The White House last year nominated Chollet to be the Pentagon’s top policy official, but his nomination became mired in partisan wrangling in the Senate, where Republicans have objected to Pentagon policies authorizing reimbursement for servicemembers’ travel related to reproductive health care, including abortions, and other administration actions.
Austin, in a statement, said he was grateful to Chollet “for taking on this key assignment at such an important moment.”
Blinken described Chollet in baseball terms, calling him a “quintessential five-tool player” whose résumé, including senior Pentagon and National Security Council roles during the Obama administration, had contributed to “a breadth of experience that the rest of us rely on every day.”
Blinken is naming Tom Sullivan, another of his top advisers, to become State Department counselor, a senior position that does not require Senate approval. Sullivan, who is brother to national security adviser Jake Sullivan, will also retain his current position as deputy chief of staff for policy.
Chollet returns to the Pentagon four months ahead of the 2024 presidential elections, in which Biden faces a tight race that could usher former president Trump into the White House for a second term and potentially derail a host of key administration policies. The former president has questioned some of the administration’s chief defense and national security initiatives, including its multibillion-dollar effort to assist Ukraine in holding off Russia.
A senior administration official acknowledged that a key focus for national security officials in the coming months would be the attempt to “Trump-proof” key priorities. At the Pentagon, that will probably include transitioning some initiatives to multilateral control, for example embedding within NATO a U.S.-led forum that Austin launched after Russia’s 2022 invasion to convene defense leaders on a monthly basis and coordinate arms donations to Ukraine.
Austin, a former Army general, and his inner circle came under intense scrutiny after news emerged earlier this year that he had been hospitalized in intensive care without notifying the White House or the public for several days. Austin later apologized for his secrecy surrounding the episode; Magsamen also faced criticism from Republicans in Congress.
Jeremy Bash, who served as chief of staff to Leon Panetta when he was defense secretary, cited a description used by Robert Gates, another former Pentagon chief, who said the defense secretary position really consisted of two jobs: secretary of war and secretary of the Pentagon — the sprawling military bureaucracy, which spans scores of disparate agencies and a more-than-$800 billion annual budget.
“The chief of staff really has to be an adviser to the secretary on both of those issues, meaning the issues of how the military force of the United States is deployed to deter conflict and win wars, but also how we can rapidly field the capabilities that are going to be necessary for warfare in the balance of the 21st century,” he said.
Chollet previously served as an adviser to an advisory firm, Beacon Global Strategies, that Bash helps lead.
Chollet, in an interview, said he expected the Pentagon to be focused in coming months on priorities including helping Ukraine to position itself as effectively as possible against Russia; strengthening the U.S. military’s posture in the Indo-Pacific region; and assisting ally Israel while attempting to prevent a regional war in the Middle East.
He said the uncertainty about what would occur after November’s elections must not prevent the department from pursuing longer-term goals. “We won’t make any assumptions about what’s coming, but just drive hard to finish the first term with the national defense strategy as our north star, and then go from there,” he said.
Chollet, who began his career in Washington helping former Secretary of State and White House chief of staff James Baker III write his memoirs, said that Baker used to say that “the most important word in the title ‘chief of staff’ was ‘staff.’”
“You want to, most…
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