Staffing the Pentagon

Michele Flournoy is expected to be nominated today  by President-Elect Barack Obama as the first female Under Secretary for Policy in the Pentagon.

Her appointment will be greeted on both sides of the Atlantic with a huge sigh of relief. The policy position became hugely controversial in the Bush years when Douglas Feith occupied the post and  argued strongly for the invasion of Iraq as a manifestation of the preeminence of Pentagon power.

It was Feith who set up secret cell in the Pentagon to produce doctored intelligence that fitted the party line and justified the Iraq war.

By contrast, Flournoy is a centrist, a well known figure among all the Nato allies and has been involved in proliferation issues as well as strategic planning in the Pentagon during the Clinton administration. She has argued for “common sense pragmatism” in the formulation of defense policy and will be a firm opponent of torture and illegal acts of any kind. She also favors an early withdrawal from Iraq and will likely argue for a less adventurist defense policy in the years ahead.

In keeping with most of the senior Obama administration appointment so far, Flournoy is well educated with a degree from Harvard and a masters in International relations from Balliol College, Oxford. Recently, she has been co-Founder and President of the Center for a New American Security, a centrist think tank in Washington that has been very influential in shaping the national security thinking of the Obama team.

The Obama administration has decided to keep Bob Gates as Defense Secretary, the single holdover from the Bush team. This has made filling the senior spots at the Pentagon hard as many Democrats don’t want to expend valuable political capital by working for a caretaker Defense Secretary. Several senior Democrats have beenm approached to be deputy to Gates and have turned it down and several other important posts remain unfilled. Flournoy, however, is respected by both Republicans and Democrats and will likely stay in place whoever takes over from Gates.