On different wavelengths…
President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to be defence secretary, Ret. Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis, stood before the senate today and faced questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin among other things.
Mattis said that world order is “under the biggest attack since World War II” and warned that the US must confront Russia and Putin as well as maintaining the nuclear arms deal with Iran.
In a question from former Republican candidate John McCain, he was asked what he would do differently to deal with Vladimir Putin as McCain said he’d seen three US Presidents fail abysmally.
“I think right now the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what we deal with Mr. Putin, and we recognize that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance, and that we take the steps, the integrated steps, diplomatic, economic, military and the alliance steps, working with our allies to defend ourselves where we must,” Mattis said.
In a similar question about Russia, he responded: “I’m all for engagement, but we also have to recognize reality and what Russia is up to,” Mattis said. “There’s a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively, and an increasing number of areas where we’re going to have to confront Russia.”
Mattis’ words about Russia contrast with Trump who dismissed claims of russian interference in the US as fake news.
Trump has been vocal during his campaign that he would rip up the Iran deal signed under President Obama if he was elected. This is a stark contrast to Mattis who argued that although the deal is imperfect, the US should stick to the deal.
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