The Honorable Nickolas H. Guertin, Director, Operational Test and Evaluation Office of the Secretary of Defense,

Nickolas Guertin, left, is briefed by Cmdr. Nathan Hardy about earthquake recovery efforts at a naval warfare center. (DVDS)

WASHINGTON — When the White House this month announced it was tapping Nickolas Guertin, the Pentagon’s director for operational test and evaluation for the role of Navy acquisition executive, the administration was quick to highlight his deep history with the service. But Guertin’s swap from one Senate-confirmed position to another perpetuates a cycle of musical chairs that is becoming more common in Washington as the Senate becomes increasingly polarized, analysts tell Breaking Defense.

The Senate Armed Services Committee is “better than most committees… Historically, there has been more of a bipartisan approach to national security,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization that works to make changes in how the government functions. “But all that said, it unfortunately is not that unusual for administrations to do what you just described: steal from Peter to pay Paul.”

The White House announced Guertin’s nomination on Sept. 2, roughly nine months after he was confirmed by the Senate for the DOT&E role, a position that saw him lead the office in charge of independently testing all new major Pentagon weapons systems.

His background, according to both the White House’s announcement and his LinkedIn profile, shows a deep history in the Navy’s acquisition directorates, with stints working for the warfare centers, Naval Sea Systems Command and in positions reporting to the deputy assistant secretary in charge of Navy weapons testing. He also spent two decades serving as an officer in the Navy reserve.

“He’s a very smart guy. He’s a very innovative guy,” said Bryan Clark, a fellow at the Hudson Institute who was formerly a special assistant to the chief of naval operations. “At DOT&E, he was trying to make change in an organization that is not really designed around being innovative.”

Guertin’s deep experience in the relatively niche world of Navy acquisition, combined with the administration’s reluctance to be seen tapping into the defense industrial base for government positions, likely contributed to why he was selected for the job, despite his current position at DOT&E.

“It’s a shame that it took this long to happen,” Clark said, “But I can totally see the rationale for robbing Peter to pay Paul in this sense because… if you’ve got somebody who’s an innovator and wants to speed up the capability development process, you want them” in the service acquisition executive role, as opposed to DOT&E, which only works with weapons after the program office has completed most of the development.

“He’ll be a great follow on to James Geurts, who was trying to speed up the acquisition process based on his experience” at US Special Operations Command, Clark said.

Geurts, the most recent Senate-confirmed Navy acquisition chief, left the job in August 2021. The billet has been filled by acting officials ever since, most recently by Tommy Ross, the former chief of staff for Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro.

A ‘Broken’ And Uniquely American System

The federal government as it stands today has approximately 4,000 jobs that are appointed by the administration, and 1,200 of them require Senate confirmation, facts that Stier repeatedly called both “broken” and uniquely American in its complexity. Stier’s organization has worked in conjunction with the Washington Post to track the administration’s nominees, and by extension, the vacancies still remaining.

Geurtin’s nomination is just the latest in a long history of administrations playing musical chairs with Senate-confirmed individuals. For example, the Trump administration first got Mike Pompeo confirmed as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency before he became the secretary of state. Similarly, Mark Esper was the Army Secretary prior to being the secretary of defense.

But is there any benefit to swapping people around in-house? Yes, but it’s limited.

Stier said the part of the confirmation process that will most likely speed up in these scenarios are the extensive background investigations and paperwork filings that all senior government employees must endure.

The nominee also benefits from some familiarity with the Senate and has a record of being plausible to confirm. But that doesn’t guarantee a quick confirmation, nor does it do anything to resolve the new hole in the federal government’s ranks that has been created.

“The recruiting for these jobs is hard,” Stier said. “When you have all the conflict issues that you have to be concerned with, the hoops that the nominees have to jump through, and the uncertainty that exists … about whether or not you’re going to actually get the Senate time to push your nomination through.”