The elevation of Patrick Shanahan to the secretary of defense position will likely make National Security Adviser John Bolton the most powerful voice inside President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
So say defense analysts who spoke to TAC this week. Former U.S. officials also said they fear that Shanahan’s relative lack of experience may set America on a path to war, and cited a New York Times report that Shanahan had delivered to Bolton a plan to send as many as 120,000 troops to the Middle East. Subsequent reports indicate that the Pentagon might be making plans to send even more.
Shanahan is expected to be nominated for the top Pentagon slot, subject to Senate confirmation. And according to Stephen Wertheim, assistant professor of history at Columbia University, during the confirmation hearings, “when senators think Shanahan, they should think Bolton. Because a vacuum at the top of DoD means that the department becomes a rubber stamp for Bolton.”
Presidents of War: The...
Best Price: $5.52
Buy New $14.18
(as of 07:10 UTC - Details)
Bolton is an unapologetic Bush-era war hawk with four decades of experience inside the Beltway. Throughout his long career, he’s advocated for regime change in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, and Iran. As national security adviser, he appears determined to consolidate his power in the Cabinet, usurping powers that traditionally reside with the military.
For example, the Pentagon is now referring questions about troop deployments to the National Security Council. Taking a page from former vice president Dick Cheney’s playbook, Bolton recently took the highly unusual step of convening a meeting about a possible confrontation with Iran not at the White House, but at CIA headquarters.
Given Bolton’s background and clear aspirations for confronting Iran, the secretary of defense may be the only position within Trump’s cabinet that could serve as a hedge or mediating voice. In cabinet debates over these contentious issues, security analysts fear that the former Boeing executive will be badly outmatched by the decades of experience that Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo bring to the table, especially when compared to his predecessor, decorated Marine General Jim Mattis. Shanahan’s lack of experience in defense strategy and policy is worrying, they say, particularly as Bolton heats up the rhetoric on Venezuela, North Korea, and Iran.
“He’s likely to default to whatever Pompeo or Bolton wants,” retired U.S. Army colonel and defense analyst Douglas Macgregor said in an interview with TAC.
“Pompeo and Bolton have agendas,” Macgregor added. “They’re not Trump’s, but in the absence of strong leadership, Shanahan is unlikely to put up much resistance.”
Meanwhile, according to reports, Bolton has publicly favored demoting the position of the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to a sub-cabinet level, suggesting that whoever replaces Ambassador Nikki Haley, who resigned in December, will now answer directly to the Secretary of State.
“What we now have under Trump is a triumvirate of Bolton, Pompeo, and Shanahan; it’s pretty clear what Bolton’s views are, and they’re very troubling,” Wertheim said. “Pompeo hasn’t distinguished himself with a consistent set of views. He seems too eager to pay lip service to all sides of the foreign policy debate. And then you have Shanahan…and he doesn’t have a strategy or policy background. That leaves Bolton as the major figure, who isn’t subject to confirmation by the Senate.”
