Key Democrats Lukewarm On SecDef Nominee; Biden Signals Return To Soft Power

UPDATED WASHINGTON: President-elect Joe Biden formally nominated retired general Lloyd Austin as his Secretary of Defense today, capping a day of speculation and reaction from Democrats on Capitol Hill that ranged from tepid support to outright rejection.

Austin will need a Congressional waiver to serve as the Pentagon’s top civilian, and may face a rocky path to confirmation, but Biden made clear today he has his full and committed support.

“General Austin shares my profound belief that our nation is at its strongest when we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example,” Biden said in a late afternoon statement, signaling the Biden administration will at least pay public lip service to boosting the leadership of the State Department, as the Obama administration also tried to do. Biden’s selection of Tony Blinken as Secretary of State would appear to strengthen this argument given his long and close relationship with Biden, including as the then-vice president’s national security advisor.

Throughout his 41 years of service “and in the many hours we’ve spent together in the White House Situation Room and with our troops overseas — General Austin has demonstrated exemplary leadership, character, and command,” the statement continued, underscoring the incoming president’s bias toward building an administration full of people with whom he has worked before, and feels a personal kinship with. 

The presumed frontrunner until the last several days, Michele Flournoy, issued a statement just minutes later congratulating Austin, calling him a “man of deep integrity,” adding “I look forward to helping him and the president-elect succeed in any way that I can.”

In another arm of the coordinated media rollout of the announcement, Biden also published an essay in The Atlantic, outlining the relationship between the two men and highlighting the fact that Austin was the general who wound down the war in Iraq, a selling point at a time where ending the “forever wars” was a campaign pledge made by both Trump and Biden.

Biden made sure to highlight the fact that Austin “played a crucial role in bringing 150,000 American troops home from the theater of war. Pulling that off took more than just the skill and strategy of a seasoned soldier. It required Austin to practice diplomacy, building relationships with our Iraqi counterparts and with our partners in the region. He served as a statesman, representing our country with honor and dignity and always, above all, looking out for his people.”   

Those sentiments will only take the Austin nomination so far, however.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a key Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said today he opposes granting Austin the needed waiver to serve, which the law require for any retired general officer within seven years of the end of their service. “I believe that a waiver of the seven-year rule would contravene the basic principle that there should be civilian control over a nonpolitical military,” he said, adding, “that principle is essential to our democracy, and it’s the reason for the statute, which I think has to be applied, unfortunately, in this instance.”

Blumenthal opposed granting the waiver to retired Gen. Jim Mattis in 2016, becoming one of 16 Democrats and the independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to do so.

Fellow Democrat Jon Tester appears to have joined Blumenthal, stating bluntly, “I didn’t for Mattis, so I probably wouldn’t for him.” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who also opposed the Mattis waiver, said today she “will not vote for an exception to this rule.”

However, it’s worth nothing that Mattis was granted his waiver by both the Senate and the House, despite opposition by some. In 2016, the Senate approved Mattis’s waiver 81-17, with 16 Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders voting against it. The House vote was closer, 268-151, with just 36 Democrats supporting it.

The Biden team has faced plenty of pressure from the Congressional Black Caucus to select an African-American as Defense Secretary, and opposition developed on its left flank to keep Flournoy out, as some groups opposed her consulting work for defense contractors and support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq while she served at the Pentagon. 

Austin sits on the board of Raytheon.

One former Pentagon official turned Democratic Congresswoman, Rep. Elissa Slotkin, said in a statement today that while she has “deep respect” for Austin, “after the last four years, civil-military relations at the Pentagon definitely need to be rebalanced. General Austin has had an incredible career — but I’ll need to understand what he and the Biden Administration plan to do to address these concerns before I can vote for his waiver.”

The influential Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith, appeared open to  Austin, saying he’d make “an excellent Secretary of Defense,” though he is “concerned about again appointing a recently retired General to be Secretary of Defense.” Speaking with reporters on Monday, Smith expressed his support for Flournoy.

The less than enthusiastic reaction to the decorated former soldier is in part a reaction to the perception that President Trump has politicized the military and eroded civilian control. 

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies said that if the waiver were approved, “this would establish, not just a precedent but a pattern. That will make a lot of people nervous, especially after the Trump administration has blurred the line between military and civilian authority.”

Mattis received the waiver to serve, but many worry that the uniformed military saw its influence grow as the former Marine general often turned to them for advice. Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller only retired from the Army in 2014, placing him below the seven-year threshold requiring a waiver. Since Miller was not nominated he did not need to receive a waiver.

“There really is former-general-officer fatigue, bordering on apprehension, on the Hill – on both sides of the aisle. Trump really burned out a lot of folks,” one former Senate staffer said. “There is a real urgent need for true civilian oversight of the military [on issues like] personnel/talent management, enforcement of standards of leadership and conduct, management of readiness, counterterrorism operations, and especially research, development, & acquisition. Austin is unlikely to get on top of that and reassert civilian control.”

There’s a chance the armed services could “take advantage of how long, slow, and gradual his learning curve for bureaucratic politics might be,” the former staffer added. “Compare to, say, a Flournoy who’s known and been commenting for years on what needs to be done, and who has had a stable of well qualified civilian subordinates in mind,” the staffer said.

UPDATE Now, it’s worth noting that these Democrats are objecting to Austin’s institutional background, not to his personal character — which draws high praise from those who’ve fought alongside him.

“I think he’s one of the best we have in the Army,” said one fellow soldier who served with Austin in Central Command, which oversees the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. “Quiet, smart…. He’s a mountain of a man, [but] he doesn’t use it to intimidate people.”

What about the criticism that Austin is too reserved in public settings – even outright awkward – to lead the most powerful arm of the US government?

“This is the problem when you have quiet people,” the Army officer said. As commander of CENTCOM, Austin went before Senate Armed Services chairman John McCain, “and the senator just flayed him,” the officer recounted. “And rather than reacting like Gen. Odierno did when Duncan Hunter went after him, Austin just sat there.”

“When you have a quiet person, that gives people a lot of latitude to interpret that [and say] ‘that means he’s weak.’ I don’t think anyone who’s ever fought with him thinks he’s weak,” the officer said. UPDATE ENDS

But opinions vary. “He had a great military career,” one former senior defense official said. “That doesn’t make him a good secretary of defense.”

Having seen how the Pentagon functioned under Mattis, “I don’t know that we should be eager to repeat it,” the former official added. “He was as well-positioned as any retired flag officer to assume the position, and yet he in some ways ran the Pentagon like CENTCOM…Turning to yet another retired CENTCOM commander to be the Secretary of Defense is not a recipe for success.”