US president Donald Trump on Friday named Mike Esper as his nominee for the next permanent secretary of defense and announced other senior level appointments to bring stability at the Pentagon at a time when it is confronted with a potentially escalating military conflict with Iran.

Trump had named Esper acting defense secretary earlier this week after Patrick Shanahan, the then nominee for the position, withdrew his candidacy over family issues.

The inaugural meeting in 2018 was delayed because Trump had abruptly fired one of the two US principals, then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The US had to wait for his replacement, Mike Pompeo, to be confirmed to announce the meeting, which, however, was postponed yet again because he was despatched to North Korea for talks leading to the historic Singapore summit.

Esper will need to be confirmed by US senate, which is a time-consuming process and could be one of the factors to determine the timing of the next India-US 2+2 ministerial involving the external affairs and defence ministers of the two countries.

Jim Mattis, the previous permanent defense secretary, had emerged as this administration’s most enthusiastic supporter of ties with India. He had publicly pressed US Congress to waive sanctions for India’s planned purchase of Russian S-400 missile defence systems as part of a long-term US plan to gently wean away India from its chief arms supplier; renamed a major US military entity as Indo-Pacific Command to reflect shared strategic interests and concerns regarding China; and rolled out the red carpet for defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman in 2018, giving her the best reception for any Indian defence minister.

Mattis’s exit, over policy differences with Trump, rankles Indians dealing with the Trump administration, both officials and private sector executives. The Trump cabinet has looked starkly bereft, to them, of a principal as bullish on India as Mattis.