To understand the tenure of outgoing Defense Secretary Hagel, consider this: After a contentious confirmation process that included the first filibuster of a Defense secretary nominee, Hagel was sworn in on Feb. 27, 2013. Two days later, the steep, automatic reductions in defense spending known as sequestration took effect. If it stays in effect through 2023, the sequester is expected to reduce average annual growth in defense spending to about 2.1 percent, down from an average annual growth rate of 7.1 percent from 2000 to 2012.
It’s been a bumpy and unpredictable ride, and even Hagel’s departure will have a harried quality. Even though the military feted the departure of its top civilian Wednesday with a parade, Hagel will be staying in office until Congress acts on his successor, Ashton B. Carter.
Fact:Chuck Hagel was the first enlisted combat veteran to lead the Defense Department. Tenure:Hagel served almost two years as the 24th secretary of Defense since the department’s creation in 1947, and he was the third to serve under President Obama. |
“The opportunity to have been a part of all this is something I could not have imagined when I joined the Army 48 years ago,” when then 20-year-old Hagel volunteered to serve in Vietnam.
With his voice breaking at times, a grateful Hagel told the audience of well-wishers Wednesday, which included President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, “of all the opportunities life has given me — and I have been blessed with so many — I am most proud of having once been a soldier.”
He called the job a “difficult challenge,” but said he found pride and satisfaction in “slugging it out, doing what you believe — and doing it your way.”
Doing it “his way” may be what led to his ouster, said Anthony Cordesman, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The outspoken Hagel “did not trust the [National Security Council] process and used private meetings to communicate his views,” Cordesman said. An October memo to National Security Adviser Susan Rice, for example, was highly critical of the administration’s Syria strategy.
Despite the professional show of gratitude Wednesday afternoon, where he was roundly praised by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, Obama and Biden for his candor and dedication for putting the troops first, Hagel will be absent next week during DOD’s 2016 budget presentation. Carter, the unconfirmed nominee, will present the defense budget on Capitol Hill.
“It’s a long, fairly ugly ride off into the sunset,” said American Enterprise Institute defense fellow Tom Donnelly.
Instead, Hagel will continue to be a behind-the-scenes public servant so that the Pentagon retains a chain of command until his replacement is confirmed.
“The secretary will continue to carry out the full responsibilities of his office right up until the time his successor is confirmed and installed,” Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters this week.
Until then and during the transition to an expected confirmation of Carter, Hagel will have a full plate. Some of the internal and external challenges Hagel will continue to manage until his successor is confirmed:
Internal challenges
• Reduced military budget: Hagel will assist Carter with the new budget, which will be released Feb. 2 and is expected to be “dead on arrival,” according to Donnelly. If leaked numbers are correct, the budget will top $585 billion — $535 billion baseline and $50 billion in overseas contingency funding. It will then fall upon the service chiefs and defense authorization and appropriation committees to hash out a compromise that fiscal conservatives in the House and Senate will support.
• Unpredictable fiscal environment: The government shutdown of 2013, sequestration that led to furloughs within the department, and back-to-back years of last-minute defense bill negotiations — in which spending hikes had to be done through continuous resolutions rather than routine budget process — have created challenges. As House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith noted during a hearing with Hagel’s deputy undersecretary for acquisition, Frank Kendall, “basically from one month to the next, you have frequently over the course of four years not known how much money you were going to spend or where.”
• Military compensation: The commission charged with coming up with proposals to reform the military’s pay, benefits and retirement system will report its recommendations Thursday, which is expected to generate bitter push back.
External challenges:
• Islamic State: The Islamic State’s campaign in Anbar province in Iraq and public executions of civilians in both Iraq and Syria spurred the announced return of thousands of U.S. troops to fight the Wahhabist uprising in Iraq and train Syrian rebel troops against both ISIS and the government of Bashar Assad.
• Russia: Longtime leader Vladimir Putin’s occupation of Crimea took the Western world by surprise, and its war with Ukraine is ongoing. Russia’s recent air and sea maneuvers have influenced another shift in U.S. defense posture with European allies.
• North and West Africa: U.S. Africa Command, which had to fight to become a combatant command just seven years ago, now faces an unrelenting pace of unstable governments, a terrifying resurgence of Ebola, the rise of violent extremist groups and the risk that the Islamic State will expand there.
• China’s weapons modernization: Somehow the department has to find the money and processes to be able to yield next-generation weapons and communications technology to counter rapid advances by China.
