Will General Austin Be Criticized for Militarizing the Government?
What I find interesting about this pick for Secretary of Defense is that I can still remember all the complaints about the militarization of the government when General Mattis was selected as Secretary of Defense. Will these same people be out there criticizing General Austin for the same reason?:
PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP
President-elect Joe Biden will nominate retired four-star Army general Lloyd J. Austin to be secretary of defense, according to four people familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Austin would be the first Black leader of the Pentagon.
Biden selected Austin over the longtime front-runner candidate, Michele Flournoy, a former senior Pentagon official and Biden supporter who would have been the first woman to serve as defense secretary. Biden also had considered Jeh Johnson, a former Pentagon general counsel and former secretary of homeland defense.
Stars & Stripes
You can read more at the link.
The General is on at least three major Defense Contractor board of directors and has his own consulting business. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.
Raytheon snapped him up less than a year after he retired, possibly less than a month after.
However, I’m certain as SecDef he’ll be completely beyond reproach.
He commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush and Obama. I’d rather take their views before anything I could find online (which is not much).
The WSJ states, “Gen. Austin has a reputation among military officials and national security analysts as a competent but cautious commander. Because of that, it is unclear how he would approach issues like rising threats from China, U.S. strategy toward Russia or the $1.2 trillion modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”
“He commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan under Bush and Obama. I’d rather take their views before anything I could find online (which is not much).”
The views of the troops he commanded, I mean… not those of his leaders…