With allies seeking reassurance, Mattis heads to NATO – DefenseNews.com

WASHINGTON Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will travel to NATO headquarters for the first time next week, a visit that will be closely monitored by allied nations concerned over President Trumps commitment to the trans-Atlantic strategic partnership.

Mattis will leave DC on Feb. 14 for Brussels, where he will attend his first NATO ministerial. He will also host a meeting of the defense ministers involved in the counter-ISIS coalition before traveling to the Munich Security Conference Feb. 17, the Pentagon announced Friday.

Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis could not confirm if Mattis would have one-on-one meetings with all of the international counterparts, in part because the secretarys schedule was still in flux. But Mattis will undoubtedly prove a popular attraction for NATO countries seeking reassurance that the U.S. is not going to abandon them in the future.

The relationship between NATO and the new U.S. president has been tense ever since then-candidate Trump hinted in a July interview that his support for NATO nations would be conditional based on whether those countries had fulfilled their obligations to us.

While Trump has since downplayed those comments, the allied nations remain nervous, especially in light of a detente between the Trump administration and Russia.

Since his nomination was first made official, members of Congress and defense experts have made no secret that they view Mattis as a check on Trumps national security plan. Comments such as those of Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., who cited Thomas Jefferson in saying Mattis would be the saucer that cools the coffee, were scattered throughout Mattis congressional testimony and Mattis himself did not push back against them.

But how much Mattis can do to push back against Trump, or even if it is his job to do so, is up for debate, said Mark Cancian, a defense expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies who had worked with Mattis previously.

Its not the role of any Cabinet secretary to manage the president. The president is in charge, everyone else is expendable, except arguably the first lady. So ultimately, Trump will be making these decisions, Cancian said.

On the other hand, Mattis has made it clear hes willing to disagree with the president, Cancian added, citing Trumps repeated comments that he believes torture is effective but would defer to Mattis on the issue. And Trump seems to be comfortable with that. He has a Cabinet, many of whom have disagreed with his statements during their confirmation hearings, and Trump has said hes good with that.

In his first statement after becoming secretary, Mattis emphasized that recognizing that no nation is secure without friends, we will work with the State Department to strengthen our alliances.

That theme also sticks out in the public statements released by the Pentagon about Mattis first international calls. A series of readouts from his first week in office-- summary reports released by the Pentagon after major discussions between the secretary of defense and his international counterparts, in which the Pentagon puts forth the public spin it wants on discussions -- shows a clear trend in wording:

I think Mattis is signaling that alliances are still important. He has a lot of experience as a warfighter and as a combatant commander, and understands the importance of having allies and intelligence, integrating that with combat operations, Cancian said. On the other hand, thats doesnt mean the administration cant push the allies to do more, to increase their share of the burden, and there are many ways they can do that. So the two dont necessarily have to be incompatible.