary of defense, is among a bipartisan group of six senators who sent a sharply critical letter to President Trump this week urging him to reconsider the order.
“We believe that such action at this time is a premature and costly mistake that not only threatens the safety and security of the United States, but also emboldens ISIS, Bashar al Assad, Iran, and Russia,” said the letter, which was also signed by Sens. Lindsey Graham R-S.C., Marco Rubio R-Fla., Joni Ernst R-Iowa, Jeanne Shaheen D-N.H., and Angus King I-Maine.
Graham, who would also be a logical choice to lead the Pentagon, has staked out positions diametrically opposed the president on both Syria and Afghanistan.
Graham told CNN that he has pleaded with Trump to reverse course on Syria, but to no avail.
“I can’t make President Trump listen to his national security team. I have advised him to,” Graham said Thursday, before Mattis resigned.
“The president has been very gracious toward me as an individual. I have played golf with him. I like his company. He does listen. I respect the fact that I have access to the president,” Graham said. But he added, “I cannot be any good to him if I don’t tell him what I honestly believe.”
Another possible candidate, retired Gen. Jack Keane, a former vice chief of staff of the Army, took himself out of the running in an interview on NPR Thursday night, saying that he and Mattis “were of one mind” on Syria, and that he had no plans to return to pubic life.
“I don’t intend to go back into public serve,” Keane told NPR. “I am confident the president will be able to find a capable person to serve the nation.”
Other possibilities include elevating the current No. 2 at the Pentagon, Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, to the top post.
There’s precedent for that. Former President Bill Clinton tapped Deputy Secretary William Perry to take the top job after firing Les Aspin in 1994.
Another name mentioned is the current Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, a former Republican senator from Indiana.
Coats famously seemed to be at odds with the president when during an appearance at the Aspen Security Forum, he joked about the news Trump had invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit him in Washington.
“That’s going to be special,” Coats said sarcastically.
Trump’s instinctual policy decisions, confrontational approach to allies, and mercurial management style makes him a hard boss to work for, said presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on CNN.
“It’s the most honorable thing in the world to work in the White House, and you worry now that people knowing what chaos is in this decision-making structure, knowing they that might be fired by a tweet, and knowing that they might be called a name as Rex Tillerson was, ‘dumb as a rock,’ or Jeff Sessions, ‘weak,’ and you need to respect that team because they are working with you,” said Goodwin.
“This is not easy, these jobs, and the only way that pressure can be relieved is by working collaboratively… He needs experienced people around him. That’s what Lincoln understood,” said Goodwin, who wrote Team of Rivals, which described how Lincoln worked brought people into his administration with whom he had political differences.
