{"id":17325,"date":"2014-12-08T14:30:28","date_gmt":"2014-12-08T03:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=17325"},"modified":"2014-12-09T09:37:49","modified_gmt":"2014-12-08T22:37:49","slug":"us-a-new-secretary-of-defence-but-does-it-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/us-a-new-secretary-of-defence-but-does-it-matter\/","title":{"rendered":"US: a new Secretary of Defense, but does it matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"President<\/a>When I heard the successor to Chuck Hagel as \u2018Sec Def\u2019 was going to be Ash Carter, I couldn\u2019t help but be a little interested. Carter is a friend and former dissertation committee member of my own dissertation chair Peter Feaver and as such I\u2019ve heard him speak in person at Duke University during my days as a PhD student. His nomination is bound to excite commentary about what this means for US defence and foreign policy especially here in the Asia\u2013Pacific. So I wish I had some telling personal anecdote about Carter that could shed light on this question. However, while Carter struck me as intelligent and capable, his talk was so \u2018on message\u2019 that it contained little memorable. Then it struck me\u2014that illustrates exactly why it doesn\u2019t matter much who\u2019s in charge of the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, things would probably change if Noam Chomsky or Glenn Greenwald were appointed Secretary of Defense. But neither of them would ever get that far in the first place. In order to be considered for the position, you have to first build a career in the Washington DC policy community (essentially a revolving door of government jobs when your party is in power and think-tank positions when it isn\u2019t). Getting such appointments involves holding (or, more cynically, acquiring) views that are congenial to major donors both to think tanks and political campaigns, especially from the defence industry. That would weed out a Chomsky or a Greenwald right there. Of course, in order to advance to Defense Secretary, you\u2019d need to get the approval of the President. The President for his part needs to win his party\u2019s nomination and then the White House itself. That in turn involves getting funding from key financial interest groups and votes from the public. Presidents aren\u2019t going to employ Defense Secretaries that conflict with either of those two goals. Individuals who deviate too far from donor interests and public opinion\u2014whether it be in a more hawkish or a more dovish direction\u2014simply won\u2019t be in contention. That\u2019s why Carter\u2019s talk at Duke struck me as so bland. He didn\u2019t want to say anything that could be used against him by the media or Congress should he end up in the position in which he now finds himself\u2014frontrunner to head the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

If the process of getting into office imposes major constraints on the type of person likely to hold a key position like Defense, international and domestic conditions impose even more once you\u2019re in office. Hagel and Obama both illustrate that process pretty well. Both were seen, prior to assuming office, as fairly dovish, realist in orientation, sceptical of US military involvement in the Middle East and cool towards Israel. In office, however, Hagel presided over renewed US military action in Iraq and allowed the IDF to stock up all it liked on ammunition during its offensive against Gaza. Obama stepped up the use of drones, ordered the Afghan surge, failed to close Guantanamo Bay, bombed Libya and cracked down on whistleblowing.<\/p>\n

Any US President\u2014and any US Defense Secretary\u2014is hemmed in by the following domestic and international constraints. The US public are war-weary from Iraq and Afghanistan and unwilling to put boots on the ground. Yet they also want to remain global top dog and favour tough action against Islamist terrorism. The Republican Party and conservative media and think tanks are ready to pounce on any indication of Democratic \u2018weakness\u2019 on national security, a charge the Democrats still fear. America\u2019s fiscal and economic position remains fragile, thus putting a countervailing limit on what the US can spend on defence. Externally, China is rising while Russia is covering domestic weakness with foreign policy bellicosity. The US is not willing to confront those powers in an old-style conventional war, but nor is it prepared to concede all of their demands. Islamist terror groups like ISIS are not a major security threat, but their gruesome methods both frighten the US public and generate a demand for some kind of response. Given those facts, the differences in the policies pursued by any plausible candidate for US Secretary of Defense are likely to be minimal. Most of the time, political and economic constraints matter more than individual policymakers. That\u2019s why we should focus on those rather than political gossip of the \u2018who\u2019s in, who\u2019s out\u2019 variety.<\/p>\n

Charles Miller is a lecturer at ANU\u2019s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. Image courtesy of The White House<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I heard the successor to Chuck Hagel as \u2018Sec Def\u2019 was going to be Ash Carter, I couldn\u2019t help but be a little interested. 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