Trump’s Pentagon shakeup leaves ‘layers of fear’: Lawmaker

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump’s appointment of Christopher Miller, a former Green Beret and White House counterterrorism coordinator, as acting defense secretary raises “two layers of fear,” the head of the House Armed Services panel said.
The first is the “incredibly steep learning curve” on global military operations, options and controversies that Miller faces after Trump’s dismissal-by-tweet of Mark Esper as Pentagon chief, said Democratic Representative Adam Smith of Washington.
The second, Smith said in an interview, is whether Miller would have the ability and inclination to talk the lame-duck president “off the edge” of an impromptu decision of global consequence, such as delivering on his tweet pledging to
withdraw all US troops from Afghanistan by Christmas or his past threats to pull the US out of Nato.
“The fear would be the president wakes up one day in the next few months and decides that he wants to do something like that, and a brand new secretary of defense doesn’t know how to stop him, doesn’t know how to say ‘Mr President, here’s the limitations of what you are talking about doing and here’s what we need to do,”’ Smith said.
Smith’s scenarios reflect confusion in Washington over the motivation for the president’s abrupt post-election elevation of Miller and installation to key posts of several other Trump loyalists with limited experience in the Defense Department’s inner workings.
“Of course it’s of concern to see the upheaval,” Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for President-elect Joe Biden, told reporters.
“It should be of concern to anybody, because there shouldn’t be a politicisation of the
military.”
Without setting out details of new deadlines to bring US troops home from abroad, Miller said in a memo to all Defense Department employees that “ending wars requires compromise and partnership.”