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S.O spacious the [Department of Defence] “Its tasks are so diverse, so much that they make most of the institutions on the face of the earth appear small in front of them,” said Ash Carter, the twenty -fifth US Secretary of Defense. He pointed out that the Pentagon possesses or maintains nearly 30 million acres of property, which is a greater area of Pennsylvania. Carbon emissions are about 1 % of the country. Its annual budget, just over 800 billion dollars, exceeds GDP Q(F) Taiwan, Belgium or Argentina.
On January 14th Higseth HouseThe broadcaster of the Fox News channel chosen by Trump to be defense minister, was interrogated by the Senate. A large part of the session was about the alleged candidate’s use of alcohol, sexual assault and women’s opposition to fighting. But Mr. Higseth also a promise “To restore the spirit of the warrior” to the Pentagon, and to fix the acquisition and determine China. Is it at the level of those tasks?
The Minister of Defense is one of the strongest individuals in the government. The military leadership chain extends from the president to the Minister of Defense, then – the chiefs of the joint staff, the heads of the army, the naval and the Air Force – to the leaders who supervise different parts of the world. “It will be very difficult for the president to ignore the advice he was receiving from the minister and the president [of the joint chiefs of staff]Dick Cheney, who managed the Pentagon during the reign of George Bush Senior.
Jigsith will not have a role in the nuclear leadership chain, which extends directly from the president to the nuclear units, although he expects to consult in crises. James Mattis, the first defense minister during the reign of Donald Trump, was said to sleep in sportswear for fear that the president would order a nuclear strike on North Korea in the middle of the night. “You never take a leave, and never be on vacation, you are always in service,” noted by Ronald Reagan’s secretary, Kaspar Weinberger. Cheney recalls that he was going to work every morning with Central Intelligence Agency A brief in the car and a copy of the president’s daily summary.
The next task of the minister is to maintain the continuity of the huge American military project. And parts of it are outside his hands. The Ministry of Veterans Affairs spends more than $ 300 billion annually. The Ministry of Energy is designing and building nuclear weapons. But the Pentagon has its own fingers in many pies. The National Security Agency, which is the American signal intelligence service, is diminished in front of it Central Intelligence Agency Its reports are presented to the Pentagon. The Ministry is employing about 700,000 civilians, or about a third of the federal civil workforce. It contains large numbers: In 2015, it was found that the Pentagon spent $ 84 million – more than the defense budget for some small countries – on erectile dysfunction.
The secretary is not just a leader and director. He is also a diplomat. “This turned out to be more part of the job than I thought when I assumed,” says Ceni. You end up spending a good amount of time in dealing with other defense ministers and attendance NATO Quarterly meetings, and do all these things. Lloyd Austin, Joe Biden Defense Secretary, visited Asia dozens of times within four years. In October 2022, he was also responsible for contacting his Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu, twice in three days to warn him of using nuclear weapons.
In practical terms, Higsith will not have to manage all this alone. “I will set many smart people to help this.” Pentagon’s chief operational is the Deputy Minister of Defense. He or she mainly runs the department on a daily basis and regulates its budget. Trump, Stephen Finnberg, the billionaire investor, nominated this role. But even if Mr. Higseth is not interested in the fine details of his section, he will need to present a vision and direction. “It is like a giant aircraft carrier.” “You cannot make rapid changes in the path without making double effects throughout the entire organization.”
Trump’s enthusiasm for the use of the armed forces in local tasks, from border security to suppressing the protests, had previously dragged the Pentagon to very sensitive issues. Mark Esber, Khalifa Mattis, head of the American National Guard, warned that the president may seek to use the military forces to help cancel the election result in 2020. In the first period of Trump, many of his defense ministers worked largely to curb the military intervention. Its instincts. In the hearing, Higseth has repeatedly refused to say whether he would obey the orders of shooting at the demonstrators in their legs, as Trump suggested.
The fate of the secretary is not always happy. Donald Rumsfeld, who served in this position twice, the last of which was during the reign of George W. Bush, compared the ministry to “one of the world’s last dictators in the world”, subject to central planning. Bob Gates, former Central Intelligence Agency It appears that the president who left Rumsfeld was hated almost every minute of work, and he was complaining about his memoirs of the Pentagon, suffocating Pentagon and the torment of dealing with Congress and the White House.
The size of these responsibilities and the cruelty of the job greatly affected the position owners. Robert McKina, who excelled in managing and repairing companies, objected when John Kennedy asked him for the first time to serve as defense minister weeks after he took the position of President of Ford Motor Company in 1960. Despite his management of one of the most important companies in the United States around The world was believed to be “a mistake to put an experienced person like me in the government in such a position.” Mr. Higseth has no such concerns. ■
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