it is from what point in history you want to position the "basics" from which we have, in Mattis' opinion, deviated from.

I would posit that the basics change in almost a generational fashion as “newspeak” is adopted to replace some of the old terminology. While this may be necessary as completely new concepts come to be recognized ('cyberspace' comes to mind) I think we are often guilty of just renaming an already existing process or doctrine without essentially changing it (GWOT – Long War – OCO - ?) . We play ‘acronym of the week’ with some things.

IMO Mattis wants to get back to say what you mean and mean what you stay and stop with just making s**t up for the sake of making s**t up.