Trump’s Great Faith In the Military Does Not a Strategy Make

Both in Syria and Afghanistan–where thousands more U.S. troops are about to be deployed in what is already the longest war in American history–Trump says he’s leaving things up to “the generals.”

“The lieutenants, the captains, their majors, their colonels–they’re professionals,” Trump told TIME on May 11. “They love doing it. They know every inch of the territory, right? I say, Why am I telling them? So I authorized the generals to do the fighting.”

After five months in office, Trump has still not articulated a strategy for the conflicts. That’s a greater cause for concern than how he chooses to delegate to a military for which he remains ultimately responsible, says Peter Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who served on the National Security Council of President George W. Bush. Trump has left it to Defense Secretary James Mattis to decide whether to add up to 5,000 troops to the 8,800 already in Afghanistan. “They haven’t figured out what their strategy is going to be, so there’s a cart-before-the-horse aspect,” says Feaver.

President Obama personally culled the kill list for drone strikes and monitored troop levels down to the single digits. Trump’s relative distance could be evidence of executive function, distraction–there’s that special counsel investigation–or lack of interest. “Delegation can work when he knows what he’s delegating,” says former Obama NSC official Loren DeJonge Schulman. “Trump hasn’t told us much, except he trusts the military. He hasn’t quite finished the sentence: To do what?”

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