Speculation on personnel changes begins. I have heard that we are very likely to have Michelle Flournoy as SECDEF (mentioned below) and Susan Rice as SECSTATE (not mentioned below). Additional speculation excerpts:
Some believe another name will be on the short-list to replace Panetta: Chuck Hagel. "He cuts the right figure, he's a Republican, Obama likes him a lot, he provides the administration with cover on the Hill, he has a really big name, and I think he wants it, H. Andrew Schwartz, a senior vice-president at CSIS, told Situation Report.
Other positions would likely stay the same. Mike Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, is relatively new in that position and probably wouldn't go anywhere. Robert Scher, deputy assistant secretary of defense for plans, was also appointed to that position in the past year. And there are others who are just settling into their jobs and would likely stay put. But Baron reports that there are three posts staffed by "acting" officials: two in the Asian and Pacific Security Affairs shop (Dave Helvey, who covers East Asia, and Brig. Gen. Rich Simcock, who handles South and Southeast Asia); and one under Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict (Caryn Hollis, who covers counternarcotics and global threats). Two other posts are vacant: the DASD for space policy, under Global Strategic Affairs, and a Middle East post under International Security Affairs.
Expected to return in some fashion: former Middle East DASD Colin Kahl, and Doug Wilson, who left the Pentagon's top public affairs job last year.
As an aside if President Obama is serious about following in the footsteps of Lincoln and assembling a "team of rivals," in addition to Chuck Hagel at Defense I would recommend he ask Paul Ryan to be be Secretary of the Treasury. Maybe he would turn out as good as Seward did for Lincoln!
Michael Rhodes can put away the binders, The personnel changes that won’t happen right away, The budget battle really begins, and more.
NOVEMBER 7, 2012
Obama's win means everyone in the Pentagon and across the national security apparatus can get back to work. The last several weeks have been stressful but also increasingly tedious as many defense types felt they couldn't move forward on policy initiatives, operations, or outreach until they knew who would be driving the ship. There is a lot to do, and now the giant sucking sound that has been the election has been muted and Obama's national security folks can get to the tasks at hand, both at home and abroad. The sense among Dems is that, with the win behind them, they can now focus on pressing issues, from Gitmo to the pace of the exit from Afghanistan to the sequester, which Obama suggested in the last debate would never come to pass: "First of all, the sequester is not something that I've proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed. It will not happen." And many believe the win will allow the White House to take a more active role in Syria.
From this morning's Washington Post editorial: "Overseas, the Iranian nuclear program will pose a fateful challenge, possibly within months. Mr. Obama will have to ensure that gains in Afghanistan and Iraq are not erased in the aftermath of U.S. troop withdrawals. His dithering in Syria as 30,000 civilians have been massacred is a particular blot on his first-term record, one for which he could begin to make amends in the second."
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