Biden Opts for Mediocrity in the Defense Department

John Rossomando January 15, 2021
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Originally published by the National Interest

America needs a Defense Department led by people who live in the real world instead of wishful thinking and false narratives.

President-elect Joe Biden’s choices to run the Pentagon suggest he prefers people he’s comfortable with instead of people with successful track records confronting America’s enemies. This is true of Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Gen. Lloyd Austin, and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Colin Kahl.

Both men helped formulate and execute the Obama administration’s failed policies in the Middle East that emboldened Iran and failed to deter the spread of ISIS. Democrats have said they wanted competence, but their track records suggest they have a lack of understanding of the Middle East and of military strategy.

Kahl oversaw Defense Department activities in the Middle East as Deputy Secretary of Defense for the Middle East and also was then-Vice President Joe Biden’s national security adviser. His new role will put him in charge of setting the Defense Department’s policy agenda. He oversaw the Obama administration’s disastrous response to the Arab Spring at the Defense Department. He also is a supporter of returning to the Iran nuclear deal, which led to the funneling of billions to Hezballah and other Shiite terrorist groups.

Austin was regarded by those under his command as a “toxic leader” and “an uninspired political animal eager to curry favor with the White House,” former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst John Schneider wrote in a 2015 column. An unnamed Biden transition official told Politico last month that Austin “doesn’t knock your socks off” and that he did not “see him as an independent thinker.”

Serious questions exist about Austin’s competence for the job of Secretary of Defense.

CENTCOM squandered half a billion dollars during Austin’s command on the disastrous Syrian “Train and Equip” program. The general testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Sept. 2015 that the program only led to the deployment of “four or five” Syrian fighters against ISIS.

“I have never seen a hearing that is as divorced from the insight of every outside expert,” the late Sen. John McCain, then chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in response to Gen. Austin’s testimony.

The debacle of “Train and Equip” went beyond that. It resulted in the training of jihadists such as Mustafa Sejari, who aimed to replace the Assad regime with one scarcely different from the kind supported by Al Qaeda. (Sejari’s forces subsequently committed human rights abuses against the Kurds in Afrin, Syria under the banner of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army.) American-supplied weaponry also found its way into the hands of Al Qaeda-allied militias that were equipped under the program.

Biden said he chose Austin for the job because, “He designed and executed the campaign that ultimately beat back ISIS, helping to build a coalition of partners and allies from more than 70 countries who worked together to overcome a common enemy.”

Click HERE to read more.

John Rossomando
Latest posts by John Rossomando (see all)

Please Share:

Tags: , ,