Donald Trump or the time of the generals

The three strong men of the Trump administration are General Jim Mattis, General John Kelly, and General Herbert Raymond McMaster. Not necessarily warriors.

after a month of chaotic establishment of the new Trump administration in Washington DC, an unexpected element emerges: the victory of the generals.

It is indeed a trio of experienced generals, hardened on the Afghan and Iraqi fronts during the last 16 years of uninterrupted war led by the United States in the Arab-Muslim world, which today has the greatest influence on The new administration.

This oversized weight of the generals will be shown in particular in the first budget presented by the new administration. A White House official on Monday (February 27th) announced an increase in military spending of $ 54 billion (about 9%) of military spending that was already the largest in the world.

This influence of the generals is at the same time a (modestly) reassuring element for the Europeans, who can hope to find a minimum of rationality in their relations with the Trump administration - but also a source of tensions because the culture shock is rude for leaders Europeans who for the most part turned their backs on the war and never gave their retired generals the political space they have in the United States. Not since a certain ... Charles de Gaulle anyway!

Correct Trump's nonsense

The three strong men of the new administration are undoubtedly General Jim Mattis, Secretary of Defense, General John Kelly, Secretary of Homeland Security (post 9/11), and recently Herbert Raymond McMaster , Appointed National Security Advisor to the White House after the passage of another senior officer, General Michael Flynn .

This does not mean that the president is not subject to other influences, especially those of his disturbing special adviser Steve Bannon , the former head of the far-right Breitbart site, a member of the National Security Council (NSC), or of notorious businessmen who try to influence it on the relations of the United States with Ukraine, Russia, or China.

As the columnist of the "New York Times" Thomas Friedman remarked, there are indeed no less than five "Trump  administrations " parallel and simultaneous, without knowing which one will ultimately prevail over the others in terms of influence On policy choices. He made it a tragicomic list: "Trump Entertainment", "Trump Cleanup", "Trump Crazy", "Trump GOP" (GOP), and "The Essential Trump" Trump Fundamental).

The generals, it will be understood, are part of the "Trump Cleanup", they are, according to the famous chronicler, "adults" of the new administration charged with preventing or correcting the nonsense of their boss Less erratic.

They do not

For example, General Mattis, accompanied by Vice-President Mike Spence , was able to try to reassure the Europeans last week at the Munich Security Conference, with phrases like "The President has asked us to You say "... Followed affirmations as opposed to everything that Donald Trump has been able to say publicly for weeks on the future of Europe or its commitments to NATO.

The personality of these generals become the strong men of Washington is quite fascinating. It is that of a generation of officers, the one that emerged in the after 9/11, which do not let it count. Unlike the last example of a military officer in a position of influence, General Colin Powell , George W. Bush's secretary of state, who had been driven into the flour by the neo-cons clan, To the United Nations Security Council on the presence of chemical weapons in Iraq to justify the invasion of that country in 2003.

General McMaster, the latest on the scene after Michael Flynn's flash player and his lies about his ties to Russia, attracts particular attention. In addition to his achievements in Iraq, during the two Gulf wars, as well as in Afghanistan, he is mostly the author of a book of military theory, "Dereliction of Duty" (neglect in the performance of his duty ), Published in 1997, which sued senior US officers during the Vietnam War for not being able to resist the fleeing orders of the political leaders of the time.

For this uncompromising officer, "the Vietnam War was not lost on the ground, either on the front page of the 'New York Times' or on American campuses, it was lost in Washington, even before the first US unit Has been deployed ".

This eulogy of well-intentioned insubordination, General McMaster actually put it into practice itself, criticizing the Bush administration for the way in which the Iraq war was launched. It has earned him temporary isolation and slower advancement, despite his decisive command on the Iraqi front.

A  counterweight?

This attitude is important today. In an editorial , the "New York Times" reminded in particular that General McMaster had always taken care not to confuse the terrorist threat with Islam in general, a nuance that appears little in the speech of President Trump. And the Liberal newspaper to call for the removal of Steve Bannon from the National Security Council to depoliticize it, as General McMaster advocates in his book, referring to the drift of the Vietnam era when the NSC leader was a Certain Henry Kissinger.

The trio of generals who now have the opportunity to weigh on the orientations of the new administration is not made up of heads burned going to war. They seem to be men who have enough experience of war - General Kelly has lost a son in Afghanistan - not to want to take it lightly.

But the military's omnipresence in key posts, especially when the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson , seems totally obliterated and, for the time being, incapable of weighing on the diplomatic orientations of the United States, raises important questions for the " The entire planet.

The first is actually to know their real influence on decisions that will be those of Donald Trump on burning issues, such as Iran or North Korea. Will the generals really be a counterweight to the ideological follies of the extreme right-wing leader of the White House?

The second is more fundamental: if the world, seen from Washington, is analyzed in military terms, it is not necessarily good for the planet. Especially when the New York Times learned on Monday that the increase in the defense budget will be offset by a drop in the number of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and certain social services .

To consider threats solely from the military point of view, only military responses are provided. Georges Clemenceau used to say that "war is too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military." Donald Trump seems to think otherwise.