Will the president-elect Joe Biden increase the hostility with China or will he stick to the usual U.S. policy of messing up the Middle East?
His selection of the new Defense Secretary provides an answer.
It confirms the worst fears of the China hawks who have already worked behind the scene to sabotage Biden.
Michèle Flournoy was predicted to become Secretary of Defense in a Joe Biden administration. Flournoy is a China hawk:
In an article in the journal Foreign Affairs in June, Flournoy said that as Washington's ability and resolve to counter Beijing's military assertiveness in the region declined, the US needed a solid deterrence to reduce the risk of "miscalculation" by China's leadership.
"For example, if the US military had the capability to credibly threaten to sink all of China's military vessels, submarines, and merchant ships in the South China Sea within 72 hours, Chinese leaders might think twice before, say, launching a blockade or invasion of Taiwan; they would have to wonder whether it was worth putting their entire fleet at risk," Flournoy said.
Defence and diplomatic observers said that realising that idea would come at huge cost but appointing its advocate would signal that the US would keep piling military pressure on China.
Luckily Biden decided against Flournoy and nominated retired general Lloyd Austin for the job:
In picking Austin, Biden has chosen a barrier-breaking former four-star officer who was the first Black general to command an Army division in combat and the first to oversee an entire theater of operations. Austin’s announcement could come as soon as Tuesday morning, people familiar with the plans said Monday.
Austin, who also ran U.S. Central Command before retiring in 2016, emerged as a top-tier candidate in recent days after initially being viewed as a longshot for the job. Michèle Flournoy, Obama’s former Pentagon policy chief, was initially viewed as the frontrunner, but her name was notably absent from Biden’s rollout of key members of his national security team two weeks ago.
As Secretary of Defense Flournoy would have been quite independent. She is known for countering White House policies she does not like:
When Biden pushed to draw down troops from Iraq while vice president, Flournoy, then Pentagon policy chief, and then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen opposed the idea. Austin did not.
Austin is in contrast a team player:
[T]he Biden team saw Austin as the safe choice, said one former defense official close to the transition, adding that the retired general is believed to be a good soldier who would carry out the president-elect’s agenda.
"There would be less tension” with Austin as defense secretary instead of Johnson or Flournoy, the person said. “Maybe less disagreement … the relationship would be smoother.”
Flournoy's fans are angry:
The fact that Biden’s decision to nominate Austin is a snub to Flournoy just makes the decision worse, according to the [female] former defense official. “Qualified women are used to being passed over for jobs they’d excel at,” she said. “It’s tough to swallow that Michèle Flournoy was not only passed over but that the Biden team is willing to overlook a civil-military crisis and the intent of the Founders on civilian control in doing so.”
Biden's team expected opposition to the decision and preemptively defended it in an Atlantic op-ed.
China's Global Times is happy with the pick:
[P]rovoking China will only bring the US more troubles. Picking Austin as the new secretary of defense signals that the US will to some extent ease tensions with China. We might see the US adjust its entire overseas military strategy.
It can be anticipated that Washington will attach more significance in the Middle East. It will not continue to withdraw its troops from the region. On the contrary, the US may send more soldiers there. That's why Biden is choosing Austin: Because he has deep experience in the Middle East.
Glenn Greenwald dislikes the Austin nomination as it erodes the norm of civil leadership over the military. As a former general who retired only four years ago Austin will need a waiver from Congress to be allowed into the position.
That creates a chance to sabotage the confirmation and to again push for Flournoy:
[E]ven before his nomination was announced Tuesday, it appeared to be in some jeopardy after the news was leaked Monday night. Lawmakers from both major parties, including several top Democrats on the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, voiced concern or outright opposition to putting a career officer in a job usually reserved for a civilian.
…
Biden did bypass other candidates who never served in the military and also would have been historic picks.They included Michele Flournoy, the third-ranking civilian Pentagon official during the Obama administration, who would have been the first female Defense secretary, and Jeh Johnson, the former Pentagon general counsel and President Obama’s secretary of Homeland Security, who is Black.
“There was a diverse group of other impressive men and women whose nomination would not require the second congressional waiver in four years,” said Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor and former Pentagon official who worked with Flournoy.
Op-ed writers in the New York Times and the neo-conservative editors of the Washington Post are voicing their opposition:
Like most other career officers, however, Mr. Austin lacks experience in managing some of the most important issues that face a defense secretary, including the development of weapons systems and long-range budgets, and the management of a sprawling civilian bureaucracy. He is deeply versed in the Middle East but not in Asia, where the rise of China is the most critical threat to U.S. national security. Moreover, his weaknesses as a senior officer — including a noted reluctance to communicate with the media and public, and sometimes bumpy relations with Congress — would be considerably more debilitating if carried over to the secretary’s post.
…
In choosing Mr. Austin, he passed over civilian candidates with considerable political and management expertise, including former defense undersecretary for policy Michèle Flournoy, who would have been the first female defense secretary.
Some Congress member have joined that chorus:
Rep. Anthony Brown of Maryland, the only CBC member on the Armed Services Committee, and Rep. Marc Veasey of Texas backed Flournoy in a letter to Biden last week.
The pair praised her experience in the Clinton and Obama administrations, which they said is needed to retrain the military on matching gains by China and reorienting U.S. counterterrorism policies for a new era, and praised Flournoy as "a tireless advocate for diversity and inclusion in national security."
There will be more push back against Austin from the China hawks and Congress hearings during which Austin will have to fight for his new position.
He is well versed in doing that.
In a 2015 Congress hearing on Syria the ever hawkish Senator John McCain tried to get (vid) Austin's consent for a no-fly zone in Syria. Austin held steady and said he would neither recommend a no-fly zone nor the setting up a 'buffer zone' to protect refugees.
The man seems to know how to talk sense.
