Ex-admiral and member of Navy SEALs is top choice to replace Flynn

WASHINGTON — Robert S. Harward, the retired vice admiral who is President Donald Trump's top choice to replace his ousted national security adviser, is a hard-charging member of the Navy SEALs who rose through the ranks to top military positions and is close with Jim Mattis, the new secretary of defense.

Harward, 60, is a former deputy commander of the U.S. Central Command, the military's busiest, with management of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and served on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush, where he was responsible for counterterrorism issues. He is currently a top executive at Lockheed Martin, the weapons and aerospace company, overseeing business with the United Arab Emirates.

Harward's career has closely tracked that of Mattis, from the time the two worked together in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 to his tour at Central Command from 2011 to 2013, which included an assignment heading detainee operations in Kabul.

"He has faced down and defeated the world's most ruthless and deadly enemies, and he has done all that by Mattis' side," said Fran Townsend, Bush's former homeland security adviser, for whom Harward worked from 2003 to 2005. "He has been in tougher knife fights than this, and won."

Still, it is not clear whether Harward would be willing to surrender his lucrative position and comfortable existence in Abu Dhabi to step into the tumult of the Trump White House. The new administration has been troubled by an unusual level of infighting, disorganization and grievance — including within the ranks of the National Security Council — capped off on Monday by the resignation of Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser.

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Raised in prerevolutionary Tehran, Harward was known to startle his Afghan counterparts during his tours there by conversing with them fluently in Farsi, which is similar to their native Dari. Trained as an elite Special Operations officer, Harward is also known for his bravado and obsession with physical fitness. As the head of detainee operations in Afghanistan, he would lead weekly hikes in the mountains outside Kabul, outpacing colleagues who were 20 years younger, and has been known to challenge them to push-up contests that left them vomiting.

Harward looks the part of a battle-hardened military man, a crucial factor for a president who has made clear that he considers appearance an important indicator of a job candidate's suitability for a role.

With his bald head, ice-blue eyes and long scar of mysterious provenance down his cheek, Harward has the bearing of an officer who once carried out risky secret operations. But he is also an effective inside player, according to people who know him, having worked for some of the military's top policy leaders and at the White House.

James G. Stavridis, a retired admiral and former NATO commander, said Harward was "someone who will find a way to succeed no matter how daunting the task."

"I have known him well for two decades, and have boundless admiration for his ingenuity, integrity and ability to navigate choppy seas — both operationally in the field and in the battlefield of Washington, D.C.," said Stavridis, currently dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

"The real question," he added, "is whether he wants to take the job."

Some question whether Harward's decades of military experience are the right preparation for a senior policymaking post.

In a Twitter post Tuesday, Max Boot, a senior fellow in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, called Harward "a great SEAL," but said it was "not clear that running detainee ops in Afghanistan or being No 2 at CENTCOM is right background for this."

Friends say Harward has experience with high-stakes military special operations, but also in navigating the arcane world of the National Security Council, which is charged with synthesizing recommendations from national security and intelligence agencies and advising the president on policy. The process frequently involves managing turf battles and balancing competing interests.

"He'll bring a buffering calm and balance, as well as his using his previous experience at the NSC," said Douglas H. Wise, a former deputy director at the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Mattis is widely seen as a force for steadiness within the Trump administration, and some Republicans who have expressed misgivings about the president's policies and his attitude toward national security matters have looked to his defense secretary as an island of reliability in a sea of unpredictability.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on Tuesday that Trump should name a new national security adviser "who is empowered by clear lines of authority and responsibility and possesses the skills and experience necessary to organize the national security system across our government."

McCain said he looked forward "to working with the president's administration, especially Secretary Mattis, to defend the nation and support our military service members."

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If he is chosen for the post and accepts, Harward would be reunited with his old boss and mentor, Mattis. But he would also have to contend with Trump's inner circle, populated by political advisers with whom Harward is not familiar, including Stephen K. Bannon, the chief White House strategist.

In an executive order last month — which Trump later complained privately that he had not been fully briefed on — the president placed Bannon on the principals committee of the National Security Council, giving a political adviser a position of parity with the secretaries of state and defense, and with the national security adviser.

Two former national security officials who have worked closely with Harward said he would be unlikely to take the position without strong assurances from Trump and his team that the council would not be driven by partisan considerations on national security policy, and that he would have the autonomy to provide principled counsel. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on Harward's behalf.

Harward's name surfaced briefly in 2015 in connection to the scandal involving David H. Petraeus, the former general who was forced to resign as director of the Central Intelligence Agency after admitting that he had provided classified information to his lover, and who is now also said to be in the running to be Trump's national security adviser.

Jill Kelley, a Tampa socialite who had befriended Petraeus and then become a target of threatening emails from Petraeus' lover, had also written gushing notes to Harward and Mattis.

"You ROCK!!!" Kelley wrote to Harward in 2012 regarding his dealings with foreign heads of state at a social gathering, according to emails obtained by The Washington Post. "YOU ROCK MORE!," Harward replied.

There was no evidence of impropriety in the friendly correspondence, which would have been routine between top military commanders and civic leaders in the communities in which they were stationed.