When Donald Trump nominated Wess Mitchell to serve as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs in July of 2017, the American press and foreign policy community had spent months being extremely critical of the US president for leaving such a key post vacant for so long.
This week, after just 16 months on the job, Mitchell announced his resignation, citing personal reasons and adding that he was “fully supportive” of the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. “My kids have a greater claim to my time right now than the public does,” he said. It is hard – and often unfair – to dispute someone when they make a claim like that, but very few people in Washington, or in Europe, believe his justification.
The Mitchell resignation will obviously not garner the attention or outcry that the resignation of former secretary of defense Jim Mattis did, but it may be just as significant. The issues that led to the criticism over the assistant secretary post remaining unfilled for so long in 2017 are just as pressing. To make matters worse, Mitchell’s deputy is also slated to retire in just a few months, which raises questions about who will lead European policy in the Trump administration at a time of challenges there.
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ President Ivo Daalder, who was US ambassador to NATO in the Obama administration, said: “Mitchell’s resignation, which follows earlier resignations of all the top Europe and NATO people in the Pentagon, sends a disquieting picture to our allies in Europe of a lessened interest in the continent. That means growing trouble for Europe and likely a deeper split across the Atlantic – exactly what Russia and Putin for years have been aiming for.”
Mitchell was steadfast in claiming that there was no scenario in which Turkey could get both Russian S400s and American F35s, a combination that would make Ankara bolder in its aggression in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean. This issue will come to a head later this year, and there is no certainty whether anyone left in the administration is as steadfast as Mitchell on this issue. Mitchell was quite aggressive on the bilateral front with the Republic of Cyprus, giving unprecedented attention to establishing the security relationship with Cyprus – including loosening and eventually fully removing the arms embargo on Cyprus. Finally, he had been leading the administration’s efforts in reformulating a strategy on the Eastern Mediterranean.
If Mitchell’s departure is indeed Russia-related and part of an attempt by President Trump to remove any hardliners on Russia, there is a further question for Greece and Cyprus. Both Athens and Nicosia – but especially Alexis Tsipras’s government – have taken bold and unexpected moves that could be characterized as siding with the US over Russia.
At a European Deputy Chiefs of Mission breakfast this week, a senior European diplomat noted that Mitchell’s resignation was a negative development. No one demurred. US policy on Europe is up in the air, with significant implications for Greece and Cyprus.