Despite Austin’s sterling resume, he’s likely to face considerable opposition in the Senate.
President-elect Joe Biden has selected retired four-star Army general Lloyd Austin as his nominee for secretary of defense. Despite Austin’s sterling resume, he’s likely to face considerable opposition in the Senate. The issue isn’t with Austin himself, but with the fact that he retired in 2016 and the National Security Act of 1947 requires a prospective secretary to wait seven years after ending active duty as a commissioned officer.
Congress could grant Austin a waiver, but it would be only the third time a president has requested a waiver — President Harry Truman for George Marshall in 1950, and President Trump for James Mattis in 2017.
The Democratic Party’s 2020 platform didn’t explicitly promise a civilian would run the Pentagon, but promised to “end the Trump Administration’s politicization of the armed forces and distortion of civilian and military roles in decision-making. We will reinstate national security policymaking processes that advance competent civilian control and appropriately incorporate military advice.”
Back in 2017, 17 Senate Democrats and 150 House Democrats voted against granting a waiver to Mattis. Those lawmakers will probably have an awkward time explaining why they would support one for Austin.
Over in The Atlantic, Eliot Cohen argues that Congress making two exceptions in almost 70 years is one thing, but two within a four-year span would represent a problem. “Having made good choices for national security adviser and secretary of state, it is a pity that the president-elect has made such a fundamental blunder. Congress should not enable him to make an appointment that would have more in common with the behavior of shaky democracies and authoritarian governments than the most powerful and long-established republic on the planet.”
Jim Golby, a former special adviser to vice presidents Joe Biden and Mike Pence, writes in the New York Times today, “Appointing another retired general to lead the Pentagon will not help return things to normal. Even if a retired general like Mr. Mattis was the right person for the Trump era, that era is over. A legislative exception granted at an exceptional moment should not become the new rule.”
Democratic members of the House are already publicly grumbling.
Representative Tom Malinowski of New Jersey tweeted this morning, “The House will be asked to vote not on the person (he is a fine man), but on the longstanding principle of civilian control of the military — including that a civilian should run the Pentagon… We spent the last four years violating such norms. I would need to hear an extremely strong case from the Biden administration for the necessity of General Austin’s appointment at this moment to consider further eroding this one.”
Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan tweeted, “I have deep respect for Gen. Lloyd Austin. We worked together when he commanded U.S. forces in Iraq, when he was vice chief of the Army, and when he was the CENTCOM commander. But choosing another recently retired general to serve in a role designed for a civilian just feels off.”
Around this point, I could make some snarky comment about the surprisingly vocal Democratic opposition to the first African-American nominee to be secretary of defense. But this opposition is no doubt rooted in Austin’s relatively recent departure from military service and would be the same for a similar nominee of any other creed or color. All of these Democrats like Austin for the job, but the exception is turning into a habit.
Biden has forced his party into an uncomfortable decision. Either they accept that the National Security Act’s requirements for civilian control at the Pentagon are not that important, or they can vote against Austin — a man who is, by every other measure, qualified for the position.