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Ongoing controversies as Secretary of Defense Austin and DoD clique concealed the SecDef's cancer diagnosis from White House. Austin received treatment for cancer in late December just before Xmas, and then was hospitalized January 1st for complications from the treatment.
Further coverage here
Biden reportedly has no intention of firing Austin, with officials stating that they will "learn from the experience."
While I think the WWIII crowd in the peanut gallery are mostly exaggerating the state of the world today, I can't deny the existence of numerous crises in which the US military might need to act or react at a moment's notice. And while I have an incredible disdain for the efforts of the DoD over the past two decades, the SecDef's whole job is to be on hand for those situations, to coordinate responses to threats to the United States and its allies.
There is very little clarity on what the SecDef's capabilities were at any given time. He was under general anesthetic during his treatment in December for some period of time, and needed to be hospitalized on the 1st. DoD spokespeople claim that he has access to everything he needs to do his job, in the way of secure communications equipment. But there is no argument that 1) People going through cancer treatment are not at 100% ability, 2) 70 year old men who need to be hospitalized are not at 100% of their ability, 3) we presumably put all that money into building the Pentagon for the purpose of creating the ideal situation for him to respond to any crisis and to do his job, 4) a hospital bed will be less optimal. There is no argument that when Austin is undergoing cancer treatment in the hospital, he will be performing his duties as SecDef at a suboptimal level.
Given the possibility of a Russian push or a Ukrainian collapse, of an outbreak of Genocide in southern Israel, or of a Houthi strike on who-knows-what, to say nothing of a wild-card in Korea or Taiwan or Guyana...are we really ok with the SecDef operating at 50% and not telling the president? How clear were chains of command and authority in case of a crisis at time that Austin was incapacitated? Would Biden have been looking for Austin when he got the famous 2am phone call and been unable to find him? Who would have given orders in such a case?
This is terrible optics for the administration, and constitutes the strongest public evidence for the theory that "Joe Biden is President Grandpa, given a warm glass of milk and sent to bed before the real meetings between the bureaucrats happens." While other presidents have had conflicts with the DoD (Obama famously feuded with "The Generals" about pulling out of Afghanistan, while it appears that Trump was directly lied to about the presence of US troops in Syria to prevent them from being pulled out), this is a serious escalation. Civilian control of the military has been undermined by the appointment of former career generals to head the DoD, it is destroyed if the former generals don't even report to the president, if POTUS doesn't know who is actually giving the orders over there.
How involved can the President be in DoD decision making around NatSec if he didn't even know the SecDef was out of commission? How much interagency rivalry exists that DoD subordinates would agree to hide what was going on from the President? How low-trust is the relationship between SecDef and POTUS that he wouldn't simply disclose the diagnosis and appoint an acting interim chief, clearly Austin felt that if he stepped away for a second he would be ousted? How weak is this president if he is scared to punish Austin for his clear dereliction of duty and deceit? How much is the president kept out of things if no one else (say, the CIA or FBI?) informed him of what was going on for FOUR DAYS?
I'm left with more questions than answers.
Yeah, the Secretary of Defense is definitely one of those "learn on the job" positions, where competence is not to be expected, at least not immediately.
And he's only been in the job for about three years. Completely unreasonable to expect him to understand his responsibilities yet.
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