No Democratic Defense Secretary Since 1996

by: Chris Bowers

Thu Nov 20, 2008 at 14:50


Remember who the last Secretary of Defense was under a Democratic President? It was a Republican:

On December 5, 1996, President Clinton announced his selection of Cohen as secretary of defense. Cohen, a Republican about to retire from the United States Senate, was the "right person," Clinton said, to build on the achievements of William Perry, "to secure the bipartisan support America's armed forces must have and clearly deserve." In responding to his nomination, Cohen said that during his congressional career he had supported a nonpartisan national security policy and commended the president for appointing a Republican to his cabinet.

Who will be the next Secretary of Defense under a Democratic administration? Seems like a Republican appointee:

Barack Obama and Robert Gates are negotiating policy issues with a view toward Gates remaining Defense secretary, the Financial Times reports, a move that would make the Bush appointee a key member of a bipartisan cabinet that resembles Abraham Lincoln's "team of rivals."

Kind of remarkable that every time Democrats seek elite media and political credibility for having a "bi-partisan" cabinet, they turn to Republicans to manage the Pentagon. Kind of makes you think that Democrats believe Republicans are better at managing both national security, and what is by far the largest department of the federal government. There have been no Democratic Defense Secretaries since 1996, and only eight years of Democratic Defense Secretaries since 1968.

Managing the Pentagon involves a budget that will dwarf whatever the new Treasury Secretary receives from Congress. In fact, the Defense Department involves 52% of all net discretionary spending, making it about half of what the President oversees. (While the actual military budget is an even larger percentage of spending, I am just looking at the DoD in this case, since other departments oversee the rest of military expenditures.) Further, that doesn't even include supplemental bills for Iraq and Afghanistan, which Congress will be approving for the next two years and which do mainly fall under the purview of the Department of Defense. It also involves the semi-important debate over the use of contractors, and the largest energy expenditures within the federal government. You can't build a greener America without building a greener military.

And yet, just like in 1996, we are once again handing those responsibilities over to Republicans and Republican appointments even after we win huge, landslide victories. This is half of the federal government, and it is as though change is utterly impossible within it. But hey, at least Obama looks good for receiving bi-partisan credibility from The Village. Hopefully, Obama will accrue as much political capital from Republicans and media elites as Bill Clinton did during his second term for appointing a Republican Secretary of Defense. Also, I hope it works out as well as all of those Democrats Bush appointed to run the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, or Housing and Urban Development.

Chris Bowers :: No Democratic Defense Secretary Since 1996

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No Democratic Defense Secretary Since 1996 | 26 comments
Rumsfeld's Pentagon increasingly outsourced to new Republican contractors (0.00 / 0)
... such as Blackwater. Under the Bush 2 administration, more and more of our defense functions have been privatized to what are effectively Republican militias.

Guess that's not going to change under the Obama administration.

Way to go (0.00 / 0)
Mister Iran-Contra continues his reign...

Why must every democrat feel they need to placate the right just to show they "support the troops"?

Hell best way to show we support the troops is to give them a Secretary of Defense who wants to get them the fuck out of harms way in some bullshit useless war.

I admire the honesty of this pick (4.00 / 1)
Unlike with his other awful conservative picks, Obama isn't pretending to initiate change.
Remember Les Aspin! (4.00 / 2)
Don't forget, Aspin fell on his sword for the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia.  That's right.  George H.W. Bush creates the policy in Somalia, Clinton takes over, an incident occurs, and Clinton's SecDef takes the fall for it.

Has ANYONE resigned in the Bush administration for a single failure during Iraq or Afghanistan?

Hopefully, short term (4.00 / 2)
I strongly believe the one and only cabinet position a Democrat cannot give a Republican is Defense.  We just can't let that meme fester.

I do think that keeping Gates on for a year or two falls into a slightly different category, but only slightly.  We better be getting a whole lot of bang for this buck.  (Which I'll admit is possible.)

Of course, if it opens the doors for Wes Clark (or even Zini) to take the position when he becomes eligible in 2010, all will be forgiven.

It's been decades since the purpose of the Pentagon was national defense (4.00 / 2)
The function of the Pentagon is to provide defense contractors, which are overwhelmingly Republican, with substantial profits. Evidently, the military-industrial complex doesn't believe that a Democrat would do that with enough zeal.

That's what this is about: it's not that Dems still think that the perception still exists that Rethugs are better at national security.

Also, the US military is now primarily a southern institution; Air Force generals openly preach Christian fundamentalism. I guess the Obama people decided that he needs a Republican buffer between him and the military to keep it in line.

[ Parent ]
A poll question I'd like to see: (0.00 / 0)
"Would you support a freeze in defense spending if it would boost the economy out of the recession and prevent a depression?  A 10% reduction? A 25% reduction"

I'd like to see just how much of a political third rail defense spending is with the average person.

Chris likes to talk about positive feedback loops (4.00 / 2)
One huge positive feedback loop Republicans have going for them is defense spending - the military-industrial complex supports a huge number of people who depend on high defense spending levels, and who mostly support Republicans and contribute to Republican candidates. Shrink the MIC and you shrink the Republican base.

But that is an enormously difficult thing to do, obviously, and it's a fight that Democrats, including Obama, so far seem utterly unwilling to have. It really should be a primary long-term goal of progressives, however, to interrupt this feedback loop.

[ Parent ]
add (4.00 / 3)
I think one of the things Obama has so far skillfully done is talk up the potential "green economy" as critical to the economy, the environment, and - importantly - national security. The best way to counter the military-industrial complex is with a green-industrial complex, which, on top of being very good on the merits, would constitute a positive feedback loop for progressives. Unfortunately, the sums bandied about for investment in the green economy have been paltry compared to, e.g., what we've spent in Iraq. Progressives really need to make the case that any such investment must be greater than what we've thrown into the nightmarish abyss of the Iraq conflagration, and the case must be made both on moral and on national security grounds.
[ Parent ]
Precisely. The talk of ... (4.00 / 2)
...$15 billion a year over 10 years for green energy amounts to $150 billion total. That's how much we spend each year for Iraq and Afghanistan.  
[ Parent ]
Here you go (4.00 / 3)
Most recent poll on the subject, pre-economic crash:

Gallup Poll. Feb. 11-14, 2008. N=1,007 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

"There is much discussion as to the amount of money the government in Washington should spend for national defense and military purposes. How do you feel about this? Do you think we are spending too little, about the right amount, or too much?"

Too little: 22%
About Right: 30%
Too Much: 44%
Unsure: 3%

"Too much" is at it's highest point since 1993, and has been steadily rising since it's low point of 17% in February, 2002. Given the direction of the economy, it is likely that "Too Much" would poll even higher today, possibly even reaching majority status.

It's not a third rail. The public is split over whether or not to cut defense spending, but overwhelmingly opposed to increasing it.

[ Parent ]
I remember hearing somehwere that Gates... (0.00 / 0)
...wasn't considered to be a Republican... don't have any more info on that, but chatter on TV...

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!
In the Quick Hits (0.00 / 0)
it was mentioned that he's a registered Independent. I can't add anything else about his politics, though. I know relatively little about him.
[ Parent ]
Wiki (0.00 / 0)
His wiki entry says he was in the Young Republicans in college.  All of his major appointments have been from Republican administrations.  He may very well be registered as an independent, as most generals and appointed politicians like Gates are, but I think he clearly qualifies as Republican.  Seems to be fairly moderate, though, and on the same page as Obama when it comes to what to do in Iraq, Iran and so on.  Certainly, we can call him an independent without really lying, if that helps the meme and propaganda wars.

From the point of view of troop movement and our current position in the world, he will be fine.  Doubt he is the guy to clean up defense contracts and overall, non-war spending, though.

[ Parent ]
Actually, I really like this move. (4.00 / 3)
Because I take it to mean that Obama tends to initiate a pretty serious pullback, and he wants cover from Gates and the whole Iraq Study Group wing of the GOP (Scowcroft, Baker, O'Connor, etc) when he does it.  The GOP cannot wait to plant the stab-in-the-back narrative on Iraq and Obama, and having Gates be the guy implementing the policy (and telling Petraeus to stuff it) is a very strong blocking move for that.  

If Obama had appointed a fairly unfamous Democrat to the role, I'd worry that the optics of withdrawal (and the fight with Petraeus) might roll him.  Appointing Chuck Hagel would help somewhat, but that means giving DOD to a Republican for an entire four years.  Keeping Gates for only twelve or fourteen months is perfect -- we still get a Dem for most of Obama's term, but we get a very credible, unassailable-from-the-right Rep in there during the key fight to initiate withdrawal.

I like it.  Sorry.  I don't generally like the idea of appointing Reps to anything, particularly Treasury or DOD (or DHS), but holding over an appointment for a year and implementing your policy anyway is pretty rad.  It cripples the pushback from the other side.  

Unless you want the narrative to be "Dems end war in Iraq", as opposed to "grownups end war in Iraq".  There might be some long-term advantages to having the withdrawal being very specifically branded as Democratic.  That's kind of a high-risk-high-reward play though, if anything in the withdrawal goes abnormally badly it's all on us.  Given that we're just now putting "Dems lost Vietnam" to rest, particularly among the unionish sector of the electorate, I'm not sure I have the stomach for the risk.  

Besides, if withdrawal goes well, Dems get the credit in the eyes of the electorate going forward.  It's only if withdrawal is a little rocky that it's important to be able to say "look, the sane Republicans are with us too!"  Co-opting that wing of the party gives you a great shield in case things are sketchy for a time, but doesn't get in the way of claiming credit if things go great.

that's fair (0.00 / 0)
But Gates was rumoured to want to retire, and to have been not eager to take over as SecDef originally.  So what has he asked for and recieved to remain on?

Maybe the man is another Souter or something, because otherwise I don't see why he signs on to take the flak from the right for Obama to implement a progressive defence policy.

[ Parent ]
He will still retire .. (0.00 / 0)
just 2 years late(at most)
[ Parent ]
Another Souter? (0.00 / 0)
I'm not sure what you mean by "another Souter" ("closet liberal", or ???), but I'm inclined to think it is a matter of duty (to the country, the troops, and even Iraq) and doing the right thing.

Now that he is in the post he may have some very real motiviation to "finish the job right".  It is fairly clear we will be at least largely withdrawing from Iraq in the fairly near future.  The process has, in theory, been underway for some time (at least in terms of stabalizing the country and training the Iraqis to take over).  Gates may believe that since he was in charge when the current process got going that he can execute the remainder better than anyone else.

Perhaps I'm just too optimistic though ;).

[ Parent ]
I don't know about that (0.00 / 0)
having Gates be the guy implementing the policy (and telling Petraeus to stuff it) is a very strong blocking move for that.

Why should Republicans be chastened by a Dem not implementing the policy? What matters is who sets the policy, and everyone knows that that's the president.

I think that this is more about internal Pentagon politics, rather than Beltway politics.

[ Parent ]
Bad logic (4.00 / 2)
We heard lots of this kind of logic in the primaries of how Republicans would attack, anyway.  My initial response to that is "duh".  But that is the wrong way to look at it.  It isn't whether or not the Republicans will make the attacks, it is whether or not the general public (and the beltway crowd) buy into the attack.  

If a Republican screams bloody murder and no one cares, did he really scream?

I certainly don't know that keeping Gates around will help with this, but it certainly is possible.  We need to be honest about both the pros and the cons of these moves.

[ Parent ]
I'd rather see Gates replaced with Chuck Hagel (0.00 / 0)
... who was against the Iraq war, of course. That would be bipartisanship I can believe in.

As this item at Antiwar.com notes, Obama's "appointees and rumored appointees have thus-far, without exception, favored the Iraq invasion and held hawkish foreign policy positions."

[ Parent ]
Disagree completely (0.00 / 0)
As I said before, I'm very much in the "no Republican for SoD" club.  I think it would be horrible, horrible for the publics perception of Democrats and national defense to keep doing that.  Keeping Gates on for a short time is similar, but not exactly the same.  I don't even think there will be a conformation hearing as he just stays on to the job he already has.  (I could be wrong about that point.)

Anyway, as long as the continuation is temporary and the public perceives this as simply smoothing the transition, I don't think this is much of a problem from my perspective.  Plus, I'm really hoping Hillary talks Obama into Wes Clark in 2010, when he becomes eligible for the position.

Antiwar.com is incorrect, though.  Susan Rice, who's in line for Deputy National Security Adviser, for example, was completely against the war from the beginning.  Her perspective boss, Jim Steinberg, has been against since 2004.

[ Parent ]
It All Depends (0.00 / 0)
As a couple commenters noted, it depends on what function and for how long Gates would serve.  If it's for a year or 18 months, and the withdrawal begins under his watch (or is completed on his watch), then it's an ok move.  Hell, it'd be a damned good move.  If, on the other hand, this serves to delay the withdraw from Iraq (and I mean the beginning of the withdraw or significantly past the set timetable, not that the withdraw will take several months; that's a given), it's a horrible move.  So I think we should pressure Obama, not over the pick itself, but over what he does with it.  Devil, details, etc
Thanks, Chris. This is spot-on. I took note of the situation ... (4.00 / 1)
...on November 2 with Give Hagel a Job, But Not Secretary of Defense.

nice as bipartisanship sounds, underlying everything is political clout. In the case of national defense, the majority of Americans have for decades looked upon Democrats as weak and unreliable protectors of our country's security. Even many Democrats agree with this assessment. Thus, this has been the array of Secretaries of Defense since Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House:

Charles E. Wilson - Republican (1953-57)
Neil H. McElroy - Republican (1953-59)
Thomas S. Gates - Republican (1959-61)
Robert S. McNamara - Republican (1961-1968)
Clark M. Clifford - Democrat (1968-1969)
Melvin R. Laird - Republican (1969-1973)
Elliot L. Richardson - Republican (1973)
James R. Schlesinger - Republican (1973-1975)
Donald H. Rumsfeld - Republican (1975-1977)
Harold Brown - Democrat (1977-1981)
Caspar W. Weinberger - Republican (1981-1987)
Frank C. Carlucci - Republican (1987-1989)
Richard B. Cheney - Republican (1989-1993)
Les Aspin - Democrat (1993-1994)
William J. Perry - Democrat (1994-1997)
William S. Cohen - Republican (1997-2001)
Donald H. Rumsfeld - Republican (2001-2006)
Robert Gates - Republican (2006-Present)

You will note that Republican Presidents don't appoint Democrats to be Secretary of Defense. But Democratic Presidents choose Republicans for the post more often than they choose members of their own party. Could you remind me again of how well that Bob McNamara thing worked out? If Barack Obama chooses Chuck Hagel, it would mean that Republicans would have held that Cabinet slot for nearly 52 of the 60 years from 1953-2013. For a Democratic President vowing major change, and heading for what could be a powerful mandate in Congress, what does it say if this key post goes to someone from the party to whom it has traditionally gone?

Would it indicate that Democrats believe themselves to be too weak for the job? And what do we mean by "weak"? If we don't believe Democrats are strong enough to put one of our own in such a key job, how can we expect non-Democrats to believe it?


A bit more complicated (4.00 / 3)
Gates, although appointed by a Republican, wasn't really a Republican pick.  Beyond the fact that he personally is not a member of the GOP and didn't work his way up through through the GOP farm team, he was actually appointed as the result of something of a "Colonel's Rebellion", senior military officers, especially from the Navy and Marines, threatened to resign en masse in protest if another conservative ideologue was appointed who emphasized outside contractors and crony capitalism over mission performance and force readiness.

Just for the fact that he's broken the "Fighter Pilot Mafia" that had completely controlled the Air Force since early in Reagan's first term, he stands out.  That control is why every plane the Air Force ordered was either a fighter (F-22), a fighter-bomber (F-117, which should have gotten an "A" designator and been designed with a larger bombload and a less aggressive flight envelope, as a fighter aircraft it sucks balls and as a bomber it carries a trivial payload) or a bomber that wished it was a fighter (B-1 and B-2).  Non-combat airframes for refueling or cargo transport were basically ignored, and when Congress forced them to start the process it was shunted to the side and treated like defense-contractor welfare, rather than mission-critical.  

They tried their damnedest to dump the only real ground-attack close air support airframe they had left (the A-10), wanting to replace it with a "dual role" rebuild of the F-15.  When it turned out that supersonic air-superiority interceptor/fighters can't be refitted into decent anti-tank/close fire support platforms, they had to re-activate all of the Guard units they'd dumped the A-10's on.

Army and Navy have some of the same issues, although most of their worst have already been ditched (like the Paladin howitzer system).  The Marines have been able to dodge the worst of it, it was Marine and Naval refusal to adopt a carrier-capable F-22 modification that they considered horrendously overpriced that resulted in the Joint Strike Fighter (aka F-35), which costs less than a quarter as much even for the VTOL version.

Gates has a long list of "gold plated" weapon systems, stuff that's over-priced by a factor of 10 for something you actually want to risk in combat, that he wants to dump, as well as much "cheaper and smarter" weapons concepts like the next-gen UAV's, but hasn't been able to move on most of it as Bush's SecDef.  And he has the credibility and support from the senior officers it will take to make reforms happen without them dragging their feet or trying to derail it.

Thanks (0.00 / 0)
I hadn't heard any of that.  If true, this really makes me feel good about keeping Gates on for the time being.
[ Parent ]
No Democratic Defense Secretary Since 1996 | 26 comments




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