JAMES MATTIS, America’s defence secretary, is a man who weighs his words. He is a reader, earning fame in the Marine Corps for carrying works of Roman military history into warzones in his rucksack, even as he earned a simultaneous reputation for ferocity in combat. He speaks sparingly in public, rarely appears on television and turns positively mulish when asked by reporters to comment on breaking news on which he has not been briefed.
It matters, then, that when Mr Mattis—a former four-star general turned civilian head of the most powerful armed forces on earth—visited the border between South and North Korea on October 27th, his brief statement revolved around a quote from America’s top diplomat, Rex Tillerson: “Our goal is not war.”
Mr Mattis spoke of peace, stability and of the value of the 60-year old alliance between South Korea and America—an “ironclad commitment”, he called it. Standing yards from North Korea in the eerie Cold War stage-set of the truce village at Panmunjom, he did not bang the...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/2zSwIdM
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