For good or ill, retired Gen. Lloyd Austin is going to have a difficult time on his road to confirmation as the next secretary of defense. This has less to do with Austin’s qualifications for the job than it does with Austin’s status as a former general and what it would mean for the coveted civil-military relationship were Austin to be at the top of the Pentagon ladder. Even Democrats normally willing to give President-elect Joe Biden unflinching support are questioning whether tapping Austin for defense secretary is the right decision. Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that “the burden of proof is on the administration” to explain why America needs another military man to head the Pentagon.
Austin’s nomination is receiving significant pushback from all corners of the Democratic Party. Many are upset that Michele Flournoy, the former undersecretary of defense for policy in the Obama administration and one-time favorite, was passed over to be the first female secretary of defense in U.S. history. Biden recognizes he has work to do, which is why he quickly penned an op-ed in the Atlantic defending Austin as a man of principle who will clean up the Pentagon after four years of chaos under President Trump. Austin, Biden said in remarks today, is “the definition of duty, honor, country.”
In the roughly 24 hours since Austin was named secretary of defense-designate, however, the debate has been fixated on congressional waivers and identity politics. There has been very little, if any, discussion on what Austin’s policy preferences are or how he would manage the largest department in the federal government. This is in large measure because Austin has spent his entire professional career in the military, which implements orders rather than sets policy. While high-ranking officers provide their best military judgment to their civilian superiors, they aren’t policymakers themselves. The only thing we really know about the good general is that he oversaw the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq and acknowledged in congressional testimony during his tenure as the top U.S. commander in the Middle East that Washington’s train-and-equip program for Syrian fighters was a horribly implemented black hole for taxpayer money.
Other than that, the man is a closed book. He rarely spoke to the press during his command, is intensely private, and is reportedly resistant to lobbying for his own recommendations in the interagency. Some are concerned Austin will simply roll over and serve as the figurehead for the Pentagon bureaucracy; others are worried the former four-star general will be a yes man and refuse to offer opinions that conflict with Biden’s. Whether this is fair or not, we don’t know. And we don’t know because Austin has not yet been afforded a serious examination.
That examination needs to happen now. Whether or not you support or oppose Austin as the next secretary of defense, it would serve everybody’s interest if lawmakers start asking the right questions of the nominee right now. The public deserves to know as soon as possible what the Defense Department’s priorities are going to be under Austin’s leadership. This is an important topic for discussion in any given year, but even more important now given the constrictions of the economy and the $3 trillion deficits Washington is racking up due to COVID-19 relief. The Pentagon won’t be immune to belt-tightening (rightly so), which means the department will have to find a way to be smarter with the abundant resources it already has. Would a Secretary Austin choose maintaining legacy platforms over new investments? Would modernization come first? Would he try to thread the needle like previous secretaries?
Austin cut his teeth in the Middle East. But the United States is trying to extricate itself from his former area of responsibility. Does Austin agree that the Middle East needs to be downsized in U.S. defense policy? If so, how much of the personnel and assets withdrawn from the region would he support redeploying to the Asia-Pacific? If not, why does he believe the Middle East is still strategically important?
There is also a good deal to learn about Austin’s approach to China, Washington’s largest strategic competitor. While Republicans and Democrats are largely in alignment in getting tougher on Beijing, there is debate about how large the U.S. military posture in Asia should be; whether an overt security commitment to Taiwan is in the U.S. interest; and whether utilizing the strength of U.S. allies and partners in the region is the most cost-effective, least risky way of balancing China. Austin has said little about any of this — it’s time for lawmakers and journalists to press him on all of these issues.
Next to the presidency itself, secretary of defense is one of the most esteemed, coveted, and powerful jobs in the national security bureaucracy. We would all do well to spend more time focusing on defense policy and the challenges that Austin will find on his desk (if he is indeed confirmed) and far less time on the passionate fights over identity politics.
Daniel DePetris (@DanDePetris) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. His opinions are his own.
