To understand why President Obama chose former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., to be the next secretary of defense, it’s only necessary to compare the biggest challenges facing the Pentagon to Obama’s ideology and agenda. For Obama, Hagel is an almost ideal ideological choice.

Hagel has been outspoken in support of Obama’s foreign policy and Pentagon budget cuts. In an August 2011 interview with the Financial Times, Hagel praised Obama’s reliance on the cooperation of other nations, saying “Mr. Obama inherited probably the biggest inventory of problems, certainly foreign policy problems, than any American president ever has,” and said the Pentagon had become “bloated,” and needs to be “pared down.”