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Hagel Resigning


M2

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If it is because of hookers or cocaine, I will be very disappointed. If it was hookers and cocaine! Well, that is another story.

The next 2 years are going to be a bumpy ride if everyone starts abandoning ship. Biggest issue is who the replacement is? Can't really be a lot of people out there willing to take this on for the relatively short ride.

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Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel Is Resigning

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is resigning, The New York Times reported on Monday.

A senior administration official subsequently confirmed to Business Insider that Hagel would resign. They said Hagel would announce his decision alongside the president at 11:00 a.m.

"A successor will be named in short order, but Secretary Hagel will remain as Defense Secretary until his replacement is confirmed by the United States Senate," the official said.

The official characterized Hagel's decision to step down as normal administration turnover in the wake of the midterm elections earlier this month...

Also from that article:

An NBC news report published Monday cited "senior defense officials" who said Hagel was "forced to resign" because "the White House has lost confidence in Hagel to carry out his role at the Pentagon." One of the officials quoted by NBC delivered an especially blunt assessment of Hagel: "He wasn’t up to the job," they said.
Michèle Flournoy or Ashton Carter are considered likely replacements...
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Looking at the tenure of previous SECDEF's back through President Reagan and not including acting Secretaries, the average service in the position is 1273 days.

Hagel's current 634 and projected 675 or so will be fairly short in perspective to his peers.

The replacement would similarly likely have the same 675-700 days in the spot.

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I think it's pretty interesting all the front runners have declined to even entertain the idea.

Also, it's worth noting that Hagel is reported to have pushed back against many of the things we on here bitched about the military being involved in (ex. Ebola) and was given the axe for it.

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Looking at the tenure of previous SECDEF's back through President Reagan and not including acting Secretaries, the average service in the position is 1273 days.

Hagel's current 634 and projected 675 or so will be fairly short in perspective to his peers.

The replacement would similarly likely have the same 675-700 days in the spot.

So what you're saying is that Hagel took half as much time as his predecessors to find a lucrative board member gig?

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I think it's pretty interesting all the front runners have declined to even entertain the idea.

This Administration has the most centralization of national security stuff in the WH since Nixon/Kissinger. No one wants the job because it's an open secret in DC that relatively junior staffers on the NSS have almost as much pull as a department Secretaries...the next Secdef is going to be nothing more than a puppet for policy already determined by Rice and McDonough.

Edited by BB Stacker
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http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/11/30/what-kind-of-pentagon-chief-does-obama-need/the-president-needs-a-secretary-of-war

Brought on to manage a downsizing Pentagon and a diminishing combat role in Afghanistan, Hagel was never a member of President Obama’s close inner circle, nor a man intended to serve as secretary of war. [...] The physicist Ashton Carter ran the Pentagon’s weapons acquisitions and logistics programs before becoming Leon Panetta’s deputy secretary of defense, the chief management officer of the world's biggest organization. John McHugh, a Republican congressman from New York, has been Obama's only secretary of the Army, ably managing the nation's largest armed service. Both have earned the president’s trust; either would serve ably and well in a role the president thought he no longer needed: secretary of war.

McHugh might be the magical mix of subservience, bipartisanship, passable competence, and slight ambition.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/11/30/what-kind-of-pentagon-chief-does-obama-need/obama-is-simply-looking-for-a-loyal-pentagon-chief

Hagel was let go because, like his immediate predecessors Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, he did not work well with those in Obama’s inner circle, who have taken increasing control over national security policy. [...] A new secretary must first and foremost be comfortable with the dominant role of the White House in the decision-making process, and must forcefully support the president’s approach to foreign policy challenges, both publicly and privately, despite opposition from the military, the Republicans and much of the foreign policy establishment. Obama is looking for a loyalist, not an iconoclast.

Sadly, this is probably exactly right, however I doubt he'll get anybody that is both highly loyal and competent.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/11/30/what-kind-of-pentagon-chief-does-obama-need/obama-needs-someone-in-the-pentagon-comfortable-with-military-and-civilians

While budget fights on Capitol Hill continue, the next secretary will again be a wartime secretary. She or he must focus intently on the crises in Iraq and Afghanistan -- or else everything will continue to unravel. It will be the next secretary of defense’s job to coax creative options out of the Pentagon that are both viable and acceptable to the president. Thus the most important attribute of this person will be her or his ability to speak both the military language of the Pentagon and the political language of the White House. The secretary will not only need a black belt in Pentagon bureaucracy and budgeting, but will also need to be respected by both the senior uniformed military and the civilians on the other side of the Potomac.

A capable military leader and a sharp-minded politician? Sounds like a Rumsfeld-like candidate, and I doubt lightning will strike twice with these circumstances. Who has these qualities and is willing to accept only 2 years at a job with a President known for interfering and micro-managing?

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/11/30/what-kind-of-pentagon-chief-does-obama-need/a-secretary-of-defense-with-a-doctrine-could-help-obama

[...] what President Obama really needs is a secretary of defense who can articulate a doctrine that cuts across political minefields and can aggressively use that doctrine as a guide for U.S. involvement in military downsizing and international conflicts. [...] Few recent secretaries of defense have had a well-known doctrine associated with them, a fact that applies to the three who have served in the Obama administration -- Robert Gates, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel. They struggled with White House staffers who constantly outmaneuvered them and political operatives who undercut their authority. [...] select a secretary of defense who can rise above administration politics to articulate a strategy [...]

Somebody staunch in principles and well-respected in the military would be fabulous, if the President can actually take that step.

Interestingly, Mrs. Flournoy will be at a HASC meeting this morning too. I'm sure many people will be intrigued to hear whatever she may say about the SECDEF position.

http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/hearings-display?ContentRecord_id=7C5F0690-16A3-4AF9-86ED-F91C9C8089C5

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