Mark Milley has served three tours in Afghanistan and would become the country’s senior military adviser to the president if confirmed.<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2013\u2013 President Trump said Saturday that he will nominate Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, replacing Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, with the date of the transition still to be determined.
Milley, who has served in Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, would become the country\u2019s top military officer and senior military adviser to the president if confirmed by the Senate. He\u2019d be responsible for helping to ensure that Trump\u2019s policies in global hot spots are carried out.
One issue high on Milley\u2019s agenda will be the 17-year war in Afghanistan, now the nation\u2019s longest armed conflict. The Massachusetts native and Princeton University graduate knows that battlefield well: he\u2019s served three tours in Afghanistan and was as the deputy commanding general for U. S. Forces-Afghanistan. He\u2019s also served in Panama, Haiti and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Milley would also be responsible for helping the military carry out the priorities in Trump\u2019s National Defense Strategy, which calls for an emphasis on the potential for \u201cgreat power\u201d conflict with countries like Russia and China over a focus on counterterrorism.
Milley addressed the shift in priorities at an April hearing on Capitol Hill.
\u201cGuerrillas, insurgents, terrorists are going to be around for a long time in various different forms,\u201d he told the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 12. \u201cWe have to maintain the skill set. But, at the same time, we have to recapture our skills at combined arms maneuver warfare against near-peer competitors and great power competition.\u201d
Milley, 60, would replace Dunford, who was first picked by President Barack Obama in 2015 and reappointed by Trump two years later. Dunford\u2019s term is due to expire in 2019. Under a 2017 law, the term for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs will be increased to four years from two.
\u201cIt\u2019s an unusual pick \u2013 Milley has extensive operational experience and excellent intellectual credentials, but not much\u201d time working with the Navy, Marines and Air Force in joint operations, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser for the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly good news for the Army, which has struggled to make a place for itself in the new defense strategy.\u201d
As Army Chief of Staff, Milley joined other senior military leaders in issuing what was interpreted as a subtle rebuke of Trump in August 2017, when the president blamed \u201cboth sides\u201d for violence at rallies in Charlottesville, Va., when a white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd, killing a woman.
\u201cThe Army doesn\u2019t tolerate racism, extremism, or hatred in our ranks,\u201d Milley wrote on Twitter. \u201cIt\u2019s against our Values and everything we\u2019ve stood for since 1775.\u201d
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