Sorry, Gen. Lloyd Austin. A Recently Retired General Should Not Be Secretary of Defense.
After a tumultuous four years, we need civilian leadership and a return to normalcy.
President-elect Joe Biden is expected to nominate a retired Army general, Lloyd Austin, for secretary of defense.
General Austin is a capable and respected former commander of Central Command, but a civilian — not a recently retired general — should lead the Pentagon.
As it is, Mr. Biden will need a Congressional waiver; the National Security Act of 1947 requires a prospective secretary to wait seven years after ending active duty as a commissioned officer and General Austin retired only in 2016. 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.
The legislators who negotiated the original security act believed only unique circumstances might dictate that a newly retired general or admiral should lead the Defense Department. They codified into law a 10-year cooling-off period (which Congress in 2008 reduced to seven years).
Senator Harry Cain of Washington was particularly worried that recently retired officers would be too cozy with their friends still on active duty. When Truman sought a waiver for Marshall, Cain opposed the former general for that reason, even though Marshall had already served admirably as secretary of state.
Cain’s concerns were vindicated by history. Marshall stood by as a civil-military crisis slowly developed between Truman and Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Marshall’s former Army peer. Marshall even tried to avert MacArthur’s firing for insubordination, related to Truman’s Korean War policy, before reluctantly backing the president’s call. It is telling that today we remember Marshall more for his time as secretary of state than for his tenure as defense secretary.
[More on link]
