When Jim Mattis resigned as secretary of defense in December 2018, he was widely lauded and lamented as “the last grown-up” in the Trump administration. The tributes were commentary more on Trump than on Mattis. For if he had run the Pentagon during a normal presidency, in which grown-ups abound, his tenure would be considered undistinguished, to say the least.
This isn’t to deny that for much of his time in office, Mattis—a retired marine four-star general and charismatic commander in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars—served as an effective counter to Trump’s most unstatesmanlike instincts. He assured allies in Europe and Asia of America’s security commitments, which Trump repeatedly disparaged. (Mattis often said it felt like he was running “the Department of Reassurance.”) He initiated programs that bolstered the defenses of NATO’s eastern nations, especially in the Baltics, without stirring Trump’s notice. He resisted pressures to start senseless wars against Iran and North Korea. These are the kinds of things that most secretaries of defense would do routinely.
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