Mattis' clear-eyed vision for defense of American values
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis was in Chicago Wednesday as the guest of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Mattis is touring the country to speak about his book "Call Sign Chaos," which he wrote with former Marine officer and Assistant Secretary of Defense Bing West.
That call sign - "Chaos" - was bestowed on Mattis by the men he led. The book is a primer on leadership and was decades in the making as Mattis advanced through the ranks and, ultimately, answered the call to serve as the president's first secretary of defense, a post he resigned over policy differences nine months ago.
The book, however, is not about his time in the administration and although many of the country's most persistent journalists have tried to get Mattis to comment on the president, this is a path he refuses to take at this time. He has explained that he has a "duty of silence" that compels him to give the elected commander-in-chief and those around him the space to try to do their jobs to advance American interests.
In his letter of resignation, which is included in the book, Mattis wrote: "My views on treating allies with respect and also being clear-eyed about both malign actors and strategic competition are strongly held and informed by over four decades of immersion in these issues. We must do everything possible to advance an international order that is most conducive to our security, prosperity and values and we are strengthened in this effort by the solidarity of our alliances."
Mattis' message comes at an inflection point as we approach later this year the 30th anniversary of the breaching of the Berlin Wall. Two years later, the Soviet Union collapsed and the captive nations of the Warsaw Pact started their journey toward democratic rule.
The scholar Francis Fukuyama wrote an essay in the wake of the events in Berlin entitled "The End of History?" that argued that liberal democracy and market economics had won the ideological war and there remained only one path for nations to take. China was a decade into its "Open Door" policy trying to develop a market-based economy within an authoritarian political system, something many analysts believe was unsustainable.
Fukuyama's argument seemed irrefutable. Democracy had won and while there would be bumps in the road, the path was clear.
That is not how it looks today. As Freedom House has painstakingly documented, freedom and democracy are in retreat and this backward slide is accelerating. A dozen years ago, Freedom House judged nearly 80 percent of nations were free or at least partly free - elections were fairer, the press was not restricted, minorities were not persecuted and the rule of law offered citizens protections.
Today that percentage has fallen to the low 60s and by the metrics employed by Freedom House, some 113 nations have seen a decline in the level of freedom experienced by their citizens.
We live in an age when protestors in Hong Kong are singing the Star Spangled Banner, while the administration in Washington remains largely mute. Over the past 30 years, there has been a lot of wishful thinking by our politicians and diplomats that the presumed inevitability of democracy would carry the day without much heavy lifting on our end. That's just not realistic.
Thus, Mattis' call for a clear-eyed vision in the defense of American values has never been more important. If we truly believe that democracy is essential to a more stable world, then the hard work of building and maintaining democratic institutions requires strong, unwavering leadership. When 25 percent of American millennials tell researchers that "choosing leaders through free elections is unimportant" all Americans should be alarmed.
Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.