Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown
WASHINGTON: While it is early days, word on the street is that Air Force Chief Gen. CQ Brown is the front-runner for replacing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley when his term is up Oct. 1, 2023.
“Brown is the favorite right now, and I’d expect it to stay that way barring any big gaffe,” said one defense analyst in the know.
Although he has only been in his current job since Aug. 6, 2020, Brown’s assumed trajectory should not be surprising, according to a number of Washington defense boffins.
First, and primarily, it’s a simple artifact of “how things always have been done” in the Pentagon: the Joint Chiefs chair usually rotates among the services, and the Air Force is due a turn. The last service officer holding the post was Gen. Richard Meyers, who served from 2001 to 2005 under President GW Bush.
In fact, Brown’s predecessor, Gen. David Goldfein, had been expected to be named in October 2019, when Marine Corps. Gen. Joe Dunford’s term expired. But President Donald Trump — whose obsession with “optics” is well documented — didn’t think he fit the part, sources say.
Goldfein, who like many fighter pilots isn’t a big guy, didn’t “look macho enough for Trump,” said one former Pentagon insider. Another strike against Goldfein in Trump’s eyes, the source added, was that he’d been shot down over Serbia in May 1999 — reminding the president of his archrival, Republican Sen. John McCain. McCain was famously shot down in 1967 during the Vietnam War and survived five-and-a-half years, much of being tortured, in a North Vietnamese prison camp.
So, Trump tapped Milley — an Army general and, like many infantry soldiers, a big, burly man — as the 20th CJCS.
Further, several other analysts note the fact cannot be ignored that Brown is also the first African-American Air Force Chief — serving in an administration that has dedicated itself to increasing diversity in the senior ranks of government. Indeed, President Joe Biden has moved quickly to overturn Trump’s ban on diversity training in the military and on transgender troops.
That said, while Brown was confirmed as Air Force chief in the wake of the racial turmoil sparked by the May 25, 2020 killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd, it is common knowledge that Brown had long been being groomed by Goldfein as his chosen successor.
Brown is a decorated fighter pilot, who earned his Air Force commission in 1984. Importantly as the US military gears up to face China as its key future peer competitor, he served as the head of Pacific Air Forces. Indeed, even back when first appointed to that role 2018, Brown called China “our pacing threat.”
He also has a deep understanding of how Joint operations work, and how the Air Force fits into the Joint construct, insiders say.
Finally, sources say, Brown is a team player who aims to figure out how to make things work behind the scenes rather than focus on publicly throwing elbows in the often fractious inter-service rivalries. This has been apparent as the long-simmering feud between the Air Force and the Army over the long-range strike mission (what the Army calls long-range fires) has broken into the open.
Gen. Timothy Ray, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, called out the new strategy by Army Chief Gen. James McConville to expand the ground service’s mission to increase its “speed and range.” Most controversially, the service is developing multiple types of long-range missiles, including hypersonics, to destroy targets at ranges historically reserved for bombers — including enemy anti-aircraft defenses, raising the prospect of the Army clearing a path for the Air Force when it’s historically been the other way around. The usually soft-spoke Ray bluntly called the Army’s ambitions “stupid.”
Brown, however, has been taking a much more diplomatic approach — while at the same time asserting that there needs to be a targeted roles and missions review on the issue. In the wake of the media frenzy regarding Ray’s remarks, Brown spoke with McConville personally, an Air Force spokesperson said, as well as releasing a statement (first reported by colleague Valerie Insinna):
“Each of the services is charged with organizing, training and equipping forces to capitalize on unique capabilities, meet national security requirements, and to support our joint team. I would highlight that in addition to our four other core missions – air superiority, rapid global mobility, ISR and C2 – the U.S. Air Force provides our nation with an unparalleled 24/7 long-range global strike capability,” he said. “The Air Force will continue to work closely with all of our joint teammates to provide the capabilities the nation requires.”
