After nearly three months, the White House finally announced on Monday its first service secretary nomination: former Obama Pentagon policy chief Christine Wormuth to serve as Army secretary.
Wormuth served from 2014 to 2016 as Obama’s undersecretary of defense for policy before moving on to become the director of the RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center. She volunteered as a member of President Joe Biden’s Defense Department transition agency review team under current Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks.
As the Obama administration’s third-ranking defense official, she advised on a range of foreign policy and national security issues, and she served as the senior director for defense policy on the National Security Council. Wormuth will be challenged to take over leadership of the Army in a time of transformation as the service reorients toward the Indo-Pacific region and rapidly modernizes to keep up with China’s aggressive military technology investments.
“Christine is a true patriot with a dedicated career in service to America and our nation’s security,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement following the White House announcement.
Austin said that as the lead policy official in the Obama administration, Wormuth worked on the department’s counter-Islamic State campaign and its pivot to Asia.
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“Her deep expertise will be critical in addressing and deterring today’s global threats, including the pacing challenge from China and nation-state threats emanating from Russia, Iran and North Korea,” Austin added.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith issued a statement praising the choice of a civilian woman in Wormuth as Army secretary.
“At a time when our civil–military relations have grown strained, I am glad that President Biden has chosen a civilian public servant like Christine, who has deep national security experience in the Department of Defense and National Security Council,” the Washington Democrat said.
Wormuth would be the first female secretary of the Army. The Air Force, including under former President Donald Trump, has had two female secretaries, and the Navy has yet to have a female secretary.
‘Powerful defender’
Some experts believe that if Wormuth is confirmed, she will face the tough task of defending the Army against budget cuts.
“The conventional wisdom in Washington is that the Army will be cut to pay for more investments in the defense strategy and competition with China,” the American Enterprise Institute’s Mackenzie Eaglen told the Washington Examiner. “She will push back against that perception forcefully, I expect.”
Eaglen highlighted Wormuth’s strong working relationships on Capitol Hill and with Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville but said she will not agree with everything the top brass want.
“Christine will also not simply accept the Army’s arguments whole-cloth. She will agree with some ideas and disagree with others,” Eaglen said.
“I see no reason at all why Christine would have difficulty getting confirmed,” she said. “She brings a helpful background to help shape the Army’s policies, narrative, and concepts and will be a powerful defender with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and on Capitol Hill.”
Heritage Foundation Center for National Defense Director Tom Spoehr, who worked with Wormuth at the Pentagon, recently told the Washington Examiner that he believes she is well qualified for a leadership role, but he faulted Biden for waiting so long to begin service secretary nominations.
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“It frustrates change,” he said. “It frustrates the ability of the administration to get his agenda done. It frustrates the administration’s ability to communicate with Congress because the service secretaries are really expected to be the primary spokesperson for their service with Congress.”
He added: “They’re just in this vetting process so that when they announce the names, they’re lily-white clean and they don’t have to retract anybody’s names.”
