Among a long list of would-be successors to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, two names have bubbled to the top: Michèle Flournoy and Ash Carter, both former senior Pentagon officials.
Flournoy has long been considered a top contender for the job in the next administration if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2016 — especially if it’s Hillary Clinton.
Flournoy is considered hawkish on defense issues, which would play well with a Republican-led Senate confirmation process, and she’s experienced. She was undersecretary of defense for policy from February 2009 to 2012, and she led President Barack Obama’s 2008 Defense Department transition team.
Harvard educated, she’s co-founder and CEO of the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan think tank funded largely through donations from defense contractors. CNAS declined a request for comment on Flournoy’s potential candidacy.
As defense secretary, Flournoy would be expected to follow her predecessors in pushing for more funding for the Pentagon as it grapples with spending cuts and a possible return of sequestration in fiscal 2016, having served on a panel and written op-eds urging more money be spent on defense.
“The Pentagon needs relief from the budget cuts of the past few years,” Flournoy said in a September op-ed with Eric Edelman, a former undersecretary of defense for policy in the George W. Bush administration who served with Flournoy on the congressionally mandated National Defense Panel, which earlier this year recommended higher levels of defense spending.
Flournoy has also backed a number of cost-cutting measures, including base closures, pay and compensation reform and an overhaul to the Pentagon’s long-troubled acquisition bureaucracy.
Obama also could be considering Flournoy with an eye toward another history-making Cabinet selection. “By nominating her, it would give the administration the chance to name the first female defense secretary,” said Steve Bucci, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Still, it might be tempting for her and other candidates for the Cabinet post to wait for a fresh start in the new administration rather than taking on the baggage of the Obama administration in the president’s final two years in office.
At least one contender has already ruled himself out: Sen. Jack Reed, who was reelected earlier this month and is expected to become the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Rhode Island senator “does not wish to be considered for secretary of defense or any other Cabinet position,” his spokesman, Chip Unruh, said. “Sen. Reed loves his job and wants to continue serving the people of Rhode Island in the United States Senate.”
Retiring House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said after the way Hagel was pushed out, the Obama administration would be hard-pressed to find a willing successor.
“I personally don’t know why anybody would want to take the job,” McKeon said in an interview. “It’s an important job, but if they’re going to keep running everything out of the White House then it doesn’t really make much difference.”
If the president doesn’t go with one of the former Pentagon officials, there’s a long list of potential outside-the-box candidates.
Three of them are retired generals who were all embroiled in controversy before leaving: David Petraeus, Stanley McChrystal and John Allen.
“Obviously, each one — especially the first two — had some complexities in how they left the government,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution. But, he said, “they command a lot of respect with the military as well as with the Republicans and all worked with Obama administration.”
Another potential Hagel successor is his current No. 2, Bob Work. A former Navy undersecretary before being tapped as deputy defense secretary this year, Work just went through the confirmation process and would give the Defense Department a more seamless transition. He could also serve in an acting capacity.
Another name that’s been floated is retiring Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who is 80 but still very involved in defense policy as chairman of the Armed Services Committee. While he’s unlikely to be considered, Levin, like Reed, has a good working relationship with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), which would make confirmation easier.
And McKeon suggested his Democratic counterpart on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, would be a good candidate, although he added he did not believe Smith was interested.
An additional consideration is whether the potential nominee could survive a confirmation fight in the new Republican-controlled Senate. And several GOP senators who would play a role in the process are already offering up their own job specifications.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the next defense secretary should “possess a sharp grasp of strategy, a demonstrated ability to think creatively and the willingness and ability to work with Congress.”
And McCain, set to chair the Armed Services panel that would oversee the confirmation process, said he hopes Obama “will nominate a secretary of defense with the strength of character, judgment and independence that Bob Gates, Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel all exhibited at their best.”
Bucci said that both Flournoy and Carter “have credibility” and would likely have an easy road to confirmation, but he criticized Flournoy for remaking herself “pretty regularly.”
“When she left the administration, she basically kind of criticized the stuff she had been executing,” he said.
Carter, meanwhile, was the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian under Defense Secretary Panetta — and, like Flournoy, was considered a top choice to succeed Panetta before Hagel was chosen nearly two years ago.
Carter, who has a doctorate in physics, has done multiple tours in the Pentagon, including during the Clinton administration as assistant secretary for international security policy. He was the Pentagon’s top weapons buyer in the Obama administration in 2009 before being promoted to deputy defense secretary in 2011 — jobs that put him on the front lines of the day-to-day management of one of the world’s most complex institutions.
Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and analyst at the Lexington Institute, said that Flournoy also made the most sense because Carter shared Hagel’s tendency to “get too creative in public forums.”
“I don’t see Ash Carter as being a logical candidate because he had the same sort of media problems as Chuck Hagel did on a smaller scale,” Thompson said.
Defense analysts and congressional sources say that both Carter and Flournoy are unlikely to face a major confirmation battle, as Hagel did — but they also might be hesitant to join the administration’s final two years amid the recent foreign policy turmoil.
“I don’t see why Michèle Flournoy or Ash Carter wouldn’t be able to be confirmed,” said one defense lobbyist who tracks congressional issues. “I just think they’re going to find it a very unpleasant process.”
That’s particularly true for Flournoy, the lobbyist said, who as co-founder of CNAS would have the think tank’s body of work scrutinized. Carter has also co-edited and co-authored a number of books about defense policy.
Still, in an early sign that Republicans would back both former DoD officials, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called them “solid choices” in a statement Monday.
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