Tough talk, minimized risk from Trump

To relief of some, president’s action falls short of rhetoric

WASHINGTON — He tweets about “fire and fury” and threatens “an event the likes of which nobody’s seen before.”

But after 15 months in the White House, Donald Trump has shown that his use of military force may be the most conventional aspect of his presidency.

Trump has ordered two military strikes against Syria and increased the use of airstrikes and special operations raids in Somalia and Yemen to kill Islamic extremists — and civilians. He has equivocated over pulling troops from Syria and reversed President Barack Obama’s reduction of American forces from Afghanistan.

It adds up to a shift from Obama’s military strategy, but more incrementally than by the 180 degrees that Trump’s rhetoric has suggested since his days on the campaign trail.

“The president is erratic, but he does also seem to be pretty risk-averse where the use of military force is concerned,” said Kori Schake, who held several security roles in George W. Bush’s administration and wrote a book with Trump’s secretary of defense, Jim Mattis.

“He doesn’t appear to want to spend his presidency on the wars.”

Trump is at a key juncture in defining his national security policy. John Bolton, his third national security adviser in little more than a year, began his job in April with a history of advocating aggressive use of force and a reputation from his Bushera service as a bruising infighter to get his way in the federal bureaucracy.

Administration officials would not grant interviews with security staffers during Bolton’s transition and the ongoing shakeup in the National Security Council. Several top aides have resigned or been fired as Bolton forms his own team.

In the same week that Bolton arrived in the West Wing, Trump ordered the latest airstrikes against Syria — a dramatic act, but one that was sharply dialed back by military advisers to minimize tensions with the Russians, who are backing Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Meanwhile, after months of warnings that he might use force to halt North Korea’s nuclear program, Trump is on the cusp of his biggest win yet, a summit set for June 12 with the isolated country’s autocratic leader, Kim Jong Un.

Security experts from across the spectrum — many of whom opposed Trump’s election — have significant concerns about his temperament, his willingness to risk a fatal miscommunication with global rivals and his impatience with detailed policy analyses. Some, particularly on the left, worry that Bolton will push him toward perilous military interventions.

Yet, so far, the biggest surprise has been the gulf between Trump’s talk and his military actions.

“A lot of this, Hillary Clinton would have done,” said Derek Chollet, an assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs under Obama and an adviser to Clinton when she was secretary of state.

In some ways, Trump is discovering what Obama and other predecessors learned about the limits of presidential power in the face of global conflicts and of the options from military advisers to confront them.

He initially hoped to withdraw from Afghanistan but was persuaded by advisers to raise troop levels instead. Syria may follow a similar course.

Trump recently called for an abrupt withdrawal of the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, yet the next week felt compelled to retaliate against Assad’s suspected use of chemical weapons. That episode only reinforced the arguments of Trump’s national security advisers that he shouldn’t leave Syria to Russia and Iran, Assad’s protectors.

During the campaign, Trump vowed to enlarge the military for the sake of deterrence, to avoid unnecessary wars or nation-building adventures. Yet he also promised to “bomb the hell out of ISIS,” an acronym for Islamic State. And as president, he has threatened “fire and fury like the world has never seen” against North Korea.

Supporters say Trump’s doctrine is modeled after President Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” dogma. “Extravagance is his personality” but it also serves a purpose in projecting strength, said Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union.

Trump made a similar point during an interview on Fox News last week, recounting his threatening tweets toward Kim months ago, which have given way to a softer tone as Kim has moved toward diplomacy. He even called the autocrat “very honorable.”

Many security analysts outside Trump’s circle are unwilling to ascribe any doctrine to his record, calling it more a loose collection of gut instincts, machismo and military deference than coherent strategy.

“President Trump is a lot about looking tough, being dramatic and not being his predecessor,” said Michael Hayden, a retired general and former CIA director who served in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Yet, Hayden said: “What President Trump did in Syria was simply what President Obama was doing. He just amped it up a little bit. There weren’t any sharp turns there.”

Hayden defined Bush by his willingness to commit large numbers of troops to two wars for long periods. Though Obama campaigned against those policies, Hayden noted, he nonetheless left many troops deployed, if at a lower profile, for extended periods.

Trump, in contrast to both of them, seems “comfortable with high levels of violence but only for short periods of time,” Hayden said.

The April 14 missile strikes in Syria were intended to send a message that Trump, in contrast to Obama, was willing to employ force against the use of chemical weapons. Yet they were limited, like the previous one in April 2017.

Although Trump declared “Mission Accomplished!” the next day, the strikes may not prevent future chemical attacks and didn’t stop Assad’s forces from continuing to kill civilians.

“He wants to be seen as decisive. He wants to be seen as hitting back. But he doesn’t want to own Syria,” Chollet said. “He doesn’t want this to be seen as a fight against Assad, but neither does the U.S. military.”

Trump allies say the president is not given enough credit for thinking through military strategy. Jim Hanson, who is president of the conservative think tank Security Studies Group and in frequent contact with administration officials, said Trump asks basic questions about the implications of security decisions, with an emphasis on U.S. interests.

Other advisers, however, have said that the president continues to resist lengthy policy discussions.

HASSAN AMMAR/AP President Donald Trump’s April strike on Syria was dramatic but sharply dialed back by military advisers.