Secretary Austin Delivers Remarks During Virtual Ukraine Defense Contact Group

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gives opening remarks during a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Pentagon May 23, 2022 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has approved downgrading the principal military officers at five global embassies, while reversing previous moves for four other officer roles including a particularly sensitive role in Israel, according to a memo obtained by Breaking Defense.

Signed out by Austin Aug. 8, the memo makes official plans to downgrade the Senior Defense Official/Defense Attaché (SDO/DATT) jobs for the United Kingdom, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Kuwait from general officer billets to, at most, the 06 level — a captain in the Navy or a colonel for the other military services.

However, the memo reverses course on four apparently planned downgrades for the SDO/DATT for the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, as well as the role of the United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (USSC). That role especially was seen by advocates as a key interlocutor between Israel and Palestine.

RELATED: US-Israel-Palestine security role facing downgrade; can a colonel do a general’s job?

Austin also agreed with an apparent recommendation not to downgrade the SDO/DATT officers for Russia, China, India and Israel.

“Unfortunately, hard decisions must be made to allow the Department to meet the G/FO reductions mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017. As such, I concur with previous decisions and approve the downgrade of the following positions to the grade of 06 or below to occur no later than December 31, 2022,” Austin wrote before listing the five offices that would be reduced.

That is a reference to Congressionally mandated reductions of 110 general officer billets, first introduced by Congress’s defense policy bill in FY17 [PDF]. While the Pentagon has shed some jobs between then and now, the deadline is approaching, and final decisions will need to be made.

The role of the SDO/DATT is “responsible for representing all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces for any and all issues related to each services’ bilateral relationship,” according to a US government description. “The SDO/DATT serves as the senior military advisor to the U.S. Ambassador and as the representative for the Department of Defense.”

In simpler terms, the SDO/DATT serves as the top military officer liaison out of the embassy, and often works as a crucial backchannel to the militaries of their hosting nation. For nations like Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan, the militaries there serve as their own political power centers, and having good mil-to-mil relations at a high level on the ground is vital.

And rank matters, experts say, meaning a three-star general will have a much easier time having a frank sit-down with another nation’s military leadership than a colonel would.

“Secretary Austin May believe he has elegantly split the baby, but what he’s done is undermine the department’s ability to engage in effective defense diplomacy with five key countries,” said Jonathan Lord of the Center for a New American Security. While acknowledging that the Pentagon has to make officer cuts somewhere to meet Congressional guidance, he said, “These cuts make no sense in the context of our global objectives.”

“The UK is our closest ally. Congress annually appropriates $1.3 billion in security assistance to Egypt. Kuwait currently hosts three US military bases. Turkey is a NATO ally, but our relationship over the past seven years could only be described as ‘fraught’ at best,” said Lord, who before joining CNAS held a number of regional jobs for the Pentagon and led the Middle East portfolio for the House Armed Services Committee. “Effective mil-to-mil communication with Pakistan is as essential has ever, as DoD continues to target terrorist threats in Afghanistan from over the horizon.”

A request for comment to the Pentagon was not returned by deadline.

The expected downgrade of the USSC role for Israel and Palestine had proven particularly contentious, with a bipartisan group of 32 US Senators weighing in against it and a push from Israel to keep the job as a three-star officer. As recently as last week, the Times of Israel reported that the US still planned to downgrade that job to the O6 level; whether the flare up of hostilities over the last week played a part in the decision to keep the USSC as its current level is unknown.

Lord predicted that as more cuts are revealed to general officer billets, they will come from joint roles and not the service-specific jobs that are going to be defended more tightly by top uniformed leadership. “The services are playing policy chess, OSD is eating the pieces,” he said.