Bob Woodward's book explodes Jim Mattis' strategy

There are other passages in Woodward's book, a copy of which was obtained by L & # 39; Atlantic before its release next week, it reinforces this representation of Mattis. Woodward writes, for example, that Mattis' chairman and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, Joseph Dunford, "frightened the day" in January, when Trump was engaged in a nuclear race with Kim Jong Un. declare on Twitter that he would evacuate all family members of US troops from South Korea, which the North Korean leaders would probably have interpreted as a clear sign of the imminence of the war. The tweet has never been sent.

Do not blame Trump's advisors for Trump.

But Woodward's reports also reveal that Mattis is improbable in Trump's good graces. He dodges the media, refusing repeated requests from Sean Spicer's former press officer to participate in Sunday's talk shows. He disagrees with the President on many issues of military policy and foreign policy – United States. involvement in the Syrian war, US military alliances in Europe and Asia, transgender Americans serving in the army – but seems to be taking its political defeat (not persuading the president to stay in the US). Iran's nuclear deal, for example) with its improbable victories (persuading Trump to engage more troops in the war in Afghanistan). It puts very little stock in real time. "Mattis has tried to limit his visits to the White House and stick as much as possible to military affairs," Woodward writes.

Woodward also portrays Mattis as sometimes defending his more traditionalist foreign policy positions in somewhat Trumpian terms. Yes, according to Woodward's account, he made it clear to Trump that America's advanced military deployment to Korea is destined to avoid World War III. In the same vein, Mattis also presented a cost-benefit argument to appeal to a transactional president much more interested in repelling external threats than ruling the free world: the alliance with South Korea was , as Woodward says: One of the great national security affairs of all time. According to Woodward, part of Mattis's case against the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan was that Trump, who often defines himself as anti-Barack Obama, should not allow refuge for terrorists like his predecessor did it in Iraq.

Woodward writes: "Avoid confrontation, show respect and deference, act smart with business, travel as much as you can, get out of town."

But Woodward's book itself presented the most brutal test in the manner of Mattis. The defense secretary continues his usual activities in South Asia this week, but the city and the confrontation have now come to him. And the open question is whether the survivor can survive the test. Mattis was quick to say that "the scornful words about the president that were attributed to me in Woodward's book have never been spoken by me or in my presence," and so far, it seems have done the business. Trump took the denial of Mattis and ran with her –Many times aeration the statement of the secretary of defense on Twitter, characterizing Quotes as fabrications, and congratulating Mattis on reporters as "a great person" doing "a fantastic job as a secretary of defense".