James Mattis said he “did as well as I could, for as long as I could” as President Trump’s first secretary of Defense, but added that he resigned over worries about “keeping faith with our allies” — and bluntly warned that America “cannot go it alone.”
“Nations with allies thrive, and those without them wither. Alone, America cannot protect our people and our economy. At this time, we can see storm clouds gathering,” Mattis wrote in an essay titled “Duty, Democracy and the Threat of Tribalism” in The Wall Street Journal.
Mattis, a career Marine with more than 40 years of service, also took an apparent shot at President Trump and his “America First” agenda in the essay, an excerpt from a forthcoming book.
“A polemicist’s role is not sufficient for a leader. A leader must display strategic acumen that incorporates respect for those nations that have stood with us when trouble loomed. When you’re going to a gunfight, bring all your friends with guns,” he wrote.
In another part, Mattis said he resigned when he felt his concerns about those alliances were not being taken seriously.
“When my concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated, it was time to resign, despite the limitless joy I felt serving alongside our troops in defense of our Constitution,” he wrote.
Mattis also decried the starkly partisan nature of American politics.
“We are dividing into hostile tribes cheering against each other, fueled by emotion and a mutual disdain that jeopardizes our future instead of rediscovering our common ground and finding solutions,” he wrote.
“All Americans need to recognize that our democracy is an experiment — and one that can be reversed. We all know that we’re better than our current politics. Tribalism must not be allowed to destroy our experiment.”
Mattis resigned in January 2019, after clashing with the president over his announcement to withdraw all 2,000 US troops from Syria.
Mattis gave Trump a letter of resignation that said that the commander in chief had “the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views are better aligned with yours,” and that he would leave his post by the end of February.
But Trump announced the secretary would be removed from his post nearly two months before Mattis had planned.