THE VIEWS OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DESIGNATE

At the confirmation hearings, General Mattis said Russia aggression, China aggressiveness in the South China Sea and Islamist militants were presenting the biggest challenge to the U.S.-led world order since World War Two, and called for Congress to lift spending caps undermining military readiness. General Mattis believes the main threat to U.S. interests is Russia.

General Mattis agrees with the President-elect’s desire to have an engagement with Russia but he said he has very modest expectations about areas of cooperation with Mr. Putin. He said that he’s all for engagement, but “We also have to recognize reality and what Russia is up to.There's a decreasing number of areas where we can engage cooperatively and an increasing number of areas where we're going to have to confront Russia. The U.S. has tried to engage positively with Russia in the past, but it’s a short list of successes. I think right now the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what we deal with Mr. Putin. We recognize that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance, and that we take the steps, the integrated steps, diplomatic, economic, military and the alliance steps, working with our allies to defend ourselves where we must. Deterrence is necessary to fight Russia that requires a strong military because the US military is not robust enough right now."

General Mattis cited Russian involvement in hacking and information warfare among the challenges posed by Moscow. Others include treaty violations, destabilizing activities abroad and alarming messages from Moscow regarding the use of nuclear weapons.

General Mattis said he wanted to meet with the new Trump national security team to "craft a strategy to confront Russia for what it's done," when questioned about the possibility of new U.S. sanctions.

Unlike President-elect Trump, who appeared to question the alliance during his campaign, General Mattis strongly embraced it -- calling NATO central to America's defense.

Together with Russian activities and the threats of Islamist extremists, General Mattis said China was part of mounting assault on global stability, and the relationship with Beijing needed to be carefully managed.