Mattis Resignation: 'You Have the Right to Have a Secretary of Defense Whose Views Are More Aligned'

Overview

James Mattis served as Secretary of Defense from the first day of the Trump administration. He came from a tradition of military service that placed professional obligation above personal politics. His resignation letter was not the product of that tradition — it was an explicit departure from it.

The letter was two pages. Its purpose was to tell the President of the United States that his conduct of foreign policy was wrong in specific and consequential ways, and that Mattis could not continue to serve it.

The Syria Tweet

The withdrawal announcement came via Twitter on December 19, 2018. Trump declared ISIS defeated and announced U.S. troops would be coming home. The Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs, and senior congressional allies learned of this policy from the tweet.

The announcement functioned as a green light for Turkey to move against the Kurdish forces — the YPG and SDF — who had conducted the ground war against ISIS at enormous cost. Those forces, designated as terrorists by Turkey, had been relying on the U.S. military presence as a deterrent against exactly the offensive that followed.

The Letter

The resignation letter was unusual in its precision. Mattis wrote that he had sought to work through disagreements privately. He identified two core conflicts he could not bridge: Trump's treatment of alliances, and Trump's failure to be "clear-eyed" about Russia and China.

The phrase "you have the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are more aligned with yours" was read, correctly, as a statement that Trump's views on these matters were aberrant — that a properly functioning Secretary of Defense could not share them.

Trump initially described the resignation as a retirement. After the letter was widely praised, he forced Mattis out weeks early and attacked him on Twitter.